Biblical Theology - Understanding Scripture (2 of 3)

Welcome to the second part of the Understanding Scripture course, Biblical Theology.

This material is intended to equip all believers with basic skills in exegesis and theology so they can gain a deeper and more accurate understanding of God's Word.

It's completely free and you can download all the material at training .freely .giving.

If you're not yet familiar with the basics of exegesis then it's best to look over the material for the first part of Understanding Scripture before continuing with this part on Biblical Theology.

These trainings are commonly run in small groups over six sessions with a leader teaching the content from the slides provided.

That way there's someone there to answer questions and give feedback on work completed. So most people won't need these videos.

Rather, they're to help in the following situations. Individuals who want to learn the content by themselves or groups that don't have a leader to run through the material with them or leaders who want to learn the material before running their own groups.

So let's get started. What is Biblical Theology? Theology is the study of God and his will.

The Bible has many stories and events, but they're not merely there to entertain us. They're there to teach us things about God.

And when we study what the Bible teaches, we are doing theology. There's a few different ways to approach theology.

For example, you could gather all the Bible's teaching on a certain topic together and that's what we call systematic theology.

However, the Bible isn't just an assortment of teachings that you might find in a textbook. Instead, God has progressively revealed himself through teachings and actions over thousands of years through the story of the

Bible. Biblical theology is the study of that story. So in terms of what we'll be studying, there are six parts to this training.

The first is an introduction to Biblical theology. The second and third are looking at different frameworks to understand the story of the

Bible, firstly through covenants and then secondly through the idea of kingdom. Then we'll be thinking about how to apply

Biblical theology to our own teaching. And finally, the last two sessions are devoted to actually coming up with a study or talk and getting feedback on it.

So in this first session, we'll cover what Biblical theology is and why it is important.

The Bible is a collection of books written by different people at different times to different audiences.

Some of them aren't even books but rather letters. If you read a random letter you found on the street, you might have a difficult time fully understanding it unless you knew the context and the history of the sender and recipients.

Some parts of the letter might be straightforward, whereas other parts might be impossible to understand without knowing the context.

And so likewise, many Christians struggle to know how everything in the Bible fits together and they treat it like a pile of books that you can randomly flick through for guidance in life.

Biblical theology helps us see how all the books of the Bible fit together into one coherent story that leads to Jesus.

By knowing the overall context and history of the Bible, we can more accurately interpret any individual passage within it.

While the Bible does have many human authors and subjects, it has one ultimate author and one ultimate message.

As we can see in these verses here. 2 Timothy 3 .16 says,

These verses are from the Berean Standard Bible, which is a great translation that is free to use and its translation style is kind of in the middle between the

NIV and the ESV. It's a little more literal than the NIV, but easier to read than the

ESV. But feel free to look up these verses in your own preferred translation as well.

So if we think about that verse, all scripture is God breathed, it reminds us that although many different people were responsible for writing the

Bible, all of it is still God breathed, meaning that God is still behind the message of the

Bible, even if it was written through the words of men. And of course, God is directly quoted in numerous places as well.

2 Peter 1 .21 says, So that again reiterates that although there were human authors behind scripture, they still spoke from God as they were carried along by his spirit.

So there is one ultimate author behind the whole Bible. And the difference this makes is that it means

God is the same. He is not a different God in the Old Testament to the

New Testament. He was behind all of scripture. And so his character is consistent throughout the

Bible. There is also one ultimate message. Luke 24 verse 44 says,

Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me, Jesus speaking, in the law of Moses, the prophets and the

Psalms. And so Jesus himself says everything in scripture is ultimately in some way written about him.

The law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms was a common way of summing up the Old Testament back in the day.

In 2 Corinthians 1 .20 it says, For all the promises of God are yes in Christ.

And so while there is lots of depth and nuance to scripture, ultimately it has one message that points to Christ.

Christ is the fulfillment of everything that came before. And so it's not like the

Old Testament was a trial run that failed and so God came up with the

New Testament. No, from the very beginning until now, Jesus was always the plan.

Everything has always been leading up to Jesus. It's one story, one ultimate message throughout.

Let's do a quick recap of what exegesis is. Hopefully you've learned about exegesis before going into these videos, but if not, here is a quick recap.

Exegesis is the study of the original meaning of a text so that we can faithfully apply it to today.

You can't even begin doing theology without first exegeting texts. And there are three main areas of investigation when doing exegesis.

Firstly, there's the context of the passage, so that's what's around the passage, both in terms of what's directly before and after it, but also what time period was it written in, what was the historical context.

Then there's also the actual content, so this is what's inside the passage itself. And when we think about the content, we need to think about the genre, the structure of the passage, and any particular details that really stand out.

And finally, there's also the implications of the passage. What did it originally mean for the original audience?

And then also, what implications does it have for us today as well? So it's time to introduce the passage we'll be working on together throughout these sessions,

Joshua chapter 6. You should pause the video now and read the chapter and partially exegete this passage by discussing just the context and the content.

So in terms of context, you'll look at the historical context. What place does this passage have in history in general and in terms of the

Bible as well? Also think about the literary context. What place does this have in the book of Joshua?

What function does it play? And then also look at the immediate context.

What happens immediately before this passage and immediately afterwards as well? After looking at the context, you should look at the content.

What genre is this passage? Are there any significant details in this passage that really stand out?

And also think about how to structure this passage. Can it be broken down into sections? And what logical sections would they be?

Once you've done that, you can resume playing the video and we'll go through some of the answers.

So let's think about the context first. What happens immediately before this passage?

Well, Joshua encounters an angel who commands God's army and something strange happens in his conversation with the angel.

Look at chapter 5, verse 13. When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.

Joshua approached him and asked, Are you for us or for our enemies? Neither, he replied.

I have now come as commander of the Lord's army. Now you'd expect the angel to say that he was for Israel.

He was on the side of Israel. But instead, when given the choice between Israel and Jericho, the angel replies that he's on neither side.

He is on God's side. Let's keep that in mind as we go through the passage. Let's now think about what happens immediately after this passage.

We have a man called Achan who has taken some treasure from Jericho despite being told not to.

Because of his sin, God's anger burns against all of Israel until they are able to identify who exactly took the treasure.

Before this passage, we have this interesting encounter with the angel who says he's not on either

Israel's side or Jericho's side. He's on God's side. Immediately after the passage, we have

God turning against Israel. God, in some ways, not being on the side of Israel, but actually being against them until they are able to root out the sin.

Let's now think about the literary context. What part does this passage have to play in the book of Joshua?

Jericho is the first city of the Promised Land to be conquered. Throughout the book of Joshua, it's the story of how

God's people eventually come to occupy the Promised Land. This is the first city to be taken, so it's quite a crucial moment in the book.

In terms of the historical context, it's the beginning of the fulfillment of God's promise of land to Abraham and Israel.

A lot has been leading up to this moment. Ever since he promised the land to Abraham, this has been on the horizon.

God's people have wandered around the desert for 40 years after failing to enter the

Promised Land initially. Now, finally, after the older generation has passed away, they're finally going to see the fulfillment of this promise way back to Abraham.

God is also punishing the inhabitants of Canaan for their sin. If you read

Genesis 15 -16 or Leviticus 18 -27,

God makes it clear that part of the reason he is sending his people to take the

Promised Land is to punish the sins of those who inhabit those lands.

God was very patient in not immediately judging them for their sin, but waiting for the right time to do that.

And now the time has come. So this is actually partly a judgment on the people who live there.

Yes, God's people are entering the Promised Land, but they're not just cleaning it out so they can live there.

It's God's judgment on the sin of those who inhabit that land. Let's now think about the content of the passage.

The genre is a historical narrative, and so these are real events being told as a story, but these things really happened.

In terms of the structure, there are different ways to break it down, but potentially good structure could be verses 1 -7, the instructions on what to do from God.

Verses 8 -14, the first six days of the battle or the ceremony.

And verses 15 -25 is the seventh day battle, when the walls come tumbling down and they actually fight and take over the city.

And then finally, verses 26 -27 is a little interesting ending where Jericho is cursed so that no one will rebuild the city.

In terms of significant details in the passage, the number 7 comes up a lot. And as most people would know, the number 7 is symbolic for holiness or completeness in the

Bible. It's often used for things of God, and so it's no coincidence that they had to go around the city seven times, and then also on the seventh day they were around another seven times.

There's also several mentions of the city's contents being devoted to God, whether it is for his treasury, in verse 19, or devoted to destruction, in verse 18.

And so there's this reminder that the battle belongs to God, and also because the battle belongs to God, because he is the one fighting the battle, the city's contents belongs to God, whether that is for destruction or for keeping in his treasury.

And the events are primarily supernatural, so there's the instructions from God, there's the ceremony of walking around the city, there's

God's ark, which represents his presence, and the walls fall down supernaturally, and finally there's cursing of the city at the end.

And so there's a lot of supernatural elements to this story, to this battle. And it's only really secondarily human events, and so there is some shouting, there is the slaying of the inhabitants, and there is the burning of the city.

But ultimately, primarily, this is a supernatural event. So with all of that context and notes on the content in mind, we're going to move on now, but all of those details will be important as we interpret this passage's meaning for today, and as we interpret its place in God's story, the story of the

Bible. Now, biblical theology is not separate from exegesis.

It's not a separate thing. Rather, it enhances our exegesis. We cannot understand the original meaning of a passage without considering its place in the plan of the passage's ultimate author,

God. So exegesis without theology would be treating the text as a merely human piece of writing.

In terms of context, biblical theology enhances that process by asking the question, what is this passage's place in God's story?

So where in God's story of the Bible is this passage happening? Then also, in terms of content, does the passage itself make references to the story?

Does the passage point back to other parts of the story? And then also, when we think about the implications of the passage, what does the passage contribute to the story?

So the passage will actually be, in some ways, changing or contributing to the story as it progresses, and so what is that contribution it plays?

And so no matter what part of exegesis you're thinking about, biblical theology is relevant.

Let's now think about biblical theology frameworks. And by framework,

I just mean ways of dividing up the Bible or dividing up the story to help us understand it.

You see, the Bible tells a coherent story. It was written in an orderly, understandable manner.

This is unlike, for example, some other religious texts, which are considered holy or profound because they're hard to understand.

The Bible isn't designed to be hard to understand. It's designed to be coherent and understandable.

It has characters, themes, events that all interconnect with each other. But it is a complex collection of multiple books, and these books were written by different authors at different times and for different audiences.

So there is complexity to it, and that means we do have to have some care and be very thoughtful in how we interpret it.

And so frameworks help us structure our understanding of God's story to more easily see how things fit together.

There's not one perfect framework. We build it around what is already in the

Bible. The Bible isn't built around it. What I mean by that is that there isn't a single framework that the

Bible was written according to. It's not like the framework was there and then the authors wrote according to that structure.

No, we come up with frameworks ourselves to help us understand what's already in the

Bible, to help us kind of hold things together. We use key moments and themes in the text, and we can use multiple frameworks to enrich our understanding.

There is no one perfect framework. Because the thing is, no matter what framework you use, it will never account for all the breadth and depth of Scripture.

So no matter how you divide up the Bible, there's always going to be some stories that don't quite fit. That's because frameworks are just there to help us understand it.

They're not part of the Bible itself. To give a very simple example, let's think about the idea of testaments.

Because in some ways, dividing up the Bible into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament, is an example of a very basic framework.

And so Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled in the New Testament. There's three examples there on the screen from Micah, Isaiah, and Zechariah of how there were prophecies in the

Old Testament about Jesus that he fulfills in the New Testament. But also, the

New Testament points back to the Old Testament for proof in context. And so it's not just that prophecies are fulfilled and that's the only connection.

Rather, New Testament authors will refer back to different things in the Old Testament to explain or prove that Jesus is the

Christ. For example, in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 7, Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are.

For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. And so you can see there that Paul is pointing back to the

Passover and pointing out how Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the

Passover, the ultimate fulfillment of God passing over us, saving us, and not judging us for our sin.

So it's not just that Jesus fulfills prophecies. He's also the ultimate fulfillment of different events and roles and other

Old Testament institutions. The Old Testament and the New Testament point back and forth to each other.

But let's now think about the pros and cons of using testaments as a framework for dividing up the

Bible. The testament divide is helpful in many ways. It highlights the significance of Christ's ministry and saving acts.

And so when you get to the New Testament, you know you've come to the time of Jesus's incarnation and his work on earth.

And it also discourages interpreting the Old Testament as directly applicable to Christians.

So when you're reading a passage in the Old Testament, you'll usually know to be more careful about directly applying that to us

Christians. But the testament divide is insufficient and in some ways it can be unhelpful.

For one, it's too simple. It's just two parts, and there's many more key events in the

Bible that we need to get our heads around. And just lumping everything in the Old Testament or the New Testament isn't enough to help us understand the story of the

Bible. It also fails to orderly explain the continuity between the Old and the

New. And that's why it's often the case that people will come up with a misconception that the

God of the Old Testament is more violent or more angry than the

God of the New Testament. And the reason for that isn't because God has changed. The reason is because just seeing the

Bible as Old Testament and New Testament is an unhelpful and too simplistic way to divide it up.

Rather, there are many stories of God's grace coming through in the Old Testament.

So let's now think about the group passage again, Joshua 6. How does the fact that this passage is from the

Old Testament change the following? Firstly, how we understand

God's commands. Well, because God's command to conquer Jericho was part of his fulfillment of taking the

Promised Land, it was region and time and people specific. So it was just for that area in just that time and just for those people.

So it does not apply today. And so if you're reading the story of Jericho today, you shouldn't be thinking, we need to go and conquer

Jericho again. Two, how we understand the people's actions. Well, we can learn from their obedience to God that they carried out his commands.

But we're not called to execute God's judgment like they were. They were specifically told to be executors of God's judgment, to be his punishment on the sins of those nations.

But rather, we are called to be the executors of God's grace to all nations.

As Jesus said when he ascended to heaven, in Matthew 28 verse 19, we're to go to all nations and share the message of the gospel.

That's the role we play in God's story. Third, let's think about how we understand

God's character. Well, this is the one thing that doesn't change. God's character does not change.

And so we can learn what he is like from this passage and know that that is consistent with what he's like today.

So you now need to pick your own passage for the rest of the sessions that you will study yourself.

There are two passages to pick from, but if you are a leader of the group, you could potentially choose some other passages for others to choose.

1 Samuel 8, where Israel asked for a king to lead them, and Jeremiah 29 verse 1 to 14, which has the famous verse, for I know the plans

I have for you. And so you can pause the video now and begin the exegesis of your chosen passage, referring back to the structure mentioned earlier about looking at the context and the content of the passage, the immediate literary and historical context, and the genre structure and details in the passage.

We're now up to part 2, and in this session we'll look at how the Bible's inbuilt theme of covenants can be used as a framework for understanding the whole

Bible. So why might we use covenants as a framework for dividing up and structuring our understanding of the

Bible? Well, covenants structure God's story around special promises he made with certain people.

Covenants are relationship -based promises. That is, God makes covenants to positively relate with his creation.

And covenants with God are always initiated by God. So there aren't covenants with God that someone, a human, has initiated.

They're always initiated by God. And covenants are sometimes conditional or two -way.

Sometimes there will be a condition that if that condition is broken, then the covenant will be broken, and those blessings that God promised will no longer happen.

But there are some covenants that are unconditional, that they are just promises from God that he will do something no matter what the actions are of his people.

Now, the advantage of using covenants to understand the whole Bible is that they are in the text itself.

And the Bible is already organised somewhat around the theme of covenants, as evidenced by the many different authors of the

Bible frequently referring back to them. Throughout the Bible, you have people referring back to the covenants that God has made with different people as evidence and explanations of what is happening in that time.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean the whole Bible is structured around them. It just means that they are a frequent theme and a helpful way of dividing up the

Bible. There are six main covenants in the Bible, and we'll look at each in turn and see what promises are made and what conditions there are, if any.

Some of the covenants are made in stages, which is why some of them have multiple passage references, either repeating or clarifying the promises that were made.

Now, the covenant with Adam is different to the rest because it was made in the context of a blank slate, where Adam had just been created and there was no sin.

Whereas the rest of the covenants are about restoring relationship with sinful humanity, the covenant with Adam is different because sin hasn't entered the world yet.

It's also different because it is the one covenant that doesn't mention the word covenant, so it's not referred to as a covenant in the

Bible itself. But it does have similarities with the other covenants, which is why it's fair to consider it a form of covenant.

You should now pause this video and go through each of those passages on the screen and work out what promises are being made and are there any conditions.

So let's now go through these different covenants and try to work out what are the promises being made and are there any conditions.

So firstly, with the covenant with Adam in Genesis 1, it says in verse 28,

God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.

And so God blesses people, mankind, they will rule over creation, they will steward it for God and they will prosper.

And so those are the promises that God makes to the first humans on the earth. Now there is one condition and that condition comes up in chapter 2, verse 16.

And the Lord God commanded him, You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. And so the one condition that is given is that they may not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And so that will break the covenant and we see that happen in chapter 3 with the fall and with sin entering the world.

So how about the covenant with Noah? Well, in Genesis chapter 9, we read,

Behold, I now establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock and every beast of the earth, every living thing that came out of the ark.

And I established my covenant with you. Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood.

Never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. And so that is the promise

God makes to Noah and to all living things. And the sign of that covenant is the rainbow to remind so that when it rains, to remind people that God will never again create a flood like in Genesis 9.

Now, is there a condition here? No, this appears to be one of those covenants that simply do not have any conditions.

God promises that he will never again flood the earth like he did before. And that's that. That's his promise.

No matter how bad things get, he's made that promise and he keeps it. So we now come to the covenant with Abraham.

And this is one of the most important covenants because it frequently comes up in the rest of Scripture.

There are many, many passages that point back to this covenant and we'll see why. Firstly, what promises does

God make to Abraham? Well, in chapter 12, verse 1, we read that the

Lord said to Abram, leave your country, your kindred, and your father's household and go to the land

I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.

And so in there we have the three main blessings that God will give to Abraham.

Firstly, land. He is going to bless him with a land to live in, the promised land. Secondly, he will become a great nation and he'll have many, many descendants.

And that comes up more in the other passages as well that are referenced later in chapters 15 and 17.

And also, I will bless you. God will bless Abraham. And not only that, but through Abraham, all families of the earth will be blessed.

All nations will be blessed through him. And so those are the three main promises God makes.

Land, descendants, and blessing. Now, are there any conditions to this covenant?

Well, if we look at chapter 17, we see that in verse 14 it says, but if any male is not circumcised, he will be cut off from his people.

He has broken my covenant. So here we see there is a bit of a condition.

And by condition, we're just thinking about things that break the covenant. So not just expectations of being godly and things like that, but what would actually break the covenant?

What would actually stop God's promises from being fulfilled? And here we see the covenant can be broken by not following the law on circumcision, but it's only broken for the individual who commits that sin.

And so it's not as if one person is not circumcised, it breaks God's covenant.

No, this is actually an everlasting covenant. This is something God will always do for his people, even if individuals lose their blessing and break the covenant themselves.

So there is a condition, but it's an individual condition. It's not a condition on the whole covenant.

Now, this is really important because it means that no matter how bad things get, no matter how many people turn away from God or even break individually his covenant with them,

God will still keep this promise to Abraham. And so because this is an everlasting covenant with God's people that on a corporate level can never be broken,

God will always fulfill this covenant. No matter how bad things get, that's really important because things are going to get bad.

God's people are going to go astray. They are going to get exiled. But because of God's covenant with Abraham, no matter how bad things get, eventually they will be restored.

Eventually, at least a remnant will be restored of his people. And so this is why this covenant is really important.

And notice, this is simply God saying, I'm going to be good to you because I'm God.

It's not because Abraham was a particularly godly man. He is admired for his faith.

But ultimately, the reason why God blesses Abraham is simply because he's God. He's a good

God and he wanted to. And so already we see God's grace coming out in this passage.

And that's going to have a big effect on all Scripture from this moment on. So let's now turn to the covenant with Israel and see what promises

God makes for the nation of Israel in the time after he saved them from Egypt.

As we read in Exodus 19, verse 5, Now, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession out of all the nations, for the whole earth is mine.

And unto me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And so God promises Israel that they will be his special people.

And God also reiterates the covenant with Abraham that he will give them a land and they will prosper.

And this really comes out in Deuteronomy chapter 28, where God lists all the blessings that he will lavish on his people.

And in verse 3 of chapter 28, You'll be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land, etc., etc.

Lots and lots of blessing he will pour out on his people if they are faithful to him. And this is where the condition comes in.

Because if we skip down to verse 15 of chapter 28, we read, If, however, you do not obey the

Lord your God by carefully following all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.

The fruit of your womb will be cursed. And so all of the blessings that God was going to lavish on his people now become curses.

And so it's not as if God is simply going to bless his people, but if they don't obey his commands, then they just don't get those blessings.

Actually, it's not just that they don't get those blessings. They're actually going to be cursed.

Things are actually going to go badly for them. They will be punished. It's not just a matter of not getting the blessing.

Rather, the blessings will turn into curses instead. And the covenant involves basically all of the commands

God has given his people after he saved them from Egypt. So it's not just the Ten Commandments.

It's all of the law. They need to obey all of it and stay faithful to him, and then they will be blessed.

Now, God is still a very gracious and patient God, and there are many laws and things they could do to restore themselves if they sinned.

And a lot of the sacrifices play that role in giving them a pathway to restoring relationship with God when they do sin and when they do mess up.

But overall, if they are not faithful, they as a nation will get rejected, and that's what we see in the exile later on.

But again, this is where the covenant with Abraham is really important because although the covenant with Israel is conditional, the covenant with Abraham is not.

And so when things get really bad, when God's people get cursed with exile, for example, in Jeremiah 11 .10,

yet the covenant with Abraham still provides hope of restoration. And we see that in Jeremiah 33 .26.

And so the prophets will refer to these covenants. They'll refer to the fact that Israel has been unfaithful.

That's the reason they're getting punished. But because of the covenant with Abraham, which is unconditional, there is still hope of restoration.

We now come to the covenant with David. And now this is a covenant just with David and his descendants, so it's not with all of Israel.

It's with the family of David. And in 2 Samuel 7 .12, we read,

And when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.

He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.

And when he does wrong, I will discipline him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men.

But my loving devotion will never be removed from him, as I removed it from Saul.

And so this is a promise that there will be a descendant of David who has an everlasting kingdom.

And we see this partially fulfilled in his son Solomon, but ultimately it will be fulfilled, of course, in Jesus, who is the descendant of David.

And that's why we see that in verse 14, God will discipline this descendant, most likely referring to Solomon and the other merely human descendants of David, who were obviously sinful and would need discipline.

Now, you may have noticed that the word covenant isn't actually used in this passage. All the other covenants before, from Noah, Abraham, and Israel, were referred to as covenants in the text itself.

However, in this passage, God doesn't say explicitly that he's making a covenant with David. However, another passage in Scripture does interpret it that way.

So in 2 Chronicles 21, verse 7, this is referred to as a covenant with David.

So although it didn't use the word in this particular passage, Scripture does affirm that this is a covenant. God is making a special relationship with David, special promises.

Now, is there a condition to this covenant? No, it doesn't appear there is. And we see that come about when

Solomon, David's son, falls into a lot of sin, and because for the sake of David and God's promise to David, he does not strip away the kingdom from Solomon, even though he's done so many bad things.

Instead, he waits till Solomon has passed away. But ultimately, this everlasting covenant is fulfilled in Jesus, of course.

And so despite David's descendants going astray, eventually this covenant will be fulfilled in Jesus.

It is everlasting and unconditional in that sense. So we now come to the last covenant and the most important covenant of all, the new covenant in Christ.

So in Luke chapter 22, you have the story of the Last Supper. And notice what

Jesus says in verse 20. In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying,

This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

And so here we see Jesus himself introducing the new covenant that will be established through his death and resurrection.

And it's fairly safe to infer from this scene where Jesus is announcing the new covenant in connection with his death and resurrection that the new covenant is about the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

And we see this fleshed out more in Hebrews chapter 8. And notice the quote in Hebrews chapter 8.

This is actually quoting Jeremiah. So although the new covenant is mentioned in Hebrews and in Luke chapter 22, it's actually also mentioned way back in the

Old Testament in Jeremiah chapter 31. And so way back before Jesus' incarnation,

God was already planning this new covenant. And so let's read now from Hebrews chapter 8, verse 8.

But God found fault with the people and said, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when

I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And then skipping down to verse 11,

No longer will each one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, Know the Lord, because they will all know me.

From the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.

By speaking of a new covenant, he's made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete in aging will soon disappear.

And so the new covenant is the fulfillment of that which came before. Now, are there any conditions to this new covenant?

Well, it is entered into by faith in Jesus, but it's not conditional on following the law like the covenant with Israel was, for example.

It's not conditional on obedience in the same sense that the previous covenants were.

And so those are the covenants mentioned in scripture. One way to conceptualize the covenants is as a narrowing layer of blessings that are ultimately fulfilled in the new covenant with Christ.

The first five covenants eventually narrow down with ancestry. And so you start with the covenant with Adam.

As mentioned, the covenant with Adam is a bit different because it's not explicitly labeled as a covenant.

But if we think about it as being the start, the blank slate where God is sovereign over all his creation, it then narrows down with the covenant of Noah that is made with all living things.

So no longer will God wipe out all living things with a flood. It then narrows down further to just be a promise to Abraham.

So there were other people around in Abraham's time, but the covenant is only with Abraham. It then narrows down further to Israel.

So Abraham's son was Isaac, and then Isaac's son was Jacob, and Jacob is renamed

Israel. And so this covenant is narrower further. It's just for the people of Israel, not with other descendants of Abraham.

And then finally, with David, it's just a promise to him and his family, his descendants, to do with them being on the throne.

If you're reading commentaries and other material, you may see other names for these covenants.

So, for example, the covenant with Israel is usually referred to as the Mosaic covenant, to do with Moses because it was kind of told to Moses and he relayed that to the people.

But rather, I think it's more helpful to actually name the covenants based on who they were given to.

And so the covenants weren't given specifically just to Moses. It was given to Israel.

He was just the spokesperson. And notice how the older covenants can be thought of as being inherited by blood, so narrowing down from all creation to all living things, just to Abraham's descendants, then to Israel, and then to David's lineage.

And so if you want to be part of those covenants, the main way you're part of them is through blood.

Now, foreigners were allowed to convert to being part of God's people, but in general, these covenants were inherited by blood.

Whereas in the new covenant, it is no longer inherited by blood, but inherited by faith, faith in Christ.

And so anyone can be part of this new covenant and be part of the true people of God through faith and no longer just because they were born into it.

So let's think further about what was really significant in the Old Testament covenants and how were they fulfilled or even exceeded in the new covenant.

Now, these are just some ways they're fulfilled. There are many different ways these covenants are significant that aren't mentioned here.

And there are many ways that they are fulfilled that aren't mentioned here. But these are some of the main ways they're significant and fulfilled.

Firstly, the covenant with Adam. Humans are given a special place in God's creation for their enjoyment and blessing.

They are said to be made in the image of God, unlike all other creation. And in Romans 8, verse 17, we read,

If we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co -heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.

And so in the covenant with Adam, people are made in God's image, which is a privileged position above all love of creation.

But in the new covenant, we're not just made in God's image, but we are actually adopted as his children.

And that makes us heirs, heirs and co -heirs with Christ. And there is basically no higher position you could have than to be part of God's family, to be his own children.

And so in the new covenant, our status is elevated even higher than being made in the image of God.

We're God's children. In the covenant with Noah, we see God's heart come out.

Although he is a just God and has to punish sin, he does not want to do that.

And so his desire is to not see his creation destroyed, which is why he makes that promise to never again destroy it in that particular way.

And in Revelations 21, verse 4, we read, And we really see that come out in the new covenant, where we will be transformed and there will no longer be sin and there will no longer be destruction.

God does not want to see his creation destroyed and we will live forever with him. No longer will there be any destruction.

In the covenant with Abraham, Abraham was blessed purely by God's grace.

And that's just one of many examples in the Old Testament where we see God's grace come out.

We see his patience and love totally undeserved, lavished on many people in many different times.

But especially here with Abraham, he was considered righteous just for his faith.

So not because he was particularly obedient, but because he had faith, he was considered righteous.

And that is the pattern for the new covenant as well. In Romans 4, verse 13, we read,

But through the righteousness that comes by faith. And so we really see this ultimately fulfilled when no longer are we bound by the

Old Testament law, but we are entirely made right with God through faith.

In the covenant with Israel, one of the ways they had to maintain their relationship with God to deal with sin was through sacrifice.

Sacrifices would take away the penalty for sin and maintain the relationship with God. So how is this transformed in the new covenant?

Well, in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 27, we read, And so Jesus' sacrifice, being a sinless man, is different to the old covenant where the priests were playing the role of mediators, but they were sinners themselves.

And so they had to sacrifice for themselves first, and then they would sacrifice for the people as well. Whereas in Jesus, being a sinless man, he does not need to do that.

And also being God, so being both sinless and being God, his sacrifice was big enough and powerful enough to cover over the sins of all mankind, everyone that turns to him.

So no longer do you have to keep repeating sacrifices. His death was sufficient for all time.

And finally, the covenant with David. David was described as a king after God's own heart, and the covenant was that a king from David's line would reign forever.

And we ultimately see that fulfilled in Jesus. In Revelation chapter 22, verse 16,

And so we see this covenant ultimately fulfilled. Jesus is the offspring of David, and he is the ultimate king who is after God's own heart.

In fact, he is God. He has God's own heart. And so these are some of the ways that all the

Old Testament covenants have been fulfilled in the New. And as mentioned earlier, there are other ways as well, but these are some of the core ways.

So let's now think about our group passage again, Joshua chapter 6. And let's think about which covenants are most relevant to this passage.

Well, all the Old Testament covenants, except for David's, take place before this passage.

So the covenant with Adam, the covenant with Noah, the covenant with Abraham, and the covenant with Israel.

And so all of those covenants are in effect, aside from the covenant with David, since Israel does not yet have a king.

Now the promise of land to Abraham is especially relevant since God's people in Joshua 6 are about to take the land, taking the first city.

And notice how it also includes the punishment of sinful nations. So in one of the passages that describes the covenant with Abraham, we read in verse 16.

So this is Genesis 15, 16. In the fourth generation, your descendants will return here for the iniquity of the

Amorites is not yet complete. And so even in that covenant itself, it mentions that one of the purposes for removing the people from the land is to punish them for their sin.

It's not just about clearing away for the Israelites. And the promise is repeated many times in the covenant with Israel as well.

For example, see Exodus chapter 23, verse 20 to 33. And so again and again, this covenant with Abraham, the promise of land has come up also in the covenant with Israel.

Another thing to note is that there were actually laws on it being permissible to make peace with other nations, but not those in the promised land.

And so in Deuteronomy chapter 20 from verse 10, we read that the

Israelites could make peace with other nations, but not those in the promised land. And so it would be wrong for Israel to make peace with the city of Jericho.

They were to be punished for their sin. Let's now think about the passage you chose earlier, which covenants are most relevant for your passage.

So either 1 Samuel 8 or Jeremiah 29, verse 1 to 14.

You should pause the video now and reflect on your own passage. First work out which covenants were in effect at the time of your passage and consider what implications does that have for how you understand the passage.

We now come to part three. Now covenants are not the only way to understand the structure of the

Bible. They are very helpful, but we'll now look at an alternate framework that complements the covenants.

And that framework is the idea of kingdom. The initiation of covenants are not the only major events.

For example, some phases of history are initiated by the breaking of a covenant.

So when we think about Adam and Eve's sin, they broke the covenant and that led to a new phase of history where they were now banished from the garden.

If we also think about the covenant with Israel, when they committed idolatry and they broke the covenant, that led to a new phase of history, which was the exile.

So there wasn't an establishment of a new covenant, rather it was the breaking of a covenant that created a new phase of history.

And so another way to conceptualize God's story is that of a kingdom. God is always king and rules over his people, but he forms special relationships with different people in different places.

And so the kingdom of God looks different depending on what part of the story you're up to.

Now here we've got a story plot, and many good stories have a plot similar to this.

Notice how things begin with a problem and the rest of the story involves solving that problem.

So we have setting the scene, bad things happen, and then the rest of the story is focused on solving that problem.

That's the story's trajectory throughout the rest of the story. Often people will make a plan, they'll carry out that plan, there'll be a bit of suspense where it seems like that plan's not going to work, it's all lost, but then there is hope, and then all is not lost, there's victory, and everyone lives happily ever after.

For example, here's the Lion King put to this plot, and so the lions rule, the evil uncle takes the throne, and so the rest of the story is focused on solving that problem, retaking the throne.

The lionesses seek help, they find Simba, and it seems to be going well, but then Simba won't help, he's not going to come back and all seems lost.

But there is hope, and then eventually Simba changes his mind, he will help, he defeats the evil uncle, and rule is restored.

So that's just to show how a plot can help you understand a story. Let's now think about the

Bible story along these lines. Firstly, the context, God dwells with his creation, then people sin and are banished, and the rest of the

Bible is spent talking about how to resolve that problem. There is a gospel trajectory throughout the entire

Bible. So no matter what part of the Bible you're in, things will be on that trajectory.

Firstly, God restores relationships despite sin, and we see that especially in the promise to Abraham.

Despite his sinful nature, God makes a promise to bless him, not because he's a good guy, simply because God is a good

God. Then, when they become a nation, God is present if they are faithful, and so God establishes his presence with different ceremonial objects, firstly the tabernacle and then the temple, and God remains present with his people if they are faithful.

But if they break the covenant, if they're disobedient, then he abandons them. And that's what we see in the exile, where things seem to be going down and there doesn't seem to be hope, because people forsake

God and they're put into exile. And yet, during that time, we have prophecy.

We have lots of prophecy that although things are going bad, God will keep his promises.

Most of all, he'll keep his covenants. He'll especially keep his covenant with Abraham. And so then we come to the time of Christ, and Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of God being present and a man being faithful, both

God and man. Then when he ascends, believers are filled with the Holy Spirit, so God is still present with his people.

And finally, we will live for eternity with God. And so you can notice how the whole

Bible tells of God's relationship with people and how sin gets in the way.

The whole story plot is all about how can we have a relationship with God? How can we solve that initial problem of sin?

There is a constant gospel trajectory throughout. Now the history covered in the

Bible can be divided up into 8 periods, and we see that in the chart. Firstly, we've got the

Garden, which is covered by Genesis chapters 1 and 2. God's people are then banished from the

Garden, Genesis 3 -11. And then we have the covenant with Abraham, where there's now a promise for God to bless his people,

Genesis 12 -50. Then they actually become a nation, no longer just Abraham's family, they become a whole nation, and they're given laws.

But notice that's after God saves them, and so God first saves his people from Egypt, he first does the saving, and then they are to obey him.

And that's similar to what we see for us as well. Jesus does the saving, and then we're called to obey him.

But God's people are disobedient and idolatrous, they chase other gods, and then we go into a period of decline.

And that period covers both the division of the kingdom into North and South, and then also the exiles.

So first the Northern exile, and then the Southern exile to Babylon. And during this time, we also have all the prophets who rebuke

God's people for their sin, and prophesy exile, but also prophesy hope.

Then we have the time of Christ, Jesus' incarnation, being present with his people as a man on earth.

After he ascends, we enter the time of the church, where Christ is not on earth, but he has sent his

Holy Spirit to be with us. And then finally, when Jesus returns, we will enter the new creation.

Now there are other ways you could divide the Bible up, but this way is a helpful one, it captures most of the main periods in Scripture.

And notice how the first three periods all occur in Genesis. It's a pretty important book, so I highly recommend reading all of Genesis if you haven't already.

The Bible is generally ordered chronologically, but there are some exceptions which we'll get to later.

Another way to conceptualise these periods is as phases of God's kingdom. God rules as king from the beginning of creation to all eternity, and so he is always in charge, regardless if there's a human king looking after Israel or not.

But his kingdom has looked different over time in terms of who his people are, and where they are located.

So if we first pay attention to the black boxes, we see that God's place was the

Garden of Eden, initially in that first phase. And then, when their people are banished,

God's place is still Eden, but the people aren't allowed to be in there. There are angels guarding the way.

But then, after the promise to Abraham, God announces that there will be a new place for his people, it'll be the

Promised Land. But during Abraham's lifetime, he doesn't get to settle in the Promised Land.

Rather, there is God's promise that his descendants will inherit it. And so finally, in Joshua, they do enter the

Promised Land, and so then that is the place for God's people. But when they're disobedient, they get kicked out of the land.

The northern part of Israel gets kicked out permanently, and the southern gets exiled temporarily, and then later on a remnant will return.

And so during that period, God's place is still the Promised Land, but God's people are in exile, and some of them will eventually return.

Now ultimately, God's place for his people is fulfilled in the new heaven and earth, which is what

Jesus talks about when he arrives on the scene. And so since the time of Christ, the

Promised Land is no longer the place for God's people. Rather, Jesus talks about a new heaven and a new earth.

And similar to how during Abraham's time, he had that promise, but he didn't live in the land, so too we have the promise of a new heaven and earth, even though we don't live there just yet.

Let's now look at the white boxes. At the start, we see that God's people are all mankind, represented by Adam and Eve initially.

Then when they're banished, there's a phase where there are no God's people. God doesn't have a special relationship with anyone in particular.

People have sinned and a broken relationship with God. But with the covenant with Abraham, which is why this covenant is so important,

God reestablishes relationship. Initially, it's

Abraham's family, but then it's narrowed down to just Jacob, who is renamed Israel, and his descendants.

And then finally also, northern Israel is exiled, never to return.

And so it's just the remnant of Israel that remain God's people. Now the

Gospels and the New Testament letters tell us that those who have faith in Christ are the true people of Israel.

And so now, being part of God's people is not just about inheriting that status by blood, it's inheriting it by faith.

And so those who have faith in Christ are the true people of God. We can also see how

God's covenants with people line up with important events and phases. For example, his covenant with Adam and Eve start things off.

His covenant with Noah shows he still cares for his creation, even though things continue to get worse.

His covenant with Abraham initiates the phase of promise. His covenant with Israel initiates the phase of nation.

His covenant with David anticipates Israel's downfall, that David's throne would remain despite the division of the kingdom and the exile.

And finally, the new covenant fulfills all the others and prepares for the phase of the church.

You should now pause the video and determine for your passage that you chose, what phase is it in and how might that affect its interpretation.

To practice memorizing the order of events in the Bible, you can see the training .freely

.giving website for a PDF that you can print out and cut up different events in the

Bible and try to see if you can remember what order they should be in. This is a closer look at the most important people and events in the

Old Testament. The traditional order of books is mostly chronological except some groups of books overlap.

For example, Chronicles covers similar events to Samuel and Kings but from a different perspective.

Job's Song of Songs are wisdom books that offer general teaching but not necessarily tied to a specific period of history.

All the prophets take place during the threat of exile and its execution but they're ordered by size rather than time period which can be slightly confusing so it can be helpful to consult commentaries and other resources to work out exactly what time period those books are happening in.

We can also see from this diagram that there are sub -phases in the phases of nation and decline.

In the phase of nation, there's the initial conquest where God's people aren't in the land yet, they're taking the land for the first time.

We then have the phase of judges where Israel is living in the lands but they don't have a king and instead

God raises up judges to help lead them. Then when they are given a king, we enter the phase of monarchy.

In the phase of decline, there's the initial division of the kingdom.

Before they go into exile, the kingdom is divided into two and there are many events that happen during that time.

There is then the exile, first the north is exiled and then the south. Then in the phase of remnants, some of the south returns and the temple is rebuilt but notably it is not as good as before.

This isn't like Israel is being restored back to the former glory days, rather there is still a longing for something better which lays the way for Jesus' incarnation.

You should now pause the video and look up the following passages to determine what is the initiating event for each phase and think about what are all the significant things about it.

There may be multiple significant things going on. Also think about what was the relationship with God like and in what ways does it change?

Now there are many things we could talk about here but let's give some brief answers to each of these.

Firstly the garden, what was the initiating event? Well it was God creating everything out of nothing.

And what was relationship with God like? Well God made people in his image and he called it very good.

And so people have a privileged status in God's creation. In the phase of banishment, the initiating event is

Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and sin entering the world.

What was the relationship with God like? Well now there is no longer blessing but curse and people have a limited lifespan.

For the phase of promise, what is the initiating event? The initiating event is the choosing of Abraham and God's choice to simply bless him by his grace.

And what is the relationship with God like? The relationship is good. Despite sin

God still wants to have a relationship with people and in this case it's with Abraham.

He promises lands, people and blessing which is received by faith. For the phase of nation, the initiating event is being saved from Egypt.

God hears the cries of his people and saves them. What is relationship with God like?

Well God expects obedience. If they obey then they will be blessed but if they disobey they will be cursed.

And in order to deal with sin there is ceremony and sacrifice. Animals must take away sin but only temporarily.

For the phase of decline, what is the initiating event? It's primarily idolatry because God's people turn to other gods and worship idols.

They're doing many bad things but that in particular causes God to decide to split the kingdom which leads to the eventual exile.

What is the relationship with God like? Well there is punishment.

As God promised if they sinned they would be cursed and thrown out of the land and that's exactly what happens.

But although they are being punished there is still promise of restoration.

God still remembers his covenants especially with Abraham and so he will not completely wipe out his people even though they deserve it.

For the phase of Christ the initiating event is of course Jesus' birth, his incarnation.

And what is relationship with God like? Previously God was present with his people in some form through the ark and the tabernacle and the temple but people couldn't really get close to God and if they did get close they would usually die.

Because of their sinful nature they could not get close to God and they had mediators, priests and other people in the way to mediate because of their sinfulness.

Whereas now in this story in Luke chapter 5 we have a man with leprosy, so unclean both in terms of his sin and also in terms of his physical health and we have

God reach out and touch this man. God in the person of Jesus reach out and touch a man with leprosy which is amazing, completely different to the picture that the

Old Testament sacrificial system painted. In the phase of the church it's initiated through Jesus' ascension and so God was present with people in the person of Jesus on earth but when he ascends

God is now present through the Holy Spirit. And what's relationship with God like?

Well in Ephesians 1 it tells us that we have every spiritual blessing. We have all we need to have a relationship with God and although we're not present in person with him in the new creation he has still lavished spiritual blessings on us.

And so in the new creation, what's the initiating event? It's Jesus' return. And what will relationship with God be like?

It will be perfection. Our hearts will be transformed will no longer be full of sin.

All physical ailments and suffering will be gone and we'll live for eternity with him.

There will be no longer any death. So let's now think about our group passage,

Joshua chapter 6. What is significant about the phase of the kingdom for this passage?

We're in the phase of nation, specifically the sub -phase of conquest where God's people are taking the promised land for the first time.

Who are God's people? They are the people of Israel. Specifically they're the next generation after the previous generation passed away in the wilderness because they refused to enter the land and wandered 40 years in the desert.

Where do they belong? They belong in the promised land which is yet to be conquered and so their place is the promised land and they're just about to enter that now.

What is their relationship with God like? Well the previous generation forsook

God and died off so this generation must remain faithful to enter the land.

Their relationship is better than before but it's conditional on obedience. You should now pause the video and think about the passage you chose earlier, 1

Samuel 8 or Jeremiah 29 1 -14. Think what is significant about the phase of the kingdom for your passage?

Who are God's people? Where do they belong? And what is their relationship with God like?

We're now up to part 4 and we're going to look at how to apply biblical theology and in what ways it can go wrong.

Biblical theology isn't just for the Old Testament, it should be applied to every passage in the

Bible. Since the Bible is one coherent story what came before will always be relevant and so for example if you're in the

Old Testament you should be thinking what meaning does this have in the New Testament and then what would the modern day implications be?

Whereas if you're in a New Testament text you should be thinking are there any Old Testament insights that will help me understand this passage and then what are the modern day implications as well?

Now the Bible is all about Jesus and without Christ we're left with just Judaism.

But it doesn't mean the main point of every Old Testament passage is that it eventually leads to the cross.

That would be to oversimplify and reduce the message of Scripture. Rather everything should be viewed through the lens of Christ, not blocking biblical applications that aren't specifically about the cross.

And so often you might hear the phrase it's all about Jesus. What do we mean by that?

Well here's what you shouldn't mean by that. You shouldn't mean that every single passage I have to connect somehow to what

Jesus did on the cross. There'll be many many passages where that would work but it could reduce the amount of application you can make or it could just be a misapplication entirely.

Rather we should be viewing everything through the lens of Christ. Always considering what something means now that we have

Jesus and getting that full application from it. To flesh that out a bit further let's think about the difference

Christ makes. All Old Testament passages must be viewed through the lens of Christ and some will still be directly applicable to us.

For example if you're reading an Old Testament passage that shows how God is sovereign well that will be directly applicable to us because God hasn't changed.

He is still sovereign and so we can learn directly from that passage about that. Whereas some passages will be applicable but in a different way.

For example if you're reading the story of the Passover it's a very significant event for the people of God but we no longer keep the

Passover ourself rather Jesus is our Passover lamb. He is the one who has sacrificed himself so that God passes over our sins.

And finally some passages will simply no longer be applicable so if you're reading a passage about food laws then we shouldn't apply that to today because Acts makes it very clear that we are free to eat any kind of food.

That doesn't mean you can't learn from the passage and we're going to think about different ways to learn from passages even if the specific details are no longer applicable to us.

But before we do that let's think about how things can go wrong. This diagram shows how things can go wrong if we don't apply biblical theology.

Ordinarily we want to first derive a text's meaning for its original audience.

So we want to think who was this written to and what did the original author want them to understand.

We then want to view it in the light of the gospel now that Jesus has come and transformed many things and finally we want to apply it to our own lives.

And when any of those steps are skipped bad things happen. So for example if we apply directly to today we'll be treating the

Bible as some mystical book with direct answers to our everyday concerns. This is often the case when someone might flick through the

Bible for a random page to try to get some phrase or sentence that seems to somehow connect to the problem you're currently facing.

Sometimes that might work but quite often you'd just simply be misinterpreting the passage.

If instead we go straight to Christ, we don't go straight to our own lives but we go straight to Christ, we can still ignore the meaning of the text for its original audience.

It can miss that often Old Testament passages are talking about real events that really happened and they're not just symbolic for Jesus.

And finally if we apply the original meaning directly to today, so we apply what it meant to those in the

Old Testament and we apply it directly to today, we'll end up following commands that weren't intended for us.

Let's see how these mistakes could come up when looking at a passage like David and Goliath.

So here are some examples of how people have misinterpreted this passage in different ways.

Firstly, what might it look to interpret this passage as just being symbolic for us? Well you could come up with something like this.

Identify the five stones you can use to overcome your obstacles. So just as David had five stones to kill

Goliath, we need to think of five stones that we can use to overcome whatever's in our way.

That would just be taking the text and imagining it for whatever current situation we're in.

Or if you were to interpret this as just being symbolic for Christ, you might try to see which character represents which different thing.

And so David is conquering something, so maybe he's Jesus, Goliath is the cross, and the sling is

Jesus' trust in his Father. And so you're kind of thinking of ways that this somehow symbolises what

Jesus did on the cross, or something about Jesus. Or if you were to try to apply this passage directly to us today, you would consider what did it originally mean for the original audience?

Well, they should have had the faith and courage like David did to fight God's enemies and win the battle, and so we should have faith to confront those who oppose

God and his people. That would be applying what was true for them straight to us and making it true for us as well.

Whereas if we use Biblical theology, we might come up with something like this. God uses unlikely means to save.

So one of the best parts about the story is that you've got this little boy, David, who ends up destroying this champion when all the other more experienced soldiers are too afraid to fight.

And why does God use David? Well, he uses him to demonstrate his trustworthiness and power.

That if God's people have faith in him, they can rely on him to protect them and save them. And so we should have faith in his ability to save us as well.

Our threat is not Goliath, rather our threat is sin. Our threat is the coming judgment and having no way to deal with our sins ourselves.

So unlike David, we're not instruments of God's wrath against the nations he's marked out for judgment.

We instead share the good news of forgiveness of sins for all nations. And David's faith sets us a good example, but it's more important to see who he has faith in.

Now this isn't a perfect application interpretation in that you can't have any others. This is just to show you how to avoid the common mistakes and to come up with something that is fairly good and faithful to the passage.

So how do we get from an Old Testament text to us today? There are actually several different ways we can apply

Old Testament passages. There will usually be only one or two ways of doing this appropriately for any given passage.

So it is important to choose wisely, and we should especially be careful with any direct applications, but there's not always one single way to do it.

It requires wisdom and prayer and discernment. This is not an exhaustive list either, and you could consult other resources that may come up with a few other ideas.

But let's think through them. Firstly, we have direct applications. So these are things that were true back then and also true today.

So for example, God's character. God's character doesn't change, and so if we learn something about God in an

Old Testament passage it will be true today. He will be like that today as well. For example, if you learn something about His sovereignty then that will also be true today.

God is completely sovereign over all things. You can also get good and bad examples from different characters and stories, and so there will be character virtues we should emulate.

For example, there is nothing wrong with admiring the faith of David when he went out to fight Goliath. It may not be the primary application of the passage, but it is a valid one.

Or it could be bad examples. It could be someone's sin and its consequences, and so when we look at David's adultery it's appropriate to consider that we should avoid adultery as well, even if there are other things going on in the passage.

Then you've got indirect applications. So these are ways to apply an Old Testament text to today, but not in exactly the same way as the original authors intended it for the original audience.

Firstly, it could be that this passage is part of the story of the Bible. It's an event that eventually leads to Jesus.

And so when it mentions that Rahab is Jesus' ancestor we can see how God used these events to eventually lead us to Jesus.

In terms of fulfillment it could be that Jesus is fulfilling a promise, or an event, or a role.

For example, Jesus is our High Priest. And so priests back then were mediators, people that would perform sacrifices, to deal with sin, and to speak to God on behalf of the people.

And now Jesus is our mediator. We can come to God through Jesus. It could be that something is simply different and something has changed because of Jesus.

For example, there were food laws in the Old Testament to separate God's people from others, to make them stand out from other nations.

Whereas now those food laws have been abandoned, Acts makes that really clear, and instead

Jesus has perfectly fulfilled the law for us. It could be that a passage expresses a longing, something we continue to hope for in some way.

So just as people, especially in the wisdom books in the Old Testament, longed for peace and security, and that really comes out in the

Psalms, so also we long for those things as well. Although we have Christ, we long for His return.

And finally, there are themes. So you could discuss a common theme or issue or concept in the Bible. So if there's a theme of angels in the

Old Testament, you could discuss how angels are presented in the New Testament, and things like that. So there are many different ways that you could apply an

Old Testament passage. But just a reminder that usually there'll be one primary way to apply something.

And there could be some secondary ways as well. So you want to have discernment and wisdom and not just pick whichever one you personally prefer.

You should now pause the video and go through these passages and think what type of application would be most appropriate for that particular passage.

There could be one or two, but what would be the main one? What would be the most appropriate? Let's now think about the group passage,

Joshua 6. Are the following applications good, okay, or bad?

And so here we have a few examples of how you could apply this passage. Let's think about which ones are good, which ones are okay, or which ones are bad.

Number one, good examples. The people trust God and carefully follow His instructions.

This would be a valid application. And we do see that most people in the passage are obedient, and that is a good thing.

Although we should consider the context, because in the next chapter we find out that actually one of them didn't do the right thing, and all of Israel ended up getting punished.

So it might be an okay application, but it's not going to be the primary one. Fulfillment.

Jesus knocked down the wall of sin between us and God. So you can see that this is a symbolic interpretation, skipping the meaning for the original audience and jumping straight to Jesus.

And it's describing the wall as the barrier between us and God, when really in the passage the wall was a barrier between Israel and Jericho, and they were to go in and destroy

Jericho. So the wall of Jericho was not a barrier between two parties uniting, but actually two parties killing each other.

So this would not be a good application. God's character.

God does the saving. God is on His own side. I think this would be a good application.

God is on His own side, and this really comes out in the context. In the passage before, we have the angel saying

He's not on Israel's side or on Jericho's side, He's on God's side. And then in the passage afterwards, we have

God turning against Israel when they sin. And when it comes to the actual battle, there's so many supernatural elements that it's clearly

God doing the saving and people just being obedient and following with His plan.

And so rather than it being getting God onto our side, we are called to join God's side.

Four. Bad examples. Rather than surrender and turn to God, Jericho resists.

This would be an okay application because it's true. The people could have surrendered like Rahab did.

They could have turned to the one true God. Instead, they shut the doors and stayed in their city and tried to resist.

But it's not really the focus of the text. The text doesn't have many elements that are focusing on this kind of aspect.

Number five. Fulfillment. Israel is finally claiming the lands they were promised so long ago.

This would be a good application. For so long throughout Scripture, God has been promising this land.

And it comes up in so many passages. And this is the event, the very significant moment when

God's promise is being fulfilled. He's giving His people the land. And He opens the way by fighting the battle for them.

Six. Difference. We are not instruments of God's judgment, but of His mercy.

This would be an okay application because as Christians, we're not called to execute

God's judgment on the nations. We're not called to go knock down Jericho if there's any buildings there again.

Rather, we're called to share the gospel. But at the same time, in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 16, we're reminded that while Christians are primarily to share the gospel, we also in some way share

God's coming judgment. And so when we share the gospel, it's also necessary to share that unless you turn to Jesus, then you will be judged.

And so in some ways, we're not the executors of God's judgment, but we are the messengers.

So that's an example of several ways you could apply the passage to today. And some are clearly better than others, and some are just wrong entirely.

So now for the passage you chose earlier, think about what would be some good applications, but also think about what would be some bad ones.

And quite often, it's helpful to first think, you know, what would be a bad way to apply this passage, to guard yourself against that, to make sure you don't make one of those mistakes and skip an important part of the process of biblical theology.

So hopefully by now, you feel more confident about interpreting different passages in the

Bible and working out where they are in God's story and what part they play in the overall story.

But let's now think about how to actually teach biblical theology, how to use it in our teaching.

Biblical theology is always part of any good study of Scripture. It enriches our teaching, even if it isn't explicitly mentioned.

For example, in a Bible study, questions should lead the group towards good biblical theology, even if you don't mention it.

And with a talk, the points should be made through the lens of biblical theology.

On the website training .freely .giving, there is an example Bible study and talk outline for this passage on Joshua 6.

You should check that out and read through it and see how biblical theology has been used to come up with that outline.

But here's a brief summary of the theology that went behind that talk and study.

Joshua 6 is truly a divine battle and not just because of the supernatural destruction of the walls.

Israel is not using God as a magic instrument to help them fight. Rather, God is using

Israel as an instrument of judgment on the sin of the Canaanites and to fulfill his promise of land to Israel.

Thus, the contents of the city entirely belongs to the true victor of the battle, God. God does not take

Israel's side in the battle. Rather, Israel is to take God's side. And when they don't, then

God turns against them, as we see in the sin of Achan. So the focus of this passage is not on the faith or courage of the

Israelites but on the power of God to bring judgment on those who don't take his side and blessing on those who do.

You should now pause the video and begin working on your own

Bible study or talk outline for the passage you chose and enriching it with biblical theology.

So choose to create either a Bible study or a talk outline on the passage you chose and use existing skills in exegesis, but clearly note what biblical theology techniques you use throughout.

So for example with Joshua 6, if you're mentioning how Rahab is connected to Jesus, you'd mark the type of application as story, biblical theology story.

This is mainly just to help those who give you feedback to understand how you used biblical theology to interpret the passage.

Part 5 is devoted to working on your own study or talk outline. And so if you're working in a group, now's the time to take a couple of hours to work on your own study and talk before you present it to the group to get feedback.

We're now up to the final part, which is getting feedback on your study or talk. If you're in a group environment then you'll give each other feedback.

If you're doing this by yourself you should present your talk or study to a pastor or another person who's familiar with biblical theology who could help to give you feedback.

When it comes to reviewing a Bible study, you'll want to reflect on these questions as you listen to someone else's study or talk.

Or if you're doing this by yourself, these are good questions to ask yourself as well. These concepts come up in the first part of the

Understanding Scripture course. So if you'd like to learn more about them, you should check out the first part on exegesis.

Likewise, if you're doing a talk, these questions are slightly different, but will also help you.

It's now finally time to give each other feedback. So take turns to share your outline and give each other feedback.

Go through your outline sequentially, explaining it to the group, but also explain how you used biblical theology to interpret and apply the passage to today.

This is just a suggested way of going through it, but as the author you could first share what you felt you could improve and then reviewers can share what they found good and maybe one or two ways it could be improved.

I hope you've enjoyed this training material. This material is entirely public domain, which means you can copy, modify, translate it without any limitation.

You don't have to attribute, ask or anything. We recommend keeping this slide so that any modifications are also dedicated to the public domain as well.

All scripture has been quoted from the Berean Standard Bible. You can learn more about this training and download all the original source files for it at training .freely

.giving. Also note, if you check out the original slides in the speaker notes, there's extensive notes for leaders, explaining tips and timing and how to run groups well.

So make sure you check out that as well. Blessings in Christ as you strive to know him better through his word.