Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Why Study the Old Testament? (Gary Edward Schnittjer)

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Why Study the Old Testament? (Gary Edward Schnittjer) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm
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  Speaker 1: doctor James Spencer and I'm joined today by doctor Gary
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  Speaker 1: Edward Snitcher, and we're going to be talking a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about the Old Testament today and particularly his book Connected,
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  Speaker 1: How Scripture Guides the Study of Scripture. Gary is also
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  Speaker 1: a Distinguished Professor of Old Testament in the School Divinity
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  Speaker 1: at Cairn University, and he has a sub stack at
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  Speaker 1: Carpentersstudent dot com that's with two s's in the middle,
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  Speaker 1: Carpenter's Student dot com, so you can check out more
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  Speaker 1: of his work there. Welcome very to the episode. Really
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  Speaker 1: happy to have you.
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  Speaker 2: Back, James. Thank you. I had a good time last
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  Speaker 2: time and I really appreciate the invite.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, So today we're going to discuss a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about your book Connected, and part of what I
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  Speaker 1: think you do really well and Connected, which is how
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  Speaker 1: Scripture Guides the Study of Scripture, is you're looking at
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  Speaker 1: these sort of interconnections and why the Old Testament would
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  Speaker 1: ever be important to anyone in the first place is
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  Speaker 1: now that we have the New Testament. I've delved into
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  Speaker 1: this a little bit. I got into the conversation when
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  Speaker 1: Andy Stanley published his book Irresistible This is a few
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  Speaker 1: years back, and did a couple of pieces on Christianity
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  Speaker 1: Dot Calm on it. But I'm interested to hear your
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  Speaker 1: take on why would anyone bother studying in the Old Testament.
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  Speaker 1: That may be intuitived Old Testament guys, but maybe not
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  Speaker 1: to everybody else.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll jump into that. Let me start first. This
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  Speaker 2: is Connected. Is not a book on the Old Testament,
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  Speaker 2: and it's on how to study the Bible according to
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  Speaker 2: what the Bible teaches us about studying the Bible. So
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  Speaker 2: it's a little bit different than the normal things that
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  Speaker 2: are out there and the other thing that some people
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  Speaker 2: just project onto it. Because the Bible is connected. That's
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  Speaker 2: why I called it connected. Ye, people think of some
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  Speaker 2: of my other research sometimes where I work on the
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  Speaker 2: Bible's use of the Bible. This book's not on that.
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  Speaker 2: This book is about how to study the Bible that's
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  Speaker 2: already connected for us and anyway. But it does start
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  Speaker 2: in the Old Testament. That's two thirds or three quarters
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  Speaker 2: of the Bible.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of yeah, a lot of it.
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  Speaker 2: So I think that the even when we ask that question,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm not picking on you, I think it's one
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  Speaker 2: that presses on us from Christian culture these days. But
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  Speaker 2: the question of you know, why study the Old Testament,
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  Speaker 2: I think that Jesus and the Apostles and the New
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  Speaker 2: Testament authors would think, what's wrong with you for even
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  Speaker 2: asking the question? That doesn't even make sense? I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I think that what we see across the New Testament
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  Speaker 2: is an understanding that there was the Gospel, there was Messiah,
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  Speaker 2: there was Christianity before there was a New Testament. But
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  Speaker 2: there could never be any of those things without the
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  Speaker 2: Old Testament. And so the basic understanding that the Old
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  Speaker 2: Testament is the scripture of Christians is just it's almost
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  Speaker 2: a prerequisite of sort of the outlook of the New
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  Speaker 2: Testament teachers. And I think that you know, just one example,
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  Speaker 2: we think of the probably the earliest Gospel Mark, how
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  Speaker 2: it begins, right, this is the beginning of the Gospel
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  Speaker 2: of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. Even the
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  Speaker 2: term gospel Mark's not inventing it. He might be inventing
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  Speaker 2: the gospel genre. But he gets that term from Isaiah
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  Speaker 2: forty verse nine, because then he begins by quoting very
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  Speaker 2: well known sort of mix of these several Old Testament
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  Speaker 2: passages from Exodus chapter twenty three, Isaiah forty, and from
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  Speaker 2: Malachi chapter three sort of brings them together, and he
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  Speaker 2: points to Isaiah saying, you know, this is what Isaiah said,
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  Speaker 2: and he talks about the one who comes before. So
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  Speaker 2: even the way that Jesus is framed from the very
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  Speaker 2: beginning of the earliest Gospel, even the term gospel, all
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  Speaker 2: of that comes from the Old Testament. And it was
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  Speaker 2: just natural for the Gospel writers for Jesus, for the
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  Speaker 2: New Testament authors to read Old Testament forward to its
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  Speaker 2: culmination in the teaching, death and Resurrection of our Lord.
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  Speaker 2: There was nothing unusual about that. So I think the
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  Speaker 2: unusual thing is somehow, you know, all these centuries later,
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  Speaker 2: here we are amid these Christians who loved the New Testament,
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  Speaker 2: as we should, but somehow Christians have given the Old
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  Speaker 2: Testament sort of a bad rap, which is very ironic
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  Speaker 2: to say it is.
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  Speaker 1: I remember, I think it was my PhD program. I
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  Speaker 1: had a class called Continuities and Discontinuities, and it assumed
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  Speaker 1: the connectivity of the scriptures. But then you have these
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  Speaker 1: discussions about how contiguous is the Old Testament with the
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  Speaker 1: New Testament. Where does it actually remain interwoven across, and
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  Speaker 1: when is there a more stark disconnection between the two.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think about that? Inconnected? Like when you're
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  Speaker 1: when you're looking at the scriptures as connected, do you
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  Speaker 1: see points of true discontinuity or disconnection between the Old
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  Speaker 1: and the Testament or do you view it more as
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  Speaker 1: a as a total outgrowth across.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I want to be clear for listeners,
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  Speaker 2: this is not a technical book. There's a very introductory book,
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  Speaker 2: but certainly the more technical, whether you fraindaimed, it undergoes
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  Speaker 2: it all. But yeah, I think that probably connected. You
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  Speaker 2: can hear it in the title is emphasizing continuity. And
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  Speaker 2: so one of the things that comes up in one
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  Speaker 2: of the early chapters is how we need to read
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  Speaker 2: the Bible in its interconnected way. So I use Nehemiah
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  Speaker 2: chapter nine, the Prayer of the Levites, and connect that
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  Speaker 2: with Acts chapter thirteen, Paul's first recorded sermon in the scriptures,
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  Speaker 2: and those are two retrospective, panoramic sorts of things, and
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  Speaker 2: so they tell the big story between them. The big
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  Speaker 2: story is the Gospel story. And looking at these two
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  Speaker 2: biblical stories for framing the Biblical story, you can see
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  Speaker 2: three parts really Torrah story, Israel story, and Messiah story,
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  Speaker 2: and those three parts together Torres story, Israel story, Gospel,
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  Speaker 2: Messiah story, they make the gospel story of the entire scriptures.
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  Speaker 2: And so one of the things that connected emphasizes is
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  Speaker 2: how we need to read each book, each passage within
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  Speaker 2: that biblical framework. So I think the dominant emphasis of
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  Speaker 2: certainly this approach to studying the Bible is more focusing
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  Speaker 2: on the continuity. But your question is really important. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: the thing that we always that gives us pause is
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  Speaker 2: just the surprising uniqueness of when God condescended to the
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  Speaker 2: incarnation in Christ. There's something new and bold that just
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  Speaker 2: can't be constrained. Right. That's where we don't want to
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  Speaker 2: just do continuity. We have I say, no, no, no, There's
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  Speaker 2: something new and a culmination of all God's revelation in Christ.
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  Speaker 2: So it just feels almost wrong to just, you know,
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  Speaker 2: look at what God has done in the Gospel of
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  Speaker 2: Christ and not see some measure discontinuity is not a
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  Speaker 2: friendly word, but to feel a sense of surprise and
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  Speaker 2: just a jarring that you know, the hinge of history
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  Speaker 2: is right there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I just I just finished teaching on Hebrews. I
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  Speaker 1: did a I'd run a Bible stay on Wednesday morning,
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  Speaker 1: so I just finished reading on Hebrews. And what I
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  Speaker 1: was sort of struck with this time around was this
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  Speaker 1: notion that the author of Hebrews in talking about the
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  Speaker 1: good and the better or the copy, the shadow and
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  Speaker 1: the substance sort of ideas, right, what I came across
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  Speaker 1: this time and I just said, you know, we're we're
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  Speaker 1: not looking at Let's say he described the Temple and
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  Speaker 1: being in this outer court and not being able to
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  Speaker 1: enter into the Holy of Holies. It's very Old Testament language.
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  Speaker 1: You can't understand what even is going on there without
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  Speaker 1: looking back to the Old Testament and understanding it. But
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  Speaker 1: then the author of Hebrews paints this tension of because
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  Speaker 1: we're still in the outer court. We know that we're
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  Speaker 1: not we have not yet arrived where we really desire
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  Speaker 1: to be. But there's no sense in which he's saying
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  Speaker 1: the outer court is bad. This is a gift for
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  Speaker 1: which we should be grateful for. But at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: it's a gift that points us towards something better that's coming.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that some of that would be stronger
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  Speaker 1: framing in a discontinuity. It emphasizes this deep connection, but
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't flatten that connection to say it has to
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  Speaker 1: be uniform. No, no, no, it can be an advancement,
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  Speaker 1: it can get better, but it can't be really disconnected
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  Speaker 1: so in or woven. So I don't know thoughts on that.
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  Speaker 2: I just yeah, I think that that's a good example,
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  Speaker 2: because you know, at the outer Court we're already talking
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  Speaker 2: about the chosen people. We're talking about the covenantal relationship
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  Speaker 2: to be able to come into God's courts. But you know,
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  Speaker 2: thinking before there was the New Testament, at the Tabernacle,
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  Speaker 2: or at the First Temple, or at the Second Temple,
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  Speaker 2: there's the priests, and so coming into the courts is
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  Speaker 2: not to be a priest right. The priests are called
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  Speaker 2: specially to bear the burden of holiness, and I don't
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  Speaker 2: think today's Christians quite get that special burden that the
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  Speaker 2: priests alone had to bear, and they had to be
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  Speaker 2: very careful not to transmit holiness that was their birth
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  Speaker 2: onto the people. So they had the disrobe before they
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  Speaker 2: came out so that the holy garments wouldn't transmit holiness,
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  Speaker 2: and those cause things that weren't set apart that is
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  Speaker 2: owned by God to become holy. And so then the
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  Speaker 2: you know, once there was that whole debacle in numbers,
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  Speaker 2: especially chapter sixteen and seventeen, and God again says after
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  Speaker 2: that whole uprising with Cora and the other rebels were swallowed,
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  Speaker 2: God says through the Aaron's staff, butting, I chose Aaron.
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  Speaker 2: Now stop it. Yeah, And then chapter eighteen the teaching
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  Speaker 2: goes into reinforcing again the burden of holiness, that's the priests.
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  Speaker 2: And now the Levites are seen not just as carrying
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  Speaker 2: stuff through the desert, though they certainly started to do that,
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  Speaker 2: and they didn't always like that, but they're they're also
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  Speaker 2: to protect the people from coming into too close to
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  Speaker 2: God's presence and being struck down. For it's only the
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  Speaker 2: priests who were called to bear the burden of holiness.
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  Speaker 2: And so, you know, transt forwarding to the letter the Hebrews,
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  Speaker 2: it's that there certainly is a discontinuity in one sense,
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  Speaker 2: right because all of a sudden, you know what, why
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  Speaker 2: would you want to go past the courts right into
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  Speaker 2: this right holy place where people are struck down. So
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  Speaker 2: there is something very new that has happened because of
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  Speaker 2: what Christ has done. But it's it's still best framed
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  Speaker 2: by thinking through it with the analogy of God's covenantal
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  Speaker 2: relationship with his people at the temple where his glory dwells.
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  Speaker 1: And so when you think through it like that, is
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  Speaker 1: that sort of what you mean when you're saying that
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  Speaker 1: scripture is going to guide the study of scripture? You know,
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  Speaker 1: you said it. This is differentiated from the work you
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  Speaker 1: do more inter biblical interpretation, you know, used to the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament, the New and those kind of fun things.
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  Speaker 1: So is that is that sort of thrust this this
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  Speaker 1: deeper understanding of how the priests, for instance, are functioning
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  Speaker 1: in the Old Testament now drawing forward and helping us
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  Speaker 1: understand the mantle that we take on a gift we've
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  Speaker 1: been given. However, we're going to phrase that within the
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  Speaker 1: New Testament under the New Covenant. Is that sort of
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  Speaker 1: an example of what you mean or would you explain
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  Speaker 1: it in a different way?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that might be a pre understanding of say, the
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  Speaker 2: big story that I was talking about a few minutes ago,
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  Speaker 2: But no, it's this is more nuts and both than that.
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  Speaker 2: This is even before that. This is probably I can
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  Speaker 2: think about it this way that it's right. We want
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  Speaker 2: to frame everything centered on the gospel story of the
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  Speaker 2: entire Bible. But then the book, really the main chapters
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  Speaker 2: go through genre by genre in the Bible, and we
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  Speaker 2: learn how to interpret story from the way a biblical
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  Speaker 2: story teaches us to interpret the biblical story. Look at
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  Speaker 2: say Deuteronomy chapter six, where you know, one day your
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  Speaker 2: children will ask you, what's the meaning of this commandment
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  Speaker 2: and it's alluding their back to the Ten Commandments, and
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  Speaker 2: the parent is instructed us to tell a story and
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  Speaker 2: to show how the story relates to this covenental relationship.
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  Speaker 2: Or again, in let's say Zachariah one, here's a prophetic oracle,
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  Speaker 2: but it's about studying prophetic oracles, and so it challenges
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  Speaker 2: us and shows us how to study prophecy in the prophecy,
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  Speaker 2: or in ps one, where there's wisdom and there's study
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  Speaker 2: of scripture, and that shows us how to study poetry
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  Speaker 2: and wisdom in the poetic wisdom. Intro to Palms Luke
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  Speaker 2: for is a really great example one of my favorite
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  Speaker 2: chapters where Christ is there in the synagogue of his
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  Speaker 2: hometown and he's teaching from Isaiah, and just this spectacular
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  Speaker 2: teaching from Isaiah sixty one. But right in Isaiah sixty one,
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  Speaker 2: the Lord scrolls back to Isaiah fifty eight six and
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  Speaker 2: just inserts this connection based on a catchphrase, and then
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  Speaker 2: finishes this out with Isaiah sixty one. And so the
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  Speaker 2: Lord there is upsetting his hometown for sure, but he's
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  Speaker 2: showing us something about how to interpret scripture. And he
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  Speaker 2: finds the message that really upsets them, that the good
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  Speaker 2: News has always been there for the gentiles. He finds
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  Speaker 2: that in the Old Testament stories of Elijah and Elijah,
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  Speaker 2: and that's what really moves the congregation at Nazareth from
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  Speaker 2: sarcasm to sort of this collective homicidal action. And of
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  Speaker 2: course Jesus just walks away. But that whole thing is
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  Speaker 2: set up by Lucas as was his custom to do.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this is what Jesus did. He studied scripture,
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  Speaker 2: and so that's a good example of how to study
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  Speaker 2: scripture from the scriptures. Yeah, you know, I think that
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  Speaker 2: there's chapter on how to read Paul's Letters. From Paul's Letters,
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  Speaker 2: how to read if you will Visions new and old
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  Speaker 2: and there. You know, it's a tricky chapter to write
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  Speaker 2: for an introductory book, but focus on Daniel studying Jeremiah
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  Speaker 2: in Daniel chapter nine. Yeah, and the one of the
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  Speaker 2: important things that comes out of that chapter. And I
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  Speaker 2: have to confess it myself, you know, writing a chapter
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  Speaker 2: on Daniel, and I've had to do it a few
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  Speaker 2: times in my adult life. It's scary. I've had to
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  Speaker 2: ask for help from my Daniel friends who are specialists
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  Speaker 2: in Daniel, and Daniel himself he needs help when he
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  Speaker 2: gets these visions. And so that's one of the important
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  Speaker 2: things for us too, for especially when we're getting started
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  Speaker 2: and studying the scriptures, is you know, when we're in
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  Speaker 2: these really hard genres, we need to be careful to
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  Speaker 2: ask for help and seek guidance and get what we
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  Speaker 2: need so that we don't go off the rails into
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  Speaker 2: some weird stuff.
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the texts there are several texts
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  Speaker 1: that come to mind when you're describing that, right, I
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  Speaker 1: could go back to Exodus fifteen, which I think is
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  Speaker 1: just this beautiful re rendering of what we've read in
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  Speaker 1: the you know, the narrative prior to it.
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  Speaker 2: It is, but it's actually in a reverse order, right,
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  Speaker 2: because the song is first.
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  Speaker 1: It's first, that's told later. Yes, you probably make a
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  Speaker 1: similar kind of observation on Hannah's song and for Samuel.
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  Speaker 1: You know, the themes that are included in Hammond's song
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  Speaker 1: tend to recur throughout the rest of this narrative. They
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  Speaker 1: provide a framework through which we are guided into the
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  Speaker 1: interpretation of why is David doing the way he's doing things,
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  Speaker 1: the way he's doing things. What is this really trying
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  Speaker 1: to do as narrative literature that you might get a
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  Speaker 1: sense of if that song or if that that song
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  Speaker 1: wasn't there, but the song just makes it so explicit. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you know, but the one I one I'm really thinking
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  Speaker 1: of that I think is kind of interesting now that
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  Speaker 1: you you've kind of talked through this is the narrative
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  Speaker 1: of Josiah's reforms. He gets the law, like, he rediscovers
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  Speaker 1: the law of God, and what does he do. He
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  Speaker 1: goes about reforming even though God tells him these reforms
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  Speaker 1: are not going to save the people, not going to
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  Speaker 1: save the nation. He continues reforming. And it just strikes
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  Speaker 1: me that that's a really fascinating way to think about
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  Speaker 1: what you're talking about, this deep connection of scripture. You know,
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  Speaker 1: how to study scripture through the scriptures Josiah's reading the law,
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  Speaker 1: and his conclusion is that the law doing the law,
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  Speaker 1: doing what is right by God, as an end in itself.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't need further justification, it doesn't need a pragmatic
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  Speaker 1: or utilitarian outcome. It doesn't have to be quote unquote successful.
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  Speaker 1: So there's just a few narratives that come to mind
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  Speaker 1: as you talk through that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that you're right on it that.
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  Speaker 2: I think that we have a lot Every publishing house
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  Speaker 2: has this. There's so many books on interpreting the scripture.
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  Speaker 2: So in part yeah, almost, why in the world would
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  Speaker 2: you write another book. I have plenty of other things
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  Speaker 2: to do, but this particular book has been on my
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  Speaker 2: mind for decades. I mean, just to use the scriptures.
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  Speaker 2: They're teaching on how to study the scriptures, to study
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  Speaker 2: the scriptures, I think that I think that we've looked
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  Speaker 2: all sorts of things to help us study the scriptures.
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  Speaker 2: Lots and lots of clever and wonderful books out there. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but I don't think we've put enough time into the
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  Speaker 2: tools that are right there in scripture. And I think
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  Speaker 2: that we need to because if we think about what
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  Speaker 2: the later Old Testament authors, we can tell by the
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  Speaker 2: way that they quote scripture so much and the way
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  Speaker 2: that the New Testament authors are building through earlier scriptures,
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  Speaker 2: that reading scripture with scripture was just the natural way,
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  Speaker 2: and that's one of the reasons why there's such great
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  Speaker 2: continuity throughout the scriptures. Yeah, you know, this whole Josiah
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  Speaker 2: thing that you bring up is a wonderful example. There's
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  Speaker 2: several terrific things about it. When I when Josiah hears
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  Speaker 2: the scripture, he does something very different than jehoia Kim
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  Speaker 2: does when he hears Jeremiah read. He Johakaen tears the
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  Speaker 2: scriptures and burns them. Yeah, worse than just Baruk, the
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  Speaker 2: scribe of Jeremiah and Jeremiah that just reread it. Whereas
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  Speaker 2: there's a connection there where Josiah tears his clothing and
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  Speaker 2: so there's you know there, he really sees something from
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  Speaker 2: this youthful age where he wants to reform his kingdom
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  Speaker 2: in a Torah shape, and he probably succeeds better than
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  Speaker 2: any king before him because he legislates a tor shaped
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: kingdom and it's you know, it's a high point. But
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: it's also written in kings from a maybe forty thousand
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: feet view, because we don't get into the weeds and
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: find out how people feel. But it's in Jeremiah forty four,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: where after Jerusalem has been destroyed and Jeremiah has he's
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: stuck with these people who are left behind, and they
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: say to him, should we go to Egypt? He says no,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: and they take them to Egypt anyway, and they're in Egypt,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: and then the people there in the middle of Jeremiah
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: forty four they say, and so this is where the
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Bible is wonderful. It gives us a counterpoint. From the
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: counterpoints perspective, the women and men both say, hey, none
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: of this happened when we used to worship the Queen
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: of Heaven. It was when we stopped worshiping the Queen
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: of Heaven that all these terrible things happen. So we're
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: not going to listen to you, Jeremiah. And so we're
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: left forward because the only thing that they could be
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: talking about is Josiah's reforms when he said stop worshiping
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the Queen of Heaven.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And then these are eyewitnesses who saw the destruction of Jerusalem,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: they lived in its last days, that were there for
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Josiah's reform, and they're blaming Josiah. They're blaming Jeremiah for
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: this exclusive monotheism that's what ruined everything. And we're reading
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: the scriptures like saying, well, Jeremiah, if he doesn't get
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: it yet, he's got it that these people are never
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: going to get it.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: It's just an extraordinary moment in the history of Israel
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: that there's so many angles that the Bible takes on
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Josiah's reform right there before the fall of Jerusalem.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. I wonder how you think about a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: book like Deuteronomy. So I did my dissertation on the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Sabbath Commands, and it's you know, it's one of these
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: tensions in Old Testament scholarship because you have some people
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: who advocate sort of reading the pentitud backwards. Right, Deuteronomy
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is almost the interpretive key to the rest of the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Pentituke and then you know, you obviously have the canonical
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: order and the narrative structure that's leading you all the
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: way down to Deuteronomy. My tendency is not to choose
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: either one, but to kind of let both play on
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: each other. But when I do read something like the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Sabbath commands. You know, I kind of sit back and say,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: this is an interesting riff. Right, Deuteronomy switches things up
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and roots it in the Exodus, adds a couple of
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: other little pieces, whereas the Exodus command is rooted in creation,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: it's looking back to that. But it's this beautiful connection
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: between all these different events you have. You moved from Creation,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: which obviously ends in Sabbath, through Exodus after the Israelites
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: have been delivered, then into Deuteronomy on the cusp, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: they're reminded not that God is the creator necessarily, but
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: they're reminded that he is the one who has redeemed
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: them slavery. And so there's a beautiful interwoveness about that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: But I'm wondering just if you can wax philosophical a
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: little bit on Deuteronomy and how how you think about
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Deuteronomy is helping us study other scriptures.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Well, first let me just say I love those are
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: PhD studies.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: That was my PhD studies.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So everybody out there, if you're a doctoral student,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: you heard it. You heard it here both and that's
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: what you do. That's right, both and and there's your
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: dissertation topic, right.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: There exactly. There's a lot of room in the both
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and space.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Nice job, James, Well, yeah, let's pick up on that perhaps.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: But I think if I were to think about more
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: of the kind of thing that's going on and connected, uh,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I think that sort of this recycle ten commandments as
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: part of it. But Deuteronomy sets up a culture of
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: scripture study. So we have we have at the great
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: command to love Yahweh. There is the teaching to instruct
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: your children the next generation everywhere, all the time, no
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: matter what you do. And when we think about prophets, right,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: they have to teach. This is Deudonomy thirteen in acord
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: with Torah. And if they don't, that's how you know
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: they're a false prophets. The prophets aren't being innovative, they're
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: being very conservative. And the Levites in Deuteronomy twenty three,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: they're set apart to teach Israel and kings are defined
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: in Deuteronomy seventeen as they have lots of jobs to do.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: There's some stuff they shouldn't do. Don't marry too many women,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: don't have too much wealth, and spend your days studying scripture.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: And so you think about the Great institutions of prophet, priest, king,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: they're all scripture oriented. Deuteronomy twenty seven looks ahead to
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: a specific monument that's going to have the tour written
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: on it when the people get into the land of Promise.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Deudonomy thirty one talks about not only the covenant, the
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: tourist roll being set by the ark of the covenant.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: And we have to notice what Deuteronomy thirty one says
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: there to bear witness against you. Yeah, not only that,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: but that set a little bit after the people are
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: told gather every seven years, and it's the whole Covenental community.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: So it's right, the men, the women, the children, yes,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: and the residing foreigners. And that connects back to your
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Sabbath command, where it's not just the slave owner, the household,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the men that get off. Everybody gets off.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Everybody gets off, everybody.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Gets off, the work animals, the slaves, the residing foreigners.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And then they're all part of the Covenental community. So
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: even the the Covenental gentile element, if you will, they're
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: there gathered to read scripture. So when we talk about Deuteronomy,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I think there's a culture of scripture study that's a
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: part of this generation that needs to go in and
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: do God's will and live in the labit he set
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: apart for them. So it imagines a scripture centered sort
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: of way of life. When they think about Deuteronomy.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I will say, it's interesting you bring that up, because
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: whenever I talk about biblical authority I've been it's not
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: like I never reference, you know, inspiration in the New Testament.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: You know, Second twenty three sixteen, and you know that passage.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: We all know it's, you know, useful for rebuke and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: instruction and all that kind of good stuff. I almost
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: always go back to Deuteronomy seventeen. This instruction of the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: king to write his own copy of the law. It's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: compelling interesting write your own copy, but then also have
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it authorized by the priests. So there's a reminder that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the king is not writing his own copy and it
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: has to match all the other copies, right, and that
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: this is under the auspices of the priest, and they're
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: going to check this for the king to make sure
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that he's studying the right things. And so there's a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: real sacred social order that's in place there that's reminding
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the king that his job is to reflect God's sovereignty
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: on earth to some degree, he is God's reflection and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: servant in that moment, and then he's reading scripture day
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: by day in order to learn to fear the Lord.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: And so when we just think about the dynamics of
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: that little passage there, and why studying scripture is so crucial,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: it's like the character that is being formed in that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: king is the character that is trying to be formed
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in us when we read the text. And I think
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it's just a little bit easier of an example to understand.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I'm finding the dynamics there are such that you have,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you know, this high figure in society who is now
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: subjecting himself to the Word of God, sitting himself within
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the within the priests who sort of represent that holiness,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: who carry the holiness community, and then ultimately just getting
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: so familiar with the Word that ultimately he comes to
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: fear the Lord. I find that passage so fascinating. So
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's I mean, it's part of
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: this culture of scripture study, but it's you know, it's
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: very different. I love how you've thought through that in
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: place that I haven't thought of some of those things, Jams,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I hope I can write them down when we're done
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: before I forgot. But I think that's.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: It.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: You know, there's there's not sort of a how to
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: like be a good king exactly. The important part is
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: aligning ones for the king to align himself with Torah,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: with God's word, and that's what takes priority. I'm sure
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: that the king needed help with the other stuff, probably, yeah,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: but that's not what on Moses's last day on this earth,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: that's not what he talked about. He talked about a
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: few things, make sure you don't do this, this and this,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: but he spent most of his time talking about studying scripture.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, such a crucial aspect, I think, especially today as
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: where we're in this sort of tech age where you
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: do get a lot more messaging. And I don't think
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: it's a I don't think that's a new problem, right,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: We've always had to your point, you know, the Queen
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: of Heaven, that message was out there, right, that would
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: have been a temptation for the Israelites at that point.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: They're looking at this and saying, wow, life was better
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: under the Queen of Heaven than it was under the Lord,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and we should have made different choices with our lives
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and so but I do think the intensity is ramped up,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and I think that it's just crucial for us to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: get into the Biblical text, understand how it reads itself,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and also learn to read it well for ourselves.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's that's the gist of this book. And
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: again again I would say to any of your viewers
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: that if you've not thought enough about how the scripture
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: is connected, this this book might help. But it's also
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: something that's designed in a way for teachers, and whether
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: in a church context or in a study context, or
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: even academic context, this is a different way to look
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: at how to study the Bible. And it's this is
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: on the bottom shelf.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: This is.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: A person doesn't have to know anything to use connected
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: And but you know, so this is maybe the one
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: book that my mom can actually read and say, oh,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: you know what you're talking about. Yeah, most of my
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: books don't put them in your grandmother's stocking, but this
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: one not so bad.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: No, that's helpful, And I think it's going to be interesting.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: We're gonna close shop on this episode, but I think
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: in the next episode we're gonna be talking about Ezra
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and Yamaya, And so my mind is sort of raising
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit because you know, you have Ezra teaching
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the law to the people an awful lot, and so
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I think this sort of primes the pump for this
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: in the next episode. I encourage folks to go out
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and get connected how scripture guides the study of scripture.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: This is something that's really important to me, is like
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: just helping the church understand what God's words says and
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: following the patterns that we find within it. And so
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: just encourage you to get that. The link will be
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in the show description, so you can click there and
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: purchase that book. It's on Amazon, and I'm sure of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: various other sites. Check out Gary's substack again, carpentersstudent dot com.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: That's with two s's Carpenters in the plural student dot com.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: It's probably not in the plural. I guessing there's an apostrophees,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: but you don't do that on websites, So Carpenters student
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: dot com and yeah, go check out, go check out
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Gary's other writing. Really appreciate you being here today, Thanks
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: again for coming on the show, and we'll see you
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: in the next episode.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks Jims real pleasure.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: All right, come back and see us next time. Everybody,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: take care,