Understanding the Bible / Scriptures

[0:00] Well, good morning everybody. So, it's a good day. I have been out in the woods for the last three days. We just got back yesterday, me and the three boys, and it gives you a great appreciation for civilization.

[0:22] It was wonderful, but it is certainly nice to be back in a bed with electricity, and it's dry on the inside. So, we went down to the Red River Gorge. We went Thursday, and we came back yesterday. So, two nights, three days, and it rained most of the time.

[0:48] And we knew it kind of going up to that week, but the weather forecast wasn't exactly what was expected. So, it was a wild adventure. We'll just say that.

[1:03] We had people whose tents leaked. We had kids who were up all night because they were in hammocks, and their rain tarps weren't covering everything, and so their sleeping bags were soaked.

[1:16] But it was a wild adventure. At the end, I was thinking, none of these guys are going to do this with me again. And every single one of them said, we can't wait until next time.

[1:27] And I said, you guys are nuts. I don't think I want to do this again. No, we will. We'll do it again. But, yeah, it was good. It's just good roughing it, right?

[1:40] One, it gives you appreciation. You know, it's great spending time in God's creation, but it gives you appreciation for all the things that we have built, that we've done with God's creation, right, to build it up.

[1:56] Well, we've been talking about figures of speech, and we're going to do one more week on that topic. We've gone through each of these. This is just somewhat of a short list, but these, I think, are the big ones.

[2:09] Some of the bigger ones. Metaphors, idioms, similes, hyperbole, euphemisms. See if I can get their pronunciation right. Metonymy, I think, is how you pronounce that. Metonymy.

[2:20] Metonymy. Caleb's giving me a thumbs up there. That's how you pronounce it, metonymy. And so, and we've looked at examples of each of these. Today, we're going to look at, I think, four different, like, examples that address a few of these that are kind of, just to, I guess, dig in a little bit more and look at maybe some controversies or some confusion in the Bible that might be cleared up by understanding figures of speech.

[2:50] Figures of speech is one part of biblical interpretation, but it's not everything, and we'll look at that more as we go on here. By the way, just this little side note, I open up my Bible, and in my Bible, I have, on this page, this is 2 Chronicles, and there's just scribble all over this page.

[3:10] And I remember when that happened. I was, you know, this is my Bible. I like to take notes in here, and it's got scribble in there. And I was, you know, pretty upset one of the kids had gotten a hold of a pen and just decided they were going to draw on my Bible.

[3:23] And that was years ago. And today, I open up my Bible to that, and I just smile. Because one of my kids wrote in my Bible. And that's just so neat. So it's interesting how time kind of changes your perspective.

[3:45] So last week, we talked about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. And are those two different things? And we talked about the use of metonymy there.

[3:58] Heaven is where God lives. And so we can say both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. And really, it's referring to the same thing. The kingdom of heaven also has kind of an additional part to it.

[4:14] And that I think Pastor Marv brought up the other week that Jesus said, or as part of the Lord's Prayer, right? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[4:26] And ultimately, we want to bring the kingdom of heaven down to earth. But we're going to look at an example that I think is more confusing than it is controversial.

[4:41] We're going to look at a passage in Genesis. And so let's open up to Genesis chapter 9. And we're going to see if figures of speech can help us understand this a little bit better. Genesis chapter 9, verse 18.

[4:58] This is right after the flood. And we're going to read through this. 9, 18. Is it to the end of the chapter?

[5:09] Basically to the end of the chapter. Genesis 9, 18 says this. Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

[5:19] And Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah. And from these, the whole earth was populated. And Noah began to be a farmer.

[5:31] And he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk and became uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

[5:46] But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both of their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away and they did not see their father's nakedness.

[5:58] So Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him. Then he said, This is an interesting passage.

[6:35] One, it's like this is kind of, what's the deal? Why is this story in the Bible? It seems to say on the very surface that Noah got drunk.

[6:46] His sons walked into him. Saw him in the state of the undress here and went out and, or Ham went in. And then he bragged about it to his brothers.

[6:57] And then they went in and covered. And then this resulted in a curse. But there's an interesting thing going on here. Who was cursed?

[7:09] The grandson. The grandson was cursed. Why in the world, Ham went in and did this. There was something that Ham did that was very inappropriate.

[7:20] And then Ham's son was the one that was cursed. How many, did Ham just have one son? The Bible says he actually had, I think it was four sons.

[7:33] A little further down in chapter 10. Oh, well, anyway, it's down there in chapter 10 somewhere.

[7:45] Oh, verse 6. It says, the sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. So he had four sons. It seems like Canaan was the fourth son, right? Usually they're in order. You can't always assume that.

[7:57] But I think most of the time you can. Another thing here, for a lot of people, this just is confusing. What is going on here?

[8:08] For others, it's interesting. I remember years ago, there was a family we went to church with. And we got to know them fairly well and would visit them at their home.

[8:19] But one time while we were at their house, I can't remember what brought this topic up. But the dad was mentioning how he never uses the locker room at the Y or the gym or whatever.

[8:35] Because in the Bible, it talks about Ham saw his father undressed and he was cursed. And so he said it's wrong for even a man to see a man in a state of undress.

[8:51] And I thought, that just does not sound right. And even in today's world, we have lots of privacy, don't we? We have bathrooms where we can close the door.

[9:05] I just came from a scenario this weekend where we had very little privacy. And if you needed to go number one or number two, to use a euphemism, the best privacy you have is behind a tree, right?

[9:20] And for a lot of the world, even today, but throughout history, privacy has been something that has been at a premium, something that not a lot of people have.

[9:32] And so in a lot of places, if you wanted to go take a bath, for example, you would go to a bathhouse. And you'd have the men and the women.

[9:42] And it would just be some kind of a public bath. Or, you know, if you're out in the country, you just went to the lake or the river or something like that.

[9:55] So that just seemed odd that the Bible would teach that this was some kind of a sinful thing, just seeing a man without his clothes on. But anyway, let's, let's, there's, there's a figure of speech in the Bible that we're going to look at.

[10:13] And I think the key phrase in here is about uncovering Noah's, or what does it, what does it, what does it say? He looked on his father's nakedness, right?

[10:25] So Leviticus chapter 20, let's look at that. Or let's actually start Leviticus 18 in the law.

[10:42] Leviticus 18. And let's see, where should we start?

[10:59] Let's start in verse 6 to give a little context here. None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover his nakedness.

[11:12] Well, that's interesting. Somebody who's close in relation, you shouldn't uncover their nakedness. I am the Lord. Verse 7. The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover.

[11:22] She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. The naked, in the verse 8. The nakedness of your father's wife you shall not uncover. It is your father's nakedness. It's interesting.

[11:34] And it keeps on going and talking about other family members. And you shall not uncover their nakedness. Turn over a couple more chapters to Leviticus 20. Verse 11.

[11:49] Or, yeah. Let's just start at verse 11. The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness.

[12:03] Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness.

[12:16] It's interesting. And if you read in commentaries, they'll say, well, this is a figure of speech. This is a figure of speech. To uncover a man's nakedness is to seduce his wife or to have relations with his wife.

[12:33] And there's an example in the New Testament of this happening, right? This specific scenario that's spoken of in the law. Paul addressed it to the Corinthians. He said, there's this thing happening in the church and a man is taking his father's wife.

[12:49] And in this case, it wasn't his mother. At least it doesn't appear that way. But his father had probably gotten remarried or something. And he had formed a romantic relationship with his father's wife.

[13:02] Wife, that is strictly forbidden in the scriptures and any other close of kin. And so this idea of uncovering someone's nakedness is a figure of speech.

[13:20] What kind of figure of speech is it? It's on this list. Euphemism, I heard it. It's a euphemism. And when we're talking about something that's very, it's a subject matter that's difficult to talk about.

[13:35] And we use the term incest. Or, you know, there are other phrases. But it's something that's difficult to talk about. And so we use euphemisms a lot to talk about this kind of subject matter.

[13:49] But I'd like to consider, and this isn't something that's a hard, you know, I think it's something that we can hold to loosely.

[14:00] But if we go back to Noah and what happened there and the story that seems so strange, it seems to me that this is a euphemism that's being used as part of the story.

[14:14] And I think there are some other clues that can help us to get there. So what it seems like is that Ham took advantage of his father while he was sick.

[14:26] Or not sick, while he was drunk. And had a relationship with his own mother, which is an incestual thing, which God strictly forbid.

[14:36] And I think there was a product from that relationship. And that was Canaan. I think that's what happened.

[14:49] And that's why Canaan was the one where the curse was addressed to rather than Ham. And what do we know about Canaan in particular?

[15:05] Who was he the father of? The Canaanites, right? We've heard of the Canaanites. Who were the Canaanites? They were enemies of Israel, right?

[15:15] They were the ones that Israel, that they went into the promised land, the land of Canaan, and destroyed many of the people. Were the Canaanites godly people?

[15:26] No. In fact, very early on, the Canaanites showed themselves to be intensely wicked people. And this curse, it's very common, right?

[15:42] You see this in families. When there's wickedness that start at the origins, it tends to continue on and spread. And not that that's always the case, but it tends to be that way.

[15:58] I want to look at one more verse that kind of speaks to this and kind of adds a little bit more weight to it. Again, this is kind of taking a stab at it.

[16:10] It's not exactly... I think this is a possible, a very possible interpretation of this. Habakkuk chapter 2.

[16:22] Well, I'm not going to... Just for the sake of time, because I've got other things I want to get to. Habakkuk 2.15 says this. This is a warning of the prophet Habakkuk to Israel. Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor.

[16:35] Who gives drink. It's not talking about Kool-Aid. It's talking about strong drink, alcohol, to his neighbor. Pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness.

[16:51] And what is that saying? Is it saying that you're going to get somebody drunk just so that you can, you know, look at him in a state of undress?

[17:03] No, that's not what it's saying at all. It's saying, don't get your neighbor drunk so that you can try to seduce his wife. That's what this is saying. And so it's using a similar euphemism to talk about this whole idea.

[17:23] One of the things that I think points or that gives weight to this way of interpreting this kind of confusing passage is the focus on Canaan throughout this whole chapter.

[17:37] The focus is, it says in the very beginning, well, Noah had three sons. And he had Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

[17:47] And Canaan was the son of Ham. It's like, we didn't talk about the sons of any of the other sons. He just talked about the one grandson. He's mentioned like four or five times in this passage. So it seems to me that God is saying, hey, you know these people, the Canaanites.

[18:04] And here's a little bit about the origin of the Canaanites and what happened there. And so, but one of the things I wanted to say is that, you know, even though families can start, and this is a little bit about redemption, right?

[18:26] Even though families can start off with sinfulness, like with Canaan. And the whole family line, lineage, is under a curse.

[18:40] But that doesn't necessarily mean, are there Canaanites that were lovers of God or that were faithful people? Well, I'm not sure if there are any examples. One I can think of was in the New Testament with Jesus.

[18:54] And there was a woman who was a Canaanite woman. Do you remember about her? What did Jesus say about her? That she had great faith. Because she came, she had a daughter, I think it was, right, that was demon-possessed, if I remember the story correctly.

[19:09] And he called her a dog, right? And she said, yes, but even the dogs can lick up the scraps from the master's table. And he says, wow, what great faith.

[19:22] But there's actually another story, and this is throughout the Bible. The Bible's not just a kid's storybook, right? It's like a grown-up adult's book, right? There's all kinds of interesting things that happen in there.

[19:34] But there's the people of Moab, the Moabites, right? And does anybody remember the origin story of the Moabites of Moab? He was the son of Lot, but through who?

[19:51] Through his daughters, right? Both of his daughters committed incest. But one of the neat things that we see, even though there was this wickedness, were the Moabites like a good, godly people?

[20:05] No, they were wicked. They were pagans. They worshipped idols. But throughout that lineage of the Moabites, a people who were formed through incest, there was one particular character who comes to the forefront.

[20:22] Does anybody know who that is? Ruth. Ruth. And she is redeemed. She joins the nation of Israel, right? And eventually marries who?

[20:33] Boaz. Boaz. And then they have a son whose name is Obed. And then he has a son named Jesse. And then Jesse has a son named David.

[20:45] David. And David ultimately is the father of Jesus Christ, the Savior. So anyway, I think that's interesting.

[20:56] So that's one possible explanation. I think it's a good possibility there. But where figures of speech can help us understand what's going on in that situation and why Canaan was cursed when Ham was the one that did the wickedness.

[21:11] Another one that I want to look at, this is more controversial, is look at this question of two brothers, Jacob and Esau.

[21:23] Jacob and Esau. Did you know that the Bible says, Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated. Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated.

[21:37] Let's look. We're going to look in the New Testament, even though this is written in the Old Testament, but it's referenced in the New Testament, Romans 9. And so there's a theological system that kind of puts a lot of weight on this idea that everything is predestined.

[22:13] Everything that happens is predestined. And with a specific focus on salvation, that there are some people that are predestined to be saved and other people that were predestined from the beginning of time or eternity past or whatever have been predestined to not be saved.

[22:32] And so that system, commonly called Calvinism, appeals specifically to this passage. And so this is the kind of controversy we're going to look at. But in Romans chapter 9, it says this, verse, where should we start?

[22:48] I've got verse 10. Let's start in verse, well, 6, just to get a little context.

[22:59] But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children, because they are the seed of Abraham. But in Isaac your seed shall be called.

[23:12] That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise.

[23:22] At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son. God promised Abraham that he would give him a son through who? Through Sarah. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac, and it says in verse 11, in the parentheses, for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls.

[23:53] It was said to her, the older shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. And that is actually, that phrase is a reference to a verse in Malachi chapter one.

[24:10] Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated. So there have been over the years, some who have taught, well, this is an explanation of how predestination works.

[24:21] in that before children are even born, God decides whether he will love them, or whether he will hate them. And some children, he loves from the womb, and others he hates from the womb.

[24:36] And he makes that decision before they're even born, or even before they're even conceived. Is that true? Does that, does that seem to be like the God of the Bible, that the God of the Bible would be like that?

[24:50] It doesn't, does it? It just doesn't, it doesn't feel right on its face. So what's going on here? Why would the Bible, why would the scriptures, why would God say through the prophet Malachi, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated.

[25:04] And it says specifically here in Romans, that this was the case, before the children were born. Before they did any good, or evil.

[25:16] God decided he would love one, and hate the other. Can you imagine, how could that possibly be the case? Does it, sometimes we, we see a confusing passage, and we say, well, I'm going to look up the Greek.

[25:31] And so we look up the Greek word for hate here, and it's this Greek, misio. And if you look up the word, it, it's defined as to detest something.

[25:44] And you look up some other examples, of the usage of this word, and it says in Mark 13, 13, you shall be hated, of all men, for my name's sake. That's Jesus saying, you're going to be hated, by all kinds of people.

[25:57] And what was he talking about? He was saying, people are going to despise you. In 1 John 3, verse 15, the same word is used. Whoever hates his brother, is a murderer.

[26:09] And you know, that no murderer, has eternal life, abiding in him. So how can we understand, this passage, and the related ones? Jacob, I have loved.

[26:21] Esau, before the kids were even born. Esau, I have hated. I think there are, two figures of speech going on. The first one, I think that's going on here, is this one at the bottom, a metonymy.

[26:33] And what is a metonymy again? A metonymy is where you, reference something, by explicitly stating, something related. We talked about, blue collar.

[26:45] That means, you're talking about, somebody who works outside, or somebody who works with their hands. And you reference, the color of the collar, of the uniform, that they typically use, to reference that person.

[26:55] You want to reference the president, the president of the United States, you reference the White House, because that's where the president lives, a metonymy. And so, in this case, what's happening, and I think it's actually pretty clear, if you read the whole passage, and understand the context, especially of the Old Testament, so many times in the Bible, a group of people, a nation, is referred to by who?

[27:24] by the father of that nation. The nation of Israel, is called Israel, because, the father, was Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel.

[27:37] And sometimes, the nation of Israel, is referred to as Jacob. And I think we've looked at, looked at that in the past. Let's look at, Genesis chapter 25 though.

[27:48] Genesis chapter 25. And we're going to look at, this specific example of, of Rebecca's children, not Sarah's, Rebecca's children, Jacob and Esau.

[28:09] So, in Romans 9, Paul's making a point, and he's saying, you know what, God can choose a people from himself, from any group. And he gets to decide, and you don't.

[28:21] We don't. We don't get to decide. God gets to decide, who's going to be his special people. And he chose, he said, he told, he promised to Abraham, that he was going to make a special nation out of him.

[28:31] But he didn't stop there. Was all of Abraham's children, part of God's special people? No, it wasn't all of his children. It was the one child through Sarah, Isaac.

[28:44] And then he makes the second point. I think this is where he's going. He makes the second point. Were all of Rebecca's children, part of God's special people? No. Rebecca had two sons, Jacob and Esau.

[28:58] And which one was the one, they would get the nation of Israel. Was it Esau or Jacob? It's Jacob. So let's read Genesis chapter 25, verse 23.

[29:17] Let's go back a little bit. Okay, verse 21. Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord. So Isaac's been born. He's got married to Rebecca. Because she was barren, and the Lord granted his plea, and Rebecca, his wife, conceived.

[29:31] But the children struggled together within her. And she said, If all is well, why am I like this? So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, so she was having struggles.

[29:43] There was a lot of activity going on in her belly. And she went to the Lord and said, What is going on? It's like these two kids are fighting in my stomach. That's what it appears that she's dealing with here.

[29:55] And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other.

[30:08] And the older shall serve the younger. And so, the Lord said, There are two nations in there.

[30:20] And it wasn't like she had thousands of babies in there, right? But it was referencing, These two sons will be the fathers of two separate people groups. And there will be a struggle between those two people groups.

[30:33] And the older shall serve the younger. Now, this is interesting because did Esau, the individual, If you know a little bit about the story, did Esau ever serve his brother Jacob?

[31:00] Not really. They didn't really. There was a couple of interactions. But it's not like he was a servant of, Esau was a servant of Jacob. This thing that God was mentioning was talking about the nations that were to come.

[31:15] Something that would happen into the future. Let's go to Malachi, chapter 1, and look at where this passage is referenced.

[31:29] Malachi, chapter 1. Malachi. It's the very last chapter in the Old Testament.

[31:51] All right. Malachi chapter 1, verse 1 through 4. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. Malachi. This is the words of the Lord.

[32:02] I have loved you, says the Lord. Yet you say, In what way have you loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, says the Lord? Yet Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated, and laid waste his mountains and his heritage for the jackals of the wilderness.

[32:21] Even though Edom has said, We have been impoverished. And who is Edom? Is he talking about a different group of people? Edom is the name of the people of Esau.

[32:32] They're called the Edomites. Esau was the father of the Edomites. Even though Edom has said, We have been impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus says the Lord of hosts, They may build, but I will throw down.

[32:46] They shall be called the territory of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord will have indignation forever. So, this is a prophecy in which the Lord is reaffirming, saying, Listen, there were two boys, Esau and Jacob, and I said that I would put my blessing and call out as a special people, the people of the sons of Jacob.

[33:10] Not the Edomites, not the sons of Esau, but the sons of Jacob. So, these words that we read in Romans chapter 9, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated, are a reference to God's choosing a special people for himself.

[33:27] And it's not excluding anybody from salvation per se, because anybody could join these people, right? Anybody from any Edomite could join Israel. But he's saying, I'm going to create a special people group for myself from Jacob, not Esau.

[33:46] And so, we have a metonymy going on. Two people groups, Israel and the Edomites. The Israelites and the Edomites. The other figure of speech I think we have going on here is hyperbole.

[34:01] Hyperbole. Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. In Luke chapter 14, for time's sake, I'm just going to read through these. In Luke chapter 14, verse 26, Jesus says this, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, and yes, even his life also, he cannot be my disciple.

[34:25] You have to hate your entire immediate family and even yourself to be my disciple. That's hyperbole. In fact, Jesus says in other places, you need to love other people like you love yourself.

[34:38] Because everybody loves themselves, right? And it ought to be that way. You shouldn't hate yourself. You should love yourself. You should love your soul more than your flesh, Jesus said. He said a lot of people love their flesh and they don't love their soul like they ought to.

[34:50] You should consider your soul even above your flesh. But you should love yourself. And we ought to love others in the way that we love ourselves, in the way that we care about ourselves. So he wasn't literally saying you should hate your mother and father, but this is a figure of speech.

[35:05] When it comes to loving the Lord, our love for the Lord should be so strong, should be so big, we'll say, that in comparison, it's as if you hated your mother and your father, your brother and your sister.

[35:25] That's the figure. This is hyperbole. And so it's not even that God despised little baby Esau and all of his children from the womb.

[35:38] It's just saying that God had this tremendous love, this outpouring of blessing that he wanted to give on the children of Jacob. So that because of that outpouring of love and generous blessing on Jacob, it's as if he hated Esau.

[36:00] But it's not that he literally hated Esau or the Edomites, even though they had never done anything wrong at this point, right? They were still in the womb. When God said this, they were still in the womb.

[36:13] But that is a figure of speech. We see the same figure of speech when it comes to Jacob himself and his two wives. If you're familiar, Jacob got married to two women, two sisters, and one he had a really special love for.

[36:29] But his father-in-law tricked him into marrying the other one. She got a really bad rap. Can you imagine being, what was it? Leah. Yeah, Leah. Rachel and Leah.

[36:39] Leah, man, imagine being in her position. But it says this in Genesis 29, and Jacob did so and fulfilled her week. Talking about Leah. So he got married to Leah. And then his father-in-law, Laban, gave him Rachel, his daughter, to wife also.

[36:54] And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, Bilhan, his handmaid, to be her maid. And he went in also unto Rachel and loved also Rachel more than Leah. So he loved her more than he loved Leah.

[37:07] Does it say that he didn't love Leah there? It says that he loved her more than Leah and served him yet another seven years. And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb.

[37:21] But Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bare a son and called his name Reuben. For she said, Surely the Lord has looked upon my affliction. Now, therefore, my husband will love me. And she conceived again and bare a son and said, Because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, He hath therefore given me this son also.

[37:40] And she called his name Simeon. So she uses these phrases, that he hated me. There's not really any indication that Jacob despised his wife Leah.

[37:52] In fact, I don't have the scripture or the verse written down, but later on, I think Leah was buried, like he specifically had her buried in his same plot with him.

[38:05] That doesn't seem to indicate that he hated her, but that he loved her. But he loved Rachel so much more. And so there's this figure of speech that you see throughout the Bible where there's these contrasts that are meant to be looked at figuratively and not literally.

[38:24] And so going back to Romans 9, there are these two babies. And God is just saying in Romans 9, or Paul is saying, I should say, but the Lord through Paul, that God can make a special people out of anyone.

[38:40] And he promised that he would make a special people from Abraham, but he didn't stop there. He made an even greater distinction between Abraham's sons and blessed Isaac and not...

[38:56] Who was his other son? Ishmael. Not Ishmael. He blessed Isaac and not Ishmael. And then through Isaac, he blessed Jacob and not Esau.

[39:08] He passed Esau by. But he put his blessing on Jacob. And from there, the 12 sons make the nation of Israel. And in Romans 9, he's making the point, can God do the same thing with Gentiles?

[39:25] Can God pick a different group of people that he wants to put his blessing on? He sure can. And is he not allowed to because you say so? Nope. God can do whatever he wants.

[39:37] And he could even put his blessing on a wicked people, like the Gentiles, who weren't even seeking after him. God can choose to put a blessing on a people, a pagan people, who are not even looking for him and decide that he wants to make them his special people.

[39:55] And so now as Gentiles today, we have the opportunity to just trust on the Lord Jesus Christ and become part of God's family. Isn't that amazing?

[40:07] Oh, man. Never enough time. The last thing I wanted to look at, we just have five minutes, so we'll just look at a few of these. But I want to look at the word all.

[40:22] The word all is a word that we use so often in our language. And it's in the Bible, it's the same way. But does all always mean all?

[40:34] And there are so many confusing doctrines or controversies that have to do with all. And I think if you look closely, sometimes the word all means everything, completely all, absolutely everything.

[40:48] And sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it means most. Sometimes I think it means less than half or a few, but a lot, right? And so we're just going to look at a few examples with the minutes that we have left.

[41:02] The first one I want to look at actually very explicitly talks about this, and we're talking about hyperbole here, right? When we use the word all. But in Hebrews 2 verse 8, it says this, and you can turn there if you want, but I'm going to go through it quickly because of time's sake.

[41:19] Hebrews 2 verse 8 says this, you have put all things in subjection under his feet. It's talking about Jesus Christ. And it's talking about God and Jesus Christ. You, God the Father, have put all things in subjection under his feet, Jesus Christ.

[41:32] For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him.

[41:45] And so it says that the Father put everything under the feet of Jesus, under his dominion, authority. Jesus, risen from the dead, the resurrected Savior, is given authority over all things.

[41:59] We believe that, don't we? But can you imagine that some people might take that a little bit too far? And so in 1 Corinthians, Paul, it seems like he shouldn't have to do this, but sometimes we're knuckleheads, right?

[42:20] So he says this in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 27. For he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, again, 1 Corinthians 15, 27.

[42:34] But when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. So some might think, well, you know, even the Father is going to be subjugated to the Son, you know, in history.

[42:50] God has, the Father has put himself under the Son. And so now there's this hierarchy of the Son over the Father. And Paul's like, you know, this is what it says.

[43:01] It uses the word all, but let's not be knuckleheads. Let's not be knuckleheads, right? It's not that the Father is going to subjugate himself to the Son and have this eternal kind of subjugation of the Father under the Son.

[43:13] And so he's speaking to this figure. All means all, but it, you know, we have to be careful that we don't try to overdo it. Oh boy, there's a few more here.

[43:30] There are some out there that teach this idea of sinless perfection, that some people have been able to live in the world without sin and be righteous.

[43:42] and they, they're sinless and so they don't, you know, really need the blood of Christ or anything like that.

[43:54] And it's because there are a few places in the Bible where it talks about people being blameless. Have you ever read that in the Bible? There are a few people. Noah was called blameless. Job was called blameless. Paul even calls himself blameless.

[44:09] He says, when it comes to keeping the law, I was blameless. Is that true? Do we think that, that that was a hundred percent that he never did anything that was wrong?

[44:19] He never broke the law? No, that, that's hyperbole. Now it means something. It doesn't mean that they never kept the law, right? It means that they, it doesn't mean that they were completely unrighteous.

[44:30] It meant that they were generally, relatively righteous people. But the word blameless, even though it seems like an absolute term, is a term that is just used to talk about people who are generally righteous.

[44:43] It says also about John the Baptist's parents in Luke 1, 6, and they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless.

[44:57] They walked in all the commandments. They never sinned. Is that true? No. And how do we know that? How can you know whether the word all there means literally all or not?

[45:12] You just have to have some, a little bit of common sense, some context, and that, and common sense is context, isn't it? Common sense is kind of having a sense of how the world works, right?

[45:23] And that's context that we can use in understanding the scriptures. Nathan? Yeah? It's kind of ironic that the Bible uses these phrases and situations very much in the same way that we do.

[45:38] Right. And then we fault them for it. We fault them for it, yeah. We do the exact same thing in our every single day. Every single day we do. And then we look at the Bible and sometimes we read the Bible outside of the way that we just talk ourselves.

[45:51] And the Bible, for the most part, is just written the same way that we talk. To communicate. To, yeah, it's just a way of communicating. I have a bunch of passages just to kind of consider.

[46:04] They all use the word all. And one that I'll reference real quick, it says, Then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him, to John the Baptist, to be baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

[46:18] Did every single person in Judea go out to John the Baptist to be baptized? No. We know of lots of people who didn't, right? Oh boy.

[46:30] What else can we say? Well, there's one that says, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Well, if all doesn't always mean all, then that means some people must be sinless, right?

[46:42] Well, no. But what about, maybe he's just talking about adults, right? Well, that must mean that Jesus was a sinner, right?

[46:54] Because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Did Jesus sin? No, we know that explicitly. So, I have lots of other examples, but we're going to stop there for the sake of time.

[47:05] But just kind of to end up, figures can be confusing to understand if we don't recognize them, if we don't apply the kind of figure of speech that we use in our typical language to the Bible.

[47:18] There are false teachings that can come about either by people applying a figure where it doesn't belong or not recognizing a figure when it does belong.

[47:29] And I'll have to say this, we shouldn't think that understanding figures is enough for us to understand the Bible. It's just one piece of biblical interpretation. And some figures are easy to understand, some are harder.

[47:47] And it's important, I think, understanding figures, one of the key pieces to understanding figures is context. And sometimes it's the context of just understanding language as a whole.

[48:00] Sometimes it's a very specific context. Sometimes it's understanding just what God's like. You read something and you think, that doesn't sound like God. It just doesn't sound like Him.

[48:11] And so maybe we can investigate and say, I wonder if there's a figure of speech going on or something that I'm just not getting. And that happens a lot when we're reading the Bible. But the next thing that we're going to delve into is that subject matter of context.

[48:27] And so I think if we, we're starting to kind of look at all these different tools that we can use to understand the Bible. We've looked at figures of speech. And next week, we'll start looking at context.

[48:38] And man, there's lots of different kinds of context that we can look at when studying the Scriptures. But I'll end there. Before we run off, though, any other thoughts or questions before we're done? All right.

[48:51] Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it. we'll pigeon three. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

[49:11] Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.