Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello and hello. Hello. We're back midweek, what is it? Tuesday? Yeah. So not quite midweek, but almost midweek. And we are trucking right along in our reading. We're in numbers 11 through 13 and the rest of Mark chapter five. But yeah, exciting things going on. You've heard some big announcements from us coming up. We've got Easter coming up. It's a good time for you to start thinking about inviting people to. Join us at church inviting people to join us for our Easter services. We're doing two. You heard that We're gonna do two Good Friday services as well. So the Friday before we're doing a four o'clock and a five 30 for Good Friday. And so that should be a great time for us to have a time of reflection on the cross. We're gonna do communion at our Good Friday service. We're probably not gonna do communion on Sunday morning for Easter Sunday. And it's not that we. Couldn't, or that it would be outta place. But at the same time, Easter Sunday is really focused on the resurrection of Christ and communion is meant to call us to remember the death of Christ. So we are gonna observe it on Good Friday, which is certainly appropriate as we reflect on the cross. But it is technically the first Sunday of the month on April 5th, but we're gonna wait for the next Sunday to do communion together as the church on Sunday. Heresy, you know, hair red. As often as you do this. Yeah. That means weekly buddy does it, or even then more than daily. Even daily. So on that note, we've been reading the same church history series. Yes, we have. And you know, the observance of communion on a weekly basis, that's something that is interesting. I don't have a strong dog in the fight as far as whether or not it's okay or to do it, you know, monthly versus weekly. I don't think what we're doing is wrong. And one of the reasons why we don't do it weekly is those that do it weekly. The danger on that end is it can lose its significance because it becomes. Background noise, it becomes something that you do every single week. And the argument against that I know is, well, we preach every week, we sing songs every week. And so it's not that it has to be that, but yeah, communion's one of those things where there is freedom. 'cause there isn't a prescription given in scripture that says you have to do this this many times. Yeah. So I, I think one of the things that I've learned is that the early church has so much to teach us because they have fought battles on things that we all take for granted. And one of the things that I've been seeing more and more, and I've studied church history before. I've taken, I don't know, two classes I think in seminary that were church history based. But this reading Nick Needham's books have been so helpful to me because it just, it reads so well. It reads like a story. It has actors and drama and he just highlights all these cool things. So I've really been enjoying this and been reminded about how many battles are fought, especially in the early church. For things that are pretty common to us today. Things that we, again, we just take for granted, but things like the communion supper Lord supper, these are the things that we just do. Yeah. And we don't think twice about it, but for the early church, these things were hammered out. Yeah. And, and I playfully called you a heretic, as they often do. But I think the early church though, like these guys were for real, like, dude, what are you talking about? We're not doing it weekly. How dare you son of the devil, you know, one of these things. Yeah. So I think it's one of those things biblically then people will say, but doesn't it say as often as you do this, do this and remember it's me. Something like that. Yeah. they're gonna say that. And we're Bible people, so we respect the Bible. Anytime they're gonna make a biblical argument, we wanna be able to respond to that. So respond to that idea. Well, that's what it says, as often as you do this, as often as you observe communion, do this as in remembrance of me. It doesn't say as often as you gather, have communion. That's right. That would be a clear biblical command that if that was the command. We would be transgressing that right now. So this is one of those things where we have to, as Protestant Christians, deal with the relationship of biblical authority and the authority of church tradition and church history. as you're saying, and to your point, there's a lot for us to learn from the church and from history and from the tradition of the way the church has done things. But the authority that we subject ourselves to as Protestants is sola scriptura. That was the cry of the reformation, and that is what we adhere to. That is what we hold fast to. So churches that do it every week are not in sin. Churches that don't do it every week are not in sin. Churches that don't do it, they are in sin. That's right. And, and just to quote it here, this is one Corinthians 1125. Here's how Paul quotes Jesus. He says, this cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes right. That gives us freedom. And that that's exactly what it says. And we're gonna take it for what he says it says as often as you do it. So again, to your point, it's about a frequency that I think is free for us to make a decision about. That doesn't mean we love Jesus any less if we do it once. A, I think we, our pattern is once a month. Once a month. Yeah. It doesn't that you love Jesus more if you do it once a week. Right. It isn't matter of tradition. Right. And judgment that you make on that. And speaking of judgment, people have been clamoring for King's Hawaiian bread instead of the little crackers. I don't, I feel like lots of people would really like that. I think that's got some lemon in it. I don't know. But see, this is a New Testament freedom. New Freedom Testament. Okay. First Corinthian Romans 14. What if I'm sitting there going, okay, but I like doing it every week. So I'm gonna do community at home with my family. Oof. Alright, so our answer is gonna be, we don't think you should do that. We think these are church ordinances that are rightly done within the context of the local church gathering. And even though your family might be Christians we wouldn't call that a church. As such, per se, a church is a gathering of pastors and parishioners who are there for the express purpose of saying, we're here to glorify God together in this particular context. Your family might be Christians, but that doesn't qualify as a church. Right. We would agree. I would agree with you on that, and we would apply that to baptism as well. We think baptism should be done within the Context of the local church. So here's the pushback, okay? Because I know people are gonna be thinking it, but you go to shut-ins and you go to a prisoner who's about to die and you'll do it there. I trust, you'll make exceptions to the rule, right? So why, why the inconsistency? Because those are exceptions to the rule. I mean, we don't wanna take somebody who is a shut in that can't make it to church, can't. Be there because of their health or whatever that may be, and say, well, we're gonna exclude you from participating in something like the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper. There's an opportunity for us as pastors to go and administer that to them. On behalf of the church as representatives of the church and the authority of the church as pastors, to be able to even go and do that. And I would apply the same to somebody who's a prisoner. Obviously, they're not gonna get released to come and be baptized at the church and then go back to to prison. So there's exceptions to the rule, but they are exceptions, not norms. So I have heard people say, well, under the new Covenant the priest is the head of his family, so he has freedom to do that and. I don't understand why you're being such a stickler about this. This sounds like legalism. This is you exercising your authority in an un ungodly way. You're ruling unjustly. First. Peter, chapter five says, you shouldn't exercise oversight in this particular way. So what's going on with you? That was a lot, man. Do you, do you have more, do you have more verses though? Speaking for the people. So first Corinthians chapter 11, you referenced the quote from, from Paul there. If you look at the first Corinthians chapter 11, you can't get away from the fact that this was designed to be the church coming together. He says, when you come together, you are coming together to eat in an unworthy manner. And he's actually chastising them for coming together and gorging themselves on the last supper food instead of eating beforehand and coming to just use this as a memorial as it's intended. And so this is. Intended. This is the context biblically, this isn't church history at this point. This is the biblical model that we see in one Corinthians 11 is when you come together, and that's even the word, communion is stressing, coming together. And you may be the priest of your family, but your family is not the church. Your family is part of the church, but your home is not the church. The the church is. What God has has created, and it's through the local church is through the gathering, under the pastors, under the shepherds with the authority of the local church in the context there. That's the church. Now, you may say, well, house churches exist. Okay? are you establishing yourself as a house church? Are you gonna make that that claim? You're gonna be a house church now, and that's what you're gonna do. and are we gonna talk about biblical qualifications for you as an elder of that house, church? And who is commissioning you to be a church there? Yes, house churches exist. We're not arguing that they don't, but you wanting to do communion at home with your family or in the backyard together with a family reunion. you can't be like, well, we're gonna be a house church for tonight, and then we're not gonna be a house church anymore because we're gonna go back to the church. These are ordinances of the church. They're designed by that way. They're given to the church to be practiced by the church. I'm not trying to be heavy handed or pejorative towards you. I just, I'm saying this is what scripture teaches and we want to follow what scripture teaches on it. Yeah. And there's a whole thing with authority too. there is authority in the past written our authority is for the extent of exercising on your behalf. Right. Fencing the table is part of that authority. Totally. Our job is to help you ensure that you're right with the Lord as you take the bread and the cup. Yeah. Yep. So hopefully that was a helpful discussion and let's get into our daily Bible reading for today. Numbers 11 through 13 and the rest of Mark chapter five. Numbers 11. Man, same old story. Everything was going well. We had the GPS active, now we're leaving Sinai. Things are gonna be great. And yet, here come the people grumbling and complaining again. And Chapter 11 so fascinating because what we find in chapter 11 is God will. Punish the people by giving them exactly what they want. And they will find that what they want, what they craved is exactly the thing that is gonna become loathsome to them. and so often that's the case with us in sin. We go after what we feel like we want. And sometimes even in Romans one, God talks about turning people over to their saying, you want that and you think that's gonna make you happy. You think that's what you need? Okay, fine. Here, I'm gonna let you have it. And it's those that experience his grace that come to the realization that, oh man, what I wanted is not satisfying me. What I wanted is not really what I needed. I should have trusted what God has provided for me instead of wanting more than what he's given. And that's what he does here in chapter 11, that people want meat. He's gonna give them quail. He's also gonna send a plague. And this plague is gonna do. Some pretty significant damage and Moses is gonna have to intercede. And again, we see Moses' humility here. And Moses is going to step in and he's gonna ask God to put an end to this. But this is God's wrath being poured out upon the people. And we're gonna see more and more of that now. The people are gonna complain and there's gonna be wrath in response to their complaining. Chapter 12, then we get some more opposition to Moses this time. It is not the people grumbling so much as it is Moses' own family grumbling. And this is one of those where you sit back, you say Really, really Miriam and, and Aaron. It's you guys this time and that's. Surely who it is, they're gonna come and they're gonna protest and basically say, wait a second, why is it just you? Why doesn't God speak through us too? In fact, doesn't he speak through us? And so Moses is going to be a man of humility here, as he often is and he is mourning over this. And yet God is the one that's gonna intervene and say Moses is the one that I. Have appointed to this role. Verse seven. Not so with my servant Moses. He's faithful in all my house. The writer of Hebrews is gonna pick up on that in Hebrews chapter three. But he says with him, I speak mouth to mouth clearly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why were you not afraid to speak against my servant, Moses? And then God is gonna pour out his wrath on Miriam by making her lepers for a period of time. And she's gonna have to be shut outside the camp. She's gonna suffer consequences for her sins. But here the, the. Own family members. His brother and sister are gonna grumble against him and want his authority. I think I see a theme between chapters 11 and 12 in that there's a deadly lack of contentment deadly for the people who complained against the the Lord and Moses and Aaron by saying, we want this, we want that. They're misremembering what their time in Egypt was. And in chapter 12, Aaron and. Miriam seemed like they're not content with the leader that Moses is, and maybe his whole situation with his wife being a cushite, maybe that's just pretense or, a pretext for their discontentedness. But whatever it is, the Lord deals with that. And I wanna point that out to you because it showcases here the fact that we so easily can clamor and complain, and ultimately every time we just have to think about this, every time we do that, we're doing it against the Lord. We might be complaining about the traffic, but that's the Lord's traffic. It's the Lord's world. We can't get outside of that. Everything that exists exists because God allows it to exist. He's the one who sustains the whole universe by the word of his power. Hebrew chapter one says, so we have to be careful with what we say when we're complaining, even if we think it's a good complaint, like, oh, it's legitimately a problem. How we complain is as important. In that we complain. Yeah. When we complain, it's gotta be done the right way. And that's why the Psalms of Lament exist. They're there to help teach us what it looks like to complain in a godly way. Everything short of that, I think you're asking for God's discipline. Yeah. Well, chapter 13 we get some new instructions and this is gonna be, again, they've left Sinai, they're moving towards the Promised Land at this point. And the Lord is gonna give Moses instructions to send spies into the promised land. And so there's going to be a man chosen from each of the tribes. They're gonna go. And among them are two men that are chosen that. Stand out to us, and that is gonna be Caleb and a man whose name Ishe, at least here in verse seven or verse eight. Who we find out in verse 16 is going to be Joshua Moses called the son of Nun Joshua. So Caleb and Joshua, those are two names to remember here, because Moses is gonna send this group to go spy out the land and see what it is and see if it's worthy of everything God has said it is. And if the people are ready to go up take it. And what we find is the spies come back and say, yeah, this land is amazing, and it's everything that God has promised it is, and it's so good. And it's flowing with milk and honey. And look at the fruit. Look at these grape clusters. It's massive. This is such a good place, but. But we don't want to go. We don't wanna go because the people there are really big and really scary and we don't think that we can put up the fight that's necessary for us to take the land. And yet Caleb is gonna stand up and he's gonna say, we need to go up at once and occupy it. Verse 30 for we are. Able to overcome it. So in the, in the face of Faithlessness, which is the, the other spies, you've got Caleb, and then we also know Joshua too, saying, no, we can do this, we can do this. It's interesting there in verse 33 to note that the Nephilim are present because we saw them last in Genesis chapter six before the worldwide flood. So the Nephilim are back, interesting that that they came back. And so if, and I think we talked about this back in Genesis chapter six. It said the Nephilim were on the land when the Sons of God came to the daughters of men, that the Nephilim were not necessarily the offspring of that sinful union. That they were a group of people that were on the earth known for their size, known for their renowned. So whether this is the same or whether this is a. Categorical name that says, Hey, the Nephilim. They were like those people, they're giants, they're huge. They appear again here in number chapter 13. Yeah. Or it's possible. The angels were doing their own shenanigans again, or the spies are using that terminology to scare people. Like, Hey man, the nephilim are there. You don't wanna mess with those guys. Remember those guys? Right. So there's a lot of things that could be happening here. I don't think that's a. I, I wouldn't take, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in that, at least as of right now. But this whole episode here important to note that there's a, there's a spy from every tribe, and that spy from the tribe is not just a John Doe average. In verse two, it says that from each tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man. Everyone, a chief among them. So these are the leaders. These are not the followers, these are the people that have authority and have a role to serve the people by helping lead them the way that God calls 'em. And so when they make this mistake here, and that's putting it mildly, isn't it? When they sin against the people and against the Lord by saying, let's not do this, this is a really big deal. If fast for PG was like, Hey, we're going to two services, but guys, I'm terrified, this is not gonna go well. People aren't gonna come, no one's gonna serve. I don't know if we should be doing this. I don't think you're gonna feel very confident that this is a good move and for good reason. You shouldn't, you shouldn't. Here you understand why the people automatically rebel. And so leaders carry a responsibility not only to manage their own soul, but to do it for the sake of others as well. Yeah. Their failure resulted in the failure of the whole of Israel for 40 years. Oof. Yeah. That's rough. By the way, you should be excited about two surfaces. I read fear into your voice. I just, so that's why I brought it up. Giving you a chance to clarify. Not afraid, man. Not afraid. Super excited. I think it's gonna be awesome. All right, well, hey, let's flip over to Mark chapter five. Mark chapter five, verses 21 through 43. We are finishing up chapter five, and we're gonna do so with these two different. Storylines. So the first one is the ruler of the synagogue. This man Jairus comes to Jesus and pleased with Jesus to come and, and help his daughter. His daughter is at the point of death, he says, and we're gonna find out that that is definitely the case. This is not an exaggeration because while Jesus is on the way to help Jairus and his daughter he's gonna be intercepted and there's a large crowd. Mark makes a point over and over again about how many people flock to Jesus. Well, there's one woman in particular who reaches out and touches Jesus and. As she touches the hem of his garment, she's healed from an affliction that she had. She had had this discharge for years here, 12 years, this discharge of blood, and notice it said, who had suffered under many physicians and spent all she had and was no better, but grew worse. And yet, here's Jesus. She reaches out, she touches the hem of his garment, and she's immediately made well. Jesus stops down says somebody touched me. The disciples say, are you kidding me? Look at the crowd around you. He says, no, no, no. Power went out from me. The woman knows that she's been exposed. She comes forward, she says, it was me. I did it. Jesus commends her faith and affirms and confirms the fact that she has indeed been healed at that point. And I think one of the takeaways here with this woman when it says that she had suffered under many physicians and spent all she had and was no better, but grew worse, it just reminds me of how. Often the world will seek help and satisfaction and contentment and peace from so many other sources except for the only source that it really can ultimately be found. And that's Christ. Mm-hmm. And so this woman, I think, typifies the lost world in the fact that she had gone to all of these other physicians promising to be able to help her. But in the end, all she is is she's much poorer and she's still got the same problem. And that's true of sin in our lives too. We have to go to Christ. Christ is the only one that can provide the healing that we ultimately need. Now you feel for her? She's desperate, clearly. For sure. She's exhausted her finances, and I think all of us would understand this if we had an an illness. Yeah. That threatened our lives. All of us would be like, let's just throw all our money at it. Let's see what we can do. Let's see all the doctors. Let's get the x-rays, let's get the blood examined. All the things we get her and Jesus gets her even more than we do because he shows her the kind of compassion that is unique to Jesus. Yeah. His love for his people, his love for people. Period is so clear here. And Mark, mark does this thing where he likes to sandwich stories to give you a sense of like, here's how these two things fit together. And so in this story, the sandwich is two. Notice there's a repetition here. There's two 12 year things. One's a 12 year affliction. One's a 12-year-old girl. One's a 12-year-old daughter, and the other one's a daughter who suffered for 12 years. It says at verse 34, daughter, your faith has made you well. So. 12 years. 12 years. Daughter, daughter, Jesus is showing kindness to both of them. This is the the care and compassion of Jesus. And by the way, did you notice that as Jesus is on the way to you, made the point here, this 12-year-old girl is on her deathbed. Yeah. And yet he's interrupted by this gal with the 12 year affliction. He doesn't respond, like, think, like most of us would respond with annoyance. Like, I'm on my way to do something important, guys. Right? Right. Come on, get outta my way. I'm doing things I this poor girl. and you would think because he's compassionate, he might feel a sense of righteous indignation. Like, I'm doing something important. I'm about to go save someone's life here. And this woman, with her affliction says, hold on Messiah, I need you master. And she touches him and he's like, whoa, time to stop. I was convicted by that because that's not my mind. That's not, I'm thinking, I'm doing important work here. I got this thing to do. I got places to be. And yet the interruption doesn't throw Jesus off even a little bit. He's never too busy to serve people. And I just, I need to hear that. I need to say that to myself over and over again. I love these, these stories because they're just so indicative of the heart of Jesus and man, I want that. Yeah, because people are the ministry. People are the ministry. That's a good saying. You should say that. Yeah. Yeah. I think of Jairus in this moment 'cause we don't know what Jairus is thinking. He's like, Jesus, right. Come on. He might've been like, come on, you got a more important place. Yeah. Because in this interaction, this is when somebody comes up to Jairus and says, Hey, don't bother the teacher anymore. Your daughter's dead. And you just think, oh, he was taking time talking to this gal. Yeah. She could have been alive. Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. Yeah. And that's probably another point for us to think about when Jesus is slow to answer our prayers, and yet he seems to like he's answering someone else's prayer. He's doing good things in their life. Yeah. And yet in my life, he's just dragging his heels. Oof. Yeah. This is good. And yet Jesus goes, and if you don't know the rest of the story, you'll read it here. He shows up. He says, don't worry, she's just asleep. She's not dead. And everybody laughs at him. And he goes up into the room, takes her by the hand and says to Letha, Kumi, which means a little girl, I say to you, arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking. And there it says that note. She was 12 year, 12 years of age, and they immediately were overcome with amazement. And yet Jesus says, don't tell anybody about this. Yeah. A messianic secret. Yeah. People knew what death looked like. Yeah. In fact, more than we do. Even though they didn't have the same technology, right. They knew death because they saw it all the time. All the time, time. They killed their animals. They saw people live and die. They just knew that, so there's not a mistake here. Right. It's not like, oops. She was actually just napping, silly us. Right. They knew. this is Mark painting for us a picture, and this is Jesus pointing to the fact that death is really just a temporary sleep. Yeah. Everyone's gonna be resurrected at some point. She got her resurrection earlier and this is only really a resuscitation because she would eventually die again. Yep. Yeah. Well, hey, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode. Lord, we thank you for your compassion towards us that you came in and sought us out and opened our eyes to our need for salvation. Lord, that we had been just like this woman seeking satisfaction, seeking hope, seeking. Peace seeking. Comfort seeking whatever it is from anywhere else and all these other possible means and avenues, and sometimes even from our own self-righteousness, when you were finally the one that broke through and and truly healed us with the healing that we needed through faith and repentance in Jesus. And so we thank you so much for that, and we pray that we would be your ambassadors. You haven't told us, don't tell anyone. In fact, you've told us the opposite is the church. Go and tell everyone. And so we wanna be faithful to do just that. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, hey, y'all keep reading those Bibles. We're halfway through the week. It's gonna be a great week. We're excited for the rest of it. Join us in. Again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then. Bye.

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