Bible in A Year: Episode 2

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This transcript was AI-generated. It’s accuracy may vary.

00;00;01;02 – 00;00;14;29
Intro
Welcome to Read the Bible in a year with Matt on a weekly podcast from Fairfax Bible Church, where we explore Scripture together, uncovering its themes and design patterns. We’re glad you’re here. Now, here are your hosts, Matt and Hannah.

00;00;15;02 – 00;00;23;02
Matt
All right, we’re here. Episode two Read the Bible. In a year with Matt and Hannah. I am Matt.

00;00;23;05 – 00;00;24;03
Hannah
And I’m Hannah.

00;00;24;03 – 00;00;50;07
Matt
She’s Hannah, and yeah, we’re, we’re into that. So week two. So by the time people hear this, we should have read Genesis 25 through 45, I think. And Hannah, family drama. Lots of drama. Do you, question I put in the chat this week. Do you have an epic family drama? Like a movie, a book series, anything like that?

00;00;50;09 – 00;01;12;16
Hannah
You know, I, I feel like people ask me about movies and TV shows all the time, and I’ve, like, never heard of them. Okay, so I struggle with this a little bit. I actually had to ask ChatGPT like, what are some TV shows and movies that are about like sibling rivalry and family feuds? So and I well, there’s Family Feud.

00;01;12;16 – 00;01;13;14
Matt
Do you like Family Feud?

00;01;13;21 – 00;01;17;20
Hannah
Yeah, but that’s two families feuding against each other.

00;01;17;27 – 00;01;42;27
Matt
Oh that’s true. This is different. Yeah. Why put the question in our, reading plan, the little chat, and, we had a couple suggestions. I think Sophia mentioned Dallas, that old series from the 80s that made me happy because I was like, in what, sixth grade when that came out. So that made me happy. There was an answer to that one dynasty, I think Dallas was on one, you know, CBS and dynasty was on another one.

00;01;42;29 – 00;01;59;00
Matt
So that was fun. Michelle mentioned succession, which I know people are pretty buzzy about people like that show. I haven’t watched it, but, but people are into that one. And then I did a quick look up to there’s a book. I’m surprised you didn’t read this in high school. East of Eden, John Steinbeck.

00;01;59;03 – 00;02;00;17
Hannah
Yeah, I’ve heard of it.

00;02;00;20 – 00;02;17;24
Matt
Okay, I haven’t read that one either. I like Steinbeck, but I haven’t read that one. And then somebody mentioned The Crown, which is on Netflix, which we love. We’re big fans of The Crown here in the rubber household. I hadn’t thought of that as a family drama, but I thought, that’s a good suggestion. And then my favorite is The Godfather.

00;02;17;27 – 00;02;20;03
Matt
And now you were just tell me you’ve never seen The Godfather.

00;02;20;04 – 00;02;22;03
Hannah
I have not know.

00;02;22;05 – 00;02;27;16
Matt
All right, so The Godfather really is one of the greatest movies of all time, and part two is almost as good.

00;02;27;19 – 00;02;31;03
Hannah
That’s what ChatGPT told me.

00;02;31;06 – 00;02;49;07
Matt
Yeah, it’s it’s got it all in there. So by the end of this podcast, I hope maybe not you specifically, Hannah, but maybe for our listeners, I hope that I have not only inspired you to watch The Godfather, but, maybe persuaded you that to be an effective Bible reader, you need to watch The Godfather. Do you think I can pull that off?

00;02;49;10 – 00;02;53;01
Hannah
I would have to push back against that a little bit.

00;02;53;03 – 00;03;10;15
Matt
All right, we’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck. Everybody all right? By the way, we have gotten some excellent feedback, on our podcast so far. So thank you all for the compliments. And thank you all for listening. I was told this week that we sound really good on 1.25 speed.

00;03;10;17 – 00;03;13;09
Matt
Which is which is horrifying to think about.

00;03;13;11 – 00;03;16;07
Hannah
That’s how I listen to my podcast, so I’m not offended by that.

00;03;16;11 – 00;03;37;16
Matt
Okay. I feel like I talk so fast anyway, to end up that 2.25 speed or below, that’s just a scary thing to think about. I’m trying to be more mindful of my cadence and my pacing, but I’m not always successful. Sometimes I just get excited. But yeah, me on 1.25 speed. It’s just not oh yeah, I don’t like to think about that.

00;03;37;22 – 00;04;01;26
Matt
So. But thank you. Thank you all for the kind words. Keep listening. Keep with your thoughts questions, comments. We love them. This is, for you guys to help you and you help us. So much with all of your thoughts and feedback. So awesome. Well, Hannah, I actually want to go back into the chat. I want to go back to, sort of user question from week one before we get into family drama, design patterns and the story in Exodus.

00;04;01;29 – 00;04;19;19
Matt
Our friend Janelle way back on day one of this exercise, she put a question in the chat that I have. I thought I was going to be able to get past it, but I have I’m still thinking about it. Two weeks later. I just want to come back to it. Her question was, are there any basic questions you guys ask daily when you’re reading through the Bible?

00;04;19;19 – 00;04;39;24
Matt
She is the example of is there an attribute of God displayed in this text? And I wanted to come back and answer that. And I think it’s I think there’s some importance to that because it informs not only how we sort of go about, talking about things on this podcast, but kind of how we are trying to help people read the Bible more effectively.

00;04;39;24 – 00;05;00;10
Matt
So I’ll start. I know you have some thoughts as well, but, you know, when I was a new Bible reader, when I was in high school, I learned a method that was called OIRA observation Interpretation application. I’m sure lots of people have heard that, and it I’m sure it has different names, but that was sort of I read I would have a passage and they were like, what is your observation?

00;05;00;10 – 00;05;18;25
Matt
What is your interpretation? What is your application? And that’s fine. As far as these things go, it’s certainly not wrong. And I think it’s helpful for engaging with the text, especially if you’re a new Bible reader and a new believer in Jesus. But I have to say anymore, I don’t tend to do things like that. I don’t tend to use sort of filter or devices like that.

00;05;18;25 – 00;05;39;16
Matt
I generally just try and let the text come to me. And so if it’s poetry, I just try to see the beauty in the poetry or if it is, you know, narrative text. I just try to follow the, the narrative. I’m looking for hyperlinks and design patterns. I really want to feel like I’m trying to understand the author’s intent, and I know that that’s something close to your heart.

00;05;39;16 – 00;05;58;20
Matt
So I’ll give you a chance here in a second to tease that out more. I’m also learning that a lot of the value in my time in Scripture is not just reading the text, but learning how to pray. And so I’m finding that much of my time in Scripture is really about like, especially in the Psalms, but not just in the Psalms, but like, what’s is there something going on?

00;05;58;20 – 00;06;18;25
Matt
How do I see myself in this pattern? Do I see myself in this story, or is there something that I’m going through that is like this? And does it, lead me to pray that so I feel like Scripture sort of leads me to prayer as much as I’m sort of filtering. So I find generally the less filters I use, the better experience I have when I’m engaging with scripture in that way.

00;06;18;27 – 00;06;21;01
Matt
What do you do? You have any thoughts on that?

00;06;21;04 – 00;06;46;13
Hannah
Yeah. Well, when I first started reading the Bible, I definitely I think I might have used the same ones that Janelle mentioned. I think they may have come from Jen Wilkin. I’m not positive about that. But, she has a great book about reading the Bible that, some of those similar questions came from. And I think when you’re first starting to read like it’s great to have some training wheels when you’re starting something.

00;06;46;15 – 00;07;07;08
Hannah
Yeah, when you’re learning how to read, ride a bike. But, yeah. As as I’ve gotten more and it depends for me if I’m reading for like, devotional reading or if I’m really studying deeply for a specific Bible study or if I’m going to be teaching anything, I will use a lot more structure if I’m studying deeper.

00;07;07;08 – 00;07;36;15
Hannah
And I’m going to teach something because there are good methodologies for an inductive Bible study to really get down in the nitty gritty of how do we know what the author intended to communicate here? But for just like reading the Bible day to day, I have backed away from having any specific questions and just making a lot of observations about the text and tracking those word repetitions.

00;07;36;15 – 00;07;56;01
Hannah
What themes are emerging? Those are the main things that help me to understand what the author is trying to communicate in a text. And when I talk about like the author’s intent, where we’re talking about this divine human partnership, where the human author’s intent and God’s intent.

00;07;56;09 – 00;07;56;19
Matt
Right.

00;07;56;21 – 00;08;20;19
Hannah
In the text is the same thing. Those are unified things. So, yeah, discovering what the author intended to communicate to us. And, I really resonate with what you said about learning to pray as you are reading and, being much more open and in tune to the spirit and what how the spirit illuminates truth to us.

00;08;20;19 – 00;08;38;22
Matt
In this word. Yeah, yeah. I feel like when I was starting to read the Bible, I would see a character who made a mistake and I would be like, oh, well, he made a giant mistake in this passage. I would never do such a thing. I am so much smarter or wiser or better, which is just not true.

00;08;38;25 – 00;08;55;19
Matt
And that that really feeds my self-righteousness more than anything. I think the more I’ve read the Bible I’ve come to see like, oh, if I were in that situation, I would probably do the same thing or something different. I, I see myself in the text more the, the more I really try to understand what’s happening there and who’s doing what.

00;08;55;19 – 00;09;23;21
Hannah
So the other thing I would say is I’ve really moved away from forcing application out of every single text. Like I also was taught to like everything you read. You need to have an application point for. But like when we’re reading through the genealogies, like, what am I going to. Yeah, that, you know, so, that really, I think, shaped my view of the Bible as a rule book of.

00;09;23;21 – 00;09;55;01
Hannah
Yeah, you know, okay, this is this. I need to do something with this. Yeah. So it turns into a rule. But the Bible again is, written as meditation literature. And so it shapes us over time, even if we don’t feel like we’re taking away a specific application point every single time we read, it is shaping us into people, that are, you know, followers of Jesus and that are learning more who God is and seeking to follow that example.

00;09;55;07 – 00;10;16;04
Matt
Yeah. And I would say for those of you who really need an application point, worship is an application. Prayer is an application. So you can say something like, hey God, I’m not even sure what’s happening in this text, but I see how great you are from this text or I don’t understand something. Please help me. You know, these these things are just as much application as some behavior pattern you need to.

00;10;16;04 – 00;10;17;12
Matt
Yeah. Change. Yeah.

00;10;17;15 – 00;10;34;27
Hannah
I like to use the word response because that gives me a bigger, you know, umbrella to choose from. Application feels like I need to go out into the world and do something very specific. Yeah, but response can be like, oh, I’m just going to praise the Lord because I saw this awesome thing about his character.

00;10;34;29 – 00;10;54;21
Matt
Yeah. Love it. So thank you, Janelle, for that question. I know we’re a couple, weeks late getting to it, but hopefully that’s helpful. And all of you who are reading the Bible with you or with us, yeah. Love that. Love it. Now, if you have a filter question and it’s helpful, we’re not telling you not to do that, but we’re just saying, hey, you know, don’t hold it loosely.

00;10;54;24 – 00;11;05;13
Matt
Let the text come to you. The text will do its thing if we let it get into our minds and hearts. All right. Well, Hannah, what’s the story so far? Where have we been? What’s happening?

00;11;05;15 – 00;11;32;24
Hannah
Okay, so. Well, let’s catch up, because we are in the middle of Genesis or almost at the end. But last week we saw God’s creation of the worlds, especially highlighting his creation of humanity and his desire to partner with humans as his images. But rather than reflecting God as his images, they choose to rival God and define good and evil for themselves apart from God’s good wisdom.

00;11;32;26 – 00;11;33;19
Matt

00;11;33;21 – 00;12;09;05
Hannah
And so from there, we’ve been tracing this downward spiral of sin and evil. But God made a plan to rescue humanity and all of creation, from this sin and this failure by choosing and blessing one family to be this vehicle through which God is going to restore blessing to all people. So this week we traced Abraham’s descendants and how God chooses one member of each generation to pass down this blessing, and uphold this promise that he made to Abraham.

00;12;09;08 – 00;12;31;24
Hannah
But one thing that we’ll spend a little bit of time talking about is not only is God’s blessing carried down through the generations, but it also seems that each generation is repeating the same failures of their lives. And so these stories really emphasize, deception and lack of trust in God and his promises to bless them.

00;12;31;27 – 00;12;49;21
Matt
Yeah, it really is an epic story. Like if you were if you’re going to try and film this might like make like a Netflix special on it. It would be like 30 episodes long. There’s so many things happening. And yeah, the patterns, which I know you’re going to get into, before we get into that, though, I want to apply for a gold star.

00;12;49;21 – 00;13;12;04
Matt
So, Professor Hannah or teacher. Oh, can I, apply for a gold star here? Sure. Okay. Yeah. All right, so last week, we talked about the pattern of, the temptation pattern. So Eve in the garden, she saw, she took, and it was chaos. Oh, she she saw, she desired, and she took.

00;13;12;04 – 00;13;13;13
Hannah
Right and ate.

00;13;13;19 – 00;13;32;28
Matt
Yeah. Yes. It’s a tragic story, but the story of, Dana, and, a young man named Shechem. What’s one thing I just notice this time? The name Shechem, the young man in this accounts the same name as the town. I never noticed that detail before, so.

00;13;32;28 – 00;13;33;08
Hannah
Yeah.

00;13;33;15 – 00;14;02;00
Matt
Yeah. Interesting. So Shechem, who is, young Canaanite, he sees Dinah. He desires her, and he takes her. It’s right there in the text. And much like every other time we see this pattern, unintended consequence. What what transpires is not what he thinks is going to transpire from this situation. And chaos disorder ruin. It spins out of control.

00;14;02;02 – 00;14;03;04
Matt
What do you think?

00;14;03;07 – 00;14;05;00
Hannah
Yeah, the a gold star.

00;14;05;03 – 00;14;06;16
Matt
Oh, thank you so much.

00;14;06;16 – 00;14;07;12
Hannah
Good job.

00;14;07;14 – 00;14;08;13
Matt
Oh, thank you so much.

00;14;08;14 – 00;14;17;18
Hannah
It matches the pattern. And there’s so many in, in the chapters that we read this week. So many, repetitions of that. Yeah.

00;14;17;21 – 00;14;34;04
Matt
Yeah, yeah. It’s like, it’s like listening to, like Beethoven’s Fifth that, that, that, or, you know, some of the old jazz tunes like once it’s just all over the place. Once you see it’s there, you can’t not see it. Once you hear it, you can’t not hear it. So. Yeah. Yeah. That’s an unfortunate example, the pattern.

00;14;34;04 – 00;14;53;16
Matt
But yeah. So all right. All right. So so yeah. So the world is in chaos. And God sort of has this decree thing since the flood. And our man Noah survives the flood and sort of goes on to sort of recreate the earth. And. Yeah, the story narrows in on this man when we first meet him.

00;14;53;16 – 00;15;11;02
Matt
His name is Abraham. And God says, hey, I want you to go to this land. And Abraham up sleeves, goes, takes his family to a place he’s never seen before. And the Scripture says that God counts. It counts it to him as righteousness. So we’re off to a pretty good start. But we don’t stay in that place.

00;15;11;04 – 00;15;20;10
Matt
Then we start to get into some drama. So walk us through. We got. We got Abraham. He is renamed Abraham. Tell us a little bit about what what you see happening here.

00;15;20;12 – 00;15;46;06
Hannah
Yeah. Well, a major theme that we see in the family of Abraham is the theme of choosing and blessing. And so we we saw this was in last week’s reading, but that God chose Abraham to be this vehicle, that God was going to restore his blessing to all of humanity. And so with each subsequent generation, God chooses one member of that generation to pass down that blessing.

00;15;46;09 – 00;16;07;04
Hannah
And this is the line that the ultimate chosen one will come from, which is the Messiah, who we know is Jesus, and he will and has fulfilled that promise of blessing for all nations. And to that promise will ultimately be consummated at his second coming. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

00;16;07;07 – 00;16;08;19
Matt
Talk about skipping ahead.

00;16;08;21 – 00;16;33;23
Hannah
Yeah. Spoiler alert. But the interesting thing about the theme of choosing and blessing is that God’s choosing and blessing doesn’t follow the cultural norm of the firstborn. Yeah. So the firstborn son would be the one who would receive the father’s blessing traditionally. But we saw that Isaac was chosen over Ishmael. So Isaac is the second son.

00;16;33;25 – 00;16;56;03
Hannah
Jacob is chosen over Esau again, the second son. And then, though I don’t think we’ve officially saw it yet in the text, but Judah will be the chosen one of the messianic line. But we also see Joseph is kind of, he’s a favored child. So there’s a bit of blessing, happening with him as well. Both Judah and Joseph, our younger children.

00;16;56;08 – 00;16;57;01
Matt
Yeah.

00;16;57;04 – 00;17;03;20
Hannah
Yeah. So this causes a lot of sibling rivalry, and it’s escalated by parental favoritism.

00;17;03;22 – 00;17;21;00
Matt
Yeah. I watched the sermon at church, about, Jacob and Joseph, and I titled it The Worst Father in the Bible. Yeah, you corrected me. And I think you’re right. You would make the case that, Oh, what’s his face?

00;17;21;00 – 00;17;21;19
Hannah
Lot.

00;17;21;21 – 00;17;22;26
Matt
Lot? It’s the worst.

00;17;22;28 – 00;17;23;20
Hannah
For sure.

00;17;23;22 – 00;17;35;05
Matt
I think so, I think I agree with you, but it still is a killer sermon title, so. Yeah, I think you can give me that, but. Yeah. Jacob’s not a hot father. He’s. Yeah, he’s not good.

00;17;35;07 – 00;17;36;10
Hannah
Yeah, I mean.

00;17;36;10 – 00;17;37;00
Matt
Favoritism.

00;17;37;07 – 00;17;41;24
Hannah
Yeah. None of them are. They all have favorites. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00;17;41;26 – 00;18;02;27
Matt
Well, let’s go back to Abraham. Even so, he’s got two sons. And what’s interesting is, you know, God makes the promise. Hey, I’m going to give you a son, and you’re going to be the father of many nations. And he’s quite old. His wife, Sarah, is quite old at this point. And so you can understand how this is an open question to them, like, how is this going to work?

00;18;03;03 – 00;18;26;28
Matt
We don’t have any children were very old. They sort of forced the issue a little bit. So, Sarah sort of shoves Hagar into the situation, says, hey, father child with my slave here. Maybe this, you know, God seems to be asleep at the wheel. Let’s force the issue that does not go well. And God explicitly says in the text, hey, I’m going to bless Ishmael, but this is not where the blessing is going.

00;18;26;28 – 00;18;30;27
Matt
This is, this is he’s not going to be the favored son.

00;18;30;29 – 00;18;43;08
Hannah
Yeah. And I would say that’s mostly because the Abraham and Sarah were not trusting God’s plan that he was going to provide a son for them. And they took matters into their own hands.

00;18;43;09 – 00;18;44;00
Matt
Yeah.

00;18;44;02 – 00;18;44;22
Hannah
Yeah.

00;18;44;24 – 00;19;07;08
Matt
Yeah. And then so then we meet Isaac and there’s a slightly different play, but there is a line in the text, where, you know, Isaac sees that his wife Rebecca is barren. And praise the Lord. And the Lord opens her womb. So there’s a little inverse of father and son Isaac sort of seeing his father’s mistake.

00;19;07;08 – 00;19;20;28
Matt
And in. Is that so? Rather than try and force the issue goes to the Lord and says, hey, you, you promise to you’ll make us many days and what’s happening here? And God answers that prayer. So that’s a little interesting inverse of the pattern right there. Yeah, yeah.

00;19;21;01 – 00;19;37;21
Hannah
Yeah. But the we’re talking about this, reversal of the firstborn, you know, cultural norm is really interesting that reveals God’s intention to invert our worldly power structures.

00;19;37;21 – 00;19;39;09
Matt
Yeah. Say more about that.

00;19;39;12 – 00;20;16;22
Hannah
Yeah. I mean, this is super clear in the upside down kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims in the gospel accounts, right? God humbles the proud and lifts up the humble, and he uses the weak to demonstrate his power and his strength. And Jesus has, you know, such lowly beginnings from Nazareth, which was very looked down upon, born in a manger, like all of these things, that you would not expect the King of the universe to show up in the world like, yeah, yeah.

00;20;16;25 – 00;20;36;07
Matt
And I yeah, I thought, you know, generally if you’re especially if you’re thinking sort of dynasties or like in, you know, monarchies the, the title the, the nobility in that, that the title falls to the oldest and there’s very delineated lines of succession. So, you know, you think about the British royal family, which, you know, a lot of people are into.

00;20;36;09 – 00;20;52;28
Matt
You know, William, the day he was born, future king of England, like all of the privileges and rights thereunto, he doesn’t even know what being a king is all about. But it you know, he’s going to be the king someday. And you can imagine, you know, I think some people handle this, some version of, well, I don’t know.

00;20;52;28 – 00;21;09;26
Matt
Again, we’re big fans of The Crown Netflix series, so some people handle it pretty good, but you can see how it distorts it. Twist. You know, if your life is just all of privilege and expecting people to defer to you at every moment, how that can really get in your mind and your soul. And yeah, God’s having none of that.

00;21;09;26 – 00;21;16;08
Matt
He is not beholden to any tradition, any set up, any convention, anything like that.

00;21;16;11 – 00;21;25;16
Hannah
Yeah. And his kingdom is for the poor and the weak and the vulnerable. And that’s the whole sermon on the Mount, you know. Yeah. About that. Yeah.

00;21;25;18 – 00;21;47;00
Matt
Yeah. All right. So here’s where I try to persuade you that The Godfather will help you be a better Bible reader. Are you ready? Okay, okay, bear with me. All right, so Godfather Famous came out 70s. The central figure is this, figure named Vito Corleone. They’re an Italian mafia family. Well, we meet them. That’s in, it’s right after World War two.

00;21;47;01 – 00;22;05;04
Matt
So it’s 1945 or so, and, Marlon Brando is the older Vito Corleone figure, and he is, you know, he’s the godfather of this crime family. We meet him on his daughter’s wedding day, and he’s handing out blessings. Apparently, you get a special blessing if you come ask the Godfather for a favor on his daughter’s wedding day.

00;22;05;04 – 00;22;29;02
Matt
So, so we meet him in that context. He’s got three sons. And you are starting to see that the family business, as it were, is going to go to one of these three sons or some combination of these three sons. It’s going to have to take over the business, and we meet them in short order. So the oldest one is Sonny, and, Sonny is all in his older brother privilege.

00;22;29;07 – 00;22;51;15
Matt
He expects to be deferred to his boss and people around. He does not think he just barks. He’s a hothead and he doesn’t think very well. He’s not a mature thinker. He’s not mature about anything. He’s just. He’s all privilege and expectation and it gets him in trouble. He ends up getting assassinated. Spoiler they won’t spoil the movie for you.

00;22;51;18 – 00;22;54;29
Hannah
I can’t watch it anymore. Oh.

00;22;55;02 – 00;23;20;02
Matt
Well, then there’s a second son. And the second son is Fredo. And I won’t tell you everything that happens with Fredo, but Fredo is basically, Well, he’s a moron. He’s not intellectually savvy. He’s not business savvy. He’s just a mess. And so he is sort of farmed out to a side business. He’s sort of shoved out of the way because he’s clearly not going to be capable of taking over the business.

00;23;20;04 – 00;23;42;09
Matt
And so then there’s the youngest son. Now, that is Michael and Michael. You can tell right away. Okay, this guy’s a little different. For one thing, he’s a war veteran. He’s just come back from World War two. We’re not told what he did in the war, but he’s got medals. He served honorably. He went to college. And so as the story starts unfold, you see that Michael’s going to be the one who takes over the business.

00;23;42;09 – 00;24;01;06
Matt
So should be one of the older ones. But one of them is killed now. Out of the way. The other one, Fredo, actually says at one point it’s like, hey, I’m your older brother, but I’m always taking orders from you. Do you understand? Like how how upset that makes me. And Michael just keeps a steady head. So it’s it’s Michael, the younger son who ends up sort of carrying the family lineage.

00;24;01;06 – 00;24;25;14
Matt
Now, in this story, it’s all distorted. It’s very sinful and corrupt. And, but you can see that where if it were strictly by the birth order and sort of the expected succession, it would have gone to Sonny, it would have maybe gone to Fredo, and that would have just resulted in disaster. But the sort of authority goes down to the younger son.

00;24;25;16 – 00;24;26;25
Matt
What do you think?

00;24;26;28 – 00;24;33;24
Hannah
I mean, it’s a great connection. I’m sure it’s patterned off of these biblical narratives.

00;24;33;24 – 00;24;35;20
Matt
I bet it is. Yeah, I left it up.

00;24;35;20 – 00;24;38;14
Hannah
I don’t know that it’s going to make me a better Bible reader.

00;24;38;19 – 00;24;39;03
Matt
Okay.

00;24;39;05 – 00;24;40;17
Hannah
I’m still not convinced.

00;24;40;20 – 00;25;00;10
Matt
All right, all right, everybody help. Help convince Hannah that she should watch The Godfather. But, yeah, you could see I was thinking about it last time I watched it. You could see a lot of these things where if it really just were about the birthright, this is going to be disastrous. Sonny actually reminds me a lot of Esau in the story where he doesn’t treat his birthright very well.

00;25;00;10 – 00;25;19;00
Matt
It’s just a thing to be traded and take it for granted. And he gives it away for a bowl of soup, and he’s very angry, and his anger becomes his undoing. And then I don’t know that in the biblical story, there’s a great example of Fredo. Maybe, maybe when we get to the Joseph part. I don’t know anybody.

00;25;19;00 – 00;25;31;00
Matt
He’s just he’s just he’s not he’s not going to be able to handle this. He’s he’s not your guy for this story. But the younger son, that’s that’s where there’s some action. That’s where some some interest. So I think there’s some interesting parallels.

00;25;31;02 – 00;25;56;04
Hannah
I don’t know if this is relevant in the Godfather, but it doesn’t seem like God’s choosing of certain people is based off their own merit at all. Right. You know, so it’s not that the oldest son is unqualified. You know, we don’t really know why God chose this specific line, but their constant failure is evidence that they were not chosen because they were the best option.

00;25;56;06 – 00;26;27;09
Matt
Yeah, that is a good point. You know, God tends to qualify the called rather than call the qualified. And that’s definitely something that shows up in the story. That’s not how it works in The Godfather. So my example falls flat there. But yeah, you can see that, you know, because Jacob is not really that we’re not given very much indication that Jacob is smarter than Esau or savvier, certainly not more obedient or, anything like that than Esau, but he’s the one that God chooses.

00;26;27;11 – 00;26;30;02
Matt
Yeah, yeah.

00;26;30;04 – 00;26;33;12
Hannah
So speaking of all of this failure.

00;26;33;18 – 00;26;35;05
Matt
Yes.

00;26;35;07 – 00;26;58;02
Hannah
Another related sub point to this theme of choosing and blessing is this constant deception that we see highlighted through each generation. So we see both Abraham and Isaac have the same exact story of deception, where they try to protect themselves by saying that their wives are their sisters.

00;26;58;09 – 00;26;59;00
Matt
Yes.

00;26;59;03 – 00;27;27;01
Hannah
There’s they tell this same exact guy, Abimelech, it like they go to the same town and tell the same guy, oh no, she’s my sister. So it’s so weird, like it’s the same exact story, repeated with both Abraham and Isaac. And then, Jacob is really the archetype of deception. It’s name. His name literally means heel grabber, which became an idiom for deceiving someone.

00;27;27;04 – 00;27;31;11
Hannah
Because if you grab someone’s heel, it’s like you’re trying to trip them up or trick them.

00;27;31;13 – 00;27;32;01
Matt
Yeah.

00;27;32;03 – 00;27;56;23
Hannah
So I want to come back to Jacob’s Deception and look at an example in particular. But even after Jacob that we see a story of Judah deceiving, he deceives, both his father, when they sell Joseph into slavery, and they come to see Judah as the main character. That is coming and saying, look, your son, I think he’s dead.

00;27;56;26 – 00;27;59;23
Hannah
Look at his cloak or his coat of many colors.

00;27;59;26 – 00;28;01;11
Matt
What a heartbreaking story.

00;28;01;15 – 00;28;30;27
Hannah
Yeah. And then, Judah goes on to deceive his daughter in law Tamar. Yeah. As well. And then there’s a really interesting story about Tamar doing this, like counter deception. Yeah. To Judah. But then we even actually see Joseph involved in some counter deception with his brothers. But in this case, his deception appears to be a little less malicious, because it does end up bringing about the survival of his family.

00;28;30;27 – 00;28;38;29
Hannah
So that’s a little bit of an interesting inversion. But yeah, I want to back up and talk about Jacob specifically.

00;28;38;29 – 00;28;39;25
Matt
Okay. Do it.

00;28;39;28 – 00;29;10;20
Hannah
So he really is this like archetype of deception. And you know, we’re talking about choosing and blessing. And it’s actually before Jacob and Esau or even born that God chooses the younger to be elevated. This is in chapter 25, verse 23. There’s this like little poem inserted where God tells Rebecca that these two nations are in her womb and the younger will, be elevated over the older.

00;29;10;22 – 00;29;32;25
Hannah
And so but even though God has already decided to bless Jacob from when they were in the womb, Jacob still tries to scheme his own way to get his blessing through deception, which is like so unnecessary. Yeah, because God has already said he’s going to bless you and choose you. So I don’t know why he feels like he needs to take matters into his own hands.

00;29;32;28 – 00;29;34;11
Matt
He think he was aware of that?

00;29;34;14 – 00;29;37;27
Hannah
You think I don’t know? That’s a good question, because.

00;29;37;27 – 00;29;45;21
Matt
Papa Isaac and Grandma Rebecca, mom and dad. Hey, Jacob. You you. The blessing is going to fall on you.

00;29;45;28 – 00;30;03;12
Hannah
Yeah, and it doesn’t really even say whether or not Isaac was told, like, it’s, you know, this little poem is told to Rebecca that these two nations, so you kind of wonder, like, I wonder if she kept that to herself because she’s involved in the deception, too.

00;30;03;12 – 00;30;04;03
Matt
Yeah, yeah.

00;30;04;09 – 00;30;09;12
Hannah
So, yeah. Interesting little riddle that’s left for us to ponder.

00;30;09;13 – 00;30;10;27
Matt
They’re interesting. Yeah.

00;30;11;00 – 00;30;34;23
Hannah
But Jacob, both steals the birthright in chapter 25 and his father’s blessing in chapter 27. Yeah, but I want to look, because I know we spent a lot of time in our last episode talking about the Genesis three temptation pattern. Yeah, but just to highlight one more time, chapter 27. It’s talking about Isaac knowing he’s about to die.

00;30;34;23 – 00;30;43;19
Hannah
So he wants to give Esau his firstborn, the blessing. And but Rebecca is like, you know, eavesdropping on this conversation.

00;30;43;20 – 00;30;44;11
Matt
Yeah.

00;30;44;13 – 00;31;16;04
Hannah
And she tells Jacob like that, Isaac wants to give the blessing. And so she tells Jacob, go, this is in verse nine. She says, go take two good goats. So we have a couple words, take and good, so that your father can eat. And so, this meal that Rebecca is going to prepare. So Jacob took the goats, and Rebecca took the most desirable clothes.

00;31;16;06 – 00;31;16;23
Matt
Okay.

00;31;17;00 – 00;31;43;27
Hannah
Yeah. Desirable. It’s, So that’s in verses 14 and 15. Yep. And so all of these word repetitions, again, this is another replay of that temptation pattern. And in this narrative analogy, Jacob is and Rebecca are both kind of being portrayed as the deceptive serpent. Right. So they’re trying to deceive, their father, Jacob’s father. And so I want to give a shout out to Addie.

00;31;43;28 – 00;32;11;02
Hannah
Yes, a comment, an observation posed as a question. But he made this observation about the connection between the seed of the serpent bruising the heel in Genesis 315, and Jacob grabbing the heel. And being this deceiver, I mean, Jacob really is being portrayed as this deceptive, serpent in this narrative analogy. And the serpent is the first deceiver.

00;32;11;05 – 00;32;16;04
Hannah
So there’s for sure, you know, a narrative connection being made there.

00;32;16;09 – 00;32;21;20
Matt
I knew that was going to catch your eye. I knew when he dropped that and know it’s like a hand is going to love that one.

00;32;21;23 – 00;32;24;16
Hannah
Oh, yeah. That’s a great, great connection.

00;32;24;22 – 00;32;29;01
Matt
Yeah. Fantastic observation. And not the last time that pattern shows up.

00;32;29;04 – 00;32;30;25
Hannah
Oh, no, it doesn’t stop.

00;32;30;28 – 00;32;36;02
Matt
Yeah yeah yeah. Good job. Out you get a gold star to Addie for sure.

00;32;36;04 – 00;33;09;21
Hannah
Yeah. The really interesting thing about all this deception is that even though, you know, in this story, Jacob, tries to deceive and lie and steal the blessing, God still is committed to choosing him and blessing him and using, Jacob as part of this vehicle to redeem and restore humanity and bring blessing to all nations. So he’s still committed to his covenant promises to Abraham and each, you know, proceeding, not proceeding, but subsequent generation that he chooses.

00;33;09;26 – 00;33;32;05
Matt
Yeah, it’s actually a little bit comical. His back and forth with Laban. You know, where he’s trying to pull one on Laban. Laban circles it right back on him. You know, there used to be, I think, in, I think it was in mad magazine. These little things called spy versus spy. It’s a very simple animation illustration.

00;33;32;05 – 00;33;47;28
Matt
There was a guy with a white hat and a guy with a black hat, and they would just go back and forth to each other, just trying to outdo each other in, like, pranks and get each other, maybe even a little bit Roadrunner. Coyote. Although that was a pretty one sided match up that one. But yeah, that’s just like tit for tat.

00;33;47;29 – 00;33;58;06
Matt
You get me now, I’m going to get you or I think you’re going to get me. So I’m going to try and get you before you get me. And yeah, it’s, it’s it’s a little bit comical the way it reads in the text.

00;33;58;08 – 00;34;22;26
Hannah
Yeah. Yeah. And this repeats in every generation. And we do once we get to the Joseph stories, he does seem to start reversing some of these patterns and some of these failures. We see that he flees from temptation, literally runs out the door when, part of his wife tries to get him to sleep with her.

00;34;22;28 – 00;34;26;07
Hannah
And I’ll give another gold star. We’re just handing out gold stars.

00;34;26;12 – 00;34;27;25
Matt
We’re very generous.

00;34;27;27 – 00;34;58;03
Hannah
Yes, but Ian Cox made a comments, in the app about this scene being like a reversal of that Genesis three temptation pattern. There’s a lot of those repeated words. So yeah, great observation there. But yeah, Joseph, also, he is very readily giving credit to God for this dream interpretations. And it said that the Spirit of God is in him, which is we haven’t really seen that direct phrase in Genesis yet.

00;34;58;05 – 00;35;01;25
Hannah
That’s that God’s Spirit is in somebody specifically.

00;35;01;28 – 00;35;29;21
Matt
Yeah, yeah. And even before we get to to Joseph or talk more about his story, I’m just I’m pretty interested in the character Judah, in that you mentioned already, Judas got a couple pretty epic fails. You know, the story of selling his brother into slavery. He’s an instigator and a primary antagonist there. And then in the chapter where he he’s just wrong in regard to his daughter in law, just completely mistreats her.

00;35;29;22 – 00;36;08;11
Matt
And it’s, by the way, just this casual thing that he’s going to visit prostitutes. Like it’s just a totally normal thing to do. I don’t really know what’s going on there. And yet and yet one of the titles of Jesus the Messiah is that is the lion of the Tribe of Judah. I mean, I mean, talk about somebody who he could not try harder to give this thing away through his sin and disobedience and stubbornness and foolishness, and yet the honor that God shows him to have the Messiah come from his line and to bear his name in one of his messianic titles, that is.

00;36;08;13 – 00;36;15;07
Matt
Well, I would not be that gracious if I were God the Father. I’ll just say that so is a much more gracious person than I am.

00;36;15;09 – 00;36;19;04
Hannah
Yeah, I would hope so. But he is God.

00;36;19;04 – 00;36;37;10
Matt
So it’s. Yeah. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Yeah. So I mean, it’s a little word for people. It’s like, I know, I don’t know how many of you listening to this podcast are thinking, well, you know, Matt, you just don’t know. You don’t know about my sin. You don’t know about the mistakes that I made. You don’t know about how deep I am into addiction.

00;36;37;12 – 00;36;57;06
Matt
You know, terrible habits. You don’t know how deep I am into these sad patterns. You’re right, I don’t know. But God knows. God knows. God sees and he is ready to give you way, way more blessing and honor than you can possibly imagine. If he was ready to bless Judah with the the way that he did.

00;36;57;06 – 00;37;11;15
Matt
Oh my word, he will bless you. He will bless you if you put his trust in. If you put your trust in Jesus, he’s ready to do that for you. So I hope that’s a word of encouragement for people. You cannot screw up more than Judah did. And yet God honors him and blesses him.

00;37;11;17 – 00;37;28;26
Hannah
Yeah. And what we learn from this temptation pattern is that God already already wants to bless us if we’ll just receive his blessing and trust his wisdom, instead of trying to seize that blessing in a way that seems good in our own eyes.

00;37;28;29 – 00;37;29;08
Matt
Yeah.

00;37;29;08 – 00;37;31;20
Hannah
So the yeah, there’s a posture that comes with that.

00;37;31;22 – 00;38;02;04
Matt
Yeah. And then I love sort of the, you know, the, the comparison between Joseph and, and the, the way that Christ shows up in Scripture, you know, the, the, the favored brother kind of thing, where, you know, Jesus is painted as kind of our older brother and the, the favored brother. Well, Joseph is the favored brother. But Joseph, at least when we first meet him, is taking advantage of that status and using it to Lord himself over others.

00;38;02;04 – 00;38;20;26
Matt
But when we meet Jesus, Jesus takes that status and uses it to serve others, to lower himself, to use his status as the favorite son to bring others into the family, as opposed to Joseph and then the idea of, you know, going down into the prison only to be raised up and seated at the right hand.

00;38;20;26 – 00;38;27;11
Matt
I love that pattern as well. What are some other, maybe parallels with Christ that we should have our eyes open for.

00;38;27;14 – 00;38;28;26
Hannah
With Joseph specifically?

00;38;28;28 – 00;38;30;03
Matt
Yeah.

00;38;30;06 – 00;38;50;10
Hannah
You know, I haven’t done a ton of reading on, on that, but I there were a couple of people who posted, comments about Joseph as, a type of Christ, you know, being typology, pointing forward. I can’t really think of any off the top of my head, but there are a lot of connections.

00;38;50;13 – 00;39;13;20
Matt
Yeah, yeah. Well, if you think of some out there in podcast land, drop it in the, the, the chat in the app because we’d love to play around with those a little bit. Yeah, I think it’s, it’s a rich, rich field. So awesome. All right, so that is the family of Abraham. We’ve seen a couple generations now, and the the focus is going to widen a little bit as we get into next week.

00;39;13;20 – 00;39;33;29
Matt
So rather than sort of, you know, family members, the way that we’ve seen it in the past generations, we’re going to the story is going to flash forward a little bit, we’re going to see them as they go to Egypt and become enslaved to a tyrant king. And what happens with that? So why don’t we tease for the people, what we expect to talk about next week?

00;39;34;02 – 00;39;59;07
Hannah
Yeah, well, we just have a couple chapters left to finish up Genesis, and so we’ll probably do a brief, conclusion and summary. There’s, a couple significant scenes that happen at the end of Genesis, but I think we’ll spend most of our time talking about Exodus. I don’t know the exact chapters, but I know the actual Exodus event occurs pretty early on in the book.

00;39;59;07 – 00;40;08;05
Hannah
So we’ll probably start to talk about that and spend most of our time talking about the the exodus out of Egypt, through the Red sea.

00;40;08;08 – 00;40;25;26
Matt
Yeah. That’s yeah. The action is not slowing down. Eventually, the the narrative action will slow down a little bit, but at least for the next couple of weeks, the narrative action is not going to slow down. We are moving and moving. So, yeah, buckle your seatbelts. The Bible is not a boring book. There is a lot going on.

00;40;25;26 – 00;40;32;05
Matt
So yeah, awesome. Or any other thoughts you want to share with the people before we wind this down?

00;40;32;07 – 00;40;40;14
Hannah
And, I don’t want to open up a can of worms, but there were a lot of comments and observations and questions about Jacob wrestling with God.

00;40;40;14 – 00;40;41;23
Matt
Oh, yes.

00;40;41;23 – 00;41;15;22
Hannah
Yeah. So just, you know, briefly, really significant scene. And this is what creates the name of the nation of Israel. Yeah. This scene itself, Israel means wrestles with God. Yeah. So not only is that a metaphor for Jacob’s entire life, but also the entire nation that comes from him. We’re going to see how they are constantly wrestling with God, both the good and bad meanings of that.

00;41;15;24 – 00;41;34;29
Matt
Yeah. Yeah, I think about that moment a lot, where he’s, where the the God figure says, let me go. Yeah, the morning is coming. Let me go. And Jacob says, I will not let you go until you bless me. And full. That’s a very movie moment to me. I’ve certainly had moments in prayer like, God, I’m not letting you go.

00;41;35;00 – 00;41;43;13
Matt
I. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not doing anything until you meet me where I am in the space. And I have found that God honors that prayer.

00;41;43;15 – 00;42;05;29
Hannah
Yeah. I can’t fully decide if I feel like that is a good like, is God honoring that because Jacob was so persistent to like hold on to this God figure? Or is it like some kind of arrogance of like I’m not letting you go until you bless me? Like he’s still trying to grab for that blessing. Maybe that God has already given him, you know.

00;42;06;02 – 00;42;35;10
Hannah
So I don’t know. One other observation that I noticed is there’s a very similar phrase, two chapters before in this, actually, Rachel and Leah, Rachel says that she has wrestled with her sister and prevailed. And this is after her, servant Bill. Her has her second son. And this is where the name Naphtali comes from, from this phrase that Rachel says.

00;42;35;13 – 00;42;50;20
Hannah
And like that is clearly not a good thing. I don’t know, you know, it’s not trade as like, again, Rachel is and Leah both are also wrestling for this.

00;42;50;22 – 00;42;52;14
Matt
Yes, yes.

00;42;52;16 – 00;43;08;25
Hannah
And she thinks that she’s prevailed even after she’s repeated the failure of Sarah by giving her servant to, Jacob. You know, so I don’t know. I’m. I’m so confused about. Is this wrestling a good or a bad thing? Maybe it’s both.

00;43;08;27 – 00;43;27;26
Matt
Oh, you know, I hadn’t thought about it before you said something. I I’m going to I’m going to move forward to the assumption that it’s good, at least as far as I’m concerned, you know, because with my own, you know, with, with my family or my kids or my work, you know, there are moments where I’m just like, yeah, I’m, I’m wrestling like, God, what do you want me to do?

00;43;27;27 – 00;43;53;05
Matt
How do I what are you doing here? Why? As I’m praying so desperately to you, why does it seem like you’re not responding to me? And I know maybe the wrestling here is a little bit different than what’s happening in that story. But I have found, it kind of feels that way. Or like I’m trying to hold or I’m not trying to wrestle God into doing what I want, but I am trying to, like, engage with him and like, like grab onto him and be like, hey, what?

00;43;53;08 – 00;44;02;00
Matt
You know, I need you. Like, please don’t let me go, I need you, I need you to speak to or intervene in this situation that I’m in.

00;44;02;02 – 00;44;16;24
Hannah
Yeah, maybe there’s a good and a bad way to wrestle with God. Yeah. You know, like in the narrative, Jacob is wrestling in such a way where he’s trying to scheme and deceive to get this blessing from God. And that’s doesn’t seem like a good wrestling to me or.

00;44;16;24 – 00;44;32;25
Matt
Struggling, you know, probably not. Yeah, yeah. And of course, we don’t need to wrestle God for that blessing because we’ve received it in the person of Jesus. Yeah. So that wrestling let’s take a different form. Yeah. I feel like we’re leaving an open loop for the people on the podcast, so go meditate on that, people.

00;44;32;25 – 00;44;39;00
Hannah
That is what the Bible is designed to do, right? True. Give us these riddles to ponder over together. So.

00;44;39;03 – 00;44;55;19
Matt
It’s perfect. Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for joining us. And again, thanks for engaging with us so much on this. We love reading your comments and questions. We love chatting with you at church, so keep them coming! It is so fun to be a part of this. And, we just we’re really thrilled that we’ve had such a great response to this.

00;44;55;21 – 00;45;00;15
Matt
Last time I checked, we have 103 people in the app doing this plan with us, so.

00;45;00;15 – 00;45;01;12
Hannah
That’s a lot.

00;45;01;15 – 00;45;19;21
Matt
That is way more than I expected. So thank you all. And hey, we will see you next week. I’m going to pray for us and then we will be dismissed. So keep reading your Bibles. Keep engaging with us, and we will see you back in the space next week. Heavenly Father, what a privilege it is that, we can actually engage with you.

00;45;19;21 – 00;45;39;14
Matt
We can read the words that you have dictated to us, and we can know at least a little bit about your character and your plans and your purposes, and we can be a part of the story that you are writing of redeeming all humanity for yourself. And, Lord, we see the, you know, mistakes and foibles and sin of so many who have gone before us.

00;45;39;14 – 00;46;00;26
Matt
And, Lord, you hold these people up as, patriarchs. You say, yes, these are the people that I bless. And it’s so hard to understand. And, Lord, so often I come to the text and I feel so self-righteous. But Lord, I, I see myself so often. Yeah. If I were in Judas situation and I had a helpless widow in my household, yeah, I would try and paint her off on somebody else, too.

00;46;00;26 – 00;46;18;22
Matt
I wouldn’t want her to be my responsibility. Yeah. So, Lord, I’m in there too. And I am just as guilty and I am just as negligent, and I am just as selfish as all these people. And yet, Lord, and your kindness and mercy, you’ve sent your son Jesus to rescue me and redeem me from that sin. Lord, I’m so excited.

00;46;18;25 – 00;46;33;02
Matt
As we get through this to see that picture more clearly, and then when we get to the New Testament to see him and meet him. And Lord, I’m so excited for what you’ve done in my heart to rescue me from that and to set me on a new path and make me a new creation. You were doing such a good work and I praise you for that.

00;46;33;02 – 00;46;49;25
Matt
Lord, it is such a blessing to see you in the scriptures, and it’s such a pleasure to do this with our friends. So thank you so much, Lord, that you bless the reading of your Word as we do that in faith. So we ask in Jesus name, Amen, Amen. Amen. All right. See you all next week. Thank you so much.