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P2: Torah’s Answer to the Ancient Cry - Exodus 20:1-2 | Bible Study
April 4, 2024 · 51 min
P2: Torah’s Answer to the Ancient Cry - Exodus 20:1-2 | The Torah Bible Study
Series Torah: The Law of Life Bible Study Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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Understanding the Torah: A Foundation 0:32 Good evening, everybody. Welcome into the channel 1 more time, Wednesday night, 7 30 PM, where we are discussing Torah, the law of life. We are in part 2. Can you believe it already in part 2?0:44 This is my home studio. We are constantly upgrading it, trying to make it better, trying to make it a little bit brighter for you. Welcome in if you are here. Again, for the second time, click the like button, the0:55 subscribe button, the notification bell, and get notified every time we go live as we go through this incredible content. I am really excited. I've got a plan, today to talk to you about the Torah1:07 in a way that you've never heard before. And I am going to probably and hopefully pique your interest into these ancient laws like you have never been1:18 interested before because studying the Bible is a life giving adventure, but it's also an intellectual adventure. A lot of people say you gotta1:30 let your brain fall out to study the Bible. I absolutely disagree. I believe that history, archaeology, science, grammar, sociology, psychology, and1:42 spirituality are all wrapped up into the examination of this incredible book. And it's my life's calling, and I'm proud to bring this content to you. So support the channel, and thanks for being here.1:54 And let me know in the comments how you doing this Wednesday night. Let's do a quick review, from last time we were together, and, this is a, what we're2:06 gonna call the deep dive review from the first part of this series. By the way, I can do picture and picture all over the place. Woo. Woo. Woo. All over the place. Okay. We talked about this last time.2:18 Remember we said that there's a difference between god's law and American law. And that's because American laws focus on the individual. My rights, protection of the individual from the community, and then god's law2:30 completely the opposite, my responsibilities and protection of the community from the individual. So I wanted to put this picture up here for you to kinda get it as to what we're looking at. You know, we have this highly2:42 individualized sense of community where we are the most important person on the planet and it's all about my personal happiness and it's all about my rights and it's all about what I want and it's all about my dreams.2:52 And that's just not how God is speaking to us in the Torah which is why the Torah is confusing. This is why you will skip large sections of the first 5 books of the Bible3:04 when you're reading it, when you try to do that 1 year through the Bible plan. You get to Leviticus. You get to even halfway through Exodus and you're like, no. I'm not doing that and it doesn't make sense to me and it3:15 seems actually very, offensive. What what this is because very simple. Because we are highly individualized. We look at the world through the lens of how does this affect me. God looks at the lens of how does this3:27 affect we. And that's the big difference and that's 1 of the most foundational principles for studying this content. Today, I'm going to look at some historical contextual insights3:39 from some ancient writings. We're gonna look at Noah's flood. Well, it was not Noah's flood. It was God's flood from a completely different perspective. We're gonna also look at the first commandment and3:51 not the 1 that you think, not the 1 that's at the top of the list. No. It's actually the very first commandment that is referred to in the 10 commandments, but I want you to do4:03 me a favor. I love interaction and I love your chatting. Why don't you see if you can guess what is the first commandment in the bible? Because it's not thou shalt have no other gods before me. God said a lot of things4:14 before then. And so we're gonna look at that, and we're gonna look at a law that teaches us through that first commandment how we understand this ancient text. Now disclosure. We are4:26 still in, laying a foundation mode. We haven't even touched the laws. We're gonna touch 1 today. But we really haven't touched the laws, and that's because I don't wanna just vomit my interpretation4:38 of these laws onto you. My sincere hope is that the content that I give you on this channel helps you to enjoy, yes, enjoy, a lifelong4:50 adventure of reading the text with new eyes, with contextual insight, with historical analysis, with a sense of you're you're reading God's word holistically5:02 as if to say, this is how and why and when he spoke to them for that reason in this way. And now I can draw from the5:13 text life giving principles and promises and truth that will transform my life. Does that sound exciting? I I I'm excited to tell you about it. Just again,5:25 the review, God's law from last week is intended to create a community where God and people dwell together in safety. The cut the law of God is not there to make sure that you are happy in your individuality. The5:37 law of God is there that you to make sure that you are safe, you are loved, you are accepted, you are blessed, you are, you are, what are you not lonely? What's another word for5:49 not lonely? You are in fellowship with people and with God, which is what you're made for is what the 2 first well, the 2 greatest commandments that Jesus talks about in the gospels are, love the lord your god with all6:01 your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, god in us and us in us, and we're gonna look at that today. So without further ado, let's get into today's content on the law of life. The Deep6:12 Dive season 7 presents Okay. So6:24 anytime that we look at the Bible, we have to remember that it wasn't written to us, it was written for us. Even Romans tells us this, and, we can go there. Is it Romans or is it first Corinthians? It was I think6:36 it's Romans. Yeah. Romans 15. Yeah. Here we go. So Romans 15 says, and you will look here on the screen with me, for whatever was written in former days was written6:48 what's the next word, everybody? For our instruction. That that's a key word. It doesn't say for whatever was written in former days was written to us. No.7:00 It was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. So a common nomenclature of this channel7:12 is the Bible is not written to you. It's written for you. So historical contextual analysis is huge. Are you ready to deep dive into Hittite culture,7:24 Bronze Age culture, ancient cultures, and treaties, and what is a vassal and what is a Severian, and, man, you're in for it today because that's what this content is about.7:35 Okay. I'm gonna bring you to an ancient text that's not from the Bible. This is a text that was unearthed by archaeologists, in the last century. And they have dated this text from an7:47 ancient writer to about 600 BC. And they've only got the term or the title for this this text from what it seems to be. And7:59 here's what it is before I put it on the screen. It seems to be a prayer to the gods that no 1 understands. And so they've called this a prayer to any god. Now8:11 think about this for a moment because what this is is a 600 BC, and it could be actually written well before 600 BC. They just dated it to 600 BC. It could have been written 3000 BC. We8:23 don't know. But what we're going to hear in this text is the emptiness that people in the ancient world felt when they did not know8:35 god or the gods as they understood them, and what those gods or god required of them. You you have to remember that scripture has this constant theme of light and darkness. Those8:47 who know the truth are in the light, and those who do not know the truth or reject the truth walk in darkness. That's what Jesus talked about in John's gospel. But this passage from an ancient text is called a prayer to8:58 any god, and it really should, you know, kind of rip your heart out. Here's an ancient person writing out his thoughts to the god or gods. Look at it. May my lord's9:10 angry heart be reconciled. May the god I do not know be reconciled. May the goddess I do not know be reconciled. May the god, whoever he is, be reconciled. May the goddess, whoever she is, be reconciled. May my personal9:20 god's heart be reconciled. May my personal god's heart be reconciled. May my god and my goddess's heart be reconciled. And now I know you're you're thinking, like, what are you talking about here? It gets worse. And the9:32 point is to show you how the ancient people viewed divinity, Viewed the gods or the goddesses without without what? The biblical text that we9:43 now take for granted in our culture, really. And these people were walking in darkness. And so they're just making these appeals. There's a god or there's a goddess, so there's someone out there. And look at the term,9:55 reconcile. Reconcile is huge because he knows he knows that he's at odds with this god or goddesses. And so I need reconciliation if I'm going to10:07 get, somewhere in life. This is the prayer of the ancient world. Okay. Moving on. I have, he says, I have perpetrated unwittingly an abomination to my10:19 god. I have unwittingly violated a taboo of my goddess. Oh, my lord, many are my wrongs. Great are my sins. Oh, god, whoever you are, many are my wrongs. Great are my sins. Oh god, is whoever you10:31 are, many are my wrongs, great are my sins. I do not know what wrong I have done. I do not know what sin I have committed. I do not know what abomination I perpetrated. I do not know what taboo I have violated. The heart10:44 of sin in man, even in ancient cultures, is, heartbreaking because they know something's wrong. The world is not right. And if you think about10:56 it, even secularists know there's not know something's wrong with the world. It's just we're arguing about how to fix it and who has the truth on how to fix it. The, next11:07 page, check this out. When I wept, they would not draw near. When I would make a complaint, no 1 would listen. I am miserable, blindfolded. I cannot see. Turn towards me, merciful god. I implore11:19 you. I do homage to you, my goddess, as I keep groveling before you. Oh god, whoever you are, turn towards me. I implore you. Oh lord, turn towards me. I implore you.11:31 Hear the repeated cry. This man is in agony. What does he want or she want? We don't know if it's a man or female who wrote this. He wants an11:43 absolution. He wants to know that he's right with his creation. And by the way, everybody wants to know that. Everybody wants to fix the world. Right? The famous Beatles11:55 song. You you all say you want a revolution. Right? What does that look like? You know, we can't be going backwards. We gotta go forward. Even seculars, even pop stars know something's wrong with the world. Michael12:07 Jackson famously said, we need to make the world a better place. Take a look in the mirror. Make that change. Okay. What is all that? It all has the same theme. Humanity knows something's wrong. Something needs to be12:19 fixed. Something's wrong deep inside of us. What is it? And without Torah and remember the word for Torah that I talked to you about last week. It's instruction. It's teaching. It's12:30 God speaking about what he's like and what he requires and what he wants from us and for us and what he wants to do with us. Without that, we're in12:42 limbo. We're in darkness. The ancient world was in darkness. Just another proof about this from some ancient documents. When we talk about the flood in the bible, a lot of people wanna be naysayers about the12:54 flood. They say, how can you believe in a god who flooded the earth? How can you believe in a book that talks about this old story, this ridiculous story about a flood that covers the whole earth? And the ironic thing is13:07 is every culture that we have unearthed has some form of a flood story. Now Wikipedia even has to admit this on their page, the13:19 flood myth. This is their Wikipedia entry called the flood myth. Now I put myth in quotation marks because it's not a myth. Right? We know that the flood story is true, but the flood myth is a terminology13:31 that Wikipedia uses because the Babylonians had a story about a massive flood that covered the Earth. The Aztecs had a story about this. Plato had a story about this.13:43 The Zapotecs, the Mixtecs, the Mayans in Central America have a story, have a traditional historical account of a flood that13:55 wiped out the Earth. And this is most amazing. Over a hundred and 20, cultures in Central and South America did you know and in North America. You might not know this,14:07 but you will now. Over a hundred and 20 cultures have some writings or some artistic renderings that refer to an ancient flood myth that happened,14:19 in a certain time frame. They they they have dated their writings and their, artistic works and how and they've interpreted those artistic works to show that most of these cultures date the14:31 time of flow no, of the worldwide flood that they know about in their histories to around a hundred years within the time that the bible speaks about it in Noah's day.14:43 That's like that's like huge. Okay? Because it totally eliminates the naysayers who like to say, oh, there's no such thing as a global flood. Don't be stupid. Move on beyond that.14:54 Well, explain then why all these cultures around the world on the other side of the world from where Noah was because he was in ancient what is now Turkey, the ancient Middle East. How do we explain that? How15:06 do all these cultures have the same message? But here's the difference. Here's the difference. The Aztecs and the Mixtec and the Zapotecs, these were the central and and, North American, natives.15:18 They believe that there was a global flood for the punishment of man's sins. Plato's story called Timaeus, depicts Zeus, the lead god in the Greek pantheon, ticked off at15:30 human beings because they are making too much noise. And this 1 is the funniest. The Epic of Gilgamesh. This is the Babylonian or Mesopotamian account of the ancient flood. This is15:42 funny. They teach through the Epic of Gilgamesh Gilgamesh that the flood happened from the gods because humans were making too much15:53 noise. Humans were upstairs causing some ruckus, and the gods were like, hey. If you guy if you kids don't quiet down up there, we're16:05 gonna flood you out and drown you. That that's the Mesopotamian view of the ancient flood. So here's where my point comes in.16:17 Only the bible, and I stress this because you can research it yourself and find out, Only the Bible explains what mankind must do from the flood.16:29 Noah's flood happens in Genesis 6, 7, and 8, and, 9. Only after those passages do we get god's chosen people,16:41 Abraham and the family, through which we get Moses who writes this story, okay, to ancient Israelites in the bronze age on what this god who16:53 flooded the world wants us to do now. Oh, and by the way, he has made a promise never to do it again. And so the only ancient text that has hope,17:06 that has grace, that has mercy. And then also, has the mercy of God's instruction to people on how to live as a result. The only 1 is the Torah,17:18 the ancient Hebrew scriptures, which brings me to this thought today that I want to make sure that you're getting. The contextual blessing of Torah in its ancient context is simply this, that we might17:30 know what the god wants, the god wants, and what he says to us, and what he has for us. This is the blessing of17:42 Torah. This is how you're supposed to read this text because it is confusing and it is ancient and it's not written to you. And it addresses issues that we don't17:53 wrestle with today. Slavery has been abolished or at least the acceptance of slavery. I know there's a lot of modern slaves in the world today. Actually, more slaves than ever before according to, Project Rescue. But18:05 nobody's nobody's passing laws to make sure it happens like they did in this country, a hundred and 60 years ago. Okay. We are not dealing with18:17 the same contextual realities that these ancient people were. But the Torah speaks to that and then lets us understand that god wants18:29 us to know him. He wants us to know what he wants, and he wants us to walk in those ways with him. Now that means something that is of peculiar18:41 interest to some of our younger listeners. God wants you to know he doesn't want you to feel. God wants you to know he doesn't want you to feel.18:54 Israel's main problem was not that they didn't know what god wanted. Most often, it was that they just felt differently about it. They just didn't wanna do it anymore. They knew god's laws. They rejected them. They19:06 followed their inclinations and their hearts and their desires. And they walked away from Torah and they ended up in exile for 70 years in Babylon. God raises up a prophet,19:17 Jeremiah, and he challenges them to stop, listen to this, following your heart. This is what Jeremiah's main message is. I got 4 verses from you from19:29 Jeremiah talking about this. Jeremiah 3 17. At that time, Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, the to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more19:38 stubbornly follow their own, what, evil heart. Jeremiah 9 13. And the Lord says, because they've forsaken my law that I set before them and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly19:50 followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals after the fathers as their fathers taught them. Jeremiah 13 10. This evil people who refuse to hear my voice or my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and20:01 and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. Jeremiah 18 12, but they say that is in vain. We will follow our own plans and we will everyone act20:12 according to the stubbornness of his evil heart. Are you picking up a theme? The the follow your heart mantra is, a, nothing new, is, b, terribly destructive,20:24 is, c, completely out of God's purview for how he wants you to live. There is a great chance that some of the greatest troubles of your life20:35 are based in your feelings, not in your knowings. Let me explain through a quote from Horace Walpole, very famous quote from a great, thinker in the in the last century. The world is a tragedy20:47 to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. In other words, if you're gonna let if you're gonna let your feelings dominate your life, the world's a tragedy. You're just gonna be going from bad feeling to bad20:57 feeling to bad feeling. And grown ups understand this far more than young people, but feelings don't last. Feelings change. You can have the wrong food, and and your feelings are terrible. You got the right food, and21:06 suddenly your feelings turn around. You you could just have just a notch of sugar that you that that your body is calling out for, and suddenly you're in a good mood again. And so the feelings are so irrational, and God21:17 is absolutely clear that following them is a destructive lifestyle. It's the way to destroy who you are and what God wants for you. By the way, Jeremiah also21:29 says in Jeremiah 17 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it. So the Bible is not pro feelings. The Bible is anti21:40 feelings. The Bible is pro knowings. And this is the, modern, relevance of Torah. Ancient text, they didn't know. Ancient21:52 context, they didn't have any idea. There's this massive flood. The gods are punishing us. There's something wrong inside of me. I know I'm wrong. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know. Okay. That's ancient context.22:03 Okay. So here's the deal. Modern context is I feel this way. I feel like doing this. I feel this in my heart. Every bad doctrine starts with the words, well, I just feel that God and22:15 then fill in the blanks. Every terrible doctrine, every cult, every abominable idea about God begins with the phrase, well, I just feel that God would blank.22:27 And most of the times when we are saying I feel that God would, we are just following our own hearts, and we are fashioning a God that looks a lot like us. And so right there, we've22:39 just done this contextual ancient historical analysis of why Torah is beneficial and brought it into connected it into our feelings oriented modern day context. We're gonna do that on a regular basis, and we're22:51 going to have a lot of fun doing it. And I hope you're ready to do it as well. So shifting gears now. Could call this chapter 2 of this content. Let's talk about covenant. Covenant isCovenants: The Framework of God's Promises 23:02 essential, and this is why it's essential. Because Torah is a covenant. Did you know that Torah is a covenant and is essential for this other reason? God23:14 speaks through covenant throughout the Bible. Now, let's take a look at what covenant means. It's from the Hebrew Barith. The Greek translates it as diethiki.23:26 Diethiki. The Latin translates it as pact and from which we get the word pact or, you know, this is where agreement contract comes from. And we've got to understand what is meant23:38 by covenant because covenant is how God has chosen to relate to his people. Well, I got this definition from the theological word book of the Old Testament. It reads, a covenant is a treaty, an alliance of friendship23:50 between individuals, a pledge or agreement with obligations between a monarch and subjects, a constitution between God and man. That's what a covenant is. It's an agreement. And notice the word friendship. God wants to24:02 be, yes, friends with us. He wants to do life with us. God is individual. He's not human. He is individual in his being. God is a monarch. God is a ruler. We24:14 are the subjects. And god has, this is beautiful for all of us, written up covenantal promises so that we know how he has pledged himself to24:25 relate to it. This is I cannot stress this enough, but god operates on the basis of promises. And the and the word that we're going to use repeatedly in in this study to refer to those24:37 promises is the word covenants. Now covenants are nothing new. They were part of the ancient world between human parties, from the bronze age onward. And I'm going to talk about something, regarding that in24:49 just a moment. Covenants are prominent in every period of salvation history. This is imperative that you understand. So we're gonna do a quick deep dive into25:01 the 8 major covenants of the bible. Now full disclosure, there is no consensus on all the covenants of the bible. And not every 1 of these 8 covenants has a direct25:12 specific biblical text referring to it saying, this is the covenant of blank. But by and large, theologians believe that these 8 covenants are the foundation25:25 of God's relation to his creation. Okay? I rhymed, and I didn't even plan for that. These are the foundation for God's relation to his creation. 8 covenants, and, they're going to be unpacked,25:37 together right now, in this content. Let's go to number 1 covenant in the Bible. Appears on Genesis chapter 2. It's the works covenant. And the big idea is donate from the tree. Now the key theme of25:49 that covenant is rule. Because what does God give to mankind? He gives rule. He gives authority. He gives dominion in Genesis chapter 2. Actually, in Genesis chapter 1, have authority, subdue, rule. He gives mankind the26:01 word, donate from the tree, rule the doctrine. He gives mankind a wife. He gives mankind responsibility. Mankind follows the god of this world, surrenders rule to Satan. Satan now26:13 has rule of this world. Second Corinthians 4 4, the god of this world has blinded the eyes of mine unbelievers. So the kingdoms of this world belong to Satan. So we have the covenantal,26:25 the the the breaking of the covenant of works leading to the disaster that is all around us. Okay. Moving on. The covenant of grace is found in Genesis chapter 3. This is in Genesis chapter 3, verse26:36 17, I believe, when god creates coverings, for the man and the woman. And he, let's see. Where is it? It's in26:48 21 20 yes. Genesis 3 there it is right there. Genesis 3 21, and the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins and27:00 clothed them. So there we go. The covenant of grace is that God will do something to fix the problem. He and he also says to the woman that,27:12 you know, the the serpent will bruise his heel, the offspring of the woman, but the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent's head that is pointing to Christ. Grace is on the third, chapter of the Bible. It's in27:22 the third chapter of the Bible. God could have wiped out Adam and the wife and started over. He doesn't. He makes a promise. We're gonna get this right. We're gonna fix this. I'm committed to it.27:34 The the next covenant is the covenant of oh, by the way, the keyword for the grace covenant is redemption. The next covenant is the covenant with nature that God makes with,27:46 Noah. So Noah gets a covenant of promise from God. I'm never gonna flood the earth again. That's in Genesis chapter 9. And the key term or the key terminology there is restraint. We have a God who promises27:58 restraint in judgment. This is what Peter will talk about in his book when he says that the Lord is not slow in keeping you, with his promises. He is not willing that any should perish. He is withholding judgment. He is28:10 not destroying the world as he rightly should. Okay. He is a god of restraint. He does not judge us according to how our deeds deserve. This is pointing to the cross because Christians, good news,28:22 Romans 8 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And those who are not in Christ Jesus, guess what? God is giving you time to repent right now. You are not getting away with it. You28:32 are being given grace and mercy and restraint from God so that he does not wipe you out. The next covenant, 4, Abraham's covenant of circumcision, Genesis 12 and 17. God raises up a redemptive28:44 family that God is going to restore the nations back to himself. That Genesis chapter 12 talks about this where God promises to Abraham, and this is important. Let's put it up on the28:56 screen, real quickly here, and I am in the wrong bible translation. I don't like that. The right translation, ESV, it says the lord called Abraham, go out from your kindred, your father's house, and then I will show you.29:07 I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. Make your name great. You will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you. And whoever dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth29:16 shall be blessed. So there's going to be a blessing, a restoration through this Abrahamic covenant. By the way, Galatians talks about the fact that we have been blessed with every blessing of29:28 Abraham because of God's covenantal promise there to restore us, restore us to what Adam had in the garden with God. The law covenant is number 5. It is found in Exodus chapter 19, and it is29:39 God's informing us how to live. And the theme of that covenant is reveal. God is revealing to us the way to live. The next covenant, number 6, is the land covenant that is outlined or stipulated in Deuteronomy 30 where29:51 god will give them a land. And by the way, god also says, I will bring you back to this land if you disobey me, but you repent. So the land covenant is conditional upon your obedience. You obey. I'll keep you in it. You30:02 disobey. I'll I'll cash you out of it. But if you repent, I'll bring you back into it. And the nation of Israel, this is so beautiful because in 19 48, right, Harry Truman, the president of the United States,30:15 acknowledged the sovereignty of the state of Israel against the, desires of the UN, that horrible institution in New York City. And god had had officially kept30:27 his promise even after centuries of Israel being expelled from the land, through the Roman Empire. Just amazing when you think about that these covenants.30:39 Okay. These are true. These are certain. These are long lasting. These god does not have whims. He has promises. He has covenants, and it teaches us about who he30:51 is. Okay. The next covenant is the covenant with, the kingship. We talked about this in the Kings of Compromise a little bit, but we also mostly talked about this in our study through the life of David from what was31:00 that? Season 4 of the deep dive. Second Samuel 17 7 16, God chose David to rule eternally, and the key theme there is rain. Oh, by the way, the key theme of the land covenant is return. If you31:12 are listening only to the podcast and you can't see the video, then the final covenant in the in the Bible, of course, we should be very familiar with this as Christians. The new covenant, Jeremiah 31, a new covenant I31:22 will make with the house of Israel, not as the 1 I made with their fathers who willfully disobeyed me. I will write my laws on their hearts. They and I will cause them to walk in my statues, and they will obey me. They31:31 will all know me. No 1 will teach his neighbor. They will all know me. This is the new covenant that is consecrated, that is, that is inaugurated through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And31:43 the theme of that covenant is regeneration. So let's take a look. The themes of God's covenant, rule, redeem, restraint, restore, reveal, return, reign, regeneration, and all of those covenants. And this is the most31:55 exciting thing. Are you ready? All of those covenants are aimed at getting God and man back into harmony together. Why is that important? Because if you're gonna read the Bible,32:07 read the Bible for what it's saying, not for what it's not saying. And and and read the Bible in a way that you come to terms with the fact that god32:18 is firm. He is certain. He is unchanging. He is, he is truthful, and he will32:30 not change. That is the bottom line basis of all these laws. That's the bottom line basis of knowing who he is. Now what we have to understand is that Torah is referred to as the32:42 book of the covenant. This is why we're talking about all this. Exodus 24 7 to 8. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do32:49 and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance to all these words. By the way, almost every covenant32:57 well, no. No. Not almost every covenant does involve blood from the covenant of works that Adam blew and he was and so blood had to be shed. Right? And he was going to die, to the blood of the new covenant in33:09 Christ Jesus. So every covenant is covered with blood or is part of the circumcision covenant. Right? There's blood involved there. Anyway, the Torah is a book of the covenant. It is a33:20 covenant of promise with God. That's why I I bring this content to you. Now another ancient, historical con con, contextual insight that we have to understand in order to read Torah rightly33:32 is to realize something about how God speaks through these covenants. There was a tremendous intellectual work that was produced in the 19 fifties by George Mendenhall of the University of Michigan, and he did research33:44 into the bronze age and into the Hittite culture to unearth something called the Caesarean contract or the Caesarean treaty, the Caesarean covenant. Now this is going to be a little bit intellectual. I hope you will bear33:55 with me. But what he came up with and through studying other ancient texts is that a Caesarean contract or treaty in the ancient world was made up of basically several things. Number 1, you had a preamble. This34:07 is how we got here. You had a prologue. Here's our relationship. You had stipulations. Here's what we're going to agree to do. You had a rehearsal, read this agreement again and again. You had witnesses who has witnessed34:18 this agreement. You had blessing and cursings. This is what happens as a result of you following through with the agreement. So those 6 things are part of what George Mendenhall discovered34:30 in 19 55 and produced a, a writing about this. It wasn't a book. It was a writing, and it was submitted into theological journals. This cesarean treaty from Hittite origins around34:42 1400 to 1200 BC. And what it was, it was a treaty that was written out between a sovereign overlord and an inferior vassal. That's why we get the term cesarean. Cesarean is34:54 the word for, sovereign. Now why does that matter? It's because this is how the ancient people communicated and related to each other. This is how35:05 sovereigns related to their subjects. Now here's the cool thing. Guess what? That's how God relates to Israel. He absolutely35:17 outlines, the prologue of preamble right there in Exodus 20 verse 1. And the law and god spoke all these words saying, I am the lord. Here's who I am. Here's who you are. You are redeemed slaves. I brought you35:29 out of the land of Egypt. Those are the prologues and pream that's a prologued preamble of god's covenantal agreement with Israel. The stipulations, Exodus 20 verse 3, and following you shall know other guys before me.35:41 The rehearsal and witness of the covenant, Exodus 24 7. He took the book of the covenant, read it in the hearing of the people. They said we will do all this stuff. Bless blessing and cursings are outlined in gen35:52 Deuteronomy 28. If you faithfully obey, obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments, I command you today. The Lord will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And he goes on36:00 and on and on for several several several verses about the blessings and the cursings that are requisite with this covenant. Now, I can tell what you're saying to me right now. Here's what you're saying. Who36:12 cares? Are you kidding me? Why are you doing this to me? I I thought this was gonna be biblical instruction. Here's why this matters. It matters because god chose to speak to humans36:24 in the Torah in the way that they understood. This was not groundbreaking material. This was not groundbreaking speech. So what you have to36:36 understand is the Torah is God's grace to, listen, lower himself in communication to how we relate to each other so that36:48 we might know him. I'm emphasizing this because, again, the Torah is a gift of God's grace. The law is a gift of God's grace. He brings us out of darkness and shows us36:59 what he wants. He bends down to our level. Every parent gets this. When you wanna communicate to a toddler, what do you do? You get down on their level. You get eye eye to eye with them. You speak. And then how do you37:11 speak to them? Do you speak to them in intellectual terms? No. You speak to them about what they're doing and what did we do naughty and what did we need to do instead. You don't talk to another another adult like that,37:23 but you you bend down your language to communicate to someone that you love. This is why Torah is so beautiful and we have to understand it in this ancient contextual37:35 context. God has chosen God has chosen to communicate to us in this ancient context in a way that ancient context communicated to themselves. It37:47 teaches about who he is. This is so important to understanding this study. And now we're just learning about Torah. We're learning about God. We're we're communicating. We're learning about who this37:58 God is in a way that shapes our relationship to him. So wrapping this kind of idea up, our god is a eternal covenant god. He remains theShow more In this video 0:32 Understanding the Torah: A Foundation23:00 Covenants: The Framework of God's Promises38:04 The Sabbath: A Bridge CommandmentComments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
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