Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Shadow vs. Substance: How the Book of Hebrews Unlocks Old Testament Law (Rebekah Josberger and Renee Duffy)

Transcript

Shadow vs. Substance: How the Book of Hebrews Unlocks Old Testament Law (Rebekah Josberger and Renee Duffy) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm joined again by the hosts
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of the Bible Unbranded podcast, Rebecca Schosberger and Renee Duffy,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and we're going to continue our conversation of Deuteronomy, and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: today we're really going to focus in on where to
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: use the Sabbath as sort of an example of how
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to go about interpreting laws within a theological framework, one
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: might say, and so thinking about how these laws convey
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: something of the character of God and something of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: underlying realities of the world that we're trying to live in.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: And along the way, then we'll dress probably how might
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the Church think about Sabbath the rest even in today's world.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: So we'll get a little practical as well, but that's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: where we're headed, and so welcome back. It's great to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: have you both here, and thanks for being on.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It's really nice to be here and have these conversations,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: So thank you very much for this collaboration.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this. I've been
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: teaching Hebrews on Wednesday mornings with this group that I do,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and when I was thinking about our conversation about how
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: this works from a theological perspective, that notion of shadow
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and substance or shadow and copy that Hebrews uses, the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: way it gestures up to sort of this quote unquote
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: heavenly reality, or as I like to refer to it
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: as the substance, I think gets a little patonic. So
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I don't want people to think that I'm like just
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: drawing on that. But the idea is that so much
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of what we do and so much what Hebrews describes
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: from an Old Testament perspective is gesturing towards something in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that language better. It's not that this stuff that we're
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: exhibiting right now isn't real or isn't good. It's just
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: that there's something ahead of us that's so much better
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that these things that we're living in now are gesturing
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: toward They're pointing us toward them. They're creating sort of
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: an ache that conditions us to move in that direction,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: as I like to think of it. And so I'm
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: wondering how that framework might fit with something like when
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: we go to a Saba command or really any command,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: whether that framework is a helpful framework coming from the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Book of Hebrews back into the Old Testament and saying,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: what if we started thinking about these things as copies
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and shadows without diminishing them, but also really thinking about
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: them as how are they pointing us somewhere forward? So
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I'll just leave that. I'll just start us as a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: conversation starter, and either of you can start what do
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you think.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: I have?
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: But I want Rene wants it like a chance to respond?
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Get it now?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, It's so fun, James talking to you about these things,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: because genuinely you bring up all these things in the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: New Testament that I.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: Of course believe in, and of course, but because for
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: so many.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Factors I have stayed primarily as an Old Testament scholar.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I remember one day I heard someone I think it
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: was Trumper Longman and he said in a conversation, he said,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I think it was him. I am an Old Testament
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: scholar and a New Testament lay person, and I thought, okay,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: there's a space allowed for that.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: That's me.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: But the reason I understand Hebrews better now is because
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: so I don't have to go backwards to do that.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: That's how I'm understanding Hebrews. The thing that I want
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: to address is there's this idea in scholarship that has
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: been proposed about the law by people I respect really highly,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: people who have influenced me by their writings. But I
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: disagree with this perspective. And it's that in the idea
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: of it pointing us forward, it's almost got And this
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: is not the scholar's language, this evolutionary model, like God
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: wanted to fix things up so messed up, he had
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to start slowly, and things like polygamy or slavery or
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: all of those things have to get kind of pointed
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: towards something better.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: In here and now.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And that if you have training in that background and
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: are hearing that, you might think that I'm affirming that.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: That's not how I see it at all. I think
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: this is what you were alluding to. That, and I
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: don't even want to restate what you said, but the
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: idea that, but I'm gonna try in it, the idea
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: that what law is calling for or anything that we're
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: doing down here when we see but a glimpse of
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: how great and how right everything will be. And I
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: see that in a couple of ways out of my
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: own study of Deuteronomy. One of them, and I think
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: we talked about this last time, is that if we assume,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: rather than these laws somehow built this utopia that if
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: we could just get back at we would be a
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: more righteous nation or whatever. Rather than that, if we
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: see that these laws are expressing elements of the character
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: of God, that.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: In settings where they.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Might be applicable, not because of the top, not because
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: of the characters in the setting, but because of issues
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: that arise out of that kind of brokenness. So like
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: marriage brings a lot of like conflict of hierarchy and
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: you know, family whatever. So the settings create a good
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: spot for this thing to be practiced, whether it's human
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: dignity or use of authority orrap not morality.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: I'm like.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Anyway, looking for a word, we would call it modesty
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: or something like that.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Sure, but they're.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: Practiced character of God by broken people.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: And then when Christ comes.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: We talked about this last time, he's practicing the character
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: of God as God.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: And obviously, in the future, whatever.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Heaven looks like, no idea, there's that reality thing for us.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: It's in the future, you know, And that's the thing
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: we are getting glimpses of of who God is.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: So that's.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: But that's all kind of like a big fancy explanation.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: What And this is where I think, Renee, maybe we
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: haven't talked about it, but might be able to help
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: and add to the conversation.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Is the reason.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: That that seems to be happening is rhetorical.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: It's it's almost.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Literary, and that you have.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: The God of the universe.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I was trying to write this out yesterday and a
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: different contexts, and if I.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: Wrote incomparable and incomprehensible.
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: Lovel, just true to describe who the Almighty.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Is and what that looks like through words and deeds
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: and examples for which we have no paradigm.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: So literally, at its very best, all.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: We could see is a shadow.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Because I don't even know how we're going to get
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: the comprehension.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: You tell me that I could live like even just
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: a utopia.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know that I want to. I like to
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: struggle a little bit, you know, I have to earn something.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: There's all these concepts we can't even get our brains around.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: In God's humility and desire to reach us, he conveys
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: them the only the only ways we can understand them,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and those are but a shadow. So both of those
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: pieces I think are absolutely fundamental to what's going on
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: and on. That's why when I read a Hebrews I'm like.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: This is why you know, when Abraham's called righteous or
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: other characters that we look at and go, huh, I
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: guess it was fine that he sent his wife off
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: to a harem to save his life.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, and.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: It Abraham is a great example and he's a shadow
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: of So anyway, let's out there, right, Can you help
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: with all my I.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Mean I'm kind of interested, you know, yeah, because Rebecca
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: brought it up, but you know that literary aspect, I'd
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: be interested to hear you talk about it. And then yeah,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I've got a couple of thoughts i'll share too.
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: I mean, first I want to just acknowledge that I
• 9:56
  Speaker 7: think when all three of us are like building all
• 9:58
  Speaker 7: these guardrails right to the thing that Jane's introduced to
• 10:02
  Speaker 7: talk about, which is I'm interested to actually get to
• 10:05
  Speaker 7: talk about. But I will also just add to the guardrails,
• 10:09
  Speaker 7: I guess.
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: And that we all all have this risk of falling
• 10:15
  Speaker 6: into the fallacy of time snobbery.
• 10:17
  Speaker 8: Right Like we we look back and we think, oh,
• 10:20
  Speaker 8: these are all the things that have been fixed already,
• 10:22
  Speaker 8: like POLYGONI is fixed now, so that means we must
• 10:25
  Speaker 8: be further along. But the reality is like, like you're
• 10:29
  Speaker 8: identifying we, it's incomparable. We can't we can't get we
• 10:34
  Speaker 8: can't understand the the nature of God, the perfection of
• 10:40
  Speaker 8: Jesus in flesh, who is God. And so this is
• 10:44
  Speaker 8: one of the reasons why we have so much story
• 10:48
  Speaker 8: and narrative in our Bibles, right is because this is
• 10:51
  Speaker 8: something we can relate to. It's something that we can
• 10:55
  Speaker 8: begin to comprehend because there's overlap with.
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: All human ex experience and with the use of narrative.
• 11:02
  Speaker 8: That's like, just throughout all of human history, narrative has
• 11:06
  Speaker 8: been an important way that we figure out who we
• 11:09
  Speaker 8: are and how we connect to the past and where
• 11:12
  Speaker 8: we go in the future, and what's going happening to
• 11:14
  Speaker 8: us now and what's happened then, and so all of
• 11:18
  Speaker 8: this are these layers that God has graced us with
• 11:22
  Speaker 8: so that we can begin to comprehend in our moment.
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: But at any given moment along the way, God has
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: accommodated himself to us through these ways. And so rather
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: than I.
• 11:37
  Speaker 8: Mean there is progression, right, there's there's a redemptive history
• 11:41
  Speaker 8: that moves forward, but humanity isn't really what has moved forward.
• 11:49
  Speaker 8: If we're going to talk about being like God and
• 11:51
  Speaker 8: understanding God.
• 11:53
  Speaker 6: God has moved his redemptive plan through, but we're still humans.
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: We still can't get it.
• 11:58
  Speaker 8: And so it's important to know that while there are
• 12:02
  Speaker 8: there are things that we see differently than ancient peoples did,
• 12:08
  Speaker 8: they still got so much, just like we get so much.
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: And so instead being able.
• 12:16
  Speaker 8: To read narrative or read law in context to a
• 12:21
  Speaker 8: best of our ability and then looking to the person
• 12:24
  Speaker 8: of God, which is, you know, what we're here like
• 12:27
  Speaker 8: poised to begin doing, is helpful in keeping that guard
• 12:32
  Speaker 8: rail of that time snobbery. Instead of trying to place
• 12:36
  Speaker 8: ourselves in a place which is what you are talking
• 12:40
  Speaker 8: about I think back to this idea that they've put
• 12:42
  Speaker 8: forward that there's something that you know has changed with
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: us when they're when there really isn't. We're still struggling
• 12:51
  Speaker 8: just as much as any other generation has struggled through
• 12:54
  Speaker 8: all of time.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's I think it's important to put
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the qualifier of the evolutionary app respect on it. And
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I think that what we want to avoid is thinking
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: that we're making some sort of progress. I think more
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: what we see in Hebrews is something akin to what
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: I've been reading. This will be like my super geek moment.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I've been reading Philip Reef his book Life and the
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Death Works, and he talks about culture in terms of
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: sacred order that in social order, and culture transliterates the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: sacred order into a social order. And so what I
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: see in Hebrews is this moment, this post resurrection moment,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and I use moment as sort of the epoch, right,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: this post resurrection moment is now telling the community of faith, look,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: your social order needs to reflect a new sacred order.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: There's something very different post resurrection of Christ that everybody
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: in the Christian community needs to recognize and then reflect
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: within unity and so that is better than what you
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: had before. But that's very different than saying it's an
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: evolutionary move. It's what you're seeing is you've got the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: way I think about it. And I think there says
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: some rooting in actually in Hebrews, because in the first
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: chapter you have the set up between the revelation given
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: by angels and the revelation given by the Sun. And
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: so there's something too if we think about God's self disclosure,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: about God being hidden and God being or making himself present,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: making himself available to us. And so what I think
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: we have in the Old Testament Law is very good
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: when he makes the contrast between what's given through the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: angels and what's given through the Sun. He's not saying, oh,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and by the way, through out everything that the Angel's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: ever told you. In fact, you know in that chapter
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: he quotes the Old Testament multiple times. So it's not
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a jettisoning of this old revelation, but it's a recognition
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that now we have something different and better that we
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: have to incorporate an embody. And so I think there's
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a really interesting move to be made to say, now
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: as we're reading Old Testament Law, yes, it has to.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It still reflects God's character, and as we read it
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: as a reflection of God's character, we also have a
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: further revelation in the Sun that helps us even understand
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament law that much better.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I'm an Old Testament guy, and so I'm very cautious
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: of like, hey, let's just do Christological readings of the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Old Testament. I don't believe that's what we should do, right,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: But I do think that it's impossible for us to
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: divorce ourselves from a context in which we have the
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Sun revelation and try to read the Old Testament as
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: if that weren't there, sure, right, And so that's always
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: attention for me. Because I don't particularly gravitate toward Cristological
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: readings of the Old Testament. I think we need to
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: read the Old Testament on its own terms and allow
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: it to sort of then organically connect into Christ as
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: opposed to like saying, nope, that the Angel of the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Lord is Jesus, it's a you know, Christophany or something like.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I just don't really love that sort of move, but
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: hopefully that clarifies that I love that sort of sacred order,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: social order, just you know, explanation and the culture, which
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: would be in this case the literary as you were
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: talking about Rene, But I would also say the symbolic,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the structural right, the temple, it's cultus, the legal, the laws,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to the extent that we would separate that from a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: literary right. You know, you have all these different layers
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: that now create a culture, that are conveying, for lack
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: of a better term, belief, Right, this is the reality
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: we believe the sacred order to be, and so we're
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: structuring our lives around it here and now, and as
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: we and then as you get to Hebrews, you kind
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: of sit back and you go, oh, okay, there is a
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: new sacred reality because Jesus has risen. He's been given
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: authority over heavens and the earth, and you know, he's
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: in a new place. We have a new high Priest
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and they're teasing out all of these things. And it's like, now,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: this has different implications for how we order ourselves. Yeah,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: so that's sort of my broader thought process.
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: Like, yeah, it reminds me not to drag us backwards.
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: But as you're talking about this like.
• 17:50
  Speaker 8: New reality, we re incorporate, right, we reinterpret with what
• 17:55
  Speaker 8: we know and how like, as I'm listening to you,
• 17:59
  Speaker 8: I'm thinking, right, and that's that's the exciting part, right
• 18:01
  Speaker 8: that us on this side of resurrection, this is exciting
• 18:05
  Speaker 8: for us and we can understand that and actually being
• 18:08
  Speaker 8: able to use that experience to understand what was exciting
• 18:13
  Speaker 8: about what was happening in the Old Testament for them,
• 18:16
  Speaker 8: that God was doing and showing up in new and
• 18:19
  Speaker 8: exciting ways, and how that was reinterpreting the world around them,
• 18:22
  Speaker 8: and how he used the cultural things around them in
• 18:26
  Speaker 8: order to do that. Like all of that kind of
• 18:28
  Speaker 8: piled in together is some of what I get the
• 18:31
  Speaker 8: most excited about.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: So agree that. Yeah, Becky, uh yeah, I.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Was just going to say, I'm definitely going to go
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: listen to this podcast again so I can figure out
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: everything you were saying, because this, like, and I'm not
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: tongue in cheek, like this is a question that students
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: ask me all the time about, you know, the relationship
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: between the two and what's new and what's different that
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: because it might be a weakness of mine.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I don't know.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I just but because of how much I've set in
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: the law and how I see all those exciting things
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: pointed out, and this will bring us right back to Sabbath.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to make some you do who I
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: haven't finished reading the dissertation yet are super excited about though.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: But.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: This will bring us right back to the Sabbath. And
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to make super big claims about what the
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Sabbath is designed to help the people practice as part
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: of their weekly routine.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: And it's so exciting.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: That it includes the Cross, like even though they don't
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: know that.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: It includes the Cross, rather than, in my opinion, rather
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: than somehow being changed by the Cross. So I really
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: struggle not with the concepts, but like literally with understanding
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: or explaining the concepts.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: A it's a in.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: My outworking of my own teaching or my theology that
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I haven't found ways to articulate.
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: So I loved what.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: You said and will definitely be listening to it again
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: to go like, okay, well, I.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Will say, just as a sort of a plug, I
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: was aled to Phillip Brief's Life and the Death Works
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: through Kevin Flatt's book called Secularization, Social Order, and World History,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: which I would recommend all over the place. I think
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: he does a fantastic job he doesn't deal with Christianity
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: up front, right, He really starts with Confucism and you know,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Islam and various other things, and he shows how this
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: sacred social order actually worked through these other traditions, and
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it's really fantastic. So I was definitely led back to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Reef from him, and we want to give him attribution
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: But either way we.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Can, Yeah, we can. Let's move into Sabbath a little
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: bit and talk through. You know, how does Sabbath then
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: convey the character of God. I think the easy one is,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: you know, you look at it in an Exodus. It's rooted
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: in creation. There's something about the ordering of time and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the keeping that time set apart that creates a cadence
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: in our lives, a sort of notion that God desires
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to give rest somehow, a notion that God is the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: ultimate provider and that our work is important but ultimately
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: insufficient in some way. Like there are a lot of
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: things I think we could tease out of that, but
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: it is interesting to think, like, you know, you have
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the creation, then you have the Exodus reference in Deuteronomy five,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and so you know, Sabbath is a sign that we
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: are now under the order of God and how that
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: relates to the created order. Like, there's a lot of
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: ways we could take this, So I'm kind of interested
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to see, you know, where should we start. How do
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: we move from something like a Deuteronomy five twelve through
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: fifteen to a statement about who God is? And I
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: would say, I would argue that that needs to be
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: even apart from what's embedded in the text, right, that
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: God is the one who brought Israel out of slavery, right,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: because that's explicit there. But I think there's more layer
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to it. I don't know whether you both agree to that,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: but maybe if I can start with Renee, like when
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: you think about creation Exodus narratively across Genesis through Exodus,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: let's say, and then you think about Sabbath commands, is
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: there an intuitive sense in which that connects for you?
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: I'm not a hundred percent sure what you're asking. We talked,
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: Becky and I talked a.
• 23:08
  Speaker 8: Little bit last week, so I'll kind of I'll share
• 23:12
  Speaker 8: what where we went, and maybe it does.
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: And maybe it'll be like not what I was thinking
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: at all, But we were thinking about the difference.
• 23:19
  Speaker 8: I was thinking about the difference in the idea that
• 23:24
  Speaker 8: Creation is put forth.
• 23:28
  Speaker 9: In Exodus, and the Exodus is put forth in Deuteronomy.
• 23:34
  Speaker 9: But it's not because the Exodus hasn't happened in Exodus.
• 23:38
  Speaker 9: It just happened, right.
• 23:40
  Speaker 8: Like, here's something about it being so fresh in their
• 23:43
  Speaker 8: minds in this thing that again they're they're thinking about
• 23:48
  Speaker 8: and they're they're trying to make connections.
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: What is happening, like what just happened?
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Who is this God? Who are we? What?
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: What's going on?
• 23:57
  Speaker 8: They're in the middle of that narrative of their life,
• 24:01
  Speaker 8: and so in the middle of actually experiencing it where
• 24:03
  Speaker 8: it's fresh, they need to hear about creation because there's
• 24:07
  Speaker 8: this recreating happening. And then as they move forward, there's
• 24:12
  Speaker 8: a way in which the Exodus almost supplants creation in
• 24:18
  Speaker 8: some ways where it's still it's still very important, it's
• 24:21
  Speaker 8: still part of all of their narrative, but it becomes
• 24:24
  Speaker 8: the pinnacle moment for the people that explains who they are,
• 24:29
  Speaker 8: even way.
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: After it's over.
• 24:33
  Speaker 8: And so there must be some way in which not
• 24:36
  Speaker 8: must be. Obviously, there is this way in which the
• 24:39
  Speaker 8: creation and the Exodus are connected so tightly that it
• 24:45
  Speaker 8: can it can take this place as they're going through it,
• 24:49
  Speaker 8: and then as after they go through it, the thing
• 24:52
  Speaker 8: they went through the Exodus can then sit in that
• 24:54
  Speaker 8: spot and do the same thing that Creation did in
• 24:59
  Speaker 8: the first way.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: So let me ask this just as a follow up,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that's getting at what I'm thinking.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: So you.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: When you think about that connection creation, because there's been
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a lot written on this. I remember Terrence FRETHEIM, I think,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: wrote a book on connecting Creation and Exodus, and so
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: there's typeological things you can do with it, you know,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: there's all these different connections you can make. But one
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: of the things I've always been sort of fascinated by
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: is the narrowing down to Israel. And I think ultimately
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: you can make the argument of narrowing down all the
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: way to Christ, but certainly in this setting, narrowing down
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to Israel of a creation vocation. So now they are
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the essentially, and I don't mean this vernacular in an
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: overly technical fashion, but they are the first born that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: have now the they've taken up the mantle of carrying
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: the Covenant forward into these multiple generations. And part of
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the way they would demonstrate that is by keeping the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: law and for our purposes, keeping the Sabbath like and
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that now connects them to this deeper creation vocation. Does
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that ring true to your inn ae and you don't
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 26:18
  Speaker 10: Yeah, as you know, I'm doing this work with Jacob
• 26:24
  Speaker 10: right now and I'm literally in the think of thinking
• 26:27
  Speaker 10: about what he does and doesn't do.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: And so as you're saying that, I'm just thinking, Yeah,
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: they have this creation mandate and yet they're not actually
• 26:39
  Speaker 8: doing it. Their participation in it is being the vessel
• 26:46
  Speaker 8: of God's promises. Yeah, and that that comes with not
• 26:52
  Speaker 8: doing at least one day of the week.
• 26:56
  Speaker 11: Hate.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I just think it's important to kind of get there
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and wrestle with it because I don't know, and Becky,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: y'all let you kind of wax philosophical on this, but
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: just so you understand why I'm taking this line of questionings, like,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of important to situate it within
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the overarching narrative that's come before at least a little bit,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and to me, that gives us some clues about what
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: we might say about God in this context. So I
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: don't know how you think about it, Becky, but i'd
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: be interested to hear your thoughts.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to pad this by saying that One
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of the things that I have personally learned about myself
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: by working with Renee is that my like charging in
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: and clashing at something to wrestle with it for my
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: sake can sound like shutting everything ouse down and proposing
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: something brand new.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: So like, no, here's and that's not what I'm trying
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: to say.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: In fact, when we podcast, here's a little spit, and
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Renee's at our podcast table right now, and I'm but
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: we have a little thing on my desk that says
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: yes and so that I.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Can practice you know, no, no instead of doing that
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: saying yes. And so this is not to say this
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: is just my sorry, that's.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, And honestly that's how I mean this, even
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: when I'm combating it's but I I am not great
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: with philosophical ideas, and I am I always I am
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: trying to see, like simply what is going on, and
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and so hyperbole, exaggeration, those are all black and white.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: That's all part of how I do this. So this
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: is going to come through right now in that what
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I'm hearing, I think, even in your language, James, is
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: something that I hear all the time in scholarship, and
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: it's very important but it's not how my brain works.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: I will say that one of the things about talking
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: to you that's so helpful is I feel such a
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: safety to be who I am and what my brain.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's wonderful to talk to you, and I
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: can start to figure out things that I'm hearing from
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: others that I'm not quite understanding.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: But you keep I think you keep.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Talking about what's happening in the scriptures, even with Sabbath,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Biblical Lot, almost like it's on a timeline, a redemptive timeline,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: and where the people are in that timeline and how
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: things are changing or how this affects them in order
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: to understand how God's working and moving. And that's I mean,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: everybody is interested in that except me, So it's totally.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Valid and important and all.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Of those things for me, because I think I grew
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: up in that culture and I by nature combat anything
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that's the standard so that I can understand it better.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: I would almost go.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Far to say, and this is an exaggeration because it's
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: absolutely not true, I'm going to go back and ruin
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: everything and how the people look at the world. But
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: my exaggerated explanation would be I don't care at all
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: about the people. Now that's not true. But they're not
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: the thing that I'm trying to learn about. They're not
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the peace that I want to emulate. They're not even
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: the piece usually that the author is telling us an
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: evaluation of how they're doing with God. So I, in
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: my very black and white kind of approach, which might
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: be unique to me, anytime i'm looking at what the
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: people's role is going to be. Before I get to
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: the very end of my working through something, I am
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: shutting myself down and going, no, I don't know. All
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I really care about is what God is saying about himself.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: So for example, yes, maybe the people are part of
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: a new creation. Then I see that. I see that,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: but I see that as part of helping me understand
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: what God is saying about himself. So how does this apply,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: for example, to Sabbath? Unless either of you want to
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: respond to that, because I know for me that it's
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: a little bit hyperbolic in the way I express it,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I can go there at.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Lea No, it's cool. I'll just say this. I don't
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: disagree with you, so when I was.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: Doing honestly, I don't with you.
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: It's just the way I Yeah, I know, I know.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I think that I'm I would say, I'm doing something
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: very similar to what you're doing from a slightly different angle.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And so when I was doing my study on the Sabbath,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I actually was always thinking, I don't really care if
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: these wereite people practice is Abbath, it doesn't matter.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Reading your stuff that I read so far, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't I don't care, Like because it's inscribed
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: in the text, that is, and from the perspective I
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: was looking at, that is the cultural memory, that's what
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: is inscribed there, that just the inscription of it makes
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: it important. Whether they practice this or not, that doesn't
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: make any difference. And so when I'm talking about these
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: sort of through scripture themes, my thinking is is more
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: attuned to what cultural memory is being reconstructed in the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: moment where the Sabbath command is being written down and regiven.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and in.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: My in my sort of constellation, in the way I
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: think about it, God is a social agent within the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: setting of Israel, and he's pictured that way in scripture.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: And so when I'm doing that, I'm assuming a lot
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: that I'm not saying your articulate So I think that's
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: why I resonate exactly with what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what I'm doing. But I'm not making it
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: clear I'm not, so I'll just say.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: That you're polite. I'm just like guys.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: And I'm also used to working with students who don't
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: understand the differences. So if I look at all of scripture,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: which I do, this is my biblical theology as the
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: revelation of God, and He is outworking with creation, which.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: Happens to hold.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: We talked about this in the Genesis podcast. Humanity in
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: a very special place, but it's with all creation. So
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: everything in scripture is for me revealing more about the
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: character of God. And this may or may not be
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: too simplistic, but there are places when He is giving
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: explicit instructions or descriptions of who he is, and they
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: just are emphatic statements, here's who I am, and we
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: have language for it, but we can't understandstand the depth
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: or extent of what it means when God does these things.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: When I am patient, it means I put up with
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: my granddaughter who's now a toddler and could just be
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: walking through and meeting her at her level all day
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: without losing my temper. When God is patient, he will
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: watch people murder children in the name of religion for
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: thousands of years without wiping them off the planet. So
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: we're talking to different levels of all these things whatever.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: So it makes his descriptive statements. But because those, again
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: are so beyond what we can grasp, he also shows
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: examples of who he is. And I know they're written
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: by human authors, but I and that comes a big
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: play in my understanding of literature in the Old Testament.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: But those are like when you have a relationship with
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: a person or a people group. For God, because he
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: lives a lot longer than we do over time, we
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: call that history. And so he's got all of these
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: examples of how he has walked from the beginning of
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: time when he created them until like the story of Esther,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: where even though they're not anywhere near their old practices
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: that they could do and they feel like God's already
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: rejected them and thrown them out, He's coming back and saying,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: look at the insane things I'm going to do to
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: protect you. So all the way through he's showing who
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: he is in relationship to them, and we can I
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: think it's really important to talk about the history of it,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: the story of it, all of those things. But then
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: he has like these prescriptive pieces where I haven't tried
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: this word before. Renee just said something that triggered it
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: in me. She talked about how story is so an
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: important way of communicating or everything you said about story
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: to me, law is practiced story. So if story is
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: showing us what God looks like in tangible form as
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: he's dealing with his people, then law is like, okay,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: now you go practice it. And for for me, one
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: of the law is always going to be telling us
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: something more about the character of God. And I gave
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: this example last time in Deuteronomy ten, when it says
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: like I took care of you when you were foreigners
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: in Egypt, and I took.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: Care of you, so you go.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Take care of other foreigners in your land going to
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: fundamentally look like I do because of who I am.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: And there's all kinds of implications for that, for like
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: what that tells us about God. But for right now,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: holding onto that idea that behind his instruction is something
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: he wants us to understand about him, and he wants
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: us to understand it by practicing it, and in Sabbath
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: by practicing it regularly, literally every seven days, which I
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: remember the day I learned that it was.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Likely that God didn't.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: Invent the seven days, but that.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: The structure of a week was already in place in
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: society because they understood things.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: It's not that he didn't invent.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: It, but but that he was using a time structure
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: to say regularly in the way you order time.
• 37:56
  Speaker 12: And the thing behind the thing, the thing about God
• 38:05
  Speaker 12: that both the reasons he gives.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: That we're supposed to reflect. In other words, we're doing
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: the law because it's telling us something about who he is,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: and the becausees are because on the seventh day I
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: rested and I created. I created everything, and I created
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: it all perfectly. And on the seventh day I rested
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: and you were in slavery and I rescued you. And
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: so those are both pictures.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Of this fulfillment.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: And I can't wait to go read the book connecting
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Creation and Exodus, because I'm seeing a clear connection between
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: those two.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: But those are pictures.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: Of the completion, the perfection, the.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Redemptive elements of God. And he doesn't ask us to
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: do something to practice completion, or he asks us to
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: not do anything and rest in the fact that he
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: has done it. So, when I'm talking to students about
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Genesis one, if we have enough time, one of the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: things I like to tell them is I know that culturally,
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: we have had a long history of getting like is
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: it seven days or isn't it? And can you be
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: a Christian if you think da da da da da
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: da da da? And what does this have to do
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: with science? And I'm like, if I told you that
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: all of the creation narrative was leading up to a day,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: a weekly practice of celebrating, for lack of a better word, heaven,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: wouldn't that mystery and the desire to experience that and
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: overshadow that? Or wouldn't that overshadow any question of like
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: how this happened?
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Or That's not the point.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: The point is, Oh, my goodness, I serve a God
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: who sees me, whether it's in the chaos or the redemption.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: And he has promised to do this thing, and he's
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: done it before like twice now, once for the globe
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: and once for the Israelite people, and he's gonna do
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: it again. And my participation in it is to recognize
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: that he's gonna do it, and how crazy that.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: He picked, Like these are things you can teach a
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: five year old, like, no, today, we don't have to
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: work because God does the work. I remember Doctor Block
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: had a huge influence on me.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: He's like the ninth of thirteen children from Saskatchewan, you know, like.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: You need a story like that.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: And his dad was a potato farmer and you know
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: they have like a three.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Bedroom whatever, Like he has these crazy stories.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: And his dad was the only farmer in the area
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: that refused to work on Saturday and it sometimes was
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: life or death. I mean, if the hail is coming,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: you have a shook up today when you don't, and
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: his dad would be like no, which I'm not.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Saying that's how we should live.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that example, that picture of how he did
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: live impacts even me in terms of what it meant
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: to him that where his role in this process was.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: He's invited in, but he's not in charge like all
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: of these people.
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: God's got it.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: And even in practicing Sabbath, because we can talk about
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: the practical of it, sometimes we're sabbathing from where that
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: feels like you're so needed in the equation sometimes we're
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: sabbathing from something that even if we work on, we
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: cannot fix. I remember when my mom was walking through cancer,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: or when Karl was walking through cancer. You know, Sabbath
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: almost seems to fly in the face of that because
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: I can't fix it. God might not fix it now,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: those kinds of things, but I'm reminded that he, like
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like about greet, that he will. He will
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: redeem everything. So for me, grief doesn't have as much
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: immediate hope as some Christians like to encourage me toward.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: I don't want that someday.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: I want it now.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: But one day a week.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I can rest in the hope and then I let
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: myself just grieve with the other six days still even
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: a year later, because.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: I want immedia fixes for these things, but I can.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I can set that aside regularly and go, Okay, you're
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: right God, I don't have to brave this one who
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: doesn't have hope.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: I don't quite know what to do with.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: That, but regularly I can remind myself and reinfuse that.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: And that's one of my goofy Sabbath practices. Anyway, all
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: of that to say, what behind the Sabbath for me?
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Is what God wants us to understand about who he is.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: And I think it's very significant that the Bible like
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: begins with I did it all perfectly and ends with
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to fix it all again.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and once a week we sit in that.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Let me so, I think we want to transition to
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the practical side of this, unless Renee, you have anything
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: to add, No.
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: Let's let's keep going.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll just say this. I think that as we
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: look at the law, there are laws that are much
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: more challenging than the Sabbath to understand how to see
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the character of God behind them.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I was just doing some research on Deuteronomy twenty three
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: to one the other day. This is about people with
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: crushed testicles not being able to enter the assembly and.
• 44:21
  Speaker 13: The vidical someone, Right, I mean, you've got these really
• 44:27
  Speaker 13: for what are for us strange laws that are simply
• 44:31
  Speaker 13: stated with no real commentary.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: And I think that one of the reasons I like
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the Sabbath laws. I think some of the other ones
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: that we talked about, we've talked about, you know, muzzling
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: the oxen, when is treading grain? Right? All these is
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: because they start to give you glimpses of what we're
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: how we're supposed to read the law. God's more explicit,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and that's what I mean by commentaries giving more explicit
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: texture to each of these laws. And so you sit
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: back and you go, well, is it just for this
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: one or is it for a bunch of others? And
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: I think, combined with Renee what you mentioned about the
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: story and the narrative, where we understand the stories, we
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: see the stories, we get an understanding of how the
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: dynamic works between us and God, who God is and
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: who we are in relation to him. This then adds
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: forced as we move into the law. And now we
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: look at something like the Sabbath command where at first
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: rooted in creation, then rooted in Exodus, and you go, oh,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to get it. Now, I'm starting to see
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: why how we're supposed to read these laws. It's not
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: just a checklist that my to do list for the day.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: It's now shaping something of who God is that I'm
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: supposed to respond to. And these laws help the Israelites
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: to respond to God. Right, they were to help the
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Israelites respond to God, but not just that, they're also helped.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: They're also to help me respond to God to understand
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: who he is, and as we respond that may look
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: very very different. And I think so as we pivot
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: over into Sabbath, it can be easy when you read
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: the rest of the ten commandments, right, well, you know,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: should we keep should we not murder in the same
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: way the Israelized didn't murder? Should we not steal in
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the same way the Israelites? And still and you're kind
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: of like there's a little one to one that comes
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: across culturally, like those are pretty yeah, maybe stealings kind
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: of we keep that one, right, It's it's pretty steady.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: But Sabbath is one of those where we kind of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: sit back and go, I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: It just doesn't need redefinition.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Culturally, it really doesn't. But the Sabbath is one of
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: those that I think, really does, you know, it really
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: does need a redefinition. It's got some some robustness to
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: it that I think we have to sort of revisit
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: in and say, is this really about taking Sunday off?
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Is that a necessary application or practical outworking of this
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: command or could it be an optional way depending on
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: where we are in the world right now. So I'll
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: kind of leave it there, but I wanted to give
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: people a little bit of a framework, like as they're
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: reading the law. I think these are really great touch
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: points to go. This isn't an exceptional way of reading
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the law. It's probably the normative way of reading the law,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and it should inform the way we read some of
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: the odder ones that we run into. That's right. So
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: with all that sort of preamble out of the way,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: I'll just start with it. I'm interested to understand how
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: each of you would think about Sabbath. Now, Becky, you've
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: already kind of given us a little bit of glimpse,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: and how you do this? Renee, do you think how
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: do you think about Sabbath in your daily life? Do
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: you do you think about it? Is this something you practice? Yeah,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: just thoughts.
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: I don't have.
• 48:00
  Speaker 8: I don't have really hard and fast like ritual or
• 48:07
  Speaker 8: rhythm that I adhere to. I think that's probably primarily
• 48:12
  Speaker 8: because I'm the mom of four, so having people in
• 48:16
  Speaker 8: my stead like, there's a lot of life that I
• 48:19
  Speaker 8: don't I don't have control over anyway. But I will
• 48:24
  Speaker 8: say that the idea at least of.
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: I mean, let's just even take like the most obvious,
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: like we go to church every Sunday. We go to
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: church every Sunday as a family.
• 48:35
  Speaker 8: And that didn't used to seem like such a thing,
• 48:40
  Speaker 8: like we didn't make it a really hard and fest rule.
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: It was a pattern to our life.
• 48:45
  Speaker 8: As our kids have gotten older and we've also moved
• 48:48
  Speaker 8: to a different area of the country.
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: More of the rest of life is starting to ask
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: for that time from us.
• 48:57
  Speaker 8: I've got kids in athletics and oportunities to be in
• 49:01
  Speaker 8: greater athletics or traveling athletics, or even just social things,
• 49:08
  Speaker 8: and as that is kind of like coming in and
• 49:13
  Speaker 8: asking for more of us we have, we have laid a.
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: Pattern of Sundays being a day that we attend church
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: together and we eat lunch together and like.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: It.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: It's funny.
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: I would say, like, well, I don't know that, I
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: like really like I.
• 49:30
  Speaker 11: Make this my Sabbath, but it is just a part
• 49:33
  Speaker 11: of our life that now I see is giving me
• 49:37
  Speaker 11: reason to push back against some of that more taking from.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: Us, And uh, yeah, I don't know.
• 49:48
  Speaker 8: I think that's probably the the most obvious primary way
• 49:52
  Speaker 8: in which we we we do as a family. I
• 49:56
  Speaker 8: think our kids just kind of assume it's just built in.
• 49:59
  Speaker 8: We don't you don't talk about it really heavily, like
• 50:01
  Speaker 8: this is our Sabbath.
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: This is what we're teaching you.
• 50:05
  Speaker 8: But it just is part of our life and it's
• 50:08
  Speaker 8: and that's what sabbath is intended to be, like, not
• 50:11
  Speaker 8: an arbitrary, legalistic thing, but.
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: A rhythm and a pattern.
• 50:18
  Speaker 8: And so that that's probably the primarily way that it
• 50:21
  Speaker 8: shows up in my life because of the season of
• 50:25
  Speaker 8: life that I'm in.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I resonate with that. You know, I've got four kids,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: three of which are still I guess my son's twenty
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: and so he's still around, but he's much more doing
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: his own thing now. But yeah, the others are still
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: need things and that. You know, my girls do travel
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: sports and that's been interesting and challenging, I will say that.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: And I think that as we've done the travel sports
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: thing and have been gone on Sundays or war pulls
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: us away on Sundays, what I've experienced is there is
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: a real grind that you can get into. I remember this.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: I was working as a personal trainer through my MDiv
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and I used to work Monday through Saturday. So we
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: were poor and I had to pay rent, and so
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I'd worked forty hours a week plus do my master
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: you know, like I had a full time job. And
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: so my boss scheduled me some clients on a Sunday
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: one week.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: And.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: You know, I was in my twenties, Like you feel
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: pretty much invulnerable to anything in your twenties, right, And
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: so I remember going in that Sunday training the clients,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: going back on Monday, and by the next Saturday being
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: absolutely exhausted. It was only a couple of clients on
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: a Sunday, you know, no big deal, It's not like
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: it was all day or whatever. I was absolutely fried.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: And I think that feeling of man, those weeks just
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: ran together. There's no punctuation or separate there's no sacredness
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: of time within that where you get to sort of
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: break things up and go, no, now this work week
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: is over, this next week, work week is going to start.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: But in this center part I have this sacred moment.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I think we sometimes when we're doing the travel, sports
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. Now I start to
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: feel that way. It's as enjoyable as it is, much
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: more fun than working, but as enjoyable as it is,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you do start to like something starts to nag at
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: you like you're missing something, and so I would say, yeah,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Sabbath practice has become something I'm much more keen to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: over the last several years when we've been doing a
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: lot of that and trying to figure out, like, what
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: does this really look like in the midst of busy
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: schedules that don't always line up and you know whatever,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: and so it's been interesting. But I will say I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: think for a big part of mine is just an
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: internal clock that I don't always pay attention to, which
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: is you're you've done enough work, you can stop now. Right.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: My internal clock says you've done enough work, you can
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: stop now. Doesn't always work right. I usually hit the
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: snooze alarm, you know, or whatever we want to say.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: And so I'll find myself overworked on these sort of
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: quasi regular bases and I'm like, no, man, I gotta
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: I gotta stop like this, this this constant stuff has
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: to end. And so I think there's a there's a
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: built in sort of mechanism, at least in my life
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: where I just sit back and say I should have
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: been taking the rest. Now I really need the rest.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Why is it that I just don't take the rest
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: more regularly. So that's my experience with Sabbath, and yeah,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: having written a dissertation on it, it's always puzzling that
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I can't figure it out.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: So Yeah, what I'm loving about this conversation is that
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: what I'm hearing reflected, and I hear it really strongly
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: because I resonate with it in my own life so
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: deeply is the invitation and the freedom and the benefits.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: Would totally devoid of.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Roles and definition and here's what day of the week.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: And I think sometimes for Christians when we get in
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: this conversation, we're so afraid of doing it wrong because
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: we're required that we're asking for all these definitions around it.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: And it's not that there shouldn't be any.
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: I don't know, they're not clear.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: I have no idea.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: So instead of addressing all that, what I usually tell people,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: including myself, because I am a oh, if there could
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: be a rule, I will feel safe and I can
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: follow it.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: Or I can break it. I'm breaking it, but one
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: or the other.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: And as believers, we need to understand that if we
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: break it all the time, that's already paid for, that's
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: already taken like the messing up part is already taken
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: care of, and like it's okay. So I'm hearing you
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: guys talk about it from a very practical.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: Place, and I.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Think that's what it's supposed to be. So I find
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: that absolutely beautiful. My experience, like Renet, four kids, grad school,
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: crazy life, dissertation, period of life was really intense for me.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: I had eight pregnancies during this time, so my body
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: was a mass, my heart was a mess because we
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: were grieving losses.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: We were broke. Is dirt, I mean, the whole thing,
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: the whole Becky.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Lives above and beyond and does not know how to stop,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: or doesn't feel sufficient ever, so doesn't stop.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: And so for me, when it became most crucial.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: Was when things were at such a high stake for
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: completion that the only way it was going to happen
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: was with built in pause. And so Sabbath became most
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: important to me at the time when I could afford
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: it the least. And it wasn't like I it wasn't
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: that I sat and thought, oh, today I can remember
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: that God doesn't need me to do this, and that
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't any of that. It was literally
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: like as a believer. I know I'm supposed to do this,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: and I don't know how to not like I'm dying.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: I'm not keeping up. And then once I applied.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: That, our whole family did. I didn't try to get
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: things done on Saturday. We went to church and things
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: like that, but I didn't try to do a dissertation.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Jim didn't schedule work, We didn't at times, we didn't
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: even cook.
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: We were look like we're exhausted.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: There was no homeschooling, there was no anything, and that
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: became so physically empowering that I ended up getting I
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: didn't even understand the theology of it, but in my
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: case at that didn't matter. I ended up reaping the
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: benefits and then seeing behind it like, oh, you are finite,
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: you know, and you are totally dependent and you aren't
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: really that needed by God, and it's you know, all
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: of these things and it is going to be okay,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: and you don't have that much, you know, so I
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: warn excuse me. I learned those things that have very
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: important time, like renee. We don't have firm rules or
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: days or expectations, but it's a privilege I wholeheartedly step into.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: As someone who.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: Needs a social excuse to take a break, because it doesn't.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: I don't feel valuable enough to just say, oh, because
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: I need one. And that's what that's what zabbe it
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: is to me, and I don't. It feels like I
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: should apologize for that, but I feel like that's what
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: it was ven for.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting. And so I read a
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: quote the other day. It was I got on Facebook
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: and I write a quote on Facebook. It was a
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: really horrible idea, but it was men don't fail because
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: they're too aggressive. Men fail more often because they're too passive.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: It's because they wait and they refuse to act. And
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of one of those quotes, and
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I can't quote verbatim, but when I thought about it,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I have this idea that I kind of come back to.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: It's a little pithy statement that I say, but our
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: role is to respond to God from within a situation,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: not to respond to the situation as if God were
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: active or irrelevant. And so when I read things like that,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: they're so hard one way, right, as if in activity
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: and passivity restraint, right, are just really leaning you toward failure.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: I think to myself, No, We've got to be able
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: to respond to God from within the situation, as opposed
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: to responding to the situation as if God were absent
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: or irrelevant. One of the range, one of the responses
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: within that range to respond faithfully to God has to
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: be to rest. And I think that because we generally
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: don't have this sort of and I think it's been eroded.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: We used to have more of a Sunday's off, nothing's open,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: there's no sports like that. Time used to be guarded.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: It's not anymore. And I'm not I'm very seldom a
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: fan of, hey, let's let's bring the horses back in
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: the barn, right, And I think culture moves past and
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: and and that one act just probably isn't going to
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: work that well. Like things have to shift and change
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: in much more complex ways. And so as we are.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: I almost think of it as the Jews without the temple,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: and they stand there and they say, then what do
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: we do right? And they come up with all and yes,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: they take some blasts the gospels, but I think a
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: lot of times what they're trying to do at heart
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: is how do we walk with God? How we demonstrate
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: that we are His people? Without the Temple because it
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: was kind of central to us. And I think we
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: should be thinking about Sabbath in much the same way,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: given that Sunday has been co opted for a number
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: of different purposes and it's no longer reserved just for worship,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: How do we now build sacred time back into our
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: lives given that we no longer really have access to Sunday?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: And I think that that then lends itself to how
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: do we respond to God in the moment, as opposed
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: to responding to the situation, you know, as if hey,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: all Christians stop doing any travels, for stop doing anything else,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: you've got to be back in church on Sunday. Like
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: I suppose that's the utopian vision, but I just don't
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: think it's particularly realistic, and it's certainly not that helpful,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: And so to me, it's like that's probably the wrong
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: direction to go. The right direction goes to say, how
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: do we help Christians understand how to cultivate sacred time
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: in a cultural moment where busyness is driving us further
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and further away, not just from Sunday but from dependence
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: on God, sort of like what you were talking about, Becky.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to real quickly just add one for
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: those people who are listening and are like, Okay, that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: all sounds good, but how do I.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: Know that that's biblical.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: I always need those concrete like something from the Bible
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: that blows up my view of what I think Sabbath
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: has to be. So when in Ezra ni Amayah and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: I don't remember if it's there or I think it is,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: or hey, guy, but I think it's Ezra Yamayah, when
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: the people are breaking Sabbath constantly because yeah, yeah, God
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: tells the Levites.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: Two go work strap on.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: I think they step on story but I can't quite remember,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: and stand at the gates and monitor, which is a.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: Job like this sometime, yeah, go see something right, And
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: so the other people don't do something and.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: You're like what, And for me, that takes this like if.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Israel was obeying it, they would literally be laying in
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: their tents all day eating manna from yesterday and would
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: ree re emerge from their hibernation on Monday morning and
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: no one would have.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: Anything.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: And that's not consistent with even how it's portrayed. So
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: the fact that it gets a little muddied sometimes, yeah,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: is part of even how God is instructing it in
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: the Bible, and I don't think we need to be
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: scared by that.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: We can be a little botfold. We can.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: You know so well, I think you have the Jesus passages,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: you know, where he's healing all the Sabbath and those
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: kind of things too, and you you sort of step back,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and you what you realize is, Okay, we shouldn't trivialize
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the Sabbath, but we shouldn't make an idol of it either,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: And so we've got to we've got to recognize that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: sacred time is sacred not because that time is reserved
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: for inactivity. It's sacred because we are to be honoring
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: God within it. And so there's a there's sort of
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: a different texture, I think, to what we're looking at
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: when we think about Sabbath. And even just to sort
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: of almost end where we started with Hebrews. You know,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: you have this rest that is coming for the people
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: of God, and so they're even in Hebrews, you have
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: this sort of widening out of what it means to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: have rest. It isn't just this Seventh Day that everybody
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: wants to do. It's something further down the road that
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: we now will participate in the rest that God is
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: already doing.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 10: So.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: You know, throw it out there. Any last words otherwise
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: we'll close this one out last thoughts, really helpful conversation.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it, everybody, and hopefully this is fun for everybody
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: else too, Sab It's one of my favorite topics, so
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate y'all having this conversation with me, and
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: thanks everybody for taking the time to listen. In all right,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: we'll call it a day there and we'll catch you
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: to take a second to thank the team at Life
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.