Hey folks. Welcome back to another edition, the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. Welcome back. Now, we should probably give them a warning because it's Oh, explicit. PPG is about to cuss. Watch yourself. This is not accurate. No, but tomorrow's episode, they might hear some different sounds. Hey, hey, hey, hey. We, we, it's a surprise. Okay, nevermind. We're, we don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. So you just tune in like normal and you let the things be what they are. Okay, there you go. Fair. You just do what Georgia did and when you get the votes, just keep on going about your normal everyday experience. Ince. Wonder how you're gonna bring that up in this podcast. You just go about your daily life and then let's just call it a conspiracy. If you hear different things on the podcast, it's a conspiracy is what that is. Unbelievable. I know we're late to the game, but. I've been trying to simmer down is all I'm trying to say. You're not doing a good job of it. I am sied. Trust me. This is not where I was days ago when I found out. I'm just saying I need, we need, I need, we all need to put our trust in Christ and not in the government is all I'm gonna say. Yes. Or the news media. Amen. Amen. Yeah. I'm with you on that. All right. We're the same page. We're supposed that at all. Should we just get to the Bible then? I don't wanna rob you up anymore. No, I'm not robbed up. I'm perfectly contented. Okay. All right. Well, unless you have anything you wanna talk about, we are now almost a week into your Bible reading. Yes. Which, good job, we're stoked for you. Yes. We're loving it. We're liking the plan. You're liking the plan. We're all liking the plan. Oh, I did have a question for you. You got a question and I'll let you decide whether or not you want to answer it. Okay. 'cause it's fresh. Okay. There are some churches, okay. Who chose not to do church? as we understand a church, you know, the formal, I drive to the parking lot, I go to the church, I do all the things, and we worship. There's a service and then we exit. Some churches decided that they were going to do what they call a church at home, and that meant that they were going to. They were sending people curriculum or a video, and that video had a worship in it. So there was a worship component and their job was to facilitate something in their homes, and that was what they were gonna do. Talk about that. What do you feel about that? What do you think about that? And let's clarify some, what we think the expectation should be for a church, and whether or not we like that, don't like it, why we don't like it, all those things. I guess it's just principally you'll never find us doing that. I'll say that to start, unless there's a really good reason not to. Like weather, right? Yeah. Like if there's a snowstorm, we, no, no. You'd snow even a snowstorm. Okay. Glad we're having this conversation. Yeah. Okay. Flesh that out. Keep going. I, it's, I would do everything I possibly could to get there. Of course. Here's the thing, man, there is something that takes place when the church gathers together corporately once a week to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and to sit under the preaching and teaching of God's word and to fellowship and through prayer and encouragement and building one another up, string one another up. There's something intangible that takes place in that, and I think the intentional fracturing of that. By sending everybody out to their community groups or their small groups or whatever it was. I think that you lose something that's inherently purposeful behind what church actually is. So I don't you add to that and this isn't everybody's reasoning across the board who did this, but I know a lot of them that I saw said, we want to give our staff a week off, and so we're gonna let them be at home with their families and things like that. Listen. If we get large enough that our staff is running, everybody can have that Sunday off. I'm still gonna show up and preach like, this is church. I, I don't, yeah, we, we won't do this. This is not something that fits in my wheelhouse for what I believe is right or what I believe should take place in the church. Those pastors and elders made a choice and they made a choice for their church, their body. But it's not a choice that I clearly would make. You have some strong feelings about this. Where would you obviously it seems like you're saying that they can do that. You're saying that, hey, that's the choice that they made, right? That's they're gonna stand before the Lord for that and you'll stand before the Lord for your decisions that you're making. Right. If you were to help us develop a biblical theology about church and church attendance, in fact, I know that you have a series coming up soon Yep. About some of these things. Maybe you can give us a the sample taste tease about some of those things? Yeah, the church is called to the theia, the called out ones. And from the very beginning, and this is where we can look at different passages of scripture, for example, Hebrews 10 that we should not neglect meeting together, which is our memory verse 10, 24 and 25 for January. As is the habit of some, but to stir one another up towards loving g dets. And you could argue, well, they're doing that, they're meeting in small groups and they're still meeting together and they're stirring one another up. But I believe that the heart behind that, as we see through even the interpretation that is buoyed by some of looking at church history, which, and tradition, which I don't think we can dismiss outright. Is it as authoritative as scripture? No. But does it help us understand what the intent is behind it? I think it does. I think the intent is the church gathers together corporately. Now in the New Testament times, they would gather in house churches. That was church, that's what it was. In our era, in, at our time, we don't have the same setup to argue that a church is made up of a bunch of house churches represented by all the families they gather together on the weekend. I don't think that's true. The church is a body of believers that gather together under pastoral authority and direction, week in and week out for the worship of Christ, the exaltation of Christ and the observance of the two ordinances, which don't have to take place weekly. In fact, we know that we don't observe either of them weekly, but that pastoral authority, that gathering together and that's what I think is being forfeited by these churches that are choosing to shut their doors on the last day of the year and say, go meet in your community groups or go do church by yourself at home, with your family. That's not the biblical picture of a church. A church is the CLE of the called out ones coming together. Brothers and sisters in Christ that are from all kinds of different backgrounds and everything else together. Together under the preaching of the word, which is done corporately together as the body. Okay, that sounds good. Okay. Genesis 15 through 17 is our Old Testament reading. And then New Testament we are in the rest of Matthew chapter five. So Genesis 15 through 17 is Abraham. Okay. And that's the story for, like you said a couple episodes ago. A lot of the rest of Genesis, not all of it, but a lot of it is still gonna focus in on Abraham. Chapter 15 is the Abrahamic. Covenant. This is significant. This is the promise that God is making to Abraham again of land, seed, and blessing, that he's going to be the one that is going to be the progenitor of, ultimately the one that is gonna be the blessing to the whole earth. This is the covenant that we believe is still in, in action. This is an unconditional covenant that God makes with Abraham. Meaning Abraham is a passive party in this. God is the one doing this. He's the one that is committing to this. And Abraham is the one that is, is the passive recipient of this. And by extension, all of Abraham's offspring this has not yet fully been fulfilled. We believe that there's a future coming when this will be ultimately fulfilled. The millennial kingdom is gonna be the time when Israel receives the land that is promised here in the Abrahamic covenant. The blessing of the one who is gonna be the blessing to all the nations of the earth. The coming of Jesus. We've seen part one of that, but there's gonna be part two of that with the return of Christ. So the Abrahamic covenant is a massively significant chapter. You mentioned Genesis chapter three is a huge chapter in the Bible. Genesis chapter 15, also huge chapter in the Bible that undergirds so much of what we read from this point forward. Chapter 16. Then we get into RAI and Hagar, and this is another low point in Abraham's life. So again, we've got the high point of the call of Abraham in chapter 12. And then you've got the low point there of Abraham and Sarai when they're in Egypt. Then you've got another high point of the Abraham at Covenant. Then you've got another low point here with. Sariah and Abraham, where Sariah goes to Abraham. And remember in Genesis chapter 11, it mentioned that Sariah was barren. And so God has promised Abraham these offspring and Sariah's gonna go to Abraham and say I'm barren. You can't have children by me. And so here's my handmaiden. Hagar. Why don't you have offspring by her now? We're gonna look at this and say, look, polygamy. This is multiple wives or multiple, partners here. What gives, well, God is not condoning this at all. In fact, this is not a good thing that happens here. This is a bad thing that happens here. Abraham listens to his wife again. You've got a problem there. Adam and Eve. You've got Abraham and Saray here. Abraham listens to his wife, takes Hagar in and has an a child by Hagar who is going to become. Ishmael this is a massive problem that you may not realize it, but you're still dealing with the ramifications of this problem today because from Ishmael is going to come the entire descendants of the Islamic people, and so Ishmael is the one that they trace back to be the son of the promise. We're gonna read about Isaac in a couple chapters here. Ishmael is the one that, that say is the true son of the promise. Isaac. And so this is a dividing line. This is where the biblical story and the the Quran, where they diverge is at this point and the Muslim people look at Ishmael as the son of the promise instead of Isaac. This is a bad situation and this was wrong for Sariah to do. This is wrong for Abraham to do. And it's a bad situation that emerges from this. And I think it all emerges from verse two, where Abraham listens to the voice of Sariah Abraham. Instead of leading and doing what God calls him to do, he listens and he follows the suggestion, the leadership of Sariah in this point. And because of that, all of human history has struggled under the weight of the false religion called Islam. And therefore, what we have here is a good example. God blesses him and God endorses, at least in some measure. Abraham's prayer that he would bless Ishmael. And that's a good thing. God is not responsible for evil, but God does, again, he condescends and he, I would wanna say he permits it, but he works with the imperfections of our human faith. And if anything, what you should see in Abraham's life is the way that God interacts with his people. He loves his people, cares for his people. We can look at Abraham's life and say, man, what a boneheaded move, because we're looking at it from our view, our vantage. We have all of the human history. Biblical history written out for us but let's. Before we throw stones from our glass house, let's be careful and recognize that we probably would've done a much better job. Yeah, we have a lot more revelation to work with, and we ought to see Abraham's life as a lesson for us to learn from, but not necessarily to harshly judge and excoriate, because, oh man, if I were there, I would've done it differently. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that's fair. Absolutely. In chapter 17, then we get the the promise has been made. The covenant has been made with Abraham. This is what is going to happen. God has said, I've promised to do these things. But now God is gonna say, there, there needs to be a sign of the covenant, something that is gonna show that you're part of my covenant people. And that's gonna be given. How about a laminated card? Chapter 17? Yeah. Yeah. A Letterman's jacket. Something QR code. Yeah, just something easy. Very non-committal. Right. Right. Instead, God says, no, we're gonna do circumcision. And oof. Without getting into too much graphic detail, I think one of the reasons is the concept of the promise of the seed I think is there's a connection here. And that's why this is the sign that God gives Abraham to be the sign of the covenant that God is gonna make with him. And so Abraham has to go through this and from this point forward, Jewish males are gonna have to go through this and the law is gonna eventually say, this is gonna take place. Eight days after birth because they're gonna get smart and be like, wait, hey, we should do this before they can remember what happens. Mm-hmm. But at this point in time, this is the sign that God gives to Abraham. Notice also between chapter 16 and 17 he was, Abraham was 86 years old, chapter 17. He's 99. Yeah. So this is more than a decade later. And Abraham does it. He does this. Yeah. He does this to himself, does it to his family. This is before I'm sure they had some kind of local anesthesia, maybe in the form of some alcoholic beverage. Perhaps a hard rock that they just close your eyes, Abram, that is gonna hurt. I just, oh, he is a man of faith and so here you go. You have both the very low lights, but you also some really sweet highlights. Abraham is 99 years old when he was circums. In the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael's son was 13 years old who was also circumcised, and that very day, Abraham does it. So he's a man of action. He's a man of faith. Granted, is he making some boneheaded moves here and there? Yes. But God uses this. Let's just remind you, it's faith that God honors. Now granted, we don't want an ignorant faith. We shouldn't be given that we have a whole corpus of. Information and tools to learn from. But God does honor faith and decisions that are by faith, out of love for him and love for his people are some decisions that I think God can use. Yep. One thing that we want to note here as well in chapter 17 is Isaac is promised to Abraham in this chapter, so God tells. Abraham, I have told you it's not gonna be through Ishmael, but instead it's gonna be through another son that you're gonna have, and this is gonna come through Isaac. And Isaac is the one that's gonna be the son of Promise. And again, Abraham please for Ishmael. And God says, no I'm not gonna do this. And to your point, he does say that, I'll bless you Ishmael but God doubles down and says, no, it's gonna be through Isaac. I've got another plan, and this is gonna be the plan for you. Hmm. And it's not gonna happen right away. Right. Let's flip over to our New Testament reading and we can finish up with the rest of Matthew chapter five. So we left off talking about anger in yesterday's edition. We talked about the fact that the law was fulfilled, but not abrogated, not set aside in the problem of anger being something that, hey, this is a me measure of degree, but. The sin can still be sin there. He's gonna deal with the same thing here, with the issue of lust. And he's gonna say, you've heard it say, do not commit adultery. But then she's gonna say, if anyone looks with lustful intent at a woman or, I don't want to make this only a male issue, especially in today's society or a woman at a man then they've already committed adultery with that person in their hearts. And so, again, Jesus has pointed to the fact that this is a heart issue and this is meant to wreck his listeners. This is meant to cause all of his listeners who are self. Self-righteous and feeling like they're good enough or they're godly enough, especially the religious leaders of the day, to just be wrecked to say, this indicts me. I'm guilty. So that they will realize that's why he came. And so that they will realize that he came not for the healthy, but for the sick. Because they have to realize their sickness. And so Jesus is giving all of these different difficult standards and admonitions and teachings including on divorce and what's permissible when it comes to divorce on taking an oath and whether or not you should take an oath, and how serious our words can be in what we promise and vow to God on how we treat those who mistreat us, either through retaliation or through just our attitude towards our enemies in general. Jesus continues to raise the bar and raise the bar, and raise the bar, and raise the bar for everybody listening so that they would say, how can anybody live perfectly in this way? And the answer is, well you can't. You can't, not that you shouldn't try, but you can't. Actually do it not apart from his power, not apart from his enabling grace by his spirit and those things. And of course we're looking at this before Jesus sends to the cross and before he sends the spirit. So we're trying to put the pieces together. And I guess one of the important features of the Sermon on the Mount is let me encourage you not to read the Sermon on the Mount in an isolated way. It's good to read it for what it is, but also read it in the context of the whole of scripture. You, you can't look at this and say, I'm gonna, I guess sometimes Christians will use this as a means or an encouragement for passivism. Like we don't believe in police, we don't believe in military. We don't wanna fight because we don't think that's right. Jesus said, turn the other cheek. And that's true. Jesus does say that. But he doesn't say that that's what the government should do. In fact, Jesus told his disciples, carry a sword, and they said, well, we have two swords here. And he says, that's enough. He's not saying like every Christian should be armed and dangerous. He's saying there is a right time and a place to defend oneself. There's wisdom there. So take Jesus' words for what they are, but also read it in the context of everything else that you know about what Jesus said and also his disciples. A lot of people will look at the red letters in the gospels and say, these are the words that really, really matter, but what's wrong with that? It elevates the words of Christ over the words of the rest of scripture as though the rest of scripture is not also from God. And so we have to understand that the words in red are red because of an editor's decision. And there's even disagreement, for example, John chapter three. Where does the words of Jesus begin? Where do they stop the word John's Begin. Yeah. Yeah. But all the scriptures, God breathe. We just read about that at the end of last year, second of three 16, all scriptures God breathe. And if that's true, then they all are equally authoritative across the board. That's very helpful. Okay. A modern issue, and let's go to the ancient text to see if we can address some of these things. Today, You talk about a man having lustful desires for this person or that person, male or female. What about when the attraction goes beyond? Humans, does Jesus word still apply? And if so, how? Beyond humans. Okay. So if the attraction is up to an object Yeah. Or even to, here's another modern example, an AI persona. I think the lust is the issue there. And it's an unhealthy craving for something that is prohibited by God, something that's not yours. Specifically here we're dealing with in the area of the sexual relationship, and God has given a wife to a man to be the source of satisfaction for that and the man to the wife for the same reason. So to look outside that in any way, shape, or form is to transgress what God has designed and his intentions. And that's where the sin comes in. So would you say then that someone who so I don't wanna make fun of her, but the woman who married the Eiffel Tower, yes. She has a physical, it's emotional, I'm sure, first and foremost, but then there's also a relational and perhaps a physical attraction to that thing. Yeah. Is that sin? Yeah. Yeah. I think there's probably some other mental issues that are going on there, and I don't mean that tongue in cheek. I mean, seriously. I think there's probably some other issues going on with that person that are. Producing such desires, but they're perverted desires. They're not desires in keeping with what God's design is. God's design for marriage, God's design for attraction is for a man to be attracted to a woman and a woman to be attracted to a man. And anytime you leave, those bounds then you're transgressing God's design. So yes, I would say it is. So a young man or woman who is spending a lot of time with an AI chat agent and there's now emotional bonds and those emotional bonds are becoming bigger and more excited. Yeah. And there's an emotional attachment turning into a physical longing. Is that sin? Yes. Are we to understand that differently? If so, how? What are the nuances or the qualifications for those things? Yes it's sin. 'cause that AI agent is not a human being. It's not. We talked about the Imago Day a few days ago, that which is creating the image of God in that creation account says for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. You cannot become one flesh with an AI agent. It's not a possibility, and I know that there are much more grand perversions that we don't need to get into on the podcast as a result of that. But still, unless it's too God-breathed. Individuals, two individuals with the life force of God within them that are coming together as male and female then you don't have something that's in keeping with God's design. Yeah, that's helpful. I remember reading Christopher Yuan's book. He said something catchy and pithy. Like, God doesn't want heterosexuality or homosexuality. He wants holy sexuality. Yeah. Which I, okay. Yeah. You wanna quibble with that, but I think the idea is what you're getting at is there's only one defined prescribed means of Right. Physical expression. In God's design for humanity and any other kind of expression, even if it is something that feels normal, natural, maybe innate to your nature. We have disordered desires. Yes. And every person has that Christian. And on our job as Christians is to identify those disorder desires and to kill them. Yes. They have to be put to death because there's only one true expression. Okay. So talk to those people then. I don't wanna assume that everyone is listening is. On the same page. Maybe they're feeling those tugs and those yearnings to some kind of disordered desire for whatever. Fill in the blank. Yeah. Talk to that person, help them work through some of those things. If you're a out there listening to that, you're a Christian, I would say this is part of our job as Christians, one of the, part of the fruit of the spirit is the fruit of self-control. Part of the. Reality of self-control is saying no to ourselves and saying no to our sinful desires and urges. And so if you have those desires and urges, I think recognizing and identifying them as sinful and as perversions of what God's design is important. And then saying, okay, so what do I need to do and how do I need to fight that? And if that means you need to bring other people into that battle that can help you with that, then do that. Seek counsel, seek guidance, seek accountability, whatever that looks like for you. But understand the gravity of what's at stake here, because this is something that isn't in keeping with God's will. And does need to be put off. So, I wouldn't give ground to this. It's important to say no to our flesh at the earliest signs of this. And so cut off the hand, even as Jesus says here in, in the Sermon on the mount, gouge out the eye, cut off the hand, throw it out away from you. Treat these things seriously because of the threat that can be to your spiritual wellbeing. When you say gouge these things out, cut 'em off. Are you, I know in, in church history people had. Taking this quite literally. Yeah. Or do you intend to communicate something akin to that? What are you wanting us to do? No, and Jesus didn't either. Because he would've been walking around with a bunch of disciples without hands and without eyes that would've been grotesque. This is a metaphor that he's using for the treat it that radically treat it such that if do whatever it takes. Was short of actually physically harming the body because that's a crime, that's a sin against your body, right? Yeah. To mutilate the body is a sin against the body. So Jesus wouldn't be telling us to sin by mutilating our bodies. Rather, he's saying, Hey, treat sin seriously. Yeah and the right hand, the right eye, the right side of the body was the clean side. It was the favored side. You think about Jesus being at the right hand of the Father. So I wonder if there's. Something like whatever's precious to you, be willing to get rid of whatever's precious. Yeah. Even if it's undignifying, in order for you to fight sin, it is that serious. Yeah. And so if you are struggling with these things one way or another, I mean it, confess it to the Lord. Deal severely with your sin. Yeah. Because Jesus would say it's worth it. Yep. Okay. I have a lot more questions, but I think that's probably a good place to stop. Awesome. Let's pray. God, we thank you for the promise that you made through Abraham, that he would have a son, Isaac, and that through that son would come the ultimate descendants that would lead to Jesus. That is the reason why we're here. The reason why we have your Bible, the word of God, the reason why we gather as a church week in and week out is because of Christ. And so we thank you that your plan has been in view from the very beginning. Even when you set out to, to create the world, you knew what you were doing. All along and you've led us to this point. And so God, we are thankful for that. Thankful that we get to know Christ, that we live when we live, and can have the riches of your word in our hands, that we can trust you, that we can know the gospel, that we can set ourselves to follow Jesus with all that we are. And so I pray that we would do that as a church. In Jesus name, amen. Hey, y'all, keep reading those Bibles. Stay on track. Don't grow discouraged. Don't give up. Keep doing it. It's so good what you're doing and we can't wait to be back with you again on another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then. Bye.

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