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Series Code: TT
Program Code: TT000501A
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00:10 [Music] 00:20 >>TY: Man, guys, it's so great to be around this table 00:22 again. 00:24 Really kooky thing happened to me, this guy walked up to me 00:27 not long ago at a meeting and he said, man, I would love to 00:32 come and sit with you guys around that table and have 00:35 those discussions that you guys have all the time every 00:38 week, when should I come? 00:41 [Laughter] 00:42 And I had to explain to him, no, we don't do this all the 00:45 time. 00:46 >>DAVID: I've had the same thing. 00:47 >>TY: We're not always around this table. 00:49 >>JEFFERY: I mean, we do this all the time, but not around 00:50 this table. 00:51 >>TY: We do this all the time, but not around this table, so 00:52 Table Talk is something that we're doing for two reasons, 00:58 one because we just enjoy one another's company and 00:59 exploring biblical ideas and worldviews and the way people 01:05 are thinking, the way we're thinking, but also we're doing 01:08 this because we're big believers in something that's 01:11 gonna figure really prominently into this 01:13 particular season five of Table Talk and that is, we're 01:17 believers in what is referred to as the priesthood of all 01:20 believers. 01:21 And what we mean by that is we believe that the spirit of God 01:27 talks to people through people. 01:30 I had a guy say to me, I only read the bible and he thought 01:34 that was a really high thing to say. 01:36 >>DAVID: Yeah, a high standard. 01:38 >>TY: I said, well, if you only read the bible, you would 01:40 come to that part in Ephesians where Paul tells you to listen 01:45 to what other people who aren't in the bible have to 01:48 say, that God has actually put in the church teachers and 01:52 pastors and evangelists and people who are given the gift 01:56 of pulling together information and then 01:58 articulating it. 01:59 So, you really, in order to take the highest ground, you 02:03 need to start listening to other people. 02:05 You need to start listening and reading outside of just 02:08 the bible because people are being used by God. 02:11 >>JEFFERY: And you don't mean those other people, pastors, 02:13 just regular people, right? 02:15 >>TY: Well, the priests... 02:16 >>DAVID: Pastors are regular people, too. 02:18 >>TY: The priesthood of all believers idea is just an 02:20 incredible thing. 02:21 It basically equates to human beings cross pollinating 02:24 ideas. 02:25 There's no way that I can understand any given topic 02:30 better by myself than with you guys. 02:33 I'm gonna process anything better if other people's 02:38 opinions are brought on board with my opinion. 02:41 >>JEFFERY: That's almost implied by the fact that 02:43 there's so many authors that contributed to the bible. 02:45 >>TY: That's right. 02:46 With their distinct personalities. 02:48 >>JEFFERY: It would've been written by just one one person 02:50 otherwise. 02:51 >>TY: That's right, so, yeah, it's just good to be here. 02:54 So, what are we doing this time, Jeffrey? 02:56 Season five, at season five Table Talk, what's our topic? 03:01 >>JAMES: Yeah, Jeffery, what are we talking about? 03:03 >>JEFFERY: Reformation. 03:04 We're celebrating a 500 years of revolution that happened 03:07 and that changed the way we think and feel about God, and 03:10 so, throughout the series, we're gonna be talking about 03:13 some foundational things that sort of launch us into the 03:17 specific journey through history in the church and 03:22 we're gonna get into theology and history and expound on 03:27 scripture. 03:28 >>TY: So, we're just calling this the reformation series, 03:30 for those who might not be familiar with Table Talk, we 03:34 should maybe point out that this is season five, we began 03:37 with what we called the big picture series, then we moved 03:40 onto what, was righteousness by faith series after that? 03:44 And then, hard questions series, and then... 03:48 >>JEFFERY: Revelation was season 4. 03:50 >>TY: Revelation, yeah. 03:51 So, this is season five, we're gonna call it the reformation 03:56 series and we have a reason for that. 03:58 This is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. 04:01 1517, in October, Martin Luther. 04:06 >>JAMES: Halloween. 04:07 >>TY: Yep, nailed 95 theses to a church door in Europe, in 04:12 Germany, specifically, and so... 04:15 >>JAMES: Otherwise we'd be doing Daniel right now. 04:16 >>TY: Otherwise we would be doing Daniel. 04:18 >>JAMES: 'Cause we were gonna do Daniel, remember that. 04:19 >>TY: That's true. 04:20 We did Revelation, now, we're gonna go back to Daniel. 04:22 >>JEFFERY: But Daniel will play into this. 04:24 >>JAMES: But we still need to do Daniel. 04:26 >>TY: Someday. 04:27 So, yeah, this is incredible. 04:30 So, Protestant Reformation. 04:31 Let me just kind of set the table so that we can just jump 04:34 right into it. 04:35 In this 13 part series, these 13 discussions, we're not 04:41 gonna begin with Luther. 04:43 We can't begin with Luther because Luther, Calvin, and 04:47 the various Protestant reformers, all of them 04:50 represent a reformation, which means they're not arising in 04:55 history in a vacuum. 04:58 There's something that went before these reformers. 05:01 There's something that needs to be reformed. 05:05 So, we're gonna back up a step before them to... 05:07 >>JEFFERY: What was formed? 05:08 >>TY: Yeah, what was deformed that needed to be reformed, I 05:12 guess we could say. 05:14 So, but we're gonna back up even a step further because 05:17 the idea that there was and is a reformation underway because 05:25 something was deformed and needs to be reformed also 05:29 suggests even a prior step. 05:32 There was something that is original. 05:34 There's something that is, that was formed, and that 05:39 thing, we're going to explore in this first session, and 05:45 we're gonna call this one, for want of better language, I 05:48 dunno, this is descriptive at least, we're gonna call this 05:51 session, Hebrew roots Christianity. 05:57 Hebrew roots Christianity. 06:00 And all we mean by that is that when we come to the 06:04 bible, we're dealing with God inspiring prophets in the Old 06:12 Testament who were of the Hebrew way of thinking and 06:17 processing reality that God introduced first with Abraham, 06:21 calling him out and God led him on a journey of thinking, 06:27 and then we have Moses and the prophets and then, there's a 06:31 bridge between the Old Testament and the New 06:34 Testament. 06:35 We come into the New Testament, well, Jesus is a 06:37 Hebrew. 06:39 And all of the writers of the New Testament, with perhaps 06:43 the exception of Luke, were Hebrews, they were all Jewish. 06:46 There's a certain way of thinking on display in 06:50 scripture. 06:51 There's a certain way of processing reality and seeing 06:55 God and seeing human beings and that's the original thing 07:00 that we're going to explore first of all. 07:03 So, let's just jump right into that. 07:05 What is Hebrew roots Christianity? 07:09 Again, for want of a better term, we could call it 07:12 something else, I don't know 07:13 -- >>DAVID: No, I like it. 07:14 >>TY: What else you would wanna... 07:15 >>JEFFERY: You played around with the word covenant. 07:17 >>TY: Covenant Christianity, there's a backdrop, there's a 07:19 stage, what is the stage that is set by the Old and the New 07:23 Testament? 07:23 I guess that's the question. 07:26 I guess that's the question. 07:27 >>DAVID: Well, it's a giant question and I love the 07:29 direction we're going here to sort of establish what needed 07:33 to be reformed, which implies something was deformed, so 07:36 something was formed. 07:37 I like that. 07:38 And when you ask the question, what is covenantal 07:41 Christianity or Hebrew roots Christianity, that's kind of, 07:45 I think, what we discussed in our whole first series, the 07:47 bigger picture. 07:48 It was a walkthrough of the passage, all of the passages 07:53 of scripture, many of the passages of scripture that 07:55 describe this idea that God is interactive with, let us make 08:00 man in our image, there's this intense, intimate relationally 08:04 between the creator and the creation. 08:07 And not just any general relationally, but a 08:10 relationally that is analogous to that we relate to one 08:13 another. 08:15 So, like, you have Abraham as the friend of God and Moses as 08:17 the friend of God, you see, for example, God speaking to 08:21 people, God listening to people, God negotiating with 08:25 people, sitting down under a tree and eating with people. 08:27 And so, you have this, really, I think it's unexpected. 08:31 I think if we didn't have the Hebrew Old Testament, and 08:34 we'll get into this later, you wouldn't expect that. 08:37 And certainly the New Testament, you don't have the 08:39 expectation, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, so, God becomes 08:41 a man and he's like sitting at tables and he's going to 08:44 weddings and he's, what? 08:45 >>TY: I mean, there's one verse in the New Testament 08:48 that's mind blowing, it says that, these are the words, 08:52 Jesus came eating and drinking, quote unquote. 08:56 God came out of, you know, whatever realm God came out of 09:02 and came to our world eating and drinking. 09:05 That's Hebrew thought. 09:07 >>JAMES: Do we see that in the Old Testament? 09:08 >>TY: We see that in the Old Testament. 09:11 >>DAVID: Well, I was just alluding to that, when I said, 09:12 he comes down, he's sitting under trees, he's eating, 09:13 that's with Abraham, he sees the three people that are 09:15 journeying. 09:16 >>JEFFERY: At least in the tabernacle, where it says in 09:18 Exodus, where it says, and God tabernacled with men. 09:21 He basically pitched his tent in the backyard of the 09:25 Israelite camp. 09:26 So, there's that relational proximity at least. 09:30 You see God eating at a table, but... 09:32 >>DAVID: You used a word there, you used the word 09:34 proximity, I used a word intimacy, so I'm just gonna 09:37 put that onto the table and sort of, for me, when I think 09:40 about the Hebrew roots of Christianity, is that you have 09:42 at one level, you certainly have a transcendence. 09:45 God is other, God is God, God is divine, he is not created. 09:49 Okay, that's true, set that there, but the other thing 09:52 that's true is that there's this proximity, this intimacy. 09:55 God is close to his creation, he's interested in his 09:59 creation, he's invested in his creation, so I'm gonna say, 10:03 for me, that's like one of the major talking points of Hebrew 10:09 roots Christianity. 10:10 >>TY: I'll just call our attention then, to 3 points in 10:13 the book of Genesis, the first part of Genesis that really 10:15 makes this point about what it means for God to be the kind 10:20 of God that the Hebrew prophets described him to be. 10:23 Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God, the name there is Elohim, 10:28 it's a plural noun, God is some kind of plurality. 10:31 Verse 2, God, the spirit moves upon the face of the waters. 10:36 Chapter 1, verses 26 and 27, this God who is Elohim, who 10:42 moves upon creation, creates human beings in his own image 10:48 and that image is the male and the female with procreative 10:51 ability. 10:52 And then, in chapter 3, it says that this God came 10:56 occasionally and walked in the cool of the day in the Garden. 11:01 So, there's the picture. 11:02 If you wanna know how the Hebrew mind thinks about God, 11:06 the Hebrew mind thinks about God as coming among, 11:09 interacting with, having interest in the affairs of 11:14 human beings. 11:15 >>JAMES: It even sounds like in Genesis chapter 2 that God 11:18 creates a special day to meet with his creation. 11:21 >>TY: Exactly. 11:22 >>JAMES: The seventh day is a day that's blessed and 11:24 sanctified rest, don't work, don't get distracted, let's 11:27 worship, let's hang out together. 11:29 >>TY: Yes, so, there's fellowship. 11:31 >>JAMES: Yeah. 11:32 >>TY: This is such a beautiful picture and then, if you have 11:36 that background, you're not surprised when God comes 11:39 incarnate in Christ in the New Testament. 11:41 >>JEFFERY: Well said. 11:43 >>DAVID: If you read Genesis and jump straight to Matthew, 11:47 if you read Genesis to Matthew, you're not surprised. 11:49 In other words, Jesus showing up in a manger, Jesus showing 11:53 up in the temple, talking, walking, in the you know, 11:55 dusty roads of Palestine, you're not like, whoa, this is 11:59 crazy, no, this is very, you know, you highlighted these 12:02 verbs, he speaks, he moves, he creates, he walks. 12:05 You could say that very same thing about Jesus, he spoke. 12:09 >>TY: And even in one of the parts, breathes into the 12:11 nostrils. 12:12 That's some proximity right there. 12:14 >>JEFFERY: Even if you jump from Exodus to John, we talked 12:16 about him tabernacling, however you wanna say that 12:20 word, in the Old Testament, then you would not be 12:23 surprised, to use your phrasing, in John 1, where it 12:27 says, when Jesus shows up, this is the word made flesh 12:30 and he dwelt. 12:31 >>DAVID: Tabernacled. 12:33 >>JEFFERY: We've talked about this before, he tabernacled 12:34 among us. 12:35 So, again, anybody reading with that lens reads John 1 12:39 and says, of course, you know, you couldn't see it any other 12:43 way. 12:45 >>DAVID: I just had a thought on that and this'll maybe take 12:47 us slightly afield so, I'll just say this briefly. 12:50 Sometimes, in Christianity, or in the reading of scripture, 12:52 this hostility or this tension that is set between the Old 12:56 and the New Testaments. 12:58 The Old Testament God sort of comes off like this, the New 13:01 Testament God like this. 13:02 Okay, just, I don't need to get into that conversation 13:04 right now, I think we've dealt with that, maybe we will 13:06 again, but just on these points, there is similarity, 13:09 God is behaving in similar ways, he's speaking, he's 13:11 moving, he's creating, he's walking, he's talking, he's 13:13 proximate, he's invested, so we don't see dissimilarity 13:17 between the Old and the New Testaments, we see similarity. 13:19 God is doing the same kinds of things, he's tabernacling 13:21 there, he's tabernacling here. 13:22 Speaking there, speaking here. 13:23 >>TY: It's incredible. 13:27 So, the God of, do we say the God of the Old Testament? 13:33 >>JEFFERY: Yeah. 13:34 >>TY: Yeah, the God of the Old Testament isn't the austere, 13:38 angry, distant God that oftentimes people make God of 13:43 the Old Testament out to be, the God of the Old Testament 13:46 is very personal, very present, very interested in 13:51 human beings, interested in fellowship. 13:54 I think it's mind blowing that when God decides that he's 13:58 going to do something on earth, the scripture says in 14:02 Genesis that, he says, I'm gonna go talk to Abraham 14:05 first, I'm gonna go talk to Abraham, and Abraham has this 14:10 posture toward God, he knows God in such a way that he 14:15 feels at liberty to move through a dickering process, a 14:18 negotiation process, well, God, far be it from you to do 14:22 this thing that you're saying you're gonna do, but then you 14:24 have this idea in the story that God's listening to 14:27 Abraham. 14:28 Because Abraham says, what if there are 50? 14:31 And God capitulates to a man. 14:33 God says, yeah, if there's 50, and then, 40, and then, 30, or 14:38 however it goes, it gets all the way down to 10. 14:41 You have, God is the one in process of moving toward the 14:45 man. 14:46 >>JEFFERY: You get the impression that God wanted 14:48 that sort of creative interaction. 14:50 >>TY: It's not irreverent. 14:51 >>JEFFERY: A bit of weird thought, you mentioned that 14:54 some people project a certain God to the Old Testament, it's 14:57 not really there, distant, inaccessible. 14:59 I wonder if the creepy verses in the Old Testament, you 15:03 know, the stuff that makes people feel uncomfortable, I 15:05 wonder if that's actually indicative of God is so into 15:08 the messiness, you feel what I'm saying? 15:12 >>TY: Yeah, exactly. 15:14 >>JEFFERY: God is getting his hands dirty to such a degree 15:16 that we get those passages that really disturb us and 15:19 maybe that's not evidence of a distant, inaccessible God, but 15:23 maybe the opposite. 15:24 Maybe God is too wrapped up in the messiness of humanity. 15:28 And maybe that's why those verses are so scary. 15:31 >>DAVID: Well, man, you're tempting me to go down... 15:35 >>JAMES: Well, before you go there... 15:37 >>DAVID: I won't go down right now, but I think you're 15:39 exactly right, what we have is, and the language I'll use 15:41 here is immersive. 15:43 The picture that we have of God is so totally immersive in 15:46 the human situation that sometimes, you're like, whoa, 15:50 because God is in a continual set, I just finished a series 15:52 on Jonah in my local church, God is continually 15:56 accommodating and zigging to Jonah's zagging. 15:59 Like, okay, alright, okay. 16:01 So, you ask yourself, just as an example, why does God put 16:04 one of his prophets in the belly of a fish? 16:06 Okay, that's not God's natural inclination, hey, I'm gonna, 16:09 you know what I'm gonna do? 16:10 I'm gonna stick one of my beloved into the belly of a 16:12 fish, but when the beloved creates a situation where the 16:15 only way out, or the way out, because the fish becomes a way 16:18 of salvation out of the storm, so God is now accommodating, 16:23 or zigging in relationship to Jonah's zagging, you follow 16:27 there? 16:29 So, God's immersive, like, Ty's talking here Genesis 16:33 chapter 18, the question that God asks is how can I hide 16:37 this thing that I'm going to do from Abraham, since Abraham 16:40 is my guy that I'm gonna bless? 16:41 That is an immersiveness, that is a mutuality that you're 16:45 like what? 16:46 >>JEFFERY: Shocking by even New Testament standards, 16:48 really. 16:49 >>JAMES: Yeah, so, here's something, here's a verse that 16:51 might tie this together, so James 3:7 says, surely the 16:54 Lord God will do nothing except he reveals his secret 16:57 to his servant. 16:58 So, these prophets, these weak, vacillating, you know, 17:01 human prophets, they go in these different directions, 17:03 but God's like, well, I gotta, I gotta communicate through 17:06 him. 17:07 I've gotta use Ezekiel, I've gotta use Daniel, I've gotta 17:09 use Jonah, I've gotta use Jonah. 17:11 How do I do that? 17:12 >>DAVID: How do I use David, how do I use James, I gotta 17:14 use James. 17:16 >>JAMES: Yeah, yeah, and so, God is coming down and dealing 17:20 with our humanity in the way that he's communicating, but 17:22 the message is still there. 17:24 The message is still solid. 17:25 >>TY: Well, this is a good start, let's just take a break 17:27 and we'll come right back. 17:29 [Music] 17:40 >>This is the story of Niyima, who took a bus to the 17:46 doctor and found a piece of paper with words of hope about 17:50 Jesus, which was left by a church member who unpacked a 17:54 box that came from a truck which drove in from Durban 17:59 where a ship was docked that sailed from Seattle, loaded 18:03 with containers stacked high with millions of tracts, 18:07 trucked in from the Light Bearers Publishing House, 18:11 where more than 600 million pieces of gospel literature 18:14 have been printed in 42 languages. 18:17 Here's the amazing thing, Light Bearers distributes this 18:21 literature free of charge all over the world, and each piece 18:26 costs only 5 pennies to print, transport, and deliver. 18:30 Every day, millions of people buy a $5 cup of coffee, $5 a 18:37 cup, 5 days a week. 18:40 It adds up fast. 18:41 But at just 5 cents apiece, that same $25 can also ship 18:47 500 pieces of literature and give hope to people like 18:53 Niyima, who shared that paper with a classmate, who gave it 18:57 to her cousin, who shared it with his boss, who passed it 19:01 to her grandmother, who left it on another bus, where it 19:06 will be found by someone else. 19:09 And the story continues. 19:11 Five cents doesn't buy a lot these days, but in other parts 19:16 of the world, your nickel could change someone's life. 19:21 Your gift of $25 a month sends out 6,000 pieces of gospel 19:25 literature each year. 19:27 Fifty dollars sends out 12,000, and $100 a month sends 19:32 out 24,000 messages of hope every year, all over the 19:38 world. 19:39 Empower Light Bearers to continue the story. 19:42 Send your gift through lightbearers.org, or by 19:45 calling 877-585-1111. 19:51 Who knew 5 little pennies could do so much? 19:54 [Music] 20:01 >>TY: So, I wanna throw some scripture on the table for us 20:03 to consider. 20:04 We're trying to define what we mean when we use this 20:09 language, Hebrew thought. 20:10 How did the Old Testament prophets think about God, the 20:15 world, the universe, human beings? 20:17 Okay. 20:18 There is one word in the Old Testament that occurs to 20:22 describe the essence of who God is, by Hebrew prophets, 20:25 more than any other word, and that word is hesed, H-E-S-E-D. 20:28 Like, 260 times, that word is used, and when that word is 20:34 used over and over and over again to describe God, we get 20:38 a very clear picture of what God this is. 20:41 Let me just give you some examples here that are verses 20:44 in which this word is used. 20:46 Lots of people are familiar with Psalm 23, the Lord is my 20:50 shepherd, I shall not want, he makes me to lie down in green 20:52 pastures, et cetera. 20:53 The entire description, you guys, is hyper personal. 20:57 God is doing things, he's interacting, and then, the 21:00 last verse, it says, verse 6, surely goodness and mercy, 21:05 that's the word hesed. 21:06 >>JAMES: What is? 21:07 Which one? 21:08 >>TY: Mercy. 21:10 Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my 21:11 life, and the word follow there is a synonym for like, 21:17 pursue. 21:19 Literally David perceives God's hesed, that defines the 21:24 character of God for him, as an attribute or a definition 21:28 of God's character that has the God of the universe, the 21:32 one who is completely above and beyond human beings as the 21:36 creator to creatures, is actually pursuing us with his 21:42 hesed. 21:43 Okay, here's another one. 21:45 I'm just gonna throw these out for discussion here. 21:46 What about Psalm 26 and verse 3? 21:52 For your loving kindness, that's hesed, is before my 21:56 eyes, and I have walked in your truth. 21:59 Okay, so, here, you have this relationship, sorry, that's 22:02 chapter 26, verse 3. 22:04 So, now, David is saying, your hesed is before my eyes, I'm 22:09 contemplating it, I'm thinking about you the way you are, 22:12 God, your hesed is having an affect on me, is moving upon 22:17 me so that I am responding by walking in your truth. 22:21 So, there's a dynamic relationship that the Hebrew 22:24 prophets are describing between the human being and 22:27 God. 22:28 >>JEFFERY: And more than that, I wonder if your truth is your 22:31 hesed. 22:32 Maybe those are parallel statements. 22:34 >>TY: Well, hesed in that is loving kindness, truth is 22:39 emeth. 22:40 >>JEFFERY: What I'm saying, not the same word, but they're 22:42 referring to, like, God's truth is this characteristic 22:45 of his character, you see what I'm saying? 22:47 >>TY: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 22:48 But do you see the dynamic relationship there? 22:51 And in the Old Testament, is full of the usage of this word 22:54 and the word hesed, this is so crucial, the word hesed is the 23:01 word in the Old Testament the Hebrew prophets use to 23:05 describe the fact that God is relational and dynamic in his 23:09 interactions with human beings. 23:11 >>JEFFERY: What do you mean by dynamic? 23:12 Maybe you should break that down. 23:13 >>DAVID: Well, I think it's the thing we were talking 23:14 about, yeah, it's the idea that we were talking about, 23:16 God's accommodating. 23:18 Jonah does this, God does this. 23:19 Abraham does this, dynamic is, if this relationship wasn't 23:22 dynamic, it would just be Ty speaking or you speaking, but 23:24 when we're all and then you say something, and then, and 23:28 God is in that relationship. 23:30 >>TY: So, God's not unilateral, he's bilateral, 23:32 he's saying, I'm saying something to David, eliciting 23:36 a response from David. 23:38 >>DAVID: But now, here's the big question, and maybe you 23:41 don't wanna go there yet, but the question is, is God then 23:44 affected by, or moved by my response? 23:48 >>TY: And I would say that the Hebrew prophets would say yes. 23:51 >>DAVID: Well, clearly, but, and we're gonna get into that, 23:53 which, I can't wait, but clearly, if you just read 23:55 scripture, you have a reciprocity, a mutuality 23:58 there. 24:00 I speak, oh, yeah, good point, good point, you used Abraham 24:02 as an example. 24:03 What if there were 50? 24:04 What if there were 40? 24:05 There's a dickering process, as you called it. 24:07 That is mutual, that's going both ways. 24:09 >>TY: It's incredible. 24:10 >>DAVID: Absolutely incredible. 24:11 >>TY: The Hebrew scholars, you know, post Moses and the 24:16 prophets, looked at this and said, hey, there's something 24:19 going on here. 24:20 The God of Genesis is a God who engages in something 24:25 called, this is not a biblical word, but it's a Hebrew word, 24:28 zimzum. 24:30 The zimzum idea. 24:32 >>JEFFERY: That is a cool word. 24:33 >>TY: Okay, here's the zimzum idea, it simply means that, in 24:37 order for God to create in Genesis, to create spaces and 24:41 creatures to inhabit those spaces, it was necessary 24:45 because God is so mammoth, so huge, so pervasive, so God, 24:48 that in order for God to create others, God necessarily 24:52 had to recede, to give space for your existence and for my 24:56 existence. 24:57 >>DAVID: I love that. 24:58 >>TY: You see that? 24:59 So, God could be so imminent over us, so overpowering, so, 25:03 that we couldn't think. 25:05 >>DAVID: Of course. 25:06 >>TY: That we couldn't, if God were, right now, sitting at 25:08 this table, we would all be silent. 25:12 We think we know something, and so, we're having 25:16 discussions, but in God's presence, it's like walking, 25:19 it's like you're standing at a blackboard, doing mathematical 25:22 problems for a class and Einstein walks in the room. 25:25 Your immediate response is to be silent, put the chalk down, 25:28 sit down and give him the board. 25:31 So, God necessarily zimzums in our relationship. 25:35 He creates and in creating, he backs up so that we can exist. 25:40 >>JEFFERY: So, he would literally sit at this table 25:42 and say, I'm interested in what you guys have to say. 25:44 >>TY: Exactly. 25:45 >>DAVID: So, to illustrate, I've used an illustration, I 25:47 don't know that word and hadn't heard it until this 25:49 point, but the illustration that I've used with people on 25:51 many occasions is, imagine, like, this room, this studio, 25:55 if you had a balloon, a single balloon that filled every 25:59 space, there's one balloon and it filled up every nook, every 26:03 cranny, every molecule of available space, if God then 26:05 opted to create another, an agent, not just a mountain or 26:09 a stream or a planet or, you know, a star, but an agent 26:12 that can act, that can think. 26:13 >>TY: A person. 26:14 >>DAVID: A person. 26:16 In order for that to happen, that one balloon has to recede 26:20 in order to make space for the new balloon. 26:22 You still have the biggest balloon which is God, and 26:24 then, he makes 2, 3, 4, 5, so, one really cool way to think 26:28 about that is that your freedom is a concession on 26:33 God's part of his power. 26:36 >>TY: Exactly. 26:37 >>DAVID: I love that idea, the recession. 26:40 He's coming back so that he creates space, actual space, 26:43 intimate space for us to exist. 26:47 A thought on that, so, you used this language, and I love 26:50 this, Ty, this idea that God in who he is, is above and 26:54 beyond. 26:55 That's the language that you used, above and beyond, but 26:57 that's not the, I mean, there is a sense in which we get 26:59 that transcendent picture in scripture, but we also get 27:01 this proximate, intimate, relational, messy picture, so, 27:04 how about this, tell me if you like this or if you hate this. 27:06 So, God's aboveness and beyondness, his otherness, is 27:10 what God is. 27:11 >>TY: Yes. 27:12 >>DAVID: And God's down at the table, sitting, talking, 27:16 communicating, interacting, negotiating, that is who God 27:21 is. 27:22 So, we're dealing with God in his nature as an 27:25 incomprehensible other and God, in his personhood as an 27:28 agent who moves and talks and speaks and breathes and 27:32 receives. 27:33 You hate that or you love it? 27:34 >>TY: I love that, his character. 27:36 >>DAVID: God can't be other than he is. 27:39 He's not at liberty to change his nature. 27:42 I can't be other than I am. 27:43 >>JEFFERY: So, nature and character, that's basically 27:45 what you're saying. 27:46 One in nature and this is character. 27:48 >>DAVID: And they're not intention, but God in his 27:51 nature, forget it. 27:52 Forget it. 27:54 And this is where we're gonna see later, this is where the 27:55 Greeks get off. 27:56 Like, God, forget it, he's holy other. 27:58 Okay. 28:00 But the God that's painted in scripture, it's not that he's 28:02 not that. 28:03 He is that, but here he is, he's talking and his goodness 28:07 and mercy follows me. 28:08 >>JEFFERY: That's good, I think that's clear. 28:10 >>JAMES: That's what Jesus came to show. 28:13 >>DAVID: Yes. 28:14 >>JAMES: Jesus came to show, he's the perfect example of 28:17 what you call zimzum, zimzum. 28:18 He came to show us two things, one is, the word is made flesh 28:22 and dwelt among us, he came to show us who God is, but then, 28:25 at the same time, he kept talking about the 28:27 impossibility of us knowing. 28:29 >>DAVID: Yes, you have not seen his voice nor, you've 28:32 seen his form or heard his voice at any time. 28:34 >>JAMES: But wait a minute, if you've seen me. 28:36 >>DAVID: Then you've seen the Father. 28:38 >>JAMES: You know who he is. 28:39 >>JEFFERY: And this whole thing adds so much more to 28:41 that statement, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. 28:44 >>DAVID: But he would regularly say to people, you 28:46 don't know him. 28:47 You have not heard his voice, you have not seen his form. 28:50 But that's a great point, James. 28:52 If you've seen me, you have. 28:55 So, there is this sense in which God is ineffable, he's 28:57 unapproachable, he's unknowable, but that's just in 29:00 his nature. 29:01 >>JAMES: Of what? 29:02 >>DAVID: Yeah, we don't know. 29:04 I've said often in my preaching that the chasm that 29:07 separates the creator from the created is an unbridgeable 29:10 chasm. 29:11 >>JEFFERY: It's infinite, yeah. 29:12 >>DAVID: It's an infinite chasm. 29:14 10,000 years from now, 10 million years from now, if 29:16 you've lived long enough to accumulate all of the data and 29:19 knowledge that you could in 10 million years, you would be no 29:22 closer to bridging that chasm than you are right now. 29:24 >>JEFFERY: That's why the Messiah picture is so 29:27 profound. 29:28 >>TY: Because the only one who can bridge the chasm is God 29:30 himself by coming down, we can't bridge the chasm by 29:34 going up. 29:35 >>DAVID: Thank you. 29:36 >>TY: Because there's no, we can't transcend our finitude, 29:40 we're just creatures that are made. 29:42 There's other language that I've found helpful for me, the 29:47 God of the Hebrews, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 29:52 God of Moses and the prophets, is a God who exists adjacent 29:57 to... 29:59 >>DAVID: His creation. 30:00 >>TY: ...his creation. 30:02 He doesn't cancel it out by overpowering it. 30:07 So, God exists beside me, he created me, but I'm an actual 30:13 thinking, processing, emoting being and my thoughts and 30:18 thinking, processing, emoting being and my thoughts and 30:21 feelings and actions have, for their final explanation, me. 30:31 Not him. 30:32 He's not overpowering, I'm not a puppet on strings. 30:36 I actually exist. 30:37 I can say something to God like, God, you're amazing, and 30:42 he can experience the delight of my perception. 30:45 >>DAVID: I was just gonna press pause on that slightly, 30:47 but you go ahead. 30:48 >>JEFFERY: I was gonna say that, well, we're talking 30:51 about the distinction between nature and character, what he 30:54 is versus who he is. 30:55 And it just occurred to me that we could say that the 30:59 Hebrew mindset, the Old Testament is far more 31:03 interested in the latter than the former, 31:04 >>DAVID: THank you 31:05 because when, in Genesis 1:1, it says in the beginning, 31:08 God, and I remember reading how that's pretty abrupt. 31:12 >>DAVID: It's hugely abrupt. 31:12 There's no back-story. 31:14 >>JEFFERY: There's no back-story, there's no 31:15 explanation, there's no breakdown of his nature, it 31:18 just says, in the beginning, God is there, and then, this 31:22 is how he expresses himself. 31:24 In the first, in the second, and then, from there on, it's 31:27 just fast-forward, so, it's just like, the Old Testament 31:31 prophets are very, I shouldn't say very, are, they seem to be 31:36 not so interested in that transcendent, you know, nature 31:41 part. 31:42 They're more obsessed with the character. 31:45 This is what he's like. 31:46 That's powerful. 31:47 >>JAMES: Ever since I've been a little boy, I've tried to 31:50 even contemplate, what is God? 31:53 And what would be here if there wasn't God and how did 31:57 this, what is that? 31:58 And just, it's impossible. 32:00 But the whole idea of introducing himself in the who 32:04 rather than in the what is so awesome, yes, we can grasp 32:08 that. 32:09 >>JEFFERY: And even that blows our mind. 32:11 >>TY: You could say it like this, I can't know what God 32:15 is, but I can know who God is. 32:17 >>JEFFERY: What he's like, not what, but what he's like. 32:20 >>TY: So, all of that gives way to the key concept that 32:30 the Hebrew prophets, Moses and the prophet, Abraham, Isaac, 32:32 and beginning with Abraham, but going even before that 32:35 with Noah, okay, there's this idea in the Old Testament that 32:40 is the concept that defines what hesed looks like and it's 32:46 the concept of covenant. 32:50 The God of the Old Testament is a God of covenant. 32:54 A God of relationship or a God of relational integrity. 33:00 So, can I throw some more scripture on the table? 33:02 Okay, so, Isaiah 54, verse 10, if you guys wanna go there 33:06 real quick, look at this and tell me what you think of 33:08 this. 33:09 Here's Isaiah 54, verse 10. 33:11 >>DAVID: I will give him as? 33:13 >>TY: No, no, no, no, this is Isaiah 54 verse 10, it says 33:16 for the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but 33:22 my kindness shall not depart from you, nor my covenant of 33:27 peace be removed, says the Lord who has hesed on you, 33:31 mercy on you. 33:32 So, there you have, in one breath, this idea that because 33:37 God is hesed, because God is a God of unfeeling relational 33:43 integrity, God is saying, hey, everything in nature may be in 33:48 upheaval. 33:50 Mountains may sink into the ocean, anything could happen 33:56 to change what's going on in the physical universe. 34:00 But I won't change in my basic fundamental posture towards 34:04 you. 34:06 I am covenantal committed to you, no matter what happens to 34:09 the mountains, the sea, the sky, everything can implode 34:13 and I'll still be committed to you. 34:15 That's the biblical idea that the Hebrew prophets were 34:18 messaging, all through the Old Testament, this idea that God 34:22 is faithful, God is relationally faithful, God is 34:25 committed. 34:26 God is toward me precisely as God always has been toward me 34:31 and it's unchangeable in his basic makeup, in his basic 34:34 character. 34:35 Okay, just one chapter over, chapter 55, verse 3, incline 34:39 your hear and come and hear and my soul shall live. 34:45 Now, here's the words, and I will make an everlasting 34:48 covenant with you, then these words, the sure mercies, 34:53 hesed. 34:54 The sure mercies of David. 34:57 The NIV translates that, I think, something like the 35:00 unfailing love promised to David. 35:03 Hesed is unfailing love. 35:07 And that's the defining characteristic of the God of 35:12 the Old Testament. 35:13 >>DAVID: I love the fact that you, when you're describing 35:16 that, Ty, and I think this is great for those that are 35:18 listening in that, when we talk about God's faithfulness, 35:22 we are not just talking about a dry, flat faithfulness. 35:27 it is a relational faithfulness. 35:29 You used a term that you use regularly, and I love that 35:31 term. 35:32 In fact, I think you're the first one I ever heard say it, 35:34 is relational integrity. 35:36 So, there's a solidity there, there is a consistency there, 35:42 but it's a consistency within the context of a relationship 35:46 and so, for me, that's huge for me, that's huge for all of 35:49 us, but in my own devotional, experiential life, sort of 35:52 stepping outside of the theological realm, I love the 35:56 idea that God's faithfulness, his relational integrity is to 36:00 me, and my name is David, so this text, you know, is really 36:03 pretty for me, I love it, this idea that God would include 36:07 the name David as an identifier of his posture 36:12 toward people, that's his way of saying, hey, look, this is 36:14 how I will be. 36:15 'Cause there have been times, come on, where you have 36:18 failed, you've fallen, you've made a mistake, you've been 36:20 unkind, you've gossiped, whatever the thing might be, 36:23 you have been unfaithful covenantally. 36:27 God's covenantal faithfulness is unmoved. 36:30 My unfaithfulness, you know, shall the unfaithfulness of 36:33 man make the faithfulness of none effect, may it never be. 36:36 So, I just, without that solidity and that constancy 36:40 there, it would be tough. 36:43 there, it would be tough. 36:44 >>JEFFERY: His faithfulness is unmoved, but he's not 36:47 completely unmoved. 36:49 >>DAVID: He's not unmoved emotionally. 36:50 >>TY: Jeffrey, that's what we were referring to before in 36:56 the language of the Hebrew prophets, it is precisely 36:59 because god is changeless in his love that he's so 37:02 changeable in his relational interactions. 37:05 >>DAVID: Say that again. 37:06 >>TY: It's precisely because God is changeless at his core 37:11 that God is changeless in his love, that he is so dynamic in 37:16 shifting and zigging and zagging to interact with 37:20 people according to their situation. 37:22 It is precisely because he's changeless that he's so 37:25 changeable. 37:26 >>JEFFERY: And because if he wasn't changeless in his love 37:28 and commitment toward us, then regardless of what you did, if 37:32 you didn't respond correctly, then he would be unmoved, he 37:35 could just cut you off, right? 37:37 But the fact that he's so committed to you, he is 37:40 therefore committed to adjusting to whatever 37:42 scenarios. 37:43 >>TY: Think about it this way, you love Mariana, and you love 37:45 her so much and your faithfulness is toward her and 37:48 because you are changeless in your love toward her, if 37:53 something develops in her situation that is challenging, 37:57 you're going to shift on your feet in order to meet her in 38:01 that situation. 38:03 >>JEFFERY: The willingness to adjust is demonstration of 38:06 your commitment. 38:07 >>TY: Like, in marriage counseling, sometimes, we say, 38:09 or at least, I say, the most egregious manifestation of 38:13 selfishness in a relationship is the unwillingness to 38:16 change. 38:17 And God's the opposite of that, he's constantly in 38:20 motion toward us precisely because he is motionless in 38:25 his essence. 38:27 >>JAMES: This has huge implications for humanity at 38:30 large because if that's the case, then God is working 38:34 through all religious systems one way or another. 38:38 He's moving and accommodating as much as he can. 38:43 I think we're gonna get into this more when we look at the 38:45 history of reformation. 38:46 And even previous to reformation. 38:48 And how God interacts with people that today, we would 38:50 consider to be, woo, way, yeah. 38:52 >>DAVID: He's in a continual state of accommodation. 38:55 Except in Jesus. 38:57 >>JAMES: And then, we see also, right, in the Old 38:59 Testament, when God says, let them make me a sanctuary that 39:02 I may, what I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, how can I figure, 39:05 okay, here's something that will work. 39:08 Here's something that'll work, I can accommodate this way and 39:10 this is gonna be a way that they can see me and get to 39:13 know me in their present situation. 39:15 >>TY: That's a good note to take a break on, James, 39:18 because we got a lot to cover here in the minutes that 39:21 remain. 39:23 [Music] 39:34 Announcer: The Light Bearers Story is a short award-winning 39:36 video that gives an inside look at one of the boldest and 39:39 most effective missionary ventures of our time. 39:42 You will see how multiple millions of gospel 39:45 publications are flooding the nations free of charge by 39:48 surprisingly simple means. 39:50 For your free copy of the Light Bearers Story, call 39:53 877-585-1111, or write to Light Bearers, 39:59 37457 Jasper Lowell Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 40:05 Once again, for your free copy of the Light Bearers Story, 40:08 call 877-585-1111 or write to Light Bearers 40:14 37457 Jasper Lowell Road, Jasper, Oregon 97438. 40:20 Simply ask for the Light Bearers Story. 40:25 [Music] 40:31 >>TY: With the material that we've covered so far with the 40:34 concepts that we've put on the table, you can begin to see, 40:37 we start to feel that the changes that are coming in 40:42 theological perceptions down the pike from the Hebrew way 40:45 of thinking are so Titanic, they're so gigantic, you can 40:50 see that if the God of scripture, the Hebrew God of 40:56 Moses and the prophets is a dynamic, interactive, 41:00 reciprocating, relational God, it becomes all the more 41:06 contrasting when we come to those periods of history when, 41:10 suddenly, God is portrayed as static and above and beyond 41:16 and so other that he never, ever enters into human 41:20 affairs, and it even goes a step farther than that, you 41:23 realize, wow, this is incredible when you come down 41:26 the line into the development of pagan philosophy in the 41:31 Greeks, basically, Plato comes to the point where he says, 41:35 none of us actually exist, God is so over... 41:39 >>JEFFERY: We're consumed in him, we're swallowed up. 41:41 >>TY: We're swallowed up, we don't have any adjacency with 41:44 God. 41:45 There's no relationship. 41:46 >>JEFFERY: And it also separates the categories that 41:48 we, as limited human beings, can engage in, right? 41:51 We should engage less in the first part, right, in the 41:55 nature of God, and we should seek to engage more in the 41:58 character of God because that's what scripture gives us 42:02 access to. 42:03 There's very little explication on, this is what 42:06 God, you know, is. 42:08 >>DAVID: Well, like you said, there in Genesis 1, it just 42:10 opens, rather abruptly. 42:11 >>JEFFERY: It just assumes God is there. 42:14 But how he got there, we don't know, right? 42:16 And the other thing I was gonna say was, this whole 42:18 thing also shows the importance of ideas. 42:21 The ripple affect of ideas. 42:22 It matters what you think about God because one, you 42:26 know, one little idea about God that's not consistent with 42:32 what he's revealed to be like down the line could matter a 42:37 lot, it could change a lot. 42:39 >>TY: Okay, so, let's build the bridge now between the Old 42:42 Testament, the God of Moses and the prophets. 42:46 >>DAVID: I knew where you were going. 42:48 >>TY: Okay, to what, for me, maybe for all of you, I don't 42:50 know, I didn't tell you guys this. 42:52 But, no, 2 Corinthians 1:20, okay, this, to me, this to me 42:58 is the bible verse in the New Testament, it is the apostle 43:02 Paul telling us exactly what the connection is between the 43:07 Old and the New. 43:08 This is the whole thing. 43:11 It says here, 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 20. 43:15 For all the promises of God, okay, pause right there. 43:19 When Paul says all the promises of God, he means the 43:22 Old Testament, in totality. 43:23 He means everything that Moses wrote, everything the prophets 43:26 wrote, he says, all the promises of God are in him, in 43:30 Christ, yes, and in him, amen, to the glory of God through 43:37 us. 43:38 Isn't that amazing? 43:39 So, essentially what Paul is doing is he's telling you, 43:43 he's telling me, he's saying, listen, I'll tell you what's 43:45 going on. 43:47 I'll tell you what the relationship is between the 43:51 Old and the New Testament, between the Yahweh of the Old 43:56 Testament and the Yeshua of the New Testament. 44:00 I'll tell you what the connection is. 44:03 Paul is saying, listen, the whole Old Testament was one 44:06 big old giant promise. 44:08 It was covenant made. 44:10 It was the declaration of the character of God, the kind of 44:15 god God is, and all the promises that filled that out. 44:18 And Paul says, I'll tell you what's going on in the New 44:20 Testament, God has now showed up, in Christ, to fulfill all 44:25 that the law and the prophets had uttered. 44:27 >>JEFFERY: Jesus shows up and God's like, I approve of this 44:30 message, basically. 44:31 >>DAVID: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. 44:34 I just bought a book recently, a scholarly work, probably a 44:37 year ago, and it's a book on justification. 44:39 So, I open it up and I'm like, ah, you know, I don't know 44:43 where he's coming from, I don't know where he's going, 44:45 and in the introduction, the very first text he quotes is 44:49 2 Corinthians 1:20, and already, I'm in identification. 44:53 I'm like, okay. 44:54 And then, as the book unfolds, I'm like, yes, yes, because 44:58 this is, definitive might be too strong of a word, but this 45:02 text encapsulates absolutely the essence of the 45:05 relationship between the Old and the New Testament. 45:08 God makes promises, God has kept promises, all of them, 45:11 not some of them, not most of them, and this will have huge 45:14 implications because there are a lot of people, well-meaning 45:17 people who read the New Testament as if all of the 45:21 promises of God, in fact, were not kept. 45:24 There are still promises yet future to be kept, that will 45:27 be fulfilled, and this is key, not in Christ, but in Israel. 45:32 >>TY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 45:33 >>DAVID: And that's gonna create a whole new way of 45:35 reading the text of scripture. 45:36 Oh, yeah, but God made all these promises and Paul's 45:38 response would be, wait a minute, every promise that God 45:41 made is a yes. 45:43 Every promise that God made is an amen. 45:45 Where? Where? 45:46 How come? 45:47 In Christ. 45:48 >>TY: That's right. 45:49 It's all fulfilled. 45:50 >>JAMES: You know, what's really interesting, too, is 45:52 this previous verse here in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 18, but 45:57 as God is true, as God is true, and that word means to, 46:02 there are two words that it comes from, two Greek words 46:05 that it comes from and one of the Greek words that it goes 46:07 back to, one of the primary words, is to convince, to 46:09 pacify, reconcile, but it's translated in a couple places, 46:14 to make friends. 46:16 As God is seeking to convince us that he's faithful to us, 46:20 but he's true to us, but he's a true friend of ours, that's 46:23 the inference that you get from the way that it's been 46:26 translated in some places. 46:27 So... 46:28 >>DAVID: This is 1:18. 46:30 >>JEFFERY: Mine says God is faithful. 46:31 >>JAMES: God is faithful, God is true, God is a friend, God 46:34 is a true friend, God is a faithful friend. 46:36 That would be the implication, some of the translations. 46:38 >>TY: Wow, wow, wow, wow. 46:41 >>JAMES: Well, they have to be. 46:43 If he's a true friend, everything has to be yes. 46:45 But it has to be yes in him. 46:47 It can't be yes in anything else because God can't say yes 46:51 to us outside of himself. 46:54 He's true love, he's faithful, he's merciful, he's just, he's 46:57 everything, in him, it's yes. 47:00 Outside of him. 47:01 >>TY: Okay, so, watch this, you guys. 47:04 So, I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna see what you think of 47:08 making this simple statement that, for me, has been huge, 47:12 and somebody said this to me, I can't remember who said it, 47:15 they said Jesus was born to a Hebrew family in a Greek 47:21 world. 47:24 >>DAVID: Correct. 47:26 >>TY: Okay, so, Jesus comes into the world, born into a 47:28 Hebrew family, he is a Hebrew himself. 47:31 The whole world around him has been Hellenized. 47:36 Greek thought is permeating the culture around him, so 47:39 much so that after the Christ event takes place, the apostle 47:44 Paul finds it necessary to say, hey, I'm about to preach 47:47 to you a gospel that the Greeks will struggle with. 47:51 >>DAVID: It's foolishness. 47:52 >>TY: It's foolishness to them, because they have a 47:54 different lens that they're looking through, okay? 47:58 >>JEFFERY: But now, he has to use Greek words to communicate 48:01 Hebrew thought. 48:02 >>TY: Yes. 48:03 >>JEFFERY: The New Testament is written in Greek, of 48:05 course. 48:06 So, that's kind of a... 48:07 >>TY: It's amazing. 48:08 I think what the New Testament apostles, the writers of the 48:12 New Testament are doing, they're ingenious evangelists 48:15 is what they are. 48:17 What they're doing is, they're taking the popular language of 48:20 the times and they are essentially taking ownership 48:25 of concepts and putting Jesus' name on those concepts. 48:31 Think of John chapter 1, think of John chapter 1, in the 48:34 beginning was the word, logos, and the word, logos was with 48:39 God and the logos was God, okay. 48:42 In Greek thinking of the time, Jesus is Hebrew born into a 48:46 Greek world, there's an idea that is pervasive in the world 48:52 in which he finds himself. 48:54 And the idea that is that there is something that the 48:57 Greeks call the logos and the logos is the underlying core 49:03 principle that defines reality. 49:07 it's the logic of existence. 49:10 But for the Greeks, it's a very transcendent idea and 49:15 it's a concept, and if it's personal at all, for the 49:19 Greeks, it's nature itself, it's pantheism. 49:24 And then, John comes along and he says, hey, that logos thing 49:27 that everybody's talking about? 49:30 The thing behind all things? 49:33 The thing at the core of all thinginess? 49:37 >>DAVID: You say, his nature. 49:38 >>TY: Yeah. 49:39 >>JEFFERY: He became flesh. 49:40 >>TY: He became, okay, so, now, he's taking ownership of 49:41 that word and he's saying, for example, I looked up the word 49:45 logos and here's the definition, Merriam Webster's, 49:50 the reason for everything, in ancient Greek, the philosophy 49:56 of the controlling principle that pervades the universe. 50:00 Okay, so, if that's the idea, John comes along, he says, in 50:03 the beginning was the controlling principle that 50:06 rules the universe, in the beginning was the thing behind 50:10 all things and that logos became flesh and here he is. 50:17 >>DAVID: He's 6 foot 1, he weighs 180 pounds. 50:22 >>TY: And he's right among us. 50:24 Isn't that just mind blowing? 50:26 >>DAVID: And it's not only mind blowing for us sitting 50:29 here, it's incomprehensible to the Greek world in which Jesus 50:32 is living. 50:33 See, you have Paul, fast forwarding, Paul going into 50:36 Athens, and Paul, Hebrew perspective, you know, 50:40 certainly fluent in Greek thought, but Hebrew 50:43 perspective and he starts speaking to the Athenian 50:46 philosophers and they're like, yep, yep, yep, yep. 50:48 Tracking with him. 50:50 God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, okay, yep, 50:52 yep, yep, tracking with him, and then, he says, and I wanna 50:54 tell you about Jesus, this guy who was resurrected from the 50:56 dead. 50:57 They're like, what? 50:58 Because, because this sort of pre-Greek, the ancient Greek 51:03 thinking about God were these gross, like, really blunt 51:08 anthropomorphisms, where God you know, is, yeah, looked 51:11 like human beings, there's vengeance and there's jealousy 51:15 and there's' intrigue and there's scandal and there's 51:17 fornication and they've been down the road where God looks 51:20 so much like, no, and so Paul shows up and it's like, yeah, 51:24 this guy, that's God in the, but we've heard. 51:28 >>JEFFERY: The real innovation with the John 1:1 and 14, this 51:33 logos became flesh. 51:35 I'm thinking, what was so radical, what was so new about 51:38 that idea? 51:39 And I think it goes back to what we've been talking about, 51:41 nature versus character, right? 51:43 'Cause he's personifying, he's saying that logos is a person. 51:48 And by saying it's a person, he's emphasizing the character 51:53 versus the nature, 'cause in the Greek mind, it was this 51:56 illusive reason, right? 51:57 And now, John says, it's actually a person. 52:02 Right, you can't interact with reason with an abstract 52:07 notion, but you can interact with the person. 52:09 So, I think we keep circling around this same point. 52:12 That's the innovation of Christianity. 52:15 >>TY: And Paul takes it to a further extreme that he 52:19 himself anticipates that if you remain in the Greek way of 52:23 thinking, you won't get it, he says, in 1 Corinthians 52:26 chapter 1. 52:27 He says, okay, if you keep thinking Greek, you won't get 52:29 what I'm about to say. 52:31 But the God who became human, the God who became human, do 52:35 you see what's going on right there? 52:37 Bleeding, dying, self-sacrifice on the cross? 52:42 Well, that's God. 52:43 And he says, for the message of the cross is foolishness to 52:49 those who are perishing, it's foolishness, he says later on, 52:53 to the Greek paradigm of reality. 52:55 But to us who are in the process of getting it and 52:58 being saved and healed in our way of thinking and feeling 53:01 and relating, it's the power of God. 53:03 So, you have the same event, you've got the cross, and to 53:07 one pair of eyes, Hebrew eyes, it looks very powerful, it 53:10 looks like covenant fulfilled, it looks like relational 53:13 integrity. 53:14 To another pair of eyes, it looks like humiliation and 53:18 death and a lack of power. 53:20 >>DAVID: Malleability, changeability, that can't be 53:22 God. 53:23 >>TY: Lacking in power. 53:24 Where's the power? 53:25 And Paul flips the paradigm of power and says, well, the 53:27 power's actually in the self-sacrifice. 53:32 Isn't, I mean, that's the difference between Hebrew 53:37 thinking and Greek thinking. 53:38 >>JEFFERY: And then they would say, well, where's the wisdom, 53:41 where's the philosophy? 53:43 And the text that came to my mind was Colossians 2:3, in 53:48 Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and 53:51 knowledge. 53:52 That's a crazy thing to say in a Greek world. 53:54 >>TY: It is. 53:55 >>JEFFERY: Right? 53:57 I mean, a culture that so reveres wisdom and philosophy 54:02 and reason to say, in the person of this individual are 54:06 hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 54:09 And so, I was reading a little bit of early Christianity, 54:13 2nd, 3rd century, and the early Christians were saying, 54:16 everything, Plato and Aristotle, all of the things 54:19 that they were approximating to who God was and what he was 54:22 like, all that stuff is just consumed in this one person, 54:26 in Jesus. 54:27 >>DAVID: So, you've got, I just gotta say this and I'll 54:29 do it quickly, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6, for it is 54:33 God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who is 54:35 shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of 54:38 the glory of God in the face of Jesus. 54:40 You've heard this before, maybe you have as well. 54:42 Where he says, in the light of the knowledge of the glory. 54:44 And there's this idea that Jesus is living at the 54:47 convergence of 3 cultures, 3 ways of viewing reality. 54:51 The Hebrew way, you distill Hebrew down to its essence, 54:53 it's light, right? 54:55 Thy word is a light to my path, a lamp to my feet, the 54:58 shekinah light, and then you have the Greek way of 55:01 thinking, knowledge, the academy thinking, the great 55:04 philosophers, and then, you have the Roman way of 55:06 thinking, power, might, glory. 55:08 And all of that's wrapped up in Jesus. 55:10 For God who commanded the light to shine out of 55:12 darkness, the same God who spoke in Genesis, let there be 55:14 light, has now spoken to give us the light, Hebrew, of the 55:18 knowledge, Greek, of the power, the might of God, 55:23 Roman, in all of those cultures, wrapped up. 55:26 >>JEFFERY: He's the perfect articulation. 55:28 >>TY: It was about all of it, he's redefined all of the 55:31 categories. 55:32 >>DAVID: This is what light looks like, this is what 55:34 knowledge looks like, this is what power looks like. 55:36 >>TY: We have 40 seconds left and somebody needs to 55:39 summarize. 55:40 [Laughter] 55:42 Somebody needs to summarize what we've discovered, what 55:43 we've talked about so far in this session. 55:45 >>DAVID: I'll do my best. 55:47 I love, Ty, and I'll just throw this in quick, I love 55:48 your point, Hebrew way of thinking is approximate, and I 55:51 wrote them down, intimate, proximate, relational, 55:53 personable, adjacent, this idea that God is, that's the 55:57 God of the Hebrews. 55:58 He makes promises in the Old Testament. 56:02 And in the New Testament, in Jesus, he keeps all of those 56:07 promises. 56:08 In him, they are yes and they are amen. 56:11 >>TY: And I'll just say amen to that. 56:14 >>DAVID: [Laughter] Yes. 56:16 [Music] 56:25 [Music] 56:35 阑 |
Revised 2018-01-17