Sermon
Sunday Conversation: "The Weirdness of the Bible" from the series "Finding the Bible to Be Holy Again"
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.
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My name is Ross Stackhouse.
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I'm the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.
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From the beginning, our heart was to be a church for people who
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don't fit neatly into church.
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Our heart is to meet people where they are, to learn their stories,
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to honor their stories.
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Because in every human story is God's story.
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In this podcast, you'll hear more about the people who now call
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Heaven Earth Church home.
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Their stories, in many cases of misfits who are discovering or
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rediscovering faith.
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If you want to know more about us, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org
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Otherwise, we invite you now into the story.
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Hello, good people.
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Brad Miller here, the producer of the Heaven Earth Church podcast.
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One of the main benefits of being a part of the Heaven Earth
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Church community is our Sunday morning conversations taught by founding
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pastor Ross Stackhouse.
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You can watch and participate in the Sunday morning conversation
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this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern time at YouTube.com heavenerthchurch.
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The audio version of the Sunday morning conversation is available
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here on the podcast, which you can find at Apple Podcasts, Spotify
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and on the website, which is heavenearthchurch.org now here is
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Heaven Earth Church Pastor Ross Stackhouse with the message
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the Weirdness of the Bible from the series Finding the Bible
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to be Holy Again.
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Lord, will you light the path before us, Ignite a fire within us,
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the holy fire of your spirit, in the name of Jesus.
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Amen.
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Okay, so we're going to start with a little bit of a fun game to
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get your mind going.
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This is.
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Is this in the Bible really or not?
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Okay.
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Your favorite game.
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I know that you love this game.
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Okay, I got to get to the, I got the slides a little bit out of
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order, so.
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Okay, here we go.
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First off this one, let us know in the comments.
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In the Bible, not in the Bible.
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I'll explain to you why I'm doing this in a minute.
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So on that day, the Lord will take a great sword, harsh and mighty,
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and will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, Leviathan, the writhing
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serpent, and will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
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Come on, people, let me know.
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In the Bible, not in the Bible.
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I, I, I should see some yeses and nos.
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Okay, we got a vote for not in the Bible from Christie.
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We got a yes and a.
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Keep them coming, guys.
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We got three yeses and a no.
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Don't.
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Don't let groupthink influence you.
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Don't let it influence you.
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If you think it's not, say it's not.
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Stay strong.
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Christy.
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In the Bible.
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Sounds like Revelation to me.
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Angela says, I can see that.
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Yes, this one is in the Bible.
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500 points to all the people who said yes.
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You can redeem your points at a date to be named later.
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It is in the Bible in Isaiah.
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Isaiah 27:1.
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All right, next one.
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You ready?
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Here we go.
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In those days, the sky was emerald and the sea was crimson.
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The earth was ruled by demons and ghouls.
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No human or animal could survive if not for the provision
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of the Lord in the Bible.
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Not in the Bible.
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Let's see.
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No cheating, by the way, either.
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We've got a no.
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Hmm.
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Keep them coming.
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Yes or no?
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Yes.
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Love that song by Josh Garrels.
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Not in.
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We've got a Not in.
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We've got no's.
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Not in the Bible.
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Ooh, Nick.
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See, we're going to highlight Nick.
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Nick is.
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Nick is actually choosing middle ground.
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So.
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Nick, this is cheating.
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No, I'm kidding.
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I appreciate this.
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He's saying it sounds like Book of Enoch stuff.
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Enoch is in something called the Apocrypha.
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So it's in some Christian canons of the Bible.
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For example, Catholic Bible, not Protestant.
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Not, not, not.
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It is not in the Bible.
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I just made this up.
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I'll bet you if I would have left ghouls out, some of you would
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have been like, I think it's in there.
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All right, next.
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Then the Lord opened the donkey's mouth and it said to Balaam,
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what have I done to you that you've beaten me these three times?
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Don't let your friends sway you one way or the other.
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Is this in the Bible or not?
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In the Bible or not?
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We've got a yes.
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We've got a couple of yeses.
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Yes in the Bible.
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Not in.
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From Joey Ott.
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Yes in the Bible.
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In the Bible.
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Keep them coming.
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What do you think?
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Is it in there?
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We got another.
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Yes, Of course it's in the Bible.
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It's in numbers, chapter 22.
Numbers 22 chapter mention
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Talking animals.
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It's a thing in the Bible, especially in the first five books.
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You got a talking serpent in the beginning of Genesis.
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You got a talking donkey here.
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I swear this will make sense in a minute.
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Well, I guess I shouldn't say that.
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I believe it will make sense in a minute.
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Lastly, meanwhile, the Lord provided a great fish to swallow.
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Jonah.
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Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.
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All right, I'm going to give this one away.
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I think you all know this one is in.
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And this is where we're going today.
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This is where I want to spend most of our time is in that story
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today because we've been in a series called Finding the Bible to
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Be Holy Again.
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Benny, my cat is meowing because he's excited.
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You see?
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He's so excited.
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Can you hear him?
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Do you want to see Benny?
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Benny's joining us for worship today.
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Say hello to the people.
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His full name is Benedictus.
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Say hello to the people.
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Benny.
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Hi.
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Okay.
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Star of the show.
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You guys don't want to hear anything else from me.
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You just want to see Benny.
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We're talking particularly today, about what do we do about
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the weirdness of the Bible.
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And if you're like, ross, the Bible is weird.
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I don't think so.
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I'm just telling you, you dig into it enough, you're gonna come
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across some weirdness, like talking animals.
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There are many things that, when I think of weirdness that come
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to mind.
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For example, genealogies.
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There's so much genealogy in the Bible.
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This person begat this person and begat this person.
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Huh?
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Speaking of genealogies, there's accounts where people.
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It says they live to be 900 and some years old.
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Methuselah got real old.
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What the violence, especially in the Old Testament, that's attributed
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to God.
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What do we do about that?
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There's so much stuff that we could talk about when we're talking
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about, like encountering God through the Bible or trying to find
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those scriptures to be holy.
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And how do we do that when it's weird?
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But today I want to focus on these stories, like the one in Jonah.
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And I think as we go through this, it will help you to find God's
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heart through the scriptures, especially when you encounter that
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strangeness, like the supernatural, like the miraculous.
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Jesus does a lot of miracles did, you know?
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And maybe sometimes you read that and you're like, gosh, deep
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down you don't know what to do with it.
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So like I said, again, I think what we talk about today will help
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you to experience or find the Bible to be holy again.
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And I want to say something really quick, as an aside, actually,
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it's really important.
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We're not in this series, but finding the Bible to be holy again,
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just so we can find the Bible to be holy again.
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We want to find the Bible to be holy again.
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We wanted to rediscover its power and its beauty so that we find
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God's heart through it.
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And we're shaped by God's heart.
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We need it and our world needs it.
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The events of yesterday, I think.
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I think reveal that.
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I hope this doesn't take it off track.
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But it's important to say this.
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We may all have different feelings about the state of immigration
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in our country politically.
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We may have a different mindset and approach.
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You may be there like, you may be out there thinking, the Democrats
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have really screwed up immigration.
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They got us into this mess.
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Or you might be thinking, man, it's the Republicans who are just
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being.
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They're just terrible, awful, evil.
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Right now, I'm not so concerned about siding with one or
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the other, but I hope we can agree that what is happening in our
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country with ICE and what is happening with citizens of our country,
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but also people who aren't citizens, who are being treated without
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due process, people are being treated violently and obviously people
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who have been killed.
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It's evil.
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And we want to find the Bible to be holy again.
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We want to find God's heart through it.
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So God teaches us the difference between good and evil.
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Because one of the traps that we get into as human beings is that
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we wake up sometimes and we assume we know.
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But right now, in these times and at all times, we need God's help,
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God's spirit to teach us what is good and what is evil.
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And so that we do what God tells Jonah to do.
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When you look at how Jonah begins.
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So we'll get there in just a minute.
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Look right here.
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Whoops.
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Look right here.
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It says, the Lord's word came to Jonah, Amittai's son.
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Get up and go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it.
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For their evil has come to my attention.
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One of the things that we do as God's people is God will send
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us to cry out against the evil that is running rampant in the world.
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And I know this, guys.
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What I saw in a video about what.
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What's been happening in Minneapolis and stories there, but
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really what's been happening all around.
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What I've been doing to have.
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I've been a part of prayer vigils and protests outside of Miami
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Correctional Facility near Kokomo, because I'm.
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We're not hearing about just.
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We're hearing firsthand accounts about how people are being
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treated in this atmosphere.
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And so we need to seek.
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To seek the scriptures to discover God's heart, to find the
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scriptures to be holy again so that we can be strengthened in our
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awareness about what is good and what is evil.
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And we can also be encouraged, made brave to cry out against the
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evil that we see in the world.
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So, okay, that was a bit of an aside, but it's really important
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because every time we come together, guys, right, we bring our
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personal stuff and we bring the events into the world.
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And I don't want to act like those are compartmentalized because
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they're not.
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Alright, really quick, here's what I want to show you.
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Ironically, today there's an awesome image from the Bible Project
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on the story of Jonah.
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Bible Project is an amazing resource if you want to want help
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to find the Bible to be holy.
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Again, I can't recommend a resource any more than the Bible
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Project.
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So here's what we're going to find today.
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Ironically, in this story about a guy named Jonah who gets
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swallowed by a fish, that's really not the most important thing
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that happens.
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It really isn't.
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It feels like it.
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Perhaps maybe because of how we've heard about it, but really,
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if we dig into, if we chew on the scriptures slowly, we'll find
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that a lot of the heart of this message of Jonah is about how
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God does not play fair favorites.
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God is paying attention to all people and cares for all the nations.
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God is graceful to each person for the sake of the whole world.
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And God is addressing the evil that is destroying the world and
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God's people.
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And finally, God is asking us to love people like God does.
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When I think about, like what I gather from Jonah, that's it.
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So I want to talk to you about that.
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We're going to get to that, but also about the Bible itself.
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I want to tell you that we can have a very high view of Scripture
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without having the view that has become normal in recent history
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in our neck of the woods.
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We're going to talk more about that.
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You can let the Bible be authoritative in your life as Emily
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beared witness to last week.
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You can believe that God's breath is in each writing, as I talked
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about in week one of the series, and give up and let go of
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questions like is the Bible infallible?
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Is it inerrant?
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Is it all literal?
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We can release obsession over that which has become an obsession
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in our recent time in our neck of the woods.
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We can have a very high view of Scripture without having the view
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that has become normal in recent history in our neck of the
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woods.
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So I want to show you how to do that today.
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That's what we talked about recently.
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So first, let's do this one thing that we always want to keep
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in mind before we jump into Jonah.
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Okay, for a minute we said the three rules of real estate are location,
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location, location.
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The three rules of engaging scripture context, context, context.
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So the old approach that I'm saying, hey, I invite you to let
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go of it.
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Maybe you inherited this in faith and also part of the Bible,
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that certainty is the goal.
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And the question to ask is, what is the exact right thing to
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think this passage means?
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It's like, there's one right thing to think that this passage
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means, and we got to go get to that.
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I want to invite you instead to this new approach of approaching
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it with humility, curiosity, and a desire for discovering God's
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heart.
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With your primary question being, what is God trying to say
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to us through the Bible after we've wrestled with it, we've asked
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our questions, we've asked God.
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God, you're saying this in the Bible.
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Is that really your heart?
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An example of, like, why context matters so much is Revelation.
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For the record, it's not Revelations.
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It's the Revelation of John or the Apocalypse of John.
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That book, to me, is the most misunderstood book in the Bible,
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and it's largely because of context.
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You don't have to know all the context of the Bible.
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What was happening in the time before it was written was what's
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happening in the Bible.
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You don't have to know all that.
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But I do think it's important to assume that there's a lot you
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don't know yet.
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Revelation is one of those books that, like, it's ultimately
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a letter.
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It belongs in the genre of letters.
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And it was an encoded letter that a guy by the name of John sent
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to some churches.
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In a time when it was really hard to follow Jesus, it was illegal
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to do so, and he sort of wrote some of it in code so the message
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would get through and maybe it wouldn't bring people to peril, including
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himself.
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For example, the number 666, what does that number mean?
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It's in Revelation.
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If you wondered, where does that number, that preoccupation,
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that obsession with 666, where does it come from?
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The book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible.
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666.
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It means Satan, right?
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Yeah.
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We all agree on that, right?
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Means Satan, No?
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Nope.
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It is well established that one of the things that happens in
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the Bible is a fancy word I'm going to teach you called numerology.
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It happens all over the Bible where numbers correspond to letters.
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And it is well established from biblical scholars that 666 equals
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in numerology.
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Nero the Emperor.
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Nero.
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The evil person that the writer has in mind in this story
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is Nero the Emperor.
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Nero was being awful to Christians.
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He set fires in Rome because he wasn't getting his way.
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This is what we.
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That's what scholars.
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Scholars tell us.
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And he blamed the fires on Christians who then suffered a lot
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of persecution.
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When is the writer of John or of Revelation writing shortly after
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those events?
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666 is Nero.
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I'm just telling you that context really matters.
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You don't have to know it all, but, hey, approach it with humility,
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curiosity, and a desire to know more, to discover more.
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All right, we're not talking about Revelation today, Ross.
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We're talking about Jonah.
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Let's go through it real quick.
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You with me?
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Okay, here are the questions that the prophets context for Jonah.
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Jonah is one of the prophets, and it's in a section of the Old
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Testament.
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Prophets are writing in a time where everything has gone wrong for
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God's people.
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They're writing specifically when Israel got destroyed, the north
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and the south got destroyed by two really powerful empires who had
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a tendency towards evil, especially the Assyrians.
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Jonah is writing, or Jonah is one of the prophets.
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Who's asking questions like this in the midst of this destruction?
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So everything has gone wrong.
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The prophets are asking, how are we favored by God?
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And this was allowed to happen.
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How can God still be the almighty God?
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We've come to believe God is.
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And this evil is allowed to prevail.
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Is there a chance that we're just as evil as all the people we've
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been calling evil?
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The prophets will wonder that.
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And what does God have in store for us now?
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And also what does God have in store for our enemies?
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This is the backdrop of Jonah.
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I'm going to walk you through it.
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We're going to lean into the weirdness together.
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And I want to show you how you can work through weirdness in the
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Bible and find it to be holy, helpful.
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All right, we already went through this.
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Let's walk through this together.
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Okay.
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This is Jonah, chapter one.
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I'm going to walk through it quickly with you.
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Benny's in.
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Benny's excited.
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The Lord's word came to Jonah, Amittai's son.
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Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it
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for their evil has come to my attention.
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What's Nineveh?
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Nineveh is the capital city of the Assyrian empire.
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Remember what I just told you about context.
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The Assyrians utterly destroyed the northern kingdom of
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Israel in 722 BC did evil things to God's people.
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So Jonah got up to flee.
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Basically, Jonah, God said, go there, Jonah.
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Jonah said, I'm going to flee as quickly as possible in the opposite
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direction.
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I'M out of here.
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One of the things, like, if we're listening again, this is how
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I want to teach you right now, a better way I think of engaging
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the scriptures.
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Instead of saying, like, what exactly does this mean?
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And pursue certainty, approach it with like, humility, curiosity
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and a desire to discover God's heart.
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So, like, chew on it like good food.
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Don't woof it down like fast food.
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Chew on it.
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Be still with it if you have to.
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If you're a person who struggles with attention, listen
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to it as you walk.
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But listen to it, like, attentively.
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If we do that already in this first thing, we can gather a couple
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things.
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God is paying attention to evil.
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We may think like God is far off not paying attention.
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God is paying attention to evil.
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God has his eyes on it.
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He has his eyes not just on God's people, but on God's enemies.
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Or, excuse me, on the enemies of God's people.
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Already we can hear that.
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And a question that this is going to raise from the start is
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you're going to see in this.
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The Bible Project points this out.
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The people in this story that you would expect to do this, maybe
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the righteous thing, they don't.
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The people you would expect to do this thing over here, the unrighteous
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thing, they do the opposite.
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So sometimes we can't fit people into these nice, like, righteous,
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wicked categories, right?
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Although we want to because it makes us feel safer.
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Us and them makes us feel safer.
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It's not true, but it makes us feel better.
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The Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea so that there was a
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great storm on the sea.
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Let's stop there.
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Sometimes when we read the Bible, sometimes people have walked
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away and saying, oh, okay, well, that means that God causes
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natural disasters.
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Well, hold on.
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Is that what it says?
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No, it says, in this story, in this instance, God hurled a great
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wind upon the sea.
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We can't walk away.
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That's also the part of humility.
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We can't walk away with a conclusion and be really confident
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about it.
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That's being arrogant.
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We got to slow down and think about our assumptions and conclusions.
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It breaks out this great storm.
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The sailors important characters here, they each cry out
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to their own God.
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They're being superstition.
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It's like, bill, can you pray to your God?
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Bob, you pray to yours.
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Jim, you pray to yours, and we'll have our bases covered.
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We'll be all right.
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But what's Jonah doing?
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Is Jonah praying?
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No, he's sleeping.
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Isn't there another story later in the Bible of a Great storm
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on a boat and somebody sleeping.
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Mmm.
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That's the other thing that we keep talking about, like, having
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a big picture view of the Bible.
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You may not be able to hold it all together, but in Jesus story,
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there's a moment where there's a storm and Jesus is in a boat with
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his disciples, and he's asleep.
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And so again, the Bible is, like, giving us some moments where
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it's saying, like, hey, will Jesus be like Jonah, or will he be
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more like something else?
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Hint, something else.
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Jesus will tell us to love our enemies, whereas Jonah wants to flee
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from enemies.
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Jesus will go closer to his enemies.
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The Bible can do that for us if we lean into it.
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The ship's officer is like, how are you sleeping, dude?
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They do this thing, weirdness in the Bible.
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They, like, basically throw dice to figure out who's to blame
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for this storm.
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There's some weirdness.
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We'll move past something for now the lot falls on Jonah, and they
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go to him and they say, hey, tell us, since you're the cause of
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this evil happening to us, what do you do?
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And where are you from?
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This is kind of funny.
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PT Talked about this.
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There's a bit of humor here.
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It's like, wait a minute.
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These sailors didn't think to interview Jonah before they brought
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him under the boat.
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Now they want to know, like, where are you from?
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Who's your daddy?
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And he says to them, like, I'm a Hebrew.
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I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the
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dry land.
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It's kind of like, that's interesting, because a little bit
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ago, it doesn't seem like your actions line up with that.
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Let's keep going.
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They were terrified, these sailors.
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Like, what have you done, you moron?
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What are we supposed to do?
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He said, pick me up and toss me into the sea.
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I know it's my fault that this great storm has come to you.
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Now watch this.
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Watch what these sailors do.
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They couldn't manage it because the sea continued to rage
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against them.
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So they called on the Lord, saying, please, Lord.
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Now their attention, all of their tension, they were Jim, Bob,
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Bill, praying, each to their own God.
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Now all of their focus is to the one God.
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Lord, don't let us perish on account of this man's life, and don't
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blame us for innocent blood.
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Look at that statement of faith that they make.
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The people you expect to do maybe the wicked thing or the wrong
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thing.
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In this story, they turn.
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That's a huge theme in this story.
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It's like, God is Calling you to this, will you turn and go toward
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it?
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We can hear that if we chew on the Scripture, if we lean in and
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walk slowly with it, the guy who's the godly guy, he turns in
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the wrong direction.
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The folks who are like the pagans, they turn in the right direction.
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Anybody, Jesus demonstrates this.
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Anybody can turn toward the Lord's heart and be enlightened,
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inspired, empowered, will Jonah.
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Jonah gets tossed into the sea.
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These men worship the Lord with profound reverence.
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Again, the question, who's going to worship the Lord with profound
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reverence?
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All the prophets ask that, and Jonah's story is one of them.
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Like, who's going to actually profoundly worship the Lord?
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And a lot of the prophets will say, when we mean worship the Lord,
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we don't mean just going to the synagogue or the temple and making
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sacrifices to the Lord.
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How you treat your neighbor is an act of worship.
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And we've been failing the mark on that.
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This story is in line with that.
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Lastly, finally, meanwhile, the Lord provided a great fish to
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swallow Jonah.
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Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.
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Chapter one.
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Do you notice what I haven't talked about so far?
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What I haven't said, Especially with this last part right
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here?
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Meanwhile, the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah.
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Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.
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What's missing?
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I haven't even said anything yet about do we take this literally
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or not?
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Not said one word about it.
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Here's why I say that, guys, sometimes we got questions passed
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down to us that we were told are the most important questions
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we could ask of the Bible.
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Again, is it inerrant?
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Some of you've never heard that word.
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I'm honestly happy for you.
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Is it infallible?
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Is it all literal or not literal?
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And I've been telling you, I don't see Jesus worried about those
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questions.
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I don't see Jesus or his followers wrestling with those.
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So maybe we don't have to either.
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We just traveled through Jonah, chapter one.
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And we uncovered a lot of God's breath in it by chewing on
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it slowly, being humble, curious, and seeking God's heart
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through it, without even deciding whether it's literal or
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not that this guy got swallowed by a fish.
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Now, listen, I'm not saying that it never matters whether the
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Bible's literal or not.
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Do you hear me?
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I am telling you that sometimes if we're so obsessed with
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that, we may never get to God's heart because we're so focused
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on questions that are keeping us from God's heart.
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There are genres in the Bible, parts of the Bible that I believe
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that authors meant to tell us.
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Like, this literally happened.
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Primary example, Jesus, resurrection.
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The four gospels of Jesus life are more in the genre of kind of
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history, like a biography.
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These first disciples and followers of Jesus wanted to tell
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us, we literally saw this guy crucified, and we experienced him
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fully alive after he was dead.
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We're not saying that figuratively.
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We're telling you this guy is literally the conqueror of death.
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This is a library of scriptures.
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There are different genres in it.
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The way that you read Genesis is not the way you read Jonah, is
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not the way you read the Gospels, and it's not the way you
-
read Revelation.
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You might say, ross, well, then how can I do it?
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I'm just a normal person.
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I don't have all that know how.
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That's okay.
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Start with the assumption there's more that I don't know yet.
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And when you encounter weirdness like this, it's okay.
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I'm going to close with some thoughts on that in a minute.
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In this case, bibleproject says that this genre is satire.
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And so, like, what they mean by that is.
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I want to quote it to you directly here, if I can find it.
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Of course I can't find it.
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So anyways, we'll have to let that go.
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The point is that genre matters.
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But here, for as it relates to Jonah, let me just say this to you.
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If you take it literally, which I could get, I could give room
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for, like, I believe that there's a God who's behind the big
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bang.
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I believe that.
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I believe in our God who is behind life as we know it.
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The miracle of the holy, like, of, like, creating the universe like
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our God started it.
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I believe that.
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So is it possible that a guy could get swallowed by a fish and
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survive there?
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Yeah, if you believe this story to be literal, great.
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Don't condemn people who don't.
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I also, I could see it very figuratively, metaphorically, because
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it's in the genre of satire.
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Maybe the people who wrote this and conceived of it originally
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didn't even.
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Like, they didn't even mean for it to be literal.
-
They were just trying to communicate this point that prophets
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did, which is, hey, we're not just the only favored ones.
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God's paying attention to the enemies, too.
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And God's calling us to love our enemies like he does.
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If you take it figuratively, that works.
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Don't condemn people who don't.
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There are sections in the Bible that were Written with more
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literal intent.
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I'm not sure this is one of them.
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But ultimately we can find God's breath in it, we can find God's
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heart.
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And when we get to some weirdness, you know what we can do?
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We can simply turn a prayer to God and say, God, help me know what
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to think about this weird part.
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If we come to a violent part in the scriptures attributed to God,
-
we can say, God, is this really your heart?
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Is this really who you are?
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I'm going to get to the end here, the four points that I have,
-
and then I'm going to turn it back to Emily and Adam as it relates
-
to weirdness in the Bible.
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First of all, expect weirdness.
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There are talking donkeys, talking serpents, genealogies, people
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living to be 900 miracles.
-
There is weirdness all over the place in the Bible.
-
First of all, we should expect it.
-
This is a library of scriptures with many different genres,
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capturing events that span centuries.
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I've said this before, there's going to be a time in the future
-
when people are going to go, wait a minute, people carried little
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computers around all the time.
-
How weird is that?
-
Expect weirdness, but also notice it and go deeper with it.
-
Like I just said, if you come across a part that's violent and
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it's attributed to God, you don't have to go, well, God must
-
be violent.
-
No, you can say, God, is that really your heart?
-
You can discuss it with friends.
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Secondly, as I just said, approach the Bible as a library,
-
an ocean of writings with God's breath in in them.
-
There are parts of the ocean, beautiful snorkeling.
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You can be just on the surface and see beauty.
-
There are parts of the Bible that are deep, dark, cold, scary.
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You need help.
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Thirdly, pursue the big picture knowing that you will never
-
see it fully in this life.
-
I gave an example in week one of this series about the story of
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Noah.
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Something written at the beginning of the Bible and something
-
in Peter that connects to the story of Noah that's at the end of
-
the Bible.
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Try to see more of the big picture.
-
If you were to look at this picture, don't just read the Bible
-
and look at, just appreciate the details.
-
Yes, this actually is just one square of an entire ceiling of the
-
Sistine Chapel that Michelangelo painted.
-
Sometimes as Christians in our neck of the woods, we got hyper focused
-
on a detail and took it out of the big picture.
-
We want to see the big picture and see God's heart in it.
-
Finally, keep Jesus, the word of God in the center.
-
John 1 says that Jesus is the word of God made flesh.
-
So for us Christians, the Word of God is ultimately Jesus.
-
He's like the library of scriptures in a living, breathing
-
human person.
-
For us at Heaven Earth Church, this is in our beliefs narrative.
-
The center of Christianity is a person and his name is Jesus Christ.
-
So any conclusion that we draw about the Bible, it better make sense
-
with his life.
-
If we conclude that God is violent and has bloodlust, we better
-
look at Jesus who is not willing to spill blood except his
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own.
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So expect weirdness.
-
Approach it as a library.
-
Pursue the big picture.
-
Keep Jesus at the center.
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I'm done.
-
Benny, we good?
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Oh, he's asleep.
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I put him to sleep.
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Daggone it.
-
Thank you for participating in the conversation happening at Heaven
-
Earth Church.
-
Your next opportunity to do so live is this Sunday morning, 9:38am
-
Eastern Time, either at the main campus at 309 East Main in Whiteland,
-
Indiana or online at YouTube Live.
-
That'[email protected] heavenerthchurch the audio podcast
-
is always available at Apple Podcast and on Spotify.
-
You can help others find out about the Heaven Earth Church podcast
-
by going to Apple Podcasts and or Spotify and leaving a five star
-
rating in your review.
-
Instructions on how to do just that and links are in the show notes.
-
You can always find out more by going to the church website heavenearthchurch.org
-
we.
-
Want to thank you for spending time with us today.
-
My name is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church,
-
and you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact
-
your faith story may just be beginning.
-
If you want more information about our church or you're interested
-
in a next step, you can go to heavenearthchurch.org Otherwise,
-
we look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven Earth
-
Church Podcast.