Welcome to the Love and Context podcast, engaging in unscripted conversations with your hosts,
Ben and Spencer.
Whether you're tuning in from your car, your office, your home, or anywhere in between,
we are so happy to have you join us today.
Our mission is simple, to explore the Bible through a powerful lens of love.
Together we'll uncover fresh insights and gain deeper understandings of how we can love
God and love the people in our everyday lives.
So buckle up and join us on the spiritual journey as we discover timeless wisdom that
is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
Without further ado, let's dive right in.
Welcome back to the Love and Context podcast.
If you didn't stop following us after the Q&A, we appreciate that you're still here.
And if you are just discovering us, you should go listen to the Q&A.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
We were going along pretty good.
And then the last question, nice softball in there for Spencer.
And that's the question that'll probably get him most wound up in conversation.
Especially when it comes to theological topics or conversation.
That last question, I was like, as soon as Ben read it, I was like, oh, we're going to
be here for 20 more minutes.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know because I haven't edited it yet.
Like those of you know how podcasts work.
I know that we had over an hour's worth of material.
So we'll see where that actually edits down to.
So because there are things where when we're recording, like you definitely don't want
to hear, for example, if we're having carbonated beverages, there are things that happen that
you don't want to hear on the podcast.
Ben burps a lot.
It's true.
I do.
I get like air pockets and it's just, you know, it's got to happen.
So you're like, I don't need to know this.
That's all right.
Yeah.
Well, you know, like the thing about the love and context podcast is we want to be real.
We want to be real with you guys.
So today we are actually starting to go through the book of numbers.
Yeah.
And we're going to go through Leviticus.
And I think we found that book was completely different than a lot of people anticipate.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Spencer sounded weird because he got cookie in his mouth.
Hey, don't let him know my secret.
Yeah.
I think the ongoing secret of this podcast is you eat food all the time while we're recording.
I can't stop burping.
You can't stop eating.
Ben laughs because half the time we record, I'm eating something.
It was sweet potato fries, spicy chicken sandwiches, cookies.
It doesn't matter.
One time it was just like two chunks of cheese.
Yeah.
And yeah, I was just eating.
Yeah.
And when you, when I say he say chunks, he literally means just chunks.
Like they weren't cut right.
They were just like, I think he just ripped it off the side of the loaf.
At this point, people are going to be like, this Spencer guy sounds really weird.
Yeah.
Well, to be fair, Spencer is really weird.
And so am I.
Yeah.
So we're going to be in the book of numbers.
One of the things that I find interesting about the book of numbers is when you have
conversations with people about this book, they typically are like, oh yeah, it's a lot
of numbers, which seems like very on point.
And yeah, of course it's a book of numbers.
The problem is most of this book is actually stories.
Yeah.
I think the temptation, like we were like, oh, it's genealogies.
I was listening to these.
I was like, actually that happens a lot more in Chronicles, like second versus second Chronicles,
like these huge genealogies in the book of numbers, like it happens.
And they talk about like the list of all these people and which is really important.
We're going to talk about why that's important today.
But the book of numbers actually has a lot of stories that you would assume are somewhere
else in Torah.
Yeah.
A lot of what's going on with Israel after they leave Sinai.
So to get us talking about where we're going to be going, the beginning of numbers has
this conversation about genealogies and how they're going to be set up and who gave what
and all the things listed by tribe.
And then there's some specific instructions for the priesthood and for like vows that
you'll take.
They have the Aaronic blessing that takes place in here, which is going to be a great
episode.
We're going to talk about that.
Then they talk about the offerings, there's obedience, and then they go about following
the cloud.
As God moves, they follow the cloud.
And then as typically happens, the desert's hot, things get uncomfortable.
And people start grumbling.
That's kind of what happens in the middle of the book of numbers.
They start grumbling.
They're like, I don't know if I trust God.
I don't know if I trust this Moses guy, all these different things that are going on.
And so then they actually send people into the promised land because God takes them directly
there.
Yeah.
And they bring back this bad report and are like, yeah, I don't think God can handle it.
So God doesn't let them go into the promised land.
And then they end up wandering the desert for 40 years.
These are all the stories that happen during the book of numbers.
You have the death of Miriam takes place in there.
There is the death of Aaron.
There's the story of the bronze snake, which should be familiar with people who read John
3.
Right?
And then there's this whole conversation with this prophet by the name of Balaq and Balaam.
Sorry, Balaam is the prophet and Balaq is the king who doesn't really want to get run
over by the Israelites.
And this whole conversation then on the back end, once again, it comes back to genealogies
and specific numbers having to do with the tribes.
Yeah.
That's the functional aspect of the book of numbers.
Right?
And so there's a lot going on in this book that I think we assume happens elsewhere.
Yeah.
What happens in the desert and these wandering times?
Yeah.
So today we're going to be tackling kind of numbers one through four, those chapters right
there.
So if you want pause the episode, go read those chapters, come back to it.
If you have those chapters memorized, good for you.
You can follow along then.
But we want to kind of focus in there today.
Yeah.
We're going to briefly reference like chapter 32 through the end as well.
So be familiar with those because there's a lot of like similar types of things going
on in both these areas.
Let's just take a look right at the beginning of the book of numbers says the Lord spoke
to Moses in front of the tandem meeting in the desert of Sinai on the first day of the
second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt.
Okay.
So they're at Sinai and God comes and he says to them, I want you to take a census of the
whole Israelite community by their clans and families listing every man by name one by
one.
And they are to count according to their divisions all the men in Israel who are 20 years old
or more and able to serve in the army.
One man from each tribe, each of them, the head of his family is to help you.
And then he lists like this huge list of people who are actually going to participate.
Right.
Okay.
You got to take a census because you need to know who was there.
Yeah.
You need to be able to track like in your family, where were you?
Were you a part of the community and what was going to be happening?
Right.
So then these people that are appointed are leaders from their ancestral tribe and they're
the heads of the clans of Israel.
So these are the people who are going to actually be in charge and be leadership inside of the
clan of Israel overall.
Right.
So God says right away, Hey, we're going to be heading out into the desert and we're going
to need some sort of organizational system.
And we also got to know what we got.
Take a census, appoint some people, put them in charge, make sure that because otherwise,
I mean, what's Moses going to do?
He's like, yeah, we got 400,000 people.
I counted last night.
It's fine.
You know, it's an estimate.
And so you got to be able to divide and like actually understand how these numbers work.
Now in desert dwelling, that's going to be really important because you have this massive
group of people walking all over the place all the time.
How easy do you think it is for people to get lost?
It's very easy.
Yeah, it's very easy.
So you also have to know where they're going.
They're headed into the desert.
The desert is scarce on resources.
There's not a lot of food.
There's very little water.
There's very little shelter.
There's very little material to build shelters.
All of these things, right?
And it's not like you're taking five people into the desert and trying to figure out how
to survive with five.
You're taking the number that is actually listed here is 603,550.
And that's the men.
So there's more than that.
So you're probably well into the, let's just double that and say 1.2 million.
At least.
Roughly.
At least.
So you're taking five million people in the desert trying to survive.
Right.
And also trying to stay together.
So please understand these rules where they talk about how do you live in community with
other people.
You're going to be out in the desert with hundreds of thousands of people and it's hot
and you see water and you're all like, I want to drink some water because I'm hot and thirsty.
The desert is real hot.
You're welcome, Pastor Nick's wife.
The desert is real hot.
And so there's going to be this temptation to serve myself first.
And yet this instruction, the focal point in Leviticus, love your neighbor as you love
yourself.
Right.
And then you love your, the foreigner among you, like you love your neighbor.
So we're saying love your neighbor as yourself as they're wandering in a hot place with limited
resources where your natural inclination is going to be out for yourself, not out for
your neighbor.
You might actually say that love for neighbor is best demonstrated when you have a lack.
Yeah.
Do you actually have love for neighbor?
It's really easy to give out of excess.
Oh yeah.
It's a lot harder to give out of need.
Yeah.
Side note, little caveat, 10 seconds here.
Learn to be generous when you're poor.
Yeah.
I actually have nothing to follow up.
That's yeah.
So the Levites are going to be of course in charge of setting up the tabernacle, putting
it, setting it up, taking it down every time that they go.
One of the reasons that the tabernacle being easy to set up and take down and it's way
different than a lot of the other temples of the day is because they're having to literally
set it up and take it down on a daily basis.
Right?
I do think that it's really important to note that every time God moves, the cloud moves,
they move the tabernacle and then when the cloud stops, they set up the tabernacle and
God dwells there and the people follow him.
It also says in the Bible that the cloud is placing protection over them.
It's making sure that their clothes don't wear out.
It's going to be talking about that in Deuteronomy and that they're protected from wild animals,
which is going to be really important.
You're in the book of Numbers when we talk about the bronze serpent.
I want you to keep that in your head.
It's six episodes away.
Have you also ever just considered the practical implication of a cloud and a desert?
Oh yeah.
Shade.
Yep.
Because I don't know if you guys heard us say this, but the desert's real hot.
Yeah.
So the Lord by being a cloud during the day is providing shade in one sense, providing
shelter for the Israelites.
And the entire time knowing that the presence of God is moving with you.
Yep.
Like that's huge.
Right?
Because in a very practical sense, they've got to keep track of everybody.
So you're going to have households down to tribes down to more and more small units so
that nobody's left out.
Right?
Yeah.
Because Moses can't keep track of 650,000 people.
No.
Like he can't do it.
There's no physical way for him to do it.
In Numbers 11, they're actually going to talk about the 72 elders.
And even you think about 72 people in charge of 650,000, that's a lot.
That's a lot of responsibility.
I mean, it's no wonder that Jethro comes back in Exodus 18.
He's listen, you can't adjudicate everybody's issues here.
Like you cannot do this.
Like this is not going to work well.
That would be so exhausting.
So it was sitting there over and over again, someone coming in.
And I imagine the complaints aren't too different from each other.
Can you imagine if let's just take a big company like Apple because you love iPhones.
Can you imagine that the CEO was taking the complaints for the entire company?
It'd be hilarious.
Yeah, it would be hilarious.
But like that would be ridiculous, right?
Because you would actually have people who take complaints.
And if that complaint has merit, then you bring it up to your next supervisor and it
might eventually get to the CEO.
But most things can be handled long before they reach the CEO because the CEO has to
focus on other things.
And so Jethro's instruction is very practical.
Like we see here in Numbers how they're numerating people so they can keep track of who's doing
what and how many people they have where.
Because you've got to, you're going to be in the desert.
There's people going to be all over the place.
You have to be able to track it.
And we saw back in earlier in Torah that they were attacked by the Malachites in the desert.
And the Malachites were a desert war tribe that tended to pick off the weak people, right?
Which actually plays well into what's coming up in chapter two.
They actually start arranging the travel camps when they travel.
Now it's really easy when you're reading this to actually miss what's going on.
When they travel, in the front of them, the first tribe moving forward is the tribe of
Judah, which is the biggest tribe, the strongest tribe.
So the entire caravan, the group of people, however you want to look at that, they are
placed in the front.
And can you guess where the second strongest tribe is placed?
In the back.
Because you would never put your weak in the back, you would put your weak in the middle.
Marty Solomon, one of the hosts of the Baymaw podcast, has a statement that I love.
He says, where you find your weak and marginalized in your church tells me who you trust.
And what he means by that is if you're weak or marginalized or on the outside of your
church, that you don't actually trust in God, you're trusting in your might to actually
protect you.
Yeah.
But if you're strong or on the outside and you're weak or in the center, your widows,
your orphans, your aliens are in the center, being protected by everybody else around them,
then you know which store you trust because you're taking on the heart of God in that
story.
Yeah.
The other side of that on when they're camping is that the Levites are always in the center,
right?
Because they're carrying the Ark of the Covenant, they're carrying all the pieces that go with
the temple.
Yeah.
Right?
And when they set up camp, they set up camp with the strong on the outside and they're
protected against each other and God is in the center, right?
This is this pictorially, what is that telling the Israelites?
That God's the center of what we're doing, that he is in the middle of everything we're
doing.
Also, it paints a cross.
Yeah.
Yeah, it absolutely does.
I just think that's a, you know, I think people can definitely read too much into that, but
it's a really cool thing to look at.
Yeah.
And there's practical implications for there being a cross.
What that does is it actually gives you 360 line of sight.
So that's one thing it does.
And it also gives you time for neighboring tribes or tribes that are traveling with you
to pivot other stronger tribes to pivot one way or another if you are being attacked from
one side.
So I want to point out something because I think we read past statements like this in
the Bible way too frequently.
So at the end of chapter two of Numbers in verse 34, it makes a statement.
So the Israelites did everything the Lord commanded Moses.
That is the way they encamped under their standards.
And that is the way they set out each of them with their clan and family.
We have a tendency to talk about all the Israelites do wrong in the desert and they do plenty.
Like that we have full episodes where we're going to be talking about the grumbling and
mistrust of leadership, bad reports and all these different things.
I think it's important to note that they also do what God tells them to do.
Yes.
It's not just the one.
It is the other as well.
Absolutely.
And that's very relatable to our own lives.
There are seasons in life where we are probably more obedient to God and probably seasons
where we're less obedient to God, whether that's intentional or unintentional.
Even those who draw, even those who follow God on a very close level, they have their
moments where their obedience might be lacking.
Right?
And then carrying out through the rest of three and four, it's going to be talking about
the Levites, the Gershites, the Kohathites, a lot of ites, right?
And how they're arranged because these are specific segments that are responsible for
specific things.
I think it's really important to note that God is setting them up in a very specific
way, so they understand exactly who they are.
Yeah.
Right?
And they understand exactly the platform of which they're walking from.
And I thought it was interesting, I got to find it here, that that phrase is repeated.
I mean, you take a look at chapter 449, at the Lord's command through Moses, each was
assigned his work and told what to carry.
Thus they were counted as the Lord commanded Moses.
This happens over and over again, right?
It happens over and over again.
They did what God commanded.
And I think it's really important to note that because otherwise we're just like, oh,
well, you know, they like silly Israelites.
The bigger issue in not recognizing that is we fail to realize that our lives are like
that too.
Like we have a lot of like times where God says, I need you to do this.
Great.
We did it.
And then we have other times where I don't think God can overtake this land, or at least
I don't trust that God can overtake this land.
I don't think God can free me from the stronghold of my life.
Right.
I think this sin is too strong in my life.
I believe my sin is too bad and that God can't overcome it.
If you're thinking that, that is a straight up lie.
Yeah.
I got a toilet.
You can flush that down.
I got a toilet because that is something that needs to be flushed away.
There is literally no thing that you can do.
No thing, nothing that you can do that can separate you from the love of God.
He will literally crush everything in between you and his presence.
Amen.
But you got to want to come close.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah.
So the book of numbers is interesting.
There's going to be a ton of really just, just, they're going to be some tough stories
in here.
And so we want to tell you guys just kind of buckle up because this is going to be the
hard one.
Deuteronomy, we're going to be doing a lot of recapping because Moses is coming back
and he's looking back on everything that's come and basically giving them a second law
or second interpretation of the law.
Now one of the reasons that's happening in Deuteronomy is a lot of the people who were
about to go take possession of the land weren't the ones who were at Sinai because those guys
were out in the desert for 40 years and died.
And so we're actually talking about the people who are new that are going to be going in
and he's giving them a charge again and reminding them of mistakes that they made along the
way.
Yeah.
And the book of numbers is an oddly comforting book if you're in your own season of wilderness
right now.
Yeah.
Because it's very relatable when you understand it in that context of being like, man, well,
like I've been there.
Like I've complained about not having enough and seeing the Lord provide and it just wasn't
how I wanted him to provide.
And it was frustrating.
You know, like the book of numbers can be a really comforting book for that in the sense
of just very relatable and all of that.
So other things that the book of numbers does iterate at the end.
So you get to the end of the stories, right?
And it starts talking about like how the land is going to be divided, all these different
things that are coming up, right?
But in chapter 33, it actually talks about where the Israelites went.
I think that it's really important that you actually know these things because it's actually
memorialized into scripture.
So they actually understand like, hey, when we say we were in the desert, right?
Grafted into the story, we know where did we actually go, right?
And so 33, like it says that like they leave Egypt and the first place that goes to coat,
by the way, that's going to be a really important thing to note when you actually talk about
the festival booths.
We're not going to talk about it right now, but that's the first place that they end up.
And it goes through all these different places that they go.
Then it deals with the boundaries of Canaan and like all these different things at the
back end.
It talks about towns for the Levites, cities of refuge, like these things that are basically
like, how are you going to make sure that peace reigns among you guys?
Where are the Levites going to stay?
How are they going to continue to put the story on display for all people to learn?
And then the last thing that happens in the book of numbers, and I want to reference before
we start going into stories past today, right?
Is in chapter 36, it's the inheritance for Zelo Fahad's daughters.
Say that 30 times past, right?
And the reason I like to point out this story is because we have this tendency, coming back
to our last question in the Q and A last week, we have this tendency to devalue women in
the story.
Yeah.
And then there's a story about these daughters where their dad dies and there's no male heir.
And so they're basically going to be left with nothing because that's the rule of the
land, right?
There's a patriarchal society that is going to be passed through male of sentencing only.
And God says no.
And he makes sure that the daughters are taken care of and that they don't lose their land
and that they set up a, he sets up a something that makes sense inside of their culture that
as they marry, like they actually go back and it goes back to their family name and
some different things like that.
But God makes sure that there are provision for women in the midst of a patriarchal society
that they're not forgotten, left out to dry.
So good.
Right.
That's a really big deal.
And these are the things that are bookending the book of numbers.
Like we see at the beginning, it's make sure nobody gets left behind, right?
And make sure that you understand that when you camp, people are protected.
And when you march, people are protected.
And then on the back end, you see the story about these cities of refuge and you say,
if something bad happens among you, these are places you can go.
And oh, by the way, these daughters who are on the outside, we're going to make sure that
they're brought back in.
It's almost chiastic in its story because it's bookending this book of numbers, which
is not about numbers per se.
It's about making sure everybody in the community counts.
So good.
Yeah.
The book of numbers, Ben put it beautifully, but the book of numbers, a big part of it
is making sure everyone's accounted for.
Yeah.
And you'll see that throughout the book as well, making sure everyone's there.
So I was thinking about this whole wandering in the desert thing a little bit more.
And I've led backpacking trips.
I've taken people on those and done all that.
There's like a threshold you reach as far as how many people you're willing to take
before you're like 603,000 before you're like, is that the number?
Yeah.
And, and so for me, we did a backpacking trip last year, a friend and I did, and we took
nine people and that was okay.
But we were talking about afterwards.
Yeah.
We want to want to take more than like 10 or 11 people max.
Yeah.
And so here you're going to go on a desert wandering trip for 40 years.
By the way, I know there's probably 1.2 to 1.5 million of you.
Let's get account.
Yeah.
The idea of leaving somebody behind, you could think of it, be like, oh, well, it's like
a whole nation traveling.
It wouldn't be that hard.
Actually, the more people you get mixed in, the more difficult it is, the more difficult
it is, the more difficult it is to take care of everyone, to keep track of everyone.
People see people to get left behind and there's the whole crowd mentality of, well, they're
probably somewhere.
Yeah.
But yet God in the story at the end of the story is saying, Hey, you see these people?
Yeah.
They're going to be outcasts and don't leave them behind.
Yeah.
Don't leave them behind.
Yeah.
And I think it's, you know, you think about also like initially the plan isn't for them
to be in their 40 years, right?
That happens with the bad report and like tons of stuff, which we'll get into, but they
do end up being there for 40 years.
Yeah.
Desert wandering and not very big desert, right?
There's other people who are wandering that desert or in that desert, like roaming people
as well.
But then you think about 40 years is a long time.
Like how many people, it's your working career.
Yeah.
It's your working career.
And there's people who are born in the desert.
There's people who die in the desert.
There's people who are wed in the desert, like they become married.
And so being able to detract people in a very real sense is incredibly important for the
health of the nation.
It's not important if you don't care about people individually and you only care about
people in power, but that's just not who God is.
And so I think the tendency when you read something like numbers is you're like, oh,
what's up with, you know, it's very specific and like, why are we doing all these things?
There's a very practical reason you would number people off, right?
Very practical because we are not God.
We don't know all the sands on all the seashores and all those different things that kind of
go with there.
So we're not going to be able to track people all the time.
And Moses is not going to be able to track them and like leaders aren't going to be able
to track them.
And it's so easy for people to be left out.
And it's also really easy in places where there's a scarcity for the power to powerful
to rule over the weak and to marginalize the weak because might makes right, especially
talking about coming from Egypt.
And God says, no, yeah, you read Leviticus.
That's not how we treat people.
So Judah, you're going to lead the way.
Dan, you're going to take up the rear and Levi's, you're going to keep my heart right
at the center of this entire caravan, the entire way.
And as long as you stay under my cloud, I would protect you, which is going to be really
important when we come to the bronze snake.
So we're just remember that.
Yep.
Yeah.
So good.
Well, this is probably gonna be a little bit of shorter episode today, folks.
That's probably good.
We have to compensate for like the last one.
It was long.
So a little shorter episode today, but just to give you a taste of what you can expect
from numbers.
Like Ben said, buckle up.
There are some really tough stories in this book.
And we're going to try to tackle those best we can.
If you haven't read the book of numbers, go read through it.
Come up with some questions, stuff like that.
We'll be doing another Q and a little while from now.
Yeah, I'm going to give a resource guide actually.
I think that would actually be really nice here.
So we talk about reading the book of numbers and some people have trouble like sitting
down and reading a book.
There is an app.
I'm gonna see if I can link it in our show notes called dwell.
Yeah, has a Bible and a lot of different translations with a lot of different narrators, but they
are not paying us.
We're just plugging them because I love their app.
But if great job, yeah, they do a great job.
It is a paid app.
There are some free features to it, but you can put yourself on different reading plans,
different translations.
I read through it.
I think six or seven different translations at this point listening.
You might be surprised if you just listen to the book of numbers, how much you pick
up.
Yeah, we're going to we're going to throw that as a link in there.
I would highly encourage in addition to reading your Bible, you start adding listening to
your Bible.
Absolutely.
You guys can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and once again, of course, at loveandcontext.gmail.com.
If you have questions for us, if you have complaints, send them to care of Spencer.
Yeah, that'd be great.
I will happily deal with your complaints.
All right.
See you guys soon.
That's a wrap for today's episode.
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with us.
We hope that you found today's conversation insightful and that you take something meaningful
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Yeah, thanks.
I think you shouldn't be the only one eating cookies.
We know we made it.
That might get us demonetized.
Of course, I don't think we're actually monetized.
So good Lord.
Didn't you?
How many of these did you eat?
I had two.
Yeah, whatever.
I ate two.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.