FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Exodus 20:15 - Leviticus 19:18 - The Bible Recap - Day 030 - The Bible Recap - Day 037 - Video: How to Interpret Tough Texts - Article: What is Progressive Revelation? - The Bible Project: God or gods? - The Bible Project: No Other God Note: We provide links to specific resources; this is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc. Their views may not represent our own. SHOW NOTES: - Follow The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube - Follow Tara-Leigh Cobble: Instagram - Read/listen on the Bible App or Dwell App - Learn more at our Start Page - Become a RECAPtain - Shop the TBR Store - Credits PARTNER MINISTRIES: D-Group International Israelux The God Shot TLC Writing & Speaking DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
Full Episode
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Welcome to February's bonus episode. We're aiming to do an episode like this at the end of each month, offering some reflections and some corrections. Let's start with reflections, looking back at all we've covered so far. The Bible is one unified story. It's the story of a family, and it all starts in Genesis.
God set out to build a relationship with this family, but things went terribly wrong when they fractured the relationship through sin. But their sin didn't surprise God. He already had a plan in place to restore this relationship even before it was broken, and He continues working out that plan immediately, undeterred and unhindered by their rebellion.
He sets apart a man named Abraham to be the patriarch of the family, and he gives this family a name, the Israelites. They're a bunch of busted people who lie, cheat, and steal. God blesses them despite their sin, but it still has its consequences. One of the long storylines of consequence is of the 400 years they spent enslaved in Egypt.
That all started because one brother, Joseph, was a bit of a show-off, so his older brothers were jealous and sold him into slavery. But God responded to their sin with rescue. He sent a murderer named Moses to demonstrate his power to the Egyptian Pharaoh, who was not impressed.
Eventually, after ten rounds of power displays that culminate in the death of the firstborn of all of Egypt, Pharaoh agrees to let the Israelite slaves go. They flee to the desert led by God and his servant Moses. God gives them the basic rules of how to have a stable society since they're new to all of that and have only ever known slavery under a cruel dictator.
They've never seen good leadership demonstrated. They're a bunch of uncivilized, ungrateful people who don't really know God or Moses, and they're not keen on obeying either of them. And we haven't gotten to this yet, but I've hinted at it. Their rebellion lands them a 40-year sentence in the desert wilderness. But they're not alone.
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 and gives them the basic rules of how to interact with a holy God when you're a busted sinner. He sets up a team of people to help mediate this relationship, making sure everything goes as he commands it, the Levites.
There are a lot of details involved in all of it, but it just goes to show the great lengths God will go to in order to bridge the gap created by fallen humanity's sin. And this isn't even close to being the greatest length he will go to.
This is setting us up for the greatest sacrifice of all, the once and final sacrifice of Christ on the cross, which is the only way any human can be restored to God for all time. We'll continue with this family as we keep reading in numbers, and soon they'll get to the land God has promised to give this family. Good things are ahead, even though we'll hit some rough patches along the way.
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