Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Welcome back, folks. It's a Sunday edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. It's the Lord's Day. Please get yourself to church today. Make sure you're wide awake. Plenty of caffeine with some excitement, perhaps. Some excitement. Yeah, some fervor. That

would

be good. Yeah. Some

clapping, even c songs. Clapping,

dancing, flag waving, oof, tambourine hitting. Oof. All the

things. Yeah, we gotta be careful about what we say on the podcast. 'cause we mentioned we, I used the royal, we I believe that it was your words. You called the Kim's group. Unhinged. Unhinged. Did I say unhinged? You said unhinged. Because then I went to go visit their group and they said, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna show you what's really unhinged. And thankfully it was very not unhinged when I went there. It was very subdued and it was a great group. I don't recall calling them unhinged. May I guess it happened. I believe you. Yeah. I just don't recall it. What was even in the

context? It was ironically said, wasn't

it? It was said ironically. Oh, okay. It wasn't on purpose. Yes. You were not angry. I think you talk about flag waving the Kim. Yeah. Arg. And I apparently have to be careful about what I say on the podcast because that's not true. It's not true. So you've never taken a snippet of something I've said and then maybe scattered it in throughout a podcast episode. I might've sprinkled

it in on the yesterday's episode maybe, and maybe an episode before that. But not liberally. Not liberally, okay. And I'm not taking words out of your mouth. They were words that you said. Okay. I just applied them in multiple contexts. Okay. Alright. So it's

a proof text then

for you? Something like that. Yeah. So it's the words nobody noticed, to my knowledge. Except for your wife. Yeah. She picked up on it. Amanda noticed. Yeah. But what did you say? I can't remember now. Just go ahead and say that again.

No, I'm not. Yeah. No, I don't think I will. It's too

late, man. I already have it. It's not like it can be anything I don't have already.

I just wanna make it harder for you to have to go back and find

it to drop it in again, bro, let me tell you, I've got that phrase under lock and key at the ready anytime I need it. It is safe and secure. So it was during one of our conversations you were saying,

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said

and I just took that little snippet and tightened it up a bit and put it after everything that I said. Yeah, you affirmed everything that I said for that episode. It was wonderful. Yeah, I felt so good at the end of that episode. I'm glad you did. I was like, man, maybe I'm doing the right thing, Lord. 'cause I feel affirmed right now.

Oh,

I'm glad you feel affirmed. Speaking of affirming anything, last night went well. We had a, not last night. I guess it was two nights ago. Was two nights ago. Yeah. We had our Friday night leadership training. It was always cool to have our people and talk about fun things. We talk about being committed leaders. That was a good night.

It was a good night. Yeah. We

had Christian chicken sandwiches, which I, yes, Christian chicken was amazing, but I have to tell you, my favorite part of the night. Was not the food and it wasn't the teaching. It was the games. The games were the best. They were awesome. That was so much fun. Yeah. I could not believe I, the joy that I felt when we initially played those games back when I was in high school. Yeah. At least some of the games, not all of them, but I felt just this is so good. I think we should do it every time we gather.

We should do it on Sunday mornings. That's a great idea. Before announcements have icebreaker games during the service ice game, let's do it. I don't know that we should do that. People would enjoy it. I'm not saying they wouldn't, I just, I think there would be other people that would probably, they'd be confused. They might think that's unhinged. They'd be, that there would be no flag waving. That's true. At least that's true. That's true. That is accurate. Yeah, for sure. Anyways let's jump in. Let's talk about judges. We're in a pretty, a new book. Brand new book. And this book is gonna take us all the way from Joshua's death until the beginning of Samuel's leadership. So right about up to 10 50 BC if you're keeping score at home. The book has really not a lot in the way of positive events. Not a lot of highlights going on here. This is a lot about Israel's stubbornness, their rebellion. And God's mercy. I, those are the themes that really come out here. And God's mercy is seen in the raising up of the judges, and that's where the book gets its title. There's no author named, but actually tradition in the Jewish camp holds that this was written by Samuel. And so we may have Samuel as the author of both judges and First and second Samuel, if he was the author of First and Second Samuel. But yeah, Jewish believe that Samuel is the one that wrote the book. My favorite judge is Judge Judy. She's not in the book. She's not in the book. No. Is she the same kind of judge? She's not the same kind of judge. Yeah. No. And that's probably a helpful distinction. We're not talking about the court of law type judges. We're talking about the judges that are there to help decide matters between people, but also more importantly to lead the people of Israel. And so they are seen as the defacto leaders. In fact we know that because a couple of the judges are approached and said, Hey, why don't you just make yourself king? And and they're serving in that level at that. At that capacity. And one of the descendants of the judges, a bialek, we'll get to him eventually or a alek it's a bialek, right? Yeah. He goes ahead and says, I wanna do that and wrongfully but we're gonna see Gideon say, no, I'm not gonna do that. This is not the monarchy, this is, these are not kings, but they're serving as the defacto leaders of the people. As we get into chapter one, we see in verses one through 10 it's a strong start. It starts. You're gonna read this and go, okay, this seems like this might go well. And Judah and Simeon continue the conquest in the region that's been allotted to them. So it seems like we're doing all right here in verses 11 through 15, we get this kind of retelling of the story of Aneal. You remember that from the end of Jo Joshua that. Othniel was Caleb's eventual Caleb, eventually Caleb's son-in-law that as Caleb was settling his land, he said, if anyone can do this and drive these people out, I'll give them my daughter. And oth Neil was the one that steps up and ends up doing that. Verses 16 through 26. You get more of the conquest here except this is where things begin to go sideways a little bit. You'll note verse 19 that we find that, judah's failure to, to trust the Lord fully leads to their failure to completely drive out the people of the plane here. And there, there's, this is where we find that their disobedience kicks in. And this is gonna go from good or somewhat good to, to bad really quickly here. And they're gonna find that they're in need of. Deliverance more failures to drive out the people completely as the chapter goes on verses 27 through 36. This is just they're disobeying God's commands here. And so it starts well, but then quickly in chapter one it unravels here.

Talk about the fact that they cut off this guy's thumbs and is. Toes it's glanced. It is just said here quickly in, in verse six, Adonai beek fled, but they caught him and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes, and then he's yeah, I did this before to other people and now you've done it to me. It seems like he's saying this is justice. But this may not sit well with people. Because it doesn't say that they should do this. What are your thoughts about

that? Yeah I wrestle with that too. I it seems that this was a decision that they made without. The direct instructions from the Lord on that. And it may have been that they were thinking that same thing. Hey, we're gonna do to you as you've done to others. And this is certainly a sign of humiliation. And so they're embarrassing this one. They're embarrassing his people as a result of that. It's, it should certainly would've been shameful. So I don't think this is anywhere that we would say God said. This is what you should do. I think this is them kind of taking things into their own hands there, which is part of what gets them in trouble throughout the whole book. Yeah,

I'd be inclined to agree. I think the book of judges, when you read about what the people do, generally speaking, it's not favorable. It's not a good thing. Judges ends with the refrain that we're gonna become familiar with short order. But I think that's important to see because nowhere does God tell. His people to maim a king, even if it does render him ineffective in battle, which is the equivalent of hamstringing a horse. He's no longer able to pick up a sword and conduct battle operations as he once did. But there it is, you begin to see cracks in the veneer O of the nation's face. On top of that, you'll notice in the verses 27 to the end of the chapter that it doesn't say that they could not drive out these people. It says that they did not. Which, to your point, speaks to their. Their defiance their utter disobedience did not drive them out, did not drive them out. This is repeated over and over again for the force of you as the reader saying, wow, they're just straight up blatantly rebelling against the Lord. And of course, this is not gonna end well.

Yeah, that, that's a, I had that highlighted too. That's a repeated phrase. There. Did not drive them out. Did not drive 'em out and over again. There one thing that, that. I just wanna draw your attention to, I know I keep coming back to Jerusalem and you're like, fine enough of Jerusalem, but this is such a significant city and I wanna clear something up. 'cause you may look at this and say, wait a minute. And I thought Pastor PJ said they didn't take Jerusalem until David's day. That's what he said. But in verse eight, it says, the men of Juda against Jerusalem and captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. And so what gives it seems that the city was taken, was defeated, but they did not drive the inhabitants outta the city. They defeated the city and moved on. They didn't settle in the city where that would've been, what God would've wanted them to do. And if you jumped down to verse 21, it says, but the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebe sites who lived in Jerusalem. So it seems that they defeated them, but they didn't exterminate them completely. They didn't settle in the city. And so eventually the cities rebuilt and the Jebusites continued to live there, even unto the day of Samuel. And then eventually David. Chapter two. Then in chapter two, we get an appearance from the angel of the Lord and again, the angel of the Lord. Anytime we see that most often is the second person of the trinity, I think that's what we see here. Again, this is Christ in. Incarnate, pre-incarnate vision of Jesus incarnate meaning in the flesh. So he's not in the flesh, but he's taking bodily form here so that people can see him and he's communicating and he's confronting them. And he says in verse three you have not obeyed my voice. And so he says in verse or verse two, and then in verse three, he says, so now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides. And there God shall be a snare to you. So God is doling out the judgment and the punishment for Israel's rejection and failure to do what he had commanded them to do. Verse six through 10, verses six through 10, we get the death of Joshua again, significant because Joshua was such a good leader for the people. And so he dies here at 110 years old. And so that tells us chapters one and this point to chapter two, the introductory material for the book as a whole, and it's setting up. What's gonna lead to their downfall. This is the tailspin of Israel, which continues after Joshua dies. They serve the Baals, the other gods of the peoples that they had not driven out and fulfillment of the prophecy of the angel of the Lord there. And this is gonna set up the need for them to be delivered by judges, which God's gonna begin to do in the book. Two

quick ideas here. One, one of them is a question for you, and the other one really about the, about Joshua himself. I'll start with the second one, Joshua. It seems because of his death. The nation now lacks a strong centralized leader, which I wonder if this is what led to their compromise and their fraction their factions that resulted in all their different kind of idolatry and their unwillingness to obey the Lord. Joshua was a strong leader and I can't help but wonder, at least question out loud. I wonder if it's because he was no longer on the scene. This is Moses' protege. He was trained, he was godly, and now he's gone, and now you're beginning to see the breakdown of the nation. That was my first thought. The second one. It has to do with something that you brought up multiple times. And I just wanna clarify something that has a potential to confuse and it's about the angel of the Lord. So we believe that Jesus is the second person of the Godhead. He's fully human, fully divine, at least not at this point. He's not fully human, he's still fully divine. One of the things that the Jehovah's Witnesses will say is that Jesus is the Archangel Michael and that he is in fact an angel. He's not. Fully divine. So one of the issues it seems that could be raised if someone was reading this and says, oh, Jesus is the angel of the Lord. Then Jesus is an angel, is he not? How would you respond to that and offer some kind of clarification so that no one's confused about who Jesus is, even if we're seeing something of his nature presented through the angel of the Lord? Yeah,

that's a helpful question to raise the word angel we immediately think spiritual being the word angel at its root means messenger. One sent by someone with a message, with a, an instructions. That's why in, the book of Revelation that the seven churches are written to the angel of the church, of the messenger of that church the one that is carrying the message of the Lord. This is what I have to say to you. So when we read the angel of the Lord, it's the messenger of the Lord. And then, so that's the first thing. It doesn't mean spiritual being. The second thing is, when we look at the response of people, when the angel of the Lord shows up, and I don't know if this is necessarily the greatest example, but there's other times where the angel of the Lord, and that's what's unique, is when it's He's signified as the angel of the Lord. Not an angel of the Lord, but the angel of the Lord. When we see that. People respond to this angel the way that they would respond in the presence of God. There's a fear, there's a terror, there's an a recognition even admitting I've been in the presence of God there when the angel departs. And anytime that happens with a mere angel, think again. The Book of Revelation. When John falls down and worships a, an angel in the book of Revelation, the angel says, what are you doing? Get up. You don't, you shouldn't worship me. Anytime the angel of the Lord is worshiped in the Old Testament, he welcomes it and says, this is good. This is right. You should do this. What we see from the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is is the reception of worship. When a created angel, an angel that's not the second member of the Trinity, would never do that. They would always say, you shouldn't do this. This is wrong. You should worship God. Instead, I. And then I would say the third thing is when the angel of the Lord speaks and it says here, the angel of the Lord went up from gilgal to bokeem and he said, I brought you up from Egypt. I brought you into the land that I swore to give your fathers. I said, I will never break my covenant with you. He speaks as God. And so I'd say it's those three things. The word means messenger. He receives the worship of man, and then third, when he speaks as God. Really

helpful for you to say that. So let's just be clear then. There is a class a spiritual being called an angel. Yes. So this, even though the terminology is used here, the translator decided to render the word for messenger as angel. Although throughout the text there are times that they take the same word maal and they translate it as messenger as appropriate. So I guess why do you think then the ESB translators went with. The angel of the Lord as opposed to the messenger of the Lord. Do you think that there's any significance behind that, or is it just a matter of tradition? Maybe that's the best answer. Do you have any ideas about that?

I haven't given a whole lot of thought. I, I would say, I think it probably does carry a little bit more weight than Messenger. Perhaps messenger could be misconstrued as a mere human being a little bit more easily. This does immediately put us in the realm of the supernatural by calling this an angel. And so perhaps that's why whereas the messenger of the Lord could be, a human being that you're going, oh, this is the servant of the Lord. He's got a message from God for us. And so maybe it just helps to elevate our thinking right off the bat.

That's a fair idea. And I guess my point for all of you then is just not to confuse the fact that the terminology as angel applied to Jesus does not mean that Jesus is an angel a messenger. And that's the idea here. Although he's a spiritual being taking on some kind of. Some kind of shape, whether it's physical or just the appearance of a physical shape. I'm not exactly sure. But the fact is he is not an angel. He's a, he has a separate ontology, which is a reference to the nature of his being. He is God but right now he's inhabiting some kind of per personage of some sort to represent the divine being God himself.

Yep. Let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Yet we are our wanna be humble in our approach to scripture. We wanna ask good questions. We want to ask things like, how do we know this is. God, that this is you, that this is the second member of the Trinity here when we read about this, the angel of the Lord. And we are grateful for the way that you've created our minds to work and understand text. And Lord, we wanna be careful always to sit in subjection to your word and not put the word in subjection to our own intellect, our own wisdom. Help us to be humble in that and humble recipients of your truth. And God, we just want to continue to learn and know more, and know your word more thoroughly. As we spend more and more time in it with each passing year that we can say we've read the Bible again, Lord, that is another. It's not just checking a box. It's not a badge of honor on us. It's a way for us to know you more deeply. And so I pray that would be the end of our time. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep bring your Bibles tune again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast or else. 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.

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said