Genesis 1 through Exodus 28 with Shawn & Nathan
In this first of thirteen weekly episodes, Shawn and Nathan explore themes and highlights found in the first week's reading—Genesis 1-Exodus 28. Join them for this fun and informative dialogue as they begin to walk through the Bible with you in just 13 weeks.
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Transcript
Transcript Generated by Riverside.fm
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Hey, it's Nathan. Welcome back to the 13 Week Bible. This is episode two, the first of 13, that serve as a guide to each week's upcoming read as we move through the entire Bible in just 13 weeks. With me today is my good friend, Sean Brace. Sean, how are you?
Shawn (:I'm well, Nathan, how are you?
Nathan Stearman (:I'm doing good. And I really appreciate you joining in. Why don't you tell me just kind of what you've found so far, because you and I are reading the Bible through right now, even though we're in 2022. I'm sorry, here I am mixed up. You and I are reading the Bible through as we prepare this podcast. So how's it going for you? Just like at this point.
Shawn (:Yeah, it's going pretty well. It's kind of a wild ride. I've read it before in 30 days, so it's not as wild a ride as that. Sometimes you feel like you're a little rushed, which is not the worst thing in the world, but you're like, okay, I gotta get it in. But it's been really good. I just, to be able to see the sweep of...
Nathan Stearman (:For sure.
Shawn (:the Bible is think is just so incredibly invaluable and helpful and you don't get bogged down in the details that I'm not a detail person I'm a big picture person. So this is really yeah, so this is really catered towards my interests and style
Nathan Stearman (:Right. Yeah, me too.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, and I'm wondering, you know, because you had a friend, you told a friend, you said, hey, I'm reading the Bible 390 days, and that friend, what did that friend say?
Shawn (:Oh, he's just kind of astounded. He's like, why would anyone ever want to do that? You know, I would want to slow down and, and try to, you know, get into the weeds and the details and I just said, well, some people are big picture people. Some people are detailed people. And I'm obviously the former.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Yeah, and so I wonder, you know, I've talked about this in episode one, but, because I think this is a great habit as part of like a rhythm of both deep Bible study and big picture, but it's interesting that, you know, maybe it does cater in some ways to different personalities. So you may, as you're listening today, you may find that you're more of a deep thinker. I still think it's worth the big picture.
fly through. I'm in, let's see, I'm still catching up because we're in, what is it, day, I think 21. Is it day 21 today in what we're reading? So we're actually in this podcast looking at the first week, but we're up in day 21 or so and I'm behind, so I'm trying to catch up listening to some accelerated audio, but still I find the audio is different from the reading that I pick up
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:What about you?
Shawn (:Yeah, for sure. As I shared with you before, I think every day except for two days, I've been reading. So two days I listened when I was driving, I had a lot of travel to do. And I think for sure, it might be a little easier to zone out when I'm listening to be honest. If I'm reading, I'm able to kind of engage a little bit more. But then...
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, yeah, true.
Shawn (:I don't know if this is the type of thing you're asking, but just the voice of the reader, you kind of get distracted by who's reading it. I would have pronounced it differently than that person did or whatever. But yeah, I think there's power in both listening and reading. Obviously, a lot of the people to whom scripture was originally written, they had it read to them, so there's a lot of similarities there.
Nathan Stearman (:Right?
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Shawn (:Yeah, I think there's benefits of both approaches.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, okay, yeah, I would agree with you. And I just, yeah, I found that I was hearing some different things as I was reading through versus listening through.
And one of the benefits I find in the reading approach is there is value in skimming. Just sometimes I find really just grab the quick thoughts from each chapter, because you can really put the big picture together. If you slow down and try to catch the details, you can kind of lose the big flow. So I think for me it's a little bit dynamic of my approach if I'm really wanting to grasp the book or the story.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:in sort of one way, I might just sort of hop skip through it just to pick in the big pieces. If I wanna sort of, and Psalms and some of those other, like sometimes Proverbs, it's a little bit harder because it is more, it is more of a...
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:I don't know, how would I say it? It's not a story. It's poetic and poetry doesn't read like a story. So there is some speed variation too when it comes to sort of what you pick up. You can't really skim through a psalm as easy as you can skim through a story and pick up the big picture.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Shawn (:Yeah, I agree with that. I find myself a lot, especially through the genealogies, just being like, okay, I'm not going to read all these names. I'm not really going to get much value from every little name. If we're trying to see the big picture now, again, in the future, you might want to return and say, okay, who's this person? And can I trace them out other places in scripture? And so I think there's lots of value in that. But just for this type of reading, you're just trying to get the big picture.
Nathan Stearman (:Oh yeah, for sure, exactly.
Nathan Stearman (:Right.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Yep, and we'll be talking about that in future episodes when we come to Chronicles. There's a handful of places that are, yeah, we'll talk about that kind of skim territory.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Nathan Stearman (:So the first day of this 13-week read is like a day to take in the big picture of the whole Bible. One way that you can do that, and that I did, is you can listen through a summary, or you can look through the table of contents. What do you think about that idea of taking in the big picture before you start reading?
Shawn (:Yeah, I think that's really good. It's why, you know, before you, when I read another book, you read, like you say, the table of contents, you say, okay, where is this going? You know, what, what is the big picture? You know, as I've mentioned to you before, some people like to read the last chapter of a book, you know, when they, I'm not one of those people, but I think there is value in that, where you can kind of, yeah, you know, where this thing is going and you know, the ultimate destination. I've learned, you know,
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Shawn (:Nathan, as you know, I'm doing a PhD right now and I'm a slow learner, but one of the things I've learned is the power of reading the first chapter or an introduction in a book and then the last chapter. And usually you can get the whole argument of the book and the introduction and the conclusion. And so I think there's maybe some benefit to doing that. Again, the Bible is a big, huge, long book, so I'm not recommending you just bypass all the rest of it.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:But in order to not get, not to lose the storyline, I think there's real benefit to doing something like that. You read the beginning and you read the end, and you say, okay, this is where it starts, this is where it ends, and so everything between is trying to get from here to there.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah. And so.
Today, which I haven't mentioned yet, but today's episode focuses on the first week of reading, which day one is just a big, get familiar with the text, days two through seven cover Genesis 1 through Exodus 28. You talked about reading the beginning and the end. When we get to talking about the layout of our reading today or this upcoming week, we're going to be talking about what to look for in this first part of the book. By the way, what are you reading?
insulation are you using?
Shawn (:Yeah, so I'm reading the message. It's contemporary language and it really helps keep the flow going real well, so you're not getting tripped up by these and thou's. And there are verses that are in the version I have, but they're very faint, so you can hardly even see them. So it doesn't break up the text in a distracting way.
Nathan Stearman (:Okay.
Nathan Stearman (:Okay.
Nathan Stearman (:Oh yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Okay.
Shawn (:It allows you to get a really good flow and real good sweep of what you're reading.
Nathan Stearman (:I think I mentioned this in the last podcast, but I'm using a Reader's Bible. It's the Sola Scriptura version or Sola Scriptura format in Ivy Bible. It's a Reader's Bible, so it's a four volume set. I super like it. I've been doing audio the last few days, like I said, just trying to catch up because I missed a weekend of reading, but it's good stuff.
Shawn (:Yeah. You know, it's funny, Nathan, my daughter, my oldest daughter was just saying the other day as we were talking about the Bible with my kids, she's a big, big reader and she's like, I wish there was a Bible where it was just laid out like a regular book, like a chapter book. She said, I would love to do that. And I said, well, that makes sense. Like that's the way people read books. Like I think it would be some benefit to that sort of thing where like you literally have one book is just.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Shawn (:like the book of Genesis is like any other book you'd read and it would allow you to really get into the flow of things.
Nathan Stearman (:Right? Yeah, I'm with her on that. By the way, you can get her a great birthday present. The NIV Solo Scriptura is a good birthday present. It's not individual books like you're talking about, like hard or soft cover books, but it is that reader's format and it's super good stuff.
Shawn (:Hmm. Okay. Good idea.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:So, and you also talked, I think we were talking before about sometimes you like to just jump in. So we talked about the first day being an overview day, but you can also jump in. And sometimes a reader might just wanna jump in. Go ahead and jump in on day one, you'll be a day ahead. You can use the extra day one as a buffer day somewhere later. So jumping in is an option, for sure.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Yeah.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Just kind of hit the ground running. I'm somebody that's the way I write as well. I just jump in. I don't sit around and fiddle with an outline or whatever. I just like, okay, just jumping in and seeing where it takes me.
Nathan Stearman (:I'm going to learn that skill from you. So let's see, we're looking at Genesis 1 through Exodus 28. One of the things I want to say is I'm reading is, man, there's some tough stuff we're going to be coming to in future chapters. The first...
Shawn (:I don't know if it's a skill or a weakness, Nathan.
Nathan Stearman (:I guess there's some tough stuff in this week's reading. But I guess the thing I would say, and you can just chime in here, is one of the things for me in processing this is to kind of leave the door open, let the Bible tell its story. And so I read, you know, there's gonna be some tough.
complicated stuff, but if I let the Bible tell its story by the time I get to the New Testament, by the time I get farther along, other writers are going to process either the same data or additional data that helps to inform the way I read and hear the story that I've read previously or how I think of the information I've read before. It's reframed or addressed again by
Shawn (:Yeah, I think that's one of the real benefits of doing a quick reading like we're doing is that you are able to really see those connections because if you're just slowing down and reading 10 verses a day, by the time you get, if you're reading a chapter a day, let's just say, which again, there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're reading a chapter a day, you're not out of Genesis until 50 days in and...
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Right.
Shawn (:likely you will forget by the time you get to Exodus 1, I mean now Genesis 1 is something everyone knows probably but For the you know sake of argument you're gonna forget what you read, you know 50 days before Whereas now you get 50 days into this plan and you're halfway through the Bible, you know, and you're just like, okay I remember a lot more You know what I've read before and so those themes Do come out and you can see
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:where the echoes are and how they're building on one another. So yeah, I think that's absolutely spot on.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, I'm looking at some notes I made from a previous conversation you and I had. And one of those is this theme of...
Nathan Stearman (:how God works in the story. I'm just, I'm true. The big picture idea and what we had talked about is that the original text was written for listeners. So talk to us about that a little bit because you had brought that up in a previous conversation.
Shawn (:Yeah, well, I just, you know, I think if this is the direction you're going is that, first of all, it's very important to remember. I mean, this is so critically important is that these stories and these laws and commands in this book were written to, they weren't written to us originally. They were written to other people, for other people. And I know, you know, on one level that can be a little...
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm. Yep.
Shawn (:troubling to us because we think, well, the Bible was written for us and it's for, you know, everyone's supposed to benefit from it and we're all supposed to, you know, organize our lives around it. But we have to remember that God intended that these stories were for the people to whom they were originally written. And in many ways, it is very much a cross.
Cultural experience to read the Bible in other words. We are entering into the world and the culture of people 3,500 years ago 4,000 years ago So we have to remember that which is both Some to some degree it's helpful liberating Because it can allow us to get a little distance and realize that not every little thing that was written
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:It's supposed to be literally applied to me. So it's liberating on one level, but it's also somewhat troubling and disorienting because we're thinking to ourselves, okay, well, how then do I understand it? How then do I apply it? How then do I connect it to my life? So I think that, again, it's both liberating and frustrating, but I think it's very critically important.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Shawn (:that we recognize that there are specific people that were the original audience. And that helps us just navigate things a little. It allows us to be a little more open-handed about our reading of scripture, I think. And...
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, I love that.
Yeah, go ahead.
Shawn (:Yeah, no, I think, I think, you know, kind of like how you've articulated it is that, you know, these stories and these laws and commands and so forth, they were originally for people who are in a different part of the story. Like we've now entered 3000, 4000 years later, we're in a different part of the story. And so, you know,
Again, that doesn't mean that part of the story doesn't apply to us at all, but it might simply apply to us in different ways than we typically imagine.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, I think I'll say this more than once and you'll probably end up saying it too, but I see this.
story of Scripture and the history of God's people as this journey of God maturing us over generations, you know, sort of toddler stage and there's regression, there's progress, and but there's over the long arc of history God's been working to mature the human family in a sense.
Shawn (:Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Well, it's just interesting, again, maybe this is getting too much into the weeds at this point, but when you get into, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but when you get into Joshua and Judges and so forth, and all of the blood and violence, and I'm reading it, I'm just like, why? Why would, why would, yeah, we're gonna get there. I know, can I bring it up right now, Nathan? I don't know. Just very short, why would God do this? Why would God have this be the mode of operation?
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, me too. But we're going to get there. We're going to actually talk about that.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, as long as it's short, as long as it's short.
Yeah.
Shawn (:And I'm just thinking, well, he's working with what the best he has, right? And he has to meet them where they are. And I don't think those people could comprehend a life without violence, if I can put it that way. So anyway, and I realize as well, like for us, but this, you know, this gets back to the principle you were drawing at, drawing out. It's very arrogant of me to think that I've arrived.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Shawn (:Now, I'm like, well, I have it figured out and I know how to do it the right way. And it just, you know, 200 years from now, people are gonna be looking at us and saying, how could they have ever thought doing it that way was the right way to do it? You know, so we're all a work in progress.
Nathan Stearman (:Sure, sure, sure.
Nathan Stearman (:Right.
Nathan Stearman (:Right, exactly. Well, we're going to talk about this more because this is a super huge theme in the way God works with people.
And we could spend like a whole episode just thinking about this because it's quite profound. I did want to say a couple of things. One is that the story follows specific people, so we're going to notice that in Genesis. And it follows the people, not the most important people necessarily, the people or the only people that knew God, but it follows the people that are important to this storyline.
of where God's going with moving toward Messiah, with building a group of people who can reveal his character to the human family. So there are reasons why specific people are addressed, and that's because there's a specific storyline God's trying to tell. And I'd also say that it's important to recognize that God tells the story that he wants us to hear, that we need to know.
Shawn (:Hmm.
Shawn (:Hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:not sort of a grand history of the human race. This is a story of the redemption project and God is telling us the things we need to know, the things the people to whom it was originally spoken to especially needed to know to take the next step in walking with him.
Shawn (:Yeah, I think that's great to recognize and point out. And, you know, I don't know if you want to go here, but just noting that the first, you know, 11 chapters are very fast and cover thousands of years of history. And then you get to Genesis 12 and it slows down to kind of parse out the Abraham line and the Abraham story.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Yep, so we're doing in this podcast a little bit of pre-work, but then spending a few minutes giving you kind of the tour guide version of what to expect as you read Genesis 1 through Exodus 28 in this week's reading. So as Sean just mentioned, Genesis 1 through 11, big, big stuff, lots of history from creation
Nathan Stearman (:and then to kind of slowing way down with the Abraham story. Let's talk a few minutes about the origin story, Genesis 1, 2, 3, that, that. What do you see as highlights there, stuff to keep our eyes open for?
Shawn (:Well, I think one thing that's very noticeable is Genesis 1 and 2 are telling the same story, but they are doing it in a little different way, right? Genesis 1 is, Genesis 1 is, again, a broad sweeping picture of the one through, you know, Genesis, you know, six days and seventh day of creation. And then Genesis 2 slows way down and kind of...
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Shawn (:focuses in on one aspect of it and that is Adam and Eve and the experience in the garden. So just recognizing that some have been troubled by this and there's lots of scholarly debate about why there's kind of two, some say different or even contradictory stories and you know, we won't get into all that I don't think but just know that this is a typical pattern is that there's
And we do this in our own writing. There's a big overview and then we get down into the details. So I think that's important to recognize in Genesis 1 and 2.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, but I think it's also important to, as you're reading the story, just be aware that the author is trying to communicate a specific picture, a specific concept. Again, this is not a detailed sort of play by play, not that the author wasn't speaking about literal actual events, but speaking about them in the way that would present the most important aspects of those events to the reader. So just keeping that in mind.
in one chapter, you can't actually recount the step-by-step creation. You can recount the important pieces for the reader to understand God and themselves. I think that's just important, to just take what the authors give us and be open to what God is communicating to us through that, recognize He's not communicating every detail that a scientist would want to know, but what we need to know to know Him. Does that make sense?
Shawn (:That's right. Absolutely, that's right. Scientists or historian. Again, you know, it's not, it's not, you know, God has an eye towards all of us in, in Scripture, but he also, he also constructs it in such a way that it's within the language, so to speak, of the people who are writing and the people who are reading it originally.
Nathan Stearman (:Right.
Nathan Stearman (:And it's a document designed to foster relationship. That's, I mean, that's a huge piece of this. So then we're on to Chapter Three. Okay, go for it. Yeah, what?
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Well, we don't want to, yeah, as I was going to say, we don't want to, no, we don't want to bypass chapter three because that basically, that basically, you know, presents the whole dilemma that, you know, sets up the rest of the book. And that is, I think to your point, ruptured relationship. Adam and Eve are daily communing with God face to face. Then they, you know, they obviously.
Nathan Stearman (:We don't.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm.
Shawn (:turn away from him and they try to hide themselves and they're afraid and they feel guilt and shame and so Genesis 3 sets the framework and the groundwork for the Messiah story and the redemption story and that kind of gets us off and running for the rest of Scripture about how God is going to bring his people back into communion and fellowship face to face, flesh on flesh, heart to heart.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Shawn (:communion with him.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, I love that. And one thing that really came through to me this time is recognizing that the story all the way up to the birth of Jesus is essentially the backstory to Messiah, to His coming. And that thread really, there's a major focus on tracing that thread and how the story gets to Messiah's birth.
Shawn (:Hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:I'd also say just one note about chapter two. Just pay attention in the creation story and be watching because when the...
Shawn (:That's right.
Shawn (:you
Nathan Stearman (:Just be watching because when the Noah story comes up, you're going to hear a lot of echoes from this original creation story.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm. That's right.
Nathan Stearman (:So then we're looking at what chapters 4, 3, 11, 4 is the first murder, things just start really getting off the rails so bad as you watch. It gets so bad that God's like, I got to do something about this. And so then there's the reset, which is the flood. What do you think in those chapters, anything to watch for as we're moving from the fall through that first murder to the flood?
Shawn (:Well, I think you kind of already set the table there where there's kind of a reversal of creation. The language that is used is just completely returning to chaos. You know, Genesis 1, 2 basically talks about how the earth was void and without form. And really what the flood story is, God kind of bringing it back to that state again so that he can start over again, so to speak, with a new atom.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah.
Shawn (:You know, of course, Jesus is the ultimate new and second Adam, but Noah in his own kind of way is, you know, he's presented as this farmer who's tending to the soil, to the ground, just like Adam was the original Adam. So, yeah, I think that's what we see there.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, good. And so then after that we're into the kind of the next sort of circling the drain story in the Tower of Babel episode. How does God slow things down there? Because things are headed in a really bad direction pretty quick again.
Shawn (:Yeah, I think what we see there is sort of an anti-gospel system of people trying to attain salvation themselves in many ways. They're trying to reach up into the heavens and they're trying to make a name for themselves. They're trying to try to prop themselves up and in many ways, it's almost like...
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Shawn (:You know, I didn't think of this connection, but it's almost like an echo of Genesis 3, where you do have the recreation, but now you have the fall again, and a fracturing of relationship, where God spreads them out over the face of the earth, and where once they were together, now they are, you know, they are spread out throughout the earth. And you know, getting on to Genesis 12, you know, it's interesting to me that we then
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:go from anti-gospel to gospel where God says to Abraham, you know, the language is the same as Genesis 11 where it says they were trying to make a name for themselves, God then says to Abraham, I'm going to make a name for you, I'm going to make your name great. So we have anti-gospel and then gospel, kind of the promise again of Genesis 3. After the fall, after the fall of Babel, then you have the promise of redemption coming through the Abrahamic line.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, and watch for those promises too as you read it. Just watch for those. They show Genesis 3 has kind of the first one. Then you'll see it multiple times between Genesis 12 and 50. There's some promises too, kind of same basic covenant with Noah or very similar in conversation with Noah as was with Adam back in the garden. So that's fascinating to look at that similarity. So 12 through 50. You've started us off in the Abraham story in chapter 50.
That story is still continuing all the way and in 50 finds the descendants of Abraham living in Egypt during a time of famine. So any highlights that you'd point out? I know last time we talked about the fascinating kind of...
The firstborn son is a big deal in the ancient world, but we find out pretty quick in the stories that unfolds that firstborn sons aren't quite the same big deal. God doesn't quite relate like the culture says he needs to relate.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Yeah, and I want to give credit here where a podcast that you and I both love and listen to, The Bible Project, pointed this out where God kind of topples expectations and props up those who seemingly aren't as advantaged, they're not as privileged. And so he does prop up the second born or sometimes not the second born but the fourth born or...
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Shawn (:The point is the firstborn is not always, in fact, very rarely in the biblical account, is the firstborn meeting the expectation that is thrust upon them to be the most important, the most powerful, the ones through whom redemption will come. So yeah, that's a pattern that goes throughout Genesis, is the kind of the younger sibling rising up and...
Nathan Stearman (:Mmm.
Shawn (:and being the privileged one, so to speak.
Nathan Stearman (:Yep, so definitely watch for that in your reading. You'll see it come up multiple times. This brings to mind, and I don't know if it's exactly related, but it does bring to mind the idea that character matters more than prestige, than genetics. Yeah, so I think that's something to watch for in the story too, because that does come up. Like, Judah's the fourthborn, but Judah turns out being a pretty special guy in the story as he certainly acts in just a horrible way toward his brother, and I won't give the details away,
Shawn (:Hmm, imposition.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:then he actually basically redeems his actions, or in a sense, redeems his actions after some personal growth and some important decisions that he makes. So fascinating story to watch that story of Judah unfold, which is given some significant air time. There was another story you said got a lot of air time. I'm not remembering right off the top of my head, but in these 12 through 50 chapters, there was one story I thought you'd mentioned.
Shawn (:Yeah, the story of Isaac and Rebecca is the longest chapter in the whole book of Genesis. And I'm not quite sure why that is, other than maybe God loves love, you know? He loves marriage, He loves, I don't know, I haven't quite figured out why that one gets so much airtime, but it is a beautiful story. So yeah, just keep an eye out for that.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, there you go.
Nathan Stearman (:It is, yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:We don't want to keep you too long in this episode, but let's just spend a few minutes on Exodus. We're not going to make it quite to the end of the book this week. Unless you do start on day one, you'll make it. But if you use that first day as a prep day, then you'll not quite get it to the end of Exodus by the end of this first week. So we're finishing at 28.
Nathan Stearman (:captivity in Egypt and then being freed by God. They leave in chapter 12 but ultimately celebrate Pharaoh's demise in chapter 15. 16 through 21 is Red Sea to Sinai and the Ten Commandments. There's some fighting in there. There's Jethro. There's the manna.
Lots of complaining to watch for. You'll notice that's pretty disturbing, but there's tons of complaining. There is also fascinating to watch for as Moses intercedes for the people multiple times in the story. And 21, 22, some instructions on how to treat other people. 24 to 28 are tabernacle instructions. Sean, what do you think are highlights to watch for?
Shawn (:Well, I think Exodus, you know, 19 and 20 are extremely pivotal and important. And, you know, we won't go into all the details of it, but I think this is a, this isn't a part of the story where God in many ways is feeling out how the people relate to him and, you know, they've just come out of Egypt where they've been in bondage for 400 plus years and they are used to the
sort of master slave relationship when it comes to how they relate to Pharaoh and no doubt what they saw modeled for themselves in the pantheon of gods in Egypt. And so I think this is just the theory of mine, but I think the story could have been very different if in Exodus 19, for example, when God kind of has a heart-to-heart conversation with Israel.
Nathan Stearman (:Mmm.
Shawn (:You know, they seemingly chose the master-slave dynamic with God. And I think God was looking more towards wanting to be, you know, to use one analogy, a husband and wife. And certainly, you know, this is way ahead of where we are in the story. But if you look at the story of Hosea, for example, God eventually says, you're no longer going to call me my master, you're going to call me my husband. And
Nathan Stearman (:Mmm, yeah.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Shawn (:There's echoes in that passage in Hosea that actually point back to the wilderness experience where, so God is clearly, I think, wanting to have that sort of relationship and the people just aren't able, they aren't mature enough to enter into that type of relationship with God. So it's a very interesting watershed moment that I think really deserves some
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Shawn (:attention and observation.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, I think that, man, we're gonna talk about this again and again, I'm afraid, but the idea for me, as I look at covenant, man, my thoughts are just so much going on in my head right now, but the idea of how God relates to his people really.
Shawn (:I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Nathan Stearman (:affirms his interest in love and as part of that his deep respect for human agency. And I mentioned covenant there because covenant clearly is putting the ball in human hands to sort of decide how they want to relate. Like it's not God just coming and imposing his project on the human family. It's him coming to invite them into something. Now we're going to discover that the accomplishment of the covenant
Shawn (:Hmm.
Shawn (:Yeah.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Nathan Stearman (:it, etc. The redemption project rests in God's power and God's redemptive work. But we're also going to see that he never sort of oversteps the line of manipulating and forcing his way on human beings. And I think that's an important concept to see because it helps us understand
some of the way the story unfolds, that God is working with people where they're at in the context they can understand him at that time in the story. And working from that place with their intelligence in the context of their choosing and being invited to choose toward a better place.
Shawn (:Mm-hmm.
Shawn (:Well, I think the key kind of passage when thinking about this idea, and it's not in the reading we've done today, but again, I'm sorry to keep going ahead in the story, Nathan, but Matthew, where the Pharisees come to Jesus and ask him about divorce, and he says, well, you know, they're like, well, Moses allowed people to give a woman a certificate of divorce.
Nathan Stearman (:No, no, you're okay.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Shawn (:Jesus said well guys I got news for you It was because of the hardness of your heart that you were allowed to give her a certificate of divorce And he says but it was not so from the beginning so Jesus is clearly laying out this kind of interpretive key that There's an ideal. There's what he'd really like to do. It's that you know that vision that
Nathan Stearman (:Right.
Nathan Stearman (:Hmm
Nathan Stearman (:Mm-hmm
Shawn (:future he wants for his people, but then he recognizes he can only work with what he has. So he has to meet people where they are. So that, by the way, should give us pause and say, well, I just can't take any little thing in the Bible, pick it up and say, okay, this is something that's for me, and it's for something that's for everybody in all times and all places.
There's a little more nuance and a little more complexity than that. But again, the main principle here is God, because he wants a love relationship, because he's entering into covenant, he has to meet people where they are.
Nathan Stearman (:Yeah, yeah, huge. So just a quick word on reading. We'll talk about this probably more than once over the podcast. Adjusting your reading speed, definitely recommend slowing down over those story portions. Genesis 1 through 4, good place to slow down. Flood story, good place to slow down.
The story, Genesis is a lot of good slow reading. If you're gonna speed up though, definitely when it comes to like the tabernacle instruction, some of that stuff that's more technical, don't be afraid to move through that faster. So you do have some time to slow down on the story parts and pay attention to those. All right, that's it for today. Enjoy your reading this week and God bless you as you just lean in and open up to the story of God.
