Come back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hope you're all doing well. Yes, we do. We do hope you are all doing well. Yeah, we we just came off, we didn't talk about it. I guess you and Lewis mentioned it briefly the other day, but we had the biblical counseling intensive last weekend. It was awesome. It was a big win for our church. Pastor Lucas Pace came out and talked to us about the importance of knowing how to handle God's word. One of the things he kept saying is. What if you're in Christ, if you're a believer to one extent or another, you are a biblical counselor, that's all of us because it's taking God's word and it's bringing it to bear on people's lives. So that was such an awesome time. He's coming back out in April, and so if you weren't able to make that one, but you wanna join us again in April? April 17th through the 19th, you can mark your calendars for that. Should be a good. Good time with him. I mentioned it during the prayer yesterday, but Pastor Rod is out. He's on vacation and so he's getting some time with his family, and so you can pray for him as he's away doing that. But yeah we are here. And we're rolling. Are you taking any time off coming up, pastor Mark? I am. I am at the end of January. Yeah. I'm going to Colorado. My sister's getting married, so Yes. That's awesome. It's very exciting. You happen to be doing the wedding. We'll see if they'll let me do it when we actually show up. Okay. But yeah, no, that is the plan. I was honored to be asked to do it. Yeah. So, I'm excited to do that. That'll be fun. Why do we, as the church. Value pastors doing weddings because marriage is before God and created by God and an institution of God. I think we can so easily think of marriage as the marriage license that you get from the state. Right? And I, it's important, I think it's good that the state recognizes marriage and that there's a license that those are good things, right? That's actually not what true marriage is defined by. It's helpful, but true marriage is before God, right? And so it is appropriate that a pastor is the one who officiates that. What about man? My best friend's getting married. My brother's getting married, and he said, Hey, I want you to go online and get ordained into my wedding. I would generally caution against that. I'm, I think you need to go case by case, but I'm gonna generally caution against that because I do think that, the ripe thing is to have pastors, pastors, elders who are, had the hands laid on by the church carrying out that thing. And again, I'm gonna just say that as a general statement, but I do think that would, that's the best case scenario. Yeah. Now we would differ from. I believe the Catholic church, it is not an ordinance, but what do they call their means of grace? Man? Sacrament. Sacrament. They call it a sacrament. Yes. Right. It's a way that, that grace is conveyed by God, right through the act of marriage. We would differ from them in that we believe the two ordinances of the church, which we call them ordinances, not sacraments, would be baptism and the Lord's Supper. Communion. So excluding marriage different than Yeah. Yeah. We're for marriage. And I'm with you. Let me just say this. If you have a family member and you're like, man I would love my family member to be involved in my wedding. I've overseen ceremonies before where I've been the one to. To kind of pronounce them husband and wife and even deliver the charge. But I've had family members involved in various other aspects of the marriage and even there's, I think it's appropriate for a family member to come up and give the charge if they're able to do that. The sermonette is what I mean by charge there. The sermon the charge to a couple. But I do think having a pastor be the one that is, is doing the official ordaining is. Of them as husband and wife is important because you're right, it is before the Lord. That is number one. Marriage is a godde defined institution, not a state defined institution. Mm-hmm. We honor the state right now because we should, we're called to the state's not asking us to do anything that, that we shouldn't do. But, I could see a scenario down the road where if. The, our nation comes to us and says, you have to marry anyone who shows up through your doors as a church. And if you don't, then we're gonna shut you down. Oh, listen, we don't have to do marriages by the state. Right. We can still, as a church, back off that and say, well, we're not gonna do state defined marriage, but we're still gonna marry people. We're gonna marry people Biblical. Because it's really before the eyes of God that matters. Yeah. Because if you go to another country, like we've got people that we know that are gonna go and be missionaries, let's say in a third world country somewhere. Guess who? They're not filing a marriage license with the United States government. But if there's two people that get saved on the mission field and they want to get married and that. Missionaries stands up and officiates that wedding. They're married in the eyes of God. Yeah. It has nothing to do with Uncle Sam. It has everything to do with the Lord. So I think you're right on that. Having a pastor involved in that, being a part of the church is such an important thing. Lemme throw you a curve ball. Okay. Let's say that you. Did a courthouse wedding. Yes. And your pastor wasn't there, right? Are you not married? You are, you have gone through the process not biblically speaking legally you're married. Yes. I would still say. I think it, it would be helpful to involve the church in that. Yeah. And now if you're sitting there going, well that was 40 years ago. Yeah. You really want me to have a wedding with the church? Maybe do a recommitment where you are vowing before the Lord. Because that's the thing. Right. And I tell this to all of the couples that I do a wedding for is yes, your friends and family are here. Yes. Your bridesmaids and groomsmen are up here. Yes. I'm standing here before you as you do this, but the most important thing right now is you are vowing before the Lord. Right and promising before him that this is how you're gonna love one another till death do you part. So I would say yeah, do a re renewal of your vows and have the pastor show up. And if you want that in your living room, if you want it in the pastor's office. I've done weddings in my office. It doesn't have to be this grand affair, but I think there's something to that because marriage is god's, it belongs to him. It doesn't belong to this state. It's not about taxes, it's not about any of that. Marriage is God's. Yeah. And it can be so easy to confuse those two things. Yeah. Again, because of the way the world we live in the. But it's important not to. Yes, yes. Well, let's jump into Genesis, I believe 36 through 37. That's right. Just two chapters, then another A plus. Okay. 36 through 37. Man. Chapter 36 is not one of those chapters that you're gonna be like, you know what my favorite chapter of the Bible is? It's Genesis 36. No, it's there and it's good and it's wise for us to pay attention to. And so, what this is it's closing the book on Jacob and Esau. It's closing the book on Esau, at least not Jacob, but it's closing the book on Esau. And this is through the list of his descendants. It's the genealogy of Esau. You'll note there in chapter 36, verse eight. So Esau settled in the hill country of Sr. And then it says in parentheses for us, Esau is Edem. There it is. That's where the Bible is telling us that the Edomites are the ones that come from Esau. So this is really there. Their records, their lineage here. Verse 31. What's interesting here is the Edomites, the descendants of Esau. Produce kings before Israel does. And so you've got Jacob and Esau sons of Abraham there sons of Isaac and they're going to produce kings before Esau is gonna produce kings before Jacob is gonna produce kings, which is fascinating. And yet the ultimate king, the king of kings, is gonna come from Jacob's line, not Esau's line, but this is kind of a shifting or a closing of the book on Esau here will still interact obviously with his descendants a lot in the pages of the rest of the Old Testament. But this, as far as Esau is concerned. He's gonna show back up at the death of his father. Although, no, that's already taking place. That's, yeah. That's verse And I think it is also the wrap up of Isaac. In the sense that the story of the New Testament will continue with the lineage of Jacob. Yes. But Isaac passes away in the last few verses of chapter 35. And so we are kind of wrapping up Esau to your point here. Yeah. But also don't miss base math shows back up, which is. Lewis told me off air that he is committing to naming his first kid base math base. 'cause we talked about that a few episodes back, and he's committed to that. So. Okay. Everybody hold him to that. All right. Hold him to that shea base math. There you go. Yeah, man I guess we didn't mention that, but Isaac kind of has an ignominious end. There's not much like he,, it's like, oh, you're still alive. He breathed his last. Yeah. Then he died. Yeah. And his death is really just kind of there to get Jacob and Esau back together. Yeah. Yeah. What an interesting end to Isaac's life there. Isaac's always fascinating to me because he gets way less screen time uhhuh than Abraham or Jacob. It's just interesting. He does get time, obviously, but even evidenced here he is I don't know. Yeah. Second tier. Yeah, tier. I don't know. I don't know how to put it, but it is interesting. The scene shifts in chapter 37 and for the rest of the book, there's really one figure that's at the center of it, and that is the figure of Joseph. So, the first 36 chapters of Genesis deal with all of these different patriarchs you go through. Abraham, you go through Isaac, you go through Jacob, you go and then we get here and here's Joseph. And Joseph gets, what does that end up Pastor Mark Gere? The mathematician between us is this 13 chapters that are 14 chapters. 13 chapters, yeah. Good. Devoted to Joseph. B Joseph b plus. Thanks man. Bees get degrees. Well it's interesting too that Joseph is not in the line of Christ, right. Ultimately. Right. It's interesting that he now gets so much, I use the word already of screen time. Yeah. To the fact that even as a kid, I thought that he was in the lineage of Christ. Yeah. But he gets a lot of time here and this is the first time we're getting away from somebody who is. Outside of the direct line of Christ, which is interesting. Right. It's enigmatic. 'cause you would think this would be Judah. Mm-hmm. You would think this would be somebody like that, that he would, that God Ordains and God could have done that. He could have. And yet he didn't do that. But chapter 37 it's one of the most familiar chapters in the Bible. It's been turned into a musical, Joseph, in the. Technicolor Dream Code? I don't know. I haven't seen that musical, but I assume it's about this. Veggie Tails episodes. Veggie tails. Oh yeah. You guys talked about veggie tales. I have seen veggie tails by the way. So just to clear that up. There's so much in chapter 37 and yet it's so familiar at the same time. I think it's worth. Noting a couple things. I don't know that it was the wisest move of Joseph to share his dreams with his brothers and his dad. In fact, he's kind of chastised from his dad for doing this. And so especially after the first one, maybe, yeah, you can give Joseph a pass for sharing the first dream with his brothers. But then the second one, it's like piling on. Yeah. But dreams are gonna be. A massive part of Joseph's story. And so it starts with dreams. It's gonna continue with dreams as he's gonna wind up his story is gonna develop later on. I won't spoil or alert there, but man, his brothers hate him. Sure do. And I couldn't help but think of the Sermon on the Mount when in verse 18 it said they saw him from a farm before he came here. They conspired against him to kill him. Mm-hmm. That murderous hatred of the heart. Mm-hmm. So even though they're not gonna kill him, they're guilty of that murderous intent right here in Matthew chapter or in Genesis chapter 37 of that Matthew five hatred there. Yeah. And it begins with the sin of jealousy, right? We see that they're jealous of him and that sin of jealousy is what is ultimately gonna lead to their next. Outward act of, yeah, the sin of murder. And again, to your, you bring back in the New Testament, right? What do we see Jesus say? Right. If you don't like your brother or sister Yeah. In Christ, what is that, I'm paraphrasing, right? But that is, yeah. That's murder, right? Yeah. And so. What's happening here is that they, in some sense have already murdered their brother with that jealousy in their hearts. And then that does lead to the outward act of murder. The sin of murder as we see here, or the attempted murder. Yeah. There's not a lot of good guys in Jacob's lineage here. Ruben. Does intervene here and say, Hey let's not kill him. But then he says let's go ahead and just sell him, which is not much better for like 600 bucks. Yeah. So before we are like, oh look, Ruben, Ruben is a good dude. Or you've got, Judah here and I think Judah says. Yeah, well, let's do that. And then it says they wanted to come back and deliver him, and we might look at Judah and be like, oh, look, Judah. And granted later on in the story of Joseph, we see Judah really step up. Yes, yes. I can't help but be cynical here and think there's a little bit of greed there because Judah wants to be the hero for his dad and bringing Joseph back because Joseph's the loved one. And so Judah could be like, oh, look, dad, I saved Joseph. Yeah. I think that is the implication there. Yeah, that that's my thought process. But that's not what happens. You know the story. Joseph's gonna be sold to these ishmaelite, which is interesting because Ishmael is back on the scene here. His descendants at least. And they're gonna end up getting him to the Midianites and the Midianites are then gonna take him and sell him to Farrah's household. Yeah. And. Pharaoh's household is in Egypt, which is a coif first's household, I should say that. Yeah, that's true. I'm jumping again a little bit, but in, in Egypt, you were saying in Egypt, which is a recurring theme don't miss that, right? It's a recurring theme that is intentional by God. You can see his authorship of history in these recurring themes, and at the very least when you see God. Making these circles that seem to be just happenstance, attribute that to him. Yeah. Recognize that he is the author of these things he's intending. Even the simple fact that the Midianites take. Joseph to Egypt of all places. Yeah. He is sovereignly overseeing that and man, his Joseph's brothers, there's no, no way around it. They're cruel. They're cruel. They are. Because they go back and they tell their dad that he's been murdered by an animal and they give him this robe dipped in blood and the father is weeping in mourning, and he's broken over this. And it says in verse 35, all his sons and his daughters rose up to comfort him. Like how cruel and twisted do you have to be to watch him just broken over the death of his son? You're sitting there trying to comfort him when you know all along exactly what's happened. This is a specific kind of cruelty that's taken place here and it's an opportunity. We've already mentioned Reuben and Judah. Why aren't they making the truth clear here? Right. Right. They're not. They could've, they could've, this would've been the chance to do it. And they're not. And so I think we're right to, to see the condemnation of even those two characters. Yeah. Even at the end of this chapter. Now, I don't know what Guru would've done because there's no, there was no find, my Joseph didn't have his iPhone on him, so he's gone for all their thinking at this point. There's no DNA forensics. Yeah. They're not finding him. They sold him to a band of traveling Ishmail lights. He's gone. Gone. Yeah. And so for his brothers, his brothers are literally thinking, we're done with Joseph. We're never gonna see this guy again. Yeah. Little do they know. Yeah. Spoiler alert. Stay tuned. Let's jump over to the New Testament, Matthew 12, one through 21, Matthew 12, one through 21. And so here we find the opposition against Jesus, increasing the Pharisees you guys have already talked about this. The Pharisees are not big fans of Jesus. Nope. They do not like him and he's kind of ruining a lot for them, not making them look super good. And so here we find Jesus walking through the grain fields and it, the note here on a Sabbath is important. What the disciples are doing, they're walking through, they're picking off a head of grain and they're rubbing it in their fingers, and they're eating the kernels of the grain. 'cause they're hungry. You think, well, what's the big deal? Well, according to the law Deuteronomy 2325 harvesting was against the law in the Old Testament. Now, the Bara leaders of Israel, all the way back in the Old Testament, the oral law that was developed, the oral law was in addition to the written law, hence the oral law. And there were all sorts of commandments that were meant to expound upon what was. Permissible what was not permissible. In fact, a lot of the oral law was intended to help the Jewish people understand what was meant by the prohibitions. Do not work on the Sabbath. Do not harvest. Okay, well, what constitutes harvesting? Can I go out and pick a stock of wheat? Is that okay? Can I pick two? Where's the limit? The rabbis said the limit is, you can't even pluck the head of grain off the stock now. We read that and we think, wow, that's insanely legalistic. I think the heart behind the oral law initially was good. Mm-hmm. Because I think they were trying to say, let's avoid any appearance of evil at all. We want to safeguard this as much as possible as to say, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna specify this so that you know what it is to hit the target. Now the Jewish leaders are gonna take that oral law and they're gonna come to Jesus and say, your disciples are breaking the law. The thing is. They weren't actually breaking the written law. This is what the interpretation of the written law was, that they were plucking these heads of grain and harvesting, so to speak, the kernels and eating them Still, Jesus is gonna say, you're missing the boat, you're missing the point. The point was not. That you as humans, would be a slave to the Sabbath, such that you would starve on the Sabbath, but rather the Sabbath is for rest. The Sabbath is for you to be reminded of your finitude, to be reminded that you're created. And if God rested from his creative activity, you need to rest on a weekly basis too. So Jesus uses that time to put them in place and confront them. What's fascinating to me is even in 2026, there's still some of these things going on with. Jewish communities even today. Oh yeah. In New York City there is a wire that goes across the whole city. And the purpose of this wire is to allow Jews to leave their home because everything is connected because of one wire that goes across the city. It's the perimeter. They can't go beyond that scope. If you live within the confines of that wire you're safe. Right, right. And so even to this day. Even to this day there's things that, that the Jewish people do that are very much very much akin to the accusations that they're throwing at Jesus. Well, there's things that they're doing that they would condemn Jesus for doing in a similar way. But I think we have to be careful too, that we don't just look at the Jewish people today and say, oh, look how silly that is. It is silly in one sense, but we have to be really careful that we don't. Make up these sort of rules for ourselves and find ourselves righteous in a similar way. And it is silly when we create methods and rules that are designed to, to save ourselves. Of course they don't when we have Christ. When we have Christ. So anyways, I just find that fascinating. A little bit of an aside, but I find it fascinating. Yeah. And. Look, rest is good and it, the Sabbath is for us now we don't, we're not saur in the sense that we don't say, Hey, you can't do any work on a specific day during the week. But finding rest is a good thing because it the whole. Purpose of the Sabbath was, it was an expression of a way for us to worship God by reminding ourselves we're not him. Yep. In fact, back in, in John's gospel in John chapter five, Jesus is gonna be confronted in a different scene by the Pharisees for doing work on a Sabbath. And Jesus is gonna say, there, he's gonna say, Mike. Father is working until now and I am working to Jesus or God the Father re rested from his creative activity, not from all of his activity. God is never not working, otherwise we cease to exist. And so Jesus is saying, I am God. So I'm gonna work on the Sabbath. You and I aren't God. And so for us to have periods of rest, times of rest, vacations, whatever it is a good thing. 'cause it's a way for us to worship God. That's the point of a Sabbath. Yeah. We waste so much time as Christians arguing, well, should we have the Sabbath today? Should we not have the Sabbath today? Right. Do we call it that? Do we not call it that? Listen. You need to rest and you need to have a period of time built into your week on a weekly basis where you say, I need to recharge because I'm a creator being and God is the creator. I'm not him and I depend upon what he's given me. Sleep, rest, disengagement, whatever I need that. And that's trusting God, right? That's trusting that he is working and that his work is sufficient, even in practical ways to care for you, right? That is an expression of the trust of God. I think of the people in the Old Testament and the year of Sabbath when they were supposed to rest their fields. I mean, that is, yeah, I didn't do that. But that's an ultimate in, at least in that context, an ultimate example of a trust that you would have in God to provide, when you don't plant. That really requires believing that God is gonna take care of you and work on your behalf even when you're not able to. Yeah. There, there's another scene right after here where you get the same situation. It's just a different scene, different picture here. And this time it's a man with a withered hand who is a plant, I think from the Pharisees, and Jesus looks at them and he is going to end up. Healing this man, and he does so as he says, which one of you if is, has a sheep who falls into a pit on the Sabbath will not take it out. And then he says, how much more value is the man than the sheep? In other accounts of this, it says Jesus was actually angry with them. He looked around at them angry over their hardheartedness, and again, he's saying, you, you're missing the point. The point is not to suffer for people to suffer for. The good of the law, rather. The point is that the law is there for the good of the people and and so he heals him. And then the, our reading, at least today, ends with this zoom in on Jesus. And it says there in verse 15, he withdrew from there and many followed him and he healed them all and ordered them not to make himself known. Why? Because it was not yet his hour. That's what John often says. Matthew being a Jewish author, he appeals back to Isaiah. In Isaiah, it says there in Isaiah 42, 1 through three, which is the citation here, behold my servant, whom I have chosen my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. He goes on. He says He's not gonna quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets a bruised read. He will not break. In other words, Jesus wasn't here to continue to escalate things until, what does it say there? Till he brings justice to victory. Verse 20 in his name, the Gentiles will hope so until that time when he's gonna bring justice to victory, which is gonna take place through the cross. He's not here to continue to pick fights with the Pharisees. So that's why he's withdrawing and that's why he's also telling the people that he's doing all these miracles with, Hey, don't go blab about this everywhere you go, because it wasn't yet his hour to go head to head with the enemy. Yeah. What an amazing thing, right? That. The Gentiles will help. I'm a gentile and what a blessing. We both are. We both are. Pastor Rod Pass, rod is not. He's Jewish. You may not know that. Right. You may not know that, but he does have a Yama somewhere. 1%. And the guy can't stop talking about how he's part of God's chosen people. But I'm kidding. You and I are part of God's chosen people because of the hope. That's right here. Right. We've been grafted in. Yep. What an amazing thing that it is. It's, it is, for sure, for sure. Well, hey, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode. God, it is in that hope that we do gather. It is in that hope that we do hope in a future with you in eternity, in heaven, in life with Christ. And we pray that as we go about the rest of our day, whatever is in front of us, that we would do so mindful of the great reality that we know Christ, and that changes everything for us. And so we thank you for that. God, we thank you for your sovereignty as we're gonna really see developed in the life of Joseph. Even as we read about the very beginnings of it today the tragedy of everything that took place in chapter 37 of Genesis was ordained by you. We're gonna find that out, and we thank you that Joseph gives us such a good example of trusting you in the midst of that. And so we're grateful for this time, this time in your word, and we pray that we would live faithfully in obedience to it as we continue on. In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, guys. You are doing a great job. I don't know if you've missed a day or not, but whatever you've done if you're listening now, if you've read the Bible today, good job, keep going. Keep pressing on, and we'll be back with you again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye y'all. Bye.

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