The Bible Recap - March Reflections and Corrections - Year 4

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Welcome to our March R&C episode. We're aiming to do an episode like this at the end of each month, offering some reflections and some corrections. Let's start with the reflections and look back at all we've covered so far. We just finished the book of Joshua, our seventh book. So, let's get the 30,000th of the view on where we are in the chronological timeline of the Bible's overall meta-narrative.

The Bible is one unified story. Way back in Genesis, God set out to build a relationship with one particular family, but things went terribly wrong when they fractured the relationship through sin. But their sin didn't surprise God. He already had a plan in place to restore this relationship even before it was broken, and he continues working out that plan immediately, undeterred and unhindered by their rebellion. He sets apart a man named Abraham to be the patriarch of this family, and he gives this family a name, the Israelites.

There are a bunch of busted people who lie, cheat, and steal. God blesses them despite their sin, but sin still has its consequences. One of the long storylines of consequences of the 400 years they spend enslaved in Egypt. God sent a man named Moses to demonstrate his power over the Egyptian ruler who's enslaving them, and eventually he reluctantly agrees to let the Israelites' slaves go. They flee to the desert, led by God and His servant Moses. Little by little, God gives these people the basic rules of how to have a stable society. All they've ever known is slavery under a cruel dictator. They've never seen good leadership demonstrated.

There are a bunch of uncivilized, ungrateful people who have only just met God and Moses, and they're not keen on obeying either of them. But in the midst of their sin and stubbornness and foolishness, God knows that what their hearts need is Him. So He sets up camp among them in the desert. He's already told them how to have a civil society, so now He begins telling them more about how

to interact with Him. That involves establishing a team of people to help mediate this relationship, to make sure everything goes as he commands it. He sets up a system of sacrifices and offerings, and puts together a calendar of feast to celebrate his provision for them. More than anything, he wants them to remember who he is to them, the God who rescued them out of slavery. He's trying to point them back to the truth

that people who recognize him as God can rely on his pattern of faithfulness, even when they are unfaithful. But they keep forgetting, and every time they forget, they either get fearful in disobey or they get prideful in disobey. Their disobedience lands them a 40-year sentence in the desert wilderness.

And on top of that, they will not get to move into the land God keeps talking to them about. But the good news is that their kids get to go in. After all the first generation dies off, God raises up a new leader, Joshua, to lead them into that promised land. Joshua learns to listen to God and do what he says. And as a result, they begin to take the land God promised from their enemies, the Canaanites, who currently live there. This generation of Israelites is living in the fulfillment, at least partially, of the things God promised to Abraham, the first

Israelite, way back in Genesis 12. They are numerous, they are a nation in relationship with God, and they're living in the land he promised to give them, even if they're still among their enemies at this point. Now that they're in the Promised Land, Joshua appoints plots of lands for all the tribes, and remind them that they're supposed to eradicate their enemies who live there. God cares about the intimate details of our lives, even those that might seem beneath his concern. Just as Joshua is about to die, he makes one final push for them to be thorough with this, and he reminds them that they should never worship the Canaanite gods, they should only worship Yahweh. The people agree to this and promise to follow Yahweh alone. Tomorrow we enter the book of Judges.

It's a bloody book, but it brings us an important reminder of what happens when people don't follow Yahweh and follow their hearts instead. Okay, that's all for the reflections part of this episode, and we don't have any corrections to after this month, however, I do want to add something that I found interesting and thought you might appreciate. Every year, we hear from lots of you who are grieved or confused or even frustrated by the fact that Moses didn't get to enter the Promised Land. When I recapped it, I mentioned that he was going somewhere far better, to be with God. But for a lot of you, that wasn't much of a consolation, so I wanted to share something

with you that a few of the people in our Patreon family posted in our Facebook discussion group. Honestly, it's something I'd never thought about, and I knew you'd love it as much as I did. At least three people in our Patreon discussion group pointed out that while Moses didn't get to enter the Promised Land with a bunch of entitled, bitter Israelites, he actually did get to go there. And his experience was far superior to what any of them

experienced when they crossed over. So if you stick with us for the rest of the reading plan, you'll get to see it. We eventually hit a part in Matthew 17, where Jesus is standing on a mountain with Peter, James, and John, in a scene known as the Transfiguration of Jesus, and all of a sudden, Moses and Elijah are transported there as well. What a moment!

And according to Luke 9.31, the conversation they were having on top of that mountain was about Jesus' upcoming death and resurrection. The whole experience is so great that Peter offers to set up tents so they can all just keep hanging out there. If our Moses I might have been thinking, thanks a lot buddy, but I've already spent my fair share of nights in a tent. All that aside, if you struggled with the fact that Moses didn't get to enter the Promised Land, I just want to set all of their hearts at ease and let you know that he did, and in an even better way than if he'd gone in with the 12 tribes, he was there with the transfigured Jesus, talking about the moment when Jesus would conquer sin

and death. It's hard to beat that, my friends. Okay, that's all for this month's R&C episode. From day one until now, I hope you're seeing more and more that he's where the joy is. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ The Bible recap is brought to you by D-Group. The discipleship and Bible study groups that meet in homes and churches around the world

each week. For more information on D-Group, visit mydeggroup.org. you