1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,120 Welcome to the Love and Context podcast, engaging in unscripted conversations with your hosts, 2 00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:07,360 Ben and Spencer. 3 00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:11,480 Whether you're tuning in from your car, your office, your home, or anywhere in between, 4 00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:15,200 we are so happy to have you join us today. 5 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:21,120 Our mission is simple, to explore the Bible through a powerful lens of love. 6 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:26,260 Together we'll uncover fresh insights and gain deeper understandings of how we can love 7 00:00:26,260 --> 00:00:29,640 God and love the people in our everyday lives. 8 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:34,880 So buckle up and join us on the spiritual journey as we discover timeless wisdom that 9 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:39,560 is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago. 10 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:42,160 Without further ado, let's dive right in. 11 00:00:42,160 --> 00:00:46,120 Welcome to the Love and Context podcast. 12 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:49,960 I'm trying to say this in a soothing, relaxing tone for you today. 13 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:51,120 I like NPR. 14 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:52,120 Is it working? 15 00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:53,120 Yeah, I guess not. 16 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:55,240 Hey, welcome to the Love and Context podcast. 17 00:00:55,240 --> 00:00:56,240 Glad you're here. 18 00:00:56,240 --> 00:00:57,840 I'm Spencer, not Ben. 19 00:00:57,840 --> 00:00:59,200 I'm Ben, not Spencer. 20 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:00,560 Glad you can make it. 21 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:04,200 We're going to continue on our way through Leviticus. 22 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:05,200 Leviticus. 23 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:06,200 Leviticus. 24 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:08,040 We are in Leviticus. 25 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:11,280 And the last couple of weeks we talked about what is the purpose of Leviticus? 26 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:13,960 What is this offering system, the sacrificial system? 27 00:01:13,960 --> 00:01:16,680 Last week we talked about what is the priesthood? 28 00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:17,680 What is the goal of the priesthood? 29 00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:19,360 What is the role of the priesthood? 30 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:24,000 And also how does that carry into the idea of the modern church with leadership and their 31 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,300 responsibility to equip the saints for service? 32 00:01:27,300 --> 00:01:31,320 We added some important context to speaking truth in love. 33 00:01:31,320 --> 00:01:35,560 And so if you're a person who tends to use that phrase, I would just maybe encourage 34 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:37,880 you to go back and listen to last week's episode. 35 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:38,880 Yeah. 36 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:39,880 It's interesting. 37 00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:42,840 I had somebody say that they listened to our stuff and they just jumped right in the middle. 38 00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:43,840 And I was like, what? 39 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:44,840 You can do that. 40 00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:48,320 I was like, but it's weird because we reference things that we talked about already. 41 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:50,840 So you may be like, what? 42 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:51,840 Yeah. 43 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:52,840 Let's see. 44 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:55,880 References or resources for today. 45 00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:58,720 So D Thomas Lancaster, we're still talking about what about the sacrifices? 46 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:03,040 I'm going to add another book that he wrote called Paul's Epistle to the Galatians because 47 00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:07,560 I want to reference it a little bit in talking about the works of the law today. 48 00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:08,760 And it's a great read. 49 00:02:08,760 --> 00:02:14,360 It's much more academic though, and much longer than what about the sacrifices. 50 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:18,640 Additionally, we're going to always recommend the Bible Project, Aleph Beta, which is Rabbi 51 00:02:18,640 --> 00:02:19,800 David Foreman. 52 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,800 The Baymott podcast has some material, though they didn't spend as much time in Leviticus. 53 00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:28,000 I'll tell Marty that he needs to fix that and he spends more time in Leviticus. 54 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:29,800 And those are some good resources for you. 55 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:30,800 Yeah. 56 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:35,400 Today, we're going to be talking about works of the law versus the moral law. 57 00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:36,400 Yeah. 58 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:38,040 And specifically, what is the purpose of the law? 59 00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:39,560 What does the law actually do? 60 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:40,560 Right. 61 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:45,000 And I think one of the good places to start with this is you need to understand the law 62 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:52,400 and the laws that are written here in context against the current laws of the surrounding 63 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:53,400 areas. 64 00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:58,560 And we're not going to dive too deep into exactly what those laws were, but you need 65 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:04,760 to understand it in context against those current laws because there is a contrast there. 66 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:06,440 There's a huge contrast there. 67 00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:14,720 Just like if you were going to compare laws from Congo, Central Africa to the laws of 68 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:15,720 UK, England. 69 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:20,400 I don't know the laws of any of those countries very well, but I imagine they're different. 70 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:22,640 I imagine they're different, right? 71 00:03:22,640 --> 00:03:27,200 If you're going to compare laws of two different countries, you have to note that those countries 72 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:30,480 are going to have different laws for different reasons. 73 00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:36,400 And so in the same context here, we want to view what is being written as the law in Leviticus 74 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:41,920 in contrast against the laws of the surrounding nations of the day. 75 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:46,400 So placing Israel in a context, we have to understand that when God gives a law, what 76 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:47,920 is his purpose in giving the law? 77 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:48,920 Yeah. 78 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:50,600 It's going to be to speak into the context that they're in. 79 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:51,800 Yes. 80 00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:54,020 Not the context we're in. 81 00:03:54,020 --> 00:03:59,800 And so we have to understand the purpose of the law, not necessarily the specific law. 82 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:00,800 And you know what? 83 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:04,080 Let's just jump right in on a few of them because I think it's going to be really helpful. 84 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:10,000 There's a group of laws that I'm going to call hygiene laws. 85 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:14,880 So it says if you have a discharge from your body, if you throw up, you get secluded for 86 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:17,000 seven days from the assembly. 87 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:19,980 Then you go and see the priest and he says, if you're still sick, then you go and spend 88 00:04:19,980 --> 00:04:23,960 seven days more and then he's actually going to pronounce you as well and we're able to 89 00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:26,080 rejoin the assembly. 90 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:31,600 Now we look at that law and in our context, first off, we typically don't call being sick 91 00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:33,720 discharge from the body. 92 00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:36,800 There's probably a medical person out there that's exactly what they call it. 93 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:40,440 But I can tell you that Benjamin does not call it that. 94 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:42,700 And maybe Spencer does, but Ben does not. 95 00:04:42,700 --> 00:04:47,520 When I hear discharge from the body, my mind goes to worst case scenario. 96 00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:48,520 Yeah. 97 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:49,520 Blood. 98 00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:54,080 It just goes to being very sick to where something's coming out of one end pretty rapidly. 99 00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:55,680 I'm not going to go into more detail than that. 100 00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:56,680 Yeah. 101 00:04:56,680 --> 00:05:00,200 We're going to try to keep it not so gross. 102 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:06,480 But given that the world is three years removed from a global pandemic where we talked about 103 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:10,480 secluding so the E-Action don't spread sickness around to a bunch of different places, which 104 00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:12,840 by the way is generally a pretty good rule. 105 00:05:12,840 --> 00:05:15,240 If you're sick, don't go to somebody else's house. 106 00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:18,020 These are common sense things that make a lot of difference. 107 00:05:18,020 --> 00:05:22,380 Now why is that significant that God is actually bringing this into the Israelite people? 108 00:05:22,380 --> 00:05:25,880 Because this isn't a regular practice of the cultures. 109 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:28,840 They would actually just be sick and they would be moving around and all these things, 110 00:05:28,840 --> 00:05:30,040 they wouldn't seclude their people. 111 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:34,240 Or every time somebody gets sick, they would seclude them and then they would just perish 112 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:36,800 away from the community. 113 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:41,000 God is having a way to take care of the infected person and also preserve the integrity of 114 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:42,840 the community. 115 00:05:42,840 --> 00:05:44,600 Because they're going to be wandering in a desert. 116 00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:49,960 For Pastor Nick's wife, the desert is real hot. 117 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,920 She comments every time I say that, so I'm just going to do it again. 118 00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:58,440 It's real hot and there's not medical resources available. 119 00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:00,000 And it's not just that hygiene. 120 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:04,080 There's ones about skin disease. 121 00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:06,960 Chicken pox is something that kids get when they're little. 122 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:09,900 And we don't think about it being super dangerous. 123 00:06:09,900 --> 00:06:13,600 But if you're an adult and you get chicken pox, you can actually get real sick. 124 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:17,760 And so you actually have to be really careful when you get these types of things. 125 00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:23,360 We forget living in a society where there's 15 clinics and a hospital. 126 00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:25,880 Getting sick is actually not a big deal for us. 127 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:26,880 Correct. 128 00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:29,320 For the most part, now there are times where it is a big deal. 129 00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:30,960 I want to just be clear on that. 130 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:33,560 But for the most part, if we get sick, we can take care of it. 131 00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:35,320 You get a headache, you take aspirin. 132 00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:36,320 Yeah. 133 00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:37,640 We have medication for it. 134 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:41,200 If it gets to a point where it doesn't seem like it's going away, there's clinics, there's 135 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:42,200 hospitals. 136 00:06:42,200 --> 00:06:45,880 There's treatment for most things out there nowadays. 137 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:49,440 This is not a society where that was an option. 138 00:06:49,440 --> 00:06:53,720 And a lot of the quote unquote medical options weren't actually that helpful. 139 00:06:53,720 --> 00:06:55,560 Go read some of the... 140 00:06:55,560 --> 00:06:56,840 This is actually a fun one. 141 00:06:56,840 --> 00:07:00,000 Go read some of the medical textbooks and what they were recommending at the founding 142 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:01,000 of America. 143 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:02,200 Oh, it's so funny. 144 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:03,200 Yeah. 145 00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:08,160 Some of the things that they were recommending to do is I could go back in time and go be 146 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:14,120 a part of that society and I'm like, no, we're not going to try to remove bad blood. 147 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:17,400 No, we're not going to stick leeches on them. 148 00:07:17,400 --> 00:07:18,400 No. 149 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:21,560 You know what I mean? 150 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:22,720 And that's not to judge them. 151 00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:24,320 That's the place they were. 152 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:25,480 And so we're not placing a judgment. 153 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:27,660 So God is giving them some laws. 154 00:07:27,660 --> 00:07:29,520 We look at them as laws and we look at them as oppressive. 155 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:34,080 And so that's why sometimes the word law is insufficient, because that's not necessarily 156 00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:36,160 representative of what's actually going on. 157 00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:41,400 God is giving them some instructions that are meant to bring life to them. 158 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:46,440 Which by the way, is what laws do for our life in general. 159 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:48,840 Sin being the archery term that we missed a mark. 160 00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:51,880 We were shooting for something and we missed it and we fell short or however you want to 161 00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:54,520 describe that. 162 00:07:54,520 --> 00:07:56,200 What did we fall short of? 163 00:07:56,200 --> 00:07:59,240 Life, what God calls us to be. 164 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:00,840 The very nature of our identity. 165 00:08:00,840 --> 00:08:03,440 And we were like, hey, I'm going to take and do for myself. 166 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:04,440 We talk about Genesis 3. 167 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:07,840 I'm going to try to define for myself good and evil. 168 00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:10,480 It actually produces death in my life. 169 00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:13,040 Which by the way is what Romans is talking about. 170 00:08:13,040 --> 00:08:20,320 That when you invest in sin as a Jew or a Gentile, the result of that, the wage that 171 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:22,640 you are paid from that is death. 172 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:27,880 But the gift of God, something you can't earn is actually eternal life, a qualitative life 173 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:29,000 spent with God. 174 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:32,680 So the law and the words in the law are actually meant to bring life. 175 00:08:32,680 --> 00:08:38,040 They're meant to turn Israel into a more ethical, healthy, functional society that's capable 176 00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:39,680 of putting a story on display. 177 00:08:39,680 --> 00:08:44,720 And just to piggyback on the hygiene thing just a little bit, and I just want to reemphasize 178 00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:49,680 this, a lot of the hygiene laws were just very practical for their day. 179 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:51,480 Very practical for their day. 180 00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:56,520 Just like we in America have some basic hygiene like expectations. 181 00:08:56,520 --> 00:08:59,800 There's no written law saying that you have to shower every day. 182 00:08:59,800 --> 00:09:03,680 But if you don't shower every day and you don't wear a deodorant and you don't do a 183 00:09:03,680 --> 00:09:07,680 few things like that, you're probably going to smell. 184 00:09:07,680 --> 00:09:10,200 And it's probably not good, and it's not good for you. 185 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:13,400 And you were talking about surrounding nations and how it has an impact. 186 00:09:13,400 --> 00:09:17,240 So with hygiene, let's talk about something kind of related to that, kind of not. 187 00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:22,680 So there's a lot of sexual things mentioned in Leviticus, right? 188 00:09:22,680 --> 00:09:25,160 Fathers don't have sexual relations with your children. 189 00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:28,680 So very practical things where you'd be like, no, duh, right? 190 00:09:28,680 --> 00:09:32,640 And we talk about bloodlines, we talk about hereditary design, like all these different 191 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:35,960 things that geneticists will tell us about, biologists will tell us about, that if you 192 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:40,280 intermingle blood of very similar families, you're going to end up with some very messed 193 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:43,000 up genes, right? 194 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:45,860 In Egypt, that's not necessarily going to be the case. 195 00:09:45,860 --> 00:09:49,080 Their laws are completely different, right? 196 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:53,880 And so God actually speaks into that to teach them how to be different. 197 00:09:53,880 --> 00:09:56,280 And he says, these are things that are not acceptable. 198 00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:59,440 And he uses words like, this is detestable, you're going to be put to death. 199 00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:06,200 And once again, we got to look around ceremonial language and what actually happens, right? 200 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:11,680 Because a lot of the language is meant to illustrate, hey, these things bring death. 201 00:10:11,680 --> 00:10:17,480 Which on a very real level is true, because if you inbreed inside of your community, you're 202 00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:19,440 eventually going to have genes that go nowhere. 203 00:10:19,440 --> 00:10:20,440 Yeah. 204 00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:25,120 And so a lot of these laws, and we're going to have a podcast episode later on Leviticus 205 00:10:25,120 --> 00:10:26,560 called The Weird Ones. 206 00:10:26,560 --> 00:10:27,560 I think it's actually our next episode. 207 00:10:27,560 --> 00:10:28,560 It's our next one. 208 00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:31,080 I'm actually very excited for it. 209 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:34,640 But a lot of these laws are just, we look at them as, oh yeah, it's very simple. 210 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:35,720 This is very basic. 211 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:39,520 But it's actually very counterintuitive to what they would have known. 212 00:10:39,520 --> 00:10:41,320 We just got to keep that in mind. 213 00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:42,760 Yeah, exactly. 214 00:10:42,760 --> 00:10:47,160 And it's like people are, when they read this, one of the places where they mentioned that 215 00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:51,720 this law is very oppressive to women, it talks about the menstrual cycle and how long they 216 00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:54,180 need to seclude because they're unclean. 217 00:10:54,180 --> 00:10:55,920 And I was like, here's the deal. 218 00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:58,980 It's not sinful because we've talked about how unclean is not sinful. 219 00:10:58,980 --> 00:11:00,740 It's just unclean. 220 00:11:00,740 --> 00:11:04,640 That process is not an easy process. 221 00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:06,480 It's just not an easy process on a woman. 222 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,280 It's not an easy process from the level of sickness. 223 00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:14,080 I was like, because if it's not dealt with properly, the woman and the people around 224 00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:16,640 them can get very sick because you're dealing with blood. 225 00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:18,960 And blood can make people very sick. 226 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:25,760 And so a lot of those laws are actually built around preservation of women, not subrogation 227 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:26,760 of women. 228 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:29,600 I just want to tell you a really funny story. 229 00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:33,080 There is this article I read a while back as a Christian guy who's like, hey, I'm going 230 00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:36,960 to follow the Levitical law for a certain period of time just to see what it was like 231 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:38,920 type thing. 232 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:40,880 His wife, it was her time of the month. 233 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:44,920 And so he did something or said something that she got frustrated about. 234 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:48,440 So she went and sat on every surface in the house. 235 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:51,400 She was practicing like, modern day hygiene. 236 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:53,200 She went and sat on every surface of the house. 237 00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:55,320 And then she's like, all right, now it's all unclean. 238 00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:58,320 Have fun standing. 239 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,800 That's pretty funny. 240 00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:03,160 Man the petty side of it. 241 00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:04,160 That's so good. 242 00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:05,160 Yeah. 243 00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:09,080 So like on a very practical side, if this law, which we would interpret, I think that 244 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:12,280 a lot of people would interpret, they're like, oh man, they're making it hard for women because 245 00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:14,240 they're having to be taken away from society. 246 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,640 I was like, except it's actually about preservation of women. 247 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:21,120 It's like making sure that their health stays in order, that they're not being abused by 248 00:12:21,120 --> 00:12:22,120 the system. 249 00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:25,440 And if they're following the law, like the community can't just leave them behind because 250 00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:26,760 they're taking too long, right? 251 00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:28,520 They can't shortchange their health. 252 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:30,840 They're actually being kept in line by this law. 253 00:12:30,840 --> 00:12:34,680 And this law is meant to actually preserve them, take care of them, build them up. 254 00:12:34,680 --> 00:12:38,360 And I was like, I don't know if you actually know, but Levitical law is actually very pro 255 00:12:38,360 --> 00:12:40,280 women in a world that wasn't. 256 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:41,360 Yes. 257 00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:44,800 It's not going to seem that way because you read it through the 20th century American 258 00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:45,800 lens. 259 00:12:45,800 --> 00:12:50,040 The law is subverting expectations for people constantly about roles of women and how they're 260 00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:51,240 supposed to be treated. 261 00:12:51,240 --> 00:12:54,160 It's almost like it's a partnership and we're not supposed to do it alone. 262 00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:59,040 And just side note, majority of the laws of surrounding nations didn't even have laws, 263 00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:03,600 didn't have good laws around how women were supposed to be treated. 264 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:09,080 And if they did, it was a position of fear, not a position of showing your devotion to 265 00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:10,080 God. 266 00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:11,080 Yeah. 267 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:14,480 So that's like sexual laws, that's purity laws, that's talking about hygiene. 268 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:16,280 There's a lot of laws that encompass that. 269 00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:21,240 Now the other one that shows up very frequently when people talk about Jewish law is food. 270 00:13:21,240 --> 00:13:22,240 Yes. 271 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:29,280 I think one of my favorite quotes when Marty and Brent Billings are talking on Baymah podcast 272 00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:32,120 is they talk about the cup of bacon, right? 273 00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:34,680 They keep talking about, they went to this place and there was a cup of bacon and they're 274 00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:38,520 like, oh, there's a Gentile item I've ever seen on a menu. 275 00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:43,680 And so every time I think of dietary laws, I think of a cup of bacon. 276 00:13:43,680 --> 00:13:45,280 I'm with you, that sounds great. 277 00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:46,280 Yeah. 278 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:47,280 Yeah, actually. 279 00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:50,520 So one of my favorites, so when I was, at one point I was working for a company and 280 00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:53,680 they are based in Illinois. 281 00:13:53,680 --> 00:13:56,720 And so I went for training at their home office. 282 00:13:56,720 --> 00:14:00,640 And the first night before we had our training, I went to the menu and I recognized that I 283 00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:02,960 was in like the mid America. 284 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:08,240 The reason I recognize it is the first appetizer listed was deep fried bacon. 285 00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:12,440 And I was like, America, you know what I mean? 286 00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:15,760 You're like, let's go, I'll take four of those please. 287 00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:16,760 Yeah. 288 00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:17,760 Yeah. 289 00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:21,440 The food laws are interesting because we often look at these as really restrictive, but they're 290 00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:23,120 really not. 291 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:27,080 Once you actually dive into it a little bit, again, let's just, let's just make sure context 292 00:14:27,080 --> 00:14:29,280 is where it needs to be. 293 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:31,120 Refrigeration was not a thing, right? 294 00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:32,120 Okay. 295 00:14:32,120 --> 00:14:33,120 Pristine kitchens, not a thing. 296 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:34,800 Pristine kitchens, not a thing. 297 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:38,060 We're talking about cooking food over a fire probably. 298 00:14:38,060 --> 00:14:39,060 Or a boiling pot. 299 00:14:39,060 --> 00:14:40,680 Boiling pot or something like that. 300 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:46,400 Like we're not talking about, we don't have the controlled stove environments that we 301 00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:47,400 have today. 302 00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:48,400 Yep. 303 00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:50,080 And it's around a campfire as you're roaming the desert. 304 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,080 Yep. 305 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:52,080 Yep. 306 00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:53,920 Around the campfire as you're roaming the desert, there's probably dust getting in on 307 00:14:53,920 --> 00:14:55,880 your food, stuff like this too. 308 00:14:55,880 --> 00:15:01,680 And so the idea around some of these laws is actually to keep you healthy is all it 309 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:02,680 is. 310 00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:04,960 Like he said it nicely, but it's so you don't die. 311 00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:05,960 Yeah. 312 00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:06,960 Yeah. 313 00:15:06,960 --> 00:15:07,960 So you don't die. 314 00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:08,960 Take pork, for example. 315 00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:09,960 We've been picking on bacon. 316 00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:10,960 I like bacon. 317 00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:12,560 I had bacon for breakfast this morning. 318 00:15:12,560 --> 00:15:14,520 But take pork, for example. 319 00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:19,240 Pork is a meat that you have to cook thoroughly all the way through. 320 00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:24,440 And even when I cook pork, which I love pork, but when I cook it, I have a thermometer and 321 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,920 I am sticking that thermometer in the pork to make sure it's getting up to about 160 322 00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:29,920 degrees internal. 323 00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:35,280 Otherwise, there's this fancy thing in pork called botulism that you can get. 324 00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:36,440 Makes you incredibly sick. 325 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:39,120 And if you didn't have a hospital, you'd probably die from it. 326 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:40,120 Yeah. 327 00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:42,040 And guess what they did not have? 328 00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:43,040 Hospitals. 329 00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:44,040 Hospitals. 330 00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:45,040 Theometers. 331 00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:46,040 They did not have thermometers. 332 00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:49,080 They did not have great controlled cooking environments. 333 00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:53,440 The other thing that they probably were short on was actually good kitchen utensils. 334 00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:57,680 It's not like they knew, okay, if I cut a one inch slab of pork and I cook it for X 335 00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:01,940 amount of time on each side, the internal temperature is going to get up to whatever. 336 00:16:01,940 --> 00:16:03,920 They didn't know that. 337 00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:08,440 So what God does is he lines out, he's, hey, don't eat pork. 338 00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:11,560 Because this is actually a risk to your health. 339 00:16:11,560 --> 00:16:12,940 Right. 340 00:16:12,940 --> 00:16:16,520 If you actually engage in this and all the other nations are like, ah, pork chops. 341 00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:17,520 They're great. 342 00:16:17,520 --> 00:16:18,960 That's actually, once again, book of second opinions. 343 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:19,960 They said that. 344 00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:21,960 That's sarcastic in case anybody didn't know. 345 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:25,120 But they're like every other nation is eating pork and they're looking at me like, oh, we 346 00:16:25,120 --> 00:16:26,380 want to eat pork. 347 00:16:26,380 --> 00:16:30,280 Except you don't because you're literally taking your life in your hands potentially 348 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:31,280 when you eat pork. 349 00:16:31,280 --> 00:16:32,280 Literally. 350 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:33,280 Yeah. 351 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:34,280 If it's not prepared right, you could die. 352 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:35,280 Yeah. 353 00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:38,360 I don't know if you also know this, not just pork, but let's talk about seafood. 354 00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:43,240 You know what happens when you cook crab incorrectly and eat it? 355 00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:44,480 You get real sick. 356 00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:46,720 What happens when you cook prawns incorrectly and eat them? 357 00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:47,720 You get sick. 358 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:49,920 What happens when you eat shrimp incorrectly and eat them? 359 00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:50,920 You get sick. 360 00:16:50,920 --> 00:16:53,200 Now, did God say that they couldn't eat anything from the water? 361 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:57,520 No, he said that they couldn't eat specific things from the water that would kill you 362 00:16:57,520 --> 00:16:59,400 if you ate them incorrectly. 363 00:16:59,400 --> 00:17:00,640 They'll make you sick. 364 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:01,640 Yeah. 365 00:17:01,640 --> 00:17:07,160 And the point here is like when you run into Peter in the book of Acts, God says, he brings 366 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:09,080 out the food, he says, take and eat and kill. 367 00:17:09,080 --> 00:17:11,880 And Peter's, I can't do that because I'm Jewish. 368 00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:13,720 Don't tell me something's unclean that I've made clean. 369 00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:17,880 Now, we take that as a hundred percent God is telling him that what you think is unclean, 370 00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:19,940 the Gentiles, is actually where I'm working. 371 00:17:19,940 --> 00:17:23,480 And I think that's a perfect application because you have the four corners and four being a 372 00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:27,160 Gentile number referencing reaching out into the community. 373 00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:29,320 Hundred percent on board with that. 374 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:34,160 But from that point forward with the Gentiles, why is it not a big deal for them to eat pork 375 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:38,000 and for them to eat the crab and all those different things? 376 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,840 Because science has actually progressed at that point. 377 00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:43,760 People aren't dying constantly from pig and from crab. 378 00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:48,120 Now, there's probably some person who's going to be like, actually on a general level. 379 00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:50,240 Yeah, we're talking general level. 380 00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:53,960 So if you look at like the cooking practices of them being in the desert during the Levitical 381 00:17:53,960 --> 00:18:00,480 law and cooking practices during the Roman occupation, vastly different. 382 00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:04,700 During the Roman occupation, you actually had the you actually had stone wood fire ovens. 383 00:18:04,700 --> 00:18:06,840 You could control heat a lot more. 384 00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:11,120 You could get a something cooked well rounded in an oven. 385 00:18:11,120 --> 00:18:14,400 You could get bread to raise rise more evenly. 386 00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:19,360 All these things versus back that day. 387 00:18:19,360 --> 00:18:21,360 I love that you said back that day. 388 00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:22,760 Let's back that day up. 389 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:23,760 Yeah. 390 00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:24,760 Versus back in that day. 391 00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:25,760 Yeah, Leviticus. 392 00:18:25,760 --> 00:18:26,760 It was different. 393 00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:27,760 Yeah. 394 00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:28,760 You didn't have those things. 395 00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:29,760 All right. 396 00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:33,360 So what we're not saying is that Jews should stop or should start eating pork. 397 00:18:33,360 --> 00:18:34,440 No, right. 398 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:36,300 That is not what we're actually saying. 399 00:18:36,300 --> 00:18:40,400 If you are a Jew who follows Jesus, you have a call on your life to put God on display. 400 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:44,260 In fact, we're about to just start talking about this because Gentiles have a different 401 00:18:44,260 --> 00:18:46,200 call on their life than Jews do. 402 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:50,280 We serve the same God, but we put God on display in different ways. 403 00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:54,580 The Jews are responsible for preserving the history and preserving Torah and helping us 404 00:18:54,580 --> 00:18:56,680 understand the story that we've been grafted into. 405 00:18:56,680 --> 00:19:00,360 The responsibility of the Gentiles is to take that story, incorporate it and translate it 406 00:19:00,360 --> 00:19:01,360 to the nations. 407 00:19:01,360 --> 00:19:02,360 Yes. 408 00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:04,280 Well, we put God on display in different ways. 409 00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:07,480 So we told you last week we're going to be getting into Galatians. 410 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:08,480 Okay. 411 00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:13,080 So Galatians has often been a book that I think people have used to talk about why you 412 00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:16,080 shouldn't be Jewish and you should be a Gentile. 413 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:17,360 Yes. 414 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:20,400 Why Levitical law no longer applies for Jews. 415 00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:27,840 The problem is Paul was a Jew observing Torah, writing to other Jews that observed Torah 416 00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:30,700 and God fearing Jews. 417 00:19:30,700 --> 00:19:34,120 So if he's making that statement to them, it's weird. 418 00:19:34,120 --> 00:19:39,820 So let's talk about what was actually happening in the book of Galatians in this area of Galatia. 419 00:19:39,820 --> 00:19:41,200 So you have three groups of people. 420 00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:46,140 You have the brothers, which are the natural born Jewish people. 421 00:19:46,140 --> 00:19:50,800 You have the children of Abraham who are people who have become part of the nation through 422 00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:54,200 conversion. 423 00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:55,960 And then you have God fearing Gentiles. 424 00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:56,960 Okay. 425 00:19:56,960 --> 00:19:59,320 This is the Jewish church we're talking about at this point. 426 00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:04,360 Paul comes through and he has been preaching to them faith through Christ alone. 427 00:20:04,360 --> 00:20:08,520 This is the crux of the matter that's going through the book of Romans, the book of Galatians 428 00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:11,240 and many of the other letters that Paul is writing. 429 00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:12,740 People are struggling with this thing. 430 00:20:12,740 --> 00:20:15,380 Do you have to be a Jew to follow Jesus? 431 00:20:15,380 --> 00:20:21,920 And Paul has made this argument repeatedly that faith and salvation is found in faith 432 00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:23,460 in Jesus Christ alone. 433 00:20:23,460 --> 00:20:30,680 That it is faith in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ that is actually what saves you. 434 00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:34,400 And he quotes back from Abraham and he says that Abraham had faith and it was credited 435 00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:36,680 to him as righteousness before the law came. 436 00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:40,800 So circumcision can't be the thing that actually makes you holy. 437 00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:47,780 Now why Paul is so amped up in this book is because he came through and he delivered the 438 00:20:47,780 --> 00:20:48,880 good news. 439 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:55,960 The believers in the area, the God fearing Gentiles received Christ and the Holy Spirit. 440 00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:59,040 Their lives passed from death to life. 441 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:01,080 They have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. 442 00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:04,000 They are now a new creation. 443 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:10,520 And then other Jews from Jerusalem came and said, oh, but you need to actually go through 444 00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:14,880 the rites of circumcision and take on the works of the law or else you're not going 445 00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:20,120 to get to participate in the kingdom of heaven to come. 446 00:21:20,120 --> 00:21:24,120 So here's the issue that Paul runs into because he says, are you so quickly abandoning what 447 00:21:24,120 --> 00:21:27,000 I gave you? 448 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:33,840 He says, if you go now after you have already said Christ has changed me, walked me from 449 00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:39,020 death to life and you say, but in order to achieve this, I have to observe the works 450 00:21:39,020 --> 00:21:41,540 of the law. 451 00:21:41,540 --> 00:21:45,680 Then the sacrifice of Christ was worthless. 452 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:47,320 Now notice what he's not saying. 453 00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:50,880 He's not saying the works of the law are worthless. 454 00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:55,520 He's saying the works of the law could never produce the righteousness of God. 455 00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,880 They were a means of putting God on display. 456 00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:03,400 Now one of the reasons I think this is really important, there's actually a few people who 457 00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:04,880 have talked about this. 458 00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:09,280 There's some really popular people on various social media, things that are Bible scholars, 459 00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:12,760 and they say that there is no differentiation between the moral law and the works of the 460 00:22:12,760 --> 00:22:16,640 law in the Levitical law. 461 00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:24,160 That's somewhat incorrect because in the time of Paul and Jesus, there is a series called, 462 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,840 there is a statement called Mixa'atay al-Tarraq. 463 00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:32,420 It is the works of the law and it's widely understood in Jewish culture to be those things 464 00:22:32,420 --> 00:22:34,520 that you do that make you inherently Jewish. 465 00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:38,240 For example, not eating pork. 466 00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:42,360 Being circumcised, not wearing blended fabric, like these things, wearing tassels on the 467 00:22:42,360 --> 00:22:43,360 end of your robe. 468 00:22:43,360 --> 00:22:46,720 There are things that made you inherently Jewish that when you ran into someone, you're 469 00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,080 like, oh, you're a Jew. 470 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:49,960 You belong to Yahweh. 471 00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:52,560 You look different. 472 00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:55,400 And Paul says these are not the things that justify you. 473 00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:59,440 Now notice the things he's not talking about is everything in the law, which I think is 474 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:01,960 a tendency of what we American Christians tend to do. 475 00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:03,760 We say everything in the law. 476 00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,360 No, he's not talking about the Ten Commandments. 477 00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:09,280 He's not talking about the way that we treat neighbor. 478 00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:14,480 He's talking about the specific things you do to make yourself Jewish. 479 00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:19,240 And there's a great application just today for this because in the law, there's these 480 00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:20,920 things that are listed out, right? 481 00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,040 Not eating pork, not eating shellfish, not wearing blended fabrics, tassels on the end 482 00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,140 of the robes, et cetera, right? 483 00:23:27,140 --> 00:23:31,040 To where when people encounter you, they're like, we know who you are. 484 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:34,600 Now we're called to put on Christ in our lives. 485 00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:35,600 Gentiles. 486 00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:36,600 Yep. 487 00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:38,920 Us as Gentiles are called to put on Christ on our lives. 488 00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:43,960 And when we say yes to Jesus and His work and the work of the Holy Spirit is in us, 489 00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:48,400 we produce the fruit of the Spirit, which is supposed to lead us to a spot where when 490 00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:53,280 people encounter us, they're like, oh, we know who you belong to because it's in Galatians 491 00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:54,880 that Paul actually talks about the fruit of the Spirit. 492 00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:55,880 Glad you caught that. 493 00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:56,880 Yeah. 494 00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,280 That was a little sarcasm jab there for Ben. 495 00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:05,760 That's what's going on here is Paul is saying, hey, like he's drawing a parallel that the 496 00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:11,380 Jewish people that are in Galatia would understand and applying it to Jesus and what it looks 497 00:24:11,380 --> 00:24:12,880 like today. 498 00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:17,240 That's such a great segue too, because so the Jews have a specific way they're supposed 499 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:18,760 to put God on display, right? 500 00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:19,760 Yeah. 501 00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:20,760 They look different. 502 00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:22,600 Now I also think that they act in such a different way. 503 00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,920 So we're talking about the moral law where they don't commit murder, don't commit adultery, 504 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:29,440 like these types of things that were very common among all the cultures, right? 505 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:34,720 But Jesus is even going to speak some context into that for the Jews and for us, I believe 506 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:35,720 too. 507 00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:39,520 In the New Testament, he's going to say, you ever did said that I say unto you, so you 508 00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:44,600 have heard it said, do not commit adultery, but I say unto you not to even look at a woman 509 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:46,520 so as a lust after her. 510 00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,840 That is a rabbinic way of saying you always heard this, but it was always supposed to 511 00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:51,040 lead to this. 512 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:55,160 So don't commit adultery was always supposed to creating you to be the kind of person who 513 00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:59,060 didn't cheat on your spouse or to look at somebody lustfully. 514 00:24:59,060 --> 00:25:03,080 Do not murder was always supposed to produce in you to be the kind of person who didn't 515 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:08,000 call people idiots or write them off or respond in anger. 516 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,120 These are the things that they were supposed to produce in you. 517 00:25:10,120 --> 00:25:11,520 Jesus didn't up the ante. 518 00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,640 He says this was what it was always supposed to do in you. 519 00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:20,800 So now we as Gentiles, when we put on the fruit of the spirit, this is the natural way 520 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:26,880 that we show we followed Jesus and we actually put him on display for the nations. 521 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:31,200 So that when people run into you and me, they say, why are you different? 522 00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,720 And I get to tell the story of why my God is different. 523 00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:34,720 He's holy. 524 00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:38,680 He's separate from anything that they understand because in the place of anger, he produces 525 00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:40,240 peace. 526 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,040 In the place of hatred, he produces love. 527 00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:51,760 In the place of systematic breakdown, he produces fulfillment because that's who he is. 528 00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,200 He's the God who has a thousand times more compassion than he has anger. 529 00:25:55,200 --> 00:26:01,800 And putting Christ on display, oftentimes, growing up in the church, I was always told 530 00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,160 these big grandiose ways to do that, right? 531 00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:08,880 Like through, like I was told like different street evangelism tactics, like all this types 532 00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:10,420 of stuff. 533 00:26:10,420 --> 00:26:14,680 And then as I've walked with Jesus, I've learned that it's the little things. 534 00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:15,680 It's the little things. 535 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,640 Like one of my goals, just to give you an example of my life, one of my goals every 536 00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:28,200 time I fly is to make the TSA agents laugh because I've seen how other people have treated 537 00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:29,840 them, right? 538 00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,840 And I've seen people yell at them, get frustrated. 539 00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,680 I've seen people, just side note, we live in Alaska. 540 00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:37,680 We fly a lot. 541 00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:38,880 Alaskans fly a lot. 542 00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:39,880 Yeah. 543 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:41,400 We're not connected to the rest of the state, so you got to fly. 544 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:42,400 Yeah. 545 00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:43,400 So you got to fly. 546 00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:44,400 So like we're on a plane. 547 00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:45,840 We're on planes quite a bit. 548 00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:48,880 Incidentally, if you're wondering about the TSA, he has been arrested multiple times. 549 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:49,880 I'm kidding. 550 00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,880 I have not, but I've seen how those people have been treated. 551 00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:59,560 And so my goal every time I see him is to make him smile, make him laugh, show a little 552 00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,480 bit of Jesus to him, right? 553 00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,040 Not in big ways, right? 554 00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:10,120 Just about a week ago, I was coming through the airport and the TSA agent, the person 555 00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:15,640 in front of him was not very kind, nice, was frustrated about some stuff. 556 00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:16,760 And this was in the lower 48. 557 00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:21,080 So I get up to the gate and the TSA agents, you tell us, okay, here's another person. 558 00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:22,920 And I just struck up with a basic conversation. 559 00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:24,280 Yeah, I'm going home to Alaska. 560 00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:26,320 And she's, oh, I've always wanted to be there. 561 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:27,320 And then I just cracked the joke. 562 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:29,560 I was like, oh, winter is the best time to come. 563 00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:31,440 You want to come in winter. 564 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:32,560 She just lost it. 565 00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:33,560 She was just like, she's okay. 566 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:34,560 That was good. 567 00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,080 And then after that, as I'm walking away, she's like, thank you for that. 568 00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:43,500 Like it's the little things that can put Christ on display to brightening up someone's day. 569 00:27:43,500 --> 00:27:49,040 And so when we're talking about this love, patience, kindness, gentleness, we're talking 570 00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:50,440 about the fruit of the spirit. 571 00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:54,040 It doesn't need to just be displayed in big grandiose fashion all the time. 572 00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:56,680 Sometimes those are good, but it can also be displayed in the little things. 573 00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:01,000 Hey, can I, hey, can I buy the stranger behind me a cup of coffee? 574 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,160 Can I do those things? 575 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:09,300 My wife accuses me of grand romantic gestures. 576 00:28:09,300 --> 00:28:10,300 It happens frequently. 577 00:28:10,300 --> 00:28:12,560 Like, that's just something that I like to do. 578 00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:18,600 But one of the things is if I only did those things in my relationship, does my wife really 579 00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:20,480 know that I love her? 580 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:26,920 Or when I do the dishes and clean up after the boys and massage her feet because her 581 00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:34,200 feet are sore and make the bed and ask her about her day, sit at the table with her to 582 00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:35,640 eat. 583 00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,840 These are all things that I do on a regular basis to put on display how I feel about her. 584 00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,520 Now if that's true about my wife, how much more true is that about God? 585 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:49,960 When you put love on display in the way that you treat people, especially people you disagree 586 00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:55,040 with, you put the heart of God on display. 587 00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,360 Last week we talked about what's the role of priesthood to be a conduit of mercy from 588 00:28:58,360 --> 00:28:59,600 God to the world. 589 00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:00,600 This is the exact same thing. 590 00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:04,360 The law, the works of the law, what we put on display is meant to actually put God on 591 00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:06,480 display. 592 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:11,320 The moral law is meant for us to align our character with God's. 593 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:15,200 When we start to really live into the 10 words of God and it starts to actually permeate 594 00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:16,280 our existence. 595 00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:17,280 It changes everything. 596 00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:18,440 It puts, it changes everything. 597 00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:23,560 And not just in your heart, but in the atmosphere you live in. 598 00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:28,400 I think one of the reasons we struggle as a church in general with the law is because 599 00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:34,480 we look at Torah and I'm talking about Genesis 3 Deuteronomy, through a lens of God is mad 600 00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:35,480 at us. 601 00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:41,320 We've talked about this a lot, that a lot of times we start the story in Genesis 3 and 602 00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,400 it starts in Genesis 1. 603 00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:48,640 We see an angry God rather than the fact that God is working through humanity to redeem, 604 00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:50,880 that he has infinite patience as he's working with people. 605 00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,720 The golden calf happens, but he also restores them. 606 00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,240 This is happening over and over again throughout the book. 607 00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,440 And if you assume that God is mad at you, you're going to read these and assume that 608 00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:04,720 they're meant to bring fear in your life or obedience or else. 609 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,520 What if God was who he says he is? 610 00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,080 What if he's actually love? 611 00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,580 And these things that he's telling us to do, these things that he's telling to be a part 612 00:30:15,580 --> 00:30:22,120 of our life actually produce in us something that's actually worth having. 613 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,480 What if God actually knows what he's talking about? 614 00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,700 And when you read Leviticus that way, I think you're going to come away with a completely 615 00:30:28,700 --> 00:30:30,800 different conclusion about what this book is about. 616 00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:32,200 So God created us. 617 00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:33,520 He knows how we're designed. 618 00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:34,700 He knows how we're wired. 619 00:30:34,700 --> 00:30:35,700 I hope so. 620 00:30:35,700 --> 00:30:37,280 You're right. 621 00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:42,000 When you make something that you dearly love, you know how it's designed. 622 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:43,800 You know how it's wired. 623 00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:47,480 You spend time with something, you know how it's designed. 624 00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:49,560 You know how it's wired. 625 00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:51,560 Do you think he knows what's best for you? 626 00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,600 I'm going to digress with an analogy that's probably not the best, but it's what's in 627 00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:55,600 my head. 628 00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:57,200 So your ADHD moment, folks. 629 00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:02,100 Every time I drive old cars, just because I do, I drive old beat up cars. 630 00:31:02,100 --> 00:31:07,600 The car, it usually takes me about a year to get to know the inner workings of the car 631 00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,520 because every car manufacturer is a little different. 632 00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,200 Takes me a little while to get to know the inner workings of a car. 633 00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:19,000 And then when that car come, when I end up getting a new car, it takes me a little bit 634 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,240 of time to get to know the inner workings of that because I do all my own maintenance 635 00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:23,240 on my own cars. 636 00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,880 It takes a little bit of time, right? 637 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:36,360 God designed us, he knows the inner workings of our heart and he set this in motion, those 638 00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:43,240 scriptures in motion so that we can draw closer to him because he knows us and he wants us 639 00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,200 to know him. 640 00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,960 That's what's happening in Leviticus right here. 641 00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:53,800 It's not like here's a bunch of rules and if you don't follow the rules, shame on you. 642 00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:57,600 It's like, hey, I know what's best for you. 643 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,200 And I know some of you probably, as I said, no, I know what's best for you, might've jumped 644 00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:06,960 to Jeremiah 29, 11, where God says, hey, for I know the plans I have for you. 645 00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:13,160 That verse is actually placed in the context of despair, depravity, enslavement. 646 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,200 They're about to go into captivity in Babylon. 647 00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:17,880 Yeah, they're about to go into captivity in Babylon. 648 00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,000 They're about to experience some of the worst years of their lives. 649 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,040 And God says, hey, but I'm here. 650 00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:25,200 I know the plans I have. 651 00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:26,200 I know the plans. 652 00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,640 I actually have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. 653 00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:30,640 Yeah. 654 00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,400 Because in that moment, it's really easy to see some harm and not realize that God's meaning 655 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:34,400 to prosper you. 656 00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:40,360 In the very next verses after Jeremiah 29, 11, it says, in those days when you pray, 657 00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:41,640 I will listen. 658 00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,560 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. 659 00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:48,360 I will be found by you, says the Lord. 660 00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:52,400 I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. 661 00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:59,360 I will gather you out of the nations where I set you and bring you to your home again 662 00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:03,400 to your own land. 663 00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:08,440 Oftentimes I hear Jeremiah 29, 11 quoted just as that one verse, but there's a part in there 664 00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:13,240 where it says, and if you seek after me, I will be there. 665 00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,340 I am with you in this time. 666 00:33:16,340 --> 00:33:21,120 And if you seek me, I will answer your prayers. 667 00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:24,520 And tying that back to Leviticus, when we're looking through Leviticus, this is what the 668 00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:29,120 Lord's doing is he's saying, hey, here's some practical ways you can seek after me. 669 00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,920 Here's some practical ways you can honor me. 670 00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,760 Here's some ways you can put me on display. 671 00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:35,880 Yeah. 672 00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:40,560 And so we're going to try to abandon that mentality that God is mad with you. 673 00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:41,560 Okay. 674 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,920 Now, I'm not going to say God never gets mad about things. 675 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:44,920 I don't think that's true. 676 00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:50,080 I think that there's definitely examples in scripture, especially when you are abusing 677 00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:51,640 your power over somebody else. 678 00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,440 God gets a little bit annoyed about that because you've actually stepped out of the story and 679 00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,840 you become the opposite of the right story. 680 00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:03,680 But if God is speaking truth and love and goodness into your life, let's maybe assume 681 00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:09,160 that this doesn't necessarily, it wasn't spoken to a 20th century American church and that 682 00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:13,640 what's happening here, God is bringing life and he's actually promoting a different kind 683 00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,440 of existence for the church of Israel at that point. 684 00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:22,000 We see that as the scriptures progress that more and more there's more liberation that's 685 00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:28,080 happening, freedom that's happening as they serve and follow God. 686 00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:33,080 It's almost like the law is meant to align us with who God is, bring us into proper relationship 687 00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:39,800 with him so that through his spirit, we can move everywhere and see his kingdom come on 688 00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:42,320 on earth as it is in heaven. 689 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:43,320 Yeah. 690 00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:44,320 So good. 691 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:45,320 Yeah. 692 00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,480 So do drop us a line here, loveandcontest.gmail.com. 693 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,000 Next week we are going to be talking about the controversial ones. 694 00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,480 We're going to talk about some of the laws that people get up in arms about. 695 00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:54,480 It's gonna be so fun. 696 00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:55,480 Yeah. 697 00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:56,480 And so excited. 698 00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:00,280 And it's going to be a lot of fun and we'll see if that ends up getting most of our views 699 00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,480 or at least most of our hate mail maybe. 700 00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:03,480 That's all right. 701 00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:04,480 Bring it on. 702 00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:11,360 You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, on Instagram, on Facebook. 703 00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:12,360 We're a lot of different places. 704 00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:13,360 Ticket a talk. 705 00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:14,360 Ticket a talk. 706 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:15,360 Yeah. 707 00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:16,360 Ticket a talk goes the clock. 708 00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:17,360 That's where you can find us. 709 00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:18,360 Uh huh. 710 00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:20,480 And you can always email us at loveandcontest.gmail.com. 711 00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:24,560 And also Spencer did set up a website for us, loveandcontest.org. 712 00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:28,640 That's a wrap for today's episode. 713 00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:33,780 We want to extend a heartfelt thank you for tuning in and spending your valuable time 714 00:35:33,780 --> 00:35:34,780 with us. 715 00:35:34,780 --> 00:35:40,480 We hope that you found today's conversation insightful and that you take something meaningful 716 00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:41,480 from it. 717 00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:45,240 If you have questions or comments, we would love to hear from you. 718 00:35:45,240 --> 00:35:51,840 Reach out to us at loveandcontest.gmail.com and we will be sure to get back to you. 719 00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:57,360 Remember you can always engage with our content on all your favorite listening platforms including 720 00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,520 Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and one. 721 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:06,000 Don't forget to follow us on social media at loveandcontest on Instagram and Facebook 722 00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,000 for updates. 723 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:09,440 Pickles. 724 00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,040 Chicken. 725 00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:15,280 Spicy, spicy chicken pickles. 726 00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,960 I was thinking like how you know you pickle like things like. 727 00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:18,960 Oh you're thinking about pickling chicken? 728 00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:41,960 That'd be disgusting.