April Reflections & Corrections - Year 7
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Welcome to our April Reflections and Corrections episode. Let's start with the reflections. We recently finished our 10th book of the Bible and are currently working our way through three others. So let's get the 30,000-foot view on where we are in the chronological timeline of the Bible's overall metanarrative.

The Bible is one unified story. Way back in Genesis, God set out to build a relationship with one particular family. But things go terribly wrong when they fracture the relationship through sin. But their sin doesn'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 the family. And he gives this family a name, the Israelites.

They're a busted bunch of people who lie, cheat, and steal. God blesses them despite their sin, but sin still has its consequences. One of the long storylines of consequence is of the 400 years they spent enslaved in Egypt.

God sends a man named Moses to demonstrate his power to the Egyptian ruler who reluctantly agrees to let the Israelite slaves go. They flee to the desert, led by God and his servant Moses, and then little by little, God gives these people the basic rules of how to set up a stable society.

All they've ever known is slavery under a cruel dictator. They've never seen good leadership demonstrated. They're 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. 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 and disobey or they get prideful and disobey. Their disobedience lands them a 40-year sentence in the desert wilderness. In the meantime, all the first generation dies off and God raises up a new leader, Joshua, to lead them into the Promised Land.

Joshua appoints plots of land for all the tribes and commands them to eradicate their enemies who live there, the Canaanites. They spread out in the land, but it's so nice to not be in slavery or in the wilderness that this new life of luxury and ease makes them forget God. So they never fully conquer the land completely. There are still pockets of Canaanites all around.

God has warned them repeatedly about the consequences of this, which are: their enemies, the Canaanites, will become a snare and lead them away into apostasy. And that's exactly what happens. After Joshua dies, God raises up military leaders, or judges, to drive out the enemies who are leading them astray. But this doesn't deal with the problem of their hearts leading them astray.

The Israelites do whatever they want, which results in near-anarchy at times, and things grow continually worse in the Promised Land. Despite this, there are pockets of faithfulness among the Israelites and even among foreigners whose hearts have turned toward Yahweh. People like Rahab and Ruth, pagans who turn to follow God and His people and abandon their lifestyles that may fit with cultural norms of that day but that are actually unrighteous.

God has been telling us all along that he's going to build his people from among every nation, and we're starting to see more and more evidence of that coming to pass. Then God raises up a prophet named Samuel, who takes on the task of leading the people. But what they really want is a king, because that's what all the other nations around them have.

So God tells Samuel to give the people what they want, but that it's not going to go well for them. They had God as their king. So no matter who gets put on the throne, it's going to be a massive downgrade. And in fact, it is. They get Saul, a fearful man who is oppressed by a demon and makes rash decisions without consulting God. The people are happy to have a king, but they're more impressed by a sheepherder named David than they are with the king. So Saul sets out to kill him.

But God has promised David that he'll be Israel's next king. And remarkably, David has the wisdom and patience not to retaliate when Saul tries to kill him repeatedly. Eventually, Saul dies in battle, and David is positioned as Israel's second king. Based on what we've seen of his character so far, we seem to be off to a much better start than with Saul.

Despite Israel's wickedness, God has given them a king that demonstrates wisdom and honor, and God even says that David is a man after his own heart. That's high praise. Okay, that's all for the reflections part of this episode, and I'm happy to report that so far in April, by God's grace, there aren't any glaring mistakes I made or things I want to retract or correct, so we don't have any corrections to add for this month. Praise God. I love it when I don't accidentally mislead or confuse you.

It is so much fun for me to be on this journey with you. I love it more and more every day. And from day one until now, I hope you're seeing more and more that He's where the joy is. The Bible Recap offers tools that equip millions around the world to read, understand, and love the Bible. We want to help people encounter God in a way that transforms their entire lives. To find out more, visit thebiblerecap.com.