Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Welcome to our September Reflections and Corrections episode. Let's start with the Reflections. We just finished our 39th book of the Bible and have made our way through the whole Old Testament, so let's get the 30,000-foot view on where we are in the chronological timeline of the Bible's overall meta-narrative. The Bible is one unified story. In Genesis, God sets out to build a relationship with one particular family, but things go terribly wrong when they fractured the relationship through sin. But their sin doesn't surprise God. He already had a plan in place to restore this relationship even before it was broken, and he continues working out that plan immediately, undeterred and unhindered by their rebellion. He sets apart Abraham to be the patriarch of the family he calls the Israelites. There are a bunch of sinners just like all of us. God blesses them despite their sin, but sin still has its consequences. One of the long story lines of consequence is of the 400 years they spend enslaved in Egypt. God sends Moses to set the Israelites free from slavery. They flee to the desert, where little by little, God gives these people the basic rules of how to have a stable society. They're uncivilized people who have only just met God and Moses, and they're not keen on obeying either of them. In the midst of their sin and stubbornness, God knows that what their hearts need is him. So he sets up camp among them in the desert. More than anything, he wants them to remember who he is to them, the God who rescued them out of slavery. But they keep forgetting, and every time they forget, they either get fearful and disobey, or they get prideful and disobey. Forty years after he rescues them from Egypt, their new leader Joshua leads them into the promised land and commands them to eradicate their enemies who live there, the Canaanites. God has warned them repeatedly that if they don't drive out the Canaanites, they'll become a snare and lead them away into apostasy. And that's exactly what happens. So God raises up military leaders or judges to drive out the enemies who are leading his people astray. But this doesn't deal with the problem of their hearts leading them astray. The Israelites do whatever they want, leading to near anarchy. Despite this, there are pockets of faithfulness among the Israelites, and even among the foreigners whose hearts have turned toward Yahweh. pagans like Rahab and Ruth who turn to follow God and his people. God has been telling us all along that he's going to build his people from among every nation, and this is evidence of that. Next, God raises up Samuel the prophet to lead the people. But what they really want is a king. God tells Samuel to give the people what they want, but that it's not going to go well for them. Their first king is Saul, a fearful man who makes rash decisions without consulting God. Then, a shepherd named David is positioned as Israel's second king. He is a man after God's own heart, but he's still deeply flawed. He makes a few wicked decisions that mark him for life, but they don't mark him for eternity. God shows him astonishing amounts of mercy and grace. David is succeeded on the throne by his son Solomon. Despite being the wisest man who ever lived, he has a problem with womanizing and worshiping other gods. Yahweh is generous to him nonetheless and gives him the distinguished assignment of building Israel's first temple, the place where God came to dwell among the people in the midst of the Promised Land. After Solomon dies, his son Rehoboam, we call him Reh, takes over the throne. But King Reh is harsh toward the people, and lots of them don't want to follow him. And that's how the nation-state of Israel is divided into two separate kingdoms. The southern kingdom of Judah, ruled by King Reh, and the northern kingdom of Israel ruled by King Jeroboam. We call him Jerry. God had specifically promised to continue the Davidic line of kings through the tribe of Judah, so he always seems to be on their side. But he takes good care of the northern kingdom of Israel too. For instance, northern Israel has a string of exclusively bad kings, but God sends the prophet Elijah to warn them nonetheless. Over the 350-ish years of the divided kingdom, God sends several prophets to warn both northern Israel and southern Judah about what's going to happen. They'll be overcome by other nations. First, the Assyrians defeat northern Israel and take them into captivity. Southern Judah still survives under mostly bad kings, but they eventually fall under siege by the Babylonians just like God's prophets have been saying all along. When Jerusalem eventually falls to Babylon, many of God's people are carried off into exile, but God promises them that there's a timeline on this exile. He'll bring them back to the land in 70 years. Not only that, but he'll punish the enemies who are oppressing them. And he doesn't leave them alone during their exile in Babylon. He sends prophets to remind his people of his promises to them and to remind them that his character has remained the same through all the generations, through all their sins. He's always been working out his plan for restoration. When the 70 years of exile are up, he brings in Persia to defeat Babylon, and God causes the Persian kings to show favor to the exiles, not only letting them return to Jerusalem, but paying the bill for them to rebuild the city the Babylonians destroyed. So they go back home and rebuild the temple and begin to offer sacrifices and celebrate feasts again. But they quickly fall back into their own sin patterns, oppressing the poor, marrying people who don't love Yahweh, dishonoring God and his Sabbath and his laws. God sends more prophets to rebuke them. The people are turning away because God's promises don't seem to be coming true for them. He reminds them that he has been fulfilling the promises. He brought them back to the land on his exact timeline and rebuilt their city. But some of his promises are yet to come, like the new heart and the new spirit he promised to give his people, and the day when his people will no longer be threatened by enemies. And he keeps giving us glimpses of this coming messiah, this servant king who will first come and die and then return to establish an eternal kingdom of peace on earth. But for now, we move into a new era. The end of the Old Testament marks the beginning of a period known as the 400 years of silence. During that time period, God didn't send prophets and we have no written records of his engagement with mankind, but we know he was there, working out his plan in the meantime, in and through his people, and that a lot was happening historically. We'll post a link to a short article in the show notes with more info on these 400 years of silence in case you're interested. It's also important that we talk about what was happening politically at the time. For our purposes, this is important. It tells us the kind of political climate Jesus was born into, but don't worry about all the details. Just try to hold on to the general feeling of it all. As of today's reading, the Jews are home in Israel after being driven out by the Babylonian Empire, but now they're under the control of the Persian Empire, the ones who defeated Babylon. A few hundred years from now, another empire, Rome, starts to rise up and takes control of Israel in 63 B.C. If you care to remember the order of the empires, it's alphabetical, B.P.R., Babylon, Persia, Rome. If you don't, here's all you need to remember for where we pick up tomorrow. The Jews are tired and they're ready for rescue. They've been driven from their land, had their cities destroyed, have lived as exiles and as slaves, had to rebuild their cities, and are now living back in their homeland under the oppression of one of the cruelest empires in the history of mankind. They remember God's promise to send them a new king who would conquer all their enemies, but they have no idea yet what that means, or how or when that promise will be fulfilled. When our New Testament reading opens, it's roughly around 7 B.C. This may sound crazy, but Jesus was probably born in 6 B.C., not in year zero, because our current calendar is off by a few years. We know Jesus had to be born before King Herod died, we'll read about that in a few days, and Herod died in 4 B.C. So we open in Israel in 7 B.C., approximately a year before Jesus is born, and the Jewish people are both ready for their new king and skeptical of anyone with power, understandably. So that's the lay of the land. And now I want to give you a heads up about three things that will happen as we're reading the Gospels. First, since these are stories, you probably won't have a hard time following the storyline itself, but you might miss some of the underlying meaning or the cultural implications. So I'll spend less time recapping the actual order of events, since you'll probably get that all on your own, and more time unpacking context and meaning as it applies to the whole scope of Scripture. Second, laying the Gospels out chronologically is challenging. Some of them aren't even chronological within themselves. So try to be patient with the reading plan that the people at Blue Letter Bible assembled. Don't let it throw you off. Try to remember that the point is to see more of who God is on every page. Third, we'll be reading some of these stories multiple times. Three of the four Gospels have a lot of overlap, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They're called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning they cover a lot of the same territory. We'll link to a graph that shows just how much overlap there is in today's show notes, as well as two lengthy articles if you really want to geek out on this topic. John's gospel is the non-synoptic gospel. He takes a totally different approach to storytelling. He writes like a movie director more than a biographer. As we flip back and forth from gospel to gospel, you'll probably start to develop a favorite writer. For instance, if you like brevity and wow factor, you'll love John. John is the action movie, but Luke is the documentary. So if you're into details, Luke might be your guy. Each of the four Gospels not only has their own style, but they each give us a unique lens on who Jesus is. So there's something new to learn or look for, even when we're reading the same story for the second or third time. We'll talk about those unique lenses as we start each of the four Gospels. And I want to give you something else to reflect on as we wrap up. Maybe you've said or heard someone else say something like, "I only like to read the New Testament because I just have a hard time with Old Testament God. He's so harsh and mean until Jesus shows up on the scene. I only like the parts with Jesus in them." If you've ever felt that way, were you surprised to notice that first of all, God the Father isn't at all what he's often accused of being? Instead, he's everything he tells us he is in Exodus 34, 6 through 7. And second, were you surprised to see that Jesus is actually all throughout the Old Testament? He's there from day one in Genesis one, creating the world. And in John 539, he says the Old Testament scriptures testify about him. The Old Testament is full of Jesus. We've been talking about him all along. Okay, that's all for the reflections part of this episode. And by God's grace, we don't have any corrections to report for September. So we'll see you back here tomorrow as we start the New Testament. From day one until now, I hope you're seeing more and more that he's where the joy is. Tomorrow we'll be starting the books of Luke and John. We're linking to a short video overview in the show notes that covers Luke one through nine and a second video that covers John one through twelve. Both videos are eight minutes long, so check those out if you have time to speak. We start the New Testament tomorrow. It is not too late to invite your friends or family to join you. You can find all the info to help them get started at the start page of our website. There's also an entire page of invites in English and in Spanish on our website. Head to thebiblerecap.com/start or thebiblerecap.com/invite to get that last friend or family member on board before we all start the New Testament tomorrow. See ya there! (chimes)
