Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. What's up? It is Friday, March 21st. So we're almost all the way through March. April is right around the corner. It's open house day here at the church office. Indeed it is. So just drop by. Swing by. Get some buntinis and some cookies. Say hey to us. We do have meetings throughout the day today. So just be aware of that. But if we're here, we want to see you. We want to say hey. And we're looking forward to seeing some of our church family tomorrow, but, or today, tomorrow as we record it anyways yeah. And then we get the weekend coming up. I've got a licensed driver in my household. Now my son passed his driver's license exam. Wow. Did you post it on Facebook? So I got it saying, watch out everybody. Josh is on the road. Be careful. I didn't. Nope. Nope. I did not do that. Are you sure? I thought you said you were going to do that. I, I love when people do that. I do. I, it's my favorite thing because then I drive extra vigilantly after that. Cause I'm like, maybe that's that person. I don't know. Maybe it's that person over there. I don't know. Yeah, no, but he did. He passed. I'm proud of him. He was pretty nervous about it, but got a, some nice lady down in, in Carrollton and she was the one that gave him the driver's exam and he passed. So good job, Josh. Good job, Josh. Yeah. Jacob's when's Jacob turn? 16 June, Okay. So you got a little bit of time a little bit of time to enjoy this season while I have it. yeah. Before adding him to insurance, I'm going to put a Facebook post that says, watch out world, here comes Jacob. Here comes, you should do it right now. You should be like, he's got a permit. I'll schedule it. Yeah. He's on there. Yeah. Anyhow. Yeah, that's what's going on. Nothing nothing out of the ordinary this weekend. We don't have baptisms or anything else like that. We had baptisms last weekend, but we do, we will be gathering together as the church we're finishing up our discipled series, which has taken us from John 14 all the way now, or 13 all the way now through John 17. So we're starting a brand new series in John next week called the gathering storm about the impending betrayal and arrest and death and resident. Not the resurrection, but Betrayal, rest and death of Jesus. And then we'll hit the resurrection in a different series as we wrap up the gospel. John, it's hard to believe that we're not far away from ending our study of John. Just about, it is hard to believe a month and a half, two months. Some of us don't believe that well, believe it because Lord willing, what are we going into next? We are planning a summer series called the summer with the small guys and it's going to be a summer covering the minor profits. So we're going to be a little bit ambitious and we're going to try to tackle a minor profit a week over the summer. So it's going to have a different feel. It'll still be expository preaching, but expository preaching of a large chunk of scripture in some of these minor prophets. So the minor profits are not guys that we're too familiar with. At least most of us, I would feel safe in saying that. But there's a lot of really good material there. And so we'll be preaching through that. I'll be out for a couple of weeks. So you'll be preaching through, I think Jonah is one of them. I don't know what you've landed on. We haven't talked through that and hash that out yet for the second one. But yeah, we're excited. I'm excited about the summer series. I think it's going to be really helpful for us. Jonah for the first half. And then Jonah for the second half Jonah one and two, Jonah three and four. Okay. That'd be easy. There you go. I think you can pull that off. We can do that. It robs them of one minor profit because you'll just have to do two. And some of them lend themselves to that quite naturally. Yeah. There are some that are. Are small enough to tackle two of them maybe in one. I'm excited about Hibakiak. That's my favorite of all the minor profits is Hibakiak but yeah, and then I haven't fully landed on yet on where we're going in the fall, but that'll get us through the summer. So it should be good. Let's jump into our Bible reading for today. We've got Deuteronomy 30 and 31 chapter 30 is a really a rallying chapter, a call to obedience, exhortation that what's being commanded is not too hard for them to do. In fact, if you look at verses 12 through 14 of chapter 30, this is something that Paul will quote in Romans 10 verses six through eight. And so here it has to do with the law and Moses is saying in verse 12, is it's not in heaven that you should say who will ascend to heaven. it for it and bring us down. Neither is it beyond the sea. He's saying, look, this is doable. You can understand these things and you can do these things. In Romans 10, six through eight, he's Paul's not going to apply that to the law, but to the gospel. And and that's the perk, the benefit, the blessing that we have on this side of the cross. cross is that's the way that God relates to us primarily is through the gospel and no longer through the law as a means of our maintaining our status with him as it was in, in Old Testament Israel. Now, salvation was always by faith alone. As we go back to Abraham, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. But in this dispensation, the primary means of communication was the law. Whereas for you and I now under the gospel, the primary means of God's relationship with us is the spirit who helps us abide in Christ. And so Deuteronomy chapter 30 about just an encouragement to the people, Hey you can do this. The choice is between you choose life, choose death. I'm calling on you to choose life, follow the Lord and obey him. How does this fit with our theology that says that they actually were incapable of doing what they were called to do? The new covenant is explicitly given because they don't have a circumcised heart. They needed the spirit to do something in them in order for them to work this out. So how do we put these two things together when it seems like they don't? They don't fit. Yeah. That's the old question or the statement that some people make. God never commands us to do anything that we're incapable of doing. And I think in categorically, I would say that's true. God never commands us pick up a mountain and throw a mountain. He doesn't command us to be able to fly. He doesn't command us to be able to, have. Hold on a second. He the things that he's called us to do that he's the laws and commitments that he's given to us These are things that we are able and capable to do now where our inability comes in is our flesh We are incapable of doing it perfectly. We are incapable of justifying ourselves by the law. We can't be a hundred percent Perfectly obedient to the law because of our flesh, but there's no one individual commandment that God has given us that we cannot live up to that we can't measure up to. So the indictment is more of the 30, 000 foot view, whereas the statement of you, you're able to do it, it's here is more on the ground with us. helpful. Yeah, chapter 31, then we get in here chapter 31 is really more about God's foretelling of the evil that would be perpetuated by the people in the promise land than it is about the transfer of leadership to Joshua. Even though the chapter is titled Joshua to succeed Moses there in your ESV. This is a lot of God saying after that, Hey, this is what's going to happen. This is not going to go well. Things are going to go. And so it's a, it's a downer for Joshua. Joshua was being given the reins and then God's Hey, things are going to go horribly wrong for you. So not a super encouraging passage for for Joshua to sit there and consider. But it's, yeah, I wanted to bring up, and I don't want to open up too big of a can of worms, but I do want to call our attention to our Deuteronomy 31 21 says this, and when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall comfort them or confront them as a witness for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring. He's talking about the song that Moses is going to give us in the next chapter that we'll cover tomorrow. But God says this afterwards, for I know what they are inclined to do even today before I have brought them into the land that I swore that just swore to give to them. This introduces the concept of middle knowledge, being the view of God's sovereignty. That would suggest that he was able to look down across the corridors of time before creating and consider all of the possible. Outcomes that are out there based on man's moral free agency And that god chose to create the world in which the most amount of good in the most salvations would occur Based on knowing beforehand what man was Inclined to do. And so some will point to this verse and say, this verse seems to suggest or imply Molinism because God says, for I know that they are what they are inclined to do even today before I've brought them into the land that I swore to give them. What is Molinism? Molinism is named after the one that kind of perpetuated that view that God looked down the corridors of time, considered all the different options and said, this is the option that's out there. It's a Francis Molina. I think the guy's first name was Francis. I know his last name was Molina. I don't know about the first time either. Yeah. And he was the one that it's named after. So Molinism Molina. This is not an aberrant view. It's not a heretical view, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's not one that I agree with because I think the other statements in scripture give a more clear support to the idea that God is sovereign in ordaining the things, not just knowing what we would do, but ordaining what happens. If you think about the fact that he hardened Pharaoh's heart there are instances where God clearly intervenes where God reaches into humanity and makes things happen on our account or in our favor or even in judgment. So I don't. think Molinism is the correct view, but a verse like this is one that people would point to and suggest. Now one of the leading supporters of Molinism today is a guy named William Lane Craig and William Lane. Craig is a known apologist as well. And Craig, I was watching James White. So I guess it wasn't a debate, but James White was critiquing Craig's point of view and yet played a quote from Craig, where Craig said of them all in this view that there are subjective influences outside of the control of God that lead a mankind to make decisions. And God looks at those decisions that mankind is going to make and creates the best world possible. And so that idea of subjective decisions outside the control of God, that's where I can't get behind, I can't get behind That perspective of the monistic viewpoint or the middle knowledge viewpoint. It's out there though. You may encounter it You may hear people that talk about this. They may cite a verse like this Still I think when we look at the big picture I think there are far more evidences of god's sovereignty in his on the ground ordaining what's happening in the world Then there are instances like this where this is the temptation to say he just knows what we'd be inclined to do Yeah, that's a helpful clarification, in the new testament It's one of those situations where Jesus says if this preaching would have been done here and not there they would have repented They would have done this they would have done that so it's not without some biblical foundation But there's probably better ways to deal with it Molina to his credit was trying to put together God's sovereignty and man's I'm not gonna say free will but his Responsibility to do the right thing. And I wonder if this is just one of those areas that we have to say, man, Lord, when we don't, and even though we get really inventive and middle knowledge is really creative. Now I appreciate that creativity, but whether or not it really adequately deals with what we see in scriptures is yet to be understood and yet to be seen. I don't think that it does either. But out of this chapter, I just want to point out one thing here. You're going to see in verse six. That Moses says to Joshua, be strong and courageous. You're going to see this refrain repeated all throughout the rest of the book of Deuteronomy and even leading into the book of Joshua as these two words, be strong and courageous, come to the full come to the four over and over again. Even though he was largely giving Joshua some bad news about how it's going to be challenging, I think this is appropriate given the responsibility that he has to lead, you're going to need strength, you're going to need courage, strength because you're going to be tempted to be weak willed and. Lacking endurance. So you need to be strong, stay with it. And then you're going to need courage because there's going to be lots of fearful things that confront you. Even the people that are going to say, we don't want to do what you're asking us to do. That's the first thing. Notice. Also the second thing I want to point your attention to here in verse number 10, Moses commanded them at the end of every seven years at the set time in the year of release. The Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord, your God essentially he says this, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. So they were exposed to the whole law at least once every seven years. What a privilege it is that you can be exposed to the law every single day and you're going to be exposed to it in large measure. You can have all of you could read the Bible every year for seven years, you can read it more than that. You have a privilege that they did not have, which means. Greater privilege, greater responsibility. Please know that this is what God desires of us. He wants us to know his law, wants us to know his word and you have the privileged ability to read it, to understand it in your language and you have direct access to it every single day of your life. What a cool thing that is. It is a cool thing. And this is. Unfortunate because this is a something that God commands that Israel doesn't really do. And especially once we get into the Kings, this is something that we find with Ezra. The book of the law is rediscovered by the time that we get around to Ezra and it's read for the people and there's national mourning because they are confronted again with God's law that they realize how far they've drifted from God's law in part because they hadn't been listening to God's law. And yeah, I agree with you, man, that is so important for us and for our godliness too. If you're out there saying, man, I want to grow in godliness. And yet you're not in taking God's word on a regular basis, then you're not going to grow in godliness. You're not going to know what God's desire is for you. You're not going to know what he's calling you to do, the way that he wants you to walk, that the path that he wants you to take. So yeah, God's word is crucial and it's so important for us. And you're right. We have a huge blessing because we have it at our fingertips on the computer, on our phone, in, in the physical copies of the Bible, whatever we may have. That's our primary medium in our language and in our language, different, yeah, different media, audio Bible, picture Bibles, word, everything we have so many resources. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about different translations real quick here. As we're doing the daily Bible reading, as we're reading through this PR, your thoughts on somebody that's I'm doing the daily Bible reading with you guys, but I'm reading in a different translation. I love a good translation that differs from my faithful trustee ESV. I am a fan of several translations and I have them open usually in some way, shape or form in front of me when I'm reading my own Bible. So I'm totally fine with that. I would say that the biggest encouragement I have is make sure that you're the Bible that you're studying is a faithful translation that is as close as possible to the original rendering. And largely still has some readability. So I love my ESV. I've been using it now for years since coming to compass. So I think you need to find a Bible that you can live with, not just one that you're going to visit. And one that you'll have by your side, but one that you can live in something that you can memorize and know that it's as close as possible to the original rendering of the text so that you can be meditating upon it accurately. A lot of other really good Bibles like your NIVs or your CSBs. Now take a little more liberty in translating because you're trying to communicate the idea more than they're trying to communicate the exact wording. So be aware of that, but find a good translation to be my primary advice and make sure you live in it. What would you say? Yeah, I would agree with you. I would, my only caveat would be, I think on Sunday mornings when you're coming to church, I would bring an ASV just because even if you're a really smart person, Trying to to read along in a different translation while the word is being preached from ESV is going to require more mental energy for you because you're going to have to put things together. And even, passively that's going to tax you more. And so it'll take away from the energy that you're able to devote to paying attention to the preaching, paying attention to the text and in our time together. Grab an ESV, open up your ESV on your phone, whatever it is, as you're somewhere where somebody is preaching. And we do that as preachers too. If we're preaching somewhere else at a different church, we're gonna ask them, Hey what translation do you guys use? And as long as they're not telling us they use an aberrant translation or something that's really awful. Passion. Yeah, passion translation. Then we're gonna say, okay, great we'll preach from that translation. It may not be our go-to, but in that context with the body of Christ, the community is probably good to do that. So grab an ESV and and bring that with you. That would be my two cents on that. Anyways, let me pray. And then we'll be done with this episode. Thanks for your word. Thanks for the law that we have, the word of God that we have, not just the law, but the whole thing that we have at our fingertips. Again, to help us to be men and women of the word. We pray that often at the end of these podcasts because this is what we're confronted with. This is what we're talking about. We're talking about the Bible. We're talking about your word, the scriptures, the Holy word of God, and we get to have it with us at all times. May we saturate our lives with it so that we know it thoroughly, that we know it. in and out, and that it shows up in the way that we live our lives because we listen and we obey. And so God, we need your spirit towards that. As we talked about even earlier that the call to obey is one that even though none of the commands that you've given us are beyond our capability overall we are fallen individuals. And so we need your spirit to make us more and more godly as the years go by. And we pray that you do just that so that we're more like Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. Bye.

Thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.