Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. What's up? We are back to talk about something that is man it's interesting. It's out there and it was a niche thing for a while, at least. It's been around apparently for a long time. It has been, yeah. Just recently started popping back up and a niche thing, but it's a niche thing that can become divisive. It be, it can become something that is, is problematic. So it's important for us to address, we wanna address it today with you guys, and that is not the style of music that we play or anything else like that, but that is the shape of the earth. It's clearly a cube. Everybody knows that it's clearly a cube. Yep. The four, I don't know who would say anything else. The four corners of inside of the cube. Four corners.

Exactly. Thank you.

Yeah.

Finally we're talking about something that I've been saying for my whole life.

Yeah. It's a cube. Yeah. Okay. No, but you may know or know someone who per buys into or even promotes the concept of. The earth being flat And it what originally it started out as flat earthers. It was a pejorative term that emerged recently. People going, oh they're flat earthers implying that these people are un unintelligent or just con conspiracy theorist and everything else. And we don't want to just write that off and say hey, let's just, create the straw man and say, Hey they're just they're just conspiracy theorists and they don't. Think about things correctly, but a lot of times and the reason we're talking about this on the podcast is they'll appeal to the Bible. They'll say things like the four corners of the Earth, the Bible talks about that the angels are being held and restraining the winds at the four corners of the earth, or it'll talk about the ends of the earth. And if you've got a sphere, pastor, I, correct me if I'm wrong, but spheres don't have corners or ends. That's 'cause it's a cube, but yes, that's correct. Right? What do we do with that? And this is gained some steam it's even impacted us a little bit within our Compass Bible Church family broader on a broader scale. We had a situation up at one of our other churches where this became a point of division in the church. And this was really problematic because this person was promoting this and teaching this to the extent that it was against. Church leadership and it, it really grew beyond just this issue, but this was one of the main issues at stake here. So what do we do with that? What do we do with this language? I think the first thing that we have to understand is the Bible uses different genres of language throughout. Its writing. It talks about not only the four corners of the earth, but Jeremiah talks about the circle. Of the earth, right? And so there it's okay, so are we dealing with a circle? Are we dealing with a square? How do we deal with this? It also talks about the rising in the setting of the sun which we know that the sun doesn't technically rise, that we are orbiting around the sun. We're in a heliocentric solar system here. And so it's not that the sun is literally rising, but the Bible talks about the rising of the sun all the way to its setting. I'm thinking of Psalm 19. It talks about stretching the heavens out like a garment. And we're not sitting here going, oh, the heavens must be fabric and they must be made out of. Some cloth that's up in the sky. We know, okay, this is poetic language and that's what he's doing when he talks about the four corners of the ends of the earth. To embrace flat earth would require us to to look at pretty much everything out there. All of the evidence, all of the images that we have from spacing, including things that are calculations that date all the way back to the middle ages. Pythagoras himself was even calculating that the planets were themselves spherical. And so this is not something that, that's new. It's not something that's. Only since we got into space and took photos of the earth or purportedly, as they would argue. Th this is something that people have embraced from much later times from the middle Ages and even prior to that. As, as well as just the idea that you look at in modern technology and how we're able to observe a lunar eclipse or we're able to observe the phases of the moon. Those really only make sense with us. Spherical planet both with Earth and the moon. So there's science and then there's also evidence in scripture for us to look at this and say, you know what, it's pressing it too far to look at the Bible and say, the Bible teaches flat Earth pr. I'd love to get some of your thoughts on that.

Yeah I've heard of a few people that support this ideology, and part of it is through the. The text of scripture that are poetic. And I think that's what really comes down to it. I've tried to look at a handful of the go-to texts that seem to be used to support the flat earth movement in the Christian circles. And it's hard to look at that and say yeah, I, that's an open and shut case for sure. And I think we were just talking about this before we started recording here, is that if the Bible taught that we'd believe that. I believe that and I have no problem saying God can tell us up is down and down His right left is, around the corner. If that's what God wanted to do, and we would be inclined to say, okay, if that's what the Bible teaches, and so be it. So it was not a matter of saying, w we're just too well-informed. We're just too scientific. We're too western minded to believe. We, the Bible's teaching. The reality is. Is that the Bible's just not teaching it, right? It's poetic language. And to take any poetic language and force upon it, a literal framework is so dangerous, and often you're missing the entire point of the text itself. So while I do believe that there are sincere brothers and sisters who believe in this and have conventions and have all sort, the publishing materials and doing videos and things like that, and I hear the sincerity. I've listened to one of their videos and I. Man, the guy sounds passionate and he sounds like he loves the Lord and has a genuine desire to know the truth of the Lord. The reality is, I just think that they're sadly not getting what this text is trying to say, which is why it's so important to read your Bible because you'll see from a lot of it reading your Bible. Is learning how to read within the context and within the genre that the scripture teaches. And if you're willing to do that, if you're able to do that, you'll avoid a lot of the errors that could come with something like

this. Yeah. Th this would fall into when Paul's warning Timothy to abstain from foolish myths and genealogies that can cause quarrels and fights. I, I, I. Would say that something like this would fall into that realm of things for us. We want to be we don't wanna bury our heads in the sands as Christians. We wanna be open to the reality, especially, post covid and things with everything that went on there. Yeah, makes sense. Love, distrust. Yeah. And so we're willing to. To hear arguments out. But we also need to, at the end of the day, say, okay, Lord what do you want from us now? And certainly it's not to be distracted with matters like this, but to focus on the matters that he's calling us to and beyond that I do think the testimony both scientifically and biblically is the fact that we should trust in the earth that we know to be true on the globes that we have and everything else. There's a book, if you're interested in taking a deep dive on this there's a book that might interest you called Falling Flat. A refutation of flat earth claims falling flat. A refutation of flat earth claims by Danny Faulkner. Now just know this is this is meaty. You're gonna get into the weeds on this one big time. If you're interested in learning more about that, Danny Faulkner's book would be super helpful for you.

And maybe you wanna start reading that tonight at. Campus camp. Out campus. Camp out. I was, 'cause I was gonna call it something else and then I realized that's not the name anymore. Yeah. 'cause someone else has it in their calendar as the wrong thing. And I'm gonna correct 'em about this later. But it's tonight. Maybe they wanna read it tonight on their Kindle as they sit in their lawn chair in front of their tent. Yes. Are you excited

about this or what? I'm I am excited. I am ecstatic. I have a tent ecstatic that has not been opened yet. That will be opened and will be set up. This is at some point. Yep. That's great. Yeah. So is it a two story tent, central AC and heating it? Yeah, it has a big screen TV in it. Wifi. Yep. Bluetooth. Yep. All sounds great things. No, it's gonna be awesome. Mark is gonna be teaching us all as we're out there. He is got a devotion to bring to us there. And there's gonna be a lot of games. I gotta sign a family color for this. I apparently wore light orange. Light orange, so Annie was not dark orange. Yeah. Light Ali sent us our family color. She was like, so feel free to wear, light orange. I'm like I don't, I have nothing. I have nothing light orange. Even if I went to the Goodwill, like you have to do with family, with youth camps and things like that to give your team color. I don't think I would find light orange. I don't think so either. Peach, she told me my team color was black.

Okay. How did you black swing that? She said dark black. Yeah. Something about my soul. Okay. And appropriate color. I forget what she said.

Yeah. Oh no. Wait. It says red here. Nevermind. Even red. Red is light. Light orange. I don't think I have red though. Honestly, your color is chartreuse. God, we know. Or to begin with that one mauve. Yeah. Anyways, it should be an awesome time. Can't wait for it. It's it's gonna be a good time with our church family. And then everybody will be bright out and bushy tailed on Sunday morning, the day after for set up, right? Yep. That's the plan

every, we're gonna, we're gonna bring the coffee

guys. Don't worry. That's the plan in the prayer. We're gonna

have

so much coffee flowing. It'll be coming outta your eyes. It will be yes. Yeah. Hey, let's jump into our daily Bible reading for today. We are in First Samuel, just two chapters today, 13 and 14. First Samuel 13 and 14. We are continuing Saul's reign as King over Israel. And so 13 one, it says Saul lived for one year, then became King, and one he had reigned over for Israel for two years. Then it goes on. Now, that may look odd to you and if it does, welcome to the club. There's a lot of people who believe that this was perhaps a situation where the number actually dropped out here. That it used to say something else and that then it was perhaps his age when he came to the throne or how long he reigned. But when you read this and you go, th this doesn't. Seemed to make a lot of sense. That's why the second half, I think is setting up the timeframe for the conflict with the Philistines. I think that makes sense to me. But when it says Saul lived for one year and then he became King, I, it, there does seem to be a textual variant that, that we don't have in the Masori text anymore, that would've made that more clear. And it probably was his age. He lived for so many years and then became King to give us an understanding of how old he was when he came to the throne. Your thoughts on that? Po

Yeah, I agree with that. It seems like it's lost to history. We don't know exactly what it said except for Acts 1321, which does say that he reigned for 40 years. So we at least know that the second part he reigned for 40 years is more than likely the case. But what it said before that. It's difficult. Only God

knows. Yeah. Difficult to ascertain and that's okay. It's this is an example of a situation where textual criticism showed us, shows us the veracity of the text that we have, because we can look at the text and figure out, okay, something dropped off here. Now does this change anything? Inherently about your convictions or beliefs in the inher seeing the authority of scripture? No. Does it change anything about doctrine or who God is or anything else? No. Is there a reasonable explanation for what happened here? Yes, there is. And so this shouldn't undermine your faith in scripture, but what happens in one Samuel chapter 13 is that there is an. Early victory from Jonathan over the Philistines, which sets up a dire situation for the Israelites because the Philistines come out in retaliation and there's a massive force that emerges here. And Saul's supposed to, at this point, wait for Samuel before acting on anything. But Samuel delays, he doesn't show up yet. And so Saul decides that he's gonna offer sacrifices to the Lord. Unlawfully because only the priest was meant to offer sacrifices, not the king. And so Saul does this against the law, and Samuel shows up right after he finishes here, and un understands and knows because of God's revelation to Samuel what had taken place here. And so Samuel announces to Saul at this point that his dynasty is done. That there's not gonna be a dynasty anymore. That Saul is going to be the last one of his line, that God is gonna choose another man, a man after his own heart. That's the famous line there. And and so Saul is gonna be rejected. His line is gonna be rejected here. And then the chapter ends bleakly with Israel mustering what little weaponry they had to go to battle against the strong imposing Philistine army. Chapter 14. Then we've got Jonathan and his armor bearer. And we don't, I don't believe get the name of the armor bearer in here, unless I missed it. But this guy is, this guy's impressive. In and of his own read. Jonathan's the hero clearly, but this armor bear, he's a brave guy. And I was reading for actually tomorrow's reading just about the significance of the armor bear. The armor bear was somebody that the man who was. Being served really trusted and loved. This is not just a random guy. This is somebody that, that, the armor bear was somebody that the guy who he was serving said, I trust you. I love you. Let's go to battle together. And so that's what's going on here. Jonathan and his armor bear, they go up and they launch this attack on this Philistine Garrison, which is an uphill attack at, there's a lot stacked against Jonathan here. And yet Jonathan wins the battle. Saul makes a rash vow saying nobody should eat until the battle is done. Jonathan eats. It's discovered. And Jonathan should die according to the vow. But this time the people of Israel, they step up and say, Hey Saul, you're not gonna do this. And they rescue Jonathan from Saul fulfilling his vow. Which is interesting because that's not one of the means or methods that are allowable for breaking a vow in scripture. Yeah, I think.

The only reason God tolerates it is because the vow was a sinful vow. A sinful vow that should have been broken in the first place. 'cause there is provision in scripture, four vows that were done. I don't know, I don't wanna say impetuously, but vows that were not good. You should break the vow. You should pay the fine for breaking your vow because even though the vow, you said Christ, I don't even know why he would say this. I think it was right for them to defend him. I don't think it would've been right. I think it would've been held accountable for Saul to not only. To fulfill the vow, but it would've been a sinful fulfilling of the vow.

Yeah. Yeah. What about what goes on here with Jonathan in the Philistine garrison, 20 men at least, that he takes out here in half an acre. Should we see something supernatural? There is this just Jonathan's military prowess that enables him to do 20 guys against one. And you think about the fact that at least somebody up there had a spear or perhaps a bow, that they could have dispatched Jonathan from a distance. This is. This is unique. What happens there?

Yeah, I'd have to see that part of it at least was. The Lord doing something because verse 15 says, there was a panic in the camp, in the field, and among the people, the garrison there, there was a great panic and then the earthquake. So God is intervening, but I don't know that there's anything inherently special that, Jonathan's not a ninja, I don't think. I think God empowered him just to do the job, and God has supported that by causing them to freak out and start. I don't know, running amuck and maybe killing each other as on as well, or on top of that.

Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of ninjas, I just learned this recently. Did you know in Japan there's something called ninja floors or anti ninja floors, and they're anti ninja floors. They're intentionally made to be squeaky interesting and creaky, so that a ninja can't sneak up on you. Wow. So I've installed those in my house. I could see that. Yeah. I'll look forward to sneaking up on you. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can Google it. It's true. They do. They have anti ninja floors in Japan, which is crazy. That is crazy. I also appreciated somebody that said, what if the Japanese ninjas were just the worst of the bunch? And that's why we only know about ninjas from Japan.

Yeah. I believe that one actually, of all the things that you said, this episode, that's the thing that I find to be most credible because

we wouldn't know if the ninjas were really good ninjas. America could have the best ninjas. Yeah, around the German ninjas. Have you heard of those guys? Yeah. There's a reason why. No, that's, yeah, exactly. Exactly. They're overweight ninjas and later Hoen creeping around. Anyways, that has nothing to do with anything, but let's let's wrap this episode with some prayer and then we will be done. Lord, we are thankful for your word. That does give us understanding and knowledge. And while it doesn't give us all of the facts and all of the scientific points that we could wish that it would, sometimes it does give us a general understanding. It gives us guidance. And certainly we do understand that your word speaks differently in different ways, in different genres and different methodologies. And poetic is the poetry is definitely one of the main. Ways that you reveal yourself to us and way the way that you describe things to us. And so we wanna be humble as we come to your word, as we come to creation. And yet we also don't wanna be people that are overly skeptical just for the sake of being skeptical. So keep us from cynicism. Keep us from pride. Lord, keep us from being divisive in any way, shape or form. God guard us from the endless myths and genealogies that Paul talks about with Timothy. And help us to seek first and foremost the glory of God and the glory of Christ through fulfilling the mission that you've given us to fulfill as a church. So we ask this and pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep you in your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye folks. 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.