Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast and happy St. Potty's day. I was wondering if the accent was going to come out, but of course there it is. Dude. One of my favorite things to do in high school was accents. Was it? Yeah. I, we did the show this I forget the author, but he's a Russian dude. And so the teacher, we were doing this show in front of the school and they said that the teacher said, Hey, you need to do a Russian accent. Can you figure that out? And I said, Oh, and so she gave me this cassette tape with. What sounded like a Russian accent, someone pretending to have one. I don't know if it was a real thing, but I used it and I did a show with the Russian accent. Thankfully, none of, as far as I know, there are no lasting videos, but just imagine this in 20 years, our kids are going to have all of their lives detailed and they could say something like this and they're gonna be like, Oh yeah, in high school I did this thing and they're gonna, Oh yeah, I'll see the video and pull it up for sure. Pull it up. We can't do that. Thankfully, I would be so embarrassed, but I did that. I was a Russian dude for a high school play. Yeah. Yeah. St. Patrick, he's a character. He, I don't know if you guys know who he is or the, what are the, why there's a little bit more of a connection With him in Christianity, at least in St. Valentine at least why we celebrate his day. So Patrick was a, an Irish missionary. That's moralism. That's it. That's it. It's not here. And actually one of my kids was asking me about that the other day because they were like, he's the one that got the Trinity all mixed up. Isn't he thinking about St. Patrick? I'm like, Oh man, that sketch has done so much damage to Patrick's reputation. I'm like, no, that's just a name that they threw at the guy. It is funny though. It is funny. Yeah. Anyways kidnapped at 16 years old by Irish Raiders, and he was taken as a slave and spent six years there. Eventually he escapes and he goes home and he goes on to try to convert people to Christianity. Now, a lot of these people, as indicated by their title as saints. Come out of the Catholic church. And just bear that in mind and understand that. But yeah that's St. Patrick. So we celebrate his day by dying a river green and a bunch of people wearing green and some people choosing to get intoxicated. Or orange is an orange, the more traditional color. Apparently it is. Yes. Actually, I think we learned that last year. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're really in the know you wear orange. Yeah. Cause I think St. Patrick's day was on Sunday last year. And I can't recall. Yeah. Yeah. Ireland, their color is white, orange, and green. Oh. That would make sense. That would make sense. Maybe you wear all three. Wear all three. There we go. Are you going to be wearing those colors today? I don't know, man. I'm not much. I'm not big rah. You should pinch people who aren't wearing those colors. Yeah, and invite them to our church. No, see the, Hey, come to church pinch you and then come to church. No it's one of those things where I think having kids, I just, I don't want to even introduce that concept of pinching because then they're just going to be pinching everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that's the best rule of thumb, although it is spring break. So it would just be their family that they're able to pitch. That'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. It is spring break. My kids are off all week this week. So There we go. That's cool. So pray for us. What you guys gonna do? My mom's in town, so she's flying in for a little bit of time and we're gonna hang out with her and right on. I'm gonna be in the office. Working aside from that, 'cause it's a normal work week. We don't have spring break at the church. That's a shame. We should do that. We should just decree it the Easter week, I guess this isn't even Easter week anymore. It's still spring, but it's not Easter. Yeah. Maybe we should just declare this, that this is a week off in the office. Yeah. Hey, it's Monday now, so I can tell everybody and ask how everybody's doing on their high five for five challenge. Oh yeah. How are you guys doing? How's you? Yeah. Is that going well for you all? This is better be doing it. If you were there yesterday at church, then you know about this. If you totally, then let's explain it to them just because some don't know, obviously. So let's tell those people that weren't at church. We'll tell the people that weren't at church yesterday. Yeah. So The part of the challenge in the sermon was one of the points in the sermon rather was pursuing the loss like their lives depend upon it. And that's built upon the idea that Christ sends us out on mission, father, I'm sending them out as you sent me. And so we've got a mission to do as a church. And so part of our application of that yesterday was we've got an open door. This It's Easter season that people expect us as Christians to be talking about Jesus, inviting people to church, inviting people to, we've got extravaganza coming up. So my challenge to our church was I want everybody in our church to invite five different family units. So not just one family with five people in it, but five different families or individuals, coworkers, whatever, to at least one. Of our Easter events that we've got going on. So we've got extravaganza going on Saturday. We've got right before that we've got Good Friday. And then of course we've got our Easter Sunday service as well. So you may have different people in your life that might not, maybe one of the unbelievers that you know is not fully ready to jump in on Sunday morning. But maybe the on ramp is you're going to invite them to extravaganza with their family, which is why we do stuff like that. Totally. Or maybe you got somebody who maybe you got somebody like a Mormon who is a mom at your school and you have been getting to know them and hanging out with their kids and everything. But maybe good Friday would be a great place to invite her to because she's going to hear about Christ all sufficient substitutionary atoning sacrifice there. And so we want you to be inviting people who are in your life who don't know Christ to be a part of one of those three services. So that's the high five for five. And the reason it's high five is if you come up to me at church at some point this weekend, say, or in the coming weeks and say, Hey, Pastor PJ, high five. I'm going to know what you're doing there. And we're going to give each other a high five. It's super nerdy, super dorky, but it hopefully will stick in your memory as you go about your life. As you were workshopping this, you were asking about the hip bump and I discourage you from doing that. So that was the better of the two options. I think that's going to work. Yeah, I agree, man. I agree. Maybe I'm waiting for somebody that's up like high 10. I got 10 people. What if they do more than 10? We'll just, we'll keep going. Take off your shoes and start going for it. Oh man. I would love to see that. Please let me in on that. But high five each other to church. I'd love to look around the church and just randomly see a bunch of high fives and all of our visitors would be like, what is this place? Where did I come to? They might confuse that just for general enthusiasm. Hey and love for each other. Hey, if he catches on, awesome. Kill two birds with one stone. That'd be cool. It would be cool. And the hip bump you, are you gonna introduce that at some point? Probably not. Is that the next sermon? No, probably not. Yeah. Holiness hip bump. Yeah. If you're growing in holiness hip bump the neighbor next to you. Oh, the hip check. Hip check for Jesus hip. Check the devil outta your life. Anyways, hey, let's get into the text 'cause we have four chapters today. 17, 18, 19, and 20 do you know what I mean? Chapter 17, this chapter covers issues of justice and what to do with someone caught breaking God's covenant to win from that all the way to when to take a matter to the priests, just for more simple and basic judgment. The chapter concludes with God's instructions for the future Kings who would reign in Israel. And that's interesting because As to this point theory of theocracy, God is the king. And yet God is saying when you ask for Kings, okay, I'll give you a King. And so that's going to be fascinating because the way that Israel goes about asking for a King doesn't bring God pleasure down the road. And we'll get there eventually in Samuel, but here God is saying it's going to happen. And this is the type of King to look for. I'll provide a King, but here's my warnings to him. And the warnings don't amass horses, don't amass wives and make a personal copy of the law. And this is interesting. Do your daily Bible reading in the law, King. In order to learn the fear of the Lord and to obey him. And that stood out to me this time reading through it is just that personal copy that the King was supposed to make for himself. Then he's supposed to read it daily that he might learn to fear the Lord and to obey him. And so God is prescribing the DBR to the Kings of Israel even before King sits on the throne. Yeah, that's really cool. And I think that's so important because we are Kings and priests and Queens and I suppose, and I don't think that has ever gone. Oh, wait, granted, we're not the Kings. We're not the priests. We're not the Levites, all of those qualifiers that you're used to. But man, to be in your Bible every day, sometimes we get resistance on this. People can be like it's just too much. I need some more breaks. I can't do it every day. I'm just too busy or this or that. I just, it's so wise. It's so good. It's so good for you. If you're too busy to eat. You might say to somebody, Oh man, I need today because I was too busy. And he goes, Oh man, you must've been really busy because you make time for the things that you need to do. Jesus will later say, quoting Deuteronomy, man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And I think that means just as much as you need daily bread, you need daily scripture. And you have such a great privilege in having this. I would even love for people to say, you know what, I'm going to write my own Bible. Not actually write your own Bible, but copy it. Hold on. Cut that. Copy your own Bible. Did you guys hear that Leasterega left you a couple of days ago? No one brought it up. No one brought it up. Anyway. Okay. It's at the end of the podcast. As I was saying. You should have your own copy and granted, probably most of us aren't going to do that, but to have a good copy of the Bible, reading it every day, ingesting it regularly, even multiple times a day, what a great thing that would be. It would be a great thing. And we just talked about it on Sunday. Jesus himself prays, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. And so if we want to be more like Christ, Jesus is right there saying the means that to make us more like Christ is the word. And the, or the medium rather is the word that means is the spirit. And so the spirit is going to use the word to make us more like Jesus. And so that's why we need to be in every single day because we have more and more to grow in christlikeness and the spirit Uses the word. Okay, really quick though. Yeah, the pharisees the scribes they were experts in the scriptures and they got it wrong Where did they go wrong? Because you're saying that being in the Bible, right? Being in the Bible produces godliness. That was clearly not true for them. Two things. Number one, they didn't have the spirit, right? As Christians, we have the spirit reading about that in the upper room discourse. The spirit does so much for us and causing us to understand the scripture and apply it accurately and rightly. And then number two the. Pharisees were looking at the word of God, not as a means of Christ likeness, but as a means of self righteousness. And that's a massive thing. And so if we're going to the Bible because we think it's going to make us more righteous and more acceptable to God, that we're acceptable in Christ, we're righteous in Christ. But if we're going to the word of God saying it's going to make us more like Jesus, then we're on the right track. That's a good word. Yep. Yeah. And write your own Bible. You heard it from Pastor Ron. That's right. Yeah. Write a copy of your own Bible is really what I was trying to say. No, but there, there was this this person on on Facebook who was posting on all the, the custom Bible sites that I followed and things cause I'm a nerd. She took the interleaf Bible like you have, and she wrote out word for word the ESV text on the interleaves as she went through. So she ended up writing the whole thing, every word of the word of God. She wrote it through it. She went through and did it all. That's cool. That's a lot. That's a big undertaking. That's commitment. It is. Yep. A worthy commitment. I might add. It is just don't write your own Bible. You'll write your own unless you're translating from the Greek and the Hebrew. Maybe you should There's plenty out there. Yeah Or don't with the translation committee Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Deuteronomy 18 the chapter here opens with instructions for providing for the Levites. So again we've seen this before, but it moves on to the forbidding for forbidding the practices of the abominations of the people who were in the land. So hey, provide for the Levites and also, and this is the nature of this part of Deuteronomy. It's a little scattershot, but remember Moses is trying to prepare a new generation to enter in the promised land. So it's scattershot, but he's being purposeful with all of this. He's trying to help us understand or help the new generation understand what God expects of them. And Hey, this is what to do for the Levites. Remember they don't have inheritance, so you're going to provide for them. And then he moves on and he says, and by the way, you're going into a place and they're doing a lot of things that the Lord hates. Don't do these things that the Lord hates, because if you do, it's going to go bad for you just like it has gone bad for them. And then finally in this chapter, it ends with a messianic promise about a coming prophet who was going to be just like Moses. I will raise up a prophet like you from among them. And so he's pointing to Christ coming. And it's fascinating. What stood out to me this time would probably be just because we've been spending so much time in John, but Deuteronomy 18, 18, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth and just think back to how many times Jesus has said in John's gospel, I don't speak on my own accord. I speak the things that he gives me to say. I say the things that he wants me to say. And so this There's an illusion there that Jesus is making back here to Deuteronomy 18, 18 saying, I am indeed the prophet to come. I'm the one that is like Moses, although better than Moses that God was foretelling here in Deuteronomy 18. And that's the kind of thing that you can only get after a careful reading of scripture. I find that the more familiar I am with the text, the more connections I can see. And that is such a cool experience. Just like what you noted right here, that is such a cool connection. And I think most people wouldn't even think twice about that because they're not studying the gospel of John. Or if they have studied it, they've forgotten some of those careful connections. I've noticed them so many times and I love seeing those. And if you see things like that, A, you should check it. Make sure that your intuition is right. You might be mistaken, but two, you should be encouraged because that means you're getting the words of scripture. So down deep that you're able to make connections that maybe others might not see. And that's part of what happens when you get really familiar with the scriptures and more power to you. Yeah. I've got a book recommendation on that note for everybody. It's a one that is on Kindle unlimited. So if you have Kindle unlimited, it's free for you, but it's a book by a guy named Andy Naselli. And the book is called how to read a book. Advice for Christian readers. I've heard good things about that. Yeah, you like it. I do so far It's been great and Mortimer Adler is the og on how to read a book He wrote a book a long time ago called how to read a book And so this is a modern adaptation of that specifically written for Christians out there I don't believe was a Christian himself and so necessarily takes some of the principles, but he puts it He modernizes it for us and it's super helpful. He talks about three different levels of reading. He talks about the survey level, how to take a book and pick up a book and spend half an hour with it and walk away feeling okay, I have the general tenor of what that book's about. Then he talks about macro reading. Macro reading is where you're reading a book. You're reading every word of that book, but you know what, at the end of the day you're not really stopping down or rereading anything or making notes or underlining or anything. You're just getting the gist. He compares it to listening to a book on audible at the macro level there. And then he gets down a micro. And that is when you've got your pen out, you're making notes, you're interacting with the content of the book itself, you're really doing a deep dive in there. And so that's, it's a great book, super helpful. By the way, if you are somebody that struggles to read quickly be encouraged because as he pointed out in this, I didn't know this before reading this book from the Sally, but John Piper is that way. John Piper cannot read speed read. He's about a book a month. He says, yeah. And so he spends a lot of time with each book. And and so Naselly is really great on that. When you talked about reading the Bible carefully, he, that's what he says is that is exegesis is what he says is reading carefully, reading the text carefully. And so caused me to think about that good book, pick it up. It's free on Kindle unlimited, by the way, if you have Kindle unlimited or it's nine bucks, if you don't have Kindle unlimited, or it's closer to 20 bucks, if you want to buy a paper copy, which I know you're really fond of. In fact, I'm really surprised that you have Kindle unlimited. Because of some books to his point, I'm able to read it. And man, if that, if this is really a life changing book that I'm like, I want to have the physical copy, then I'll buy the physical copy and put it on my shelf. Now, books like this easy for me to read digitally books like a systematic theology or like a heavier tome, something that's, Thicker, more involved. Yeah. I want the hard copy on that. Interesting. Interesting. One quick highlight that I made years ago that freed me in my reading that I use all the time. I remember it almost monthly, I'd say. And I read it in Douglas Wilson's book called A Wordsmithy. Now I know a lot of us have mixed feelings about him, but here's what he said that I think is so helpful. He says, read like someone who can afford to forget most of what you read. It does not matter because you are still going to be shaped by it. You read to be shaped. Not necessarily reading to memorize that's not the case with the Bible. You do want to read to be shaped and you want to memorize it. But for most everything else you can afford to forget it. I think that freed me. I felt so good about that because I'm like, I read so many books. I can't remember anything. Yeah, that's helpful. In fact, in the Sally quotes him and my wife is, has referenced this before as well. But Piper says something very similar to that. He says where is it? Sorry. I can just. Here we go. Piper says, what I've learned, I believe this, but yeah, from 20 years in serious reading is this, it is sentences that changed my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a longstanding dilemma. And these really come in a concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99 percent of what I read. But if the 1 percent of each book or article that I do remember is a life changing insight, then I don't begrudge the 99%. Totally had that experience multiple times where I can walk away saying the whole book is worth it for that paragraph or that sentence or that idea. I've had that even this week where I'm like, Oh man. And that's what gives me pause when I want to give up a book halfway. Cause I'm thinking, man, this isn't really serving my needs, but I want to persist because maybe they say something that. Just that one thing where I'm like, okay, this is worth it for that thing. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for coming on that sidebar with us, but let's jump back in. No, it's great. I think it's super helpful for everybody. Do you want me 19? Or if it's not tough In Durham at 19, these are more laws concerning matters of justice. A lot of it is. And then the first section here dealing with cities of refuge for the manslayer we've covered that before, but here it is again for new generation. And then the next section dealing with moving boundaries don't move boundaries. Don't move your neighbor's fence line. And the final section dealing here with bearing false witness. And so remember, we might think we just read this, but this is during the time of they're carving stone. To record things. They're not writing things down on paper. There's no printing press. There's no Torah scroll that they're carrying around in each family tent at this time. And so that's why it was necessary. Number one, for parents to pass on this information from generation to generation orally. And they were an oral culture and they were probably way better at remembering and memorizing things than we are today. But that's why Moses needed to teach you these things again in such repetition is because this was a new generation and it's not like they could pull out their book of Leviticus and follow along with Moses as he's repeating these things. This was fresh for a lot of them because that older generation had died off and here was the younger generation being ready to enter into the land. Chapter 20 then contains instructions for the battles that Israel was going to have to fight against the inhabitants of the promised land. And once again, the Lord clearly calls for complete destruction of the cities and all who live in them, lest they be kept alive and they would lead Israel into sin. So we've hit on this recently a couple of times. It's worth bearing again. This is justice. Justice is What God does to these foreign nations and these pagan nations. What's shocking to us is only shocking because we have a misappropriation of justice. We think justice is God's mercy being applied to everyone. No that's not mercy. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. And so by very understanding and definition of that, what we deserve is what We see here and what Israel is going to do to these nations. When Israel goes in and takes out the Amalekites and the Ammonites and all of the other Hittites and the Jebusites, that's what we deserve. And but for the grace of God, but for the mercy of God, we don't experience that. And so let's not point the accusatory finger at God and say, God, how dare you? Let's point the palms at the Lord and say, Lord, Thank you so much. And let me praise you because of your mercy and your grace in my life. I have one book recommendation for you guys. And it is another Paul Copin or Copan. I'm not sure how to say his last name, but the book title is, did God really command genocide coming to terms with the justice of God? So it communicates something that you and I have said before, which is God is just. And so even if he does do what we think he's doing, commanding these things it's righteous of God to do those things. We call this idea there's a technical name for it, but the idea is if God commands something it is by definition good. We can't say it's not good because I wouldn't do it that way, or it's not good because then you would be appealing to some standard outside of God for goodness. And we don't do that as Christians who think that God himself is a definition of love and goodness and all things good. We're going to appeal to him and say, if he says it, it's good. And we're going to land there at the end of the day, but this book does a really good job of drawing out some of the ideas that when we're reading these things, that it could be ancient near Eastern war rhetoric that in a similar fashion, when you're on the hockey field or you're on the football field or the baseball field, it's all, we crushed those guys. We destroyed them. We annihilated that team. Everybody understands that conventionally, you're not saying that you literally murdered everybody. Or killed them, but that what you mean to say is that it was decisive victory and Paul Copin and with his co author here Matthew Flanagan They both argue that what they think is happening is that God is using ancient war rhetoric to describe Israel's decisive victory And it doesn't mean I guess how to describe it. It doesn't mean total annihilation like we often think. And part of the reason why is because later on in the book of top of my head here, I forget. But I'll bring it up. Maybe the next one that we talk about this scripture says that the very same people that are called annihilated, destroyed, leave nothing that breathes later on are shown to be alive still. There's still a thorn in Israel's side. And part of it is because they didn't do their job. But the other part of it is perhaps maybe when God does say those things that he's not intending to communicate something that we typically understand. And again, that's convention of the time. That would be it's not deceptive. This is just the way they talked. This would be a natural way to understand this. So all that to say, that's a book recommendation for you guys. I appreciate it. I enjoy it. I'm not sure I buy it. I'm not sure I buy it, but I think it's a helpful approach and considering some of these things that we're reading. Yeah, it's fascinating. I haven't heard that argument before. I guess I, I see. It is a, as a possibility, I guess I'm with you. I probably go so far as to say I don't buy it. And part of the reason is with Saul and the Amalekites when Saul's ordered to kill everyone and he spares Agag and not only spares Agag, but he spares the sheep and everything else as well. And so it's not just that he didn't execute the king because maybe the response would be the king was certainly should have died. If anybody should have died, the king should have died. And that's what the problem was. However Samuel's also upset and angry with Saul that he didn't destroy the sheep and the oxen and the other peripheral elements there too. So it's not just that he's mad about Agag not being destroyed. He's also mad that the animals were left alive too when everything was to be devoted to destruction. So I'm sure yeah I'm sure that there are answers to that from Copan. Copan's a smart guy. He's a friend of us. He's a believer and I'm sure he's thought through those. We're his friends. I don't know. He would be our friend. Yeah, fair. He would call us a friend. He doesn't know who we are. Who's Pastor PJ and Rock? No. Yeah, so I guess I struggle with it for that reason. I think it's more of their disobedience than it is anything else. But yeah. Yeah, there's more to that argument. I just gave you the bare bones of it. But again, I find value in it. It's worth your consideration. My intention is to show that faithful Bible readers can look at this and say, okay, is this what we? Is this what we think? We bring a lens to the scripture and I think that's one of the hardest things to figure out is okay. Am I understanding this the right way? Am I understanding it the way they would have understood it? And that's a good question. It's a great question. We should not take things for granted, but we should do our careful study of the word. Yeah. One more note. I want to bring this to you guys because I don't know if we've mentioned it recently, but all of our podcasts have timestamps. So if we have a conversation that you don't want to be part of, usually if you go to the show notes, if you're looking at a podcast player, you'll see our show notes and you'll see timestamps where you can skip around and go to the content that you desire. So if you don't want to hear a googly, you can skip it. Just want to remind you guys that's available or positively. If we hit on something, you're like, man, that was really good. I want to get back to that and play it for somebody else. You can do it. And you have the timestamp there to be able to do that. Yeah. Hey, let me pray and then we'll be done. Got things for another episode. Thanks for your word. I got to give us wisdom even as just that last conversation We were just having we confess the finitude of our understanding about things guard us from drawing incorrect conclusions one way or the other we want to be Open handed with things we should be open handed with and we want to not be malleable in the sense of not having any conviction But we want to be humble about our approach to the Word of God And so always keep us learning more and keep us As humble students, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the daily Bible podcast. See it. 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.