SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to Texas, the podcast of Minute Church Classic where we encourage and equip people to interact with the people today.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

We are your host, Tim Martin, and from if this is your first week, it's a good week to jump in because we are beginning a new series entitled Decoded. This series I'm excited about. We think it will be helpful for everybody. But what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at some words that are what I would call very biblical words, as in they're words that we use when we talk about like religion and biblical studies, but they're not necessarily words that we would just use in everyday language. So we're gonna discuss some of those, make sure we have a good understanding of them. And they're probably words that you're used to saying, but are we actually connecting the words with the right meanings and stuff like that? Uh Tim, you got anything you want to add to this series? To the series?

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Uh no, I'm excited about these different words. Hopefully we're gonna explain them in a way and really just talk through them a little bit where they're maybe not as odd and strange to those, especially those who may be new to Bible study or who may just breeze by these words before and not really stop to think about them. Or some of them are things we talk about often, but I think we don't stop and talk about like what they mean.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

For this episode, we're gonna kick the series off by looking at the word covenant. It's a word that we see uh sprinkled throughout the Bible and is important for Old Testament studies, but also New Testament studies. Tim, let's start with the basic question. What is a covenant?

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Well, there's a lot of other like synonyms we might put with that. We might put an agreement, uh, we might say a pact, uh treaty, uh contract may be an interesting way of thinking about it. Um I think about commitment, a couple of definitions that I'd kind of looked at I thought were interesting that were a commitment between two parties, for the most part in the Bible. It's between God and either a human being or a group of people or a community of people like Israel or a spiritual group of people like the church in the New Testament. And so those are some words that go along with it. There is an agreement that has two sides to it, um, and we see several of them in the Old Testament, but really just one in the New Testament. Um, and really only maybe I would say two in the Old Testament, but we'll we'll talk about that just a little bit. Two big ones, two big community-oriented ones.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, and I think a difficult part for me when I think about words we use today and then covenant and scripture is the balance of like authority and power. Because normally, like if you're making a I guess uh contract with somebody or kind of like a pact with somebody, you I kind of think of like two kind of equal people or powers. And that's not really the dynamic that I see with God's covenant with other people and stuff like that. So that's kind of a unique thing I think we see in truth.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

One party is definitely superior to the other in the agreements that we see. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Um all right, so walk us through um what are some of the different covenants we see in scripture, especially the main ones.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Well, in the Old Testament, you know, we see uh a covenant example made with an individual is like the covenant with Noah that he wouldn't flood the earth again, and there's a sign to that covenant. The sign is the bow in the sky. Uh and so we would say a rainbow. And so that's a covenant.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Uh and I think our first time that's mentioned in scripture, I read that. I don't know if I'm overthinking another instance.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

We see that God makes an agreement there. And really in that one, it's a very interesting one, because there's no obligation on behalf of like Noah. He gives him what are some kinds referred to as the Noah'd laws, you know, not killing somebody, not eating uh something with a blood still in it. We see some of those reiterated by James, like in Acts 15. And so there are some expectations given, but it's not the same as like what we'll see later at Sinai and again at Moab between God and and Israel, essentially, his people. And those are the really two big main ones. Really, I guess there's only one covenant there ratified by one group of people and then re-ratified by another group of people at Sinai. We see most of the time this is an Exodus, right? When we see Moses and we see the Exodus happening, and they're at Sinai a few months later. And God gives the Torah to Moses, and there's some obligations. God says, here, I want you to obey these things, and my covenant with you is that if you will obey my laws that I'm giving you today, that I will allow you, I'll take you into the land of promise that I promised Abraham, your enemies will be defeated, uh, and you'll enjoy prosperity in the land of milk and honey. That's what I'm going to do, God says, and here's what I need you to do. You go out to obey the laws that I give you. And of course, right no sooner than Moses was up on the mountain, they already have rebelled against God and having Moses builds the golden calf, and he says, you know, these are the gods that brought you up out of Egypt. He just really messes everything up. But ultimately, in the wilderness, when they finally get, they send the spies in and they come back, and the group goes with the ten spies that say, Hey, we can't do it, that's the time where they're doomed to die in the wilderness. Everybody that's, I think it's over 20 or 20 and over, I can't even remember which one it is, but the old that generation, and they die in the wilderness over the next 40 years, and a new generation gets ready to walk in. So in Deuteronomy, we see that word even means second law, another giving of the law, and the people agree to their side of it. It's the same stipulations in the same form. It's in a little bit different written form, and we we can talk about that here in just a minute. It's definitely in the form of like an Assyrian or a Hittite vassal treaty. Just like you said, there's two parties there. One is the suzerain, the the power that be, the other is the vassal, which would be Israel, which is a person of lower position. But there's there's there's an arrangement there, and the people agree uh to follow that covenant. And for me, that's the covenant that is in place until the people of Israel break it during the kingdom period. And it was broken and done away with in the kingdom period. The people did not keep their obligation to it. I can't think of a whole lot of times they'd keep it even before the kingdom period. Those are the two big ones that I kind of see uh made. But we could also say Abraham. We think about an individual, I guess I'm saying Abraham and David are Yeah, we have a we have a covenant with David about your, you know, there would never be not one of your sons on the throne of Israel. Of course, we know that literally that wasn't completely true because eventually, because of humans, there was a descendant of David on the throne of Judah until Judah was overthrown by the Neo-Babylonians. But we all we skipped over that one. Now I skipped over Abraham, which is a terrible one to skip over because he does make the covenant with Abraham, it's what is the precursor to the covenant of Sinai. Your descendants will inherit this land, uh, they'll be more numerous than the stars of the sky. And he makes that covenant. And there is a sign of that covenant in circumcision, also in the cutting of the animals that they walk between. Uh, and so we see the term cutting a covenant. So there's a sign and a seal uh to that covenant as well, and that that gets really brought to fruition, I believe, in the covenant Sinai.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, and I could be wrong on this, but it seems like with Israel and this covenant that God made with the people, that this promise he and covenant that he made with Abraham really brings grace into the covenant made at Sinai. Because like the people, like you were saying, break that all the time. You know, we definitely see it like in the Kings, but there is this remnant that's still going to remain because of his promise to Abraham, um, that's not fulfilled until the New Testament. So one kind of they kind of overlap in my mind throughout the story there. And it's not like God's ever gonna fully abandon Israel um because of the Abraham covenant. However, some of his blessings, and when you think of like the blessings and curses that come with the what was promised at Sinai, like those get realized when the people break them.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

But Yeah, I don't know about the covenant of a land still being something that God is going to preserve. Um not land.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

As far as the people of Abraham, yeah, it's people being a dis because we know from the New Testament teachings that now Gentiles who convert to Christianity become children of Abraham. That promise is still there, it's right who qualifies as Abraham probably had no idea about you know all that, but uh we we know that now all people in Christ are children of Abraham. And people who aren't in Christ. One of the differences is that people who aren't in Christ, Jew or Gentile, are not children of Abraham anymore. In in a spiritual sense. I'm not saying they're not ethnic ethic ethnically uh descendants of him. And so, yeah, unfortunately, they did not keep that covenant very well uh during the kingdom period at all. Uh really, even during the time of the judges, they didn't do a good job keeping it. Um not so sure they did a good job even keeping it while they were wandering in the wilderness. But yeah, those those are two, and those are covenants with individuals that we mentioned earlier.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

So we had some exam examples of individual covenants that were made. Abraham, that gets renewed with other descendants. You have the covenant with Noah and David, but then you have the unique one where it's more with the nation of Israel there at Mount Sinai. In your understanding, how does those compare to how covenants was viewed in the ancient Near East and other outside of Israel?

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Like how wasn't it? I don't even know if you have if you have covenants between deity and people in the way that we think about what happened in the Old Testament. I'm trying to think about it.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

But I saw references to things like treaties and you know, things like that. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Now we talk about two different groups of humans, we definitely have treaties, uh, especially like I mentioned earlier, Hittite and Assyrian vassal treaties. There are agreements that we would put under under the bucket of in the bucket of covenants between two different powers or two powers that wound up fighting it out and like might not make it a treaty. So a treaty is a good example in the ancient world. I was trying to think of like a s a one like Israel with like a between deity and them. I don't you know, yeah, I don't know. I'd have to go back and look through things like you know, Epic of Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish, things like are there agreements made corporately between God or individualistly between God and it between a God and humans in in ancient Near Eastern mythology, or between a particular nation or group of people and deity? I don't know. I haven't thought about that. I didn't I didn't look at but certainly between ancient Near Eastern peoples, you would have treaties and covenants and agreements that it would it would go under.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Um you answered some of this, but what happens when a covenant is broken? Would the people view that as being a when it's broken, it's completely done away with, or that there would be this like opportunity to receive grace? Kind of walk us through that. I'm asking that really of like when we step into the New Testament, like what ideas would carry over from the Old Testament of how they viewed some of those?

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Like, yeah, I see what you're saying. I'm kind of trying to think through a little bit if we think of it. It seems like the covenant, we'll just call it the covenant from Sinai that was reiterated in Deuteronomy. It seems like it dissolves over time. You know, God never his side never dissolves. He he did allow Israel to enter the land. They did not do everything he was supposed to they told them to do, including not intermarrying with the inhabitants, uh pursuing after their their deities, their idols. But they remain in the land, you know, for a while, but they never enjoy the prosperity that they did, like for example, under Solomon before things went haywire. And really it's Solomon that originally begins to get the train off the tracks. He is the one who caused who commits idolatry and he intermarries with, you know, and is involved with over a thousand women that mislead him and he goes after their idols. He's the one that wrecked the train. And then after that, we see a divided kingdom. The northern kingdom doesn't have one single king that is said to be good and do what's pleasing in the sight of God. But, you know, it's still, you know, that is crazy. It's still, you know, like what about 200 and some odd years that that the northern kingdom continues 230 years or something until the Neo-Assyrians come and defeat them and and and do take away their land, and then it's a slower path for Judah, the southern kingdom. They do seem to have a few kings like Yosiah and Hezekiah that that do do, that they try to reform the people and they realize, oh my goodness, we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing. But eventually they just don't keep things going. And so really, I'm talking about the time between Solomon, if Solomon's around 950 or so, where 400 years later that the Neo-Babylonians destroyed. To me, that's when the covenant ended. When the Neo-Babylonians destroyed the temple and Jerusalem fell into their hands, that was the end of the Sinatic covenant. I think it was ending gradually. But God was very peaceful and graceful, I would say, in allowing them to continue to occupy the land that he gave them plenty of time to repent and change. Centuries, he gave them, and they didn't. And eventually the shoe fell. And to me, the old covenant was completely done away with when the northern kingdom was was was southern kingdom was conquered. That was the end of the thing. And to me, my understanding that God is no longer under any obligation to maintain that land for Israel. I know there's the the the Zionists today that believe that they that's still their land, but and I'm sure that they believe it's their land, but that covenant's over with in the minds of Christians. And I don't know how it can't be over with in the mind of anybody because they they did not fulfill their end of the bargain. And then the prophet Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant. Now I don't understand what later Judaism, the Judaism of the even of the Second Temple period and then a rabbinic Judaism era, I don't know what they understand that covenant to be pointing towards. They obviously don't today Jews would not believe that that covenant came about in Jesus Christ. Yeah. We interpret that because of the New Testament teachings, that that's the fulfillment of that prop prophecy. And so there's no need for a new covenant unless the old one's done away with. I mean, that's a clear teaching that Paul does. It's done away with. It's dead. It's it's gone. He even uses, I guess, what in Romans like a marriage that gets divorced. It's over with, you no longer, or the husband dies and he's no longer bound by that. I shouldn't say divorce, it was death. So I think that that covenant ended. In my mind, it ceased to function when Israel no longer possessed the land. And they didn't for centuries longer. I mean, really, from a from a nationalistic point of view, other than the brief period under the Hasmoneans, they didn't possess that land until the 1940s. You know, when they were given where a nation of Israel was re-established by the United Nations, and so I think that covenant's over with. I don't think it's applicable at all anymore to to Jews or Christians.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

What about when we look and we mentioned this briefly, but stepping away from the covenant at Sinai, the one with Abraham and David, how should those be viewed in connection to the New Testament?

SPEAKER_02 15:50

I'm not an expert on this at all, but I think that what they view is that that that maybe I would say, is that covenant put on pause? Because certainly a a right now, nobody sits on the throne of David, and nobody has sat on the throne of David since 586 BC. I think the Hasmoneans in the Maccabean revolt were the crookedest people that maybe there ever was. So I don't think they were it. But a descendant of David, I think maybe that maybe that what we would say that that covenant was put on pause and then spiritually renewed in Jesus Christ. Yeah, because we would say it's fulfilled in Jesus. Um there's some prophecies about a branch of day of Jesse and David, but the promise still stands. Yeah, the promise that there will always be a descendant of David on the throne of Israel. That covenant is either stopped, paused, and then brought back to life with Jesus Christ in a spiritual way, because for twenty five hundred years no one has sat on the throne of David in Israel. And so in a in a physical sense. But in a spiritual sense, we would say that that Jesus has taken up that scepter and he's running with it. But there was a pause, clearly there, and then a very big change from a physical throne to what we might call a spiritual throne, a physical kingdom to a spiritual kingdom. So was that covenant revised, modified, paused? I don't I don't know what thing somebody probably can have. I never have studied that. Yeah, and then with the Abraham one, you know, that's one that we had mentioned earlier where probably he didn't fully understand what that would be, you know, like with the I think Paul would say that covenant continued to be in place and and now Gentiles, Gentile converts to Christianity are added to that in a complete fulfillment of that promise. Maybe it's not even com that covenant's not even completely fulfilled or brought to complete fruition until Jesus Christ. I think that would make sense with the New Testament.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Before we jump into the New Testament covenant with Jesus A lot of times, like we we hear the word like testament, maybe like close to like covenant and stuff like that. Like, what is there a connection between what we would say the Old Testament and New Testament and these ideas of like covenants?

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Like, is there any relationship with the words We would say that the English New Testament words New Testament and English Old Testament come from the Latin Vulgate? The Latin word testamentum is what is used in the Latin Vulgate to translate the word covenant in the New Testament. Uh it's translated with other words in the Old Testament. Um Pactum is one where we get our word like pact. Uh but a testament can be a will or a covenant or an agreement uh in Latin. So we get our word testament, we call them New Testament and Old Testament because of the carryover from Latin. Uh some of the earliest English translations used Latin Vulgate uh in addition to you know Greek manuscripts and stuff uh in Christianity to translate the Bi to render English translations of the Bible. So I think you have a carryover from the Latin word testamentum. It would be equally valid well, let me back up on that a little bit. I really don't like the name either way. I'm not gonna break some twenty centuries of tradition. But in reality, the old covenant is not the entire old testament. The old covenant is Torah. It's what happened at Sinai, and it it it it really is it's regulated by Torah, but it was established at Sinai and Moab. And so Isaiah is not the old covenant. He's not part of the old agreement. You know, he's he's the one that tries to get people to agree and by abide by the old covenant. But I think when we group them together, I usually refer to it which is probably incorrect too. I think the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible, the Jewish scriptures and the English the Christian scriptures, people probably don't like that. But in reality, I don't even know. I'm trying to think, so I don't anyway, I don't think the entire Old Testament is the old covenant, because it's not. I'm trying to think through what you said. Would I view the entire New Testament as the new covenant beyond what we would say the specifics of it are? Jesus instituting a new arrangement between God and human beings through his blood on the cross that he mentions in the at his last supper with his disciples. I guess I would say it in a way, I would guess, is the entire new covenant, is the entire New Testament, 27 books, is that the new Torah? Would we put all that in a box like the Jews would say the first five books of the Old Testament were, and it'd say, okay, we're in a covenant with Christ that Christ established on the cross with his blood, inaugurated by Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and here's the arrangement. And the New Testament explains that covenant, it regulates that covenant, it gives the obligations of us under that covenant, it explains obligations of God under that covenant. So do we back up and say all 27 books of that are the explanation and regulation of the new covenant, but the new covenant in particular is the church and God's agreement to reconcile human beings to Him fully through the blood of Jesus Christ. And that covenant is going to run interestingly enough, we can't even break that covenant, can we? As a as a corporate. Unless everybody in the church left. Can you even break if everybody ceased to be a Christian would be the only time you could do it. Because as long as there's one Christian left on this planet, isn't that covenant still in force?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

You know what I mean? If Jesus only comes back and takes one person with him, of course you grab all the people who died before that. Yeah. So the church, the spiritual church can't be destroyed. So this covenant is can't be done away with by human beings. I ain't really thought about that till just now.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

I was I was this I was I was today old when I thought about that. And it kind of reminds me of some of the Old Testament covenants when you think of like Abraham and even David. David to some degree, there is like there could be individuals along that journey who did not receive blessings, but the overall covenant is still going to be fulfilled and carried out in the future. You know, like um there was I don't have the verse in front of me, but there's different references like of like, oh yeah, there's like some individuals who won't receive blessings, but like that promise is gonna still be fulfilled in Jesus one day, whether or not certain individuals like buy into it or not.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Which promise are you talking about? I'm trying to catch it up with you.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

I would say not Sinai and Moab. No, no, no, no, no. I would say the other two. Like Abraham.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Yes, and to some extent you're saying David.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

And his descendants and David as well. And like I know we talked about David eventually, like no one is, but like there's certain kings where it's like, hey, the Messiah is gonna come through this line. Like there will be blessings that some kings receive for obeying God's will. There will be some that don't receive those blessings, but the covenant is still gonna be fulfilled, you know, like where Jesus is gonna be on the throne one day. Um but anyway, so I see that being very similar to us in the church today as well. And my question is like, if we look at this covenant with Jesus, is it similar to like more of like the covenant received at Sinai, where as a whole people could like break it, which you've already kind of answered that, um, or is it more like the David and Abraham? Because they don't seem to be always comparable. Like some had conditions to them, some was just this promise. So it's like, yeah, well, when we enter this, is the covenant, the promise of Jesus, kind of like, well, no matter what you do, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Like you're gonna be saved, or like Israel, Israel, Israel Israel through his even through its disobedience that we see in the Old Testament. It still didn't negate the covenant with Abraham. They couldn't negate the covenant with Abraham. That that that we ultimately say is fulfilled in Christ and the admission of the Gentiles to the people of God. I think it's I think I would think about Abraham. Maybe even more so than David. Um because I think the problem with David is then we have to make this gap, this jump between a earthly kingdom and a spiritual kingdom. Of course, I know there are branches of Christianity who believe in a future earthly kingdom as well, uh, because of the teachings of the millennium in the Revelation, and which I don't agree with those teachings necessarily, but uh they still believe in an earthly kingdom, which will continue to culminate this promise to David. But to me, that promise is culminated because David is the only king, quote unquote, that's ever going to sit on the throne of the people of God ever again. And so, did that covenant come to full fruition in Jesus Christ and it's done? But Abraham, the promise to Abraham continues every time somebody becomes a part of the body of Christ. I would compare it more to that because the the one at Sinai does not deal with spiritual things. I mean, per se, it really is the promise is the land, and that I'll be your God and I'll keep your enemies at bay, and you'll the the lands will flow with milk and honey, and your animals are gonna repopulate and your crops are gonna grow and the rains are gonna fall and all those kind of things. They're all things to do with this physical world. The Hebrew writer does a good job of talking through those things. A better promised land. You know, they failed to, you know, they that despise, you know, they failed to enter the promised land because of disbelief. He said, Don't he say he warns the audience, don't do the same thing. Don't fail to enter that promised land, because it's a better promised land. It's a promised land where nothing ever decays, nothing ever goes bad. And so I think you're right. I think it would be make more sense to compare it to the Abraham covenant. What do you call it? The Abrahamic covenant or something like that. I can't even pronounce it. From a macro perspective. But in a spiritual very spiritual perspective, which nobody in the Old Testament, I think, envision what that means.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Yeah. But from an individual, individualistic standpoint, like uh it's not like that, to where I don't think when God makes this promise that we can enter into this covenant with Jesus that I can't break it. You know, like I think there's blessings that come with obedience there.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Do you think we do you think Christians tend to view the new covenant more individualistically and less a community covenant?

SPEAKER_03 26:30

I think so. You think that's right? I don't know. I think what do you mean you don't know?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

I mean, I think it is a communal and individualistic.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

I think you as an individual have the benefits of the covenant with a community because of your membership in the community. When I say community, that's saying I'm using that's anonymously with church with a capital C church, body of Christ. You have benefits being part of that community that will benefit you individually. More so than what we see like in the covenants in the Old Testament. Well, really, to be honest with you, Abraham really never bl was never really blessed a whole lot by that covenant. And Israel was blessed as a whole for a long time, even though some individuals were bad. I just I just now was sitting there trying to think about it. We look at it like God has made a covenant with me, but that's not true. God's made a covenant with a church, and I get to be part of that community. Does that make more sense? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Individually we still enter into that covenant, yeah. Yeah, we're part of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

We're part of it. Just like a proselyte in a Judaism would have been part of the old covenant as well. Yeah. Like Rahab, like Rahab. Like Rahab, for example. To me, Rahab became part of the covenant community of God when she became part of Israel. Ruth. She was part of the covenant community of people. When I when we when we are in Christ, we're part of the covenant community of God, the New Testament community of God.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah. No, I think that's a fair way of looking at it. And it doesn't take away from those individual blessings we have, as well as Christ being our mediator, and you know, like, guarantee or.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

I think about when he says our mediator and stuff. We often we always look at those and interpret those passages individualistically. But he's obviously talking about he's talking in in you know plural pronouns, first person plural. It's our, we, y'all, you know, if we translate it into Southern English. So No, I just sitting there thinking about, yes, I know that we get to go to heaven as individuals, but if we're not part of that covenant community, we don't get to. But we can't destroy that covenant community the way Israel destroyed their covenant community. It was self-destruction, not by God.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Yeah. Uh one thing I do think is worth noting in the New Testament here, and I think we alluded to it earlier, but the covenant with Jesus is tied to his death. Like when you think of some passages that talk about like the Lord's Supper, you know, like you'll see that covenant tied to the blood, uh like for the forgiveness of sins and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Like circumcision was for Abraham. Yes, yeah. Uh that was the inauguration of that covenant, the beginning of that.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Is there anything else unique about the New Testament covenant with Christ?

SPEAKER_02 29:09

It's a whole lot easier. I mean, it really is. If you think about some of the obligations that were given, you know, I would say that the moral and ethical obligations that Christians have are very similar and just as challenging to overcome as the moral and ethical obligations that the Israelites had. But the abolition of sacrifice and having to do all those sacrifices over and over and over again, or or having to do them at all, it's pretty nice. And we don't have to keep a lot of these different observances. We can work on Saturday, you know. There are a lot of things we don't have to do anymore. And I'm not necessarily saying bad things like Passover or Yom Kippur or things along that nature, but to me we got it pretty easy, really. We we really do.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

With what we're really obligated to do. We don't have to make some pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I just think it's pretty easy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Um I understand that it's challenging to be a Christian and be different, be a different part of this world, but the ancient Israelites enjoyed that or faced that challenge too. They were oddballs in their world as well.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah. From a physical standpoint, it seems much easier. There's I think we also in that have to recognize that and I think we have those instructions in the New Testament to back this up that we also have to guard our hearts because we can just as easily lose sight of like where our heart is in that.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

There is more of an internal aspect, yes. I want to be careful not to say, I mean, I think the Israelites had to have a certain heart, and God would talk about their hearts being hardened or uncircumcised. So I think they had an internal aspect too, and I think Jesus taught us that there's a connection between our internal thoughts and our actions. I do think it's a more theologically challenging covenant. You know what I mean? For the for us, because it's so weird in a world where that's not natural. For for the Israelites, most of the stuff they were asked to do, especially their sacrifices, their observances, were pretty normal. Only difference is they only did them to one God. But they're very normal, sacrificing things like they were very normal things. Whereas our theology can be very, very challenging. I don't think I know that today when people read the theology of the Old Testament, it can be very challenging to them. Be you Jew or be a Jewish study or a Christian study of it, but I think that's mainly because you're not immersed in it anymore. But in reality, the New Testament theology is very complicated because it it's not tied to anything physical. To me, it's easier to see my reward that I I live in the land and I live in peace and the rain comes and my crops grow and my my children are healthy and my enemies are at bay.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Or with our covenant, those promises are not there. Life is going to be difficult, but there is a future land of rest.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Like, yeah, you know there the it's what I call the already not yet kingdom. It really the kingdom exists in a spiritual sense, but we really don't get our inheritance. That's a good word to use there. We don't get the payoff in this life. The ultimate payoff. Yeah. We do get the benefit of being part of God's covenant community with fellowship, with support by our fellow Christians, with the privilege of worshiping God, coming together, the privilege of serving others, and the the reward that can be spiritually. There are benefits to the kingdom being part of the kingdom in this world, but ultimately Israel got to re they got to experience it in real time. Like I'm in the generation. Yeah, the one that is. I feel like we have to kind of view it as we're the generation in the wilderness to where we have this promise, but it's not being in a physical way, which I know it's not fully physical, like really um yeah, like a like a 25-year-old, you know, ten years after, you know, the events of the spies, he knew what was coming. That we're gonna be able to do this. Um once grandma, grandpa, mom and dad drop dead, we'll we're gonna get to experience that. There was an anticipation. But for us, it seems like it's just a long way away. We talked about this in the men's classes past Monday about most of us plan on dying. Our anticipation is we're gonna die before Jesus comes back. But even when we die, we get to begin to realize some of those blessings. We get to go be with Christ. I don't know, this is why I'm making my head hurt. This is too much theology. This is theology. It's too much to speculate, sit around here and smoke our pipes next to the fire and talk about all this speculation.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I I will say you mentioned this earlier about we get to be a part of this community, like this covenant community, the church. There's many times in life, especially in difficulties, that you and I, I think have both said this to one another. Like, I don't know how people that are not part of the church like can handle these things in the isolation that can come. Like to know that we have these deep bonds with one another because of the blood of Christ, like there's there's a lot of still goodness that is realized through that covenant community. It's just not how people define it in our culture as being the most important things when it comes to like riches and all those different things that they had in the promised land.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

So that's you know, that's the I don't know a lot about this wealth and prosperity gospel that's talked about there because I don't pay any attention to modern day Christianity, but some of that is trying to sell people on the fact that they once you're a Christian, you will have more money, you're gonna have more stable life. And I just think, well, I'd like to run that by Paul. Paul be like, I had it made before this. Um so that I think that the but that's what at least Western American Christians really would like there to be. Why can't I be wealthier because I'm a Christian? Why can't I be guaranteed health and my loved ones aren't going to suffer? But you you made an excellent point. We have the promise. It's a two-sided i it's a two-edged sword for me when we as Christians and we have a loved one die. If that loved one is a Christian, we say, hey, you know what? We look forward to see him again one day. What about when they're not? Then there's a realization in our minds is I know based on everything I believe, I'm I'm I'm not going to see them again. And to me, that's a little bit troubling for some versus someone who believes that when you die, you're there there is no soul, you're just annihilated, you just debt, you die. They know they're not going, they think that they're not going to see either one of those. We're not going to see anybody. We all just cease to exist. There is no eternal soul. In some ways that may be a little bit easier, because then you don't have to be concerned about loved ones who died who were not part of Christ. Yeah. Just very sad to me. Yeah, it shouldn't be brought to that. That's terrible. People listening to the podcast, but thanks for the depressing statement, Tim.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

As we wrap this up, I hope what we can pull from this conversation is that when we look back in the Old Testament, there's a lot of different covenants, some promises. Some of those that God made to individuals like Noah was, hey, I'm not going to do this again. There were some expectations on conduct, but it wasn't built into that agreement. Um, you think of things like Abraham and David, but then the one given at Mount Sinai was unique to the other ones. It was to a nation, and there was, I'm going to do these things and you will receive these. If you break them, those blessings will turn to curses. And then when we turn the page to the New Testament, we have this better covenant with Christ. And if you've never read the book of Hebrews, it's a good place to camp out in that goes through and explains how this covenant with Christ is so much better than what they had in the Old Testament and something that we get to live in today, which comes with a lot of grace and mercy. And it's some rewards that we do experience in life, but will be fully realized uh in everlasting life with Jesus as opposed to right now in this moment, as I would say we're in the wilderness.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, I was thinking about, you know, the things that I wrote down kind of just to close in my thoughts is, you know, there's covenant making and there's covenant keeping and covenant commitment. And also, you know, there's a divine commitment, but there's also a human obligation. And sometimes what I do think is not we don't do a good job of bringing over is because we talk about grace as if it's carte blanche permission to sin, is we've we sometimes fail to stress. I think James does a good job of teaching on this, we fail to stress that we do have obligations under this new covenant as well to do the things because Jesus said, if we don't clothe the naked, if we don't visit the sick, if we don't help the widow and the orphan, if we don't visit the people in prison, we don't feed the hungry, depart from me, I never knew you. And so we we do have covenant obligations that our faith has to be accompanied by works, that we're we're saved and then we remain saved. I think we don't need to forget about those obligations.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Yeah. All goes back to living out uh the gospel and the life of Jesus Christ. Check out our description below in the podcast notes for additional ways to connect with us to our fellow students of Scripture. Thank you for joining us for Tech Support.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

We hope you will join us next week. This is a podcast of the Mount Juliet Church of Christ. You can find more personal growth resources like this one at mountjuliat.org slash resources. The Mount Juliet Church of Christ exists to glorify God and make disciples by helping people grow in Christ, love one another, and serve others.