Hey everybody, welcome back to another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Let's jump on into this. We have a question from an audience member. We are just right away. Okay. Yeah, let's go. Here's the question. You ready for this? It's a doozy. Here's what it says. Genesis 9. 1 omits the command to subdue the earth, as was in Genesis 1. 28. Do you find any significance in that omission? Okay, the field is yours, Pastor PJ.

Answer as you see fit. Yeah, honestly, I don't. necessarily find any significance in the omission there. I think it's implied, I think it's implied in the rest of the unfolding of human history. I think that's part of the role of man. Even when we go to Psalm 8, which I know is a messianic Psalm, but at the same time, I think it has a dual reality where it's talking about both Christ as the Messiah, but also mankind as well. When he says, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him, you've made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, crowned him with glory and honor. You've given him dominion over the works of your hands. And so there in, there's I think that there's a continuation of even the dominion mandate that's given to mankind. You've put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, beasts of the field. So I think it's assumed there. I think it might be a little bit too much to parse out the lack of its presence there in Genesis. Maybe there is more to that than meets the eye, but I do think that, that it's assumed and implied in the instructions there. In fact, it goes on in verse two. It says the fear of you, the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground, all the fish of the sea. So there's dominion implied there and what they're going to, the response of the animals to Noah and his family after the flood, post flood.

Do you make anything of the fact that scripture calls Satan the God of this world? Did mankind somehow lose his dominion status, his leadership because of Adam and Eve's

sin? Yeah, we were always going to be vice rulers, no matter what, vice regents, because even prior to the fall, God is the ultimate ruler, the ultimate authority. So I think maybe in that sense, the vice regency now is for the unbeliever a la Ephesians chapter two, they are vice regents of Satan. They're exercising dominion on Satan's behalf over God's creation in a way that is, is broken and marring creation even further as believers. I think we are being restored. And, and sanctified such that we would have an opportunity to, to exercise dominion more akin to what his original design was for us. But we won't fully realize that until the new earth, when, when he is reigning and we are all in our glorified bodies with him at that point.

And practically speaking, as you look at the unfolding of human history and redemptive history, you still see man operating with that same mindset. We're taking dominion. We're continuing to build and to operate as God designed us to. We're inventing new things. We're just talking about AI yesterday. Man is still taking dominion over. The creation, even the digital creation that we're trying to navigate now. So there's so many areas where you still see the effect of God command, even if you don't see. That effect in perfect harmony with the way God designed it. So there's always going to be sin. There's always going to be fallenness in Genesis chapter three, where you have the cursing of the ground. God doesn't tell Adam to stop taking dominion. He just says, it's going to be much harder now that the dominion mandate, I think is still in effect as well. Although to the point of our writer here. I do think there is something to be said about Jesus taking ultimate dominion. I think there is something to be said about him being the last Adam. So there is something about that, although I don't think it absolutely negates man's call to be part of that dominion mandate still. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree for

sure. Yeah. Hey, we have a new staff member in the office. We haven't, I don't think mentioned that on the podcast, but it's something worth noting. Sure. Allie Trinidad is here officially as our Kidsmen Administrative Assistant. AT2. Yeah. Yeah. Cause AT1 is Angelo, her husband. That's right. Yeah. So, uh, she's in the office and it's been good and it's also been a little bit tight. Yeah. A little bit tight. A little bit cramped. Yeah. We need more space like yesterday. Yeah. It would be nice. Yeah. But we're glad and excited for that. And I know Mark's looking forward to having her on the team. Yeah. Yeah, he's been praying for that for a long time. So we're glad we could finally get rolling. I feel like we're growing quick, man. Yeah, it is. Hey, let's jump into our text for the day. All right. Genesis 12. Something that I was noticing as I was reading through Genesis 12 through 15 this time is just the movement of Abraham. I don't know that there's anything there, but in the realm of theology, when you write a PhD, you have to find something super nuanced to write on that nobody else has written on. I wonder if there's something to the movements of Abraham. Why he moves from one place to the other. And it starts even right away in Genesis chapter 12, God commands him to go. And this command to go is notice to go from your country, your kindred, your father's house to the land. I will show you some of the people that are listening to this. You guys. Went from California, you went from your home and your family and your work and everything else to come on the church plant with us. And so, you know a little bit about what's what he's dealing with here. But back in this time, man, the family was everything. Your family, your lineage, your culture, your land. It was everything. And now God is calling Abraham to go away from that. And to go to this promised land, Abram at this point, that's worth note, but he's not going to be Abraham until much later. And so God commands him to go and look at verse four. So Abraham went, but in between there in verse three, an important verse here, he says, I'm going to bless you. And I'm going to bless all the nations. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you. So this is what Paul refers to in Galatians chapter three as the gospel. He says, God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, and you will, all the families of the earth be blessed. And the way that's going to happen is the descendant of Abraham that we know Jesus, Jesus is going to be the one that's going to descend from Abraham through his line, through the son of the promise, Isaac, we'll get to that later. And he's going to be the one that's going to bring blessing to all the families of the earth. So pretty cool there that Paul refers to Genesis 12, three and calls that the gospel in the book of Galatians, Abraham comes to a couple of different locations. The first one that he comes to is Shechem. Shechem is going to be an important place in the old Testament. It's going to be the place where Joseph's bones are laid to rest. It's going to also be the eventual capital city of the Northern kingdom. It's a place of spiritual significance for the people there. And it starts here with Abraham venturing there, Abram venturing there. Then it comes to Bethel and Bethel is the second most mentioned city in the Old Testament behind Jerusalem. Another sacred place, significant place here associated with, with Abraham and later with Jacob. This is the place where Jacob has the dream of the angels ascending and descending upon the ladder. So this is a significant location in Israel's history as well. Bethel means house of God. And so this is the calling of Abraham and the initial promise of blessing to Abraham here as Genesis 12 opens. Verses 10 through 20 then a famine shows up in the land and Abraham takes off and Abraham goes down with his wife Sarai now Eventually, we will know her as Sarah, but right now she is Sarai and they flee to Egypt and while they're there Yeah, this is where Abram takes on a little bit at less of a shiny veneer for us Because Abram tells his wife Sarai to tell the king there that she's his sister. And the reason is to preserve Abram's life. So think about it. God has just told Abram, go to this land. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to bless all the families there through you. And you're going to be a blessing to other people. Abram goes down to Egypt and immediately he lacks his trust in his faith and his confidence in God and tells Sarai his wife to lie and tell the king there that she is his sister in order to preserve his life. And what he ends up doing is putting his wife's life in grave danger, or at least her moral character in significant danger.

Yeah, and it gets worse, because this happens more than once. This is not the first and last time that Abraham's gonna do this. There's one more event, and then there's one more that his son's gonna do. But on top of this, what you have, okay, so someone, I read this, someone said, no one told Abraham not to do this. This wasn't forbidden by God, he didn't command it either, so it wasn't like God was telling him to go do this, but this isn't necessarily a wrong thing to do. But we can say, based on the context here, this wasn't a good thing. The fact that he's putting his wife on the line instead of saying, this is my, this is my bride, please give us safe passage, it does show a lack of faith and a lack of character there. But notice, this is a bad scene on, on, on Abraham's life. This is not an act of faith, this is certainly an act of, Human ingenuity, which ends up hurting him. And I guess this is also worth noting too. This is likely when he picks up Hagar and she's going to play a pretty prominent role in the coming chapters. A little role.

Egypt is such a thorn in the side of Israel, right? And from the

very beginning,

and here you see it again. And so many times Israel looks to Egypt for deliverance. Israel looks to Egypt for what she should have trusted God for. And here you see Abraham who becomes the father of, of Jacob, who is then renamed Israel and produces the 12 tribes that the grandfather, rather. Here you have Abram fleeing to Egypt. Yeah. Was he told not to do it? No, but was he told by God, Hey, this is the promised land that I'll be giving you. And I'm going to, I'm going to bless you here. I think there's a lot between the lines of where Abraham or Abram failed to trust in God in this. I don't know that we can say it was even a good move for him to leave the promised land and go down to Egypt to begin with in the midst of the famine, rather than to turn to the Lord and trust and say, okay, God, I'm going to trust you. I'm here. You told me to go here. I am. And here's this famine, which, what you got for me. That's gonna fix that later. He's gonna tell him not to go to Egypt.

Yeah, he's

gonna do not go Yeah, I'll give you a pass on the first one and I got you out of danger, but don't do that again I mean in the chronological plane is so good because we it wasn't long ago If you were with us last year that we were reading about even towards the end of Israel's history in the Northern Kingdom especially trusting in Egypt and Judah trusting in Egypt as Babylon was coming against her and everything else Egypt is going to be a problem and is a problem right off the bat right here too. Genesis, yeah, chapter 20, that's the situation there. So Genesis 13, then we find a situation where Abram, who is with his, his nephew, Lot, comes back up and they find that there's not enough prairie land. There's not enough pasture land for their flocks. And with that being the case, Abram and Lot end up separating and Lot is going to make a decision that's going to have reverberating effects as we'll find out in a few days here, because he's going to go down to the land of Sodom. Which he views as a land that is beautiful and a land that can provide for his flocks. And he's going to go down there. And so Abram and Lot in chapter 13 separate. And God then promises to Abram in this context, the land that Abraham could see. He says, look around you, see everything in front of you and understand. I'm going to give you this land. And also I'm going to give you descendants as numerous as the dust on the earth. And so God is developing what is going to be the Abrahamic covenant slowly, but surely from Genesis 12, all the way, ultimately through Genesis chapter 15, which we'll get to in a moment here. Is Genesis

12, the beginning of the Abrahamic covenant, or is, what'd you say? Because he says here, I will make you a great nation. I'll bless you. I'll make your name great so that you'll be a blessing. And I'll bless those who bless you. And him who dishonors you, I'll curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Some of the language that we even use to describe the Abrahamic covenant is here and not in Genesis 15. Talk about land, seed, and blessing. The blessing is listed here. We don't see that in chapter 15. So is this the Abrahamic covenant or is Genesis 15 the Abrahamic covenants? Are both? Is it multiple places? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's being developed this whole time. I think it's everything. I think when we get to 15 and the covenant language is used, I think it's Formally enacted. It's formally enacted, but it's reaching back to grab everything that God has promised to Abraham up until that point.

Right on. Yeah.

Genesis 14 then, verses 1 through 16, Lot gets himself in some trouble, or at least some trouble finds Lot, which seems to, again, happen quite often, and these kings in this Canaanite conflict come against Sodom, and there's battles that take place, and In the course of the fighting, Lot is taken captive, and Abram finds out about it, and Abram goes after Lot, and ends up rescuing Lot. And so this points to some of Abram's military prowess, that Abram was a leader, Abram was a stout guy. And so he rescues Lot. From this is one of those times where if we had like a YouTube recap, like a highlight video from that would be interesting to see what was that? What was that? Like, was it pretty bloody? Yeah, I bet so too. But was Abraham in the back, like commanding the troops or was Abraham up front? Was it like they escaped by the skin of their teeth? What, what happened there? Anyways, creativity, you can think about it. Chapter 14, then verses 17 through 24, uh, Abram meets a new guy named Melchizedek. Now, again, Melchizedek is going to come into play in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews, which we covered in, uh, not too long ago in our daily Bible reading last year, Melchizedek is called the king of Salem being the word for peace, and so he's the king of peace. Melchizedek, his name means king of righteousness. So he is both the king of righteousness and the king of peace. And he is, we learn here, a priest King and Abram comes to him and he blesses Abram. Now the writer of Hebrews is going to make the argument that the superior blesses the inferior. And so here we see something about Melchizedek that Melchizedek is greater than Abram was, and that's significant because we're in the context of God making these outlandish and amazing promises to Abram. And here comes a guy that's greater than Abram. And Abram even recognizes that by paying him a tenth, giving him a tithe against something that the inferior did to the superior. Melchizedek, we don't believe, is the pre incarnate Christ. We don't believe that Melchizedek is an eternal being, although it says that he didn't have father or mother. I think that refers more to his mysterious origins. People didn't really know where he came from. But he is a unique character, certainly, and he shows up here. In the interaction here with Abram, and he will also be the one that is the head, who is the head priest after whose line is the line of Christ, that Jesus is of the priestly line of Melchizedek, not as we're going to see later of Levi or Aaron. Yeah, there's a lot of

questions about Melchizedek that we just, we don't know. We don't know. We, there's so many questions, marks, question marks and ideas, who knows where he comes from? Clearly God had ordained him to be there at just the right time, just the right place. And he, Jesus is now a priest according to, or after the order of Melchizedek. So this is a legitimate figure that God puts there and where does he come

from? Who is he? We don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Chapter 15, then God shows up again, initiates contact with Abraham here and promises him descendants, including an heir. Is it something again, that just is, is jumping out probably just the way that we've been reading things. Thinking back to, uh, Zechariah, when the angel showed up to Zechariah and said, Hey, Zechariah, your wife is going to have a baby. And he says, how's this going to be? And then Zechariah is going to be mute. Right? And then the angel shows up to Mary and says, Hey, Mary, you're going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. And Mary says, how's this going to be? Third Eye blind.

That's third eye blind, right? Is it? I don't Matchbox third eye one of those guys. It, I think it's third line. How's it gonna be if you know that song? Thank you. Yeah. If you don't and you're just totally unsure

of what we're talking about right now, don't sweat it. This is the googly Yeah. That you come for. And if you know that song, take some ibuprofen. 'cause your joints probably hurt right now That's true. But God shows up to Abram and says, Abram, you're gonna have a son. And Abram questions God and, and God is kind to respond and say, this is how it's gonna happen and this is what's gonna happen. And. Yeah, also know that, that it's going to be a rocky road. They're going to go down to Egypt. There's Egypt again. They're going to be in captivity in Egypt for 400 years. And then they're going to come back and take the promised land. When the iniquity of the Amorites had been completed. So Pastor Rod, why does he single out the Amorites here? When there were a lot of other ites in the area that were also rebellious, that God's people were going to be commanded to drive out of the promised land.

Because the Amorites were the ones that God said are, Actually, you know what? I take that back. I don't know how you're bringing them in particular. I don't know. I don't think I know where you're going with that. Why don't you answer that?

I think it's, I'm bringing them up because that's who God's who's listed here, right?

Their evil had not yet been re have reached a level, but what else do you intend to?

I think that's, that should cause us to say, why does he, why does he single them out? Why not talk about the other ites, the Hittites and the Jebusites and the other ites that are there. And the best answer that I found for this is that it's serving as that synecdoche for the entirety of the inhabitants of the land. All right. That this is the Canaanites in general. And he's singling the Amorites out as the figurehead for all of them.

Yeah. Perhaps they were the largest clan and so they're all encompassing. Yes, the whole answer is that God does intend for them to take the land, which would include all the Yites, of whom the Amorites are only part of them. I think it's important too, verse 6 is huge. This is the whole enchilada when it comes to the way that we understand the gospel to function in the life of even the New Testament believer. Abraham is saved in the same way we're saved. Look at verse six, he believed that the Lord and he counted it to him. The Lord counted it to Abraham as righteousness. And that's what the new Testament gospel does for us as well. We believe in his promise to save us from our sin, to be our substitutionary atonement, and God counts that to us. He, he applies that to our accounts as our righteousness, our justification. This is a sweet verse. This is worth

memorizing. Genesis 15, six clutch. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. I would agree with you on that. And then the chapter ends with the Abrahamic covenant, and this is where it's the covenant language that's used specifically. And this is verse 18, on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. And there's this interesting scene where the animals are brought and they're, they're cut open, which is what you would do with a covenant. The word for covenant, I believe it's the Hebrew barit means to cut. And so the animals were cut. They were laid on one side of the other. And then typically what would happen is two parties making the covenant would walk through the middle of the animals that had been cut, that had been sacrificed. And that was basically saying, these two parties were saying, hey, if one of us breaks this, then we're going to end up the way these animals have ended up. Cut me up, bro. Yeah. And what's interesting here is Abraham's asleep. He's losing on the job. And he sees the torch passing between the animals. And so there's been a lot of speculation as to the significance there, but the way i've under always understood It is this covenant is a unilateral covenant meaning this is just god is saying abraham. I'm promising to do this for you That this is an unconditional, is another way to put it, an unconditional covenant. And that's why we would say it still remains in effect today. The Mosaic covenant has been fulfilled in Christ, but the Abrahamic covenant, the promises of the Abrahamic covenant still remain. And that, that even has to do with our eschatology and our trust that man, that land of promise has yet to be finally fulfilled for Israel. That's coming in the future with the new Jerusalem, with, with the reconciling of God's people, the return of God's people together. Abrahamic covenant, unilateral covenant God makes with Abraham. And that impacts the Jew and Gentile alike. Indeed.

One more note here. If I may, verse 13 says that the, that Abraham's people would be afflicted for 400 years. Now we could throw a flag on the play and say that's not technically true. It wasn't 400 years. It was 430 years. But what this tells me is that God is perfectly fine operating in the realm of human vernacular. He, He uses the round number. 400 years. He could have said 430 years and 27 days and 14 hours and 16 minutes and 35 seconds. He doesn't do that. He, He condescends to humanity by using language that we would all say, okay, yes, that's true. So I guess I bring that up only to point out to the fact that God is condescending to us by speaking to us the way that we would understand. It doesn't mean that everything that is said in the Bible is meant to be precisely understood as exactly the thing that we're saying. When we say we take the Bible literally, it doesn't mean we, we take it to mean every single jot and tittle is meant to be understood in a wooden way. We take it to be absolute in the way that it presents itself. So if it's presenting as poetry, we take it as absolute poetry. It's truth. Our job is to figure out what he's trying to say with that truth. If we're reading narrative, we're taking that as truth. A round number, we take it to be a round number and that God is not being inaccurate by saying it's 400 verses 430.

Yeah, context is, is so helpful in that too, to help determine whether, when it's time to be literal, when it's time to be not literal. Now, Stephen does the same thing in Acts

7. He's going to say 400 years as well, I think, or something, something thereabouts. And it just goes to show, like, our understanding of precision is somewhat foreign to the ancient mind. Yeah. We're demanding precision that the Bible is saying that's not the way that they did things. And it doesn't make them any less than us, it just makes them different. And that's an important distinction for us to understand.

Okay, so, quick question here, because it's in the, again, Review mirror, not to keep reaching back to 2024. I know some of you want to leave 2024 behind, but we just finished up revelation. Okay. So millennial kingdom, part of our. Our thousand years, right? A thousand years. We believe it's a literal thousand year kingdom. So why do we look at 400 years and not hold that to the same standard as we hold a thousand years in the book of revelation?

For two reasons. Number one, the scriptures make it evident through the playing out of the old Testament that it was actually 430 years. So we could say this is a round number. God can't make a mistake because he says this we're understanding that God is just using a number that would make sense to Abraham. It doesn't have to be precise to be accurate. There's a difference between accuracy and precision. They're both true, but we're making a distinction. Secondly, We would also say that when it comes to the way that we understand the thousand years, repetition is a big part of that. If we had several understanding, if we had several texts that say 400, 400, 400, then we have to say, okay, maybe there's something more happening here that would cause us to think twice about the number that we're being presented with. But the fact that the thousand years is understood literally on our part is because we take it from the context itself. We think that the best handling of the context is to say this actually is supposed to happen. This is an actual thousand years. But with that said Is it a thousand years in a day? Is it a thousand years in 14 hours? Is it 999 years in 16? I don't know. I don't know. I think God could use a round number and still say, does it? That's a thousand years, right? No one's going to deny that. So I don't know. That'd be my quick two answers. Would you add anything to that?

Only that you're still within the ballpark, 400 to 430. And that's what you're driving at right there at the end there. Nobody's going 400 being like, it's, it's, It's a slavery, it's a metaphorical slavery. They're going to metaphorically be in Egypt for, for whoever knows how long, but it's a metaphorical 400 years. And that's where all joking aside, I respect our Amil brothers, but that's where the difference is. It's either, is it, we're going to be within the ballpark of a thousand years. Give or take, to your point. Is it a hundred years more? Is it fifty years less? Is it whatever? We're in the ballpark of a thousand years there. Nobody's gonna look at that and be like, well, it's just metaphorical. We're still taking a largely literal approach to it, though giving some leeway there on either end.

And understanding it as a, as literal, this is the challenge with people who say that Genesis, the first 11 chapters, are actually meant to be understood as poetry, primarily, and that you take it, It's really hard to draw a clear line. Where does the poetry stop and where does the narrative begin? It's You're slicing and dicing in ways that make me uncomfortable. Yeah. I think the best way to take it is, okay, we're going to take this at face value and assume that God's trying to communicate with us in a way that is poetic to a degree, but it's not meant to be understood as poetry. At least not all of it by and large.

Yeah. Yeah, now that said, hear from us that those that, that hold differing views from us are not idiots. And, and I think that that's unfortunately a realm that we can fall into as Christians too. You often talk about strawmaning and we can believe that just because somebody doesn't believe exactly as we are, clearly they must be malinformed or dumb or. out to defame God or atheist or anything else. And that's not necessarily the case. So I think we need to be charitable as Christians, especially on those things that are the non essentials. These, these are not things that are whether or not somebody is a Christian and certainly eschatology is we would put in the non essential category there. It's important, but it's not essential to whether or not somebody is a believer. And so we need to be charitable towards those that hold different positions to us on that and love. The brothers and sisters in Christ. All right. Hey, let's pray. And then we'll be done with this episode. God, we, uh, we do want to be charitable Christians towards others. And we want to be a unified church. There's too much at stake for us not to be able to look at other churches and say, we've got to push back the darkness together. So help us to do that. Help us to know what the key issues that the issues worth fighting for are, and help us to fight passionately for those. And yet even winsomely for those. God, far be it that our personality or our tone should ever cause somebody a stumbling block to come in to listen to and hear the gospel. from us because of our vitriol or our pridefulness or our selfishness. We want to be, we want to be those that, that adorn the gospel with our lives in the way that we live, in the way that we speak, in the way that we present it to other people. So give us fruitfulness towards that end. Look, thank you for the Abrahamic covenant and the reality that we as Gentiles, those of us that aren't pastorate, that we get to enjoy the blessings that God promised Abraham. Through the fact that his descent at Jesus would be the blessing that would be extended to all the families of the earth and that Includes us and so we thank you for that. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen Amen, keep her in your Bibles and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. Please do bye Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the daily Bible podcast We hope and pray this has been a blessing to you and your time in the word if it has if you would subscribe to This podcast leave a like leave a comment and share it with some friends and family. That would be awesome If you need more information about Compass Bible Church here in North Texas, you can go to compassntx. org. Again, that's compassntx. org and we'll be back with you tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.