Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello and good morning. Happy Sunday. Happy Sunday. Hot Sunday. Is your air conditioner on Pastor Rod? Oh, for sure. It is. Oh yeah, mine too. Upstairs. Yeah, the heat rises. Yeah, we need to keep those rooms cool. Especially at night, man. Yeah. Yeah. You put yours at like 79 or 80, right? It's up there. 78. 78. Yeah, I was not too far. Yeah that's hot man. If I show up and I'm in there, I'm gonna be sweating. Well, when we host people we bump it down because we know that there's a lot of body heat in the room and temperature can go up. So we do bump it down. Yeah. You need to pre-cool it by several hours. I've heard different things about living in Texas about how to treat your home when you're not inside it. And I've heard two, two theories. The first one is it doesn't matter. Your home's gonna work just as hard to keep you cool, so put it up by a few degrees, leave your home and then come back. You'll save on electricity. The other theory is that no, your house is better and more efficient when you put on a certain number and just leave it there all day. Because then it stays cool. Your furniture stays cool. The countertop stay cool, everything stays cool if you keep it at a certain temperature. But if you raise and lower it your thermostat is going to make your HVAC work harder and it's gonna cost you more money in the long run. So better just to keep it at the same number. What do you subscribe to? So when we were in Arizona and we were in a hundred twenty, a hundred and twenty five degree heat during the summertime, we, they would, you would pre-Cool. So you got up in the morning Yeah. When it wasn't as hot outside. Put it like at 60 degrees and you cranked it way down. Yeah. And then. The electricity cost more too during the peak hours of the daytime. Right? Right. And so you would basically shut your air conditioner off after that Oof. And did that in California, and you just let it gradually heat up throughout the day. We don't do that here. We just run it at 78 across the board. Oh, okay. We just let it roll at that and Yeah. My bill doesn't really spike. I It's predictable. Yeah. It spikes when it's like the super, like August is the worst. Yeah. August and September. Those are my two highest bills of the year. Yeah. You run it 24 7. Totally. But aside from that it's reasonable. It doesn't seem to be doing much, yeah. Yeah. I keep mine pretty, pretty cool. Cool. I not as cool as I used to, but still cooler on the cooler side. I like it that way. Yeah. And I enjoy that. We can enjoy Texas weather the best when it's controlled and to be comfortable to be super comfortable, which we're talking about comfortable Christianity today at church. Yeah. Stop. Stop stepping on my toes. I don't like that you're setting me up here. I like comfort. Nothing wrong with enjoying the gifts of God. That's true. As long as you enjoy them with an open hand. Hey, I feel like. Today's sermon and yesterday's sermon of men's Bible study, kind of hamm and egged a little bit. I feel like they go together pretty well. Yeah. Well, when I gave you my notes and said, here's what I'm preaching, and then you said, oh, you know, I'm gonna use half of this for my sermon. I said, oh, cool. No problem. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It's a whole meal. If you were part of the men's Bible study, you got to hear part A and then part B on Sunday. It was a good weekend. Yeah. Almost like we planned it. Yeah. But we did not. Which we didn't. No, no. Yeah. So hopefully you're you're gonna be at church with us this morning. We only got two more weeks of one service before we moved to two services, so, wow. This weekend, next week. And then we are officially two service church. And then you're gonna miss it when it's gone. Yes, yes. I remember the good old days. We only had one. There was only one. Yeah. Yeah, we have a question. We've got a question. Let's answer it. So I wanna throw it at you and see how you answer it. And I want you also to help me as a parishioner to a normal, average, everyday congregant who's not reading Luther. Help me put this into perspective. Okay. Here's the quote. The quote is from Luther, and it says this, if I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition. Every portion of the truth of God, except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are attacking. I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing him. Or the battle rages there, the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And so our question asker, he says, do you agree with this sentiment? And if so, how do you balance this with the idea of theological triage and secondary tertiary issues? I love that idea of theological triage that was coined, I believe, by Dr. Moler and most recently appropriated by Gavin Orland in his book called, you know this book, bro? It's it's a book about. Fighting on the, oh, finding the right hills to die on. Yes. That's the name of the book. Yes. That's a great book. I commend that to you, but let's talk about that. Do you agree with Luther? In other words if you're opening up scripture, but you're not hitting the topic of the day, the topic du jour. And it's where the battle is hottest. Right? Are you being faithful to God? Right. It depends in what We're not at a, we're at a disadvantage because we don't exactly know where this came from Luther. So we don't know the surrounding context of what Luther was talking about in making this statement. It's just a quote that has been attributed to him by multiple sources. And so it's hard to say and the reason I say that is this, there are times where I would say, yeah, you do need to be ready to go after what the world is attacking and address that and where your witness can be heard. If you don't, I, if you're there and you are, you're hammering home one area where you're super confident because you don't wanna venture into this other area, but the world is sitting there saying, yeah, but this area, and we wanna talk about this, whether it's. Creation evolution or gender identity or whatever it is and you're just ignoring that and you're not gonna speak to it at all. The risk that we run is communicating that the Bible doesn't have anything to say about that or perhaps that the world's wisdom is greater than God's wisdom on one of those issues. So I think it is good for us to be as well-rounded Christians able to have those dialogues in these various areas. That said. It can also hurt our witness if we spend all of our time focused on trying to prove young Earth creationism to somebody who's an evolutionist, and then totally miss the opportunity to share the gospel with them. And I think in that instance, we can do damage because we're not actually being an ambassador for Christ. We're not doing any good, even if they leave evolution behind, if we don't ever get to the point of being able to share the gospel with them, then we've done them no good. They're just a slightly less less wrong. Soul that's now still just as much destined for hell as they were to begin with. So I think theological triage is helpful for us to sit back and say what is necessary? What's helpful, what's good for us to bring into this conversation? And that's even gonna change. In various areas. He's talking about the world here, but even within the church, we're gonna have different levels of theological triage. What doctrines matter for us to have to be lockstep in agreement with the fellowship together to serve on the same ministry staff together, or just to attend church together. What doctrines are less important there? So I. It's not a clear cut answer either way, but I do think we need to care about truth because God is a God of truth and we need to stand upon truth, but we need to be careful not to fight for things so much that we miss also at the same time being able to share the gospel. Amen to that. I am full on and heartily agreement with you on that. In the age and day of Christian Twitter, we argue about. Everything. Yes. And while it's fun I think it's enjoyable to watch two Christian theologians duke it out on a certain topic and sometimes a topic is helpful and actually substantive. Other times though it's so inane and so unworthy of our time and yeah, below the dignity of the office to argue about that, I often think. What does the world think about us when they see our infighting and our bickering? We're supposed to be known as peacemaking people. That doesn't mean that we sacrifice truth at the altar of peace, but we're willing to overlook quite a bit when it comes to and you mentioned this, primary, secondary, and then tertiary. Mm-hmm. That's first level, second level, third level. It's great to argue about the first level things. Those are the matters of salvation. The secondary things are important, but those are in-house discussions. Those are intramural conversations that we really don't want to allow the world to see. Because it's not helpful for them to be a confused by those things, or B, to see us really fighting in ways that are again below the dignity of the office. So I thought about one Timothy chapter six, where Paul is saying, look, you gotta teach and nurse these things, Timothy. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he says, that person. Who doesn't do this? He has puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy in quarrels about words which produces envy, dissension, and on and on he says. So there is a time and place to, to call things out, and I think it's. On the primary spectrum, it's areas where it's like these are matters of importance for someone's salvation, but by and large, the pastor, the parishioner, every Christian is supposed to be a peacemaking person, not quarrelsome. We don't like picking fights. We don't pick fights for fun. It is good to fight for the right things, for the right reasons at the right time. But if you don't do that, you put yourself. At odds with, I think what God's purposes are. And you also make us look bad to a watching world. And I think it's important for us to remember the era in which Luther was serving, writing, ministering. They were dealing with pretty significant salvific issues. And I think when he's talking about in this quote, the world and the devil. Knowing Luther's opinion of the Catholic Church, I think he probably would put the Pope and the Catholic Church in cohorts with the world at this point as far as attacking some of the doctrines, what scripture clearly teaches here. So that's important for us to remember as well. Scripture's not argue Luther's not arguing the same things in his era that we would argue about today. We've got the luxury, to your point, to argue some pretty obscured things. Benign, yeah. Yeah. He was fighting for the actual validity of the gospel in his day. Right. Yeah. So I like the statement I would be careful to adopt it and say it takes a great deal of wisdom to know how to apply things like that. It does. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, hey, let's jump into our daily Bible reading today. Joshua seven and eight and Luke chapter 2, 25 through 52. Joshua seven and eight. We have Joshua with an another battle with Israel this time and this is the battle of ai. Now, we were just talking offline, it's probably pronounced differently in the Hebrew because it's got a guttural and everything else. We're not gonna try to do that 'cause neither of us are native Hebrew speakers. You have the best shot since you are Jewish. That's true. I am, but but AI works. Thank you for remembering that. Yeah. This is not artificial intelligence either. Joshua is not battling and fighting against artificial intelligence. Dude, I bet some Christian somewhere is like, dude, the Bible talks about us fighting ai. It talks about ai. Yeah. Oh man. What was the school? Alexandrian School was the metaphorical school of interpretation. Right. You had the two different schools there. And I could see somebody from the Alexandria school back in the day being like, yes, this is about ai. This is actually about artificial intelligence here. Yes. Anyways, things don't go well initially here in chapter seven and this would've been shocking to Israel because they've just come off of the conquest of Jericho. They didn't even have to fire a shot there, really. They just marching around the walls that the walls fall down. They go in, they conquer everybody there and they've crossed over the Jordan River. Things are going swimmingly. They're going super well for Israel and then they go up against Aiken now or against AI rather. And you think. This is another nation. God's gonna drive them out. Israel is gonna win, and they're defeated. In fact, Joshua even doesn't send the full forces out there. He's thinking we, we've got this. God is going to fight the battle for us, and instead they're defeated here and. Joshua goes to the Lord and asks the Lord why? And the Lord reveals to Joshua the reason for their defeat. And that is because somebody had taken some of the spoil from Jericho. Somebody had taken some of the things devoted to destruction and kept it for himself. And so in this chapter, we learn through the process of casting lots, which every decision is ultimately from the Lord. The lot is cast in the lot, but every decision is from the Lord as the writer of Proverbs says here. So the lot. Falls to Aiken. Aiken is going to be exposed by God here, and Aiken's gonna suffer him and his family. Now. This is the second time we've seen the family suffer along with the Father. Now, one distinguishing note here, I think that's important for us to make. If we look at verse 24, if. It says Joshua and Israel with them took ache in the son of Zarah with the silver and the cloak in the bar of gold and his sons and daughters, his oxon and donkeys. And they end up executing them. The words, sons and daughters is not the same word used of of help me out. Children of the little ones back with, cora. Yeah. Oh yeah. When Cora, the little ones in Cora's family, sons and daughters could be those that are older. Right. And so one of the things that I'm gonna argue here is I think God gives plenty of opportunities for repentance to take place in this process. As Joshua announces and gathers the people by lot there and says, something has happened. We're going to, God is going to identify the guilty party, so many opportunities for both Aiken and his family to a step forward and said, we're the guilty ones. We've done it. And cast themselves on the mercy of the Lord. What would've God done at that point? We're not sure because it's a situation that doesn't present itself. But the opportunity for repentance is there is my only point in all of this. I would agree with that. And what you also see here is that I think what you see is complicity in the children. They must be saying, we're with you, dad. We're going to hide this along with you. I take this to mean that they are guilty because they are accomplices in the act which a can prove. Aiken committed. Another factor in chapter seven for me is that the constant reminder that you never sin in singular, others are always gonna be affected. Mm-hmm. By your sin. Mm-hmm. And not only is it your family who you took along with you Aiken, but it's also the whole camp. Mm-hmm. Everybody suffers because of aikens sin. I don't know if you saw that or not, but you should see that the whole people lose against ai. Because Aiken took something that didn't belong to him. And I think this might be strange to the rest of us who are, again we're westerners, we're, we think individualistically and not corporately, but God saw them as a whole unit. They were a whole people. And so when we do this when they did this, it was not just. Aiken by himself, it was Aiken and all those who are dependent upon his righteousness. And I think this is helpful for us to see as Westerners because we constantly think only in the singular, it's about me, my family at the most. But God sees us as a unit. In fact, when Jesus is navigating himself through the churches, he doesn't call out singular people. He looks at the whole church. He says, I see your deeds. I look at all of you. The church at Philadelphia, the church at La Deia. He's calling out whole congregations of believers. Now, this is interesting because I think it still has bearing on us today. I think God does see you as your church, or at least your part of the whole. Remember, you think about the body of Christ. He doesn't see you as just a finger. He does see you individually, but he also sees you corporately. It's like God can't help but see you as both a part of the body and a particular member of the body. He sees both. We focus on the individual, God focuses on the individual and the corporates. We would do well to do the same. Yeah. Yeah. 36 men die because of Aiken sin. Right. Because They were innocent, defeated before. Yeah. They're relatively innocent. They're not Absolutely. So, but they're relatively innocent. They didn't participate. Yeah. And because of their sin. Because they can sin their lives are dead. And then just think about their families. Mm-hmm. Their mothers, their children, their wives who are dependent upon them, they're, they suffer because of, again, ache and sin. So since we're not in a building yet, somebody must be in sin in our camp. So tomorrow at church, or today at church, I should say. Yeah. Today we're gonna cast lots. And we're gonna find out, all right. Bring them dice. Well after this is dealt with in the evils perch from the midst of the camp, Israel gets round two with ai. And it's fascinating still though, because this is a very different way that God is gonna provide victory for Joshua and Israel than he did with Jericho. With Jericho, Joshua was told, Hey, go march around the city seven times. The walls will fall down. This time God is going to use Joshua's military mind and strategy. To bring about victory over ai. This time Joshua's gonna strategize and say, you know what? We're gonna make them think that this is gonna be the same easy victory that they had over us last time, but we're gonna lay an ambush. And so Joshua's using his wit and wisdom here to go about planning the defeat of ai, but he's. Ultimately trusting the Lord to bring the victory. So we see that married together here with this situation. And we'll see that multiple times. We see that during the reign of King David with Joab and Jo's brother, as they are plotting a defense themselves. Later on, God uses us to accomplish his sovereign purposes. So Israel was gonna win. Why? Because God was fighting for them, but God was gonna fight for them through their own. Efforts to say we're gonna avail our ourselves of the Lord and we're gonna do our best and trust that he's gonna use our efforts in accomplishing his will. Such a good point. Such a good point. Because it tells us that God does use different means to accomplish his purposes. God is not singular in his tool set. He doesn't just say, I've only got this one thing and this is all I can do. God operates in the spectacular and the mundane. He doesn't have one way of doing things right now. We have his word. We have his truth, and we should rely on that and depend upon that. He doesn't have more than one Bible. That's not my. Point, but I am saying he does have more than one tool in his tool belt. Right. Let God be God. Yeah. Let's flip over to Luke chapter two verses, by the way, if you note there that they spare the king just keep reading because the king is ultimately executed. So this is not a situation where they're disobeying God by letting the king live. The king is gonna be hanged later on. As a representative, I think of the entire people there, but if you notice that and you're like, wait a minute, they spare the king. Just keep going. He's taken out Luke chapter two. Is our New Testament reading, and we're gonna get into verses 25 through 52 and we meet two interesting people here. We meet Simeon and we meet Anna, and both of these are going to be, prophets in their own right here as they're gonna come forth. And Simeon is going to take up the child, the child, Jesus in his. Arms and even make this prophecy about him and say, Lord, you are now letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes. Have seen your salvation that you prepared in the presence of all peoples Simeon's, A guy I'd love to talk to when I get to heaven, to find out what did you know? And what did you think when you were holding baby Jesus in your arms? Simeon, did you know that this baby, this is the second time you've done this? That is true. Did Mary know it's true? Did Simeon know? I think he just want a song for everybody. Right? I just said what did he know? Is my question, Anna? Did you know Anna too? Why not? Let's throw her in there too. What did you know, Anna? More Christmas songs on the way. Yeah, but these are just unique people that obviously foreshadow. Who this child is and Luke's including it again as he's writing into Theophilus, so that Theos might have certainty in the things that he's heard. So he's saying, look, Simeon's prophesying this, Ann is prophesying this and Luke is writing this with the intent of writing the rest of the story as well. So Luke's writing this, knowing the type of savior that Jesus is going to be and prove to be. And so he's. Including this intentionally with that in view. Now Simeon, I don't think knew about the cross and the empty tomb and sin and everything else like that. So Simeon's operating on, on limited knowledge, but as we'll often say Simeon is speaking better than he knew in this prophecy about the future of what Jesus was gonna be. And then you've got Anna as well who was a faithful woman of God and a widow for quite a long time. And God had promised her that she would one day see the redemption of Jerusalem. And that is the coming of the birth of Christ here. Yeah. There are so many questions that are sparked by this, and I think the healthy response for us when we have questions that we know we can't answer is a healthy sense of awe. Yeah. To sit back and say, what was it like? Now? I just gave you some grief for asking the question, what did they know? But it is an interesting question to ponder. Yeah. What were they operating off of? Clearly it was biblical because God said, we're gonna preserve this and keep this in the Bible for. All generations of Christians to read. But I think even Anna a daughter of fan Uel, the tribe of Asher, you don't hear a lot about Asher, but here's this gal out of Asher who is a prophetess. That's another interesting note there. This is un under the New Testaments, at least one of the last female prophetess that we know about, except when we get to what's his name's Daughters. A, a Agabar. No, Agabus. Agabus. That's the one. I don't know who Agbar is, but Agabus is his cousin. I think she was advanced in years having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin. Then she's a widow for 84 years. I don't know that the Bible is saying it's better to be a widow than not, but clearly this is a devout woman. That's what it's getting at. Yeah, and her devoutness is something that found. Pleasure to the heart of God, and he let her know, Hey Ann, I'm just gonna tell you some special things here. I just love this. And she's a paragon of prayer and fasting. You notice here in verse 37, she never departed from the temple, which again tells me what is she doing there? We have no idea what the women are doing at the temple, right? Tabernacle, no idea. What are the women at the Tabernacle? We don't know, right? She's got so many question marks around her, but I just find it fascinating and so enjoyable to think about the God who serves all these different people. God highlights Anna and Simeon, two people that you never would've heard about. Save for the scriptures and save for their piety. I love this. This is exactly the heart of God to showcase the low. The people that are probably gonna be overlooked by and large, God highlights them. Yeah. Yeah. The rest of this chapter you see the familiar scene of Jesus in the temple holding court with the religious leaders and just leaving these teachers and these experts in the scriptures, experts in the Torah, in awe over his wisdom in understanding. But I think it's important to note right before this, in verse 40, it says, the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. And so Jesus is just re we're reminded of his humanity and we're reminded of the humiliation of the kenosis that Paul talks about in Philippians chapter two, that Jesus had to grow and had to grow up and had to become strong and had to gain wisdom. He's filled with wisdom progressively here. And so this is a glimpse into what it looked like for him to. As we talk about it, empty himself of that equality with God not considering it a thing to be held, but a thing that he's willing to release as he took on full humanity to his full deity there. And so this is just fascinating because you get the humility of Christ on the one hand, and then you get the amazing wisdom of Christ as he's sitting in the temple with these teachers and astounding them with the questions that he's asking. How is it possible, do you think, in verse 52 that Jesus increases? In the favor with God and man, if he is, and as we believe He is a son of God here, so is Jesus increasing wisdom, its stature and in favor with God and man, how is he increasing in those areas when he is the son of God? Yeah I think John's Gospel does such a good job of bringing out Christ. Total submission to the will of the father. And ultimately that culminates in his willingness in the garden to say, not my will, but your will be done. So I believe that this is emphasizing in his humanity and his human will, his submissiveness to the father and his submissiveness to the father's will. So he's growing in favor as he continues to demonstrate that obedience to the Father through all things. Now, was there ever a situation where he was gonna disobey the father? I would say no. Arguably that's an impossibility. And yet he is experiencing and coming to know more of the father's favor. As he continues to submit himself to the will of the father, even as a young boy here. Yeah. I also considered that perhaps what's happening is that he is storing up quantities of God's favor. That is, as he's more and more obedience, God is more and more pleased with him. It's not that he ever didn't have that. He is a second member of the triune Godhead, but as he's. And as he's dwelling in the body of a man, he continues to grow and do good, and God continues to be proud and to find him attractive in his holiness and gives him more and more credit, as it were to his account. And this is perfect because as he does that, he's a. Accumulating it for you and I. Mm-hmm. When he dies, he attributes his righteousness and all of his accumulated favor to us through his own death, his resurrection. And this is what's so beautiful about what Christ does. He lives his whole life in this way, which is, makes him, which is what makes him a worthy substitute. And the first born among many brothers. This is why we're Christians. Jesus living in our place, building up all the righteousness we need, taking on all of our sin debt. He is the one true savior. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for that one true savior. We thank you for his submissiveness to you and to your will. Even through the incarnation, something we'll never fully wrap our minds around. As far as its profundity, the humility that he took on as he came for us to identify with us, to live dependent upon even your will. For us so that we might be reconciled to you. So we thank you for Christ our perfect sacrifice. We pray that we would honor him in the way we live today. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep in your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then folks. Bye.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. We’re grateful you chose to spend time with us today. This podcast is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in North Texas. You can learn more about our church at compassntx.org. If this podcast has been helpful, we’d appreciate it if you’d consider leaving a review, rating the show, or sharing it with someone else. We hope you’ll join us again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.