Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. What's up folks? Feel welcomed back. Feel welcome back. You feel welcome back? Or they should? They should because you say that every time. Yes. You say welcome back. So I wanna make sure that they feel welcomed. What if they're here for the first time, though? That's true too. Now we have lots of people that jump in. Welcome. For the first time, feel welcomed, didn't I say? I think we should acknowledge those people. They come, they go. We never see them again. We should make sure that we hear them again. We never hear of them because this's an audio. We never feel of them again. There we go. What is welcome? Is welcome a verb. I think it can be a verb and no as it's used that way though. Welcome back. That's, it's an imperative, like you must to feel welcome. You must, we demand feel welcomed. I demand you to be welcomed. Well, today's Friday the 13th. Are you guys doing anything to honor the holiday? The holiday? The holiday? Doesn't that come from Holy Day? It does, and I don't think it's technically a holy day. I don't even know where Friday the 13th came from. I know there's a movie and I know that's got like it's horror and things. I haven't seen it. But I often wondered where it came from. I'm sure it's mythology, something or other, and, just grew in its presence in the American culture. Are you superstitious? I don't think so. I probably am in a way that I don't. You don't think so? I don't think so. I'm not consciously aware of any superstitious patterns that I have. Fair enough. What about you guys? Do you have any? No. Do you have any superstitions things that you do? Because I know athletes, which I know all of us here are super Oh yeah. That would describe all of us very well. Athletes. Better than any other description, more than a, more than pastor, more than Christian, more than human athletes are very superstitious. And athletic fans are also superstitious. They wear certain clothing on the day that their bands, or not their bands because we're athletes. Guys, we're so athletes, they wear certain clothing. They do certain things when they score touchdowns and that kind of thing. So I know that those people. We're those people too. We, people are very superstitious when it comes to our teams. To quote a great philosopher, I'm not superstitious. I might be a little bit stitious. Great philosopher. A yeah. And that is like I know that if I wear socks that aren't my Texas Ranger socks when I preach on Sunday morning, that it doesn't have any impact on whether or not the Ranger's gonna win. And yet there's part of me that feels like I'm betraying my team if I don't wear my Texas Ranger socks on Sunday morning when I preach. So it's more of a loyalty, right? During baseball, now, I wash them. I'm not the guy that's like, I never wash the socks. I washed them. But I do think to myself, you know what? I'm gonna wear it's baseball season. I'm gonna wear the ranger socks when I preach. So I guess I'm a little stitious. Go ahead. Okay, go ahead. No, I'm just, go ahead. This is not a video podcast so people could not see the pregnant pod. I'm thinking that just came across your face just a second ago. I'm think I'm thinking about it is all, I'm not making any, I'm just, I'm interested. By the way, welcome is an interjection. It is. That is the part of speech. It is not a verb or an adjective. Okay. It is an interject. I've never heard of that part of speech before. It's like, hey, yeah, that's not behold. Yeah, that's an interjection. Oh, interesting. So it kind of has an imperative bent to it though. It does have a flavor, doesn't it? Yeah. Alright, we have a question, part two. Okay. This came from the same email. We talked, we said we're gonna answer it. In the next pod podcast and here we are. So the question has to do with whether forgiving requires forgetting, can you forgive somebody and require forgetting? He mentions here on God keeping receipts. I probably just picked up on something that might not have really been said, but I wanna clarify. I didn't see God keeping receipts being countered to his character. And I think that Pastor PGE has covered this recently. Forgiveness does not need to include forgetting, and I contend that it likely shouldn't because we should remember. We have an obligation to remember the crimes that others have committed in order to guard against them and protect them, and such as examples like that. So what do you think about that? Does forgiveness require forgetting? Is that what God does? How do we think about this? And to what extent do we have to forget in order to forgive? I think it depends on our context. I do think in, for example, I know a lot of times in marriage counseling you'll sit there with a couple who want to bring receipts, who want to say, you always do this. You never do this. And this is just like last time when you did this. And in those situations I think what that betrays is more of a lack of forgiveness than it does, forgiving but not forgetting. So a lot of times when we forgive, I do think that as Christians we need to have the mindset that says, I'm agreeing or promising, I'm not gonna bring this up anymore. I'm promising not to dredge this thing up again, I'm releasing it in the sense that I'm forgiving it and it's no longer gonna be a part of the equation of our relationship. That's most cases. I, to his point in the question, I think there is a. Part of wisdom that says, if you have somebody that is repeatedly committing the same offense against you, if we're gonna go to Jesus in Matthew 18, then we need to forgive that person. But in some situations, we might think the better stewardship of me or my family is to make changes based on the pattern of behavior that I see in this person's life, or if it's a particularly egregious sin that's a one time offense to say, I am going to forgive you because I'm called to forgive you in scripture, and I want to do that because of how much I've been forgiven, but our relationship is not gonna be the same. And so in that sense, if you wanna say, I'm not gonna forget, even though I forgive in that situation I think there's grounds there, but. Everyday interactions between us as believers or between husband and wife, or even parents and children. I think the call is, I'm forgiving and I'm promising you I'm not gonna bring this thing up again. It's behind us. I'm covering it over and now we're gonna move on with life. That's my take on it. I think you're right and I think it's a lot easier for us to make these evaluations when it's outside of ourselves when it's something that's close to home, right. When somebody has sinned against you, it becomes a lot more difficult to. Parse that out to understand how we ought to do that. When we see other situations, when we see things in politics, or we see other people in our church getting hurt, it's actually, I think a lot easier for us to say, oh, this is how you ought to balance the forgetfulness, as it were and the forgiveness. It just becomes a lot harder when it's personal. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I think we probably agree with you that. There's no need there's no need to forget something. To the extent that we say we, we can, we can't remember it. We forget it. As far as the yeast is from the West, I guess he, when it applies to God, God can't not know. He does remember, he knows all things. He's choosing not to bring up certain information and use against us, and so because he chooses not to, it is as far as he is from the West, there's a sense in which God says, I will. Not think about this and use it in terms of and to the extent that God thinks like us. He doesn't obviously, but he doesn't choose to do that. And as far as humans are concerned, I don't think you can forget a lot of things that happen against you, especially when you're wounded in deep ways. Mm-hmm. Those scars last a long time. There's things that people have said and done to me that I've. Un been unable to forget. Try as I might, and as much as I would like to, I think the point is that we don't dwell upon it in terms of holding court in our heads and in our hearts saying you're guilty and I can't wait for you to get yours. And man, I'm so angry if I had a chance to say this and that to you, I would. And that's where I think we have to choose where. Some sense to forget to, to stop dwelling, to stop thinking and stop allowing it to overcome our souls in that way. Is this because I said I don't like street tacos? Is that the thing that you can't forget? I will never forget that and I'll forever use it again. Steve. I'm just kidding. Fair. I guess I'm just kidding. If someone's talked poorly about Hutchins or just barbecue in general, I think you'd be really hurt. There's people in our church who have not been to Hutchins. Is that right? Yeah. On purpose, because it is expensive. I'll give them that if they're, it cost you a thousand dollars to get Hudson these days. It does bust was cheap at one point and now it's, you gotta give a kid for it. I was just talking to them last night and it didn't, they didn't give the indication that it was expensive. They just hadn't cared to go. Oh, might we implore you don't act like you're not phased by this. I could see the hurt your eyes. No. Here's the thing, man. I'm okay with this. He's tear out. It's only, it is only fighting words when people are like, oh, California does barbecue better in Texas. Then we're gonna, we're gonna have words. Hey central California. There are some spots that are quite good, but it is different. Different. Quite good. Fight. Fight, better fight. But you had Santa Maria barbecue, real Santa Maria bar barbecue. I don't know. With a smoke. Don't even know. I don't even know where Santa Maria is. Okay, well then nevermind. So you guys need to take this outside. Fair enough. I would totally agree with you. As if it's Southern California, right? Or even worse, Northern California. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, if somebody chooses to be here and not indulge, I can't. They're giving up common grace and by, by doing that, and you can say the same thing about me in street tacos, that's fine. I eat chocolate street tacos today. I don't ever find myself being like, oh dude, I need some street tacos. I'll go to Taco Bell just as quickly as I'll go eat street tacos. Which I know is just making me even more anathema in that ears of so many people. Listen. Yeah, that just made it way worse, but. I, that's where I'm at, man. I don't know. I don't know. You're lucky. I'm in Christ, bro. Well, let's please forgive me. Let's go to Deuteronomy anyways, hopefully that answers your question. If not, feel free to, to ask clarifying questions for us. He was trying to clarify something we said. On I forget it was Deuteronomy nine where you said God was keeping receipts and Yeah. And reciting all the things that they had done and he's trying to keep it at the forefront, so yeah, he was responding to that. Yeah. Alright. Deuteronomy 20 through 22 and we are in Mark 14, 26 through 50. Deuteronomy 20 through 22, we get into chapter 20. He's talking about the warfare that's going to face the nation as they enter into the promised land. And this is important because they're going to go to battle in Israel, as we know them, have not been a warring nation to this point. They've had a few battles here and there but by and large, they have not had to be a warring nation because when they left Egypt, God literally freed them. God was the one that went before them. God was the one that did the heavy lifting and he's saying as much here, although they're gonna be much more involved. We'll get into in the book of Joshua they're gonna fight battles and they already have against Shan and og. And there've been a couple other situations, but they're gonna fight some serious battles when they get into the promised land and God is telling them, here's what you should do, number one, don't be afraid because I'm gonna fight for you. Number two. When you have victory, remember that I'm the one that gave you the victory. That it's not you that took the victory, but I gave you the victory. But then there's some interesting things because they talk about peace terms here. And if you're not reading closely, you might think that there's a contradiction in your Bibles because God has been saying this whole time to devote them all to destruction, don't leave any survivors. And then all of a sudden he issues some terms of when there's peace offered here in verse 10. When you draw new to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. In fact he commands them to do that. That doesn't seem in keeping with the rest of his instructions, and that's why we have to think what is he talking about here? There must be something going on. And that's down in verse 15. He says, thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you. So he's talking about cities outside the promised Land. Now that when you go to war against, to other nations that aren't part of the land, God has promised to give you and commanded you to drive out the people from before you go to battle, offer peace first and see if peace can be found and then you can pursue whatever you see fit to pursue after that. It's exactly that stipulation that gives Joshua the opportunity to be deceived by the Gibeonites. Now, I don't know if they knew about this, but they pretended to come from far away and they deceived the Israelites into making a peace treaty with them only to come and find out later. Oh, they were actually pretty close by, so that's something worth keeping in mind. We'll get there soon enough, but. That's what's happening here. And I do think there's a moral distinction being made here between the men and the women and the children. I think we've talked about this before, but I think it's worth identifying that there's a clear moral weight or distinction made for the lives and the protection of women and children in these contexts. Now, you might look at this and be a little bit alarmed as you might have in other places in the Bible about the fact that. God is calling for the destruction of women and children with this specific people in the land. But we already referenced Deuteronomy nine, and I think it's worth remembering that we see here God driving out the people that are in the land, not because of the people of Israel being particularly righteous, but because of the wickedness of these particular people in the promised land, right? And God's prerogative. Means that he can use whatever instruments he chooses to use to execute his judgment. And the difference here, the reason why we don't do this today is because God doesn't tell us to do these things. Today we have the government, the governing authorities who does not bear the sword in vain. They have legitimate God-given authority to execute as they see fits according to the just standards that they operate by. Is there such a thing for us as a nation to claim? Just war theory. We're going to war right now against Iran. We're going to war in the Middle East, and we've had conversations about that in the past. I know there's some Christians that stand up and say, all Christians should be pacifists. Nobody should engage in any combat or war because we're not a theocracy anymore. We don't have God saying, go and be my representative to bring justice there. So. Is it right for us as a nation to enter in and fight these battles? Pastor Mark, what are your thoughts on that? I first wanna recommend a book. It's called The Basics of Just War Theory. I actually just finished it a couple weeks ago. Right? Didn't even know that. Yeah. Perfect timing. That's a God thing. I think there's many things you can look at, but just war theory is. A product of, by and large, there's some people who are in the secular realm contributing to it. But by and large it is the, a Christian worldview applied to war. At least in context of what we've dealt with recently. There is an immediate threat of Iran. Now there's plenty of people who would argue that that's not the case. But the there's an immediate threat of Iran committing attacks of various different kinds upon the United States. But also there is part of the just war theory tradition is the concept of stepping in to intervene with the mass murder of a particular group of people. And just war theory is gonna suggest that that would be appropriate to do so. That would be a very modern perspective on these things. Does that come from the Bible? Does that come from some of these things? Yes. So one of the. Very important aspects of just war theory is that you're not to attack non-combatants. You're not to attack those, you're not supposed to fire missiles into apartment buildings. You're supposed to attack military installations. You're supposed to attack bases and military ships. Even think back to World War ii, there was hospital boats, right? They're painted with white paint and Red Cross on 'em. And the purpose of that was to communicate even to the enemy that this is a non-combatant. Vehicle or boat or whatever, so that at least in theory the ideals of just war theory could be applied. So here in this particular con context, I think what you're seeing is part of that, right? We're not going to kill the women and the children and the innocent as they were in the foreign lands outside of Israel. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I think Christians should serve in our military. I think we need believers in our military, but it is a difficult situation because you may put yourself in a, in a circumstance where you are commanded by your authorities to do something that you can't biblically justify either. And and that's where we do have to concede to those that are pacifist to say, we're not a theocracy. America is not Israel 2.0. And so we are not fighting the wars of God when we go to this. So we have to be even extra. Careful to assess what we're going to do to make sure that we can say with some degree of certainty there's good, as God would define, good to come out of what we're doing here, to defend the helpless, to defend the needy, to help the those that can't take care of themselves. And he's put us in a position to be able to do that. And I might suggest maybe instead of good, better, because we're never going to, yeah, many ways it's always gonna be flawed. Yeah. It's always gonna be problematic. There's always gonna be moral questions that are. Poorly answered or unanswered. And so I think the Christian's duty and I don't mean to just suggest pragmatic, purely, but to consider the moral weight of the different parties. I think even when you get to elections and who are you voting for? Yeah. I think there is an aspect of the Christian's duty is not to find Christ right to vote for it is to weigh the alternatives and pick the best. Yeah. What is the most righteous option? Fair Anything. Thumbs up. Yep. Chapter 21, he gets into some of the, civil situations here unsolved murders. That there were sacrifices to atone for those, which is interesting because they weren't just going to be covered over and no big deal. Let's move on with life. Sorry. We couldn't find the person that murdered your loved one instead. No, we're gonna have a sacrifice. There's gonna be something that's offered here, which reminds us that taking a life is more about. The offense against God than it is against the person that has lost the loved one the even the kin of that person marrying female captives, inheritance rights of the firstborn, a rebellious child and a man hanged on a tree. We will come back to the man hanged on a tree there, but the marrying the female captives, inheritant, rights of the firstborn we're dealing with foreign wives and even multiple wives here. And I think Pastor Rod recently, you talked about the idea that the law is not necessarily, this is the best. Possible, but this is given the circumstances of what Israel was doing and what they were up against. This is how God wanted them to pursue righteousness as he would define those parameters within the fallen environment that they lived, if that makes sense. Do you track what I'm saying there? I do. And I would, let me just clarify here. The way that we interpret the law has to be in part informed by the way Jesus talks about the law to his modern audience. Sure. Modern as in modern. At that point, he says to them, it is because of your hardness of heart that Moses wrote you this command. Right? And so when we look at passages like this, we now have a way to think about it, to say, okay, does this represent Israel's hard heart? Is this a way that God can regulate? Sin that's already being un unrestrained in this area. And I think we could say, yeah, that, that makes sense. God is regulating something that was common and needed to be restrained. Another factor in this too, is that I think because God I think God does this not only in the old but in the New Testament as well. Think about this. When you ask God, Psalm 1 39, search me oh God, and know me. See if there's any grievous way within me. My, my bet is that God doesn't show you all of your sin at once. Right. Right. Right. He's not showing you everything that is wrong with you, because that would be, that'd be a really sad day. Yeah. I don't know if you'd get outta bed that day. In a similar sense when God sees Israel's sin, he also slowly exposes to them areas where they need to change and I think the law is an imp. It comes from a perfect God, but it is not meant to be a perfect standard in the sense that it is a perfect reflection of God's character. Okay? And as you read chapter 21, notice all the if statements, right? It's, this is all if this happens, right? Which suggests that, murder is not normative. Right? All these issues that we're looking at right here, the rebellious sun is that supposed to be normative? Is it a reality of this? Yes. But is it supposed to be the common practice? No. And even when you see the marrying of the female captives in there, right. I think it's couched in that sort of, if this happens as opposed to this is something you ought to. Right. And war I don't wanna talk about this without in war it wasn't uncommon to do things to the women. Yeah. God is protecting those women by saying That's right. You have to marry them. Yeah. If you want this particular person, you can't just say, we're gonna do things and go our separate ways. You have to marry her and then give her time to mourn you. You're humanizing this person and not dehumanizing them. So God is protecting them. Again, regulating something that was already really bad. Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. I do think these are female captives for those. From the lands far away though, to go back to what we talked about in the previous chapter. Yes. These are not from the promised land because those nations were forbidden from the inner marriage there. That's right. End of the chapter, the man hanged on a tree that, that's just notable because Paul's gonna pick up on this in Galatians and point to the fact that Christ became a curse for us and he was hanged on the tree for us on the cross. And so there's a foreshadowing here of what Christ was gonna do on our behalf. And so that's why the act of crucifixion was even so. Abominable to the Jews as well is because of the idea of being hung on. A tree was associated with being cursed, and Jesus became that for us. Chapter 22, we find the majority of the chapter, at least the back half of the chapter, is really concerned with sexual purity and the laws about how that relationship was to be. Honor within the context of the marriage and what would happen when it was outside of the marriage. And there were a lot of laws here that resulted in the death of the participants in that act outside of marriage. There is some protection there for situations where as we were very cautiously alluding to it, where force is involved in that, if we can just put it that way, where the man is the one that is stoned to death and not the woman in that situation. But if both. Are involved willingly. There's swift justice to be e executed here because God does care about that, especially as it pertains to his design for marriage. And so I think even here we see support for the idea that God's design, God's plan for marriage is that it is one woman and one man. And I think that even his championing of this particular element of the marriage relationship shows us that he values that and prioritizes that. And there's punishments when that is perverted. A couple quick notes in chapter 22 here, starting at verse five. I want you to see that God wants you to honor the distinctions that make us male and female. Those are good boundaries and that's why God says a woman shall not wear a man's garment and vice versa. It's an abomination to God because he really cares that we are clear which gender is which. Another factor here is this weird situation about the young ones or the eggs of the mother and what to do with those things, and I think the principle at play is preserving the means of life. God cares about us preserving how life continues and propagates. And so we as Christians are not merely pro-life for people and that we are, we're also pro-life for animals and for the whole kingdom that God has designed. Well, let's flip over to our New Testament reading for today. Mark 14, 26 through 50, mark 1426 through 50. We get into. The Garden of Gethsemane here, we get into the denials of Peter here. And so this is again the passion week. This is the culmination of it right before the cross, as Jesus is going to be betrayed and arrested by the Romans here. But Peter's the prediction of Peter's. Denials comes on the heels of Jesus saying, all of you're gonna fall away. And again, we see Peter here in his bravado saying, I'm not, I'm never gonna fall away. And then Jesus' response, truly, I tell you this very night before the rooster crows three times. You will deny me three times. You brought up pastor out that. This is unique because this is Peter's account if we follow what church history says. And he didn't talk about his failure walking on water, but he does record the fact that Jesus told him, Hey, you're gonna deny me three times. And that's probably because of how significant that was in Peter's life, which I think supports our reading in John 21 of the fact that's Jesus' restoration of Peter there when he asks him three times, Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Mark doesn't record that. In fact, Mark's gospel is just like, and they were afraid. Period, end of story. But here, I think Peter, putting this in through Mark shows us that this was a, point that he wanted to highlight, even though it was probably his most shameful point of his entire life at that point. Would you rather be Peter and go through all of these things or Judas? Well, no, that wasn't what I was gonna say, Peter. Peter's my answer. Peter. Peter, sure. Or all the rest of the disciples, I guess including Judas, but that's not my point because. In verse 31, it says they all said the same, right? Right. But then we don't see anything about what they do. And then in verse 50, they all left him and fled. Now obviously what Peter has done is not good. I'm not trying to defend Peter. Yeah, but what would you rather be? I don't know. Yeah, they all left him in fled. I wonder that's what it says. But I wonder about John. 'cause John sticks there. John goes into the courtyard and John's even the one that comes back and gets Peter access to the courtyard. John's there at the cross with the women. And so I think John seems to stick with him. Yeah, the others I agree. I think Peter has a unique moment of restoration with Jesus, and yet he had to wear this for the rest of his life that these denials. So that's a tough one. I don't know. Yeah. This is one of those, let him who stands take heed lest he fall situation. Yeah. I think Peter made the other guys say something because he's like, Hey guys I dunno about these knuckleheads, but I'm gonna follow you. Yeah, I will. I will die if I have to. Jesus. And then the other guy's like Peter. Yeah, us too. Jesus. Us too. I don't know. I'm just thinking about male dynamics. I'm sure there's a little bit of pressure because the alpha of the group is like, well, I will do whatever I need to do. Jesus. Yeah. And they're like, yeah, I guess us too. Yeah. In the betrayal and the arrest section there when. The high priest comes up and the servant of the high priest is there. Peter doesn't call himself out this time. He is like somebody was there with a sword and struck the ear the servant of the high priest. But we all know John's like it was Peter. Peter did it. So, the scene in Gethsemane always stands out to me 'cause Jesus prays three times and Mark records three times that Jesus went back to pray before the Father. If there's any way, let this cut pass for me again, the humanity of Christ, the agony of Christ. He's not sinning here. This is not him. Questioning the father's will in a sinful way. He's just acknowledging in his humanity the suffering that he's about to endure. In, in asking honestly if there's any way possible, let this cut past for me rather than cause us to sit here and say, is this Jesus sinning? This should cause us to say, wow. How weighty was the cross? That even though Jesus knew that death was not gonna have the last word, that he was gonna rise again. He still was so agonized over his impending suffering that he had to go to the Father three times to say, please let this cut past from me. Well, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. God, we thank you for this time. We thank you for your word. We thank you for its clarity and also some of the mystery to it that causes us to ponder and wonder and be in awe of who you are. And we are thankful that Christ went to the cross for us. Despite the agony that he had here in Gethsemane and died for our sins so that we might be forgiven, gave us his righteousness and arose against that, we might one day live forever with him. We look forward to that day. In the meantime, we're here and we pray that we'd be found faithful. In Jesus' name, amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. See ya. Bye.

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