Hey everybody. Welcome back to Sunday's edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Happy Sunday. Happy Sunday. Hopefully you are at church on your way to church, or you've been at church. You know, it surprises me how many people listen to this before church. Yeah, but I think it's because since I'm a dad and our house is full of little munchkins. I think it's a little bit harder for me on Sundays mornings, to get everything done. So, yep. It surprises me, but maybe it's just my life stage, you know? It happened to a bunch of kids, especially this Sunday as you are flying solo. Yes. That's right. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. It can be difficult, but I think a lot of people listen when they get ready in the morning too. Yes. Just in general. They throw it on in the background, whatever. And they're listening as they, they prepare. But speaking of our listeners, we had a question submitted. We've had quite a few questions. And listen, if you've written in a question just bear with us 'cause we'll get to it. But it just bear with us. 'cause there's a lot of questions that have been submitted and we're gonna work through them. But this one was submitted and I think it's a helpful one. And I'd love to get your thoughts initially Pastor Mark on this, but this comes from Tim peon. Who wrote in about Matthew 10 23, and he said, how should we interpret what Jesus says to the 12 disciples, that they will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the son of man comes. And then he says, my study Bibles pointed to this being a reference to Jesus's second coming. I know Jesus uses similar phrases throughout the gospels, which mostly refer to as second coming. But he says basically, what should we do with this? How should we wrestle with this subject of him saying, look. You won't finish going through all the towns of Israel before the son of man comes. I do think it, it is apocalyptic, I guess in some sense. I do think that that is initially a right place to begin to understand what exactly is going on here. The beginning of the section, he says, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. And then he gives them specific instructions. I do wonder, I do wonder if there is an aspect of this, which is that as he calls them to be aware of men he's talking about. The people of Israel, the people of Israel, and the salvation of Israel does not happen at this point in history, right? The people of Israel reject Jesus. They reject the Messiah. And so the very direct context of this is. That and we see this and we're gonna continue to see that. And we're a little bit further on in Matthew as of today's reading, but we're gonna continue to see that the people of Israel reject God and they reject the Messiah that he has sent Well. There is coming a day when they will be saved. The people of Israel will be saved, but we're not there yet. So that's my initial read. But you threw it at me. So I'd love to look into that a little bit more and study it a little bit further. So it's interesting in context he's talking about. Visiting the villages in Israel, he's talking about persecution and he's talking about right before this, the one that's gonna endure to the end. And so there's a measure to which he's, I think implying that the task for these disciples is so large that when they go to one village and they feel like, oh man this village here is rejecting the gospel not to stay in over labor. The fact, but to go on because they've got a mission that's quite large. Even if these Jewish towns, as he's listening them here are not are not only global, but just Palestine here, that's a tall order by itself. And so I don't think this is implying that. The, by completing the Jewish talent, so to speak, that they're getting the gospel to every single person or that every single person is getting saved. I think Jesus is telling this disciples, the mission is so large and he's being honest with them. You're not gonna finish reaching the talents before the son of man comes. Now they're going to, to all die before the perusia, before the second coming of Christ. But this is a, I. Think casting the vision for the disciples that are gonna be sent out. And now for us today as the church too, that man the task that we have is so large that we need to keep going because we're not gonna be able to exhaust it. We're not gonna get to the place where we're like, well, we're done. What's next? Jesus. And I think that's kinda what he's driving at here. Yeah. There's a book on Matthew by a. Theologian called Matthew Garland, and I think he says something else that's helpful here. This section is about practical instructions from Jesus and Matthew Garland, at least his conclusion on this is he says that Jesus is giving them warnings and helping them to smartly prudently deal with what they're gonna face with the persecution they're gonna face and gives them instructions on how to flee to the next town when they are persecuted. There's some out there who think that you need to stay in whatever place you are. Until you're martyred. There's some who will hold that, but I think this teaches us in part that this whole section teaches us in part that that's not what Jesus calls us to. And then he also reassures them that, and this is Garland he reassures them that they will not run outta places of refuge before their vindication. Right. Before the son of man comes. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go, Tim. Hopefully that clears that up. And as you can tell, this is a. This is a tricky one. There were many commentaries that I looked at in, in consulting this that said, this is a controversial passage or this is a difficult passage to understand and it is. But good job reading and reading, curious and reading to try to get as, as much as you can out of this. I think when we come to something like this and we walk away, maybe we say to ourselves, well, that wasn't as satisfying as I would like it to be. I think we can remember what Peter said about some of the writings of Paul when he said, man, some of these things are. Difficult to understand. And I think we find a similar principle at work here. When we look at passages like this and other passages there're gonna be things that sometimes we're gonna have to say, okay, Lord, I'm gonna depend upon your spirits. You can be the best understanding of what to do with this as I possibly can. But just because scripture is understandable, it's written in language that we can know and understand, doesn't mean that all of it is equally clear to us. And so there are some things that we may not fully understand until we get there. What do we know from this? Well, we know that Jesus is about reaching people with the gospel. That's what he came to do. That's what he commissioned his 12 disciples to do, and that's what he's commissioned to us to do as well. And so that's one thing that we can take away is saying, okay, we've got work to do as well, and none of us are gonna get every single person that needs to hear the gospel before the Lord comes back or before he calls us home, either big picture. We're hoping and praying that he's gonna do that with the whole church at large that the gospel's gonna get as far and wide as he wants it to get. But in the meantime, we know what we're supposed to do, what our job is. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And it's fun to work in kids' ministry 'cause you get to see all the kids who are. Not grasping things. Mm-hmm. And it can be then though, so easy. And I even find this doing, I have to get, I'm like, I'm arrived. I'm an adult. I figured out all these things. Well, the reality is our faith is not gonna be expended even by the point of our death. Yeah. And that's true for everybody. And so we should be. Kind of excited almost when we come across things like this when we're like, oh, I don't know what's going on here. And just like a kid, we don't necessarily understand the full depth of everything the first time we hear it. And so be patient and expect God to reveal truth to you through his word, through his revelation over time, even as an adult. Yep. And write in questions to the podcast even when we can't answer them all that well. Anyways, let's get into our Old Testament reading. We are gonna be in Genesis chapter 42 and 43, and then our New Testament will be Matthew Chapter 13 the second half of it. But as we get into to Genesis 42 there's another passage that I think is good to have in the back of your mind. And that is Hosea 11 verse one. And then this is also picked up in the New Testament and applied to what happens after Jesus is taken to Egypt by his parents as Herod is trying to kill the toddlers at that time in that area. Jose 11, one says this, out of Egypt, I called my son. So why do I bring that up as we're in Genesis chapter 42? Because this is God working out his perfect plan. His plan was always Jose 11 to call Israel out of Egypt. Well, Israel had to. Get to Egypt before he could call them out of Egypt. And so thereby we see that even all the way back when Joseph's brothers conspire and they sell him to the Ishmaelite, who sell him to the Midianites, who sell him to Potiphar, and then he's in jail, and now he's in Pharaoh's house. This is all part of God's plan to do what he's gonna do with the nation Israel, but also it's part of his plan for what he's gonna do with the Messiah, with his son, with Jesus. And so in chapter 42, we see the beginning of the process of getting Israel into Egypt so that God would eventually be able to call Israel out of Egypt. That's right, chapter 42 does pick up with the famine and Jacob found out that there is grain in Egypt available there. He has no idea that this is because of his lost son. The son that he thinks is dead and gone. But he sends his other sons down there to get grain. Now they go not expecting to encounter anyone like Joseph or any, or have any trouble at all. And the whole scenario is set up where Joseph kind of plays with his brothers a little bit. And I don't think this is so much Joseph being hardhearted as much as I think this is Joseph trying to figure out if they've really changed. I think he's trying to figure out, okay, are they the same guys that sold me? Are they the same guys that abandoned me or has there really been some change in transformation here? So he sets up these different scenarios. He asks questions. He asks if Benjamin's still alive, and basically he says, look, you need to go bring back your younger brother and bring him to me. Otherwise, none of this is going to happen. You're not gonna get what you want. And there's the whole scene here of them finding the grain in their sacks. And then they go back to their father finding their payment still in there. They go back to their father and say, Hey, he won't see us unless we bring Benjamin and Jacob's bereaved and grieved again, because he thinks, oh, surely now Benjamin's gonna die. And so it's just an interesting interplay between Joseph who knows. Everything going on in his brothers and it's a microcosm of the fact that God often knows everything going on in our lives, and we're like the brothers. We're the ones that are like, wait a minute, what's happening here? As God is the one moving the chess pieces. Yeah. So do you think, Joseph, I think you already tipped your hat to this, but do you think Joseph is wrong to. Not be fully honest with them. In some ways he deceives them in some ways. He holds back critical information. You may already tipped your hat towards that, but what do you think? Yeah, man, I'm not in the place of God to be able to say I fully condone Joseph, or I condemn Joseph. The Bible doesn't condemn Joseph either. And what we've seen of Joseph to this point is he's a man of integrity. Yeah. He's a man of character. He's a man of godliness. So I don't think there's an evil heart here. It, I do think he's putting his brothers to the test though. And honestly, they deserve to be put to the test 'cause of what had happened. Yeah. And I don't think he has any reason not to put them to. To the test. And I think the way that he's presented here in the narrative to your point, is up until this point, he's been a righteous person. He's acted in godly ways, and I think it's appropriate to continue to read even into chapter 42 that he's continuing to be somebody like that. We don't have any indications in the text that we should read him as something else. Right. And so, I believe the appropriate way to read this is to say that he is doing something that is right. Yeah. Maybe you question whether or not he should have deceived them. But I think the way that the narrative is presented and his presentation to this point indicates to us that we should be on his side for, to put it in a simple way. Yeah. Yeah. And it is fascinating that he is, I think he is testing them. I think it is. I think it's wise. And he's specifically looking to see if they're. Honest, that's what it says in verse 19. He's looking to see if they are honest. And why is he doing that? Well, 'cause to your point, he has very good reason to think that they might be dishonest. The last time we saw Judah, he was certainly acting a deception, although Joseph wasn't witness to those things. But when Joseph last. Saw them. They were conniving, they were deceiving. They ended up lying to their dad about what had happened. And so I think he has every reason to believe that. Also notice Benjamin isn't here, right? He he's probably pretty suspicious of their story about what is going on with Benjamin. 'cause remember Benjamin is his blood blood brother. Mm-hmm. Almost combine those two words. And both of them were sons of the favored wife. The rest of them were probably bound together in, in some sense by the fact that they were sons of the less favored wife. Yeah. So I can see exactly why he would be wanting to test to see if they were honest or not. Yeah. Yeah. Towards the end of the chapter, we see a little bit of a shift in, in Ruben and then his mm-hmm. Willingness to put forth. Although, thanks dad. Hey, take my two sons if I don't bring 'em back to you. But there's some more seeing some leadership here and in chapter 43, we especially see it with Judah. 'cause Judah steps up in chapter 43 because initially Jacob says no, no one's going back. We are holding steady. We are not going back. Which is unfortunate for I believe it's, was it Simeon that they kept there? Who did they keep there? Yeah. Yeah. What a bummer. Yeah, it's like, well, sorry, dude. And they don't, it doesn't, it's not clear exactly how long there was between those two trips. Right. But it was definitely a period of time's, no doubt about it, and that they threw the grain they brought, and in fact they, it said that. They would've gone back multiple times. So they probably rationed out that grain. And at the, we know it was no more than two years. 'cause eventually Joseph is gonna make it clear that two years of the seven have passed, but still even two years with no communication, no idea what's going on. Yeah. What a bummer. Yeah, no, for sure. In chapter 43 they do end up having to go back. And this time because of Judah's leadership and him saying, look, I will be a pledge verse nine. You can require his safety of me. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. And so here's Judah's leadership there. And finally Jacob sees that he's kind of being forced into this because there really is no other option. Do they all just stay and starve or does he risk sending his. Youngest son and not seeing him again. And he basically says, okay, so be it. Whatever happens, happens. But they do, they go back. And this time Joseph gets to see his brother, he sees Benjamin, and this is gonna be a pretty emotional response. And initially. They're brought in and the men confess and they say, look we found the money in our sacks and we didn't mean to. And so we've brought double back. And then Joseph says, don't worry about it. We receive payment, you're good to go. And then he brings Simeon back and gives Simeon back to them. And they come together and Joseph again sees Benjamin, his mother's son. It says there in verse 29, and he says, it's this your youngest brother. And then, so Joseph's overwhelmed, he's over. He runs out of the room and he weeps because of this. Meanwhile, they have this meal together where they're served and the brothers are amazed because they're served in birth order as though Joseph is toying with them a little bit more. And and yet Joseph sits apart from them. They're not yet fully reconciled at this point. Yeah, all of these things could have been resolved if the brothers had done. One thing differently, and it's not super clear, it's not stated explicitly in the text, but had they turned back when they found that money in the one bag, if they had turned back and gone back to Egypt and said, here's the money right. That would've resolved a lot of these problems, right? They wouldn't have had to ration their food, they wouldn't have had to be stressed and have this whole situation hanging over them for multiple years. But I think this is ultimately a test of their honesty. Did they lie? They obviously didn't know those money bags were included in the grain, but. There is a sense in which they were partially dishonest and the reason they were hesitant to go back I think is because they were partially dishonest. So they're put to the test here and ultimately their honesty has proven true. But man, they could have made this a lot easier for themselves, given themselves a lot more food accelerated this timeline quite a bit. If they had been quick to go back to Egypt to make things right, yeah. Although they probably thought, man, if we go back with our money and our sacks, they're gonna think we stole it and we might die. So yeah. I. It's a bad situation all the way around. No doubt about it. Well, let's jump over to our New Testament. We are in Matthew 13. We're picking up with the rest of chapter 13. And so as we get into the rest of chapter 13, there's gonna be more about the parables. There's more parables told. There's more parables explained, including the parable, the weeds, which Jesus is gonna explain to them, and he's going to tell them that the judgment is going to come. The harvest is the end of the age. He says in verse 39, verse 41, the son of man will send out his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all. The causes of sin in all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus teaches on hell more than he teaches on really any other doctrine that he teaches on. And this is one of the examples there is he's talking about the parable of the weeds, and he contrast that with the righteous. He says, then righteousness will shine like the son in the kingdom of their father which always just makes me. I say, man I want to be there and duh, right? You don't wanna be in the weeping and gnashing of teeth. You want be where the righteousness is. But man, I want to be there. And the question is, and I ask my kids this question all the time, how can we know that we're gonna be there? And the answer is, through faith and repentance in Jesus Christ. It's his righteousness, not our righteousness that gets there. And so we need to make sure that we've got the gospel right. That's one of our hu huge takeaways of the parable of the weeds. We gotta make sure that we're not self-deceived into thinking that we're right with God when really we aren't right with him. We are still far from him. Yeah. This also always makes me think of two Peter three, nine where it says the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some count slow slowness, but is patient towards you. Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. If God brought judgment on these weeds a hundred years ago I would have, personally, I would have no hope of salvation, but God is. Is kind. He's slow in, in one worldly sense, right? Not actually, but he's, he seems slow. But at the same time what a rich gift that is to, to you and I that in our lifetimes, we were able to be born and be able to hear the gospel and a final day of judgment is coming. But what a blessing. That we have that opportunity. Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. I love the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value too. My favorites just because it stresses the value that we have in the gospel that once we dis discover the truth of eternity as you were just talking about there, it's worth everything. Mm-hmm. That we would be willing to say, Lord, take everything. This is surrendering, this is Lordship. This is saying, you are the one that owns it all now. And it's not that God is gonna ask you to sell everything and give up everything but. If he did, would you in exchange for that glorious reality of knowing that you're gonna be with him for all of eternity? And so it's when we understand the value of what we have, man it makes everything else pale in comparison. It does. One thing I don't understand is dual citizenship. How can you be truly a citizen of Brazil and a citizen of the United States? Real? I know that's a thing in our modern world but how can you actually. Be that it's a weird thing, but I think we're seeing here too, right? There's no dual citizenship in the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God and we're called to make that trade, right? We don't get dual citizenship across the two. Rather we are to sell everything, right, to give up our old citizenship and to be. To be citizens of the kingdom of heaven, right? Which is what the New Testament develops even more during the epistles when it says, Hey we await from heaven where our citizenship is our true citizenship. We wait that kingdom that's coming. So we're here, even as Peter has called us as aliens and strangers on this earth and to live in light of that, and of chapter 13, we see again the tragedy of the rejection of Christ by those that. Saw so much from him. And it's interesting here it says they were astonished at his teaching. You might think, well, isn't that a good thing? If you're astonished at it, isn't that you're impressed by it? And that's not what that word means here. It's more than awe or being impressed. It's actually more of a skepticism and a cynicism. And that's why Jesus judges this town when he says a prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and in his own household. And he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief other versus other. Accounts say he could not do because of their unbelief which doesn't limit the power of Christ. It's just saying they're not responding in faith. It doesn't matter how many more miracles he was gonna do, he was only gonna heap more judgment on them if he exposed them to more miracles rather than just wrapping things up and moving on. At that point, we should be really, really concerned about the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel That is a massive distortion of the reality of the gospel and the hope of the gospel, but it, you can see how somebody might distort something like this. Passage to conclude that it's just based on our belief in and of itself that produces God's healing power, these things. So we have to be really careful about that. But I also think we have to, on the other hand, not void, all of that. I think we have to not just be so scared of the health, wealth and prosperity, heres. For lack of a better term that we just ignore passages like this. It is fascinating that it is because of their unbelief that he did not do many mighty works. Yeah. So you're saying if we have more faith, then you're gonna do some miracles on Sunday. Yeah. Healing actually today. Yeah. Go to Pastor Mark, find him a church today and be. Mark, I believe, I believe. What are you gonna do for me? And then you're gonna leave disappointed. Yes. Because he's not gonna be able to, he's not gonna be able to pull off. But you're right. And we've been talking about that with our kids a little bit because we're reading through the book of Proverbs together in the mornings. And so much of the book of Proverbs is promising things like long life and riches and things. And yes, it's easy for us as Christians to say, oh, but that's all about eternity. But it's not just about eternity. There's a reward to be found in following him now and responding to him now. So, yeah. And we have to be careful, right? And again, I think it's worth observing. We have to be careful that we're measuring these things based on what God believes is good, not based on what we think is good, but there are aspects in which it is good for you to be able to feed your kids. And God promises that he will, you don't need to be anxious about tomorrow what you'll eat or what you'll drink or what you'll wear, because he's gonna take care of you. Right? So it, we have to be super careful that we don't fall into the trap of health, wealth, and prosperity. But we also need to recognize that there are connections between belief. How God cares for us. Yep. By the way, kind of a little bit of a confusing one we skipped over here, but lemme back up to verse 51. Have you understood these things they said to him? Yes. And he said to him, therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new. And what is old. And so Jesus was bringing this new teaching. He has been since back at the Sermon on the Mount, when he's been saying, you've heard it said, but I say to you here, he's saying, you know what? You don't need to despise the old or the new. Mm-hmm. They both work together. There's good to be found in the teaching both from what you know to be true and this teaching that Jesus was bringing as well. So that, that can be a little bit of a con confusing interchange there, but I think that's what Jesus is driving at. Let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode. God, thanks for your word and even the difficult parts to understand, and we thank you for a church of good bes that are reading well and asking good questions. We pray that we would apply ourselves to understand as much as we possibly can, and when we get to that place where we say, man, this is more than I'm able to understand, I pray that we would have the humility to be able to recognize that and to trust you. God, we don't want to be. We don't wanna be lazy with that. We want to work hard to understand and apply ourselves, but at the same time, Lord, we want to get to the place of being able to say, okay we know what we can draw from this. And just like Peter said at Paul, there's gonna be some things that we find hard to understand in the scriptures and that's okay. We will spend eternity learning more and more about these things when we get to be with you. And we look forward to that day and I pray that you'd hasten it even. And so thanks for this day. Thanks for church. Thanks for gathering us together as the body of Christ. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a great rest of your Sunday. Have a great rest of your Sunday, and keep your new Bibles. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Bye.

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