Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / Episode #11 Not Your Parents Sunday School Story-Part 2: The Big Fish

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Episode #11 Not Your Parents Sunday School Story-Part 2: The Big Fish · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, Tim Wright here along with Terry Summers.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is it possible outside of Pinocchio for a human being to live in the belly of a fish for three days?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And live to tell about it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, what does that have to do with anything?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: What does that have to do with God?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: What does that have to do with grace?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about it today.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We are here as a part of the Deep Grace Diving podcast.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been spending several weeks now talking about how to read the Bible.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we misread the Bible, we get ourselves in all kinds of trouble.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So Terry, we have used two stories so far.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've looked at the creation story.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: which gave us some clues as to how to read that.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: We looked last week at the story of Abraham and Isaac and the call to sacrifice
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Isaac and what that story was really about.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we're going to turn our attention to the story of Jonah and it doesn't
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: say whale in the Bible,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: it just says big fish.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to look at that story today.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, even that, Terry.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's always Jonah the whale.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say whale.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to look at this story.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll take a little break.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'll move on to some other topics for a while.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm sure we will come back to Bible stories over and over again.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And like a good chance right now to say,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: if you've got a Bible passage story that for you really trips you up,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: just send us a question.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can send it to Rev.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: RevTimWright57 at gmail.com.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: RevTimWright57 at gmail.com.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: One more time, RevTimWright57 at gmail.com.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can send questions about anything,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: but if you've got some about Bible stories,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: faith,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: life,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: whatever,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: we'd be happy to tackle them on this show.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Terry, you like this story because this is the one you asked me to talk about.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I have such a vivid, I'll share it with you.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have such a vivid childhood image that has never left me of this story.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it is seeing and whale is a part of it, but okay, big fish.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I got it now.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember it was taught to me with the felt boards that might indicate how old
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I am,
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: but that's what it was.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And, but in my imagination, I saw Jonah in the belly of a whale and then the Gilligan's Island Lagoon.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: For those of you that, okay, that's where the whale showed up and spit him out was in that lagoon.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, yeah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, but being reasonable,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've always in the back of my mind,
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: not to be contrary,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: because we know I can be,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: wrestled with all of that,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: but I,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I liked believing it.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't,
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: meaning believing exactly what my imaginations painted per the story that was told
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: to me.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: That being said,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to hear you.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: first,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's all right to say that there's nothing wrong with us taking sort of
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: this simple view of a story and picturing in our minds
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: A body in a whale.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we know whales don't eat human beings.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: They eat tiny little fish.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We know it's impossible for them to eat human beings.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Probably impossible for a human being to actually survive for three days in a whale or in a big fish.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But remember from our first study on Genesis 1, sometimes numbers mean things.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And three days, three days, Jesus, three days, right?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the belly of the world, something divine, something sacred is happening in that moment.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So again,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: when we,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: just to kind of give some of the things we've talked about the last few weeks,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: when you read these stories,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: you want to remember it wasn't written to us.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was written for us.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: This was written to the people of Israel at a specific time in their history,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: wrestling with a particular issue.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this story will address that.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: We want to remember that the books are different,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: that the genre,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: the literature,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: the literary writing style is different.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we have parables.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we have poetry.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we have letters from Paul.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we have history.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: All of those need to be interpreted differently.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible stories oftentimes give us clues.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: as to how they want to be interpreted.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when we looked at the creation story, we saw that the whole story was built on sevens.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was telling us this isn't a literal story.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a symbolic,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: metaphorical story about God,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: what it's saying about God as a God who creates out of perfection and goodness.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: We saw the clues in the story that we looked at and when God asks Abraham to
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: sacrifice Isaac and we see,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: wait a minute,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham knows something is up here with this.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe this isn't a story about Abraham sacrificing Isaac.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a story about God and how God responds to us.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this story has some clues in it as well as to how it wants to be read and what the meaning of it is.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if we get stuck in,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: on whether or not it was a whale or a big fish.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: If we get stuck on whether or not a guy can survive in a whale or a big fish for
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: three days,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: we missed the whole point of the story.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Which is not what the writer wants.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just as the same is true in Genesis chapters one, two, and three.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: The writers don't want to get us stuck asking questions.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Was it a literal six days?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was there really a talking snake?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It wants us to understand the story and the God that this story is talking about.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing that I love that you've differentiated is true and truth.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we're looking for the truth of the story.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we have those distinctions in our culture today.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: They probably didn't back then, but we do now.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus told parables, truth stories, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't necessarily true stories that happened actually.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: They were stories that Jesus made up, but they conveyed the truth about God to us.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the Old Testament is that.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we've tried to read it literally as history when maybe it's a story that's a
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: truth story,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: meaning story.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I would suggest that Jonah is perhaps one of those kinds of stories.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonah is a real person.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: We know this.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah is referenced in the Bible.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: He is a prophet.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we know he's a real person, just like we know Abraham was real.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would also suggest that this is one of the most radical stories in the Old Testament.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most subversive stories in the Old Testament.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it overflows with grace and compassion and mercy.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what we have as the context, remember, we need to remember the context.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Assyrians were bitter enemies of Israel.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Assyrians inflicted overwhelming trauma and suffering onto the people of Israel.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: They invaded the land of Israel.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: They basically destroyed most of that land and took a lot of the people of Israel
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: back to Assyria and forced them into submission.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: just for those who like this kind of stuff, when we think of Israel, we think of the 12 tribes.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: We have,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: based on the 12 brothers of Jacob,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: so we have the 10 tribes who lived in northern Israel,
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: and then the two tribes,
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: two and a half tribes that lived in southern Israel,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: the two and a half tribes in southern Israel were David's kingdom.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the 10 tribes, the northern kingdom, that Assyria essentially wiped off the map.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So these are bitter enemies.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're going to write a story in the Jewish Bible about Assyria,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to write a story about God's wrath and anger absolutely obliterating
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: those people.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: What you're not going to write is a story about a God who extends love to your enemies.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: that's exactly what the story of jonah is about and that's what makes it so
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: subversive so he asks jonah to go to nineveh which is the capital of assyria and to
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: warn the people that if they don't repent they will god will destroy them and jonah
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: like the readers of the story,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: is repulsed at the very thought of going to Nineveh and giving them a chance to get
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: right with God.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so he does what any good Jewish person would do.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: He goes in the opposite direction.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah's thinking to himself,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: there's no way,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: number one,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to preach that kind of good news to my enemies.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And number two,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I am not going to be responsible for that and then have to go home and explain
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: myself to all my Jewish buddies.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonah's put in a really difficult position where he's going into the heart of
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: the beast to give them an opportunity to experience God's grace.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Joseph climbs on a boat.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: He heads in the opposite direction.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: A storm hits.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he admits that probably the reason for the storm is that he's running away from God.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: interestingly,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: while they're on the ship,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: it's the pagans who make sacrifices to try to appease Jonah's God.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's Jonah who's running away from that same God.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So already the storyteller is playing with us a little bit.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That it's the pagans who seem to recognize the power of God.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah's turning his back on the power of God.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a precursor to what might happen when Jonah goes to speak to some other pagans.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he's thrown in the water.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's running away from God.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just call this time in the whale, big fish, a come to Jesus time for Jonah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where he and God have to have a little conversation together.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And consider it like a timeout for Jonah.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah, you need to sort of get your heart and mind right because I'm not the kind of God you think I am.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe better said, I am the kind of God you're afraid I am.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're afraid I'm going to be a forgiving God.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's the God I am.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonah, he goes to Nineveh.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: He starts preaching this message.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And just as he feared, they listened.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: They repented.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Repented.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And God forgave them.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: How angry and bitter he must have been that these people who had absolutely
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: destroyed and shredded Israel would be forgiven by God.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So Jonah prays a prayer.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh Lord, is not this what I said while I was still in my own country?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: For I knew, now catch this, Terry, this is in the Old Testament.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: slow to anger,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: abounding in steadfast love,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: and relenting from punishment.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's in the Old Testament.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Remember last week you talked about all those people on social media said God is
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: like this and he does this,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: this,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: this,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: and this.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying that when they read those stories, that's because the people of Israel misunderstood God.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you see something about God in the Old Testament that doesn't line up with what
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah just said about being loving and gracious,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: it's because the people of Israel have misunderstood who God is.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And God uses stories like this to correct them.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: to say to the people of Israel, I am not a God like the gods of the people who surround you.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, they don't exist anyway, but I'm not like them.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a God who terrorizes people.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a God who punishes enemies.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am a God who is slow of anger.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am a God who is compassionate and merciful and abounding in steadfast love.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jonah, he is so upset about this kind of a God that
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then he says, kill me.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can't live in a world with a God who's that loving.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a really interesting response, isn't it?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't live in a world with a God who's this loving.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: A God who will love my enemies this way.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tolerate that kind of a God.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now think through the responses to Jesus.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the way people could not tolerate the kind of God he was talking about.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: To the point where they just said, we got to get rid of this guy.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: If his God is that gracious, how are we going to use religion to control people?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And look at how easy it is for us as Christians to still not tolerate that kind of God.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, right, right.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about the time in the big fish,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: the time out,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: that even in my own life or things I observe in relationships around me,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: that God...
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I feel is trying to get me away by myself for a while so that he doesn't
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: have interruptions,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: that he that there isn't any distraction just to spend time with me and remind me
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: of his goodness.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I and as I'm listening, metaphorically speaking, that that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: being swallowed by the big fish.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Who's going to, you know what I mean?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is, I can see kind of a timeout.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Not that he was using it in that same way, but anyway.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: So even now I sense that.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So again, what we have is a story that says to Israel, this is how radically different our God is.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, and this is the, this is the story that God is trying to get out in the old Testament and
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: that the people miss over and over again.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you have these stories where it seems like God is angry and
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: vindictive and judgmental,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: but they've misunderstood God at that point.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: They've imposed that onto God, just like Christians do today.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And God is nothing like that.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And for people even to this day, we're like Jonah, where we just can't tolerate a God who's that loving.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: God can't possibly love
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we keep, we hear messages of God's grace and we keep sticking our butts into it.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: But, but, but what about the person who does this?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what about this?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what about if, if we accept that, but what about this?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than just sitting back and saying, all right,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: this is a God of awesome love and grace and compassion.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: What would the world look like if we actually took that seriously without sticking our butts into it?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Look what happened with Nineveh.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It changed the story of what happened in that nation.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me just back up a moment and say, did this story happen in history?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this another parable using Jonah as the story,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: as sort of the hook in the story,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: the character in the story,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: who represents the people of Israel?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because all the people of Israel who are hearing this story are feeling the exact same way Jonah is.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we can probably all think about enemies that we have or people have hurt us.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if God said,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to go there and tell them I love them,
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: we'd say,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: not on your life,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: not doing it.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: But whether it actually happened or not doesn't change the truth of the story.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: that this God is a God of radical love and grace who even loves our enemies,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: which of course is what Jesus said,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Love your enemies.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Pray for those who persecute you.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the part that I want to leave with saying, woohoo, is what happened to Nineveh.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: But if that's part of the story that is just a story, was there an effect on Nineveh?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, we could ask the question, was there an effect on Nineveh?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or is that even the question to ask?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Did this, what I'm saying is, was this a parable?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a made up story.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, I got that.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So when you were saying, when you were saying though, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Look what happened to Nineveh.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: That was within the context.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Within the context of the story.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's within the context of the story.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we've used the story of the prodigal son here a few times already.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think the prodigal son story in many ways is the Jonah Nineveh story.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I see that.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Except that in this case, the father doesn't run away.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: The father runs towards.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the Jonah people are the people who prompt Jesus to tell the story in the beginning.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Pharisees.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: How is it that you can eat with these sinners and tax collectors?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: How can you be like that?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, they're Jonah.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, well, let me tell you some stories.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then he tells the story of lost sheep, lost coins, and two lost sons.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's the truth about who God is that this story is getting at.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is why I say it's a radical, radical story.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a story.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a story that the original readers want to hear.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: They want to hear God going in and smiting people.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And God's saying, nope, that's not the kind of God I am.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that's good news for you too.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I chose you all those years ago when you were slaves in Egypt.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because what other God ever chooses slaves?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why it's so important for us when we study scripture.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to use the word study scripture differently than reading scripture, but study scripture.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: That we take seriously the context.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: We take seriously what the story is trying to lead us to see to begin with.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that we mine what is it ultimately saying about God?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And how radically different this God is.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the God that Jesus saw in the Old Testament and told stories about in the New Testament.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Can you help me, us, with a little bit of a template or something that would help differentiate?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know there has to be...
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: a means to be swift or, or clear on doing that.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: But let's just take some of what we read in the new Testament.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: That seems pretty fantastical that like,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: just like we,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: we can't intellectually maybe reconcile with living in a fish for large fish for
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: three days.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I know these are specifically rated related to Jesus.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe that's the differentiation, but yeah,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: having just a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread and you are feeding
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's called a miracle, but like what would tell me as someone who's new to scripture that,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: that there's a difference between that and some of the other stories of the old
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Testament that also,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: like a,
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: like a talking snake and things of that nature,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus walking on water and,
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: that kind of stuff,
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: water into wine.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's probably a big question for another day, but I would say in part, um,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully what people have discovered these last four weeks is just how brilliantly
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: the Bible is written,
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: how radical the message is,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: and how important it is to take it seriously and read it as it wants to be read.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I get that now.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: While I do believe you can pick up the Gospel of Mark and start reading stories,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: you can pick up Genesis,
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: start reading stories,
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: and God will speak to you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: These stories have such depth and nuance to them that to fully appreciate them,
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: we do need people who have spent their lives studying these stories to help us.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned a few weeks ago,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: it's pretty hard to read Shakespeare unless you have somebody who understands
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Shakespeare helping you read Shakespeare with you.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So true.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so, again, there are these two levels, at least, to reading the Bible.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: One is just to read it devotionally.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily asking a lot of questions, but just letting it get into your heart and soul.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I always recommend starting with the Gospel of Mark.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's studying the Bible.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And really getting down deep, ask the questions.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, if it wasn't written to us, who was it written to?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: How did they understand the story at that time?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what does it say to us today?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so just to look at the story of the feeding of the 5,000,
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: there are several layers to that story.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's the layer of,
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus,
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: who said that his mission is to feed the poor,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: is feeding the poor.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: this is an important part of my ministry and it should be an important part of your ministry.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a story about God being a God of abundance, not a God of scarcity.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that does not mean prosperity gospel.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean Jesus is going to make us rich.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: What it means is that the world has been created in such a way that if we were all
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: fighting together,
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: everybody could be fed together.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we already know all of this is true from all the research that's been done.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: We produce enough food to feed everybody, but there are systems in place that keep that from happening.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a story about the Lord's Supper because it talks about how he took the bread.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: He blessed it.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: He broke it.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: He gave it to them to eat.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so it uses all of the language that we would use when we have community together in our churches.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's got all of these layers to it.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that Mark tells the story is a bit different than the way John tells
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: the story because John wants to say something,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: use that story and say something a bit different about Jesus to the community he's
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: writing to.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Same story, but they all are so nuanced and yet so big that there's a lot going on in those stories.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they can be read simply as, wow, look at this miracle that Jesus did.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Two thumbs up.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: But then you start to read the stories behind them,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: and you think,
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: wow,
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: there's just a lot going on in all of these stories.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so that doesn't quite answer your question specifically.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is to say that we oftentimes need help.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to give people a resource, by the way, a really good resource.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's called BibleProject.com.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard of it.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: BibleProject.com.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: These two guys and their company have put together some really great videos that
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: help give the backstory to a lot of these stories for us,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: that help tease out the meaning behind these stories.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: They don't take a literal approach to scripture.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: They read the Bible as the Bible wants to be written.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you go to BibleProject.com and you just Google creation story or search
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: creation story on their site,
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: you'll find two or three really good videos on that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they do Old Testament, New Testament.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a great way that people who really want to go deep into what Scripture is
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: really saying,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: they can find some good stuff there,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: BibleProject.com.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a great place to start.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully,
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: we'll do more Bible studies together here on our podcast and help people kind of
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: make their way through some of these big stories.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many good ones in the Old Testament.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: that we sort of miss.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Another really radical one is the story of Ruth.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's the story of Esther.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: All kinds of great stories in there that when we read them as they want to be written,
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: we find out they're just filled with messages of a God who is a God of grace and
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: compassion and mercy.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not this angry God that people keep talking about.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: That God doesn't exist in the Bible.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: That God exists in the way that we interpret God, but that God does not exist in the Bible.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because that God is the God who comes to Jesus and goes to the cross.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same God.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: folks,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: we want to encourage you,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: if you've enjoyed this and find it helpful,
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: make sure you share it with your friends.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can subscribe to this on Apple, Spotify.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: or recklessgrace.substack.com,
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: recklessgrace.substack.com,
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: where you will not only get this sent to you in an email form every week,
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: but you will also get a post from me every week as well.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And any questions you might have,
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: you can get us on that recklessgrace.substack.com,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: or you can email me at revtimwright57 at gmail.com,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: revtimwright57 at gmail.com.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Terry, we're going to be back next time.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to do something a little different.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we hope people will tune in.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Please share with your friends.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Here's some Morse code to remind you that you are graced.