Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / Episode #10 Not Your Parents Sunday School Story-Part 1: God Demands a Life

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Episode #10 Not Your Parents Sunday School Story-Part 1: God Demands a Life · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to imagine your God comes to you and says to you, I want you to prove that you love me.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you're going to prove it is you're going to sacrifice one of your children to me.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is that the kind of God you want to prove loyalty to?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: What does that say about God?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a story just like that in the Bible, Genesis 22, the first book of the Bible.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna use that story today to continue our discussions about how to read the Bible.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am Tim Wright here with- Terry Summers.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Terry Summers of Terry Summers.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she is a part of our Deep Grace Diving podcast.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we are glad to have you with us today.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, hope you'll tell your friends about it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can get us on Apple.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can get us on Spotify or you can subscribe to recklessgrace.substack.com.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll not only get this every week, but you'll get a little blog post from me as well.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So Terry,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: we spent the last couple of weeks talking about how to read the Bible,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: how to interpret the Bible.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I gave a couple thoughts two weeks ago or two times ago for understanding the
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Bible when it comes to studying it.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is this.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need to remember the Bible wasn't written to us.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was written for us.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what that means is the Bible was written to people who lived thousands of years ago.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was written to people who live in a very different world than we live in today.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Very different languages, very different cultures, very different understandings of God.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it was written to them in their worldview,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: in their time,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: and they would have understood these stories in a particular way through their setting.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we study the Bible, it's really important for us to ask the questions.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how would they have understood it?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: What were they thinking?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: What were they going through?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why was this written?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing that we talked about is how important it is to take the various
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: genres or literary styles of the Bible seriously.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we interpret narrative differently than we interpret poetry.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We interpret the parables of Jesus differently than we interpret the letters of Paul.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: All of the various genres of the Bible need to be taken seriously as well.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when people say, I take the Bible literally,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the Bible doesn't always want to be taken literally.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It wants to be taken metaphorically, for example, in poetry or in Jesus' parables.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's telling stories.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't literal stories of things that actually happened.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're stories that give us truth and meaning.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when we don't take those things seriously,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: that's when we start to get ourselves into trouble making claims about God that God
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: never made.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I did say was that if,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: as you're reading the Bible,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: and especially in the Old Testament,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: you're reading things that don't sound very God-like from the perspective of Jesus,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: then it's time to step back and say,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: all right,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: what is really going on here?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a misunderstanding of God by the people of Israel?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is God trying to say something significant?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when we say we take the Bible literally, we really have to walk through all of that nuanced stuff.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing I'll say,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: and then kind of let you chime in there before we dive into our story for today.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: The only Bible that Jesus had was the Old Testament.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we oftentimes talk about how different God seems in the Old Testament than the New Testament.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: God seems kind of crabby and judgmental in the Old and very loving in the New.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the only God Jesus knew was the God of the Old Testament.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So how was it that Jesus read the Old Testament?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: What did Jesus see in the Old Testament that we don't often see?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where Bible study becomes so important.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: We can read the Bible devotionally,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: but when we really want to study it and understand it,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: we have to take all of those things into consideration.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you said that once before,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: but that's so interesting to look at the Bible from what Jesus saw.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to sit with that for a second, but still, I feel like it's...
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: That opened something up for me.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because yes,
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: and it did for me when I had that realization as well,
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: that the only Bible Jesus had is the Old Testament.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So he must see a different God than we see in those stories.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's possible for us to see that as well.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So what we want to do today and then in our next podcast is give a couple examples
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: of how we can misread scripture,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: but when we read it within the way that it wants to be read,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: we see it as far richer and far more grace-filled than we could ever imagine.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna look at a story from Genesis chapter 22.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a story where God says to Abraham,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to sacrifice your only son Isaac to me,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: which is a stunning request on any level.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get a little background here as to how we get there.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: What we talked about in the creation story in our last podcast is that the book of Genesis,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Leviticus,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: and Numbers,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: they are written to the people of Israel who had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly, some guy named Moses comes along and says, God, Yahweh, chooses you.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, slaves, people are never chosen by the gods.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: But this God chooses you.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they saw this God rescue them from slavery in Egypt through 10 miracles.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And these slaves walked out of Egypt free because of this Yahweh, whoever this Yahweh is.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: They spend 40 years wandering around in the wilderness.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And during those 40 years, they're asking questions.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, who is this God?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: What is this God like?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: We know what the gods of Egypt were like.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: We know what the gods of the surrounding cultures are like.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Who is this God?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: What makes this God different?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why did this God choose us?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we have in these stories, especially when we start with Genesis...
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: are stories that the writers are using to help the people of Israel,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: these former slaves,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: begin to get to know who their God is.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so they use images from other gods and other cultures to compare and contrast
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: their God with the other gods.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, in the creation stories we saw in the last podcast,
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: one of the things that we learn that's different about the God of Israel and the
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: other gods is that this God doesn't create out of violence by killing other gods.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: This God creates out of the goodness of God's own heart.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And everything that God creates is good.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: This God doesn't create human beings to feed God.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: This God creates human beings so that this God as a loving parent can dote on us
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: and care for us and love us.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: This God created human beings to be in his image, to care for the world as God cares for the world.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we also saw that woven into the story of Genesis were a lot of symbolic use of
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: the number seven and so on.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it tells us right away,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: this isn't a story that's meant to be taken literally as a six-day creation story.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story about who God is.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the how story, it's the who story.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of the stories of Genesis are really meant to help the people of Israel
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: see their God is radically different than the gods of Egypt.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Their God is radically different than the gods of the surrounding cultures.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it would only be natural for them because once in Egypt,
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: they sort of lost their way in terms of who God was.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: They were slaves.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: They felt that if there was a God, the God had abandoned them and the gods had sided with Egypt.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: they need to discover again who this God is.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they're discovering it really for the first time.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so it would be natural for them to assume that their God is like all the other gods.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And all the other gods at that time were territorial gods.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And everything that happened in life in their culture happened because the gods made it happen.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: If it rained, the rain gods made it happen.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: If there was a drought, it's because the drought gods made it happen.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to make the gods happy,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: the only way to make the gods do what you want them to do is to make sure you feed them.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you would bring sacrifices.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So your first sacrifice seems to work.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: You sacrifice a few grapes.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: But after a while, the grapes don't work.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So now you got to sacrifice an animal.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Works for a while, and then it doesn't work anymore.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: you're sacrificing children from the tribe to make the gods happy and do what you
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: want to do.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the people of Israel are asking, okay, is that what our God is like?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do we need to be sacrificing to God, first of all?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, should we be sacrificing our children?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this story, the story of Abraham and Isaac, is meant to help answer that question.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is our God like?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what is our God all about?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the context.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if we get the context,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: then we find out that the story is far deeper and richer than we anticipate it to be.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it will keep us,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: hopefully we'll see you near the end,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: of saying some things about Jesus and his death and resurrection that get us into trouble.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Say that one more time.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people will interpret the death and resurrection of Jesus based on this story.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if we misinterpret this story and what's going on,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: then we begin to say things about the death and resurrection of Jesus that will get
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: us into trouble theologically.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Got it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And just to tip people off, it makes God sound like a child abuser.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Should we try it?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Should we see how it works?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully people are still listening with all that background.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: part of what we're trying to do here is to help people see that there are other
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: ways to interpret scripture rather than a literal belief that oftentimes leads to a
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: very judgmental,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: angry God and therefore an angry,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: judgmental Christianity.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I just want to say, yeah, I'm sure they're with us because for me, it was riveting.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like a dodo bird sometimes because I'm totally ignorant to that backstory to
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: some degree,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: actually,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: very much so if I just want to be transparent.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that now makes me kind of,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: take a deep breath and I'm ready to move forward because I get that misinterpreting Jesus,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: the crucifixion,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: the resurrection,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: as we might look at that.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I totally get that.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: But so I'm ready and I'm going to affirm.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So just a little bit more context.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham was promised by God that he was going to be the father of a great nation.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: The problem was that Abraham didn't have any children.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's almost 100 years old and his wife, Sarah, is 90.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: If they even have any sexual energy at all, it's a miracle, let alone having a baby.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And miracle of miracles, Sarah has a baby at the age of 90.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham's 100 and he's a dad for the first time.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the baby's name is Isaac.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the only child they have.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if Abraham is going to be the father of a great nation,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: if God's going to keep his promise,
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: God's going to have to keep that promise through Isaac.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: There is no other option.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But then at about the age of 13,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: when Isaac is 13,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: God seems to make a very horrifying request of Abraham.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I want you to sacrifice your son to me to prove to you that you love me.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so on the surface,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: at the very beginning of this story,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: you think,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: okay,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: so our God is one of those petulant,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: angry gods who just demands of us like all the other gods.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine now you're sitting in the campfire
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the storyteller is going to tell you another story about what your God is like.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You've heard the story about Isaac and how the promise is secure now because Isaac's been born.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then your storyteller says, let me tell you what happened when Isaac was 13.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And let's imagine for a moment,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Terry,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: that you brought along a friend from one of the other neighborhoods.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody's really excited about this because this person from one of the other
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: tribes sacrifices to his own gods and their gods are angry.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: But he's heard from you that your God is different.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so you say, hey, why don't you sneak over and listen to the storyteller tonight?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the storyteller says,
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: once upon a time,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: when Isaac is 13,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: God comes to Abraham and says,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to sacrifice your son.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Prove to me that you love me.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And your friend leans over and says, see, your God is no different than our God.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I can imagine Terry slinking underneath the log thinking, oh, my goodness, this is so embarrassing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of the genius of the story.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because the genius of the story is it seems to suggest that this God is going to be
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: like all the other gods.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: But there are clues in the story,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: just as there were clues in Genesis chapter 1,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: right,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: with all those sevens.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: That something else is happening.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are clues in this story to tell us that something else is happening here,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: that we're going to get a story about a radically different kind of God.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So the gods or some of the tribes around them,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: around the Jews,
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: the people of Israel are sacrificing their children to the gods.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they know that their God doesn't want this.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yet suddenly here's a story that says God wants them to do that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you're thinking to yourself, well, here we go.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe our God's not as loving as we think.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says something really interesting.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And let me just, I'll read it for you.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham got up very early the next morning.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: He chopped up some wood for the offering fire and loaded it onto a donkey.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then he, his son Isaac, and his two servants set out for Mount Moriah.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: After three long days, Abraham looked up and saw the mountain.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: He turned to his two servants and said, stay here with the donkey.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: The boy and I will go up and worship, and then we will come right back.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Terry, is there anything in there that just sort of says, wait a minute?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said, we.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: He said, we will come back.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So right away you think, okay, wait a minute.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's in on something or.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you go to sacrifice your son, we're not coming back.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just one of us.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the storyteller is giving us a little wink and a nod.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to find out this God is very, very different.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so you do get some of the drama of this story.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: You've got Abraham.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Here it says, Abraham put the wood kindling on the back of Isaac.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So Isaac is carrying the wood on his back as they walk up the mountain.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then Isaac says, well, dad, you know, we've got the wood.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have the fire.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the sheep for the offering?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is dramatic.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: But then Abraham said,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: God will provide the sheep, my son.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so is Abraham lying?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or is the storyteller giving us another wink and a nod that this is a very different kind of God?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So sort of imagine your friend sitting next to you,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: and he's listening to this story,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: and okay,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: your God wants sacrifices as well,
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: and
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: says, Terry, what do you mean we're going to come back?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you're sort of confused too, but you start to sense maybe this is different.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then God will provide the sheep and your friend says, that's not how it works.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: We provide the offerings to the gods.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on with this story?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's already a radically different kind of story than they would have heard in other,
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: the surrounding cultures.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so they reach the summit, Abraham ties up his son.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then he, he, and you know, your friend is thinking, what, what does he do?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: What does he do?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you're waiting for the knife to go in and destroy your whole view of God.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then God speaks and says, don't do it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, you see the Ram over there.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the whole point of this story is not about a God who is demanding.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a part of the storytelling to pique our interest.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the end,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: what the storyteller is telling us,
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: what the Bible is telling us,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: is that what makes God radically different from all the other gods is,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: this God does not want in any way,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: shape,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: or form the sacrifice of children because all children,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: all people are created in the image of God.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why would God sacrifice God's own image?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: That makes no sense.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a valuing to human dignity that the people of Israel had that none of the
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: other surrounding cultures had.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's unique to the Jewish faith, this valuing of human dignity.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, God doesn't want us to provide food to God through sacrifice.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: God is a God who provides food to us.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we learned in Genesis chapter one.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So God is a God who provides.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: God is a God of lavish generosity.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: God is a God of lavish grace.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially the storyteller is saying, you've never seen a God like this before.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why every night we have to tell stories about this God, because he is so radically different.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And your friend is over there just about to have a seizure because he can't believe
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: this is not the way that God's act.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gods are mean.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: The gods take from us those things that we love the most.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're demanding.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't do what we're supposed to do, they punish us.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now you're telling me your God doesn't do that?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your God is a loving God,
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: a caring God,
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: a God who provides,
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: a God who wants to preserve the lives of all people because they all have inherent
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: worth and value?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is a radically different understanding of that story.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: than what you and I were taught to believe, that this was a story about Abraham and his faith.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a story about Abraham and his faith.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is a story about God and God's grace and faithfulness and how radically
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: different this God is from any other God we could ever get our brains around.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any part of it that does speak to Abraham's faith though?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, or was he in on this?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like what I mean by in on it, you know what I mean?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did he understand God so well?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we, yes.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is a very fair assumption that even Abraham was in on the joke from
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: the beginning.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when I say in on the joke, it's not funny, funny, funny.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, I got that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because he said we will return.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: He said God will provide the sheep.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So Abraham knew that God had promised that Isaac was going to be the heir.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was no way that God was going to take Isaac away.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So this is one of those things,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: though,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: that I had spoken to you off microphone about differentiating between,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: identifying metaphor.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that that's not what this is, but I guess what I'm wondering is why...
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: did Abraham go through the motions of what he might have already been clued in to do?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Was it for the storytelling?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Was it for the example?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because if Abraham already knew, or was it for Isaac specifically to... But no, he didn't really.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't clued in.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: He kept saying, where's the... Do you get what I'm saying?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where...
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: We always have to ask the question, is this a newspaper account of a story?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this a story parable like Jesus would tell?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that the story didn't actually happen.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is a story.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: that used two figures that the people of Israel would have understood,
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham and Isaac,
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: and they wove a story around it to tell a story about God,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: not Abraham.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's one way to look at the story, that it's a parable using two figures that they were familiar with.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of Jesus parables, the question really is, what is God like?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you a story.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: There was a father who had two sons.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the people of Israel are asking the question, what is God like?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the storyteller says, let me tell you a story.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: There was a father named Abraham who had a son named Isaac.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's not, one way to look at this story is it's not a historic story.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is a parable.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: to help the people of Israel understand what God is like.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't have a problem with believing the story actually happened.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if we try,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: again,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: if we try to impose a literal view of the story onto the story,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: we miss the whole point of the story.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, because you would get tangled up in all these other things that aren't answered.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't do that with stories.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: With stories, you listen to the story and you let the story and the nuance of the story sort of hold you.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then you read the story again and you see it a bit differently.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we can either see it as a parable where we just use these two very familiar
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: figures to give us a sense of what God is like.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe Abraham really did.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: uh, do this.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason why he did was because he knew that God was going to do something really cool.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he was, maybe this was a lesson for Isaac to see that God is a God who provides.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: We don't make the sacrifice, Isaac.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: God provides for us.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you could look at it both ways.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, all right.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have seen and been a part of conversations, whether they were on social media.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the time I keep myself out of it because it's too much to address that way.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I have seen even very recently someone just tear in multiples.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: people in conversations,
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: tear into God and quote unquote,
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: as,
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: from the scripture from,
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: from the Bible,
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: to he's the guy,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: he's the God that asked this,
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: this,
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: and this,
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: and this,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: right.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what kind of God is that?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Just like you kind of led out with, but this is like literally happening.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: It happens all the time.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: If the Bible is for us, I guess I wonder, uh,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know that you or anyone necessarily has an answer.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe you do.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I wonder why leave that room for this sort of and I don't even say ambiguity,
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: but to kind of paint a picture that leads people that they kind of leave with of
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: that final opinion of him.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: not knowing or having the energy behind them to have done any setting of the stage
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: or what have you,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: you know what I'm saying?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want to believe that I can be in a hotel room and pick up my Gideon Bible in the
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: drawer next door and open it up and take God in from that way.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: So how do we address that?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, well, again,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible wasn't written to us.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, these stories may seem somewhat ambiguous, but for the original listeners, they weren't.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because they were a storytelling culture, number one.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're a storytelling culture, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have movies.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: We read books and so on.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: But in a lot of ways,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: we're a culture that's based on news and not only news,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: but really based on emotion and soundbites rather than doing the hard work of
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: asking questions.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: questions and going deeper.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't meant to be judgmental,
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: but when people who are not believers in God say,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: God said this,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: this,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: and this in the Bible,
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: their problem is the same as Christians who make God out to be judgmental.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're not taking the Bible seriously.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not their fault because non-believers shouldn't have to try to justify the Bible.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is because Christian people,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: misread the Bible.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so we, that's why, as I've said before, it is so important for us.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: I do believe you can pick up the Bible and discover some things about God,
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: probably more in the New Testament than the Old.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's all over the Old Testament, but it's just harder to see it.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: In part because we don't, their mindset was so different.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this is why we need to be in groups, studying with people who take seriously the Bible.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say seriously, the way the Bible was meant to be read.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: To say I take the Bible literally is not being serious about the Bible.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't take the Bible literally.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can take the truth of the Bible literally, that God loves the world,
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't take the stories literally if they're not meant to be taken literally.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like the Genesis story, you can't take that literally or you look like a nutcase.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got people on social media saying these Christians are so stupid.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's on us as Christians for not doing our homework.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: and also what I was going to say is that we as Christians kind of open the door to
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: invite that kind of misinterpretation by what we perpetuate,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: under misinterpretation or the lack of, or whatever.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: if you interpret the Bible to say,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: God is an angry God,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: then we're going to have an angry religion.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: now to kind of tie into what I said earlier,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: some people look at this story of Abraham sacrificing his son as being a precursor
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: to God sacrificing Jesus.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the theology,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: that God had to massacre his son in order to save us?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because what he really wanted to do was to kill all of us, but instead decided to kill Jesus.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a God of grace and love and compassion.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a child abuser.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's a sadistic God.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And some people say the reason why Jesus died is so God could forgive us.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the Old Testament is full of God forgiving people.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: So there's something else going on with the death and resurrection of Jesus that
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: has nothing to do with God being a child abuser.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it has everything to do with people having a really hard time accepting grace.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in the end, Jesus was so gracious that the powers that be couldn't tolerate it anymore.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he had to go.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you see that grace throughout the whole Old Testament.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes the Jewish faith and the Christian faith so unique among religions.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Its starting point is the grace of God.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: But because we misinterpret the Bible so often,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: our God is just as angry and evictive and petulant as any other God.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there are other better ways to read scripture that lead to a more gracious God.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just sort of echoing in a different way.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: I like when you say something and my mind is already there,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: but not already ahead of you,
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: but in a different kind of way.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the Old Testament can feel like an inhibitor to the understanding of God's love
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: and grace in light of Jesus in the New Testament.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: what you started the podcast out with is saying that the old Testament was the only Bible Jesus had.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: So like if folks are,
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: are more inclined to buy into Jesus,
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: they're just holding these thoughts and opinions of how does this go with the God
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: that we know from the old Testament,
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: we have something that kind of says like a stamp of approval.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then that does draw me into, cause I'll be honest.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I, I,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: I,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: and as I shared with you in the last podcast,
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: and I still wrestle,
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: like I even mourn a little bit,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: like some of the understandings as I get a little bit of light shown on the things
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: that I once saw one way and am now seeing.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: entertaining others because there was a childlike interpretation of things.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got to something that I had to go to,
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I put it underneath a very blanketed childlike,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: just turn the page.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I will just accept that.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: but that's not where everybody is.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: So this is,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: this is just kind of comforted me,
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think a little bit,
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: and not that this is about me,
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: but I mean,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: just,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you speak for a lot of people.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: so just to kind of come back to this particular story,
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: if we read it one way,
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: it sounds like the story of a petulant,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: angry God who just wants to test everything.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham's faith.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it just seems sadistic.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Oh, just kidding.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if we read it as it was meant to be told and we look,
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: we,
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: and we see the little hints in there,
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: we see,
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: this isn't that kind of story at all.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a story to say,
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: this is how radically different your God is from the gods of the surrounding culture.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is a God of love and grace.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that gives me chills.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, but if we misinterpret these stories and,
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: that's where we get ourselves into trouble.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to do one more next time.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to look at a story about a guy who spends a few days in a fish.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a fishy story.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're hitting one of my big ones right there.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: No pun intended.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to take you out with Morse code.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back with you next time for Not Your Parent's Sunday School Story Part 2, Big Fish.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Big Fish.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back with you next time.