Welcome back. It's another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. We're so glad that you're faithfully listening with us. Once again, I'm joined by my co-host. I am Lewis and I recently, about 30 seconds ago, lost all of my credibility with Pastor Mark because I confessed to him that I have never seen an episode of Veggie Tails. I'm in shock still. I'm surprised I could even do the introduction at all. Why not? Why not? I never watched it. My, my parents, so my dad wasn't a Christian. I think that was part of it, but also my mom didn't grow up in the church, so I think just, I missed it. I missed veggie tails. I don't know how that's, I don't know how you could be Okay. How you can be, how I even know anything about the Bible. Yeah, that's true. How do you know anything about the Bible at all? I'm surprised. You know, the creator of Veggie Tails has kind of gone off the deep end since creating veggie tails all. So maybe you're okay. Maybe you're okay after all. Let's jump in to our daily Bible reading. We are in. Genesis 29 and Genesis 30 today. And this bears a striking resemblance to veggie tails, apparently, which is how this topic came up. What's the resemblance? See, you somehow knew something about veggie tails. 'cause you were the one who brought this up. So they turn around veggie tails and then exposed. You never watched exposed myself. It's confusing to me. But your joke was well at the beginning of this chapter. Jacob goes to a well, and, Wells are a big deal in the Bible apparently, because Rebecca was found at a well. And Abraham has, and Isaac, they have a lot of problems with wells. And then in John four, Jesus meets the woman at the well. But at this, well, we meet some very lazy shepherds. And so your joke. Was that they're the pirates who don't do anything. Yeah. The shepherds who don't do anything. That was that, that, that's who Jacob ran into. Because even their answers, he's like, Hey guys, where are you from? And they're like, from Harran. And he asked them another question, do you know this guy? And they're like, yes. We know him. And they're trying, it's almost like when you don't wanna talk to someone and you try to keep your answers really short. Or like when someone's texting you and you're trying to end the conversation that's what these shepherds are doing. They're just trying to get this Jacob Guy to go away and they're not even supposed to be here. Look at verse seven. It's. Jacob is like, Hey guys, it's the middle of the day. It's not the time to be doing this. Like, you should be doing something. And they're just sitting here doing absolutely nothing. Do you think they have a theme song? Um, maybe, maybe even verse eight. Look at verse eight. We, we can't move the thing until, like, we can't get water until the stones rolled away. They're just sitting here waiting for someone to move the stone away. They've. And they're just waiting. And then Jacob moves it all by himself. So what do we take away from that? I have no idea. I have no idea, but it's hilarious. Well, at the very least, I think we can take away from this, that this is a historical record. This is a factual account. There's many people who suggest some of these things are not true, that they're allegory, that they're some sort of poetry, but this is a historical count of things that actually happened. And so sometimes we might not know precisely why these things are included. And maybe there are connections that God intends that we can't quite see at this moment. And maybe it does have something to do with Jesus and the woman at the well. Much later on, but at the very least you should see these things and go, wow, this is an accurate historical retelling of these events. And Moses is including these details because this was something that actually happened. And we get to meet the shepherds who don't do anything. And perhaps they even have a catchy song to go. I bet they didn't even make up a theme song. They were too lazy to do that. Okay, I have a theory. Here's my theory. I just pieced this together the last time. This happened. Someone was going to a well in Laban's country was Abraham's servant. Right? And Abraham's servant we thought did a really great job. He trusts the Lord, he prays to the God of his master and he says, God, I need you to show me this person. And he even mentions God's steadfast love. I think maybe this is my hypothesis is we're supposed to contrast the servant with Jacob because we just saw in chapter 28. That Jacob is all about his own effort. Him and Rebecca are all about doing things their way, taking matters into their own hands, and that's what Jacob does here. He moves the stone all by himself. He's really taking initiative on all these things. And I think maybe what the author of Genesis is trying to do is help us see, you know, what Jacob is like. We're about to see Jacob. Has a lot of plans, a lot of ideas about how he wants to do things. He's not trusting the Lord. Just like, or just the opposite of Abraham's servant who was trusting the Lord. That's my theory. Perhaps, perhaps I don't know. You'd have to do some extra work to verify that, right? You'd have to look at some of the linguistic similarities. You'd have to look at some of those things in. In more depth, perhaps you're right, but Yeah. But you see what we're doing here, right? We're trying to, we're trying to piece together some detail. There's eight verses about this, right? Yeah. It's not insignificant. So, and, and to your point, it's very clear that they are indeed lazy shepherds, right? Not something that we are to miss, right? Whenever the narrative in the Bible slows down, you always want to ask why. Why is the author doing this? Why is he zooming in on this portion of the Bible? And then you wanna look is, does this remind me of anything else that happened in the Bible? So that's what I'm trying to do. I have no idea if that's what Moses had in mind here, but those are my best attempts at uncovering why we hear so much about the shepherds who don't do anything. So you're recently married, I mean, not super recently, but recently married. I thought you were about to like congratulate me or something. Congratulations on being married. I mean, you can congratulate anybody on being married right? At any point. Yeah, that's very true. There's nothing about being recently married that should exclude us from congratulating people. Honestly, being un recently married is more, I think, commendable. That's true, but you can only do that at like 10 years, 15 years. You're not allowed to do that. Years, you're not allowed to do it 14 or 17 or Well, okay. Would you have worked for 14 years in order to get married to your wife? Absolutely. Good answer. Good answer. Absolutely answer. Good answer that. That's one of the most romantic verses in the Bible right here, down here at 29 20. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seem to him, but a few days because of the love he had for her. Oh, so qui and everyone said. Heart, eyes everywhere. Do you think that was like something they said at their wedding? Was that like the tagline for their wedding, their wedding hashtag, yeah. Well, what's going on here? Why does that matter? What's going on here with this account? Well, I think. You're seeing a number of things that we've already alluded to. We've already talked about one laben shows up again and is a character who is out to get out to get his own. He wants to get money, he wants rewards for these things. He wants the labor of Jacob in order to get his wives, his wives, his daughters married to make them wives. Yeah. There's some trickiness here right as he swaps out Leah for Rachel, so that he can get another seven years. Mm-hmm. And so that he can get what the Bible describes as the unfavorable to put it nicely. Mm-hmm. Daughter married off well. So, the other thing you see is. Is Jacob working and being diligent and having the plans? He's got his intentions, his plans, and he's setting out to diligently pursue them. He is demonstrating good work ethic, but also perhaps there's hints here that he is not trusting the Lord for these things, perhaps as he ought to. And I think it's so interesting that he's almost met his match in Laben. Yeah, that's true. Like Jacob is. And his, he got this, I think from his mother. He's a schemer. We talked about the theme maybe being Jacob schemes, but God redeems Jacob has met an even bigger schemer than he is someone who's even more shrewd and more opportunist than he is. And so they're gonna have a battle for these next couple chapters about who can take advantage of each the other more. Yep. Through this, he, Jacob gets married to two women. This is a big problem. Yes. I mean, in the sense of, if we don't interpret this correctly many have indeed read accounts like this. Oh, you see this throughout the Old Testament? Mm-hmm. Of Israelite men, in fact, even faithful Israelite men marrying multiple women. If we read an account like this, are we to apply that today? I don't thankfully know anybody who is married to multiple wives. Mm-hmm. But if these faithful men, these patriarchs of the people of Israel, right. Are married to multiple women, why shouldn't we and were they right to do that in the first place? Well, I think we have to apply good hermeneutics. I think we have to do what are hermeneutics, pastor Mark, for those of us who. Aren't. Thank you for clarifying. As smart as you are, uh, hermeneutics is the way in which we read the Bible. Maybe you could think of it as a lens, maybe you've heard the term, a biblical worldview and maybe you listen to The Briefing by Albert Moler, for example. You always have to talk about Dr. Moler, don't you? I can't help myself. Is that in your like contract as an intern for him, I will mention Dr. Moeller and his podcast as much as possible. No, no. I haven't even mentioned it since we started doing this together. Have I. Well, when we were testing, you did introduce us as the briefing. That's true. But no, none of on two separate occasions. None these, none of these people heard that you also are wearing a suit right now, or at least a jacket. That's, which is something that an intern of Dr. Mo would also also do, but it's not a three piece suit. That's true. Dr. Moeller would be wearing, have you used a fountain pen today? Not today. Not today. Okay. Well, for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about, when I was at Southern Seminary, I had the privilege of working for Albert Moler and working for his team, and that's what Lewis is referencing. So just in case you're totally confused. Mm-hmm. Albert Mueller is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and particularly influential in Southern Baptist circles. And very much influential in the conservative resurgence that happened in the nineties. So, anyways, and Pastor Mark's time at Southern Seminary seemed like just a few days 'cause of his great love for Dr. Moeller. Um, where were we? We were talking about polygamy. Okay. And then we got onto Southern Seminary Okay. We have to answer this question though. We do. So how do we read our Bibles faithfully, right? How do we read these things and interpret them? With good hermeneutics, right? How do we use, that's how we got here. Yeah. That's how we got here. How do we interpret this situation? Should we go out and marry more wives? Definitely not. That's right. Good answer. Good answer. Yeah. Where would we start when we're trying to answer? Let's say we have a friend, maybe they're from the Mormon religion or maybe there. Just having an honest question. Maybe they're just reading the Bible and they see this happening a lot. How would you start if you were going to maybe show someone from the Bible that God is for marriage? As only between one man and one woman. Practically, I'm gonna start in the New Testament. I'm gonna go to the New Testament where Jesus makes it very clear that marriage is between one man and one woman, or where Paul makes it very clear where marriage is one between one man and one woman. I think that's a good place to start because it is just definitively clear in simple words. But that's not gonna alleviate many people's question about, well then what? What's going on in the Old Testament? Right. Right. It seems, to be a contradiction. Mm-hmm. Well, the Old Testament is different than Jesus's teaching, right. Jesus, when he says these things, he is teaching, or when Paul is writing a letter, right. Paul is writing a letter to instruct and to rebuke and to give specific instructions to the people he's writing to. In Genesis, we are in a different. Type of writing it is not intended to work the same way. And what you're gonna have to look at is the implications and the results of Right. What happens in these stories. There is not a single instance in the Old Testament where polygamy. Ends up being a good thing, right? Right. Mm-hmm. There's not a single instance of that, and that may take some work with somebody to, to go through all of those, but there's not a single instance where it ends up being a good thing. And that is how you faithfully read the Old Testament. To conclude that. Polygamy is a sin. But you can even go back further. I think you can go back to Genesis and to the creation account and to how God created Adam and Eve. Mm-hmm. And put them in a marriage. One man, one woman. Right. And you can point to that and say, this is God's intention before the fall, before the effects of sin. And so there, there's many ways that you can do it. Right. But that's, that would be my right. Process for addressing that and you may not have come across that you, maybe you've never had somebody who's asked you that question. Well, I'm certain that at some point you will, if you have gospel conversations with people and enough different people, this is going to be a question that comes. Up. Yeah. And going back to Genesis one and two is exactly what Jesus does when he talks about marriage, right? He talks about how he quotes Genesis one. He quotes Genesis two. And he even says in that conversation, I think it's in Mark 10, where he talks about Moses allowed something like divorce because of their hardness of heart. Mm-hmm. But we see in the Bible that God doesn't. Like divorce, Jesus says that you shouldn't in, on, on as a general rule, right? There's obviously exceptions to that that we see, but generally speaking, you shouldn't do that. I'm oversimplifying it for the sake of time, but he says that God allowed something like divorce because of their hardness of heart, and so. Also, another way that we could look at this is when does the first instance of polygamy happen? It happens in the line of cane, and then there's this guy named Lamek and he took two wives. And even that way he that's put isn't a positive reflection on polygamy. That's right. And. Again, we've said this before, but sin begets more sin, right? And you see that as a recurring theme throughout all of this, right? When you commit sin the follow up to that is either more and greater sin, or at the very best, it is a stronger. Temptation to sin that has to be overcome. And that is very much the case through the narrative of Genesis as it relates to polygamy. Yeah. And there's big consequences, right In this chapter, these two chapters, there's a lot of conflict between Leah and Rachel and what I love so much about. Seeing this even though it's such a hard situation, we see so much of God's compassion. Mm-hmm. Even in 29 verse 31, when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb. Right. The Lord saw exactly what was happening. Mm-hmm. He saw that Leah was being, neglected or the Bible says hated he saw that her situation, her really hard situation, he has compassion and he enters into it to use her. She's the unwanted casualty of Jacob and Laben schemes. So Laben didn't care about her. Mm-hmm. He just wanted to use her to get more years out of Jacob's work. Jacob didn't want her, he was working for her sister, not for her. And so she. Stuck in this situation. That's really hard and God has so much compassion on her, in fact, that he allows her to be in the line of the Messiah. She is the mother of Judah. She gets the privilege of. As you put it earlier, carrying Jesus's DNA. Yep. Right. Um, well, which is amazing, right? Yep. And God is also continuing to be faithful to his promise to Abraham and Isaac. Yes. And he continues to allow Jacob to be prosperous when in some sense he has no right to be. Mm-hmm. This last section of Chapter 30 as a kid for me. And nobody corrected me on this, and maybe it was just my own foolishness as a child, but I was actually convinced that this is how you got different colored sheep, right? This process that Jacob uses of the fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plain trees, and how he goes about effectively getting these things onto the sheep and then. I was convinced as a kid and it took somebody or some revelation to undo that because this was the story that not growing up on a farm that I heard about how genetics work. I'm sure my mom who is a science teacher would be disappointed that I was confused about that as a kid. But God demonstrates that he is gonna continue to fulfill his promise. To his chosen people. Right. And he does it through this way. That makes no sense. Yes. And I think sometimes we can be confused when we read something like this and think, oh, Jacob is so smart. Look at how successfully he is. What's really happening here. And same with the Mandrakes earlier, not the mandrakes from Harry Potter, but the actual plant. What's happening here and with these two schemes, if you will, is the people in the narrative are trying to use their wits, their. Smarts to effect change and their powers are useless. The sticks that Jacob uses, the mandrakes that, 'cause if you notice, Leah gives the mandrakes to Rachel, but Leah is the one who has the kids. Yeah. It's literally the opposite of what they were trying to accomplish is what happens. And it makes this plan with the animals makes no sense. I mean, if you've been to Ireland or anywhere there's sheep and you see the spray paint on sheep, that doesn't mean that they're. Baby sheep are blue or red. It's absurd. It's an absurd way of trying to manipulate the situation. And Jacob's foolishness is on full display, right? Absolutely. The situation is silly, but God continues to be faithful to his promises, despite their sin. Alright, let's get over to Matthew chapter 10. We're gonna look at the first half of it. This is. In these first verses is in response to what we read yesterday, right? We don't forget just the final verses of. Matthew nine were Jesus calling us to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. And what do we see in the very first verses of Chapter 10? Those first laborers. Mm-hmm. To the glory of God. What is interesting about this list is. There are some at least seeming discrepancies. What are those discrepancies and can you help us understand why those might seem to be there. Yeah. If you've ever compared the list of the disciples in the Bible, you'll notice that there's usually two names. That are different across the list, right? We always have the same first four usually Simon, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and then, the second four, we've got Philip who's usually always there. Um, that was. Usually always is a oxymoron. Philip is always there. And then Bartholomew. Now Bartholomew is not in some of the other lists in the New Testament of the disciples, and that's because Bartholomew is So, it's a baker's dozen. No, there's not 14 disciples. What it is, is Baral is a nickname, so bar means sun. And just like Barnabas means son of Encouragement or Simon Bar, Jonah is the son of Jonah, or Barbi just means son of my father. It's a nickname. And Bartholomew a name to be called Son of my Father. Yeah. Right. So creative, very literal. It might be better than the son of Solem you but whatever th whoever, or base math, remember base math a few days ago, base math, that's new. Bartholomew is. Nathaniel, if I'm not mistaken. And then Thomas Matthew. And once again, Matthew, the tax collector. Matthew is highlighting his former life to show God's mercy. And then we have James Fatus, Simon and Judas, the other list of disciples. There's a second. Judas. My favorite is when they call him Judas, not a scar. That's my favorite part and I believe that is. Thaddius or James I can look this up and get back to you real quick on that, but if you've ever been confused at the list of disciples, just compare them and notice, okay. There's two names. There's a Nathaniel and there's a Judas that are listed and there's known by a different name, and that happens all the time. Right. We have Simon, who's also called Peter. We've got a lot of names like that in the Bible. That's right. Jesus then sends out a 12. So these are the laborers that he's sending out into the harvest, and he gives them a lot of instructions here. There's a lot of instructions here, and he says, go nowhere among the Gentiles. And enter no town of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. So this is a specific missions trip, as it were to the lost sheep of the people of Israel. Mm-hmm. But at the same time, Jesus is giving indications throughout this, that they are not going to accept him. They're not gonna accept these people who are going out to be. Laborers in the harvest. And the first indication of that is, well, I mean you, there's kind of maybe some suggestions of it at first, but then he very clearly in verse 15 says, truly I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. And what's that town? That's the town that has rejected them. And what town rejects them? They're going to the people of Israel. Yeah. And that's a just chilling statement right there by Jesus, right? More bearable than the judgment first Audo and Gomorrah. I think that just shows us the importance that what God is really after is not outward conformity to his rules like the Jews had, but a hard heart that opposes and rejects Jesus is worse. Then even if you have the outward formality of religion, so is this a model that we should follow for evangelism today or perhaps missions? Is this how we should go about doing missions today? Right? Jesus gives some very specific instructions. He says, heal the sick, raise the dead cleanse lepers, cast out demons. And then he also says things like, don't take any money with you. Right? And he says, if you go into a town and they reject you. Get out of there. Right. Is this a model that we should follow for evangelism or missions today? Well, I think obviously there's some very specific instructions in there that are specifically for the disciples, right? When we talk about healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, cleansing, leopards, right? So I think. S with that as the starting point, I think most of the instructions here are probably very specific for the disciples. And instead, we should look for commands that maybe are given to different sets of disciples who are sent out that are closer to our immediate context. So we would look for something maybe in one of the epistles or something later on in the book of acts to establish our pattern for evangelism. What do you think about that, pastor Mark? I think that's. That's right on. I think that's right on. I think there's some principles here. I think, there's a clear implication that they need to trust the Lord for their money, right? They need to trust the Lord for that provision. And that's certainly something that we should do. But I think you really have to, if you're gonna look at this as some sort of model, really. There's gonna be some abstract principles, but if we're going to send out missionaries, we're going to send them with money. We're gonna send them with gold or whatever currency is in the land that they're going to. Right. And when they get rejected we're not gonna immediately pull them out. Maybe, maybe there's a time to, to say, let's refocus, or. Tune our attention somewhere else. But we're not gonna have this sort of immediate rejection that Jesus calls them to here. And we're also not gonna say that the primary purpose or even a purpose of missions is to heal the sick or raise the dead or cleanse the lepers or cast out demons. So this is a very specific set of instructions to the apostles, to the, I say their apostles, they're not quite yet apostles. Right. But to the 12. And it's also specific because again, and I said this before, they're going to the people of Israel, they're going to the Lost People of Israel. And what's fascinating about this is that starting in verse 16, we start to see him warn them. Of the persecution that they will face. And this is certainly, again, something that we can pull principles from that I think can be helpful and maybe even more so from this section when we go about our own evangelism remissions. But again, this is persecution that is in the form of. The people of Israel. This is akin to the persecution that the prophets faced from the people of Israel. And so Jesus says, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be wise, as serpent and innocent as doves. Again, certainly a principle that we can apply. But that immediate context of this is the people of Israel and the work that they are called to do. In that context, what do you think about that? I think that's, it's really important for us to, to remember that context. Some we're reading even a passage in the New Testament like this. It does bring you to a question, though. I see in verse 19. There's a promise that Jesus makes that could be really encouraging for our own evangelism. And I wanna see if that's something that you think is specific to the 12 disciples or if it's something that we can. Claim as our own. And that's here in verse 19, when they deliver you over, don't be anxious about how you're gonna speak or what you're gonna say. Four, what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. So is that something that I can say, you know what only the disciples shouldn't be anxious and I should be anxious, or should I maybe apply that same principle or can I just take that verse and say, Jesus might as well have been talking to me. 'cause that is. Just as true today as it was for them. Yeah. And I think the most immediate application of that is should you prepare to have gospel conversations. Mm-hmm. And to what extent should you prepare to have gospel conversations? You could read this and take it as, I don't have to do anything. I think that's the dangerous way to read this. I think you'll end up in deep trouble if you do that. But notice what he says. Right? Do not be. Anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say. Right? It's not, don't worry about it and don't ever think about it. It's, don't be anxious, don't be afraid of those things. And I think we can relate to that when we have gospel conversations. One of the biggest challenges that we face is that initial fear, that initial barrier that we have to jump over, that we have to overcome and we need God's help to do that when we are starting those conversations. And once, once those start, it's often easier. There's often less anxiety, but we have to overcome that. Right. The other thing to keep in mind here is that he says, what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. Does that mean that God is going to just inject thoughts that you've never had into your mind? I don't think that that's the right implication of it. It's more, what are you gonna say? You need to, do you need to trust God in those conversations? Do you trust him? Do you trust the gospel to have the power? Or do you trust yourself? Is it up to your own ingenuity and your own phrases and your own argumentations? No, it's not. It's not at all. And we can, if it is, then yeah, we should be anxious, but instead it's not. And we should prepare. We should be faithful Bible readers. Where Apologetics is helpful, we need to be well versed in apologetics. But yeah, this is a place where, again, I think we can take a principle that's really helpful and we can apply it to our modern day 2026 Evangelism and Missions. Alright, we have enjoyed spending time with you. We have one more day ahead of us before it gets turned back over. It's gonna be Pastor PJ and myself going forward for a little bit more. But we've enjoyed being with you and we hope that you've enjoyed us and, tolerated us to the extent possible. Again, we're thankful for you. We're thankful for this church. Let me pray for us. And then we will wrap up today's episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Lord, you are kind. You are a kind God. Yes. We have sinned. We have broken your law. We have broken creation order. We have, we've hated you, we've hated your commands, but because of Christ, because of his work on the cross, we can be people who have the power of God who. Who can go out to the lost, who can have wisdom and discernment. We're thankful for that. We're thankful for that, and we pray that you will keep us from sin. We pray that you'll keep us from foolishness. We pray that you will use us mightily for your kingdom. In Jesus name I pray, amen. Amen. See y'all tomorrow.

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