Survey of the Old Testament Poetic Books

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All right, good evening we are in lecture four tonight survey of the poetic books and As we do each week like to start with a little pop quiz now, you don't have to write this one down We'll do this one by show of hands.
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We'll see who remembers.
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This is my question from last week's lesson last week we looked at the The historical books From Joshua to the book of Esther and we said that those books can be broken down into three historical Categories by show of hands, please.
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Don't just shout out the answer but by show of hands.
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What was the first category? Yes, sir the theocratic Period now, what does theocratic mean? Well, it it's the word ruled by God that's right for it's it's the God God ruled is what theocratic means.
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Okay, so that was number one.
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That was during the time of Joshua and judges and Ruth Now the next period is referred to as what? Caleb monarchial.
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Yeah, and that means Kings That's right, that's right it's the time of the Kings so we have first and second Samuel first and second Kings and first and second Chronicles make up the monarchial period all right, so Then we have the third category What is the third category? What is it miss miss Daisy? You look like, you know No No, what's the third category? Yes, Rebecca.
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Yeah restoration period.
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Very good.
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The restoration period includes Ezra Nehemiah and Esther So if you remember we had a chart on the board and it had the three sort of broken out in three three Categories, that's the easiest way to sort of remember what's going on when when you're reading through these books understanding sort of the the Chronological breakdown going from the time where they were ruled directly by God through judges which were deliverers people who were risen up by God to deliver them out of the situations that they put themselves in by being disobedient to God and then of course the monarchs of the Kings starting with Saul and David and Solomon and then the sons of Solomon that divided the kingdom and then of course the time of the exile with Nebuchadnezzar and the Bringing back after the exile under the time of the restoration under Cyrus All right.
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So tonight we're going to be looking at the poetic literature that will be Less books, which is good Because we can dig a little bit more into each book because we have less to get through The survey of the poetic books also known as the wisdom literature if you want to you want to put that Just a side note.
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They're poetic, but they're also considered wisdom literature.
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That is Job It's a song of Solomon Job's the first one in that class and then you have Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes and song of Solomon which totals Five books in the English or the Western Canon All right These books are unique within the Canon Because they do not necessarily attach themselves to a specific period in Israel's history The wisdom and stories they contain are timeless for instance We don't know when Job lived.
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There's a lot that has been said about Job Being the earliest book of the Bible that was written.
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There have been whole books arguing for Job's Predating of Mosaic writing that Job has been around actually longer than Moses and that Job would have lived during the time period of Abraham in that particular period and And I have not done enough research to know whether or not those arguments are are Legitimate, but I know that they're out there and and I think it's safe to say that at least that is a contention that that we Should recognize that some contend that Job is the oldest book of the Bible by virtue of when it was written so with that being that being the case Job would would then be put in the patriarchal period and And Then you got the books of Psalms and Proverbs which seem to be written over a long period of time and They include writings from many different authors.
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We're going to look at this later tonight There are Psalms that were written by David and often think of them as the Psalms of David But not all of them are written by David.
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There are Psalms that are written by other writers including Moses There's a Psalm written by Moses.
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So you have various writers at various time periods So the Psalms would have been written over periods of time and collected Into the book of Psalms that we have now same with the Proverbs But as I said, these are not tied to a specific time period in Israel's history, so that's okay The history contained in our previous study and what we're going to see in our next study with the prophets is Important chronologically, but these books are not important in that same way These books are not about finding historical information These books are about gaining insight into God's wisdom and God's world and something else We need to note and this isn't it there isn't a screen for this, but if you may want to write this down poetry As a form of literature is is not the same as history Now you may say that's that's simple.
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I don't need to write that down Well, you may you may think it's simple but when it comes to how people interpret it It's one of those things that it shouldn't need to be said but it does need to be said because you'll you'll you'll be in conversations with people or you'll be in Bible studies with people and they will try to Interpret the Psalms or interpret Proverbs in the same way that they interpret Paul's letter to the Romans And it's just not the same form of literature and it comes with its own rules for interpretation Persons places and events in Historical narratives are meant to be seen as actual and that's why we believe in a real Adam and Eve because they come to us in a historical narrative that's why we believe that Jonah actually did get swallowed by a fish because that comes to us in a historical narrative, but when we get to the poetic books we're dealing with books that are highly symbolic and a lot of language of symbolism is used and It's generally recognizable when the Bible talks in the Psalms about the trees clapping their hands I think we all recognize that trees don't have hands and trees also don't have the Cognizant wherewithal to clap in the same way that humans do so we have to understand that poetry Contains elements and there's a screen for this poetry contains elements which are intended to convey Information figuratively now this Some people are allergic to that you start talking about figurative language in the Bible and people get all excited Excited because what they think that you mean is they think that you mean that the Bible is not true That's not that's not the same saying that something is a figurative Statement is not saying it's an untrue statement You know y'all get what I'm putting down you pick up on it because people some people again They'll say well if you say that any part of the Bible's figurative you're saying it's not true No, we're saying that it's conveying truth in a way.
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That's intended to to be figurative and So we have to understand it and what I've given you on the board is I've given you four examples a figurative language which are found in the poetic literature And I'm gonna I'm gonna break them down for you even though I've got them on here I want to I want to I want to get a little more specific Well, we talked first about the word parallelism brother Andy and I Have decided that once I'm done with the little letters Which he's actually I'm gonna for those of you don't know Wednesday night.
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I've been teaching through the little letters the second third John Jude and Philemon I'm actually going to finish Jude over the next few weeks and then brother Andy's going to pick up and finish Proverbs 3 so instead of going back and forth every week We're going to both finish out some things and then we're both going to do some Proverbs together he's gonna do some I'm gonna do some and One of the things that I'm looking forward to when I'm teaching on Proverbs in that in that on that Wednesday night is to talk about the concept of parallelism because parallelism is It's such an important concept in Hebrew writing and we see it particularly in the Proverbs But we see it also in the Psalms as well And what is parallelism well parallelism is is Is is rhyme but not rhyme like we think of rhyming like if I say roses are red violets are blue You're wearing a hat and I are too I don't know that's a very bad day But that was a rhyme right and in English when we think of when we think of rhyming we think of sounding the same That's what a rhyme is, you know songs are based upon rhyme and Poetry is based upon right? In fact, you ever listen to a poem that didn't rhyme sounds weird Somebody says I wrote a poem and they start reading and there's no rhyming words.
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You said that's not a poem But it is But in our in our minds we think of poetry and rhyme Well in Hebrew, it wasn't about rhyming sound.
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It was about rhyming thought It was about rhyming ideas.
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And so you have in in the book of Hebrews I'm sorry in the book of Proverbs specifically you have what are known as synonymous parallels Synonymous parallels where it says the same thing twice then you have the antithetic Parallel and That is where it says Something different it says one thing and then it says something that is contrasting that thing and Then you have what's known as a synthetic Parallel now, we're going to look up each of these real quick If you have your Bible or if your phone has your Bible Turn to somebody turn to Proverbs.
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I'll just call it up Chuck Proverbs 12 8 I'm sorry, 12 28 Proverbs 12 28 Frank Psalm 1 6 and Mike Psalm 23 Psalm 23.
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Okay, so Chuck your first Proverbs 12 28 Okay, say that again Okay, I'm not sure what translation is that is it okay, that's fine Yeah, the point is you got two concepts here No, that's synonymous synonymous because it's life and no death Yeah, so what is it? It's life and no death in the path of righteousness is life and in that path There is no death.
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So so it's saying the same thing twice.
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It's the idea of life and no death It's it's it's it's the same concept twice.
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So it's a rhyming thought Okay, so that's an example of a synonymous Parallelism.
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All right.
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So now an antithetic parallelism you have someone six Yes Yes, okay, so you've got two ways you've got the way of the righteous And you got the way of the wicked you got the way of the righteous is overseen by the Lord and You've got the way of the wicked which leads to Ruin, right? So that would be a contrasting or an antithetic because it's giving you two car two ways My brother Andy often in his when he's talking in Proverbs He talks about the way the wise the way of the fool The way, you know, and that's that's an antithetic idea and we see that throughout the Proverbs, right? There's two ways There's there's the right way in the wrong way the wise and the fool those those things.
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Hi, Rebecca so we've got and And again, you honestly a fun activity is just to take the Proverbs and just go through what is this? Is this saying the same thing twice is this saying the six one thing and then the other thing and making it the opposite? but the third one is a little harder to It's a little harder to understand because when you talk about a synthetic parallelism synthetic parallelism the best way I can describe it is Like in music where we have the concept of the crescendo You guys know what a crescendo is in music Playing music you'll see that symbol and what that means is to get louder Right.
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So the crescendo and then you have the day crescendo, which is get softer, right? It looks like that Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, it looks like that.
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It looks like the greater than sign or the less than sign So this one means get louder this remaining get softer.
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Well, there are there are Psalms and Proverbs that do that they build up in us in a synthetic sense They get greater Frank.
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Would you wouldn't close that door? I don't think about system So Mike with that in mind read to us just the first few verses of song You have to read the whole thing But Psalm 23 is what I think is a synthetic parallelism and I'll explain why when you read it Perfect that's good enough.
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So so it starts out the Lord is my shepherd.
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I shall not want he maketh me this He maketh me that and it just keeps getting greater and greater until it gets to the end where and yay though I walk through the valley of the shot I will fear no evil for thou art with me and it's like it just keeps getting greater and it Builds and builds and builds to this moment where I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and like that So it's it's it's it's it's still rhyme.
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It's but it's not again.
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It's not rhyme and the thing the way we think of rhyme It's poetic Crescendo Building and we see this in the Proverbs as well.
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We see this in Some of the other wisdom literature, so that's parallelism.
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This is a this is an important.
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They're actually They're actually large sections of parallelism in Hebrew literature that we find where where chapters will parallel other chapters and we've talked about the The remember the letter I showed you guys before Looks like this and we call it the chiasm where it builds to a point and then builds back out well that's a form of parallelism because this one is parallel with this one and this one is parallel with this one and this center point is the focus of everything and This is a long extended version of parallelism Okay, you know and so all of this is when you begin to look at the structure of the of the writing Right.
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It's intended to I'll give you a good example and this isn't in the poetic literature But but a good example of this is in The six days of creation now.
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I am a six day creation guy I believe six literal creation days But there is still a literary framework because the first three days are about forming the world He forms light and darkness.
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He forms the earth the sky the waters above the waters below and he forms the Separates the water from the earth.
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That's the first three days But then the next three days he fills on day four what he formed on day one and day five He fills on day five what he formed on day two and on day six He fills what he formed on day three So there's an actual parallel between one and four two and five and three and six And so there's a literary parallel between what God does this time and how God's filling it Makes sense because on day one he created light and darkness on day four He creates the Sun Moon and stars that which hold the light in the darkness on day two He creates the waters above and waters below sky and sea and then on day four He creates birds and fish birds go in the sky fish going to see on day three.
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He creates dry land on day six he creates the beasts and the humans that go on that dry land so there's a Parallel in the action now some people see this and they say well then it's it's all literary figures.
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It's not real No, that's not true.
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Just because it's in a literary structure doesn't mean it's not literal doesn't mean didn't literally happen But there is a structure that when you begin to see you see the majesty of how God put this together And you start seeing it had more than just the hand of man, but the hand of God and putting this together When you see things like this not just in three sentences, but in three chapters when you see that this whole system actually the whole story of Noah in the flood actually creates a chiasm in chapter six seven eight nine of Genesis and It's all in there and when you start seeing that that flow you start saying this had to have been More than just some some random Guy in the Middle East 1,500 years ago that had to be the hand of God.
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All right, so there are 3,500 years ago.
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Yes That's right, that's the way that Yeah, so you've done that you've seen this before and it's neat isn't it to see that that how these all work together Absolutely.
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So that's that's parallelism and these are examples of how it could work.
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The next one is is literary figures Literary figures I'll give you a few now again.
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We're going to get to the books I promise but I think these are important for interpreting books.
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So literary figures would be What we might call today figures of speech so the first one would be Comparisons, what are the two primary ways that we compare things? What's that If then well not exactly what I'm looking for.
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I know what you're saying, but there we we normally either use similes or metaphors, right? so the first will be a simile and The second one would be a metaphor Now what's the difference? simile Simile What Simile uses like or as so if I say Frank is like a rock Because he's steadfast and immovable, right? So that's if I use the word like or as Frank is as a rock That's a simile.
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But if I use if I don't use like or as that becomes a metaphor if I say Frank is a rock Now it might mean the same thing because it's a comparison But I'm using two different forms of speech if I say if I say you are like this That's a simile.
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If I say you are this that's a metaphor, right? I get one of the greatest examples and again, we're not we're not in the literary books or the wisdom books But they're still there think about when Jesus held up the bread Right.
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This is my body Now that's become one of the greatest arguments in the history of the church was he saying this is literally my body Was he saying? This is my body in the same way if I took a picture out of my wife and I showed you the picture and I said This is my wife.
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You wouldn't think I was married to a piece of cardboard with ink on it, right? You'd know that this is a picture of my wife I'm just saying that this is this is the where we get the concept of metaphor, right? And and this was a great debate between Luther and and Zwingli Because Luther saw it as literal as this is my body and Zwingli saw it as a metaphor.
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This represents my body And they had that great argument at the Marlboro colloquy.
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I always call it the Marlboro colloquy, but they weren't smoking But but the Marlboro colloquy was where they debated 15 doctrines and they came away agreeing on 14 the one that they couldn't agree on was whether or not Jesus's body was physically present in the bread Luther believed it was Zwingli believed it wasn't but that was a point of contention So the point though that I'm making is the the question is is that or is that not a metaphor? Certainly it's not a simile because he didn't say this is like my body.
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He said this is my body So if it's using if he is comparing it, he's comparing it in in that way all right, the next one is Alliteration what is alliteration? You may know by off chance alliteration Not illiterate now that's close because it's got to deal with letters, but it's not not exactly Alliteration with the a at the beginning means when we Intentionally cause sounds to be the same when we're using things So for instance like this morning all of my points and my sermon started with the letter D The desire the destruction the division there were all started.
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I did that because that well very MacArthur esque Yeah, I did that because every once in a while that's fun to do I don't try to do it every week because it would just be too big It's not it's not always doesn't always give itself to that but an alliterated sermon will usually have the first letter or they'll end with that like shun like a Contraction and opposition a proposition something like that with that shun sound something that makes it work that way now Here's an example of this Psalm 119 Psalm 119 is the Hebrew alphabet and And every Every verse of Psalm 119 begins With the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet and so or not every verse but every section Comes and it breaks down to olive bet gamma or I'm getting Hebrew and Greek message olive bet gimel doll if that's the Hebrew alphabet and it's breaking down Each one of those so that's easy to remember Why do we do things like that because it they can now remember that song because it's it's broken down that way and again Shows the hand of God in there.
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I do this a lot dads and dudes.
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That was a group we used to have here conversations with a Calvinist you know, I'm a big alliteration guy, so I I like it.
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The bad thing about alliteration is we don't read Hebrew most of us So it's hard sometimes to see it in English It could be there and we not know it because we're not looking at the original language good Mike get your hand Yeah Okay, yeah, so right there and this again you might might not think of alliteration But that is essentially alliterate and we could say alliteration slash acrostic Could be the same thing that's more of it That's what I'm talking about.
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There is somewhat of an acrostic where where you're getting Alphabetical order or you're getting it to spell something out.
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Yes, sir There you go, that's that's a that's a Alliteration.
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Yep.
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Yep.
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All right, so so we have looked at Parallelism we've looked at literary figures of comparison Alliteration acrostic.
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Another thing we see in the wisdom literature is called anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism Comes from the prefix Anthropos which means man and Morphos Which means form so anthropo means man morph means form So anthropomorphism is a is a man form Now if I same thing I said a zoo Morphism would be an animal form.
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So the Bible talks about God gathering us like a brood right like a Having us under his wings We'll go ahead Yeah, God doesn't have feathers right but that's the that's where we get the the idea of a zoomorphism or an anthropomorphism the same thing when God's hands Jesus said in John chapter 4 very clearly That God is not a man.
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He didn't have body like ours He is spirit must worship him in spirit and truth, right? So the idea that God has hands in the same way we have hands is not correct Now Jesus has hands because Jesus is the God man, but in when we talk about God's eyes God's ears God's Hands all of those are anthropomorphisms they are expressions of Man qualities or man forms and ascribing them to God there's also one other one, but I think this one you have to be a little careful with is as an anthropopathism an Anthropopathism is again man And the word pathos means emotion You think of or a passion where we get the word passion? And and we could talk about the fact that God refer the Bible does talk about God's being grieved Bible talks about God being delighted, you know delight yourself and the Lord talks about God's delight in us and these different things But while I would I would be careful Some people would say God has no Distinction in his in his emotion And that's that is that's that's called Impassibility, that's the big 50-cent doctrinal word.
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I think that we have to be careful with that I think we have to be because we begin to flatten God out to a to a deity rather than a God who we can relate to and God does relate to us in the way that we understand as God is pleased and God is displeased God is He is Grieved and he's Delighted, you know, these are things that the Bible tells us but we do have to understand that his pathos is not the same as our pathos his Then the same way as his being is different than our being and that's where we have to be distinct God when the Bible talks about God's wrath It's not like our wrath.
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It's a holy pure and perfect wrath When the Bible talks about God changing his mind and the Bible does say in several places and the Lord changed his mind we understand that from this from the point of eternity that God knew from all eternity what he was going to do and Therefore God doesn't just say oh, well that didn't work I got to change my mind and that's the way we the reason why we change our mind.
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And so when we talk about God's immutability, that means his Unchangingness that is speaking from his eternal nature God knows with certainty the end from the beginning but yet within the story of creation he's he works with us and he relates to us in our condition and That's how we experience his pathos.
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That's how we experience those things.
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Does that make sense? Because what I'm saying we have to be careful not to not there's a ditch on both sides, right? There's the ditch of well God's just like me and he's going through the same emotions.
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I'm going that's not true but then there's the other side which is God doesn't have any of that and he's totally flattened out and there's no way that he Experiences anything and it's like okay.
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Well now, you know, how am I to relate to such a God? So we have you know, I hope I didn't get into a ditch there I'm not sure how that I'm not sure.
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I'm not sure how that relates.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm not quite because I'm not even sure how Christ used that word I have to look at the verses you're talking about Well, when I said deism Deism is a philosophical belief that there is a being who created all things but that he is detached from his creation And unable to unable to relate with his creation.
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He's unable to engage So that's the idea that something created the world.
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We don't know what it was.
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We don't know who it was and we can't That's deism.
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That was actually the belief of some Some and I have to say some because people get mad at me if I say all it wasn't all But some of the four four fathers of our nation I would say Thomas Jefferson was probably a more of a deist than a theist If you look at his the Jeffersonian Bible where he took out much of what the Bible said and sort of replaced it with Philosophy and things like that.
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That's that's a that's a wrong view of God and it's more of a deistic view that he had all right, uh, so yeah anthropomorphism zoolomorphism and then personification personification is When an object or a quality is treated like a person Um Probably the best example of this is is Proverbs.
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What does Proverbs treat personally? Wisdom wisdom is given the quality of personality right And and and so that is a personification Sometimes sin is given a personification Sin is talked about like it's a thing Sin is not a thing not in the same not in the idea of something that's created a created being but sin is given that Personification as being something that's that's overtaking us or coming toward us or something like that And those are all terms which are personifications.
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You're offering up an idea of How to see something all right So that leads us to now our books.
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We're going to go through the five books now that we've talked a little bit about how they are Some interpretive grids.
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Let's look first at the book of job.
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I'm just kidding.
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It's job.
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I always like We'll look at the book of Job.
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I Have as our little tagline here and by the way this pink tab what the tagline that I have on every book and you'll have one for every book because I've had one everyone so Far and I send you the screens that little pink tagline is really When I said earlier in the class I said my goal for you is at the end of the class to have at least one sentence to remember Sort of the overall idea of the book.
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That's kind of what that pink sentence is.
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Is this sort of the basic? overall the book when good people suffer now back off Calvinists because I know the first thing people say when I say when good people suffer the first thing a good Calvinist says now Wait a minute pastor There's none good.
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No, not one.
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There's none who understands.
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There's none who seeks after God.
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We know that But we also understand That the Bible does make a distinction between those who are righteous by faith and those who are wicked and unbelief and Job was Righteous by faith.
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He believed in God.
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In fact, God says consider my servant Job So God considered him to be a faithful believer So when I say good people I'm referring to the to that that use of the term Job stands unique and in the Bible because it provides a grand narrative account filled with dialogue written almost completely in poetic form and It contains what I believe to be one of the most enigmatic stories in the Bible enigmatic meaning confusing And I say it's confusing because It's Confusing it's hard Reading the story of Job, especially in the early chapters.
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You you you have an upright man who suffers greatly and We get a glimpse into the reasons why God is engaged in an interaction with Satan and Job's life is the focus God allows Satan to attack Job to demonstrate Job's faithfulness and Job's Counselors eventually come along and Consider this to be some form of retribution for Job sins and Job questions the reasoning of God only to be Reminded in the end that God is sovereign and in the end Job returns to his position of blessing But not only not not without having suffered.
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We don't know who the author was Authorship is unknown Possibly Job some people say it may have been Moses I I tend to think Moses was busy writing the Pentateuch, but it could have been Moses had five other books to write if Job wrote it and if Job wrote and lived in the time of Abraham then it was the earliest book written and it was most well preserved because it had to be preserved To make its way into the Hebrew Canon One of the reasons why we believe Job happened before Moses is because there is no mention in Job about the law There is no mention about the Mosaic Covenant or any of those things and So most people think that the setting of the book fits nicely within the patriarchal period sometime in the life of Abraham Isaac and Jacob now some people question whether or not Job was a literal historical figure and And in one sense, I want to I want to give way not to liberalism because liberals are Don't give an inch But when it comes to theological liberalism They try to make everything Figurative and try to even Jesus at times.
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They try to make everything he did figures.
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They have to be careful but I do understand at least from the perspective of Near Eastern literature and the concept of parable how someone could read the story of Job and come away thinking This is not about a literal situation, but it's telling a moral story much like Jesus gave us parables such as the parable of the prodigal son or the parable of the Good Samaritan There's those are stories that are intended to give a greater message.
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And so some people do believe that Job is a story that is intended to give a greater message, but it's not about a literal man and for some people that satisfies them in regard to the question of why would God get into a Essentially a contest with the devil and there's a lot of questions that people have about that Initial interaction between the Lord and Satan and they try to satisfy that by saying well Job wasn't a real person This isn't a real this isn't a real tale.
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It's just a moral story about God's supremacy in all things However, here's where here's where I take issue with that.
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And if you want to write this down you can in Ezekiel chapter 14 verses 13 and 14 It says this Son of man when a lands when a land sends against me by acting faithlessly I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it and cut off from it man and beast by the way, and that sounds scary because it's kind of Supply lines dried up.
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Never mind too much I Mean what I say when a land sends against me I cut off its bread.
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Oh, that's okay.
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And then it goes on to say Even if these three men Noah Daniel and Job were in it They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness declares the Lord God So notice who uses he says if there's a land that has sinned against me Even if Noah who we know is a man righteous prior to the flood Daniel who was a man who lived a righteous life in the midst of cultural sin and in Babylon and Job a Man who did not lose faith faith in the midst of terrible personal persecution So three men are given as examples and Ezekiel says if those three men were in the city They'd save their own lives, but the city wouldn't be spared.
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So the point of it is Why would we trust this text to be telling us about two people and one parable? I think that this this this would indicate that this is a real person because it's addressing Noah who we know we believe is a real person Daniel who we believe is a real person So Job and I think the same goes for James 5 11 James 5 11 says behold we consider those blessed who remain steadfast You've heard the steadfastness of Job and you've seen the purpose of the Lord how the Lord is compassionate and merciful So James and James 5 11 uses Job again as a real person.
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Here's a man.
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His name is Job This was a real person.
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Okay, so I believe Job was a real person I think that there's enough evidence to support that.
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All right, let's move on to the book of Psalms Yeah, exactly consider my servant Job right not my fictional character that's funny All right, the Psalms Outside of the Gospel of John There is probably no other book Beloved of script and more beloved book of Scripture than the song book of ancient Israel Don't try to memorize the whole thing Just the song book of ancient Israel should be what's pink because that's that's if you were going to say What is the Psalms the Psalms is the song book of ancient Israel about half of them are attributed to David others include Asaph Solomon and even Moses wrote one of the Psalms The Psalms are timeless treasures of music for God's people which remain relevant for all times They are often referred to as the Psalms of David But again, like I said, it's not always David Psalms The writings of the Psalms seem to span about a hundred years They consist of a hundred and fifty individual Psalms And I say a hundred years if you don't count Moses because of course Moses would have been much much earlier than that But the prime bulk of the writings of Psalms would have been within about a hundred and They fall into five five categories The hundred fifty Psalms are divided into five books and each book ends with a death a doxology And the doxology is a proclamation of God's glory Right.
42:00
So you got book one is chapters 1 to 41 at the end of chapter 41 You got a doxology book 2 is chapter 42 to 72 at the end of 72 you get a doxology Look 373 to 89 a doxology book 490 to 106 and a doxology Finally book 5 is 107 to 150 and 150 is actually the doxology of the whole book praise the Lord praise them in the heavens Praise them with loot and and and liar, you know, let all that has breath praise the Lord That's the final Psalm and that's that brings conclusion to the whole book Now I put this pink line here because I didn't want you to confuse this with this I'm not saying that book 1 is Messianic book 2 is historic.
42:42
That's not so don't don't get that confused.
42:45
Oh, I'm not Pink line is the line of demarcation.
42:51
I'll stand in front of it.
42:53
So What there are different types of Psalms in each of these books Each of these books contain Messianic Psalms Those would be Psalms that point to Christ as Messiah each books each one of these contain historical Psalms Think about Psalm 51.
43:09
It says this is the Psalm of David when Nathan the Prophet came to him because he had stolen the wife of Uriah remember so that's a historical Psalm There are prophetic Psalms Psalms that are meant to give prophecies about things that are going to happen.
43:23
There's Penitential Psalms, you know what penitential means Think of the word Penitentiary or you know where you go if you're in trouble the penitential Psalm is a Psalm of penitence or a Psalm of Lamenting sin or crying out in repentance over sin.
43:41
So there are penitential Psalms and there are imprecatory Psalms Now what's an imprecatory Psalm? That's right.
43:49
That is uh, oh Lord May you break the teeth of the false teacher and may you shut his mouth where he never speak again Yeah, that's a penitential or a imprecatory Psalm.
43:58
It's a Psalm of judgment against the enemies of God right, so imprecatory to to pray a word of judgment Now there's a lot more we could say about the Psalms And and Because of time I'm going to move on but I will say this Psalms contains some of the most beautiful and wonderful words in the Bible and If if if you are a person who does not have a daily reading One of the things I would encourage you to do is include in your daily reading at least a portion of the Psalms and committing some Psalms to memory are Also good for the soul Psalm 53 is a great Psalm to remember Or Psalm 51 rather is a great Psalm to remember when you've sinned and you need to pray to God that that that God would Cleanse your heart.
45:01
We even sing that song.
45:02
We have a song Creating me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me These are these are things that are good for the soul.
45:11
I would say, you know, they talk about chicken soup for the soul Well, that's that's for the world.
45:16
We have we have better than chicken soup We have God's Word for the soul and it's it's found in the Psalms and there are great music There there are hymn books which are Psalms and hymns that you can sing There are people who take the hymns and put them with music that you can listen to my wife loves a man named Brian Suave She always has a favorite pastor.
45:37
It's never me.
45:39
I Always get a little a little a little have to do with that green-eyed monster at home because I go home and she's listening to Somebody else it's never my voice.
45:47
It's always the voice of anyway But she's got she loves this guy named Brian Suave and he's good he's very good preacher and he writes music and he takes the Psalms and he puts them to music and it's just wonderful and if that's a way that you Are you're geared to learning? Some people are geared to learning through through music That's a wonderful way to internalize the Psalms and use them in a in a way.
46:13
That's that's good for you All right Proverbs Where Psalms make up the body of Israel's musical literature the Proverbs make up the wisdom literature The book begins by referencing Solomon who was gifted with wisdom, but it also includes it includes contributions from other writers In fact, I'm going to read this to you.
46:49
This is from This is from an online resource, but I thought it was good It says Solomon wrote most of the Proverbs his name appears at the beginning of three sections of Proverbs Proverbs 1 1 Proverbs 10 1 and Proverbs 25 1 thus solidifying his authorship a few of the Proverbs came from other contributors anonymous writers contributed to Proverbs 22 through 24 a gore wrote Proverbs Chapter 30 and his proverb he highlights how little he knows He admits that he does not know God in the first verse of the Proverbs states that King States that and then Proverbs 31 is attributed to King Lemuel who some believe is Solomon We talked about this in a previous class some believe King Lemuel is another name for Solomon, which is possible But at least if it's not that's another authors, right? so we have to we know that some of the Proverbs come from other authors other than Solomon and and Proverbs 31 is You know that can be debated whether or not that Solomon going by a different name so I Understand this Proverbs were common in the ancient world and the ancient In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia wisdom writings played an important role in life They were kept in the royal court and used to instruct students for important positions They taught proper behavior etiquette speech and the understanding of society They ensured the ruler would have wise subjects to do his will So the Proverbs were used by the king to instruct his subjects so that he would have solid Servants to do what he wanted them to do and think about that from the perspective of what the Proverbs do for us in the kingdom of God They're they're instructing us in our Kings way so that we will better do our Kings will You see how they're making that connection understand This I said this in the first class and I had a little pushback Somebody not really push back, but somebody questioned me on it And and I want to clarify when I in the first class.
48:54
I said a proverb is not a promise And what I meant by that and I hope you understand.
49:00
I'm not questioning the power of the Proverbs what I am saying is the purpose a Proverb is intended to express a truth, which is generally true, but not absolutely true And so for instance probably the best example of this is raising up a child and way should go When he is old he will not depart from it but we all know people who have raised their children in a godly way only to see their children depart probably one of the Most egregious recent examples is the son of John Piper John Piper is a wonderful pastor preached the gospel for 40 years and his son Abraham has become a Tremendous burden to him because he's become famous through Tick-tock and other other things going out and blasting the Christian faith Essentially mocking his father and his father's beliefs and has become a shame to his father and his mother a sad sad reality I'm sure they still love him But it's a shame to know that he's there mocking him and somebody could easily say well John Piper just didn't do it, right? He was a bad father.
50:00
Well, we don't know that and and we can't automatically assume that that that's the reason why Abraham is doing what he's doing and We're not to say that Abraham may not be one of the elect who made by God's grace come to faith at some point And I know that's what his parents pray for him every day but understanding the concept of Proverbial truth is important the proverb doesn't necessarily equate a promise and this is where I think the the Prosperity gospel Often makes a dangerous Equivocation because they equivocate every every time the proverb says something to us to a promise and I heard a guy just a week or Two ago.
50:40
He says the Bible has 2,000 promises and I'm going to claim every one of them and I say well I wonder which promises he's talking about Is he talking about the promise that if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.
50:50
That's a promise Or is he looking at every time the Bible gives us a piece of wisdom that that piece of wisdom is automatically a promise And I don't think that we should always interpret it that way and again, you may take a little issue with that I hope you understand what I'm saying.
51:02
I'm not questioning the Bible's goodness, but I'll give you I'll give you a couple of examples Proverbs 15 1 my one of my favorite I teach this in karate Proverbs 15 1 a soft word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
51:18
That's generally true Somebody comes and attacks and you give a soft answer You're much more likely to get out of it than if you give a harsh answer you give a harsh answer It's just kind of what we call in martial arts.
51:30
We talked about this the ladder of escalation if I give a harsh answer He's gonna give a harsher answer if I say something about his mama.
51:35
He can talk about my grandmama You know, which is gonna keep good and worse, right? And and that's how escalation starts but if I can maintain my composure and I can stay down here and I can give a soft answer rather than a hard answer Then it's likely I'm going to turn away his wrath, but not always he might still punch me in the head Yeah, so I mean at the end of the day this is still true But it's not a guarantee.
52:03
That's all I'm saying And we use this language today if I told you if you want to live long time eat well exercise Well, that could be true but you can also get hit by a bus on the way home I mean you might eat well and exercise every day of your life and still get run over by a car It's not but if I said the opposite if I said if you want to live long eat poorly and never exercise and that would be that would be a worse falsehood than the other is a Not a guarantee you understand How that works? There's also probably one of my favorite places in the Bible where people like to claim Contradiction and that is in Proverbs 26 verse 4 because it says this answer not a fool according to his folly lest you be like him Yourself then the very next verse says answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes so it literally says answer not the fool in verse 20 verse 4 and then it says answer the fool in Verse 5 and it seems like it is an utter contradiction But it's not because it's dealing with a situational There are times when answering the fool is not the best thing There are times where you need to let the just let it be But there are times where you have to answer the fool.
53:24
Maybe he's your kid You have to answer the fool and so the proverb writer and they're together It's not as if it's like ones over here in chapter 2 and ones over here in chapter 7 They're right beside each other to show that there's going to be times where answering the fool is necessary there's going to be times where it's not a good idea to answer and This is the best way I can describe this is the two phrases Look before you leap and He who hesitates is lost That's two common English phrases That would seem to be contradictory, but they're not because they're situational I say look before you leap Well, you should do that But if I say he who hesitates is lost that seems to be contradictory.
54:09
It's not it's just two different ways of dealing with a particular Thing because you gotta eventually got to move forward can't hesitate to the point of Stop it Anyway, there's there's I Hope that you understand what I'm trying to point out.
54:26
Is this last thing here? Recognizing proverbial truth is is important All right.
54:35
I'm gonna give you a choice We got two books left One of them has a quick video that goes with it And that's Ecclesiastes we can take a break and come back or we can Finish a few minutes early.
54:48
I know some of you guys may want to get home early tonight for no reason whatsoever We all want to take a break, huh raise your hand if you don't take a break if you don't care Let's take it.
55:05
Let's take a five.
55:06
Okay, we'll take five and come back What we do Ecclesiastes In the stream So we are we are back We are now going to look at the book of Ecclesiastes and then we'll finish with the book of Song of Solomon now there are passages in the Bible that are hard and Then there are books that are hard And in my opinion Ecclesiastes is one of the harder books Because it contains entire sections Which can leave us a little confused The traditional authorship is attributed to Solomon mentioned in chapter 1 he's called the the the preacher or the Koheleth and he's that that's means the one who gathers the assemblies and In Greek the assembly is called the Ecclesia, which is why this book is called the book of Ecclesiastes.
56:10
It's the book of the assemblies And And the two things that I want us to recognize One is theme the theme of Ecclesiastes as I understand it and again, I tell you it's a difficult book but it's making sense of life pleasures wisdom and truth if we think of book of Proverbs as as the book of wisdom from a maybe maybe I hate to say optimistic but from a from from the from the perspective of of Someone looking to wisdom and life in a positive way You might say Ecclesiastes is someone who is looking at the difficulties of life Even even when one has wisdom you say what what's the difference between the guy who has wisdom and the guy who doesn't they both die You know, so that's one of the things Ecclesiastes says what you got somebody has wisdom.
57:03
So he doesn't have wisdom They're both going to grave right? And so there's somewhat of a pessimistic perspective and Recognizing the perspective is important The phrase under the Sun is used over and over in the book of Ecclesiastes which References at least in my opinion that the book is talking about what happens in this world what happens in life In fact, there are certain passages in Ecclesiastes which talk about there being no life after death That's not saying there's no life after death What it's saying is from our perspective when my relative dies I don't get to interact with them anymore because they're dead and so from my perspective their life is over and So under the Sun becomes the perspective under from which the book speaks and and then there's this Hebrew word and I did put it in Hebrew and the book the word is Havel and I'm going to show you a video this video was produced by the ever popular and powerful conversations with a Calvinist podcast and If you already watched it, then you're gonna watch it again This is actually a Short video that brother Mike did he did it in this room on the subject of the word Havel and and how we can understand it Today we're doing a new segment of a program called a theology short and We have with us one of the elders at Sovereign Grace Family Church brother Mike Collier Mike.
58:52
Thank you for being here How you doing? Very good.
58:55
I'm glad that you're here We're in the Learning Center here at Sovereign Grace, and we're going to be talking about the book of Ecclesiastes the reason why I asked Mike to join us is because this is a book that he has spent a lot of time with and Specifically in regard to one word in the book of Ecclesiastes, which you are convinced many translations Simply get wrong.
59:15
Yeah, I believe that the word that's translated in Vanity and to the King James new King James I think even in the New American Standard is vanity and vanity does not actually Catch the idea of the Hebrew word, which is a bit.
59:36
Okay, and Havel actually means brevity breath vapor No substance to it short and then we actually have a Person's name in the Bible Abel.
59:55
Oh Okay, it's actually his Hebrew name is Havel.
59:58
Okay, and it means short brevity giving his speaking of his life So and in reading The book of Ecclesiastes first time I read it.
01:00:12
It was in a I think it was in NIV or NLT I can't remember which translation was but it says it's meaningless life is meaningless and Begin to wonder.
01:00:22
Well as I'm reading this it talks about Enjoying your work enjoying food enjoying your wife all these things But then it says but it's meaningless.
01:00:34
Well, that can't mean what it's trying to say So that's what led me on to the understanding of obviously what is the word that was used there in the original language, which is Havel and How did we get to vain or meaningless? Yeah, and And I've heard people say that and people will say a meaningless meaning that's all is meaning That's a futility.
01:00:56
Yeah.
01:00:56
Yeah, and so what I did is I begin to okay how many times that word was used and think of Ecclesiastes, I think it's used 38 or 39 times and And even all of the Old Testament it was used I'm pretty sure it was 73 times over than half the times the word used it's used in the book of Ecclesiastes and What I wound up doing was going back.
01:01:22
Okay.
01:01:22
What does that word mean? What kind of nuances does it have where was it used in other places? So I could try to get the basically a word study so I can figure out what is he at? What is Kohel and Solomon trying to say to us? and if you if you go back to Proverbs chapter 31 I'll turn there And it's the the last Two verses in there.
01:01:51
He actually uses a word and it's translated differently here as well Proverbs 31 Versus 30 and 31 and it's speaking of the virtuous woman It says charm is deceitful and beauty is passing the word that you use there is the word of El It means fleeting Yes Well as you read through this and you get in your reading it if everything is as futile as this Then the book's going to have a very Negative connotation to it.
01:02:37
It means everything is meaningless.
01:02:39
Well then why was the book even written if everything is meaningless? I notice in your Bible you've scratched out the word vanity.
01:02:45
Everywhere where it says vanity I've scratched it out with the Hebrew word Habaal.
01:02:49
I don't believe there is a word after doing a word study that actually captures the real what we need to use I think it needs to be translated Habaal.
01:02:58
Okay And we do that with other words like baptism is the word baptism.
01:03:04
Sure.
01:03:04
So we transliterate words So it could have been done that way.
01:03:07
It could have and how we got to the word vanity was The Septuagint, I went back to how the Septuagint looked at it.
01:03:17
Septuagint looked at it as the word Matiotes which means folly It can mean vain It can mean passing.
01:03:29
Okay.
01:03:30
So when I looked at how they translated that and how did we get to the word vanity in our English In our English translation is Jerome when he translated to the Latin Vulgate from the Septuagint in the fourth century, I think it was, he translated that word into Vanitas.
01:03:48
Okay, so Vanitas is where we get our word in English vanity.
01:03:54
It's They still didn't go back to the Hebrew text to capture the idea.
01:03:59
They went to the Septuagint.
01:04:01
There were some and then obviously looking at the the work study there were three other Greek translations and a lot of people don't know this because they think the Septuagint was the only one.
01:04:13
There were three other Greek translations that were out after after 100 AD.
01:04:20
Okay.
01:04:20
One was by a guy named Symmachus, Theodotion, and Aquila of Sinai.
01:04:27
Okay, and they did they did refer back to the Septuagint to try to help them get their idea but they all translated that word into Atmos.
01:04:37
If you know where the word Atmos comes from, if you go to James chapter 4 verse 14 He says man's life is nothing but a vapor.
01:04:46
So that word, they captured the idea, their Greek translation when they went back to the Hebrew to get their Greek translation, they captured what this word was meaning, was vapor.
01:04:58
So if you go through there, their word where it says here vanity and the Greek in the Greek translation, it's Atmos.
01:05:05
So that's when I begin to go, well man is this, let me start saying what this word means.
01:05:11
I'll read this.
01:05:12
I'm going to go through and wherever it said vanity I'm going to use the word Havel and it's actually made, the book makes more sense because when you get to passages where everything is meaningless.
01:05:22
Just take for the some of the New Living Translation, the NIV, there's a couple of other ones that use the meaningless feudal nothingness, whatever it is, and you get to the summary sections that I studied it and one of those is you get to 224 chapter 2 verse 24 through 26 and he goes like this.
01:05:43
It says nothing is better for a man that he should eat, drink, and that his soul should enjoy the good that's in his labor.
01:05:51
Well, first of all, if everything is meaningless and worthless then can anything be better? Yeah, yeah, I mean nothing would be better.
01:06:00
So nothing is better than for a man to eat, drink, and that his soul should enjoy the good of his labor.
01:06:07
This I saw was as from the hand of God.
01:06:11
So now we're talking about the things that God has given us as being gifts.
01:06:16
Are they meaningless or are they just a vapor here today and gone tomorrow? And as you continue to read through the book, when you get to chapter 3 and we often use these, you know, a time to be born, a time to die, these things are nothing but here today and gone tomorrow.
01:06:33
They're a season.
01:06:35
Life is how my interpretation of the book would be.
01:06:39
A life is from one vapor to the next.
01:06:42
From one vapor to the next.
01:06:43
It's just here and it's gone tomorrow.
01:06:46
Then you get to two other passages like in chapter 3 verse 12, and you can see where I have these highlighted.
01:06:52
It says, I know that nothing is better than to rejoice for the good that's in their lives.
01:06:57
And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all of his labor.
01:07:03
What does that say? For this is a gift of God.
01:07:06
So if you're going to use meaningless, vanity, futile, then you just said everything that God gave you that was a gift was meaningless.
01:07:14
You know, that doesn't make the book, you know, of other places where you have another section.
01:07:23
Here's another summary statement where I've sectioned it off and chapter 5 verse 18 through 20, it says, here's what I've seen.
01:07:33
It is good.
01:07:34
Listen, you'll find a connection with all of these summary sections.
01:07:37
It says, here it is what I've seen.
01:07:39
It is good and fitting for one to eat, to drink, and to enjoy the good of his labor, all which he toils under the sun.
01:07:45
All the days of his life, which God has given him, for it is his heritage.
01:07:50
As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat it and to receive the heritage and to rejoice in his labor.
01:07:58
Here it is again.
01:07:59
This is a gift from God.
01:08:02
And it says, for if he will to dwell unduly on his days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joys of his heart.
01:08:10
So here it is.
01:08:10
Once again, if things are meaningless or they're futile, then we're saying that the gifts of God are really irrelevant.
01:08:20
But the gifts of God are here today and gone tomorrow.
01:08:24
Think about how fast you eat your steak.
01:08:27
Your favorite steak.
01:08:29
It's gone.
01:08:33
It's gone in like 10 seconds.
01:08:35
So it's here today, it's gone tomorrow.
01:08:37
It's vapor, it's fleeting.
01:08:38
And then you have other passages.
01:08:42
Here's another summary section.
01:08:44
When you get to chapter 8, in verse 15, it says, Now I've commended enjoyment because of man that's nothing better, here it is again, under the sun than this, than to eat, drink, and to be merry.
01:08:55
For this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life, which God has given him under the sun.
01:09:01
So you're seeing, as you read through the book, you're seeing that everything that God has given to someone is to enjoy in light of God being God who he is.
01:09:11
Everything's a gift from God.
01:09:13
Everything you and me get, food, drink, job, where we live, the governments that he puts over us.
01:09:20
He talks about oppressive governments and everything in here.
01:09:23
It's all a gift from God and we're to enjoy those things he gives us.
01:09:26
It's going to be here today and gone tomorrow and you can never grasp that time again.
01:09:31
You and me like to all the time say, man, what would I do to get that time back? We enjoyed that so much.
01:09:37
I would love to have that back.
01:09:38
Well, God's saying don't worry about having that time back.
01:09:41
You'll never get it back.
01:09:42
Enjoy the moment because it's a gift from the Lord to be enjoyed because the next one, the next favela is coming.
01:09:51
And then you get to, let's see, if you say that it's futile and it's meaningless, listen to Ecclesiastes 9, verse 9.
01:10:04
Live joyfully with the life from you love all the days.
01:10:08
Now, this is how it was translated in the King James, New King James.
01:10:13
All the days of your vain life.
01:10:19
That means it's useless.
01:10:21
I wonder if the NIV translates that meaningless.
01:10:24
It does.
01:10:25
Well, it does.
01:10:26
So here, if you read it this way, live joyfully with the life of you all the days of your fleeting life.
01:10:33
For it has this under, this is what it is under the sun, all the days of once again of your fleeting life.
01:10:40
For this is your portion of life.
01:10:42
This is a labor in the sun.
01:10:43
So you're talking about something that's here today, gone tomorrow, a mist, a vapor.
01:10:50
Man's life is always recognized even in the Psalms.
01:10:55
If we could go to the Psalms, I have a couple marked, we could look at Psalm 144, verse 4, that man's life is nothing but a vapor.
01:11:03
And it actually says that and it's translated correctly here.
01:11:12
Here it is, I'm sorry.
01:11:14
It says here, man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow.
01:11:20
So is that giving a worth of man's life or the time frame of a man's life? Yeah, it's giving a time frame.
01:11:28
And the word here for breath or vapor, that's the word.
01:11:33
So they're good.
01:11:34
Well, I say it fits within, you've already mentioned James, but it fits within the context of the overarching message of scripture, which is that life is relatively short.
01:11:44
It's short compared to eternity, especially compared to eternity.
01:11:48
Yeah, that's right.
01:11:48
Live on eternity.
01:11:49
And if you go to, this is the other one that I have marked just for time's sake, Psalm 39, and you go here to verse 6, it says, surely every man walks about like a shadow.
01:12:02
Surely they're busy like, busy themselves in, oops.
01:12:08
Okay.
01:12:09
I'm sorry.
01:12:10
For the sake of time, he continues that argument for a few more minutes.
01:12:15
If you want to watch it, the whole thing is available on YouTube, but for the sake of time, I want to move on.
01:12:18
Did that make sense? What he was trying to say about how that word has been? I think the worst of the worst is translating it meaningless.
01:12:25
And I think that's the argument he was making.
01:12:27
When we say that it's meaningless, I think that does try, that engages a wrong understanding.
01:12:32
But like I said, he goes on for a few more minutes, looks at a few more texts.
01:12:35
If you want to go and find that, that is on the church website under conversations with Calvinists.
01:12:40
That was part of the podcast for this week.
01:12:43
How do you spell Hevel? H-E-V-E-L in English, but the letter, you'll see, I had it up here.
01:12:53
That's the Hebrew writing.
01:12:57
Yeah, squiggly diggly dig.
01:12:59
All right.
01:12:59
So last is the book of Song of Songs.
01:13:03
The book of Song of Songs, much like the phrase King of Kings or Lord of Lords, Song of Songs means the song that is the greatest of songs.
01:13:15
And it is a declaration of mutual love between a lover and his beloved.
01:13:23
The author is Solomon, and the theme is the intimacy of a loving relationship.
01:13:31
And the Jewish tradition says this, and I think there's probably some truth in this.
01:13:36
Jewish tradition says Solomon wrote the Song of Songs in his youth, the Proverbs in his prime, and Ecclesiastes in his old age.
01:13:47
And I think there's probably some truth in that.
01:13:51
The main interpretive issue, and I was actually talking to Brother Mike about this as well, uh, but we didn't make a video about it.
01:13:59
But that was the question of whether or not this is a love poem between a man and a woman or an allegory of Christ and the church.
01:14:10
I am of the belief that this is actually referring to the love of a man to his wife first.
01:14:18
Um, I, I, I always remind people to be careful when we get to over allegorizing something that has a plain meaning.
01:14:28
And the plain meaning of the text seems to be the love of a man for his beloved.
01:14:35
And I don't know about you, but if you are a married man or woman and you read the Song of Solomon with that in mind, it can be very, uh, encouraging to, uh, encourage the, the intimacy in marriage because it is a book of intimacy.
01:14:55
However, there are those who would say it has nothing to do with the intimacy between a man and a woman.
01:15:00
It's only about Christ and the church.
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With that I would take issue and I would say I would disagree that it's only about Christ and the church.
01:15:07
However, I would say this, the New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ is to be seen like a husband and the church his bride.
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And so in that regard, we can see the faithfulness and love of the, of the writer of Song of Solomon or Song of Songs to his bride as a form of love that is expressed between Christ and his church.
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But we cannot make the parallels too tight any more than we make the parallel of marriage too tight between Christ and his church.
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Because in the book of Song of Solomon or Song of Songs rather, there are many expressions of highly intimate language.
01:15:51
Uh, and, and we, we do not want to cross any, forgive the expression, weird barriers in trying to compare that to Christ.
01:16:03
I'll say this, the husband who loves his wife well will love her as Christ loves the church.
01:16:09
And Song of Songs is about a husband who loves his wife well.
01:16:13
Or at least that's what it's supposed to be about.
01:16:16
So in that sense, there is a Christian application within the book.
01:16:21
All right.
01:16:21
So that brings us to the end.
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Any questions for tonight? All right.
01:16:26
I hope this was helpful in, uh, understanding a little bit more about these wisdom books.
01:16:32
Like I said, I'm sorry I had to cut that video off.
01:16:34
There's only a few more minutes left.
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I do encourage you to go and watch the whole thing if, if time allows.
01:16:39
And don't forget you're reading for each week.
01:16:41
Next week we begin the prophetic books, uh, beginning with Isaiah through Daniel and your assignment, your reading assignment, is to read your introduction to each of those prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, this week.
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So you have five articles to read, the introduction to each of those.
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Questions? All right.
01:17:07
Well, let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
01:17:11
I pray that tonight we have, uh, glorified you through the teaching of your word and pray that you would Lord be, um, be glorified in us and all that we say and do.
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Help us to truly want to know more of what your word has to say in Jesus name.
01:17:27
Amen.