The Bible Is Not an Instruction Manual (Covenant Theology #2) | Theocast

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Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to be considering the fact that the Bible is not an instruction manual.

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Many seem to think that it is. Many also go to the Bible like it's a step -by -step guide to godliness or even a medicine cabinet that can cure anything that ails them.

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But today, in our second of three episodes on Implications of Covenant Theology, we're gonna think about what the

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Bible is all about. And it is, in fact, all about redemption and all about the work of Christ for us.

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And so we're gonna unpack that, John and I, in terms of what this means for us and how the Bible should be used, how we should go to it, what we should look for.

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We hope that you are encouraged by this. Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the

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Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

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To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a Reformed and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are

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John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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John is saying hello, for those of you watching on the YouTubes, where you can actually see his face and the handy -dandy whiteboard that he's holding up.

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John, I'm feeling a little geeked up on the gospel today, man. I'm feeling a little punchy. It's about to happen.

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I know, I'm excited about Christ. I mean, always am, but I feel it really, really, like, viscerally this morning, which is always a wonderful place to be.

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I almost come up with, like, new taglines whenever I'm feeling this way. Kind of like, you know, welcome to Theocast, giving you the goods every

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Wednesday since, you know, 2000 -whatever. Because, like, the goods, like, we joke about this at our church a little bit, and it's kind of a, like, you know, when we're serious, we'll always just tell each other whenever somebody's about to lead or preach anything, and say, hey, brother, give them good news.

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But when we're feeling, like, behind the scenes, like, before the service or whatever, like, the days leading up to it, where I say, hey, bro, you better give them the goods on Sunday.

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The goods being Christ, you know? We need to give them Christ in the Word and in the table, amen? Anyway, giving them the goods.

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John, let's give them the goods today, but beforehand, why don't you tee it up? Tell them what we're going to talk about. Yep, absolutely.

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Well, as usual, Justin and I, we love to talk about things that we think are beneficial for our church, those who are new, those who are part of our congregation, and then we also think broadly, how is this applicable to those who are listening, have been listening to Theocast?

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One of the issues that we run into is misappropriation of the

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Word of God. It's like any tool. If you don't use it as it's designed to be used, it could actually be damaging.

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It can actually hurt you. It's like a gun. You don't use a gun the way it's designed to be used. It can cause massive infliction of harm.

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This is true about the Bible. The Bible is definitely an amazing tool. It's described as a sword, right?

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A two -edged sword cutting about to the heart of man. So, we wanted to talk about the inappropriate use of it and then maybe put it in its place.

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It's also sweeter than honeycomb, too. That's right. It's like, man, this is pretty good. That's right.

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The Word of God. Many, including myself and Justin, we've grown up in contexts where the

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Word of God has been used with right intentions. I think intentions to be helpful.

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Motivations are good. And one of these is we start to use the Word of God as an instruction manual for life in almost every area of life where we're trying to determine the biblical application to a passage or potentially even the will of God.

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So, we go into the Bible and we are trying to determine how we should spend our money.

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Should I buy the cheap Kroger brand or the cheap grocery brand milk, or should

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I buy the more expensive milk? Which one should we use? And so, we go into the Word of God and we look at Proverbs or Psalms or the

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Old Testament passages, and we're trying to make application. And I've seen people do this for things like homeschooling, dieting, governmental decisions, vaccinations.

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There's so many decisions that have been made. And the argument is, we're right here. This is what the Bible teaches us.

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This is the instructions that we've received. And so, I know I'm good with God because I'm obeying the instructions that God clearly gave to us.

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And Justin, I think we're going to try as gracefully and pastorally as we can say, maybe we're holding the wrong end of the sword here and we're going to be slitting our wrists if we're not careful.

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Yeah. I mean, we're certainly not going to be using the Word of God for the purpose for which it's intended, right?

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And this is the second of three episodes that we've planned to do, that we've mapped out to do relating to covenant theology.

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And these episodes, we hope, are not academic, heady, seminarian type stuff at all, but they're very practical, boots on the ground kind of conversations about why covenant theology should matter to you as proverbially speaking, metaphorically speaking, a person who sits in the pew.

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And it's like, hey, I'm just meaning to trust Christ and make it through life, you know? So, why does covenant theology matter for me?

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And so we're going to be coming at the scripture and what the scripture is about and what the purpose of the

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Bible is from a covenantal perspective. And yeah, I mean, as John's already laid out there, the

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Bible is not an instruction manual in terms of just all of these particular, you know, sets of like to -do's or not -to -do's that would then guide us in all of these various decisions that we make in the course of any given day.

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It also, the Bible is not a step -by -step guide to godliness or something like that, where here's steps one through 19, you know, in terms of how to become increasingly godly.

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It's not a medicine cabinet, John. I mean, how many times have we heard the Bible talked about like that, where, hey, there are verses in the

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Bible for everything. And again, the intentions are good, right? We're wanting to uphold the sufficiency of scripture.

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It's like, well, yeah, it's sufficient in using it for the purpose for which it was intended, right?

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It's not sufficient if you start to use it in ways that God never meant you to use it. And so when people will say, you know, the

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Bible's got the cure for what ails us, and so let's go to the scripture and find the verses that pertain to A, and the verses that pertain to B, and the verses that pertain to C, and we're often isolating those.

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And it turns into this thing that's, again, with the best of intentions, it's almost comical. It's like, hey, take three of these and, you know, meditate on it the right way, and call me in the morning,

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I'm sure you'll be doing better. And if not tomorrow morning, certainly next week you will be, because if we use the scripture the right way, it can fix what's broken in us.

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But we use it as the sanctified Google search in many ways. Sure. Sanctified Google search.

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I mean, unpack that, John. First time I've ever heard that from anyone's mouth, including yours. Well, as you're talking,

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I'm thinking about that. And as a pastor, you've gotten this text, hey, Pastor or Justin, what does the

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Bible say about this? And then they give you whatever your question is. And so now they're thinking, you know, because they've probably already done a research on it and they can't find it.

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And so we're trying to find - And it's some very obscure thing, usually is what you mean.

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Because they're not asking, hey, what does the Bible say about how we're reconciled to God? Or what does the Bible say about, you know, our sin and our nature or something like that?

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Or how we're saved. It's more like, hey, what does the Bible say about, you know, some, some earthly common kingdom concern that the

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Bible frankly doesn't speak to with any definitive clarity? Yeah. Like at what point is a car too expensive to purchase, biblically speaking?

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You know, like what's the cap limit on that? Or, you know, we're kind of merging into the whole will of God conversation.

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But like, should I take this job? Or like, like you said, which car should I purchase?

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Or how should I spend my money? It's like, yeah. Are there wisdom principles that we can glean from the scripture and infer things from clear biblical teaching that might apply here?

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Yeah. But we're really in the realm of wisdom and prudence. And we can have that conversation. But the Bible in terms of chapter and verse is not written for this.

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And anyway, yeah, man, I can't - I'd love to jump on the whole medicine cabinet thing here for a second. Oh yeah.

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Because get your additional thoughts on this. But let's take something that most people are dealing with right now, because of all kinds of unrest.

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And I know we both have struggled here, which is anxiety, right? And we hear passages, you know, be anxious and, you know, and sin not, cast all your anxiety on the

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Lord for He cares for you. And, you know, we need to trust the Lord with all our heart and lean not into our own understanding and the

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Lord will direct our paths. So you hear these wonderful passages, but yet, we still struggle with anxiety.

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And what ends up happening is someone who confesses a sin or even goes to a biblical counselor, what they're handed is a long list of verses that may or may not apply to that particular passage, or I'm sorry, that particular problem, but you're right in that.

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Okay. Oh, okay. So you're a fit, you're, you know, we're looking at you from a spiritually health position.

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So we need to give you some vitamin, you know, B and we need to give you some vitamin C and we go home and start taking these on a daily doses and you should see some spiritual health improvement.

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And so we use the word of God, specifically just certain passages and we put them into the chamber of our counseling gun and we just shoot them at the patient thinking, you know, these tranquil darts are going to hopefully give them the boost that they need to fix whatever ailment that they have.

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Right. I mean, and not to steal any of the thunder that we hope to drop later in the episode, right? Yeah. The, the

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Bible does speak to the anxious person, but how does the scripture speak to the anxious person in a way that is meaningful eternally?

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Well, the scripture reminds the anxious person of, of which I am one of them, that God rules and reigns over all things and that he is utterly faithful, that he has his people and that Christ has accomplished our salvation and that our, our earthly circumstances are going to look all kinds of ways and we don't know what's coming, you know, but ultimately the

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Lord has good and Holy purposes for us. And at the end of it all, we're going to be with him. And it's like, now, does that make me feel better in the moment?

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Maybe, maybe not. But over the course of my lifetime, as I trust Christ, God is going to use his promises, his faithfulness to me as I reflect on that in particular, as I reflect upon that as it's preached over me.

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And as, as the saints speak that to me, he's going to use that in my life. And his spirit has taken up residence within me and he's going to transform me.

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Amen. You know, but this whole business of like, we're going to do something with these particular verses of the

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Bible and meditate on them and use them the right way. And, and then in some short span of time, she's going to make us better.

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I mean, that's not promised to us in the word. No. Well, no. And there are definitely helps.

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And I definitely don't want there to be a confusion that you can't use the word of God for encouragement and strength and to overcome sin.

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But of course you can. Right. And that is ridiculous because it even, the Bible even says, consider how to build one another up in love and good works.

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And you're you use the word of God for that. But the danger is that I think what I'm trying to get at, and I know

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Justin is too, is that we primarily engage in God's word in one area, which is instruction for improvement, right?

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Most of the time we want to know how do I become a better dad, a better husband? How do I become a better employee?

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How do I manage my money? Exactly. So it's the betterment. How can I be a better leader? Right. It's the betterment hermeneutic.

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We go into God's word to better. And Justin, there can be different motivations, right? So, so for some it's pietism.

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Pietism is the, the, the extreme introspection of the Christian life where we're always looking in, am

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I improving as a Christian? Am I progressing? Am I getting better? And we're looking inward to our own actions and our own works.

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And that's the Bible can be very helpful if that's your motivation. Well, and the Bible is, it's of course pietism.

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You know, this, this posture where, especially where people are taught to always turn the thing back around on themselves somehow and look to their performance and to strive to get better.

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It's very understandable than how such a person under that kind of teaching is going to take the scripture and assume that it is about them.

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You know, obviously yes, trust Christ, believe the promises of God, heed his warnings. Absolutely. But I need to get about doing all this.

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And that's really the purpose of the scripture. When in reality, what we're going to say is, yeah, the Bible is, is all kind of useful for you.

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And it, and you are going to be transformed by the scripture, by the word of God and by his power and his spirits work in you.

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And the scripture is going to be able to speak to any number of things in your life. But ultimately the message of the scripture, that's going to speak to your life in any given circumstance is about God and his faithfulness.

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And ultimately it's about your redeemer, whose name is Christ. And that's, what's going to carry the day.

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You know, it's not, it's not wisdom. It's not law. Ultimately, you know, that's going to carry you.

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It's good. It's going to be the message of Christ. That's right. That's going to carry you. So pietism is a motivation.

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Some people, Justin, uh, pietism, maybe not so much as fear, right?

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You're afraid that God is going to remove his protection.

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He's going to allow calamity into your life. And so you're, you're looking at the word of God to make sure you're keeping yourself in line.

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I mean, this is paganism. This is, this is what the Israelites like were driven by because they had so many pagan gods that they, excuse me, that they followed.

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And so if you're living in a life of fear, you're thinking, okay, well, I don't want to cross the line too far on God. So I need to make sure that, that's right.

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He's going to drop Thor's hammer on me and it's all going to be over. And it's terrifying.

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So you're always wondering, okay, you know, I'm going to go to the word of God every single day to get a refresher and a motivation.

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And you're, you aren't walking as, as, um, Paul tells us to walk by faith in the love of Christ for us, that there's nothing that could separate us, the love in Christ, you're walking in fear.

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So instruction living, or when we treat the Bible as a medicine cabinet or in here,

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I would say, uh, they're, they're kind of like road hazard signs. Like we want to use these things to kind of keep our life in, in, in balance so that we don't run off the rails and God has to get on us for that.

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Right. Yeah. In some senses, it's like, we're going to the scripture. Like when you talk about that fear driven thing, um, we are being governed by a spirit of fear, which

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Paul says we haven't been given, but we've actually been given a spirit of adoption by which we call God father. And so something is terribly amiss, you know, if we're almost going to the scripture to be scolded.

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And I'm not speaking against the fact that God's law shows us the corruption of our hearts and drives us to Christ.

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Absolutely. And also God's law guides us in Christ, but it doesn't condemn, you know? So all those things are true.

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Let me do this really quickly, John, just kind of as a public service announcement to all of those people out there listening, cause they may be thinking, guys, you're 15 minutes or so almost into this conversation.

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And you said that it pertains to covenant theology or it's related to that. And a couple of resources to recommend. And then a very quick summary of some stuff before we maybe pivot to, to trying to pull people onto a better thing here.

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Right. And just to interject, the whole reason we started here is that if you don't understand kind of the problem, totally covenant theology is the solution, but we're kind of identifying like,

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Hey, these don't work. And this is why. And now here's our solution. Yeah. So the

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Bible is not an instruction manual. It's not a, it's not a handbook for spiritual and emotional health. It's not a medicine cabinet to fix everything that ails you.

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It's not a how to guide and a step -by -step guide to godliness. It's not what it's for ultimately. Right.

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And so how does covenant theology factor in here? Well, covenant theology at its most basic level at a 30 ,000 foot view helps us understand that God, father, son, and Holy spirit made a plan before the world began.

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And the plan has always been to save a people through the work of God, the son. And then

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God makes the world. He creates man. He makes a covenant with Adam, tells Adam how he's to live. He gives him a specific prohibition.

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Had Adam obeyed, he would have earned eternal life, but Adam broke the covenant and plunged himself and all of his children into, into sin and ruin.

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And so then at that point, at the fall of man, as it's called, God makes a promise to Adam and Eve that he's going to send a redeemer who's going to come and save them.

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And the rest of the entire Bible from Genesis three 15 on is the unfolding of the accomplishment of that promise. And that promise is the promise of the covenant of grace.

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So there's a covenant that God makes in eternity past called the covenant of redemption. There's a covenant God makes with Adam called the covenant of works.

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And then there is a covenant of grace that God promises. And ultimately that covenant is accomplished and established in the coming of Jesus Christ and the work that he did to save sinners.

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And the work that Christ accomplished, his atoning work for sin, you know, his satisfaction that he made for sin, excuse me, and also the righteousness that he accomplished, all of that's given to sinners by faith in the covenant of grace.

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So that's the, the covenantal framework of the whole Bible. And not to bury the lead here and for kind of where we're going, what that means is that the

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Bible is not all this other stuff that we've already alluded to. The Bible is about redemption.

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The Bible is about Christ. If we really want to narrow it down even more because he is the redeemer who would come and accomplish this redemption.

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And so that's the way that we understand the scripture should be approached. We should always approach it.

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John, you were talking earlier, we were talking before we hit record, I'm gonna go and say this. And I'm going to get to some things that I may be said this morning to in a chapel service at a private school here in the area.

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But we were talking about the Bible being about Christ and you were go, Hey man, what's, what's Harry Potter about?

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And I said, well, I haven't read it. You know what I mean? I was kind of doing stuff. I haven't read it. And you were like, yeah, but take a guess. And I mean,

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I knew where you were going kind of, and I was feeling a little pudgy. I said, what's about Harry Potter? You know? And you were like, exactly.

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And then it's like the Bible is the book about Jesus. And so why would we ever approach it as though it isn't, you know, the book about Christ, our redeemer, the one who came to accomplish salvation and the one whom we will praise forever, you know?

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And so John, let's riff on this, man. The fact that the Bible is about redemption. It's about Christ. Like how is that helpful for us?

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You know? Yeah. It's a, it really is a book about the development of a relationship and relationships around it only as strong as, you know, the nature and history and capacity of each person.

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Right. Like I have a dog at home. She loves me, adores me. Hey lady, I walk into the room, she got the name.

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Cause if you see the way she sits, it's like, she's a little lady. It's hilarious. But my relationship can only go so far with that dog.

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Why? Cause it's limited by her capacity, right? She can only express in certain forms, um, her affection towards me.

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So, you know, I have a pretty limited relationship with my dog. I know people think they have a bigger relationship with their dog. We just offended so many people.

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I know. Sorry about that. But you know, that's God's design. You're only supposed to have so much of a relationship with an animal and you're having a relationship with a divine being.

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I mean, this is, he's not human. He's other. It's just so. Praise be to him that he is not like this, man.

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Thank God for that. Thank God he's not. So the relationships that we have with humans, we, we develop those over time and we get to know history, habits, personalities, preferences, tastes, all that.

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Well, the God is not necessarily in us in presence, not anymore. That was lost in the garden.

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So what's, what's, um, we'll use the old Testament as an example. We did this when we talking about, if you haven't listened to,

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I'm perplexing the old Testament. I'll go back to this illustration. You have a God who delivers through power the children of Israel out of Egypt and they enter into this covenant with God and God with them, but they have no idea who

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God is. It's obvious because they're they build a golden calf and start to worship it. And if they knew who God was, they would never ever do that.

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That's such an offense to God. So what does God do? He has Moses start giving who

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God is to the children of Israel, not an instruction first. It's a narrative. He starts with the development of this relationship with Adam and Eve and how the fall happens.

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And then he just gives them this glorious explanation. And what you're talking about is the book of Moses, otherwise known as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus numbers, and Deuteronomy.

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That's right. So you, the, before you even get to Leviticus where the instructions happen, the children of Israel are receiving this relationship with God.

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And they're learning about God as the creator of all things, the sustainer of all things. He has enough power to wipe out an entire planet with the flood.

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He has the power to stop this. I mean, there's so much that's going on in Genesis as they're being introduced to them.

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And that's just an introduction. So when you go into the new Testament, Justin, I'll let you jump in here.

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And you go to the new Testament, Jesus does the same thing. He's, he's telling them the relationship with me is developed by what was written in the past.

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He says, if you've read the prophets and the law, you would have read about, that's right. You would have read about me.

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And the, that what he is saying is that whole section of scripture is an introduction to the relationship because he says,

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I have come to seek and to save that, which is lost. So his purposes are not lost. So as you're reading this story, you have to say, oh, he is developing who he is because he's claiming to be

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God is complaining to be the son of the father. So all of those relationships are developed in the old

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Testament and see full completion in the new. So it's, you're not talking about an instruction manual.

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You're talking about a relationship guide that is explaining to us who is this God that says he loves us and he saves us.

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest.

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And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a reformed confessional perspective.

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You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer. Yeah. Amen, dude.

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So I'll go ahead and get started. I'll go ahead and use a biblical example that just happened to be the text for my chapel message at a school here in the area this morning.

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And it was a real pleasure for me to go and do this in these chapel services that happen once a week at this school here in the area, this fall, all the speakers

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I've won. I'm one of several guys that speak. We're considering miracles of Jesus from the gospel of Matthew and one each week, right?

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And so for me, I had Matthew chapter nine verses 27 to 31, where Jesus heals two blind men, gives them their sight.

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And I asked the children, the kids at the school this morning, I said, Hey, you know, huge question for you to have in your mind as we're about to consider this.

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What is the point of the miracles of Jesus? What is the purpose of the miracles that he performs?

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Is it just to do some really cool stuff and some shocking stuff? And some of the kids were like, no, you know, and it's like, amen.

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You know, is it just to display his power? No. Is it to just help people and minister to them?

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Well, no, because everybody that he helped, they're going to die. I mean, it didn't last forever, the things that he did for them.

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And then even is it about our faith? And of course we receive everything that Christ has done for us by faith, but his miracles are not about our faith.

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What are they about then? So we look to the passage and it begins by these two blind guys, Jesus is passing by and these two

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Jewish blind dudes cry out to him, have mercy on us, son of David. And then goes on, you know,

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Jesus touches them, heals their, their blind eyes, gives them sight. So I said to the kids today,

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I was like, here are two things that we're going to consider. First, Jesus is a son of David. The fact that two Jewish men call him that is a big deal.

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Why? Because back in the day, God had promised David some stuff, you know, God had told David, you're going to have a son who's going to sit on the throne on your throne forever and reign in the land, provided he keeps my law.

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Then you have the prophet Jeremiah writing words to that very end. I'm going to raise up, says the Lord, a righteous branch for David.

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And he's going to administer justice and righteousness in the land. He's going to save Judah and he's going to save Israel.

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And the name by which he's going to be called is the Lord is our righteousness. In other words, he's going to do that. Right? So this one's coming.

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And so I talked about that with the kids for just a minute that, that the promised one, I mean, Jesus and being called son of David, it's all about what

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God had promised to do through a son of David who would accomplish righteousness, fulfill the law and represent his people.

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Then second observation is the fact that Jesus gives blind men their sight. And it's like, Hey, before we even consider anything, the prophets wrote, you guys know who

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John the Baptist is right now. Like, yeah. And it's like, okay, you remember this time when he was in jail and he didn't know what was going to happen to him.

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And he knows he's probably going to be killed and executed. And he sends messengers to Jesus and says, Hey, are you the one or should we look for somebody else?

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Are you the savior? How does Jesus respond? He says, go tell John what you've seen and heard. First thing out of his mouth, tell him that the blind are given their sight and the lame walk.

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And all these things are occurring. Well, why did he say that? Because what had the prophets written? The prophets had written that when

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God comes to save you, Isaiah 35, four through six, the blind are going to be given their sight and the lame will walk and the mute will speak and the deaf will hear and all these things.

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So it's like, well, that's the point of the miracles is that Jesus is demonstrating that he is that guy. He's the savior.

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He's the redeemer. He's the one that God had promised hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago. He's the one that God had promised in the garden of Eden to Adam and Eve.

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And he's here and he's going to save us is the whole purpose of, of the miracles of Christ is to demonstrate and to show us he's the one.

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And it's like, okay, that is so much more helpful than trying to come up with all these cute takeaways from the miracles of Jesus.

26:19

The takeaway is he's the Christ, behold him and trust him.

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He's accomplished your righteousness. He's atoned for your sin. He's saved you. And now look to him and believe in him.

26:32

So that was a practical exercise. That's why I'm geeked up today because what a privilege it is to be able to herald that message. It's the greatest news in the world, man.

26:38

The greatest joy we both have is to set people free from the bondage and the prisons of their mind. As Neil was told, you're in a prison.

26:49

You can't see it. You can't taste it and touch it. It's a prison of your mind. That's right.

26:54

And we give people the gospel and it sets them free from that. Justin, you shop on Amazon.

27:01

I mean, my family does. My wife is generally the one who's on Amazon. Yeah. But sorry for a long answer to your question in short.

27:07

Yes, John. Let's go. Yeah. And what typically when you're buying a product that you're not that familiar with, what's, what normally do you do?

27:14

What do you look to to see like, should I buy this product? I'm going to look at descriptions and reviews. That's absolutely right.

27:21

Because if you've ever heard of false advertisement before, it has happened. We've all bought something that said, I should have read the reviews, right?

27:28

And the reviews kind of like. Or on Facebook these days in the ads, you get to look and see all the comments and the likes or the angry, mad faces that you see all over.

27:36

It's like people are mad about having bought this product. It's like, Ooh. That's right. What's great about God is he's presenting to you the reasons why you could and should trust him.

27:49

And the Bible is just one massive. It's like he's faithful. That's right. It's one big review of all of these people who've interacted with God.

27:56

Yeah. They, they, it's a record of the authors describing the interactions they've had with God.

28:02

And often there comes with that, um, in, in instructions as well.

28:08

Uh, but one of the things that Justin and I have not said, and we want to be very clear on this Christians, the ultimate, the ultimate aim of God is to not only rescue sinners, but to transform them into the image of his son.

28:21

And he says he's going to do it. That's right. He, who began the work, finishes it. He's the author and finisher. We will be conformed in the image and likeness of his son.

28:28

That's right. So we're not here teaching that, uh, that that's not the goal. It's not just the story should all just be carnal

28:35

Christians out there and what you do doesn't matter. Well, yeah. And it's not just a story to enjoy. Yeah. It's not just a story to enjoy, but there is purpose behind it.

28:43

Like I literally believe when Paul says that every word of God is, um, beneficial, it's profitable.

28:50

It's right for the equipping and the transformation of the saints that includes old Testament prophecies and old

28:56

Testament passages. And what we're trying to help you understand is that when Paul said this, this is what he means. The narrative is designed to equip you to trust.

29:05

I mean, what is the greatest thing you were called to do? Put your faith in Jesus. That is the greatest thing you were called to do.

29:12

I mean, and if you want to even back it up and make it even more general than that, it's to believe the promises of God that are all ultimately finding their yes and amen in Jesus.

29:22

Right. Right. So when you use the word of God as it was designed, it's not a where's Waldo. That's right. It is.

29:27

Well, who, who is this God that just said he's going to forgive my sins and who, why does he have the power and right to do that?

29:34

And can I trust that he's not going to go back on his word? I mean, we've all entered in relationships and there's that suspicion of, are they really going to do what they said?

29:44

You know, I've, I've shown up to lunch appointments going, I don't, is this person really going to show, are they going to really keep their word and show up for this appointment?

29:51

And what's so great is that a lot of times when people struggle and they have fear and anxiety, and it's not based on,

29:59

I think, chemical and physical issues, but that is based upon bad theology. Like I have met people who are very afraid of God or they hate

30:07

God. One of the two, I think a lot of us battle that still, John. Oh, absolutely. But go ahead. Continue. But the point of it is, is that God says in his word that these, my words are like a light into your path, right?

30:19

A lamp for your feet. They lead us and they guide us if we allow them.

30:25

And it's not instructions. I love that idea of light because of what it's saying is he's illuminating this chaotic place that we live in.

30:33

And that chaotic place always leads us back to himself. It's resting in him and trusting in him because he's the one in revelation 21 who restores all things.

30:43

He wipes away our tears. And so that promise in revelation 21 is at the end of the book and he gives us the whole book to say here, here's why you can actually believe

30:52

I'm coming back and I'm going to wipe away. And when I say I'm making all things new, it's going to happen. I made it the first time

30:58

I can make it, I can make it again. That's right. And he's demonstrated over and over again his character and his nature and the fact that he's a savior and he always keeps his promises.

31:06

He does everything he says. Right. And I'm going to go and maybe, well, I'm going to pivot back to this thing that I wanted to say cause sparked it in my mind when

31:14

I was listening to you. And then I maybe we'll come back to God and his nature and character later. So even the law, right?

31:20

Like you were talking about how, how God's word works and um, and how we do believe that God's word not only as a lamp unto our feet and all those kinds of things in a light for our path, but that we do believe that God uses his word to transform.

31:34

And had you talked about second Timothy three 16 about how all of scripture is profitable. We believe that about the law. It's not just the narrative stuff.

31:40

It's the law. Well, but again, first Timothy one eight, we want to use the law lawfully, right?

31:46

So you got to use the law for the purpose for which it was intended from a covenantal perspective, from a redemptive historical perspective, a la

31:53

Paul in Galatians three and Romans five, where he makes it plain that the main point of the law was to increase the trespass and show us how wicked we are so that we might look to the savior.

32:03

And then in Christ, as you alluded to earlier, the law guides our lives.

32:08

We know what's good and bad and right and wrong and we are transformed and conformed to it because Christ and his life on earth kept the law always and perfectly and we're conformed into his image.

32:20

And so the law is good for the believer. It doesn't condemn us any longer. And so even there, it's like, yeah, we uphold the law.

32:27

John does. I do. Our elders do his elders do in our local congregations. We just want to use it the right way and help people see how it is the grace of God and the spirit of Christ in them that is at work in them to conform them to the law.

32:41

As we all look to the law together and say, it's good, it's good, you know, and we're going to live this way.

32:46

Yeah. Um, I have one other thought, John, but I'm happy to let you jump in on something cause I can come back to it.

32:51

Cause I want to, I want to really hammer this nature and character of God thing that you kind of picked up on. Right. 21, which, and I know some people are thinking, wait a minute, you guys said this is about covenant theology.

33:00

What you need to understand is we're giving you the nuts and bolts of covenant theology. We're giving you the application of it.

33:05

The nuts and bolts can be found. Yeah. Like why this matters. Like the structure behind it.

33:11

Um, we'll continue to recommend this. We did a, we did a series on this, a five part series. Uh, we have a book recommended and then

33:17

Justin and I did a five part series on covenant theology. And then we did a book review of a book on covenant theology. I mean, there's a lot of resources go to the show notes.

33:25

We'll get those to you. Uh, I want to go back to the way I think that it's helped changed the way

33:31

I view scripture, even as when I proclaim the truth of Christ each and every week.

33:37

So I, I'm a, I'm a proclaimer, you're a proclaimer, I'm a teacher, you're a teacher. And so when I gather my thoughts from God's word, what's uh, you, what

33:45

I was trained when I was in college is you're, you're kind of looking for the main point and then you're bringing the application.

33:51

But that main point always seemed to be moralism and it always seemed to be about action with some moral truth about you and what you need to do.

33:59

Right. There's very clear. There are things in the Bible that there are, you know, I'm about to preach James. James is pretty heavy in, in application, right?

34:06

So totally, you know, I just got done with massive narrative. John, John is mostly narrative, very few instructions.

34:13

And John tells you right out of the gate. Well, at the end of the book in chapter 20, I write these things that you might believe and in believing you have eternal life.

34:20

So it's the application should be believe in Jesus. It's the whole point. James is dealing with kind of a dysfunctional church, not kind of, he's dealing with a dysfunctional church that needs to kind of have a spiritual span.

34:30

People flat out aren't loving each other and there's favoritism and there's a lot of stuff going on. Right. When you, when you will, um, when you read the, when you read the

34:37

Bible from cover to cover, you take it from its historical standpoint and you're reading it as the scripture unfolds, you are going to understand that it is a biography of one's life.

34:49

And that is how we got Jesus. And then once we get Jesus and he's here on this life and then he leaves and he sends his disciples out, they continue that biography because now they're interpreting things that, you know, can, we're a little shadowy and a little mysterious.

35:06

And then, and then they give you like, okay, so by the way, there are some ways in which we handle this.

35:12

Um, and that percent in light of this live this way. Right. So towards the end of the book, after you've engaged with the nature of God and after you've engaged with who

35:22

Jesus is, it's a real man doing real work for real centers who are really going to be saved and really in his presence.

35:30

Uh, it, you look at it a percentage wise, and I've been saying this for, I don't even know how many years, at least six years of doing theocast, um, percentage wise instructions for the

35:39

Christian that apply for today. It's like 3 % of your Bible at best at best.

35:44

And that's important for you to understand because if you were, and by that you mean God's moral law.

35:50

And then you mean the clear imperatives in the new Testament, clear imperatives of the right love, love, kindness, you know, sexual sexuality, marriage, all those things, right.

35:59

Instructions for guiding our life. Right. So if you're, because in other words, the ceremonial and the civil law

36:05

God gave to Israel no longer are binding for the believer. No. And so all of that served its purpose and taught us about Jesus.

36:13

That's right. And that's why you would use the percentage figure you're using just to be clear. Yeah. Well, when I say applicable for us today, and I'm just clarifying what you mean.

36:21

Yeah, absolutely. And the reason this is so important is that I don't want to deemphasize those sections of the scripture.

36:28

They need to govern us and they need to guide us, but they don't make sense. And you don't understand the purpose behind them.

36:35

And I think the emphasis behind them, if you ignore the other 97 % of your

36:40

Bible. If I can jump in on this and I'm going to ask, I'm going to have you give a little illustration that is something you've experienced recently in a conversation with,

36:50

I think some guys from your church. Yeah. We must always in light of what you're saying, we must always be crystal clear about this, that the things that we are to do, like in light of Christ and the gospel and God's plan of redemption live this way.

37:05

That needs to be how we always present it. And I think that's what sometimes people lose sight of because like, well, yeah,

37:12

I mean, don't guys, don't we understand the gospel? We understand the gospel, right? Let's just, this has got imperatives in it.

37:18

Let's just talk about the imperatives. And I want to say, okay, listen, I never as a preacher, if I'm going to be faithful to God's word and how he's revealed it, the indicative, like, here's what

37:29

God has done always drives the imperative and I ought communicate it that way. And I ought not communicate it in any other way as though these imperatives are unattached from Christ and his work in our place, you know, and it needs to be communicated in that regard unashamedly for me as a preacher and a teacher in my local church, week after week, after week, after week, so that we understand the imperatives the right way.

37:53

And we are so prone, John, because we kind of going back to the intro, we tend to always go to the scripture and invert this.

38:01

And we, we make it about us first. And it's like, let's talk about us first and all the things that we need to be doing first.

38:08

And then, yeah, of course we want to tag the gospel and Christ into it somehow. But you were talking about this from first John three 16.

38:15

Yeah. Recently, weren't you guys having a discussion about that? You want to talk about that for a second? Yeah. So I preached on this passage in the series

38:22

I did on the purpose of the church. And one of the things I was trying to help people understand is how we can gravitate towards sections of the

38:28

Bible because our brains have been trained to do that. For instance, first John three 16 says, by this we know love that Christ laid his life down for the church and we ought to lay our life down for the brethren.

38:40

And the question I give to the men was, guys, what, what emotion? Like, what's the first feeling you get when you hear that?

38:47

That's right. Immediately. Yeah, man. I, I just, I know I don't like not for my wife or for you guys.

38:54

I just, I feel ashamed. Like I should probably do be doing more, but I don't know how, like I don't know how to do more.

38:59

And it was 30 minutes and I just kind of let the guys go. I said, Hey guys, what's the first part of the verse say?

39:05

And they kind of were paused for a moment and they couldn't remember. I said, it's interesting how we've been so trained to skip the best part and the only reason why you would ever want to lay and even imagine laying your life down by this.

39:19

We know love it's Christ. In other words, John, John the writer of the epistle is telling the church the point of all of this is that Christ is a redeemer.

39:30

He's a savior. He saved you, right? And now do this for each other in light of him and light of what he's done for you.

39:37

And again, I just want to tie this back to covenant theology. That's a great example of indicative imperative driving imperative, right?

39:43

And tying this back to covenant theology. Why are we talking about this today like this? Because a covenantal redemptive historical framework and then that understanding of the

39:51

Bible, the point of the whole thing is Christ and that he's a redeemer and we ought to read the whole thing from cover to cover knowing that that's true.

39:59

And if I can, John, the last few minutes that we've got here on the regular episode, I want to pick back up on some stuff that you said earlier and we've both kind of touched on throughout.

40:09

You mentioned revelation 21, you know, and how God says he's going to wipe away every tear from our eye. And, and I mentioned how he says, you know,

40:15

I'm gonna make all things new. And it's like the whole Bible has borne witness to the fact that he's able to do that and that he's going to do that and that we can trust him to do that.

40:23

That's huge because so much of our growth in this life, so much of our, dare

40:30

I say, progress in the Christian life has to do with our faith and trust and confidence in the

40:36

Lord being strengthened as he continues to teach us more about himself, his character and his nature.

40:42

And it teaches us more about Christ and what he's done for us. You know, so that's the way that we're changed and transformed.

40:48

And that's the way the scripture I think should be used most often when people are going through hard things.

40:54

For example, I'm not going to open the Bible as a pastor. I'm not going to open the

40:59

Bible for somebody who's grieving or, or who's just really struggling with hard circumstances or is crippled by anxiety or depression or something and try to find, you know, isolated verses to give them that are going to just make them feel better.

41:14

No. What are we going to do as pastors or as just brothers and sisters in the church? We're going to encourage, we're going to sit and we're going to listen a lot.

41:21

We're going to love, we're going to hug, we're going to be there. But then when we do finally speak to them, what are we going to give them? Well, we're going to give them the message of the

41:29

Bible about how good and faithful and true and loving our God is and how he cares for us.

41:35

And we can cast our concerns upon him and how he is utterly faithful to keep every promise that he's ever made to us.

41:41

And he has shown it time and time and time and time again. That's right. That's what we do.

41:47

That's how we encourage each other. And that's what we need. You know, in terms of what do we need to fix what ails us?

41:52

Well, ultimately we need Christ and what he did for us. But then what do we need in times that are difficult so that we might make it through?

41:59

We need to be reminded of the goodness and faithfulness of our God and to be reminded of the sufficiency of Christ's work in our place and the fact that he has guaranteed us that we're going to be with him forever.

42:08

You know, and again, that, like I said earlier, that doesn't make me feel better all the time, you know, in the moment, but over the course of years and decades, bro, that'll bear a lot of fruit in a person's life.

42:16

And when we are continually pointed back again to God and his nature, that he's a redeemer and always has been, and that Christ being crucified and fulfilling the law for us has always been the plan and that the new heavens and the new earth have always been in view.

42:31

Okay. That's right. Well, I think it's to add to that, Justin, as we come to a close here, when 2

42:40

Timothy says that the word of God is sufficient, it means that it's sufficient to allow us to live this life in a way that God has designed.

42:51

It doesn't mean that it's sufficient to answer all questions about life. Because for instance, um, why, why, it's not why it was written.

43:01

No. Why did one individual get cancer and be cured for it? And another individual get cancer and die from it.

43:07

And the Bible tells us that the father is good. His purposes are glorious. The world is broken, full of sin and cursed.

43:14

God has a purpose. He is not ignorant. Nothing is, he's not lost control. No, it's like there's, well, there are things that we don't understand why

43:22

God chooses to do things and not do things, but there is sufficient information in there for us to trust that what he is doing is good.

43:31

It's like, Justin, let me ask you this. When, when, um, a doctor who has a degree, who's been, who has great reviews, you know, he has his peers trust him and you go in and you have to have your, you know, say your gallbladder removed.

43:43

Do you understand everything that doctor's about to do? Not at all. No, but you're going to have to kind of trust him.

43:49

And in many ways, that's like they're on a very bad illustration. There are parts of what

43:54

God, who he is and what he does. You will never understand, but we have sufficient information to trust him.

44:02

Yeah. And he effectively looks at us and says, child, you do not understand, but you can trust me. And I mean, last little parting shot, just picking up on a couple of things that you were saying a minute ago, like even the question of suffering and pain, why is it that suffering is not administered equally?

44:16

Because it clearly isn't. I don't know. Neither do you. And God has not told us, but what we have been told is that there is only one person who has ever suffered unjustly.

44:25

And his name is Christ. And he did it for us. And, and he took, he bore our sins in his body on the tree.

44:31

And like that's the kind of stuff that we need to do is say, we don't understand this and we don't know this.

44:36

And God has not told us this, right? God is God. He's not lost control of this thing and he's good and faithful.

44:42

And he's made these promises. Christ has accomplished and fulfilled them and all will be well.

44:48

So let's hold onto each other as we all hold on to him. And cling to these things. That's good. Yeah.

44:53

Well, Justin, I think we need to unpack a little bit more on a technical level as it relates to covenant theology, perhaps.

45:00

So we're going to do that for you in the Semper Reformanda podcast. For those of you that like to come over and join us.

45:07

Sounds good. So why don't you take us over? I should do that as the person who introduced the podcast.

45:12

I apologize for getting distracted for just a moment. We are going to make our way over to the Semper Reformanda podcast, which is the other podcast that John and I record every week.

45:20

And this is for our members, people that have partnered with Theocast to join SR and to help us see this message spread as far and wide as possible.

45:30

And if you are listening and you have no idea what Semper Reformanda means, even though you might be a good

45:35

Latin student and know that it means always reforming, you don't know what SR is or what this is.

45:41

You can go to our website. I realized I just repeated myself and I apologize. Go to our website,

45:47

Theocast .org and look there for everything you need to know about how to become a member.

45:52

We'd love for you to do that. And we hope that all of you who have been listening that aren't going to join us on SR have been encouraged. If you're going over to SR with us, we'll talk to you in just a minute.

46:00

Grace and peace to you. Here's my final parting thought for you. Let the love of God fuel your obedience to God.