May 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 May Reflections and Corrections episode. Let's start with the reflections. We recently finished our 12th book of the Bible, and we're currently working our way through three others. So let's get the 30,000th 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 have 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 lands 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, which are their enemies, the Canaanites, will become a snare to them 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 that 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 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. God tells Samuel to give the people what they want, but that it's not going to go well for them. Their first king is Saul, a fearful man who is oppressed by a demon and who makes rash decisions without consulting God.

Eventually, Saul dies in battle, and a shepherd named David is positioned as Israel's second king. He's a man after God's own heart, but he's still deeply flawed. He makes a few wicked decisions that mark him for life, but they don't mark him for eternity. God shows him astonishing amounts of mercy and grace.

David deals with the consequences of his sin for the rest of his life and is eventually succeeded on the throne by Israel's third king, Solomon. Solomon is known as the wisest man who ever lived, which bodes well for him as a king. He has a bit of a problem with womanizing and worshiping other gods, but Yahweh is generous to him nonetheless. In fact, God has even promised him that he will be the one to build Israel's first temple, the place where God will come to dwell among his people in the midst of the promised land.

Okay, that's all for the reflections part of this episode. Let's talk about our corrections. We heard from lots of you who struggled with how David could be a man after God's own heart after all his sins. I didn't really cover this, so my correction is that I probably should have. What does that phrase mean?

Instead of looking for what it means about David, let's look at what this means about God. How merciful and forgiving must God be if he can know all the sins David would ever commit and still say, he's mine. Unlike Saul, who was the king the Israelites demanded, David is the king God chose for Israel.

That should give us all hope because I am a sinner just like David, deserving of hell and death, but I've been rescued by a merciful God and used for His purposes. If you're looking for a book to tell you how great and worthy and deserving you are, the Bible is not that book. It will continue to remind us all that we're broken people in need of a Savior and that God Himself is that Savior. That is the gospel.

If you've come to this book to find examples of how to live a good moral life, you're only really going to find one. Everyone else is busted. There's only one hero in this book. His name is Jesus. The Bible refuses to let us wear rose-colored glasses when we look at any of the people we've grown up admiring. They may possess good qualities, but they'll always be imperfect and sinful and in need of a Savior just like us.

Listen, I know this is hard for a lot of you. A lot of you have been disillusioned by Samson and devastated by David. Some of you are frustrated with God for all the people he keeps killing. I get it. I've been there. Don't give up. God brought you here for a reason. He has pursued you to this very spot, and he's not going to give up on you, so you might as well lean in.

That's all for the month of May. 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.