How Christians Should Read the Old Testament (3D Bible Part 4)

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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of

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Israel.

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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through

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the most exciting book on the planet.

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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes which will deepen your faith and bring the

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Bible to life.

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And now here's our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there, and welcome back.

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This is the 3D Bible series, part 4, about the Old Testament and how should we as Christians

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relate to it.

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Before we get started today, I wanted to take a quick minute just to review what we've

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learned so far.

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We learned, first of all, that the importance of studying the Bible.

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So much for us to learn from it, but it's such a powerful book and so exciting.

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So in our second part, we talked about how to read the Bible and how to get to that level

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where it just becomes three-dimensional and comes alive.

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Last week we talked about the story of the Bible, the story that's behind the stories.

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I apologize, I took a few extra minutes last week, but I wanted to show the importance

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of understanding that overarching story throughout all the stories of the Bible and to guard

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against oversimplification.

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So what did we learn about that story?

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Well, first of all, that it began in eternity.

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That God always had the intention of creating a family.

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And he created man knowing that he would fall into sin.

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And he chose Abraham to birth a nation knowing that Abraham and Sarah couldn't have children.

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And he birthed a nation of Israel knowing that they would fail him at times.

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The point is this, God's plan was always dependent on him, not upon mankind.

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So this eternal plan also said and provided for Jesus to come to the earth and die on

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the cross on our behalf that all of us could partake of its fullness and be adopted into

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the family as sons.

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Now while Jesus paid the price on the cross, he will return to fully implement everything

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that he bought for us.

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It is not finished yet.

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So in the meantime, the plan for eternity is still in place, its plan A, it didn't end.

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And all of God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, all of the predictions

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through the prophets, it's all in place.

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It'll all still come true and in its fullness at the fullness of time.

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So I tell you this little rundown to guard against oversimplification of that story so

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that we don't come out sounding like there's two stories or there's part A and there's

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part B. So this week we're going to talk about the danger of another oversimplification

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and that's in how we as Christians approach the Old Testament.

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You know, our Bible is made up of two parts.

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And our church fathers that put together the Bible and decided which books were going to

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be in it, they put these titles.

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They put the Old Testament in front of the larger section of our Bible and they put New

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Testament in front of the second section of our Bible.

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Now you know when you talk about Old Testament, New Testament, old, well, sounds kind of old.

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And new sounds new, exciting, right?

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So we come to kind of feel like, well, the old is old.

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Maybe I don't have to deal with the old.

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I'm just going to deal with the new.

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But it goes beyond there.

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You know, I heard a pastor say, and you may have heard someone say this, that the Old

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Testament is actually one of the stumbling blocks in Christianity.

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And he said that people that leave the faith, they don't leave the faith over Jesus.

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They leave the faith over the Old Testament.

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And that once they get to where they can't defend the Old Testament, they can't explain

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it, then they lose all of their faith.

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So his solution is, just forget the Old Testament, throw it away, just disregard it.

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Doesn't apply to you anyway, to quote him.

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Well, my advice is, teach your people how to read and explain the Old Testament.

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Don't throw it away.

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So how can anyone really say that?

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And I want to explain really quickly and very simply what's behind it.

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He said, and many say this, that the New Covenant, which was the final and the eternal covenant

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cut with the world, replaced the Old Covenant, which had been cut with the nation of Israel.

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Since the Old Testament means Old Covenant, it's been replaced by the New Testament,

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which means New Covenant.

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So don't worry about teaching the Old Testament.

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Just start with Jesus.

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Just start with Jesus.

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Well, this is what is called classic replacement theology, where it teaches that what came

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later, the church replaced the Jews, or the New Testament replaces the Old Testament,

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the New Covenant replaces the Old Testament.

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Any time there's this replacement, it's called replacement theology.

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And what it does is it robs Christianity of its very foundations, and it actually creates

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the disconnect between the Old Testament and the New.

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It creates something like a Plan A and a Plan B.

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So I just want to very quickly explain.

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The Old Testament does not equal Old Covenant.

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Now it is true that the word Testament is the same word for the word covenant.

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And so it can be translated Old Covenant.

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But that doesn't mean that this whole book is the Old Covenant.

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It just means our church fathers chose to put a piece of paper in the front of that

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section and call it Old Testament.

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But it's actually a book made up of, say, 39 different books written by something like

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30 different authors.

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It tells a narrative that covers about 2,500 years of history.

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And it tells about 5 major covenants that God cut, either with the world or with the

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people of Israel.

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So get rid of this concept that Old Testament means this is the Old Covenant.

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Nah.

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Okay.

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Secondly, when he says that the New Covenant was cut with the world, whereas the Old Covenant

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was with the nation of Israel.

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Nah.

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Let's go back to Jeremiah 31, which describes this New Covenant that one day God was going

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to cut with his people.

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And this is exactly what it says.

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Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the house

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of Israel and with the house of Judah.

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So the covenant that God cut is with Israel and the house of Judah.

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So how do we partake in it?

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We as sons of faith, the sons of the faith of Abraham, we are grafted into this through

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faith in Jesus who cut the New Covenant.

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We can participate in the New Covenant.

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But it's totally wrong to say that covenant was cut with the world.

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Now, also, it's wrong to say that the Old Covenant with the people of Israel has now

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been replaced.

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Now, there is a scripture in the New Testament that's often quoted at this point.

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It's in Hebrews 8, and there's a whole section here.

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It repeats the words of Jeremiah that God was going to cut this New Covenant with the

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house of Israel and with the people of Judah.

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And at the very end of this whole section in Hebrews, it says this.

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It says, now, what is becoming obsolete in growing old is ready to vanish away.

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And it's talking about the Mosaic Covenant that God cut with the people of Israel in

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the wilderness.

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And it says it is becoming obsolete.

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Maybe in a later episode, we'll talk about these various covenants so that I can go into

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more of an explanation of this.

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But it is true that the Mosaic Covenant and the giving of the law was given as a preparation,

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as a pre-runner to the New Covenant.

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So the Old Covenant with the people of Israel gave them the law and taught them to way to

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go.

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And of course, the frailty of that covenant is that man was going to fail, had nothing

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to do with the law or with God, but man was unable to fully obey.

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And so the New Covenant, which would come in the future, would replace that by writing

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the law on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

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And so whereas Jesus came and cut that covenant on our behalf and shed His blood on our behalf

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on the tree, it has not been fully implemented until His return.

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And so we are in a transitional period where the Old is becoming obsolete, but it's still

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in place as a covenant that points to our need for Jesus.

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So like I say, we'll talk about this later.

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My point that I want to make today is that the New Testament doesn't replace the Old

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Testament, just like the New Covenant doesn't replace the Old Covenant.

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And when He says to begin with Jesus, just preach Jesus, well, who is Jesus?

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I mean, is He some Greek God out of mythology that just appeared on the earth and died on

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the cross and then whoop, went to heaven?

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Well, the New Testament begins with the story of Jesus.

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And the very first verse of the very first book of the New Testament begins with this.

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The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.

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Well, who is David and who is Abraham?

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There's no way for us to understand who Jesus is and what He came to do unless we understand

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all that foundation that was laid in the Old Testament.

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So point number one, all that to say this, the Old Testament is still very relevant to

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us as Christians.

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And so we need to study it and be able to explain it.

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Now secondly, I would say, well, let's approach the Old Testament the way Jesus did.

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I mean, Jesus is our gold standard, right?

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So how did He view the Old Testament?

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Well, I will tell you this, that He never called it old.

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Okay?

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So what we call the Old Testament was His Bible and He referred to it as the Word of

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God, as the Scriptures.

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He referred to it as the law, the prophets, and the writings, or sometimes He just said

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the law and the prophets because those are the three sections in the Hebrew Bible, the

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law being the Torah, the prophets, and then the writings, the historical writings.

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And so that's what it's called today, the Jewish people call their Bible the Tanakh.

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And Tanakh stands for the T, the N, and the K stand for the law, the prophets, and the

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writing.

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So Jesus referred to the Bible as that.

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He often referred to the authority of what was written in it, and He would say, it is

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written.

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It is written because it had authority.

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Now I find it interesting to ask, what was the book of the Bible that Jesus quoted the

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most?

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What would you think it was?

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You know, we might think, oh, Psalm.

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Psalm is so beautiful and it has such, you know, beautiful poetic verses to it.

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And no, Jesus quoted the book of Deuteronomy more than any other book, the book of the

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law.

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He referred to it, so it is not to be disregarded.

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He also believed that the Bible was true.

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So He referred to events in the Bible as though they were absolute truth and happened, like

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the creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, the flood, Abraham, the destruction of Sodom

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and Gomorrah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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Not only did He refer to them, He said they're still living, that God spoke to Moses in the

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burning bush and that God fed Israel, Manna in the desert and that Jonah was delivered

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from the great fish.

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He referred to all of these things and more as truth.

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Now I've also heard it said, well, let's look at the Old Testament through Paul's eyes

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because Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles and you and I, more than likely those listening

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to me, were Gentiles.

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So we should listen to Paul.

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He didn't harp on the Old Testament.

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So well, let's quote Paul, okay?

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So Paul's writing a letter to Timothy.

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Timothy was one of his disciples and Timothy was, his mother was Jewish, his father was

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Greek and so Paul is telling him about the importance of the scriptures that he grew

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up on.

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And in 2 Timothy 3, 16, this is what Paul said.

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All scripture.

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Now what scripture is he talking about?

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They did not have the New Testament at this time.

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So all scripture referred to the Hebrew Bible, what we would call the Old Testament.

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All scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for

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reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete,

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thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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That's how Paul saw the Old Testament.

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When he said that it was inspired by God, the Greek there literally means God breathed.

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That's how he saw the Old Testament.

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So how should we read it?

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Well, first of all, now that we have laid the groundwork that we should read it, how

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should we approach it?

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How should we interpret it?

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But first of all, I want to repeat something that I said in a previous episode.

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To approach it as a thoroughly human book, it's written by human beings, written from

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their memories with their words, maybe with their pen, or they dictated it to a scribe

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and it was taken down.

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It's a thoroughly human book.

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It's not absolutely complete.

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It doesn't tell every detail of every story.

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It tells the details that that writer remembered or thought of or thought was important.

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Now it's also divinely inspired.

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It is God breathed.

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So we approach the Bible with that reverence and that awe.

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But secondly, let's read it within the context of the time in which the events took place.

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Do not judge events and things in the Old Testament or even in the New Testament based

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on today's society.

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Today's culture and society is so different.

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We cannot judge it based on our culture today.

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We must judge it based on the culture and society that it took place in.

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Now culturally, reading the Bible is a cross-cultural experience.

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Now those of you that are younger, you're going to love that.

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You love cross-cultural things and I say stay with me and I think you'll find a lot

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of this very, very interesting.

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Some of us that are older or maybe we're less traveled, it's a challenge for us to not see

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and read the Bible from our own societal and cultural lens.

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And so I think that this series is going to be very helpful to stop and take a look at

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some of the things behind the story.

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The things that aren't being said, those are the things that are cultural, the things

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that are assumed that you know them.

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You know, we as Western Americans in the 21st century, we are very individualistic, our

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society.

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And we're very scientific and linear, very logical and linear in our thinking.

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But the Middle Eastern culture that the Bible took place in and that it's written from is

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a group culture.

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It's very social and it's a little circular instead of linear and very relational.

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It's a different approach to stories and sometimes we gloss right over that because we're reading

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it all about individuals.

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When it comes to the law, you know, you and I read some of the laws given to Moses and

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we think, really?

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And that's because we're comparing them to today's society and today's practices and

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what we know today.

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And so we need to judge them based on the society around them.

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And what we'll find is that some of the laws that we struggle with today were actually far

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more advanced than the societies around them.

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God was speaking to them in their society but he was bringing them along.

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He was lifting them up to a degree above that society.

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It was a step in the right direction, a step forward.

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But sometimes we don't realize that because we don't know what the society was alike that's

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around it.

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And another point, you know, someone may say, so you interpret the Bible literally or you

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believe the Bible literally.

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Well, yes and no.

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I mean, I believe the Bible literally as it was intended, as the writer intended it, to

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be written.

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So in other words, if it's poetry, I take it as poetry.

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If it's allegory, I take it as allegory.

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If it's a parable of Jesus, I take it as a parable.

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So but yes, I interpret it literally as it was written.

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A better term for that is actually contextually.

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I interpret the Bible contextually but not everybody knows what that means.

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So I just want to give you one example as we wrap this up.

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Actually, two examples but the same point.

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Just as we see Jesus who came to earth 2000 years ago, he was fully divine but he was also

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fully human and that means that he sounded like the humans around him in that day.

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He dressed like them.

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He looked like them.

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So he wore a tunic.

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He had long hair.

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He had a beard unshaven or shaved less.

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He spoke their language.

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He lived in their culture and their society.

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He was very Middle Eastern in his culture.

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He wore sandals.

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If he had come 2000 years ago and dressed the way we dress today, no one would have listened

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to him.

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He had to come wrapped in the culture that day.

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So same thing with the Bible.

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I keep saying see the Bible as something divine but it's wrapped in human wrapping.

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So in the days of Moses, the Word of God came.

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It's fully divine, fully true but it was wrapped within the culture and society of the day.

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Just like if God told Moses to build a tabernacle.

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So how did he tell him to build it?

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Well first of all, you get the skins of animals and you put them just right and he told him

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how to build the tabernacle using all of the things available to someone in the wilderness

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4000 years ago.

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So if God came today and told me to build a church or told you to build a church, he's

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not going to tell you to get the skins of animals.

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He's going to say lay your concrete foundation and then get your wood frame in place.

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And then put your siding around it.

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You get my point?

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That's how we build today.

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I don't expect God to tell us to go get the skins of animals.

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And if 2000 years from now he told someone to build a church, he's not going to tell

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them to build it the way we build today.

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Does that mean it's not God?

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No.

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It means that he understands you and me.

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He understands where we are and he comes and he meets us where we are.

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That's the wonderful God that we serve.

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And that's how we need to approach our Old Testament.

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Now I have a little tool for you that's also going to help.

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When you are ready, and you may not be ready yet, that's okay, but when you feel ready to

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begin reading the Old Testament, and I suggest that you begin on a chronological basis as

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we've been talking about.

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When you're ready, I've developed a little timeline for you.

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It's a timeline of the Old Testament so that you can review this as you're reading and

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remind yourself where you are in the big picture.

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Because I know the challenge is there's so many stories, so many characters, so much

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history and we can kind of get lost in it.

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So this basic timeline is going to help you to know where you are in the story.

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We have a link to that in our show notes and also on our website.

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Now future episodes that we have coming up next week, we're going to talk about the land

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of the Bible and then we're going to talk about the people of the Bible and we're going

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to talk about some of the proof that the Bible is true.

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And once we finish this series called the 3D Bible, then we're going to talk about the

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3D Jesus.

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And I can't wait for that one either.

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We're going to talk about Jesus and explain some of the history, some of the background,

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some of the culture that we just don't know because it's so different from our 21st century

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American culture.

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And we're going to help Jesus come alive to you along with your Bible.

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So today I want to end with some resources.

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We have a little booklet written by Reverend Malcolm Heading called The Great Covenants.

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And this little booklet, it's an easy read.

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It's for beginners or advanced because it does an overview of the four great covenants

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of the Old Testament being the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant.

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He explains them how they are different and also how they're connected and how they paint

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one story, one big picture.

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It's a very exciting little booklet and I highly recommend it.

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For those of you who would like to understand just a little bit more what I was talking

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about, about the Mosaic covenant being sort of a temporary covenant, a forerunner, and

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that it would eventually become replaced by the New Covenant, I recommend a book called

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It Must Be Finished by Samuel Whitfield.

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In that one he explains from beginning to end these covenants and this concept of the

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tension that's between the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant and how it is resolved

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in the fulfillment of the New Covenant.

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Lastly, there's a little booklet you can get on Amazon.

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It's called The Christian's Pocket Guide to Loving the Old Testament by Alec Moitir.

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It's a great little book and if you would like to have just a better appreciation of

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your Old Testament, some of the things I went over very quickly today.

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It's a very small book, very easy to read, very nice sections and chapters and I recommend

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that you get that.

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The Old Testament is the foundation to the New Testament.

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It's the foundation to our faith.

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It's the foundation to understanding who Jesus was and why He even came and what it

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was He was all about.

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So I hope that you can fall in love with the Old Testament the way I have.

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And while today's episode is just a brief introduction to that, these tools and the resources will

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help you to dig deeper.

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So have fun doing that.

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I'll see you back here next time when we talk about the land of the Bible.

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Until then, God bless.