Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you.
Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your host, Ben and Spencer.
Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love.
In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining
deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love and the context of the
Bible intersect to transform our lives.
Well welcome back everyone.
We were gone for minutes.
Exactly.
Well, a week in your timeline.
Yeah, you guys are going to watch this episode and the last episode back to back and you're
going to be like, do they wash their clothes?
The answer is no.
Well, in my case, okay, I'm going to be real honest here.
I know how to do laundry, but my wife is always so fast that I never do any laundry.
That's because my wife is like superhuman with doing laundry.
Like literally the second, like you got to be careful if you want to wear something a
second time, don't drop it on the ground because it goes in the laundry.
That's how it's how my wife is too.
Like you'll make coffee and be like, I'm going to sit down for five minutes and drink my
coffee and you'll sit down for five minutes, drink your coffee and it'll be like, well,
dishes got done, laundry got done.
Yeah, everything got done in five minutes.
There are women listening to this and they're like, no, that's just men.
I was like, that's quite possible, but also my wife is like superhuman.
I swear.
Yeah.
Um, well, so my, so my wife, like one day, you know the story, but she comes home and
she's like, I need your help.
It's like, okay.
And so I walk outside and backed up to our deck is the truck with like a 200 pound massage
chair in the back of the truck.
And I, and I was like, how'd you get that up there?
She's like, I just lifted it into the back.
And now the truck we had at the time as a 2004 Chevy, 2,500 with a toolbox bed, the
beds like four feet off the ground.
And I was like, I was like, okay, yeah, right.
Like who helped you?
She was like, no, I just lifted it in there.
Yeah.
And then I was like, that's not surprising to me.
I was like, okay.
It's like, great.
All right.
So like, when we, like when we're saying that, like our wives are crazy, they, they legit
are by crazy.
We mean awesome, crazy, awesome, crazy, because they may listen to this one.
This may be the podcast episode they listen to.
So, and if that's the case, we love them so much.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we're in week four of our covenant series.
And so we have talked about the Adamic.
We've talked about the new egg and how those are connected.
And then we talked last week about the Abrahamic and we're going to be talking about the Mosaic
covenant, by the way, the Mosaic and the Abrahamic are going to be kind of related in that they're
for the same group of people.
And it's very important that you understand these separately from each other, especially
as we get into the new Testament.
Yes.
Right.
Because there is a call on the life of Gentiles that is not the same as the call on the life
of Jews.
Yes.
And it means that God has, God is the King and he gets to tell us what we're supposed
to do.
And he has called different people to live different ways to put his glory on display
for all the world.
Yeah.
As simple, like a simple comparison is we live in Alaska, right?
Alaskans are very different than Floridians.
Right.
So like if, if we went down to Florida and said, no, this is how you live.
Right.
We have a lot of people laugh at us and vice versa.
Right.
But on the flip side, we're both Americans.
Yes.
And so it like, there is a lot of things that are in common between us, but there is just
different things about how we engage life and there's not a right or wrong about it.
Yep.
It's about in our case, like what, what are we called to be as, as, as how we were born?
So, um, going, going back to, so if, if you're unfamiliar with the Mosaic covenant, this
is going to be the covenant that God gives to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.
Uh, after they do the golden calf, uh, the, uh, if you didn't hear me mumble, I said,
you know, the golden calf portion and, uh, God is affirming like his call on them and
who we all have embarrassing stories.
Yeah, we all have embarrassing stories.
Um, and then Mo and then it's also going to cover the rest of Torah, right?
Because you're going to have like this, uh, in the same way with the, uh, Abrahamic, Abrahamic,
we have the covenant that takes place over like six chapters.
But then the rest of the book of Genesis is like this reaffirmation of this covenant,
generation to generation and God working it out for each person.
Same way with the Mosaic covenant and really for the rest of the old Testament, you're
going to see this covenant that comes up with Moses at Sinai and how it's carried on with
the Jewish people throughout the rest of their history up till Jesus.
Yes.
Right.
And, uh, so one of the places I want to take a look at first is in Exodus 19 and 24.
So just to give you a quick synopsis, once again, we did cover a lot of this in our,
in our season last season when we covered Torah.
So what happens is they arrive at Mount Sinai, the Israelites, they camp at Mount Sinai after
leave Egypt.
Uh, Moses then goes up the mountain and God calls him to convey a message to the people,
which means he has to go back down the mountain, then back up the mountain, then down the mountain
because yep, Moses needs to get a steps in.
Apparently.
So God offers a covenant promising Israel that they will be his treasure possession,
which we're actually going to read that in just a minute.
A holy nation.
If they obey the people go, yep, that sounds good.
Then God instructs Moses to then consecrate the people and prepare them for his presence,
right?
Which is very, um, the imagery that's happening at Sinai is definitely that of a wedding,
especially middle Eastern wedding.
Right.
And so then, uh, the people, they wash their clothes, they refrain from approaching the
mountain.
Um, but on the third day, God descends on the mountain in fire and smoke with thunder
and a loud trumpet sound, which by the way should sound familiar.
If you're familiar with the book of acts, it happens again.
Um, uh, and they, uh, the people are terrified and they express their fear and they ask Moses
to speak to God on their behalf.
And that actually occurs.
That specific conversation occurs in chapter 20.
Um, the people don't want to talk to God face to face, even though God was willing to meet
them there.
They're like, Nope, we're terrified.
And so we're actually going to put somebody between you and me.
Yeah.
Which by the way, uh, is not a good way to have a relationship.
No, right.
That's not the way that it was, it was intended to be, but it is the way that God is going
to choose to work through his people because he's also going to respect them.
Yeah.
Funny, like funny story that kind of relates to this is years ago, my wife and I, we were
working at the same organization.
Um, her office, my, my desk sat right outside her office.
I had a little cubicle space and, um, I often would have people come up to me.
I was not her secretary.
I was not any of that.
I had people come up to me and be like, Oh, do you know where she's at?
And I was like, I was like, well, do you have her phone number?
And they're like, yeah.
I was like, give her a call.
Yeah.
Right.
Like I'm not middleman for this.
Right.
Um, we had two totally different jobs, different departments.
We just happened to have desks that were close to each other.
Yeah.
So there would be times where she would be at her desk around the corner and people would
walk up to me, not even look to see if she was there and be like, Oh, do you know where
Lindsey's at?
And my answer was the same.
Yeah.
Do you have her phone number?
Like, yeah.
Oh, you should give her a call.
They'll be like, okay.
Then they give her a call.
Then they hear her phone ring at her desk, which was right over there.
Right.
And then they kind of look at me and be like, what?
But like the point being is like, when you have some, when you're trying to have conversation
or relationship with someone and you are trying to do that through somebody else, it never
works.
Right.
Um, this is, this is by the way, it's like, it's a, we're, I'm going to make an application
here that isn't necessarily in the text, but it's, it's something that is really important
because it's going to come up back in Matthew and, and just with like a lot of like the
connection with people.
When you have issues with somebody else, don't talk to somebody.
It's not like a third party about it.
Yeah.
Like there are, there are circumstances where talking to the third party might be preferential.
Like if you're afraid or if you're concerned, like about like your own wellbeing and something
and you need to involve a third party, a hundred percent outside of that, if you're like, I
still want uncomfortable conversation, well get uncomfortable and restore your relationship
with your brother or sister.
Like go and have the uncomfortable conversation and at least figure out a way to amicably
move forward.
Right.
Yep.
Stop involving other people and getting them involved in your gossip.
I feel like there's a whole like chapter of the Bible about this, but yeah, you know,
yeah, that's another podcast episode.
Well, you've only read 10 chapters of the Bible, so that's a call back to the previous
episode.
Anyways, that's going to get snapped out and somebody's going to be like, Oh, Spencer doesn't
read.
No.
Yeah.
I want to read this, this passage here, which I think is, is the actual like summing up of
the, of the covenant that God is actually giving them.
So once again, this is like a marriage, right?
If you look at the 10 commandments as like a Ketubah, which is the ancient, like this
is who I am and this is who I expect you to be.
We had a great episode where we talked about how the 10 commandments is meant to be, how
we relate to God, how we relate out to each other and about how, as we relate to God,
it's supposed to shape how we relate to other people, which I think Jesus has something
to say about.
Yeah.
It reads this.
It says, now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you
will be my treasured possession.
Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me, a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation.
Yeah.
This is God's promise.
He says, if you do what I tell you to do out of the whole earth, it's all mine, but you're
going to be special.
Yeah.
Because through you, incredible things are going to happen because you're actually going
to be a kingdom of frees.
You're going to bring my kingdom everywhere and be way different than everybody else and
invite them into this kind of life.
Right?
Yeah.
Like this is, this is a really cool thing.
Now, uh, one of the issues that we have reading this through modernize is we forget that ancient
gods, uh, theological texts and, and worships and stuff, they didn't tell you what the God
wanted.
It was very ambiguous.
If you love me enough, if you sacrifice enough, if you give enough, then maybe, but it would
never specify what the enough is, what the quantification it was.
It was always so ambiguous.
And, you know, and then if, if like your crops fell, well, you just didn't love God enough.
Right?
Yeah.
It would be like, um, it'd be like if you entered into a business deal and you were
saying, okay, what is our, there's upfront cost.
You're like, what is our breakeven point?
Like where's our breakeven numbers?
And people are like, well, you know, you think blah.
And then you're like, that inspires how much confidence in you.
Yeah.
They're like, it's, it's real ambiguous, but you know, just keep putting in your effort
and you'll probably make it there.
Right.
You know, God might be pleased with you.
Like if someone was trying to get you to invest in a business and that was your sales pitch.
Yeah.
It's, and even if you're in the middle of that, man, that's a place of like anxiety,
like am I doing enough?
And then you're quantifying like your work, like your work is now the definitive measure
of who you are.
But God says, I'm going to give you a list of things that I want you to do because they're,
they're important to me and they relate how you're going to talk to me.
And it's going to be how you treat other people.
Right.
And, uh, uh, you know, that's the 10 commandments.
A lot of what shows up in the book of Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy is that you're going
to look different and it's going to cause you to be a healthier, holier people.
Which I think brings us to one of the main points of, uh, one of the talking points on
this covenant, which is that there are responsibilities.
Yeah.
Like this, this, unlike the Abrahamic covenant where it's, where it's 100% on God, right.
And there is us living by faith.
So there's a little piece of us there.
This one is actually God saying, no, here is you are responsible for, and then there's
a whole list of things, right?
Right.
There's a whole list of rules that you need to follow.
You need to abide by.
Yeah.
And, uh, and those rules aren't meant to be restrictive.
If you actually compare those two, we've talked about this on the podcast too, but if you
actually compare those two, uh, the other religions of the day, you would find that
those rules and regulations were very free and very uplifting.
Uh, they provided more equitable status, uh, across everyone in the nation.
They were feigned from things like child sacrifice and so on and so forth.
And Paul's actually going to mention in the book of Galatians, he's goes like the purpose
of the law was always supposed to be, it was supposed to be your guardian to bring you
to the point where you were fully embraced by Torah made flesh.
Yes.
Right.
Jesus Christ, right?
The purpose of the law wasn't to sit there in condemning.
You were already condemned.
The purpose of the law was to actually bring you up in such a way that when Messiah was
here, when Torah made flesh was here, you would recognize him and identify with his
kingdom.
Yeah.
So there is a responsibility placed on the Israelites says, listen, I want to do these
things for you, but you can't be telling the wrong story.
Yeah.
Right.
It's not a, like, God's not like do this or else.
He's like, no, if you want the blessing and, and he's fully clear with them.
He's like, Hey, this is what I want to do.
Do you want to be a part of it?
And they're like, woo, yeah.
Woo.
And he's like, cool.
I'm going to come down there.
And then they're like, whoa, hold up.
Right.
And a lot of what they're, they're going, when they go through is God says, I want you
to be different.
I want you to be different.
I want you to be a different kind of people in the world.
And then throughout the story of Torah, and you're going to see this, if you listen to
last season's episodes, they keep wanting to be like everybody else.
And God's like, no, you're not supposed to be like everyone else.
That's the point.
You're different.
You're going back to the default of what humanity is supposed to be leading the way for the
kingdom to come to earth.
And they're like, yeah, but pig bones.
Yeah.
Right.
Like, but God, have you tasted bacon?
Right.
And yeah.
And it's a, and by the way, if you check out our Leviticus episodes, we have some really
interesting like conversations about like dietary and some different issues of why,
why those might have been prohibited and stuff.
But like, um, it is, you know, the law was meant to actually create them to be the kind
of person I actually are.
One of our, uh, one of our teachers last week was teaching on, uh, I, you have heard her
said, but I say unto you, and he's like, Jesus isn't raising the bar.
He's saying that like not committing murder was never just about not committing murder.
It was about being a person that doesn't harbor anger in their heart.
But yes, don't commit murder.
Right.
But if you're just sitting around and you're like, ah, I wish that person would fall over
and land on a spike.
Like I got news for you.
You're committing murder in your heart.
Uh huh.
Like that's not a way that you're supposed to live.
The law is supposed to like, no, it's about life.
That's why you don't murder.
Right.
Um, I, I had, I had this done up here and I, um, I just think it's really cool.
So one of the earliest codes of law that we can find from this area is the code of a Hammurabi.
Yeah.
And so you take the law of the Torah and you take the code of Hammurabi and you compare
them side by side.
And one of the reasons I do this is because you have to contextualize the book of Leviticus.
Yes.
Because if you read it in modern context, you're like, man, this is oppressive.
So talking about the source of law in Torah, it's given by God through Moses, right?
In the, in Hammurabi, it was attributed to King Hammurabi and inspired by the gods.
Right.
Uh, the moral and ethical focus of the Torah is to emphasize justice, mercy, and holiness.
The focus of Hammurabi is to focus on maintaining order and hierarchy regarding social justice.
The Torah says to protect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the alien.
Hammurabi says there's limited protections, but if you have them, they're often favoring
the people in power.
Talking about slavery, because that's one people love to talk about in the Bible, right?
In the Torah, slaves have rights.
Hebrew slaves have to be freed every seven years that's showing up in Exodus 21.
And you can, they are not second class citizens.
You can't treat them as nothing.
Hammurabi says there's harsh conditions, but slaves are most likely seen as property owning
to the person who owns them.
In punishments, uh, Torah talks about proportional justice to being that it can be an eye for
an eye or a tooth for a tooth, but you can't take a life for a tooth.
Right.
In Hammurabi, it's often severe and class based penalties.
Talking about property rights, there's detailed laws of restitution in Torah that if you do
this, you do this for your, your person that you took from restitution often favors property
owners in Hammurabi's law.
Just a couple more here.
Uh, in religious practice, Torah is centralized worship and strict monotheism.
Uh, it is everybody's supposed to be together and with one person.
Right?
So, uh, Hammurabi is polytheistic and there was tons of different rituals out there, like
all sorts of different, you know, you go do your own thing.
And then finally talking about family law, there was an emphasis in Torah on marital
fidelity and protection of women.
Um, in Hammurabi, there was, there was, yes, emphasis on, on marital fidelity, but it was
strictly about patriarchal control and not about, uh, protection of women.
So you start to, and this is just one law, right?
We're not talking about the law of the Chaldeans.
We're not talking about the law of the Egyptians, like comparing them.
Leviticus is radical in its day.
It is a hippie dippy law telling them, God's saying, no, it's, you're going to be different.
You are going to be a different kind of people.
And when you live this, it actually says in Leviticus, it says, if you live by these things,
then I will tabernacle among you.
It means that I will make my physical dwelling among you.
And guess what?
He did.
His name is Jesus.
He's physically tabernacled among us.
Yep.
Yeah.
So you have to contextualize these things, right?
You have to do that, especially when you're talking Torah.
Otherwise you get, uh, otherwise you just get a whole bunch of misinformation out there.
And so you, uh, and, and I want to just preface this a little bit, but I would encourage you
to go research what known laws there are, the known legal systems there are surrounding
Israel or the Hebrews at the time.
Yeah.
I also want to caution that you are going to find some stuff that you are like, that
is grotesque and horrible.
Just know that.
Yeah.
Okay.
But when you actually start to contextualize that, you start to realize that like, man,
God is truly a God of love, right?
He's truly a God of compassion, of mercy.
He's truly patient with his people because there, there are, there were legal systems
in place, um, back in that day where it was like one slight wrong and it was like, you're
dead.
Yeah.
Like people were walking on such thin ice.
You stole my horse.
I take your life.
Yeah.
Right.
You look at me wrong.
I take your life.
Yeah.
I'm stronger than you.
I take your life.
Right.
I want what you have.
I take your life.
Exactly.
Versus where God's laws like, okay, proportional justice.
Yes.
Right.
I for an eye, tooth for a tooth, which by the way, even in Levitical law is allegory.
Yeah.
It's not literal.
Yeah.
Um, but I for I, tooth for a tooth, like proportional justice.
He's like, yes, a hundred percent.
He's like, he's like, but if, if someone gives you a scratch, you can't break their arm.
Yeah.
And uh, the, so what is, what is the purpose then of this mosaic covenant?
Like what is God coming and actually doing with them?
Is making them a prototype of what humanity is supposed to look like.
Yeah.
Right.
Cause the Torah is going to represent the nature of God, right?
It's going to represent who God is.
That's why when in John, it says in the beginning was the word, the word is with God, the word
was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Jesus is the Torah made flesh.
Yeah.
I've always looked at it as God being like, I'm making this covenant with you to return
you to who you're supposed to be.
Correct.
Not necessarily like a making new.
We use that term making new.
Yeah.
But it's, it's really a return to, it's really a return to Eden, right?
Return to who we're supposed to be.
The people were supposed to be with God and Eden.
Um, Brad Gray is going to call it restoration of all things, which is I think a good way
to say that.
Uh, Brad Gray, by the way, walking the text, great place to find some contextual information.
We're always going to, if you find stuff, they're great.
Love it.
Um, so the, the purpose of the mosaic covenant is he says, Hey, you're going to do this and
you're going to look different.
Now in last episode, we talked about the works of the law, right?
Uh, the, the fancy way of saying is mix Ate Al-Tara, right?
The works of the law, which is what Paul talks about in the book of Galatians.
And so this is the, this is probably the sign of the covenant that you're going to take
with it.
Now, sometimes people are going to say, well, that's circumcision.
Well, no, circumcision is a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, which you do need to be part of
the Abrahamic covenant to be in the mosaic covenant.
But the mosaic covenant, there's a lot of things that go with it, which is, uh, not,
not wearing tassels on the end of your robe, right?
Uh, not wearing blended fabrics.
Uh, there's prohibitions on eating.
So they're, you know, they don't only pork and they don't only certain kinds of shellfish,
right?
Or shellfish at all.
That might, yeah.
Um, well they eat fish, but not, not shellfish.
Um, the, uh, there's, there's certain kinds of animals that are prohibited from eating.
Uh, there are certain aspects like observation of Sabbath observation of, uh, festivals because
you're going to be telling the story over and over again as you go along because we're
dumb and we forget, right?
Um, we being humanity, not, um, like there, these things are, uh, there, there are things
that you are, they are called to do and called to live and also to administer justice, to
have years of Jubilee.
These are things that make you inherently Jewish.
Right.
And a lot of times one of the conversations I've had around covenants is when people are
like, well, there's all these covenants, like which one are you living into?
It's like, well, as a person, you can live into multiple covenants, right?
Right.
Like, so as, as a human being, as a man, married man with a family, there are multiple roles
I play, right?
I have a covenant relationship with my wife, right?
I have, there's essentially a covenant relationship that I'm a father, right?
Uh, there's, uh, responsibilities I have at church, there's relationship there, right?
The point of covenants is to draw you closer into relationship with the one who's designed
the covenant, right?
So there's all these different, that you can live into multiple covenants at the same time.
Right.
As long as you are doing it for the right reason.
Right.
Uh, coming back to our story from last week in the Galatians, one, the issue that Paul
has in Galatia is that the people who are receiving Jesus are then being told that if
they don't observe the Mosaic covenant, they will not be able to participate in what Jesus
has brought.
Yeah.
And Paul's like, dude, you're already participating.
Like, if you then think you have to get something else, then what you say you have now doesn't
have any worth.
Yeah.
And like, that's the big crux of the conversation in, uh, in Galatians.
Like, Paul's not saying anything bad about Jewish people, but he's like Gentiles, you
were justified by your faith.
Abrahamic covenant.
You're right underneath of it.
Like, why are you now thinking that you have to do something in order to receive the blessing
of God?
You already have it.
Yeah.
Right.
And, uh, and this is by the way, this is a huge source of contention in the church and
conversation that I've heard over the last, well, I'm 37.
So let's just say 37 years, right?
These people talking about, well, you know, uh, when Paul converted to Christianity, Paul
didn't convert to Christianity.
He had his faith realized as a Jew.
Jesus is a Jewish Messiah.
And he said, Jesus is the son of God and I'm following after him as my rabbi.
Like like a hundred percent, like he didn't become a Christian.
He became a Jew that followed Jesus.
Christian is a term that we've invented.
Uh, I'm not invented.
Christian is a term that we use to describe people who follow Jesus, but following Jesus
is an outcry of the story from the very beginning.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
So, yeah, when we are, choose to follow Christ, um, we're not defined.
So as the world tries to define us as Christian, right?
But the reality is it's Christ who defines us.
Correct.
Right?
So following Christ, we're not, we are defined by him.
Not by what the world tells us, not by how the world tells us we should be defined as
quote unquote Christian.
We need to lean into our relationship with Christ and let everything else work itself
out.
I think, I think for one of the conversations I've had with people when they say, well,
if I following Jesus, why is it important that I understand like the Mosaic covenant?
I was like, well, because it has to do with Torah.
Jesus is the Torah made flesh.
We should probably know the things that Jesus is talking about because he's actually putting
these things on display and then calling us to live in a different way out of that.
Yes.
Right?
And, uh, it's, it's a covenant that is, you know, it's man, it has, it has been, um, all
throughout the old Testament, you read it and we'll, we'll have lots of stories through
the old Testament where people struggle.
Yeah.
But God is faithful every single time.
Like they get sent into captivity a number of times.
They have oppression come a number of times to kind of reorient their brain, but God is
always there waiting for them to come back.
Yep.
Right.
Um, I want to make a few notes here that I just had on, um, the law or Torah and the purpose
for Jewish people is it's covenantal relationship.
It establishes and maintains a covenant between God and Israel and it sets up Israel apart
as a Holy nation distinct from other people.
And it provides moral, ethical and religious guidelines for daily living.
Yes.
It's a covenant of social justice and fairness within the community.
And it reveals God's characters and expectations for his people.
By the way, I want to read that again, reveals God's character and his expectation for his
people.
Yeah.
Uh, it prepares the way for Pete, the coming Messiah by highlighting the need for redemption.
Now, uh, it highlights God's character.
Jesus is later going to have a conversation and you preached on this a few weeks ago where
I teach a lot is going to say, what is the greatest commandment?
Jesus says, whatever you heard it said, love Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength.
And he's like, what's the, what, what about the other one?
You know, he says, love your neighbor as yourself.
He says, go and do these, right?
All long prophets hang on these two commands.
Once again, this is BLT.
So if you're like, man, that was quite the right translation.
You're right.
It was not.
You made the point.
And I completely agree with this is that Jesus can't, you don't separate loving God from
loving other people.
When you understand the character of God, you're going to have that character extend
out to people.
And when you love God and you, and you're identifying and connecting with God, it will
extend to how you treat other people.
And if it doesn't, I have questions about what you're connecting to.
Yes.
Right.
That's not to say that people aren't difficult because well, we've been friends.
Yeah.
My wife likes to do very, she is very much a hippie.
And so, so every once in a while I will send Ben a picture of like just hippie things my
wife's doing.
Oh, this is about the candle, isn't it?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Ben will be like, what is happening right now?
So like one of the things we did, my wife and I did the other day is there's this, there's
this wax tube that you can buy.
You stick it in your ear.
You light the top on fire and it actually pulls ear wax out.
Works really well.
It looks really weird.
So no context.
I took a picture of it and sent it to Ben and Ben's like, why are you lighting brains on
fire?
Yeah.
Right.
So like point being is like, we have areas in our worlds where we disagree, right?
Right.
We have things in our worlds that we do differently.
Okay.
With that said, that doesn't mean we're any less friends or we're any less brothers.
Or love each other less.
Yeah.
Or love each other less.
Like, if I was to say, Ben, you have to do everything exactly how I live life and then
I can love you, that's not emulating the love of God.
That's emulating, that's actually conditional manipulation.
Right.
An unconditional love is saying, Hey, I understand that we live life a little differently.
Yeah.
Right.
But I have some priorities in your life that I don't have.
And I have some priorities in my life that you don't have.
Right.
I, I read a quote and I sent it to you from a, from a book that I read and, and you're
welcome by the way to disagree with this quote, cause it's not scripture, but I think it cares
a really important point.
And it was, I'm not going to quote it exactly correct, but it says, um, love cannot be conditional
because if it's conditional, it's not love.
Right.
And it's not true love if it's actually conditional.
And, and, uh, and I mean, I hear right away, I hear typing type, type, type, type, type,
and I was like, there, there's a huge amount of truth to that.
Like if you actually are going to love people, it can't be based on what they're going to
do for you.
Yeah.
There's, um, if your love is conditional, that's called manipulation.
Correct.
Um, and it's a manipulation masquerading as love.
Yes.
Yeah.
So if you're like, well, I love people, if they do this, that's you trying to manipulate
them into doing what you want.
Yeah.
So it's not love.
Love is unconditional.
Right.
Um, and if you want an example of that, uh, take, take a good parents, for example, right?
I mean, we use the parenthood example all the time.
One more parents, but it's also an example that just holds true.
It's literally an example that screams in our face every morning.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
And it's also an example of God, the father's relationship with us.
Right.
Um, so, but like you take, you take good parents, for example, like I don't love my daughter
less when she's being a butt.
Do I want her to be a butt every day?
No.
Like, but she has moments where she's like, just for those of you who don't know my kid,
my kid goes from smiley, huggy, snuggly to scream in your face back to smiley, huggy,
snuggly.
And those are her two motons.
Okay.
Uh, there's no, and it's like a switch.
It's and then it's gone and it's gone.
Yup.
Ben's witnessed it and it's like, it's like, all right.
And, uh, you're not the only one, just so you know.
No, no, no.
But, uh, but I don't love her less because she's acting out a certain way.
Right.
Now, is there corrective measures we take?
Absolutely.
But that doesn't mean I love her less.
Yeah.
It's, I think really learning how to love people authentically is difficult.
Oh, it's so hard.
Um, it's one of the reasons why the mosaic covenant as it's supposed to transform you
is supposed to change you as a person over time.
Yeah.
Right.
So one of the things I would say is that, uh, it's just one of those things where you,
you have to be intentional and take, you know, you talked about like people think what are
great works.
It's like taking one step towards it.
Then you take another step towards it.
Yeah.
Like if you love people tomorrow more than you love them today, you're moving in the
right direction.
Yeah.
And it can be a fraction of an inch.
Right?
Yeah.
Maybe like one of the goals I set for in my life a while ago and I come back and keep
revisiting is like, okay, am I making the cashiers at the grocery store smile?
Right?
Like, am I just making their environment?
Am I intentionally trying to make their day a little bit better or am I the cause of their
crows feet?
Right.
Am I the cause of them being a disgruntled angry person?
I don't know.
Not all of them are.
Yeah.
But, uh, right.
Like the people I encounter, like how am I making their day a little bit better?
Yeah.
So good.
So I'm going to leave us with one little thought here because, um, I'd like you guys to go
do some, some homework and think, think about this.
Um, this whole idea of like, as we love God, as we understand the character of God, it
transforms the way that we treat other people.
Uh, the teacher of the law has this thing where he then tries to catch Jesus or tries
to justify himself and he makes a statement.
Who then is my neighbor?
And then Jesus tells a story.
Yeah.
So I'd like you guys to go take a look at that story and really think about the ramifications
of what it means to have mercy on the people that are so far away from you.
Yeah.
Amen.
Cause that's the call of Jesus.
Amen.
The Mosaic covenant is meant to change us and transform us into something else.
And that's going to be recognized, of course, in the person of Jesus.
Next week, we're going to be talking about the Davidic covenant, but then we'll be actually
talking and start will be left.
It is where we're talking about the Davidic covenant, but then after that we will be talking
about the messianic covenant and the covenant that Jesus brings and, and pulls all these
pieces together and gives us into this future of the kingdom of God.
If you have thoughts, um, concerns, complaints, cookies, get cookies, I can send you our address.
You can send them to us.
Um, you know, send us a message, drop a, drop a comment.
We'd love to hear from you guys.
Yeah.
Till next time.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of love and context.
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