Everybody, welcome to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. This is the podcast that is looking to the future Unburdened by what has been on unburdened by what has been yes Did you see the white house website that showed a 404 page, you know how you get a 404 That's something that isn't there anymore And it says This page is unburdened by what has been really funny because I think it was directed to the last administration. It sounds like it Yeah. Yeah. It's a new day. There's a lot coming out right now from from Washington, which is which is nuts. A lot of scary stuff to aviation issues for the last several days. What's happening there? Yeah. I don't know. It, somebody said there's a lot of plane crashes that happen every day. There's multiple plane crashes, small plane crashes that happen every day, but that we're more aware of it now because of what happened in DC with the Potomac. Maybe. And perhaps some of those crashes have been a little more high profile than a passenger, a Cessna, it's not a Cessna going down. It's something, these are big planes and they're a black Hawk. That, that's unusual. Yeah. The military is withholding the ID of the pilot flying the black Hawk. Oh yeah. Apparently based on the family's request. Cause they didn't want sure. You don't want that kind of attention. But someone suggested who happens to live in the White House that perhaps it was related to a DEI initiative that hired certain people, right? Because of certain diversity efforts, which I saw recently, there's a diversity Bible. Actually, it's not called that. It's called the upside down kingdom Bible that's produced by Zondervan. Yeah. And Zondervan is known for producing a lot of counterpoint point books. And the talk to us about that diversity Bible. That's the moniker people are using to disparage it. But should we put any stock into a Bible? That's called the upside down kingdom. The general editor is someone that, Preston Sprinkle, not personally, but someone that you know about at least sure. And the staff of contributors are people that probably, I don't know. I don't even, I didn't know anybody. I know Preston's name. I don't know anybody else, but an upside down Bible. What do you think about that? Yeah, for me, anytime I'm looking for a Bible that I'm going to use on a regular basis, I want fidelity to the original languages. That's my main concern. And if somebody is coming to a text with a bias, with a, with something that they want to, Prove and this is not just the diversity Bible. This could be a particular Theological bent this could be somebody that's coming to the text with a covenantal perspective versus dispensational perspective I mean you have to be aware no matter what translation that you pick up that the Bible that you're reading is being filtered through Somebody's worldview the editors the translators those that are working with the text and what you want is you want somebody that's gonna do the best job to be as faithful as possible to what the original authors intended. So anytime somebody is trying to take something like DEI and shoehorn it into Bible and bring that commentary to the Bible. I mean that's something that I don't think was anywhere even close to the radar of the original intent of God nor the original human authors as they're writing the scriptures. So they said though they're looking to they're looking to bring on diverse voices to help elucidate what the text is saying. At least that's the stated intention their value. One of the first values is diversity, right? And again, I'm going to go back to you. It doesn't matter what your background is. Yeah. What matters is the text. What is the objective? We understand it correctly, right? And so I don't need somebody that's got a different background than me to give me a different shade of meaning on the text especially as we're trying to pander and yeah, you mentioned that Sprinkle that gets my dander up. I Cards on the table. I don't like press got a lot of dandruff coming off your head right now. I see it Yeah, I don't like Preston. I just say it outright. I think he's provocative and I think he sticks the eye in his own camp on, sticks the finger in the eye of his own camp on purpose. I think there are better voices out there that try to do similar things to what he tries to do. I think he's irresponsible in what he does. So yeah, that's. It's in my personal opinion, it's fighting an uphill battle just by association with him What about something like the reformation study bible that's primarily the ligonier folks Those are presbyterians or even the esv study bible. You have a lot of reformed voices. Many of them are also presbyterian Or the one the dispensational bible that you alluded to the one that was all the rage I forget the name of scofield Ryery and the scofield study bible with all the signs and symbols. I got one of those as a gift a long time ago Yeah, and talk about some of those Bibles though, because those have a very unique slant and yeah, and yet you would still recommend them, I think, right? Many of them anyway. Yeah, because we're dealing with issues that the text brings up. If we want to go to, Micah and talk about what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God and say, is there a place for justice as a concern for the Christian in our current context? Yeah, there is because the Bible has a concern for it. But we're going to define justice as far as what's the ultimate concern that God has. The ultimate concern that God has is the justice is relates to his character, who he is, and ultimately coming back to the gospel. Yeah. When we're dealing with theological frameworks, those Bibles can be helpful but at the same time, and even the ESV study Bible, great resource, we use it and recommend it all the time, but there's going to be parts of it that we're going to come to that I'm going to look at and say, you know what? I'm not going to consult the ESV or give it as much credence here because they're going to come from a different perspective. Understanding a different hermeneutical understanding of that particular passage than we will. And what we're mainly dealing with there is covenant versus dispensational with the ESV editors. How can a layman expect to be aware of some of those flags, right? You and I could know because we have some training, but if we're going to talk to our church and say, Hey, beware of this particular part of the Bible, they're just gonna say I'm just reading it. And these are the notes in my Bible. How could they be misleading me? That's the important, even write what you said right there. These are the notes in my Bible. Your notes are not inspired. Your notes are not authoritative. They are human contributions there that the work of editors and committees, and it's like picking up a commentary or listening to a podcast. It's not to be given the same authority as the actual scripture. That is, is contained in the books themselves. So whether that's you reading MacArthur or you're reading the ESV study Bible or you're reading the Ryrie Schofield, whatever it is, these notes are simply notes, their helps, but they need to be treated that way. And part of it is on us as pastors of our church to make sure that we are clear in helping our church understand where we fall and why we fall where we fall so that If they come across something in a study Bible that they would say, Oh, I don't know if Pastor PJ and Pastor Rob would agree with this. They can come to us and say, Hey, what are your thoughts on this? Cause we're more than willing to have that conversation and talk through these things and help people go, Hey, I read this in my study Bible. Can you help me understand what the authors were saying there? And we're happy to have that conversation with you. Talk then about, lastly, talk then about the role that authority plays in the life of the Christian. I can, we were going to say you're saying go to the Bible, be a good Berean, study, show yourself approved, as the King James says, you're to know the Bible and to let the Bible master your understanding. But there are men who are godlier and smarter and more studied than A lot of us, we're going to look at that and say man, how do I guess if John MacArthur thinks that, then who am I to disagree with him? And yes, I should let the word be the primary decipher of my understanding, but man, MacArthur's understanding of that passage seems pretty legit. And yet MacArthur and Sproul are on two different pages on this one. In some cases, literally, how do you navigate that? What degree of authority do I give these men that I respect and trust? What degree of authority does the pastor have in helping to shape my understanding of the text? Because I may disagree with even you guys. I don't know if I agree with you on what you just said about that. How do I do this dance? I can't remember exactly the way the old statement goes, but there's an old statement that has been around since the early church fathers that says in essentials unity in, Non essentials charity in all things, I think it was all things, charity, all things, charity and non essentials. I can't remember what the non essentials is. Liberty. Maybe that's what the non essentials is. Yeah. So that's it. In essentials, unity and non essentials, liberty in all things, grace or charity. And I think that's how we have to approach it at the end of the day. It's going to be left to you to decide, okay you've got, maybe let's take the issue of baptism, but MacArthur saying, Hey, believers, baptism, credo baptism. That's what we should do. Sproul would have said infant baptism, pedo baptism. That's what is the right thing to do. Baptizing babies. You've got, there's a liberty because this is a non essential in the sense that none of, neither of those men are going to say baptism is necessary to be To save you a water baptism. So you've got the liberty in a non essential to be able to read the text and land on that yourself. And this is where we go. When we talk about a church, you really want to be in agreement with the church that you're attending and the pastors of that church in a lot of those secondary issues. A lot of those non essential issues, I would say, or it's still important for you to be in agreement only because you don't want every sermon to create friction between you and the pastor that you're sitting under. But that said if you were to come to us, come to me and say, Hey Pastor PJ, I appreciate your position on baptism that you're a credo Baptist believers baptism. I'm leaning more towards the pedo Baptist side of things and the credo Baptist side of things. Does that mean I have to leave the church? I would say absolutely not. No, a hundred percent. You can be part of our fellowship and fellowship amongst us and be fine. And. Yet I would say if you've got a list of things, if you've got 10 things going, okay, and I also disagree with this, and this and these are all non essential issues. Yeah. Maybe you want to consider looking around to another body of believers only because again, I think the friction points between you and being able to grow as a believer are going to be too high to stay in that one church. So there's freedom to say MacArthur disagrees with Sproul. What does the Bible say? What do I think is the stronger argument? And what do I think as we're going to talk about even this Sunday a little bit what is the spirit? Within me, helping me to understand illuminating, helping me to see in the text that what I agree with one over the other, and you're going to land on that. And then you're going to hold it open handedly unless it's an essential issue. And that one we're going to hold with a closed fist. Amen to that. So much more to say about that, but let's jump into the text. Yeah, let's do this 10 through 12. Exodus 10 through 12 chapter 10, we get plagues eight and nine. Plague eight is the plague of the locusts and then plague nine, the plague of darkness. Early in this chapter, God again, confirms that he was behind the hardening in order that he might get glory, even as the Israelites tell their future generations, these things. That's something that's super difficult for us. Again, the Romans nine, Idea is behind a lot of what's going on here. God hardening Pharaoh's hearts. We're going to see in a couple of days here that he not only hardens Pharaoh's heart, but also the hearts of all of the Egyptian army during the actual Exodus itself. But here again, God is explaining that he is hardening the heart of Pharaoh in order that he might get glory, even as the Israelites are able to tell their future generations, these things. So that's the wrinkle that's introduced here is, Hey, you know what? Moses, understand that we're doing this and this is going to be so drawn out so that you can relay these things to your offspring and the offspring that are going to come from them. And they will always know this story. And certainly that's come to pass. So as chapter 10, as things progress and move toward the 10th and final plague, it's God who is now the one actively hardening Pharaoh's heart. We've been going back and forth in the situation here where sometimes it's Pharaoh, sometimes it's God. Really, I think from this time on, if I'm not mistaking, I think God is the actor. I think he's the one that is. Actively hardening Pharaoh's heart rather than Pharaoh hardening his own heart. And again, Romans nine is running in the background on this that God told Pharaoh, for this reason, I'm raising you up that I might get glory over you. So difficult things for us to wrap our minds around, but that's what's going on in chapter 10, plagues eight and plagues nine locusts and darkness chapter 11. Then God brings Moses in on the fullness of his plan all along. God knew the interactions between Moses and Pharaoh were going to lead to this point, but to the death of the firstborn which is. Again, one of those things that's difficult for us that God was ordaining everything to get to one of the darkest days in the history of all Egypt, I would imagine even still today. And that brings up a point. We don't really have anything in Egyptian history that validates any of this. And there's been people that have pointed to that and even lack of evidence of the Israelites in Egypt to begin with and said, Hey, doesn't that suggest that maybe this is all fabricated. This is. This never happened. If there were really this many people in Israel or in Egypt, wouldn't there be evidence of that? I think we touched on that a little bit last year that Egypt was a proud nation. And if you look at their obelisks and things like that they celebrate their victories, not their defeats. And certainly this was a defeat. We all do. Yeah, exactly. And certainly this was a defeat for not only Egypt but pharaoh himself and they would have tried to bury this as much as possible But god is saying this is all leading to what i'm about to do with the death of the firstborn And so he had hardened pharaoh's heart and now he was going to get his glory over him in chapter 11 to you also have god warning pharaoh before he acts upon him and before he acts upon the people So even in this there's a there's mercy that's given to the people god cares about the egyptians Even though they've been hardened against him and he's giving them one final chance to You Acknowledge his rulership to acknowledge his lordship He says here in verse seven that you may know that the lord makes a distinction between egypt and israel So he's going to say i'm drawing a line. That's Impossible to miss so I think that's a really It's a glimmer of light in a very dark scene, right? and he Then proceeds to give instructions for what we know as the passover Notice in verse four he says I will go out in the midst of Egypt. And so this is an act of God. God is the one that is going out and every firstborn in the land of Egypt, verse five, she'll die. The firstborn of Pharaoh all the way down to the firstborn of the cattle in God is the actor. God is the agent of this death that is coming. And so in as the chapter continues to progress and in chapter 11 here, we get the instructions for how Israel was to prevent the death of their own firstborn. And the Passover observance and then the Passover feast instructions are given here. But one thing that's interesting, we talk about Passover a lot and I know in my mind, I've always thought passing over being skipping over. But I it's it seems to be more of a covering over that god is going to pass over in a protect protective sense To prevent the death of the firstborn in there Look at verse 23 for the lord will pass through To strike the egyptians and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts The lord will pass over the door and will not allow The destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. So this is really a protective covering the passing over is not a skipping but a But really the Lord is passing over in a protective sense, passing over the house to prevent the destroyer from entering the house, to take the life of the firstborn, which gives us a more personal sense of God's protection for his people in this this right. You're right on that because they have to participate. In receiving that protection, it's not just that they're sitting by and letting it happen. It's not passive on either party's sense because they have to do something to acknowledge. Yes, we need that. They cover their doorposts and their lentils with the blood of the lamb. And of course that foreshadows the future of Christ's relationship with us under the new covenant. For sure. Rest of chapter 12, then verses 29 through 42. We get the 10th plague. And as the 10th plague comes in here this is the plague of the firstborn Pharaoh after the death of his firstborn and also the firstborn of the others in Egypt, he temporarily relents here. This is, he's had enough at least for now. And this is the beginning of the Exodus here. If you note in verse 30, it gives an idea of the scope here. It says there was not a house where someone was not dead. This is this is again, one of the darkest days in all of Egypt's history. It's of note here in, in verse 37, it says that the people of Israel journal journey from Ramses to suck off. And I don't think we've, or Sukkoth, I don't think we've hit on it yet really in depth pastor but 600, 000 men, that's roughly the, this, a similar number shows up in numbers and that would put them anywhere from two to 3 million people. That's a, it's a massive force and the people, and there's some problems with that. Mainly one of the problems being that there's. Other evidence that israel was the seventh largest or seventh smallest However, you want to look at it nation in canaan So that would have implied that there were at least six more Nations peoples larger than two to three million people in a land mass that's significantly smaller Than for example, texas is so you're dealing with a massive population Working through the desert, tight, constricted areas. Yeah, the list of issues goes on. The amount of food necessary. And how many miracles it takes to do the thing that God is saying. And as one person put it recently, we don't want to multiply miracles where we shouldn't. We don't want to put words into God's mouth that he's not trying to say. And by the way, the text that you're referencing in Numbers is Numbers chapter 1. Verse 46, the number that they're recorded there is 600, 3, 550. So that's a lot of people. And that's just the men. That's the, that's men of fighting age, which is how we get the number two to 3 million because you're including women and children at that point. And also older men would also be included in that number. So you're looking at a very large number and a lot of people have suggested that maybe this is hyperbolic. It's meant to it's a way for god to say This is my people. They're they're small, but they're impressive in different ways or something like that what's the best take on a text like this? What's the best approach given the myriad of potential issues at least from a human perspective? Yeah, there really is no best approach that buttons it up and that's why this is still a controversy what's your take Man it's I don't know. I don't know at this point. Somebody else's has said, the word there can also for thousand can also mean tribe or clan. So there could have been 600 tribes and clans that left or clans that are, under the 12 tribes, there's 600 families in this, that's probably more palatable to, to look at that and say, okay, maybe that's the way we should understand this. The reason I say, I don't know is because It's the text says what the text says. The text says 600, 000 number says 600, 000 I understand the difficulties in that I just. I don't know. I don't want to land on something hard and say it's tribes or it's clans and have that be wrong as well. And in misinformed people and misinformed my own understanding of the word of God. I think what we need to do is say, man, God did regardless of how many there were. This is a miracle. What God's doing here. He's delivering his people. He's feeding his people. We're going to see how he provides for his people supernaturally along the way. And he's fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant. He's turning them into a nation and he has done this. He took the 70 that were initially there and whether it's 600, 000 or 600 he has built himself, formed himself a people for his own possession, a nation that he's going to now take in and begin his history with from this point forward. That posture is somewhat foreign. I think the idea to say, look, I'm not entirely sure. We're in it. There's a case to be made either way. Let's do our best to put our, ourselves in the shoes of someone who's a layman. And it says, but my Bible is that they're counting numbers here. Pastor PJ there's the numbers, chapter one, the numbers, all the people adds them up what would be a good resource or maybe just a way to think about it for the average person who doesn't have the Hebrew background, doesn't know the Greek language. And it's just saying, but my Bible has that number. Why would you deny that? It seems like you're rejecting the clear, plain teaching of the scripture. Yeah, I think there's a super helpful article and something that's a free resource for you called the Faithlife Study Bible. If you go to Exodus 1237, which is where we get that number if you go to Exodus 1237 in your Faithlife Study Bible, which is available for you on Logos Bible Software for free, there's an entire article. It's a separate article. link there from that verse that will link you to this article. And this article is written by a guy named Michael Heiser, who actually just recently passed away, I believe last year. And it's called large numbers in the Exodus and the wilderness journey. He does a decent job of going through and explaining. Even getting into the original language, here's why the original language is not as cut and dry to just say this is thousand period end of story. It's thousand, which means there were 2 million people. Let's just build our bridge and get over it. I think he does a good job of going through and saying, here's what it could be. Here's the problem. Here's some of the solutions that are out there. And even Heiser at the end of it doesn't necessarily come down and say, and this has got to be, it's got to be this one. Yeah. So I think this is one of those things we hold with a loose hand and it doesn't, and yet at the same time, nobody, this does not disprove the inerrancy and authority of scripture. That's right. This does not undermine anything that God is doing here. Whether it's, whether it is 2 million people or it's 600 clans within 12 tribes. It doesn't undermine what God is doing. God is the rest of the story of the Exodus is intact. And what God is doing with his people is intact. And the greater Exodus in Christ at the cross is still foreshadowed in what he's doing right now. So talk to the person who says what else don't we know that if we can undermine something like this, that seems so clear and obvious. Is there anything else in my Bible that I should be afraid of? That isn't true or it doesn't isn't the full story that i'm aware of right and that's where we get into Textual criticism is so developed and so advanced at this point We can say with confidence that any of the variants there are going to come down to things like this They're going to come down to this is a word in the hebrew that can mean thousand or it can mean clan That's not going to Call into question any other Any ounce of the framework of our doctrine and theology, Any variants that exist in scripture, old testament and new testament alike are going to be minor like that. They're going to have copyist errors or things like that we can look at that The bible is very well attested and you can have a great level of confidence more so than homer's iliad and odyssey And all of these books that are out there that are taught as valid in your schools The manuscript evidence for the bible is blows those out of the water. And it's growing even still today. And even the greatest textual and historical critics that are out there have not been able to say, here's the gotcha moment. And that's that in and of itself is telling for me and my book. And so the, are there other variants out there? There are because why, because we hold, like I said earlier, we hold translations, we hold copies. We don't hold the original documents that Moses wrote on because those weren't. Preserved because of what they're written on but we've got a great accurate facsimile. That's very close to what the original was super helpful let's pray and Wrap this up that chapter 12 ends with some rules for the foreigner who wants to observe that the Passover wish there was a high bar For those foreigners, there's a high bar for those foreigners. We'll just leave it at that. You got to be committed Really? Yeah, I'm thankful for the new covenant. Amen to that. Let's pray God, help us to to have humility as we approach the text and to be teachable and to look at the text from eyes that are really desiring to, to know what you want us to take away from this. And so we thank you for the accuracy of our Bibles. And we just pray that we would continue to grow in our knowledge and understanding of you and be able to see the big picture. When sometimes the ground level, the weeds are tall and it's hard and confusing sometimes help us to be able to grasp the big picture of what you want us to learn. As we study your word, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right, y'all. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then. Bye.

Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the daily Bible podcast. We hope and pray this has been a blessing to you and your time in the word. If it has, if you would subscribe to this podcast, leave a like, leave a comment and share it with some friends and family. That would be awesome. If you need more information about Compass Bible Church here in North Texas, you can go to compassntx. org. Again, that's compassntx. org. And we'll be back with you tomorrow for another episode of the daily Bible podcast.