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Song of Songs, Part 1

Song of Songs, Part 1 Song of Songs, Part 1

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger | Solomon's Writings

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/geartalk-11-15-24-2.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on Biblical Theology. We’ve been focusing on books connected to Solomon. Today, Jason and Tom take a look at the Song of Songs. There are at least four different ways this book has been interpreted. We talk about these different approaches and land on a preferred approach. This all sets the table for our walk-through of the book in our next podcast on Song of Songs. When you get a chance, take a look at the resources connected to Song of Songs, highlighted in our show notes.

TK: Welcome, GearTalk. I’m Tom. I’m with Jason, and we’ve been talking about books that Solomon wrote. So we talked about Ecclesiastes, and today we’re moving on to Song of Solomon. Or, Jason, some people call this Song of Songs, so can you help us a little bit here? What do we do with that? What do we call this book?

JD: Well, its title is the Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s. So even by the title, the Song of Songs—think the Holy of Holies. That’s how we express ultimate, maximum expression of something. So the Song of Songs means this is the best song, the highest song, in the same way that the King of Kings is the Supreme King over all others. The Holy of Holies is the holiest of holy places. Here, the Song of Songs is—this is a supreme song over all others, specifically, probably within its genre. So, a specific song related to love, and it is, in that sense, the best of all songs that Solomon wrote, related to—related to marital love. As we’re going to talk about during the podcast, there’s been lots of different views just related to what do we do with this song, because it’s—it’s graphic. It displays—at least on the surface—a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, who are delighting in each one—in each other physically. And historically, the church hasn’t even known what to do with this all the time. And yet, that’s how it’s portrayed. It’s a song about love, a song about very—as it’s captured in the chapter eight of the book—the flame of Yah. That is short for Yahweh, the flame of the Lord. That’s what this song is about. A flame that he puts within the soul of a man, within the soul of a woman, toward a member of the opposite sex, and they are drawn together, and that fire begins to blaze. And as it does, it is beautiful and God-honoring when that fire is set on the right object at the right time. And within this book, it is celebrating love in its proper context. It’s celebrating physical attraction and physical expression within the sacred bonds of marriage, and celebrating it as beautiful, as God-given, and as part of the display of even a greater relationship that God has been working since the beginning of time. So, we’re going to talk about this chief of all love songs that Solomon wrote.

TK: The—kind of setting the table a little bit here—our plan is that today we’re going to just be talking about the book as a whole, and some different approaches people have taken to the book, and then next time, next podcast, we will actually walk through the book and propose at least one possible reading that both of us find more compelling. But Jason, just want to make a point from—I’m looking at an ESV here—but I’m looking at between verse 1 and verse 2, there’s a note, and it says—it’s in italics in my Bible—it says, “The bride confesses her love,” and then it has—it says, “she.” And then it says—there’s a little footnote—and it says, “The translators have added speaker identifications based on the gender and number of the Hebrew words.” So, then I look, and then there’s something before verse 4 that says, “others,” I see “she” again at 5. And then it says, at verse 8, “Solomon and his bride delight in each other. He.” And just wanted to get your thoughts about this, because these are not actually words in the text. They’re supplying something, but they may be leading you down a path that might not be correct.

JD: Yes, Tom. We’re both looking at our English Standard Versions, and the translators of the English Standard Version on Song of Songs has gone over and above what we see elsewhere in the handling of certain—like the translators have interpreted in the headings that they have given. They have done significant interpretation that, even by its nature, counters alternative interpretations. For example, seeing the main male figure in this book as Solomon. Now, for many of our listeners, that might be an automatic like, “Well, who else could it be?” And yet, there’s, I think, a very solid argument for seeing the main character in this book as not being Solomon, but that Solomon is writing about a love that he has witnessed, yet himself never experienced. We have to remember, Tom, that we’re talking about a man who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and he’s writing the chief among love songs about God’s picture for what the love between—I believe this is what it’s about—a man and a woman should be.

TK: And at right away, you kind of think, would he be the one who would, based on his history, best be able to write about that one man, one woman kind of relationship?

JD: And in this book, he writes about it, and he writes about it beautifully, but he, I believe, writes about it from the perspective of an observer, I’m going to argue, rather than from the perspective of a genuine lover. And yet, the ESV title says, “Solomon and his bride delight in each other.” And so, even in putting the title there, the reader is led to read the book in a certain way, and it’s very easy to forget the fact that all those headings, and all the he’s and she’s and others, were not part of the original Scriptures. And so, this is going to be an example, Tom, where I do think that the translators have done the reader a disservice by over-interpreting, even in their use of headings.

TK: And this is coming from—both of us would say we appreciate the ESV, so not saying don’t use the translation, just saying this is a feature of it, though, that they’re making some decisions for you that may not be as clear as they appear in the book.

JD: That’s right. That’s right. So, as we enter into the book, we’re going to see different characters. We know that this is written by Solomon, and so it’s a natural question: is he writing about himself? And at two points in the Song, he’s actually going to appear forthrightly. He’s going to be named, and he’s going to have a certain role. But I think it’s going to be good to take some time to dive into the book at those points and consider: how is he being portrayed? Is he being portrayed as the king who understands love? Or is he being portrayed as a man who knows how to abuse women, who has the pick of a thousand, and every night could be a different gal? And is that the portrait of love that we’re seeing elsewhere in the book? And I’m going to propose that it’s not. That Solomon writes this story as one who has recognized his own folly, and part of his wisdom is capturing for the reader what those hoping in the coming Messiah, what those who were truly part of the remnant, were living out in their marital love. And it’s something that he himself failed to do. And he’s laying it before the reader as something that they should strongly consider, because the love that he saw, the love that he witnessed, was beautiful and something he himself never tasted. And yet he’s commending it to the reader as something amazing.

TK: So this, I would imagine of books in our Bibles, there are certain ones that get preached a lot more, that we would more naturally read for encouragement, maybe in a quiet time. This, I would think, would fall into the category of very rarely used. That whole groups of pastors, I would say, would probably say I’ve never preached a sermon from Song of Solomon.

JD: Let alone an entire series of sermons. I think it’s a scary place for people to tread. And honestly, the only place that I, in my own growing-up years—though I’ve heard of other pastors who have preached it on Sunday mornings—the only context where I’ve heard Song of Songs being operative, or, sorry, within my own churches, where I’ve seen it brought up is in youth group. And there, carefully and yet trying to elevate the fact that God has made sexual desire for a certain time and place, and it’s something that can be rejoiced in. And yet, it’s specifically for the context of marriage. That’s been pretty much the limit of the use of Song of Songs in the churches that I have been a part of. And I think that is missing something significant, that it has a vital place to play for the church today in declaring the beauty of marital love, and even marital lovemaking. And yet, recognizing its proper place and even its proper protection within the marital relationship. And this book is celebrating that. And then even as a means, I would say, just as all of the Former Writings do—these poetic books that, in Jesus’s Bible, follow upon the prophets—this group of poetic books, all designed to help clarify how the remnant, living without all the fulfillment that was promised, how the remnant living in exile was hoping in the Messiah. And here you’re seeing the remnant of those who are married. What does it look like for the faithful to live out marriage in a broken and cursed and troublesome world? What does it look like for the remnant of faithful to think about marriage and sexuality and intimacy even as they hope for the world to come, where there will be no more pain and no more brokenness and no more twisted perversions? How should couples think about love in the context of the world? And when we frame it that way, all of a sudden, I think we can begin to see why Song of Songs has a lasting word for the church in the 21st century.

TK: That’s good. Jason, the book has been interpreted lots of different ways, and if I just kind of throw out some categories, we could maybe kind of lay out some possibilities. You might see them in a book. You might see them in a commentary, a study Bible, something like that. So I think for lots of years, this was the church kind of restricted itself to an allegorical interpretation. So how would you kind of think about that as you process that? So allegorical—another category would be a cultic interpretation, and then there’s kind of a more lyrical one, and then there’s a dramatic interpretation, which is, no, this book is actually telling a story, but you still have to interpret what story is it telling? Like whose story is it? We already talked about that. Like is Solomon the hero or is he not the hero of the story? But as we think about this, what would you say—like how would you briefly summarize, say an allegorical interpretation of the book?

JD: Well, with the allegorical interpretation, what we’ve got is church history that began to see—well, when it looked at the strong, evocative language within the book, the idea was marriage and sexuality is at best extremely private. And the Bible wouldn’t be talking about such things. At worst, it is part of the world. And we don’t want to touch that. The world has twisted and perverted, and the Bible certainly could not be a place that celebrates human sexuality. So when we read Song of Songs, even though that’s what appears to be the case on the surface, actually, every character and every interchange, every description, is actually pointing to something else. So ultimately, that something else is, this is a song celebrating the relationship of Yahweh and his people. That is, God and Israel. Or, it is celebrating Christ and his Church. That’s where marriage finds its ultimate context, and it’s where everything is pure. Human marriages are messed up, and sexuality gets twisted. So the Church historically would read this book allegorically, saying that everything in the book represents something else. In the same way, Tom, that we would see in the parable of the soils, you know, the word, the seed is sown, and there’s different kinds of soils. And there’s one soil that falls among the rocky ground, and it takes quick root, but then dies. And there’s seed that falls on the thorny ground, and it can’t even take root, and it dies. And then Jesus said, the seed is the word of God. And when that word falls on the human heart, that there’s different kinds of hearts, different kind of soils in the heart. And for some, the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things, they come in and choke the word, just like the thorns and thistles choked out the seed. And Jesus can talk that way, that the parables are many allegories, and the interpretation is given right away. And so historically, many in the church have said, Song of Songs is a bigger allegory. And so they would see things, for example, like a description of two breasts, and they would say, this must be the Old and the New Testament that every man must delight in. The Old Testament and the New Testament. And every image in the book is given a referent, but the referent has no control. There’s no biblical warrant for justifying the interpretations that are given, apart from the fact that we know in scripture, human marriage is a parable for the relationship between Christ and his church. So we have that basis, but then—and I think that’s a justifiable informing theology to how to read this book. But there’s nothing in the book itself that would suggest this is anything other than a real human marriage celebrating sexuality as a gift of God. And so there’s no—when it comes to warrant, there’s no inner biblical interpretation where other authors are using the Song of Songs and interpreting it in spiritual ways, in allegorical ways. There’s no one that—nothing within the book that says the interpretation of this tower, or of the teeth that are like a flock of goats where none is missing. There’s nothing in the book that suggests these similes, “this is like this,” are supposed to be read in any other way than, this is a husband describing his real love, his real girl. And they are celebrating their intimacy and delighting in their companionship. There’s nothing in the book that would suggest we’re to read this as an allegory. And yet, at least in the specifics, with respect to the general category, we’re seeing what appears to be the depiction of a man and a woman in love with one another, and God endorsing their expression of love toward one another, both verbally and the way that they describe one another’s body, their delight in one another’s body. And then we can step back and in a general sense say, the beauty that’s being experienced between this man and this woman points to something even greater, that the Bible itself, Old and New Testaments, celebrate. And so, there is a sense in which, from a general perspective, we can see the allegory operative, but not in a specific way. And we have to first see that the biblical text itself is calling us to see a real man and a real woman in love with each other.

TK: Because we’re getting no clues from the text that it’s other than that. Certainly, the allegorical interpretation solves certain problems. Somebody would have—if he thought, I, like you said, “I can’t imagine a holy book like the Bible would speak this way. Therefore, this book can’t mean what it appears to mean on the face of things.”

JD: And there’s where I think we would, what we need to do is be able to say, okay, I’ve got a conscience issue here. I’m concerned in my conscience that this would actually be in the Bible.

TK: Right.

JD: And then we have to consider, do I need to recalibrate my conscience to celebrate what the Bible celebrates in the context that the Bible celebrates it? And I think that’s actually where we need to go. We need to see our own consciences recalibrated so that with purity and honor and respect, we could preach a sermon series out of Song of Songs in a way that honors God, is careful even to children’s ears, and yet beautiful and pure. And I will argue, I pray, by the end of our two podcasts or so, also instilling hope in the coming Messiah and his claiming his ultimate bride. That all of that could be part of a series on the Song of Songs.

TK: So if you think about it, Jason, if the allegorical interpretation—if there’s almost like two sides, and there’s a side where it says, “I can’t imagine a celebration of human sexuality and human love, so I’m going to move the interpretation fully to an allegorical interpretation,” there’s clearly another side that would say, “Let’s do the opposite.” Which is, there’s zero, there’s nothing here pointing to anything greater. It would only be a celebration of human love. And we’ll get there, but you can just imagine it, if there’s almost two—a North Pole and a South Pole, you can imagine people camping out on both sides. But I mentioned that another interpretation people have had—and you wouldn’t see this so much in Christian writings—but what would we say a cultic interpretation would be of this book?

JD: Well, what’s crazy—yes, we wouldn’t see this in what we would consider Christian circles, but there are secular, pagan, non-believing commentators who have written this book, and they’ve argued, actually, what we have in store here—what’s being presented to us—is sacred marriage between gods. And so this is a book that really expresses pagan idolatry to its extreme, where you have male and female gods and goddesses that are engaging in intercourse and delighting in each other. And so it’s just a twist on the Christian allegorical interpretation, but it fills it with—what it’s doing, is it’s saying, “Well, this is an ancient Near Eastern love song, and what’s actually being celebrated is sacred intercourse.” And maybe even with the Song being used at pagan shrines, where male and female cult prostitutes represented the gods, so as they engaged in activity, they were—it was as if the gods were engaging. And I just think such a view has no place in Scripture. From Moses forward, such views are completely pagan in the realm of idolatry and would be condemned. And so this book would have been disqualified from the canon if that was a proper interpretation of the text. It would have been recognized, this is not God’s Word. And yet throughout time, godly prophets and priests and poets have affirmed in these pages is pure doctrine. And so I think we can just push aside the cultic view, even though it’s historically been there, it’s not even one we should consider as possible. And I know of no conservatives, true Christians who even think in those categories.

TK: I think sometimes, though, you can bump into a work published again outside of Christian circles, though, where they would find such a view very compelling because they would understand there’s no difference between the God of the Israelites and the gods of the Canaanites. That there’s just the Israelites are wholesale borrowing from the Canaanites very similar views of God.

JD: Right. That’s right. Yeah, the level to which we minimize the distinctiveness of the biblical text and we lose sight of the fact that this is God’s Word separate from all other ancient sources, the level to which we minimize that this is God’s Word and just treat it as any other ancient book, all of a sudden we can gain all kinds of wacko jacko interpretations. And yet we have the responsibility as men and women of the Word to recognize such heresy and thwart it, not consider it, and help our people not buy into it.

TK: That’s good. So Jason, we talked about a lyrical, then, interpretation, and that would not then be allegorical like we talked about, and that would not be this cultic—which version, which you said that also is allegorical—it’s just from a different perspective. But what would we mean by a lyrical interpretation of this book?

JD: By lyrical, we’re just highlighting that this is a love song made up of just lots of independent love songs that celebrate the love between a man and a woman under God. Many godly commentators have approached the book this way. They see no progression in the book itself. And they just see a number of independent poems, love poems, that are tied together more in series than in progression. And by that I mean you could switch the love poems around and it would have no impact on the book, on the book’s message, because what you’ve got is even as many as 20 or 40 love poems that are just disconnected, independent, and this is the greatest of all love songs—the Song of Songs—the greatest of all love songs, in that it is the ultimate collection of independent love poems, like nothing found anywhere else. And I have a number of challenges with this. I don’t think it’s a heretical interpretation, but I think that it misses, it misses a handful of features. One, we see throughout the book, in three different instances, a full refrain. In 2:7, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” 3:5, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. 4:8, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” The use of those refrains suggests to me this is actually a structuring device in the book, that is dividing the book into segments. Not only that, we have consistent characters. So, there is this overarching use of refrains that provides structure to the book, but then the songs are not random. The language that is used by the woman of her man, she calls him “my beloved.” My beloved. Over and over again. And when he looks at her, he calls her, designates her “my love.” My love. And so, we have this consistent characterization that unites all these poems into an overarching poem. And then, there’s these repeated images that show up, like the garden, the city, the images of shepherding, nature, that tie these songs together. It really—it portrays something. You’ve got the man, the woman, you have the mention of Solomon, you have these chorus girls that are part of Solomon’s harem, it appears. And the unity of the book suggests we don’t have disparate poems here, but that there is an intentional structuring. And then as we’re gonna go through the book, I think there’s even a movement, a movement in this story of love delighted in and love longed for, love challenged, love testified to, and then finally love affirmed. That it’s this movement, this progress that makes the sense of a drama. And that’s the fourth way that this book has been interpreted as a drama. And to me, that’s the most convincing. That it’s loose—it’s not like we are walking through the Book of Esther, for example, and where that could be acted out as a play—no, we wouldn’t want Song of Songs acted out as a play. And that may even be part of the reason that the drama is less explicit. But nevertheless, there is drama, and there is movement from tension and challenge all the way to resolution and peace and joy. Even with the couple in chapter eight, in one another’s embrace, it seems toward the end of their lives and reflecting on God’s faithfulness and recognizing that what they had was none other than the flame of Yahweh, the flame of the love of God that had put—that He had birthed within them, and He never let that love, that flame be quenched. So I think that the text itself pushes against the idea that this is merely a lyrical consortium of tunes, of poems, about love, but is instead a dramatic song that unpacks a developing love story between a man and a woman. And because this love is pure and right and true, their love foreshadows, anticipates, the greater love between God and his people realized ultimately through Christ and his church. But before we get there, we start with this human marriage.

TK: That’s really helpful, Jason. It just reminded me, as you were talking, when we talked about Ecclesiastes, about life under the sun, that we have a love here that’s portrayed as pure and perfect, but these people are also living under the sun. So they are living after Adam and Eve’s sin. And somehow reading this, having to just keep in mind the context of where we are in the biblical story. I want to get—you touched on it here—but a dramatic interpretation, then, you just were kind of playing that out. But what are two possibilities of this?

JD: There really are two possibilities, and I think most of the church—at least the church that I grew up in—only has understood one of these two possibilities. And it’s very clear that the ESV translator had one angle, and that is the two-character drama, where you have this drama in the book is portraying the developing love between Solomon and Mrs. Solomon, called the Shulamite. Or, I mean, in Hebrew, it’s the Shulamite versus Shlomo. And so you can even begin to hear the similarity between these two, where the titles that are given to each—Solomon and the Shulamite—are built off the same structure. And so you’ve got Solomon and Mrs. Solomon, and that the whole book is actually their own developing love saga. Chapters 1–3 developing their relationship, which then climaxes in their wedding in chapter 4. And then the final half of the Song really shows their love flourishing, being challenged, until in chapter 8, the two appear at the end of their lives, kind of to reminisce on what God has given them. At the very heart of the book, in chapter 4, you have the—sorry, in chapter 3, the woman is crying out for her man. She longs to express her love for her beloved. And then immediately, in 3:6, after she says, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” And then we read, “What is coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant? Behold, it is the litter of Solomon! Around him are sixty men, some of the mighty men of Israel, all of them wearing swords.” So we see this depiction of Solomon being elevated, and the classic interpretation would be, well, now we’re getting the description of her man. He wasn’t there. She longed for him to come, and now he’s showing up. And he’s the great one of this story, the ultimate lover. But the challenge, Tom, naturally, to this interpretation is first, outside the book, Scripture really portrays Solomon as someone far from the biblical ideal of a husband.  Think Genesis 2, think Ephesians 5, and we’re not thinking about Solomon.

TK: Right.

JD: Even Deuteronomy 17, where it says, “Do not multiply your wives.” This is God’s ideal for a royal figure in Israel. And Solomon, in 1 Kings 11:3, has 700 wives, princes, and 300 concubines. And then we read his wives turned his heart away from God. I mean, his very first wife is the Pharaoh of Egypt’s daughter. So the outside material raises the question, “Would this be Solomon? Is he really talking about himself?” But then the internal material, I believe, also leads us to say, wait, this book isn’t about Solomon. Solomon in this book only shows up two times in chapter 3 and in chapter 8. And in both instances he is elevated as if haughty. But he’s also portrayed at a distance like he’s the world’s ideal, but he is far from my heart. Consider where I was just reading as Solomon enters in with his parade of mighty men, all of them wearing swords, experts in war. King Solomon, it says, “made himself a carriage from the wood of Lebanon.” He is touting himself around the town. “He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple;its interior was laid with love,” inlaid with love by whom? “The daughters,” plural, “of Jerusalem.” So, what is the voice of the woman declare? “You go out, O daughters of Zion, and look upon King Solomon with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, and the day of his gladness of heart.” He urges the women to go out. And I want to propose, she’s saying, “You can have him.” I think that’s what she’s saying.

TK: I think she says the same thing in chapter 8. At the end of 8.

JD: Go ahead, Tom.

TK: Where it says here, Solomon 8:11, it says, “Solomon had a vineyard, he let out the vineyard to keepers. Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is before me; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.” So, that idea almost of Solomon has his thousands, he has his whatever, but as for me, he can keep it all, I’m doing something different.

JD: Yes, when we get, when we go through the book, we’ll focus here more, but Solomon had a vineyard. That’s the language of sacred place in marriage. That’s the marriage bed. That’s the place that has to be opened up in a context of intimacy.

TK: And that’s the language used throughout the book.

JD: It is. Yeah, exactly. That’s the language used throughout the book of what the man and the woman had, but here it says Solomon had a vineyard where? At Baal, Hamon. Baal is a Canaanite god. It can also mean husband, but Hamon is multitude. Right here, it says—this is contrasting, I’m going to argue, with verse six where it says the love that she’s enjoyed and that the man has enjoyed is the flame of Yahweh. Now, we have Baal’s name associated with Solomon. His vineyard is at Baal Hamon. That is husband of a multitude. That’s who Solomon is. And then he let out the vineyard to keepers. Anybody was free even to go. I believe what it’s saying is ravish his concubines. But she says, “Solomon can have his thousands. I want my one. My vineyard, my very own is before me.” So that was the second text. Those are the two texts that mentioned Solomon. And in my reading, Solomon is here portrayed not as the hero, but as a distant, flaunting, even abusing, using, objectifying women. He can have as many as he wants. But for this woman who has found true love, she wants to preserve herself for her man. She is his, and he is hers. And so that leads me, Tom, to say I don’t think the two-character drama is right. What I see in this book is a three-character dramatic interpretation wherein there is this love triangle between the villain Solomon, the Shulamite woman, and the Shulamite shepherd. And this is going to influence how we read a number of the texts. And I think at points, we have to even see tension in the text, where this woman has been captured as one of thousands of concubines for Solomon’s harem, and yet her love is toward her man.

TK: Can we stop there for one second, Jason? Because we don’t—obviously it’s a category we don’t have in our present lives. What is a concubine? How should I think of that? Because it’s differentiated from a queen here, so what’s the difference?

JD: One would have the certainty, due to covenant, of the protection of the husband, for him to provide for her and protect her, and even being bound in covenant before God, but also before a father, her father, and that would be the wife. A concubine has no such status, but is a maid in waiting, a servant in the house, and then also one who can be exploited by being called upon to do sexual favors for the king whenever he sees fit. So, for Solomon to have 700 wives and 300 concubines, I mean, it just, it’s mind-blowing. But it was known, even in this book, it’s, the language is there, “Solomon, you can have your thousand. But my love, my beloved, is mine.” And so, it’s grieving, but it was part of the ancient world. And some people today would use the language of a mistress, where there’s no covenantal commitment, but we can enjoy each other’s—yet we can take pleasure in one another, in companionship, in one another’s bodies. But it’s—there’s no commitment. And that would probably be the most comparable reality, where there’s some level of commitment in a mistress. But here, you have multiple mistresses, and like you don’t have a clue when you would be called upon at any time. We see this idea come up again in the book of Esther. And sometime, it would be good to go through that book. But where Esther is one of many women, and she goes through months and months of preparing her body for the moment when she will first see the king, and when he will first see her. And we’re, I believe, supposed to read this kind of material and say, this is not right. This is broken.

This is not as God called it to be. And a book like Song of Songs gives us testimony that Solomon himself, on the flip side of his foolishness, recognized it, and is here, I believe, celebrating the love between this shepherd and the Shulamite. A love that he never had, but that he witnessed and now wants the world to know. So, in this sense, Solomon is not the king, but instead—sorry, Solomon is the king, but he’s not the main lover in this story. When the woman calls out for her man, the man’s response is—or she says to the man, “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who veils herself besides the flocks of your companions?” You’re a shepherd boy, and I want to know where you’re shepherding so that when I am free to flee this palace, I can find you and we can embrace. That’s what I think is going on in the very next chapter. There’s tension. While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. So, all of a sudden, she has been brought into the very room of the king. And then it says, “My beloved is to me a scarlet, a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi.” I think she has mentioned, “I’m in the presence of the king, but my heart and my mind is with my beloved.” It’s not that the king is her beloved. No, she mentions the king as a distant figure, and then she speaks of her beloved, who is close to her heart, and beloved, and fragrant, and she’s longing to be with him. That there’s actually a contrast going on in chapter 1:12–14, rather than a continuum. And we see that at different places in the book, where she is contrasting her man with Solomon. And it climaxes at the end of the book, where she does not appear to be in the royal palace, but in her native village, and she is enjoying the embrace of her man, and then the book ends, as you already pointed to, Tom, with her contrasting her love with the pseudo-love that Solomon is able to bring. And what’s amazing is that it appears Solomon is the author of this Song. He crafts the story the way that he does to diminish the view of himself and to elevate the view of the shepherd boy and his girl. It’s similar, I believe, to how Moses portrays the Pentateuch, contrasting his failure of belief with Abraham’s belief. And Moses is the author of the whole. That Moses is able, as a hero, to display his own brokenness and mess-ups in order to point the readers to the life and model of faith in Abraham. Similar to here, Solomon writing this book to elevate the nature of true love between a man and a woman, as God defines it, as God approves of it. Marital love. Solomon writes the story in order to celebrate it, yet knowing he himself, due to his own sinful choices, never had the chance to enjoy it in quite this way.

TK: And that would correspond to what we read in Ecclesiastes as well. Solomon writing and saying, “I did not live this way. I tasted every pleasure, and sought something that I never was able to receive earlier in my life.” So this view would correspond with that of Solomon getting to a point of saying, “You know what, I am renouncing how I lived earlier.” So it shouldn’t be surprising that he would see how he lived in terms of marriage and women and say, “Now that I’m at this stage in life, I’m going to point to something different as God’s ideal.”

JD: That’s right. That’s right, Tom. I think you’re reading this rightly. In Chapter 9 of Ecclesiastes, “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vaporous life that he has given you under the sun.” He doesn’t say, “Enjoy life with the wives whom you love.” It’s just “the wife,” the singular woman that God has given you delight in her. And he unpacks that, the nature of that love, and that call to beauty. And I’ll just add this, Tom, that there’s a real sweetness to me as I look at Song of Songs, and I consider those who God saved out of deeply broken pasts, filled with sexual sin, and Solomon himself—while he’s able to recognize his own brokenness—was able to, in his regenerated state, taste and see the beauty, such that he could even be used by God to write properly and truly about love. Even though his own story was different, that all of a sudden—so it’s like a pastor who’s able to—who himself was redeemed out of a lot of brokenness, can justly and purely call the young men and the young women of the congregation to pursue being virgins until their wedding night. Because this is right, and this is good, and I elevate it to you, urging you to pursue purity God’s way. That’s not hypocrisy, so long as he’s honest about himself. And in this book, Solomon is absolutely honest about himself, and he is urging people, though, to taste something that he missed, to see the beauty, the flame of Yah. That is the flame of Yahweh. See it as it was intended to blaze between one man and one woman, lastingly. And God has redeemed Solomon’s perspective. He’s purified the perspective and now made him a mouthpiece for truth. And this Song is celebrating that truth, and we’ll get to look at it in greater detail when you and I come together next.

TK: Perfect. Well, Jason, thanks for this. I hope this has been encouraging as you’ve listened to this, and given you a hope for, I can’t wait to hear how I might possibly learn from this book, delight in this book, preach from this book, use it as I’m talking to my friends, my children, in my own marriage. It’s—I think it’s a help to think of any Scripture—and I use this when I’m teaching about the Gospels. Like to—the thought—it’s at the end of John where John says, “Now Jesus did many other signs which are not recorded in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” And just talking about Jesus’s—the stories Jesus did, the, they’re not randomly selected like, “Hey, here’s another weird thing he did, or wow, this was a neat thing that he did, let’s include this one too.” They’re all there for a reason. In the same way, Scripture, this book—when Paul said, “All scripture is God breathed, is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness,” to say, “Okay, there is something here that was so important, this book had to be included.” And even approaching a book with that perspective, not even knowing what it might be, but valuing it for that reason. It’s a reason I think, when we talk about a book or a passage, we shouldn’t make jokes about the book or the passage. This would certainly fall in that category. It’s up to us to discover the beauty of it and the value and preach, teach, read it rightly, but to value it, say, there’s a reason this book is here, and I want to find out why.

JD: That’s a good word, Tom.

TK: All right, Jason, well, look forward to next time, and we’re going to walk through this book. In the meantime, both you and I are going to the Evangelical Theological Society meetings next week. Hope to get some interviews, too, Jason, which would be really awesome with different guests.

JD: Yes, it would be. So many godly men and women that are all going to be gathered in one place, thinking deeply about deep things. And we hope to be able to capture some of that for the podcast to benefit our listeners.

TK: All right. All right, Jason. Well, I will see you in San Diego on Monday.

JD: Awesome.

TK: All right. Thanks for listening.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For resources related to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org or jasonderouchie.com. Be sure to check out our show notes for links to resources on both sites related to Song of Songs.

The post Song of Songs, Part 1 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

Song of Songs, Part 2

Song of Songs, Part 2 Song of Songs, Part 2

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger | Solomon's Writings

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/gear-talk-nov-22nd-ep-real.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on Biblical Theology. We’ve been focusing on books connected to Solomon. Today we’re in our second week in the Song of Songs. Jason and Tom are in San Diego and happen to run into Miles Van Pelt, a scholar just completing work on Song of Songs. What a gift. Miles walks us through the book. We recorded this podcast outside, so be prepared for a little background noise. It’s worth it. When you’re done listening, be sure to take a look at the resources connected to Song of Songs highlighted in our show notes.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk, I’m Tom. I’m sitting across a table with—actually there’s a fire going in it—and Jason DeRouchie, and we got more people here, Jason. So introduce the people. And I feel like today is a little funny because you were in the batter circle taking your warm up swings to lead us through Song of Solomon, and you’ve been benched. I have been benched. I’ve gotten trumped by my dear brother, Miles Van Pelt, who is—well, I’ll let him introduce himself, but we have a super long history going back to graduate school 25 years ago, at least. We were at Gordon-Conwell together, our families were tight there, and then we both did our PhDs together at Southern Seminary. He’s right at the final stages of a major commentary on Song of Songs, arguing for the three-character approach, and he’s been gracious to meet with us today. So he’s on my left, you’re right, Tom. Then on the other side of the table is Lance Kramer, who is hanging out with Tom and me this week, and who himself has contributed to GearTalk in various ways in the past, and you’re going to hear from him again in the future.

TK: Yep.

JD: And so we’re all here in San Diego, California. It’s beautiful out. It’s kind of like the Garden of Eden around us, and you’ve got waterfalls behind us, so you may hear some distraction. We may even see friends and greet them. But we are here now for the next minutes to focus on Song of Songs. And for all of you who are listening, we are just in the process of working through books that Solomon wrote. And we’ve covered Ecclesiastes, and now we’re in this book of Song of Songs, a book that very few boldly go into. And yet we’re going to jump right in. And we’ve got a brother who is nurturing love with his wife of how many years?

MVP: Thirty-three years.

JD: Thirty-three years. And delighted to celebrate that love and encourage others to do the same with their own spouses, all underneath the Lordship of Christ. And so we get to celebrate some beautiful Bible today. In Miles’s words, even as we’re gathered around this fire, it’s going to be white hot. So hold on, ladies and gentlemen. Miles, why don’t you give us a little update on who you are, and feel free to give any further background what you do right now. You’ve been a church planter, and you also have a very long-held post at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson. So give us a taste of Miles Van Pelt.

MVP: Yeah, I’m Miles Van Pelt, and I’m the Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. I also direct the Summer Institute for Biblical Languages that we host there each year with Hebrew and Greek intensives. This is my 22nd year at RTS. For 15 of those years, I served as the Academic Dean, but I’m no longer doing that. For five of those years, I helped shepherd a church plant, but I’m no longer doing that. And so at this stage of my life—kind of a 2.0—I am free to be a professor and engaging in more writing and speaking and things like this. And so I’m happy to be a part of this and thankful for it.

JD: But you’ve got a churchman, you’ve got a girl who is faithful and such a sweet partner, and you’ve got four kids and two grandkids.

MVP: Yeah, we do. In fact, yesterday on the way up here, Lori and I—she’s my wife—we drove by our high school together.

TK: You went to the same high school?

MVP: And we started dating when we were 15, and it was 40 years ago this fall that I sat behind her in chapel, and the girl next to me said, that girl likes you. And that’s the beginning of our story 40 years ago.

JD: I love it.

TK: Was it true? Did she actually like you?

MVP: She did. Yeah. So she liked me a little bit my freshman year, but I parted my hair down the middle, and her friend said that’s a no-go. And thankfully, the next year I came back, my hair was parted on the side, and so it was A-OK. And so that began the whole scene.

TK: Love it.

JD: White-hot, baby.

MVP: I’m thankful. I don’t know what the Lord did to make me want to change my hairstyle, but I’m thankful what happened. So yeah, she’s my best friend, and she’s been the delight of my life for the last 40 years.

JD: Well, it’s been a joy to even get to see her here at this conference with you. And I’m delighted we get to talk about this book that very few Christians even know how to touch. And Tom and I, on our last podcast, helped introduce this book. And as he said, I am gladly benched in order to let you step up to the plate for us. We would just love for you—how long have you been working in this book? Why did you decide, “I’m going to write a commentary on Song of Songs?” And just give us a sense for how you have—like, you teach this, right, at the school? And students come to your classroom, and they don’t know what they’re going to get.

TK: Maybe add one more element to it. Like, in a church setting, how you see it fitting into a pastor’s preaching, that sort of thing.

MVP: Sure, I’ve taught this course at RTS for well over 15 years. I teach two kind of specialized exegesis courses, one in narrative and one in poetry. And I’ve normally focused for poetry on Song of Songs, and normally on narrative for the Book of Judges. And I like the books that no one else wants to touch, you know?

JD: And you’ve written a commentary on the Book of Judges, the ESV Expository Commentary Series, and we encourage people to go there. Miles is a Jesus-cherishing, intentionally exalting Old Testament professor, and there’s not a lot of us out there. There’s more growing, praise the Lord. And so in both Judges and in Song of Songs, you’re going to see Jesus elevated if you’re on the receiving side of Miles’s teaching.

MVP: I sure hope so. That’s the goal. That’s the goal. And my interest in Judges and Song of Songs both sparked in seminary. Gordon Hugenberger sparked my interest in Judges. I had a friend who took his course, and I listened to a cassette tape—that tells you how old it is—a cassette tape on an introductory lecture like Judges 1 and 2. And he talked about the Judges are types of Moses. And I was immediately captivated by that. And then I wanted to take that and say, if they’re types of Moses, they’re types of Christ. And ran with that. I’ve been running for that for the last 20 years, and have loved every minute of it. The same is true of Song of Songs. I remember one day I was in Walt Kaiser’s office, and he asked me what I thought about the interpretation of that book. And I said, “Honestly, Dr. Kaiser, I have no idea.” And he said, “I think there are two men in the book.” And a little bit startled me at first thinking like, “Well, that’s certainly not allowed.” But he meant like two alternative men, like two different choices, like there’s not just Solomon, but there’s another man. And he was writing an article on that.

TK: And was he the first one that you know of that was kind of saying this?

MVP: He was the first one I heard it from. And again, one scholar calls the Song of Songs “functionally decanonized.” That is, even though it’s in the Bible, we kind of ignore it. And I thought like, “Well, shoot, I want to know how we can all scriptures God breathed and profitable.” And I wanted to know, how does that book teach me to live wisely in this world? And how does it point me to Christ? And so I like books like that. The next book I want to tackle is Lamentations after this one. And so I just want those books that no one’s talking about anymore.

JD: Love it.

MVP: And want to make them known and accessible. And in terms of the context of the church, I can tell you this. I preached through the whole book from start to finish in the context of a local church in front of my wife, all four of my children and my in-laws, and made it out alive. And so …

JD: How many sermons?

MVP: Maybe 12.

JD: Wow, okay.

MVP: Maybe eight. Some of them would be introductory, like what is marriage and how does that work in Genesis 2, and the context of 1 Kings 11 and who Solomon is and stuff like that. So it took some background work. But the church allowed me the opportunity to do that. And I would start every sermon this way that the Song of Songs teaches that the covenant of marriage designed by God in Genesis 2 was always intended to be rock solid in terms of commitment and white hot in terms of intimacy.

JD: Rock solid in terms of commitment, white hot in terms of intimacy, and Song of Songs points in that direction.

MVP: That’s exactly what it teaches according to chapter 8. And that when we uphold and cherish both rock solid and white hot, marriages in a post-Genesis 3 world can better—but not perfectly because of sin—endure hardship, resist temptation, and promote wholeness or shalom, which is the word in Song of Songs.

JD: And within the context of the Old Testament—and even in the context of the Former Writings—in that context of post-fall, it’s also pre-Christ. And how can the remnant faithfully pursue God in the hope of the Messiah, in a marriage context? And Song of Songs, is laying it out.

MVP: Yeah, it tells you exactly what it should be. Because if you think about it, the marriage covenant has been corrupted by sin, right? And we see it with Lamech’s polygamy early on in Genesis. And we see that, for example, the first two great judgment events in Genesis—the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, the judgment by water and judgment by fire—are flanked by the corruption of the marriage covenant. So, with the flood, for example, it begins with the sons of God marrying the daughters of man—whatever you want to think of that, perhaps the mixing of the human and the divine—but at the very end, Ham uncovers the nakedness of his mother—or his father, which according to Leviticus 18, is maternal incest, all right? Then you’ve got the Sodom and Gomorrah judgment event by fire in Genesis 19, which is precipitated by the men of the city coming to sleep, whether to violate the angels, right? At the end, you’ve got a maternal incest with lots of daughters. So same kind of events, flanking these big judgment events. So we can see that the Lord loves the marriage covenant, and profane it precipitates incredible judgment. Because the marriage covenant of Genesis 2, right, is a picture of the marriage covenant of Revelation 21 and 22. And so when we kind of profane what God has created in the marriage covenant, we profane in some sense or spoil what he desires for us as his bride. And so the world can no longer see what he wants with us. And so it’s a beautiful picture of what Christ desires to have with us from Genesis 2, right? I always tell my students Genesis 2 begins with Sabbath rest and ends with the creation of the woman in the marriage covenant. And we as His people were created to enter into his rest as his bride. And so the whole history of the Bible after that is getting us into that spot. And our sin corrupts both God’s rest and his bride. So those pictures are helpful for me.

JD: That’s so good. That’s so good. I want you to take us into the book. There’s different characters. What characters do you see? What are the titles or names that you, as you teach through this book, what you give them? And how would you walk us through to these three major movements, as you’ve described them, each one ending with a refrain? I guess four movements, right?

MVP: Four sections. Yeah.

JD: Four sections.

MVP: Four sections.

JD: Three different uses of the refrain. Just walk us through how you’re seeing this book hold together, climaxing in this declaration of the fire of Yah. The fire of the Lord. That is love.

TK: And maybe, maybe Miles, also let us know what you personally do with—we touched on it last week when we talked about it—but what you do with the headings that may be different Bible translations put in, how you find those useful or not so useful for you.

MVP: Okay. Let me begin this way, just generically. Every translation of the Bible is an interpretation, right? We all know that. And the more poetic a book is, the more interpretation it requires in its translation, because figures and symbols and metaphors require a greater amount of translation and interpretation. And so books like the Song of Songs, or Lamentations, or Ecclesiastes, or even some of the Psalms, require an incredible amount of not just translation, but interpretation to make sense of it. I would give all of my Hebrew skills just to be able to translate Song of Songs from the original, because it’s peeling back all of the layers that get in our way in the context of the church. Because some people are embarrassed by the book, some people are ashamed by its content, some people don’t want to talk about sex and sexuality in the context of the church—which is really too bad, because the world is talking about it, and I want my kids to hear about it in the church, not from the world, and my grandkids now. So another layer of interpretation are the headings that all the different translations try to put in there—the ESV, the NIV, the King James—they all have them. Really, they are trying in earnest to help people make sense of what’s going on in the Song, but very few of them I have found to be entirely accurate. A lot of them just continue to set forth older principles or patterns that we haven’t really gone back and checked the sources of. The first thing I do with my students is to tell them to get an electronic copy, and cut and paste, and then delete all of the headings, and just read from scratch and take notes. If you can do that, if you can find a Bible without headings, or if you can find an electronic source that will remove the headings, do that. I think, because those are levels of interpretation, they can often be unhelpful. Because once you pick an interpretation, you have to follow through the whole way. And if you’re wrong at any spot, you’re wrong the rest of the way. And so it can be—it can be hard. And people—the poetry of the Song of Songs is challenging. The words are challenging. The vocabulary is perhaps the most challenging in terms of all of the different and rare words that appear there—all the strange words. And so it could be challenging. And so we have to—it takes a lot of work. It took a lot of work for me, looking at Egyptian and Babylonian, Sumerian love literature that’s common throughout the world. I mean, if you read the Egyptian love literature that predates Solomon, you know exactly where he got this material and this genre, right? His first wife was Pharaoh’s daughter, right? And he was a trader in wisdom literature, and chariots, and horses, and all that with Egypt. So all of this stuff was available to him. And so once you amass all of that information, you realize that Solomon is working with a particular genre and has a particular point to make. And so it really helps contextually to paint the background. Rarely do we find people engaging with Egyptian or Babylonian, Sumerian love literature of the exact same type as the Song of Songs. So it’s helpful to know what’s going on. And so the Song of Songs is the best song ever, right? That’s what that title means. We know that Solomon wrote 1,005 songs from 1 Kings 4—or 1 Kings, I forget which 1 Kings, I think it’s 1 Kings 4—and that this is the best one of them, I guess. The best song ever out of 1,005. That’s saying something, right? And the way this song is structured is by the adjuration that you see appearing three times throughout the Song. So it says, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, do not arouse or awaken love before it’s ready.” Which is actually an oath curse, which is stronger in Hebrew than in English, all right? After each of those adjurations, someone comes.

JD: Meaning, if you arouse or awaken love before it’s ready, may you be cursed.

MVP: Right.

JD: That would be the pattern that—that’s what the reader, the listener, would have heard.

MVP: Yes. But because Hebrew had something called language taboo, you never pronounced the curse because in so doing, you could make it happen, you leave it out. “So if you arouse or awaken love, dot, dot, dot, you know what I mean.” So they just translated—so don’t arouse or awaken love, obviously.

JD: Right.

TK: The consequences will be devastating if you do.

MVP: Yeah. And that’s a well-known Hebrew oath way of doing things, and books are published on it.

JD: And it’s a well-known reality that immoral sex destroys.

MVP: Oh, sure. Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah. So after each adjuration, there’s three of them …

TK: What would be, Miles, what would be another word, “adjuration?” What would be another word you’d pick?

MVP: Oath curse.

TK: Oath curse.

MVP: Yeah. After each—so the woman is putting the daughters of Jerusalem under oath with a curse.

JD: And are these daughters of Jerusalem other women in a harem? Like Solomon’s harem?

MVP: They are the virgins in training. So later in chapter 6, we’re going to talk about there are kings and concubines and virgins without number, queens and concubines and virgins without number. And then they call them the queens, the concubines and the daughters.

JD: Okay.

MVP: And so there’s the one verbal link in there that the concubines without numbers are the daughters. Who are the daughters? The daughters of Jerusalem. In a harem complex, there are two houses, the house of the virgins and the house of the wives and the concubines. The house of the virgins are where you train. Remember, Esther chapter 2, she trained for a year. Six months with aloes and lotions and six months with spices and stuff like that. You were trained how to please the king. You were trained, you were given a good diet, fancy perfume, jewelry, and training in how to please the king. So however that might correspond to Solomon’s harem, we don’t know, but we can only imagine Solomon’s harem completely outstripped Xerxes, right? He was the wealthiest, the most fantastical, smartest, greatest.

JD: Fantastical, I like that.

MVP: It suits him, fabulous king of the day. And it says in the book that not only are queens and concubines, but virgins without number are innumerable. And those are the daughters of Jerusalem who are being addressed in the book. And those are the ones luring into the temptation. The woman is asked to make a choice between Genesis 2 marriage and 1 Kings 11 marriage.

JD: And remind us, 1 Kings 11 marriage.

MVP: 1 Kings 11 is the account of Solomon’s wives. He had 700 royal wives and 300 concubines. And those wives and concubines led his heart astray to worship all of the gods of the nations, which then results in this. And Solomon did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, the refrain of the Book of Judges. And so the Lord tore the kingdom from him because of that.

JD: So Solomon is the author of this book, and yet you’re going to argue that he’s not the main male character in the book.

MVP: He is a main male character. I mean, he’s the only one mentioned by name seven times. There are word plays on his name, and all the accoutrements of his kingdom are there. His crown, his royal bed.

JD: He’s more the antagonist, though, rather than the hero. He’s not the hero.

MVP: If I had to put it in the terms of the book of Proverbs, there’s Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly. In the Song of Songs, there’s Mr. Wisdom and Mr. Folly, and Solomon is Mr. Folly, and the beloved shepherd is Mr. Wisdom, who comes in the first part of the book. So that’s the whole thing about the coming. In 2:6, we see the first adoration. And then in 2:7, it says, “The voice of my beloved, behold, he comes leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills.” This guy who’s leaping over the mountains and bounding over the hills can’t get over the harem wall. He can only peer through the lattice and look through the windows, because any male who went into the harem would be immediately killed, right? You could not enter. And so he calls to her.

JD: So she’s one of the virgins.

MVP: Yep. She’s been taken to the harem.

JD: And her—but she already has this preceding relationship.

MVP: Yep.

JD: Are we to see them married?

MVP: Nope. Not married yet.

JD: Okay.

MVP: Because once you’re—if you’re not a virgin, you’re not in the harem training. The king would only sleep with virgins. And then they’d be his concubines for life.

TK: Miles, can you—the very first verses of the whole book kind of can feel a little confusing. Like, wait, who’s talking to who, and how does that—can you kind of get us pointed in the right direction?

MVP: In 1:1–2:5, the first part of the book, the woman is taken into the harem, and the harem is enticing her to participate in harem life. That’s what’s going on there. There’s no Solomon yet, there’s no boyfriend yet or beloved yet—shepherd—she’s there by herself. And the harem begins this way: “Would that he kiss me with some of the kisses of his mouth! For your lovemaking would be more intoxicating than wine.” And so they invite her into harem life that way. Right. And then she says, “I’m not qualified. I’ve been tanned by the sun, manual labor, may have calluses,” that kind of thing. And they say, “Don’t worry. Remember, this is a year-long training program.” Lotions and aloes and spices, jewelry will make you suited for the king. And she says, “Nope, I belong to my beloved and my beloved belongs to me. I’m holding out for him.” That’s the message of the first section. Then, the beloved comes in 2:7 and calls to her, but she says, “You have to go and wait until I can get out, until the storm passes and the shadows flee,” which is the description of her time there.

JD: For her, it’s a dark place.

MVP: Yeah, the storm—yeah. It says in some translations, “Until the day passes and the shadows flee.” But it’s actually—the word there is yom too, the storm. Yeah. “Until the storm passes and the shadows flee.” And so, the beloved goes and waits until he comes back with her at the end in 8:5, right? And so, the second adjuration occurs in 3:5. And then in 3:6, that’s when Solomon appears, where he says, “Who is this coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant? Behold, it is the bed of Solomon!” So, you know exactly what’s going on there. He’s coming into what I call his portable love shack, all perfumed in its fantasticalness, right? And the women are called out to view Solomon and his crown, with which his mother crowned him on the day of his dedication. This is not his crown on his head—the crown on the other head. And they’re invited to come out and participate in this life.

JD: So, who is making the call, “Go out, O daughters of Zion, and look upon King Solomon?”

MVP: It’s the harem as a whole, or some kind of harem attendant, that kind of thing. We know that the women were given over to eunuchs, who would protect the harem, and then attendants who would shepherd them through the process, like Esther, for example. And even Esther was given a special attendant, special food, and stuff like that. So, we don’t know the specific—one commentator, Stu Van Perden, argues that there’s this harem attendant in there. But we never really know specifically if that’s true. It’s a nice thought, but it’s the harem as a whole, just like the culture as a whole, is inviting this woman into this particular lifestyle. Because think about it: in the ancient world, married life was hard and dirty and death-ridden, right? It was the Ancient Near East. Think about today’s world out there. Life there is hard and dirty and death-ridden. If there’s scarcity of food, death in childbearing, hard manual labor life—which is what she was given to—think about then life in Solomon’s harem. He was the richest, smartest, most incredible man of his time. It would have been complete care and opulence, worry-free life, as long as you are willing to give into the marriage system of 1 Kings 11 as opposed to Genesis 2. In this story, in this narrative account, the woman chooses Genesis 2 over 1 Kings 11.

TK: Can we just—I think this will help people—we read about David and Solomon and things like that, and the narrator doesn’t always—he does it in 1 Kings—but make a comment explicitly about, “David,” for instance, “did wrong in this.” Can you make a comment about what we do as maybe reading our Bibles, preaching, teaching, about when the narrator doesn’t tell us, but including that information—is it wrong for the king to do this? Or are they saying, “No, that’s part of—every king does this. It’s okay for the Israelite kings to go down that road”?

MVP: I don’t—so, narrative theology doesn’t always say what you want to know, but it shows you, right? We can see from David’s life and his children, and what happened, that it was a complete train wreck. Does that make sense? I think about David’s life and what happened to his children over the course of his life. I wouldn’t wish that on any person.

TK: And you would say then the narrator is showing you the fruit of this.

MVP: He’s telling you by showing you. Yeah. He’s telling you by showing you.

JD: We read the history of the covenant in light of the covenant. And he’s, the narrator is expecting us to know what baseline proper conduct in God’s covenant is.

MVP: Right. I mean, if you think about the law of the king, the Book of Deuteronomy says, right, you know, “Don’t have a lot of horses, don’t have a lot of money, and don’t have a lot of wives.” And when Solomon is analyzed in 1 Kings 10 and 11, he has a lot of horses, and he got them right from where God said not to—Egypt. He had a lot of money, so much so that silver was like nothing. And he had more wives than anyone else. And his kingdom fell apart. And so you put those things together in the narrative theology, and you read what’s going on, right? You can make the good and necessary consequence there. Yeah, that’s what’s going on.

JD: So Solomon enters in, and the daughters are called upon: “Go to his movable bed. You know, he’s made it available. He’ll accept you in.” And where does the book go then?

MVP: So from basically 3:6 all the way to 8:3—that’s what I call the temptation narrative—she is in the wilderness until she comes out. And there are—that section is basically divided in half by a second adoration that says …

JD: A partial adjuration.

MVP: A partial adjuration, yeah. And they say, “If we find him, what should we tell him?” That kind of thing. And why would you—they say this, “Why would you do this kind of thing?” And they say, “Where do we find your beloved? How is he better than any other beloved?” And she explains and stuff like that. So there’s this partial adjuration in the middle. So there’s basically the first part, which represents the temptation of Solomon, and the second part, which represents again the temptation of the harem. So that’s the lengthy section. The biggest section in the book is the temptation narrative.

JD: So in the midst of that temptation narrative, there’s some extended discussions of “the beloved,” and some extended discussions of “my love,” and the language of the vineyard. So could you clarify how that’s working within the temptation section?

MVP: There are at least three vineyards in the book. There’s the vineyard of chapter 1, which is the one that she went to work in, an actual vineyard. And then she uses that to say, “But my own vineyard, which is before me, I have not cared for.” She’s talking about her body. That’s the second vineyard. So she’s using that. Then, at the very end, there’s Solomon’s vineyard at Baal Hamon, which is in a place, but it’s a designation, Baal Hamon, meaning the husband of a multitude. Solomon’s vineyard is his harem, but then she says, “But my own vineyard is still before me.” That is, she hasn’t surrendered it to Solomon, and therefore, she rejects Solomon at that point. So there’s the actual vineyard that she worked in, there’s the vineyard of her own body, and there’s the vineyard of Solomon’s harem. And so her vineyard, the woman’s vineyard—which uses the exact same language for it—appears in chapter 1 and chapter 8. And then the family vineyard is in 1, and Solomon’s vineyard is in 8. Both places, she was sent to work, we could say, or to sell herself out.

JD: With the requests that go forward, “Open up to me your vineyard.” Who’s doing the talking? It seems, I think …

MVP: In which spot?

JD: I don’t have my normal Bible here, so it’s harder to find.

MVP: So there is the language, for example, in chapter 5, of the dream, which has the “Open to me.” But if you’re in the section of Solomon’s Vineyard, it’s illicit. Like when he says, “Let’s eat, drink, and be drunk with lovemaking.” That’s all in the plural. Those are illicit invitations. Does that make sense?

JD: Okay. So there, we’re not portraying the ideal.

MVP: Correct. Yeah, you’ve got to be careful where you are, if you’re in the temptation area. But the woman does describe her beloved. Right? And remember, he’s got, like—he’s described like the statue in the Book of Daniel. Gold and bronze and ivory. He’s described like a god. Right? And that’s what she conceives of her beloved as, as a god-like person. In some sense, she sees her beloved as his eschatological self, not his human self. Right? And that’s what draws her to him. She sees him in a way, in the way that the Lord ultimately created him, not in the way that he exists right now, which is a great way to think about your spouse.

JD: Wow.

MVP: As you’re eschatological—like, it’s great for me to think of my wife as her eschatological self that is fully perfect and wonderful and glorified, even though we still exist in these bodies—because that’s who God has ultimately made her to be.

JD: So she’s able to envision her man that way. When we read something like in chapter 6, where the man is talking to my love, “You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem.” Is this the shepherd boy communicating of his girl?

MVP: No, he’s not—the shepherd boy is gone by the second adjuration.

JD: Okay.

MVP: Yeah. Remember, she tells her beloved to go away and to graze among the lilies until she can get out—until the storm passes and the day breaks. So everything after that is Solomon, the daughters of Jerusalem, and the woman.

TK: So just heavy, heavy temptation and resistance.

MVP: Yes. Yeah. So, “My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the bed of spices, to graze in the gardens, to gather lilies.” In 6:2, she says that’s where he is, and says in 6:3, “I belong to my beloved, my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.” And then in 6:4, it says, “You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners.” That’s the harem talking back to her, saying, “You’re frightening us.” That make sense? This says, “Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me—your hair is like a flock of goats.” They’re describing her beauty, right? And so some of this Solomon is describing, some of it the daughters of Jerusalem saying, “You’re an amazing woman, you’re ready to go.” Solomon is making advances, and she’s denying it all. When Solomon says right here in six, “Queens and concubines—they praised her,” right? I mean, in 690, this is a harem complex for sure, right? And this is not the kind of love that we’re invited to participate in in the Bible at all, right? This is the temptation of life. It’s a temptation that goes on around us—all around us—right now.

JD: So, we get to 8 through 8:3, and we have the final curse text in 8:4.

MVP: Yeah.

JD: And now we come to the conclusion of the book.

MVP: Yeah.

JD: After temptation, how does she—are we told how she gets out of the harem context?

MVP: We’re not—she just—well, we do know this: that if a woman—think about the virgins without number in the house of the virgins—not every virgin made it through. Does that make sense? And so some virgins would end up going home. But once you made it to the concubine house, that was your life sentence. You never left, right? And if you—for a marauding king, what do you come and do? Right, you sack the temple, you sack the palace, you spoil the harem. And that’s just what you do. And so that was a highly protected area. And so this was the king’s prized possessions—his women. That make sense? And so she, at the end, teaches what true love is like, when she says, “Place me like the seal on your heart, like the seal on your arm, for love is strong like death, it seals fierce like the grave.” That’s the rock solid, right? It’s irreversible. It’s ownership.

JD: It’s unrelenting. It’s steadfast.

MVP: Yeah. And then it says, “Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of Yahweh,” right? The word there for “flashes of fire”—like lightning bolts in the Book of Psalms, right? Lightning burns at like 50,000 degrees, right? That’s like eight times hotter than the surface of the sun. So it’s talking about the hottest possible flashes of fire from the greatest source ever, right? The flame of Yah, I argue, is both the source of divine heat and the extent of that heat. And I like to describe it as a furnace and a flame—that the rock solid is the furnace, and the flame is the white hot that goes in the furnace. And we all know that fire can get hotter in a furnace, but once you take it out, it diminishes or goes out. And so you need the rock solid nature of the marriage covenant to protect and to promote the white hotness. It doesn’t have to be radical and crazy—it just needs to be protected and cherished. Does that make sense? And the world, man—the world loves the white hot, but they despise the rock solid. The church cherishes the rock solid, but they do very little to promote the white hot. And we’ve got to keep them both together in our marriages, right? To protect against hardship and temptation and to promote wholeness.

TK: Miles, would you say, as you’ve seen the book used or whatever, then the way you’re describing this—it’s not just for single people contemplating, “How am I going to live my life?” It’s for people who are already married.

MVP: It’s both. I mean, the book—you think about it this way, like Proverbs 1–9, especially Proverbs 7, Proverbs 5, 7, and 31—are written for young men who are not yet married to consider the type of person they should marry and how to be faithful in the midst of that marriage. The book of Song of Songs is the core to that. It’s written for young women when they’re thinking about married life and what is of value and what to pursue, and what does rock-solid or white-hot look like. Because we all know that this book was written because of Genesis 3. There is temptation, there is hardship, and there is brokenness. How do we, in the context of marriage, meet those trials? That’s what the book is trying to teach us—to value those things in order to endure the Genesis 3 life that we live in right now. Does that make sense?

LK: So, written for young women—I’m asking a question because I haven’t said anything up to this point and everybody needs to know that I am actually here.

MVP: We normally think like you can’t—like it used to be like the rabbis said, “Don’t read this book till you’re 30,” but then it’s too late, the ship is sailed, baby.

LK: So I had a young man in my Old Testament freshman class come up to me and say, “I don’t feel like I can read this book without sinning, without ideas coming to my head.” What would you say to that young man? I would say that the woman in the Song of Songs uses her desire for sexual intimacy to point her in the right direction. That is not bad—to have those desires. If it were, the human race would have gone extinct if we had eliminated the desire. Those desires are God-given, and we want to—with the Bible—focus them and point them in the right direction. Because the world is pointing them in every other direction. So the woman, like in her second dream account, is longing to be sexually united to her beloved in very intense and sexually explicit language that’s euphemistic—and so not gross or anything like that—and she’s using that as the means of resisting the temptation of Solomon. Which is a completely counter-cultural way to how we think about talking to people.

JD: She recognizes this is good desire for the right object at the right time.

MVP: Yep, exactly right. And so that’s why the adjuration, “Do not provoke this until it’s ready.”

JD: “Cursed are you, if you go too quickly.”

MVP: That’s exactly right.

JD: So we come to the very end of the book—just—she speaks of herself, she speaks of Solomon, and then she pretty much says, “If you girls want that, go for it. But I have something more pure, more lovely.” End the book for us, and then clarify how you would understand Solomon to have witnessed this, and how he got to the point of actually writing this book and saying, “This is the pattern, don’t follow me.”

MVP: Yeah. The book ends with this way: “My vineyard, my very own,” which is her body, “belongs to me; and you, Solomon, can keep your thousand that you paid for its keepers, and the two hundred for its fruit.” She rejects him, and then she invites us: “O you who dwell in the garden, with companions listening for your voice; let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and come away with me.” So she invites her beloved and the readers to reject the sinful life of the temptation that she’s been invited to participate in, and to come away and to cling fast to the Genesis 2 life of marriage, where the two become one flesh—an exclusive, permanent relationship until death do you part. The rock solid and white hot kind of thing. And that’s how the book ends in kind of this classic—you know, if you think about the climax of the Book of Proverbs: get a good wife, because the climax of creation is the creation of the woman in the marriage covenant. And so there is a reason that this is such an important focus in the wisdom literature, right? Proverbs 5, Proverbs 7, Proverbs 31, all the Song of Songs. Even the Book of Ruth can kind of function this way. She is the eshet hayil of Proverbs 31.

JD: And the wife of noble character.

MVP: Yeah, the wife of noble character, the wife of strength.

JD: Yeah.

MVP: And so all of this is playing into—the Creator of the universe created marriage. It’s a pre-fall institution. And he cherishes it because it’s a symbol of his relationship that he desires with us in the eschaton. And so, to the degree that he wants to present that to the world, he wants us to cherish this particular—and show it to the world. Like, a good marriage puts on display what Christ desires for each of us. It’s the way he desires us. It’s the way he longs to be with us. And so, that’s what this book encourages us to set forth. You know, I want my kids to know I love my wife. I want them to feel that I love her, that I cherish her, that I want her, that I long for her. And I want them to appreciate that. And I want the world to know the same thing. Even though my marriage is broken and has been wrecked and needs repentance and forgiveness all the time, in the midst of gospel grace, we move on. And that’s a beautiful picture of how Christ treats us in this world, laying down his own life. What does Paul say? “I desire to present you as a perfect or pure virgin in Christ,” and that’s what we’re going to become. It’s an amazing thought in the midst of all of our sins.

TK: So you shouldn’t have a thought reading this, “Well, I’ve already blown it.”

MVP: No.

TK: “Like I already destroyed my life and I’m with the harem.”

MVP: Yeah, this book is for everybody, because the hope of the single person is the hope of the married person, is the hope of the divorced person, is the hope of the widowed person—that the marriage of Genesis 2 is only a temporary shadow of the marriage of Revelation 21 and 22, when all things will be made new and every tear will be wiped away, right? It’s the same hope because—and marriage presents that, right? We all have longings, we all have desires, we all want to be known, we all want to be cherished and loved, right? That’s how God created us, and that’s what he’s destined us for. And marriage is a beautiful symbol of that for every person—for every person. Amen.

TK: Miles, what—kind of, as we wrap up here—I’m preaching this and I go down that road, but I’m making some connections to the gospel and Christ also. How have you found ways that have been helpful, and maybe not so helpful, when people talk about Christ and his church in this book?

MVP: Yeah, well, I think Paul—you know, in Ephesians 5, when he’s talking about marriage—he says, “This mystery is great,” he’s talking about Christ and the church. So you think Genesis 2 and Revelation 21 and 22 are connected at the Archimedean point of Ephesians 5, right? And so that’s my translation device. That gets me from my own marriage—or the marriage in general—to what I was created to be before the foundation of the world. And so that’s the helpful trajectory I take. You can overly interpret some of the sexual imagery or what’s going on in some of these songs. You know, just as the allegorical interpreters kind of overly interpret in one way, kind of what the so-called natural interpretation has been—by very popular preachers in the past—has been overly interpreted as calling for or demanding or requiring certain types of sexual relationships that are just not helpful. And so I don’t want to name names because it’s just not helpful, but a lot of people would perhaps be familiar with the very few sermon series that are out there and have done such. And so, like with anything—wisdom—you know, how do you live in God’s world according to God’s word, you know, in a world of common grace, but under the covenant of, you know, special grace? And that’s what wisdom literature helps us navigate. But the Creator of the universe has given us an operating manual, and I think he knows best how the world works. He made it. And so we are our own fools if we don’t take up his word and try to live by it. That’s why wisdom literature is so wonderful.

JD: I love this brother.

JD: Love this brother. Thank you so much for investing years of your life into this book so that we could better understand God’s word. You’ve served us well and we are grateful. May God nurture strong and white hot marriages for his glory that display the love of Christ to the Church to a world that so needs to see that true beautiful relationship.

MVP: And let me just say—and thank you for that so much—that I’m so thankful for the GearTalk podcast, just to let you know, in Biblical Theology, because I have so many students who benefit from it weekly and talk about it all the time. And I get so excited that you guys are having an influence on my students’ lives. I feel like we’re still connected in that way. And so I’m thankful for the ministry. And I just want you to keep doing it. Talk about the Bible. Love Jesus. Point to Christ. And I encourage others to follow in that trail.

JD: Amen.

TK: Amen. All right. This has been a joy. Thanks for doing it.

MVP: My pleasure.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For resources related to Biblical Theology, visit handstotheplow.org or jasonderouchie.com. Be sure to check out our show notes for links to resources on both sites related to Song of Songs.

The post Song of Songs, Part 2 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

Delighting in the Old Testament

Delighting in the Old Testament Delighting in the Old Testament: Preaching & Preachers

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/geartalk-preaching-and-preachers.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. We’re doing something a little different today. We’re using, with permission, an interview complete with the ads from another podcast. Recently, Dr. Jared Bumpers from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary interviewed Jason DeRouchie for the podcast Preaching and Preachers. Preaching and Preachers is a podcast connected to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. We thought the helpful questions Dr. Bumpers asked demanded thoughtful answers from Jason that would greatly benefit our listeners. That’s why we asked permission to replay the interview in its entirety. This interview originally appeared as podcast numbers 317 and 320 on Preaching and Preachers. In the podcast, you’ll hear Dr. Bumpers refer to Jason’s newest book, Delighting in the Old Testament Through Christ and For Christ. We’ve put a link to the book in the show notes.

JB: Welcome to Preaching and Preachers, a weekly podcast devoted to those who preach and to the task of preaching itself. I’m your host, Jared Bumpers, Assistant Professor of Preaching and Evangelism at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Today, I want to welcome Jason DeRouchie to the podcast. Jason is research professor of Old Testament and biblical theology here at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He’s married to his wife Teresa. They have six children. He’s authored numerous books. He serves here cheerfully and joyfully as a dear friend, and I’m excited to welcome him to Preaching and Preachers.

JD: So glad to be here, Jared. Delight.

JB: Yes, I’m excited, and speaking of delight, we’re going to talk about Delighting in the Old Testament, a book that you have published and I think is so helpful, so excited to have you join us.

JD: Thank you.

JB: Well, first, before we jump into the content there, I’d love for you just to give us an update on your life, ministry, family. You’re serving here at Midwestern, but you’re involved in a lot of other ministries internationally and locally. And so I would love to just hear a brief update on life and family.

JD: It’s a joy to be a part of the Midwestern community. And we truly as a family feel supported and upheld by what God is doing, by the administration, by the other faculty, just a joy to be a partner on this team. We are in our sixth year at Midwestern Seminary and our 20th year of academic ministry. God brought us here in 2019, and what we didn’t expect to happen in him bringing us here was that we would be church planting. And that’s one of the newest things. We met over the summer with a growing core six different times. And two weeks ago, two Sundays ago, we had our first launching worship service on a Sunday morning. So, Sovereign Joy Baptist Church in Liberty, Missouri. And that is a big part of our lives and it thrills us. Another aspect is our ministry internationally, as you said. I serve as a content developer and global trainer with Hands to the Plow Ministries, a small mission organization that is committed to offering biblical training to church leaders while remembering the poor. And so we’re focused on biblical training, both in our writing and in our teaching. And so one of the great privileges is getting to lead students year after year over to Ethiopia, which is where my principal focus is. And that’s a key part, a joy. The Lord is letting me write. And in the last year and a half, our two oldest daughters have given us three grandkids. And that is a big part of our lives, such a joy to have these precious, precious children in our family. So we celebrate all of our kids, and those three grandkids are pretty, pretty special.

JB: And that’s great. And I’m appreciative of all that you’re doing here at Midwestern, but it’s just encouraging to see. And I think you see it across our faculty, but guys that love the classroom and love academics and love teaching and training the next generation, but also love the local church. And so hearing about you planting a church and having served as an elder previously, just your heart for the church, heart for Jesus, heart for the Old Testament, heart for students. And I’m so thankful that you’re here and excited about our conversation.

JD: Thank you.

JB: But let’s talk a little about your interest in the Old Testament in general. You teach Old Testament and biblical theology. And I’d love to hear how you became interested in studying the Old Testament and then also how you became interested in studying the Old Testament in light of Jesus Christ.

JD: Yeah, and those are two different stages in my journey. So, first semester of my master’s work at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in a theology of the Pentateuch class, and never in all of my life had anyone ever opened up the Bible week after week after week from Genesis to Revelation. And it was in that class that I was awakened to see the beauty of the gospel from the initial three-fourths of the Bible. And this professor was just guiding us week after week to magnify Christ. With that, I had an advisor who was saying, you’ve got to choose whether you’re going to go Old or New Testament by the second semester of your MDiv. And there was pressure there. But at that time, I wouldn’t say it’s the same now. At that time, the general pattern for me was that my Old Testament professors seemed to know their New Testament more than the New Testament professors seemed to know their Old. And early on, I wanted to be a whole Bible guy who was able to work out the whole counsel of God, his purposes from creation all the way to consummation, from Genesis to Revelation. And it was those two influences, the class that I was in and this deep desire to be a whole Bible guy, that really pushed me into the Old Testament, recognizing that I knew a lot of stories, a lot of events and people, but I didn’t know how they all fit together. And so it was at that time that I began to study the biblical covenants, how they progress and integrate, and began to wrestle. And I think it’s a whole life journey for those who are engaged in the study of the Word to know how everything fits together. And God confirmed during my master’s work that I was capable of doing higher level study. And yet I was always committed to the church. Initially, as a small group leader during my master’s studies, and then we prayed, would he let us pastor during my PhD studies? And he opened that door. And then that deep-seated commitment to the church-that what I am doing is for the sake of God’s people. And I want to be able to tie that connection. I want to see how what I’m writing and what I’m teaching is truly serving the hearts of God’s saints, moving them to greater maturity in godliness, to see the glory of God.

And then what happened was I went on to, after my PhD, move up to Minnesota and had a meeting with John Piper and Justin Taylor, a single meeting during a single summer. And the trajectory of our lives changed because they heard a lot about God’s glory. And Justin just directly said to me, looking me in the eyes, “I hear very little about Jesus.” And God used that single statement to awaken my soul to see a need that I was missing, cherishing a big God and the glory of God. But recognizing that Paul said the very gospel of God that was promised beforehand by the prophets concerned the Son. That the Old Testament prophets were already promising the good news that you and I and all the people in the New Testament church get to enjoy. And I began to see in the years that followed the beauty and the bigness of Jesus in the eyes of the Old Testament authors themselves, that they were hoping for someone. ‘Abraham saw my day,’ Jesus said. ‘He rejoiced and was glad.’ And I recognized, I had never seen rightly that Abraham had seen Jesus’ day, that Jesus can say in John 5, ‘Moses wrote about me.’ And then it was pushing me to say, where did he write about him? Where do I see him rightly? And over the last 20 years of growth, that’s been a consuming desire of my life to know how to, in my own ministry and in the ministry of those that I’m training, men and women of the Word, to faithfully magnify the greatness of Jesus from the initial three-fourths of the Bible. And that’s a key impetus of what gave rise to this book in Delighting in the Old Testament.

JB: Yeah, I love your passion, love your energy for the Old Testament, for Jesus in the Old Testament. And one of the things that you do in your book here is you talk about how to read the Old Testament in light of Christ. But before we get to the how question, you’re touching on this. When I asked kind of two why questions here, the first one is relating to the Old Testament itself. You’re hinting at this, but the Old Testament itself you argue in your book gives us reasons to read it in a forward-looking way. The Old Testament authors are themselves looking forward or anticipating promises that are coming. So do you mind maybe pick up a passage or two and walk us through how the Old Testament anticipates the coming of Christ?

JD: I had written my original dissertation when I did my PhD on the book of Deuteronomy. And one of the verses that had never hit me like it had hit me during that time was Deuteronomy 29:4 where Moses says to the people, this is after 40 years of pastoring them in the wilderness and they’ve been hard-hearted. In chapter 9 he actually says, ‘You’ve been rebellious from the day that I knew you.’ And that’s his audience. And it says in Deuteronomy 29:4, ‘God has not given you eyes to see, ears to hear, or a heart to know me.’ But just a few chapters earlier in chapter 18, he had said that God would raise up a prophet like Moses and the people would listen to him. And then in Deuteronomy 30 verse 8, after the exile, in the same time that God is working new hearts, circumcising hearts, removing all the ugliness and all that identifies with the nations and making these people love God with all, it says, ‘You will turn to the Lord and you will hear his voice.’ Well, in Romans 2, Paul says that day of heart circumcision when the Spirit would work in the hearts and enable love, that’s happening today in the church. And what was intriguing there in that verse is that in Moses’ day they couldn’t hear him. But the day would come when they would be able to hear the voice of the Lord. And then Moses adds in Deuteronomy 30 verse 8, ‘In that day you will heed, keep all the commandments that I am commanding you today.’ So in the day of heart circumcision, Moses’ words in Deuteronomy would matter. His law would matter. The Old Testament law would matter to what we now understand is the age of the Messiah, the age of Christians. The prophet like Moses has come and he has proclaimed truth and Moses still matters, but as we will see later, only in light of how Jesus fulfills that law.

Another text that stood out in Isaiah chapter 29, which Paul quotes in Romans 11, it says, ‘The Lord gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see, ears that would not hear down to this day.’ That’s Romans 11 verse 8. And he’s quoting Deuteronomy 29 verses 9 and 10. And then it says, for those people in Isaiah’s audience, the words that he was writing in the scroll were like words that he would give to someone who can read and they would say, ‘Open the scroll, I can’t read it.’ Isaiah’s scroll was like a closed scroll to them. But then just a few verses later in verse 18, it says, ‘The day is coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘When people will read the words in a book and the eyes of the blind will see.’ Then in Isaiah chapter 30, just the very next chapter, it says, ‘Write these words in the book as a witness for the future.’ And I began to recognize God has this framework. The prophets were understanding that they were writing not principally for their own generation, which was a hardhearted, spiritually disabled people, but that their words would matter most in a future day. A day associated with the coming Messiah, the new Moses. And in that day, they would be able to understand what was actually given in the Old Testament text itself. We could look at many others, but those are two different passages that are forward-looking as you pointed out.

Calling the reader to recognize that understanding of the Old Testament itself will come in a future day, a day that you and I are now getting to enjoy. That this is the day that the Old Testament was written for.

JB: Yeah, and I appreciated when I read your book, one of the things that I appreciated and you’re touching on it here is the fact that it’s not just like the New Testament authors will look back at the Old Testament and they’re doing something that the Old Testament authors would be uncomfortable with. The Old Testament authors themselves, and you talk about Isaiah, you reference Daniel and the words are written in Daniel that are sealed up, that are also forward pointing that will benefit a later future audience. The Old Testament prophets, they often understood more than we give them credit for. And one of the places you go when you talk about the New Testament is 1 Peter 1, verses 10 through 12. So I’d love to kind of turn the corner here. How does the New Testament reinforce what the Old Testament is teaching about these promises and their writings that aren’t just directly related to stubborn, stiff-necked, hardhearted Israel, but also to the people of God in the present day?

JD: Right, it continues to baffle me how many folks go to 1 Peter 1:10 through 12 and see in it prophets that didn’t understand. And I think it’s the actual opposite, and Peter is actually in his books, he’s citing the Old Testament over and over again showing this is exactly what they were pointing to, the fulfillment in the church age. But in that text in Peter, it says concerning the salvation that you and I are getting to enjoy, those Old Testament prophets were speaking about the grace that is ours. And then it says how they arrived there to talk so clearly about the coming of Christ and the works that he would produce. It says they were searching and inquiring carefully, inquiring to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was foretelling when he spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to those Old Testament prophets that they were serving not themselves, but you. So Peter says it right up clearly that the Old Testament prophets recognized they were ultimately not serving themselves, they were serving a future audience who would rightly understand their words. But it also says that these brothers were not only receiving visions and dreams, they were searching and inquiring carefully, and I ask where were they doing that? I think Isaiah was reading Moses. Moses was considering what God had testified to Abraham. They were searching and inquiring to know something about who Jesus was and when Jesus would come. This is a text that suggests these people knew something about God. So we do see the texts where you have ‘many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but couldn’t see it. They longed to hear what you hear but didn’t hear it,’ Matthew 13. But the point there that I want to draw out first is: they saw something. They longed for something that was in their soul and yet they weren’t living in the day when the Messiah was coming. They longed to be in the day when the Messiah would come but they didn’t get to do it, or Hebrews chapter 11 when it says ‘all of these died in faith not having received the things promised but having seen them and greeted them from afar.’ So you’re right, it’s often the case that we minimize what these Old Testament authors knew. It suggests to me they knew a lot but the fact that we’re living in the days when Jesus has appeared that for us, his coming and his saving work is past tense. It’s something that we can stand upon. It puts us in a position that’s different than the Old Testament authors themselves. But the point is still clear that ‘The gospel of God was promised beforehand through the prophets in the sacred writings concerning the Son,’ Romans 1:1-3. The very good news that you and I enjoy, a good news that finds its source in God that concerns the Son was promised in those Old Testament texts. They saw something we’re getting to enjoy the fulfillment of.

JB: Yeah, that’s great. And I’ve always heard or I’ve heard multiple times people go to First Peter and say, ‘Hey, the prophets, they were searching. They didn’t know, they lacked knowledge,’ and they just kind of skip over “It was revealed to them that they weren’t writing for themselves. They were writing for your sake on whom the end of the ages has come.” And so I think you nailed that passage and all the other passages you cite in support of that. And then you kind of turn the corner and say, okay, this is true. Then Christ helps us as new covenant believers read the Old Testament rightly. You talk about I think 2 Corinthians 3, the veil being removed and you talk about Christ being light and lens. And I love those metaphors. Do you mind unpacking those for the guys that are listening, preaching from the Old Testament? How does Christ serve as light and then lens?

JD: Yes, these two metaphors grew out of my wrestling with the text. By light, I’m talking about ‘the light of the Gospel of the glory of God has been shown to us in the face of Christ.’ It’s a light that has enlightened a darkened heart. And what I note in the book is that Abraham had this light. Moses had this light. That is, they were spiritual people who were able to understand spiritual revelation. There I’m alluding to 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul says that ‘we impart to you spiritual truths to spiritual people. The natural person doesn’t accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him. He’s not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.’ So my point here is to say, no one will understand the Scriptures rightly unless they are believers. That they have faith in the promised offspring. And I believe Abraham in Genesis 15 had that faith. He was able to see what you and I are able to see. Yet while he had light, that is, the darkness of his heart had been overcome by the light of the good news. While he had light, he didn’t have a lens. And by lens, what I’m talking about is something that only those living on the other side of the cross, when all of the promises have found fulfillment, when the types have reached anti-type, when the shadows have been overcome by substance, seeing the substance, the substance that fills the form that was shaped in the Old Testament through various patterns of events and persons and things. Now that we see the one to whom all those were pointing, we see better than Abraham and Moses and David and Isaiah ever saw. They knew, I believe, that they were seeing the Christ. They knew something about his coming. How much they knew at times may have been more like an acorn versus an oak tree. We’re able to see the entire oak tree. But now that we’ve seen the coming, what the Exodus ultimately pointed to, we’ve seen the ultimate temple. We’ve seen the true lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, all of a sudden, all kinds of persons and events and objects in the Old Testament, become more clear. We actually can understand them better because we see the end. So I compare it to the way that a double narrative works in story writing. Like a mystery is called a double narrative such that when you get to the end of the mystery and you see who done it, all of a sudden, the second level of the narrative has become absolutely clear in a way it wasn’t the entire time you read it the first time. So you can never go back and reread the narrative, that mystery, in the same way. And I’m proposing that the mysterion, the mystery of the gospel that Paul talks about is somewhat like that. Where it was in Paul’s words in Romans 16, there all along. And yet it was being held, here’s Paul’s words, ‘to him who was able to strengthen you according to my gospel, according to the preaching of Jesus Christ.’ So he defines the nature of his gospel. It’s a preaching related to Jesus Christ. ‘According to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed,’ and then he says, ‘through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations.’ Those prophetic writings, those are the same prophetic writings that he spoke about in Romans 1:1-3 where the gospel was promised. It’s as if that the furniture hasn’t changed. It’s just that the lights have gone on. And now we also are able to see the interrelationship of all the patterns and the persons and the events in ways that we never could. I also give this example. It’s like in the Old Testament, we begin to see patterns. There’s a two followed by a four. And then the question is, well, what comes next? And it could be six, could be an eight. It could be a six or an eight. And the New Testament not only gives the answer, a six or an eight, but in doing so, it provides the algorithm. That is, it shows us how all those different events and persons and powers and players were all working together to culminate in the person of Christ. That God’s—that all of history finds its climax in Jesus, that the prophecies themselves are foretelling things about Jesus, that Jesus stands as the end or goal of the old covenant law and that all those promises find their yes in Christ. He is the culminating one. And because of that, his resurrection from the dead provides a lens that at one level influences and informs all of our reading of what precedes. It’s not changing it. It’s that now we see the end of the story and we’re seeing—able to see things now that we could have never seen before in our darkened state and without the right lens of Jesus as the one. So when Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he never read his Bible the same way. Yet so many preachers, so many Old Testament professors want to propose that we are to approach the Old Testament as if Jesus hasn’t come. And I think Paul would say, have none of that. Jesus has come. He’s the end of the story and now we have the right lens for interpreting everything that has always been there in its fullness.

JB: Even hearing you talk about the assertion that we could read the Old Testament as if Christ didn’t come. The detective analogy is an amazing analogy and even Paul’s language that you’re putting the veil back on—the veil has been removed and you’re putting it back on. The lens illustration, I think, is helpful. The things have been there. Now we can see them. Those who are optically impaired like myself appreciate that analogy. I think what you’re writing is helpful for preachers in two ways in particular, helpful for us to have a whole Bible framework that sees Christ as a culmination and climax of all of Scripture. But practically, you talk about promises in your book and you talk about Old Testament law in your book. And those are two things that I think if preachers are honest, they’re listening. How does Christ relate to those two things? And so just want to take them one at a time. We’ll talk about promises and then we’ll talk about law. You talk about Old Testament promises, particularly relating to health and wealth and prosperity, which America in many ways has exported to other countries. And so love to hear you talk about Old Testament promises. What are the dangers there and how do they find their fulfillment in Christ?

JD: Yes, this is a huge issue and it might be very natural for people to say, ‘Oh, well, we’re in the New Testament, so we’re not even going to consider Old Testament promises that were given under a different covenant and to different people.’ But we can’t get out of it that easily because the New Testament authors are drawing on Old Testament promises over and over again in the very book where 2 Corinthians 1:20 occurs where Paul says every promise is yes in Jesus. He goes on in chapter 6 at the very end of chapter 6 where he says, ‘We are the temple of the living God.’ he cites a whole host of Old Testament promises. And then at the beginning of chapter 7, he says, ‘Since we have these promises.’ And he’s just saying, as Christians, we’re claiming all these Old Testament promises, but only in and through Jesus.

Without Jesus, Paul says, there is no amen. So it is. I believe it. We can’t believe that a promise is ours apart from what Jesus supplies. He is the only means by which we get to enjoy blessing, and he is ultimately the means by which God will bring his curse, rejecting his gift at the cross as exhibit A that people are guilty and under the eternal judgment of God.

And so these promises that are yes in Jesus, one of the examples that really stuck out to me—I had never seen it until I began to study for this book—was in the book of Hebrews in chapter 13 where he simply says, he’s talking about money of all things.

And he says, “Keep your life free from the love of money, be content with what you have, for,” and then he talks about God. He has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” That’s a beautiful promise. All of us want to claim that very presence of God, but it’s word for word: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” And it’s a promise that was given to Joshua. What’s so striking is it’s not even given to the people at large initially; it’s given to a man as he’s getting ready to lead the conquest.

As he’s getting ready to take the people into the promised land, God says, “Joshua, be strong and courageous, keep my word, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.” And then the writer of Hebrews, for whatever reason, somehow takes a promise that was given to a person in old covenant Israel and applies it to the church broadly. And I said, how could that be? Because you and I usually wouldn’t want—we would want to say, “Wait, keep that promise in context; that was given to a specific person under a specific covenant.” And yet I said, according to the theology of Hebrews, how does he get there? And what I believe I see in this book is Jesus is the new Joshua. Joshua led them into rest. And yet, Psalm 95, “Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” And the writer of Hebrews says, there’s a greater rest that was anticipated.

JB: Hebrews 3 and 4, yeah, he’s pulling, citing Psalm 95.

JD: That’s right. There’s a greater rest, and it’s Jesus who’s leading us into that. It is fascinating that Joshua’s name is Jesus. Yahweh saves. Jesus is the ultimate Joshua, but it’s not only that. Why money? And then I go back to the book of Joshua and I see the very first story of battle in the book of Joshua is Achan, who hoards money, and God treats him like a Canaanite, whereas Rahab the harlot is treated like an Israelite because she trusts in God. And this is a whole book, Hebrews, about perseverance unto rest, and Achan didn’t persevere. And yet had he recognized God is with me, he is all I need. I don’t need to take this money from Jericho. I can be content obeying the voice of God as the writer of Hebrews calls us to do. He says, “Guard your hearts lest there be an evil unbelieving heart that leads you to fall away from the living God, for you have come to share in Christ if you hold firmly to the end the confidence you had at the beginning.”

So I think it plays right into the theology of Hebrews. And he’s saying, just as the people, if God was with Joshua and the people followed Joshua, then God was with them. There’s a greater Joshua who has come. And if you’re following Jesus, believe me, God is with Jesus and he’ll be with you. He’ll be with you always. Don’t get distracted and run away from Jesus by going after riches.

Keep your focus on Jesus and all of a sudden the promises of God, even one given to a specific man under a specific covenant, become yes for you and me because we are in Christ who is the ultimate Joshua.

JB: That’s a great example. The other thing that I want to talk about, and we’re getting close on time here, but I think this is important. The Old Testament law and preachers coming to an Old Testament law. And again, I’ll let you choose the example, but I’d love for you to lay out—you build a little bit on the work of Brian Rosner. You take in and modify what he’s doing. I’ll let you pick cleanness, uncleanness, skin disease. How are we to make sense of some of these Old Testament laws and how they relate to the Christian today?

Well, that’s a massive question. Sorry, I know I’m opening it up to some extent a can of worms here.

JD: It is. It is a big question, but I’ll try to be clear enough so that people might be able to even dive in further into the book if they desire. Paul says we once were under the Guardian. Indeed, we were enslaved under the Guardian in Galatians 3. That was the law covenant. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under that Guardian. We have been freed as a Christian church from being bound by Moses. Moses is no longer our direct and binding authority.

Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 9, “I am no longer under the law, though I am under the law of God and under the law of Christ.” But he’s been freed, no longer under the law of Moses. So the first principle is that believers today are not under the Old Covenant law at all. And in a direct way, Moses is not our direct authority. Jesus is our direct authority.

And yet, just as Moses was able to say in that future day of heart circumcision, all the words that I’ve commanded in this book are going to matter. And Jesus in Matthew 5 says something very similar. When he says, “I didn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets, I came to fulfill them.” And “Until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot or tittle from the law will pass.” And then he says those who don’t, who fail to teach and to do this law are least in the kingdom of heaven. But those who teach and do this law will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And I think he’s talking about the law of Moses. But in that text, it’s very clear, it’s the law of Moses only in light of how Jesus has fulfilled it.

And so that’s where I build this framework. If Jesus is the lens through which we gain lasting significance from Moses’s law, none of it directly binding on us, but all of it, all of it indirectly guiding us as wisdom through Jesus. Then we see that some laws get maintained without any extension, without any change. Other laws get maintained with extension. Some laws get transformed and other laws get annulled. That’s what the fulfillment Jesus brings does to the law. So all the law matters for us, but only in light of how Jesus fulfills it.

So laws that would be maintained without any extension, without any change, would be things, I believe, like laws against homosexuality, laws against murder, laws against stealing. When we look at the New Testament, we don’t see any alteration. We do have a new power because we’ve experienced pardon and we have new blood-bought promises, a power that Abraham and Ruth and Hannah didn’t enjoy in the same way. Because our power is coming from the spirit of the resurrected Christ, where he’s definitively accomplished something in history that was only hoped for in the Old Testament. And yet the law itself doesn’t seem to change.

But then we have laws that seem to alter only in not in their nature, but in the way they’re applied. So, for example, Paul can take a principle of muzzling the ox while it’s threshing. Don’t muzzle an ox while it’s threshing. It’s doing work. So it’s worthy to eat while it’s doing its work.

And Paul takes that in both 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy and applies it to the need to pay our church leaders who are investing their time. And especially to those who are preaching the Word and giving their time to that kind of preparation so that when they speak they speak the very oracles of God. Paul takes that same principle and yet extends its application in a new context.

There’s also laws that are transformed. I propose in the book Sabbath is one of these. Where Christ is the ultimate one who secures the Sabbath, he is Lord of the Sabbath. So all that was hoped for in the reconstitution of peace on a global scale that was Israel’s mission, Jesus now is the ultimate Israelite realizes it for all who are in him. And now we are reconciled with God. Right order has been reestablished for all the Christians and 24/7 we are enjoying Sabbath today.  It’s not that it’s been annulled. No, it’s that it’s being realized. It’s being fulfilled. God is now seated on the throne of our hearts and we are at peace with him and he is at peace with us. And the vision is still that there will be final Sabbath to come on a global scale.

Another example would be what Paul does in 1 Corinthians 5 with the capital punishment text from Deuteronomy and how he uses it for excommunication in 1 Corinthians 5. He quotes from Deuteronomy 22, 21 and 22, “Purge the evil one from your midst,” which is a call to kill the violator of the covenant. But Paul transforms that in the new covenant context and views it as the ultimate end of church discipline. And you don’t kill him, but you do treat him as if he is spiritually dead and you cast out the immoral brother in the hope that his soul might be saved at the final day.

The final group is those laws that are annulled. And I’m thinking here of like Mark chapter 7 or Acts chapter 10 where we see what was once unclean is now declared clean. And why does that happen? I believe it’s because Jesus has overcome the serpent and all unclean foods, all unclean animals in some way were related to the first unclean animal in the serpent. Whether related to his predatory activity or his deceiving conniving ways or his judgment in the dust. And so I argue for that in the book.

But because Jesus has triumphed over the serpent, what it means is what was for Israel used to pursue holiness by staying away from that which was associated with the serpent, including all the offspring of the serpent, the nations. But now that that barrier has been overcome, the unclean one has been conquered. Now it’s actually bacon becomes victory food for us. Bacon becomes a testimony that Jesus has won, that the serpent is defeated, that the barrier between the unclean and the clean has been overcome and that now Christ is calling all people to himself. And so I lay out a model for appropriating Old Testament promises and Old Testament laws for believers today. That’s half the book.

JB: Yeah, I think the framework is helpful. And if you’re listening and you preach to the Old Testament, the last question I want to ask is kind of a wrap up question. But if you’re listening and you’re committed to preaching the whole counsel of God’s Word and preaching from the Old Testament.And I don’t know of a better resource to recommend than Dr. Goro’s “Delighting in the Old Testament” to help you make sense of Old Testament law and how that should be preached today in light of Christ. Well, I want to close by just asking you to exhort or challenge the pastors or aspiring pastors who are listening to preach from the Old Testament and to preach Christ from the Old Testament.

So what concluding thoughts or exhortations would you have to the brothers who are listening who feel called to pastoral ministry and called to the pulpit? Why should they preach the Old Testament and why should they preach Christ.

We’ve been talking about that in some sense for 40 minutes, but I’m asking for you to give them kind of a final pastoral charge.

JD: Timothy was raised by a Jewish mother and Jewish grandmother. We’re told that in Acts 16. And then in Second Timothy 1, they’re given names, Eunice and Lois. And then in Second Timothy 3:15, Paul says, “You know what you were raised up on, the Scriptures, the sacred writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ.”

Then he says, “All Scripture is God-breathed for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.” And just a few verses later, “Preach the Word.”

The Old Testament is an instrument of God for us to rebuke, correct, train, teach from. When the Old Testament is attached to faith in Jesus, it can be an instrument of people’s pardon and that is freedom from sin’s penalty. It can be an instrument that God can use to free them from sin’s power, make them progressively holy. And it can be an instrument to help them make it all the way to glory. I think of Paul as I’m closing here.

First Corinthians 2, verse 2, “I decided to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified.” he, he loads 1 Corinthians both with Old Testament quotations and with all kinds of topics. He addresses lawsuits and proper moral sex and proper understanding of marriage and spiritual gifts and the Lord’s table. It’s all over the map.

He says, “I resolved to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified.” And what I think he is saying there is that he cannot talk about Christian marriage, Christian parenting, any form of biblical counseling. He can’t talk about a doctrine of God, a right understanding of the church or missions without showing how it’s connected to the cross.

And my final word for pastors today is think about Scripture that way. Whether you’re in Genesis or whether you’re in Titus, connecting it to the Christ so that you can faithfully say “I resolved to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified.”

JB: Amen and amen. Jason, thank you so much for joining us today.

JD: My joy.

JB: Friends, this has been an episode of Preaching and Preachers, a podcast of Midwestern Seminary that is devoted to those who preach and to the task of preaching itself. We hope you found it helpful. Thanks for listening and we hope you’ll join us again.

Thank you for being with us today and for listening to Preaching and Preachers. For more information, go to my website, Jasonkallen.com. That’s Jasonkallen.com.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For resources connected to biblical theology, go to handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com.

 

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Moses’s Chunking Strategy in Genesis

Moses’s Chunking Strategy in Genesis Moses's Chunking Strategy in Genesis

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/geartalk-march-26th-3-2.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology.

Today’s podcast relates to the way Moses broke Genesis into smaller text blocks. These text blocks or chunks demonstrate Moses had a definite strategy in putting the book together. He wanted the readers to see something specific. Unfortunately, for reasons we make clear in the podcast, it can be easy to miss the clear signals Moses embeds in the text. We’ve included three PDFs from Jason DeRouchie in our show notes that will provide additional help as you listen and as you study.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. Tom and Jason here. Today we are talking about Genesis and a way Moses put things together in this book.

So, Jason, kind of introduce the topic and you got a funny way, at least it will sound funny, a funny word to describe it, so kind of introduce what we’re talking about.

JD: Well, we are looking at this book that is dominated by genealogies, dominated by generations, multiple generations, standing from creation and moving us all the way to the one whose name is Israel, Jacob and his giving producing 12 sons and they become Israel and it’s Israel the nation that dominates the entire Old Testament. But we don’t start the Bible with the story of Israel. We start the Bible with a vision for humanity within God’s world and Genesis therefore really places Israel, who’s the first recipients of this Bible, places Israel within the context of their global mission. And we want to consider today how the structure of Genesis really enhances our hope for the coming Messiah through Israel.

All to this book is what I’ve often termed a blessing commission in Genesis 1:28. God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over all the earthly creatures.” So we see this movement of command, be fruitful, man and woman, male and female created in the image of God, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, take the image of our all-glorious then caused God, take his image and fill the earth with it so that his glory may be displayed everywhere. That’s the original vision: that those made in his image would fill the earth, but not only fill it that they would subdue, that they would have dominion.

So there’s this vision of multiplication for God’s glory in a way that would represent his rule on the earth. Originally, Yahweh met with man in the garden, yet God’s responsibility was not simply to care for the garden, but to guard the ground from which Adam had been taken. And the ground is bigger. The ground is all that is outside of the garden where humanity ultimately would reside. And so the vision is that as they would work the ground, that the garden would be expanding. And therefore the sacred space of God would grow under God’s care, under God’s guidance.

Now, all those who are reading this story are living outside the garden. Though God commanded the first man and woman, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth,” by the time those words are inscripturated, written down for us in Scripture, everyone reading it as Scripture from the pen of Moses is outside the garden, underneath the curse, underneath the problem that needs a solution, the challenge that needs an answer, the true curse that needs to be overcome by a Savior, deliverer. And it’s therefore significant that God in this first command to humans, couches this command as a blessing. That’s why I call it a blessing commission, because those who are receiving this story as Scripture are living under curse, they realize that they have not done well at displaying God’s image in the world. They haven’t reflected and resembled and represented him like they should, because they’ve been influenced and infected by the curse. And yet from the beginning, it was God blessed them and God said, that is, this commission is the blessing. God didn’t do two things. The Hebrew grammar suggests he did one thing. Over and over again throughout the Old Testament, when God wants to say something, the verb to speak or to say has to be present in the Hebrew grammar. So if you want to clarify what type of saying it is, you have to add an additional verb. So he laughed and said, that is the saying is an expression of his joy. He cried and said, he declared and said, he blessed and said. In all these constructions, what we’re not seeing is two things, but one thing, one thing that God does, he blessed and said be fruitful. That is the commission is a blessing. And what it tells people is that for them to fill the earth as God intends, representing him well, it’s going to take his blessing on their lives. So the whole story is set up when man gets kicked out of the garden to show the need for God’s blessing. And then after the need is created, the rest of the story is going to clarify the hope for that blessing and both God reaffirming his blessing commission and then God declaring how it is that he’s going to allow his blessing to reach the world. This is the book of Genesis.

Now I said, it’s dominated by generations, by genealogies. And that stems out of the original hope, given in Genesis 3:15, following the fall into sin, where God promises two lines of descent. He tells the serpent, “Cursed are you more than any other beast of the field.” And then he unpacks the declaration, “I will put enmity between you, serpent, and the woman. So there’s going to be friction. There’s going to be tension and between your offspring and her offspring.” So the devil has seed and the woman is going to have seed. And this term seed, rendered offspring in my ESV, is always grammatically singular. It’s like our English word seed. We don’t say he scattered seeds plural. We say he scattered seed or it’s similar to our word for deer. We can see one deer or we can see many deer. It’s not that we see deer. So whether singular or plural, this term seed is always grammatically singular. And so we have to look into the context to discern whether the term itself is representing a singular or a plural entity. And one of the ways we do that is looking at verb forms: is that a singular or a plural verb that accompanies the noun? Or we look at pronouns.

And in this context, we have a pronoun that is found within the passage. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, serpent, the serpent and the woman, between your offspring and her. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” So we’re talking with respect to the woman’s offspring. We’re talking about a male individual, a singular person who will apparently go head to head with the serpent. Or we could say head to foot because he will stand on the head of this serpent. And the serpent is beastly. He’s called a beast of the field. And he is a serpent. So and he’s portrayed as a deadly figure who wants the death of God’s son, humanity. And so we can envision him as a poisonous serpent. And because that’s the type of serpent he is, one that brings death. And so he strikes this individual offspring’s heel. And from that heel, the individual offspring of the woman strikes his head. So we’re assuming a death blow is brought to the serpent through injury of some nature to this individual offspring of the woman.

But we still haven’t identified the offspring of the serpent. And that’s where the genealogies in the book play a role. The generation statements and many have noted that this book has 10 headings over sections that are listed as in my ESV: “These are the generations of” and that term rendered generations is derived from the causative verb in Hebrew to produce. So the idea is these are the fruits. This is the products of what came from some individual, usually. There’s only the first of these headings in Genesis 2:4 where we have a non-person mentioned. “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth.” And so that is these are the products that came from the heavens and the earth. And we read the story of God creating the world, bringing the animals to Adam and God giving the man Eve, God commissioning the man to serve the ground to guard the ground and then giving him a helper that is fit for him, suitable for him. And after this story of the fall and humanity is being kicked out of the garden, we then read in chapter 5, verse 1, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.”

And it’s as if it’s a beginning. This is the book. This is the scroll of the generations of Adam and what follows immediately is a genealogy that moves us from Adam all the way to Noah in linear fashion, giving us only one descendant in every generation, 10 generations moving us from Adam all the way to Lamech, Noah’s father, and Lamech has three sons. Sorry, it moves us all the way through Lamech to Noah, who has three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And so this particular heading, “These are the generations of,” leads us into a linear genealogy. But that’s not how all of the generations headings take us. Some of them introduce not genealogies, but stories. And so, for example, we get in chapter 6, verse 9, “These are the generations of Noah.” And rather than it being followed by a genealogy, it’s followed by a story, a story of what came forth in the days of Noah. He has three sons and the flood story comes forth.

Now, as I said, there’s 10 of these headings, these generations headings in Hebrew. The term is toledot. And as I said, that’s a noun that’s derived from the causative verb to produce, to give birth to. And so 10 of these headings and what we’re wanting to do today, Tom, is to consider how the promise of offspring, the hope for this individual descendant is carried out in this book that is dominated by a vision to fill the earth as representatives of the living God. Those who would reflect him, resemble him, revere him in the world as those made in his image. This book is dominated by these generation statements. And there are, as we’re going to see, not only 10 of them, but of the 10, seven of them are positive, three of them are negative. That is, the story that flows out of three of the headings is a story of rebellion. Whereas the story that flows out of seven of the headings is a story of hope. And what we end up seeing is that some of these generations headings introduce what appear to be the offspring of the serpent. Whereas some of the other generations headings, indeed, seven of them introduce those that are hoping in the offspring of the woman.

Now, not only do we have 10, that’s as far as most—like if you go into a study Bible, what they’ll do is they’ll often list in the introduction the 10 headings. And they come in 2:4, 5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 11:10, 11:27, 25:12, 25:19, 36:1, and 37:2. Now, just knowing there’s 10 headings, most people say this appears to be the way Moses was structuring this book. And I agree that he’s using these headings in this way. But in this podcast, biblical theology, what we’re wanting to consider is how Moses actually does more than that than just give us 10 headings and fit them within a book dominated by this blessing commission of being fruitful and subduing the earth and fitting it in a book that is driven by two lines of descent, the offspring of the serpent and those hoping in the offspring of the woman.

It’s not only that, of these 10 generations formulas, these 10 headings, what’s often missed by commentators is that five of them begin with the Hebrew connector wow or vav and that connector is usually rendered “and.” Five of the headings start with our English conjunction and, and five of them do not. And what that means is that five of these units intentionally link to the unit that precedes, and what that does is it creates then five independent units within the book rather than just 10 that there’s groupings of these generations formulas that we are to read together. And Moses intentionally links some of them in order to communicate his message. Biblical theology grows out of the actual structures of the text and the message of Genesis is bound up not simply in the blessing commission and the gospel promise of Genesis 3:15 and in 10 generations statements, but in how Moses structures these 10 generations headings to create groupings of thought that then communicate the message of Genesis.

So Tom, that was a big introduction, but that’s what we’re wanting to do today is to consider how all these parts, focusing on the fruit of the womb on offspring and the hope for the ultimate offspring, two lines of descent, a remnant line bound up in a positive story, a rebel line that is antagonistic to that story, and how all of that is fitting together within the 10 generations headings of the book of Genesis to communicate Moses’s message.

TK: All right, so backing up, just your reading this, your preaching from Genesis, that introduction we got right there is really helpful and framing why this is important. So Moses didn’t write chapters like we encounter the book. All of us do—we are reading Genesis chapter one, Genesis chapter two, Genesis chapter three, and so on, and we tend to think of the book that way almost as if we were writing a book, what did you do today? I wrote chapter one, right? I’m hoping to finish through chapter four tomorrow. And your point, correct me if I’m saying this in a way: Well, first of all, one of your points you didn’t say it, but it’s certainly implied here is that Moses wasn’t writing chapters like that, correct?

JD: Right. He wasn’t writing chapters. He certainly wasn’t writing the chapter divisions that we have in our English Bibles, 50 chapters in this book. We’ll normally even preach that way. Today I’m preaching Genesis 22, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m thankful we have them because we don’t have to do what Jesus did when—in the exact phrasing, but he’s talking to the people and he’s talking about the episode of the burning bush, for instance—but he can’t just take them right to the exact spot, right, and say “Go, go to Exodus chapter two,” for instance.

Are you saying that Moses is based on Genesis 1:26 to 28 in this blessing formula, “fill the earth, take dominion,” that Moses is organizing Genesis, his first book he wrote in his five-book book? So the Pentateuch that he’s dividing it into 10 chunks then, is that—I think in one of your books, you talk about text blocks.

Sure. Are we talking about he—if you imagine he—how am I going to tell this story here because I’ve got all this I’ve got to get down about how God did it? I’m dividing it into 10 chunks, but it’s not quite so simple as 10 chunks because what you said is these “toledot”—these “generations of” five of them. I’m actually putting a signal to connect these five to what came before it. So there’s only actually five major chunks. Is that fair to say in Moses’s mind as he breaks up this first book he wrote?

JD: That’s right. After the preface, the introduction—

TK: Genesis 1:1–3:3.

JD: That’s right, the way we divide it. Right after you get the blessing, commission, and this overall vision of what humanity is called to do and be in God’s world as those made in his image, then the story, as it were, begins in Genesis 2:4. And from that point on to the end of the book, like you just said, we get five chunks, five blocks of texts, and they’re introduced by these headings, but those headings that begin with “and these are the generations of” are very naturally linked to the previous grouping.

So you start out with an independent heading: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth” in Genesis 2:4, and then Genesis 5:1 is also an independent heading. “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” but then after that, you’ve got a chunk with two units in it. “These are the generations of Noah” and “These are the generations of Noah’s sons” beginning in chapter 10, verse 1. Then we have a fresh beginning again, and we get the longest unit that Moses gives us.

TK: Oh, just so backing up though, if you’re tracking in your Bible and you’re going to get here, I know. But if you got to Genesis 10:1 and what you just said, Jason was, “and these are the generation of the sons of Noah.” That doesn’t appear in my ESV. So you’re going to get there, but you’re saying though, Hebrew has an end there, and that’s significant.

JD: It is, and I’ll just make this comment that of the 10 generations formulas that we have in Genesis, five of them begin with this connector vav in Hebrew. And when we look at contemporary English translations, only the King James and New American Standard actually represent all five of those connectors in some way, usually with the particle “now.” “Now this is what happens. Now these are the generations of.” And so they’re actually representing that there is a conjunction here. The NRSV (that’s the New Revised Standard Version) and the ESV only note one of the five: in 11:27 they add “now.” But in four of the other cases, they don’t put anything. The NIV, the Christian Standard Bible—they don’t include any marker in front of any of the generations statements.

And so this is an example, I think, Tom, where Moses is using a structural feature in Hebrew that we can represent in English. When you’re going from one language to another, you can’t always represent all the elements in the new language that are present in the mother language. But in this instance, the King James and the New American Standard recognize that there seems to be something going on here that Moses is marking, and we can mark it in English.

TK: And so this is an example of a marker here.

JD: That’s right. Moses put a marker here with respect to structure.

And so I think many of our translations do a disservice to us in shaping a proper biblical theology of Genesis because they don’t communicate in English when they could have all that the Hebrew is trying to communicate. It’s awkward if every time you come to a Hebrew conjunction vav, you use the word “and”—and I recognize that. But it is signaling structure. It’s signaling, as you said, that we are amidst a text block, a block of thought that is to be read together, and often we didn’t have people reading the text; we heard them listening to the text. And I think every time they heard a generations formula that said “and these are the generations of” versus “these are the generations of,” the listeners were able to recognize this is still connected to what precedes.

And I’ll just make a note that often scholars when they are interpreting Genesis, they simply create two units. They say there’s the unit before recorded history, as it were, the “primeval history” they call it from Genesis 1 through 11. And then they have the “patriarchal history” where we’re now getting specific individuals and learning much more detail about their lives. And it carries on that way all the way through the rest of the Old Testament, this focused history.

And at one level, we definitely see the narrative time slow down when we get to Genesis 12. What likely covered at least thousands of years in Genesis 1 through 11 is now going to slow down to just four generations in the next 38 chapters. Just four generations are covered in four-fifths of the book, whereas in the first fifth of the book, narrative time is flying. So at one level, we can understand why people distinguish Genesis 1 through 11 from Genesis 12 to 50. But those aren’t the markers that Moses was giving. And in fact, usually people include all of Genesis 11 with what precedes, and actually it’s right after the Tower of Babel episode that we get these other generations of Shem. And there’s no conjunction on that.

TK: So that’s a fresh text block the way we’re talking.

JD: A fresh chunk is started at 11:10. What’s significant is that that text block is going to carry us all the way to the beginning of chapter 37. So we get these “generations of Shem” and then it says in 11:27 “and these are the generations of Terah.” And then in 25:12 “and these are the generations of Ishmael.” 25:19 “and these are the generations of Isaac.” 36:1 “and these are the generations of Esau.” So that is the largest text block or grouping in the book. And we have to notice it and say Moses is calling us to see and to spend lots of time in God’s covenant-making process with the patriarchs. That’s the unit that dominates the greatest amount of space in the book. So there’s prominence that is given through the chunking, prominence given to the patriarchal narratives. And with that then, the promise of how God will bring blessing, his curse overcoming blessing to the world.

Central to that is this hope of an individual descendant in the line of Abraham who possesses enemy gates and through whom all the world will be blessed. Abraham will become a father of many nations when the individual descendant or seed rises. And that’s the same seed that was promised as a warning to the serpent that the seed of the woman would crush his head.

So the greatest amount of space in the book, the greatest chunk runs from 11:10 all the way to 37:1. It includes five of the generations headings all linked together in a single text block by the conjunction that we usually render as “and” that the KJV and NASB rendered as “now.” So rightly, the New American Standard, for example, lets the generations heading in 11:10 begin “these are the generations of Shem.” And then in all four of the following generations headings in 11:27, 25:12, 25:19, and 36:1, the New American Standard renders the text: “Now these are the generations of Terah. Now these are the generations of Ishmael. Now these are the generations of Isaac. Now these are the generations of Esau.” And I think that’s contributing to our understanding of the book’s theology.

TK: It does tell you, I mean, just that simple thought, if Moses in thinking—how am I going to organize all this material? Obviously by the help of the Holy Spirit—but he gives a prominence to, for instance, Shem, you’re saying in the fourth chunk that he uses in this book. As someone who loves God’s Word, I am going to need to give some thought to it of why he would prioritize him. What can I find out here that might send a signal? Oh, that’s why he did it this way.

JD: Yes. Back at the end of chapter four, we learned that people began to call on the name of the Lord. And the name that should be dominant in this book, among those made in God’s image, is Yahweh’s name. And yet at the Tower of Babel, at the beginning of chapter 10 or 11 in this book, the beginning of chapter 11, the Tower of Babel episode is unpacked, and we’re told that those at Babel were seeking a name for themselves. The Hebrew term “name” is identical to Shem’s name. It is “shem.” That is what like Noah named his son. He called his son Name. And I think the focus is whose name? Not his own—Yahweh’s name. The name that people should be calling on that he represents. Shem represents the very one that the world should be focused on. And I think that’s part of the story. And so he gets this “toledot,” this generations formula attached to him. And it introduces the most dominant unit in the book of Genesis.

TK: Just stopping for one second, something I like here about what you just said is in Genesis 11:1, getting the start of the Tower of Babel story. And “name” is a priority here. And then I come to a new chunk. And it’s focused on name. There is a link from chunk to chunk. You are seeing there that it’s not like Moses said, “Hey, here’s a chunk I want to have,” and this is a disconnected chunk. They do fit together. And you’re able to read them and say, “Okay, that makes sense. These are the generations of Shem.” The previous, the end of the previous chunk was focused on a name, but not the name we’ve been led to think that God’s people are supposed to focus on. So having a link from one to another, the link is one of contrast.

JD: And that now draws me to a fresh observation. What introduced that previous generations formula “and these are the generations of Noah’s sons” in 10:1? What follows is a genealogy in that unit, but it’s not like the genealogy that we had in chapter five that grew out of “this is the book of the generations of Adam.” In chapter five, it’s a linear genealogy. And it’s dominated by the same default story verb that colors all Old Testament narrative.

What I want to draw attention to right now, Tom, is that of the 10 headings, “these are the generations of,” every one of them is followed either by genealogy or by story. Five of them are followed by story. And in every instance, the story focuses on a positive character who is hoping in the coming offspring. It could be Adam and Eve. It could be Noah. It could be Terah, Terah is the father of Abraham. It could be Isaac, who’s the father of Jacob, or Jacob himself. All of these we have individual stories, and they’re driven by this default Hebrew verb that is the main story verb in Hebrew. It’s called wayyiqtol. And so the generations headings introduces in five instances a story of individuals who are hoping in the coming offspring. These are the remnant few in a world filled with those living under curse, the remnant few who are experiencing God’s blessing.

But then there’s five other generations headings that introduce genealogies. And in Genesis 5 and in Genesis 11, the generations of Adam and the generations of Shem both introduce linear genealogies. In each instance, we have a 10-fold pattern of genealogy, and only one descendant in each generation is focused on. The individual who retains for that generation hope in the offspring promise is addressed. A gives birth to B and other kids. B gave birth to C and other kids. C gave birth to D and other kids. That’s how a linear genealogy works.

And these linear genealogies focus on—just like the headings that introduce the positive narratives—these linear genealogies include the default story verb. So the story is still being told, and that story is focused on the positive line of hope. So you take the five stories plus the two linear genealogies, which are also telling a story, and you have seven—which is not by chance—seven of the generations units in Genesis are focused on the positive line hoping in the offspring promise.

Well, that leaves three, and this relates now to the contrast that you were seeing with respect to the name. The unit that the Tower of Babel episode concludes begins with “and these are the generations of Noah’s sons.” And this comes in chapter 10 and begins what we call the table of nations, and it lists specifically 70 nations that come out of—that descend from the three families that came out of the ark. So they’re originally listed as Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and they come to us as the sons of Japheth, then the sons of Ham, and then the sons of Shem.

And this genealogy gives clarity to all of Israel’s neighbors. So let’s think about Moses as the author. Israel is just one people in a sea of nations through whom God wants to impact the whole world. And we have to say why would God give us this book of Genesis and actually take time to list all 70 of these nations growing out of the Tower of Babel when God dispersed the peoples all over the face of the earth and confused their languages. The language that’s used is these are the families of the sons of Noah according to their genealogies in their nations, and from these nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. That word for families is the same word that’s going to occur in Genesis 12:3 when God says, “Abram, the ultimate result of what I’m commissioning you to is that in you all the families of the ground will be blessed.” That’s the same word that we see at the end of chapter 10: “These are the families of the sons of Noah.” Now that yes, we rendered it cleanse unhelpfully, but it’s the exact same word, Mishpahah, or Mishpahot is the plural. These are the families of the sons of Noah. And it’s those families then that become the target of God’s blessing. The families of Genesis 10 that give rise to 70 nations are the target or the mission field of God’s blessing.

So many scholars will just say, “Oh, the genealogy in Genesis 10 is just an origins genealogy. It’s just clarifying where all the peoples came from and it goes no further with respect to the purpose of Genesis.” And I say, “No, no, you’re missing something within the book of Genesis, the line hoping in the offspring promise bear a mission to all the offspring of the serpent.” So the offspring of the serpent are the rebels who are standing against God and standing against his people. And the 70 nations listed in Genesis 10 are among these rebels. And yet they become the target of God’s global blessing through Abraham and ultimately through the individual singular offspring of Abraham.

Now what’s significant in Genesis 10 is that the structure of the genealogies in Genesis 10 are not linear like they are in Genesis 5 and in Genesis 11. The structure of the genealogy with respect to the generations of Noah’s sons are segmented. They don’t tell a story. They don’t use the story verb. Instead, they’re all broken up. It’s of the structure Tom that says, “A gave birth to B, C, and D. These are these kids. Sorry, A gave birth to B, C, and D. These are these kids. These are C’s kids. These are B’s kids.” That’s the structure of this genealogy. In contrast to “A gave birth to B and other kids, B gave birth to C and other kids.” This is a segmented genealogy that by its very nature is cumbersome Hebrew. It slows the reader down. It doesn’t take part of the overall story.

TK: We feel it in reading it also.

JD: And we should. That’s right.

TK: We feel almost a burden like, “Oh, do I have to read through this list here?”

JD: Yes. “These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.” I mean, it slows us way down. The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, Dodanim. It is slow going. And we’re like, “I can’t even pronounce the names.” It’s tough moving.

In contrast, when we get to chapter 11, verse 10: “These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was a hundred years old, he fathered Arphaxad two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he fathered Arphaxad 500 years and had other sons and daughters. And when Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah. And Arphaxad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters.” It’s part of the narrative. It moves us through this linear genealogy and allows us to see in every generation that singular individual who is carrying on the hope of the promise. And it’s easier to read because it’s part of the story.

But the slowing down in the generations of Noah’s sons and in the generations of Ishmael and in the generations of Esau, the slowing down through the use of segmented genealogy forces the reader to say, “So what? Why are they here?”

TK: Yep.

JD: And instead of saying, “Who cares about them,” what we should say is, “Oh, God cares enough about them to slow us down to not forget them.” These are Israel’s neighbors and Israel is to be living on mission. And I think the very structure, the way that Moses is going about structuring his book is helping us understand the message of the book that we are moving from generation to generation, even telling us how old they lived so that you can actually draw a linear line from Adam to the Christ, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham all the way through Israel to David and beyond until we get to Jesus. That’s how the genealogies are intended. These linear genealogies, but the segmented genealogies play their own role. And that is to slow us down and recognize that we’re not supposed to forget our neighbors. And within a book that has hope for blessing and God says through Abraham’s offspring, “The families of the ground will be blessed.” That is, all the nations of the earth will regard themselves blessed in Abraham’s offspring. Families, nations—who are they that are the target of God’s mission? It’s those that are bound up in the generations of Noah’s sons and the generations of Ishmael and the generations of Esau, the three generations headings that introduce segmented genealogies and stand out in the book because of that, give us the focus of Israel’s mission.

TK: That’s really helpful. It, first of all, tells you Moses is not going through a random list of names and saying, “I’m going to throw these all down on the page.” he has something in mind as he’s writing Genesis. He has a purpose he’s writing it for. We have to discover it.

Jason, I’m wondering, let’s say somebody hearing this and says, “Okay, that I understand at least in part what we’re talking about here, how we get these ‘These are the generations of’ and Moses writing five chunks versus 10 chunks, but I might read the CSB (the Christian Standard Bible) or the ESV as my daily reading text. I don’t see it there.” First of all, both of us would affirm we don’t want to be those who say the editors of these Bibles had some sort of agenda to keep that away from us.

JD: Not at all.

TK: There’s no—we both love these translations and use them. It’s difficult to go from one language to another. But we are saying, when you see a signal in the text, it’s good to recognize it and say, “What’s that there for?” I wonder if it has any significance. Jason, what would you recommend for somebody who would say, “I don’t know Hebrew or Greek. How would I talk about these things?”  Let’s say my congregation uses the ESV. How would I talk about these things without leading people to distrust their Bibles? Like saying, “Hey, they’re keeping things out.”

JD: Yes. You’re absolutely right, Tom, that the translators of these texts are doing their best at giving us what they believe is God’s intended word. And it highlights two aspects that I’ll draw attention to. And we could unpack this further on a later episode, just regarding the theory of Bible translation, that different translations are intended for different purposes. And it’s no coincidence that the King James and New American Standard are the only two translations that included representations in English of the Hebrew conjunction. Because their translation theory, the translation theory associated with those translations included a desire to represent in English as closely as possible even the grammar of the Hebrew. Whereas the translation theory of the NIV, for example, is to create a dynamic equivalent in English of the Hebrew. Even if we depart from the grammar, we’re going to maintain the history. And we’re going to, but what we’re going to try to communicate, we’re even going to maintain as closely as we can an association with the words themselves, but we’re willing even to depart from that if it means communicating in English what we think the Hebrew is trying to communicate. But often that can come at the expense of certain things.

And one of them is what I would call macrostructure, not just the structure of a clause that has a subject and its predicate, a connector in various modifiers, but thinking about texts as having grammar also, and I think that’s the level at which this connector, the Hebrew word vav is functioning. It’s functioning at the level of texts rather than clauses. So the NIV may very well be representing the clause grammar very reasonably in English, but in leaving out the textual link between clauses, it actually causes the reader to miss these macro units. And so this leads me to the second element. It’s not only translation theory, it’s just that we—if one is an English Bible-only scholar, then it’s good to be reminded—like this podcast is doing—be reminded that there are those who are working in the Hebrew and one person working in the Hebrew may see things that another doesn’t. And there’s even a growing awareness of certain features of the Hebrew language that may have been missed in previous generations. And I’m drawing attention to one of those in the book of Genesis, the role of the conjunction that we render as “and” as a macro-structuring function—a macro-structuring word that is guiding our understanding of how a whole book hangs together. And that when we see that five of the headings, “these are the generations” headings include “and” in front of them, Moses did that intentionally. And I can fully appreciate the fact that it gets cumbersome because their use of this conjunction vav in Hebrew occurs so often, it seems awkward to simply begin every sentence in English with “and he did,” “and he went,” “and he jumped,” “and he said,” “and he did,” “and he ran,” “and he spoke,” “and he threw.” It becomes awkward English. When we’re reading the text, it seems cumbersome. And yet we have to remember also on the flip side that the Hebrews were reading the text and they were hearing “the,”  “the,”  “the,”  “the”  sound or potentially “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa” at the front of every single sentence or at the beginning of five of these headings, and it was telling them something about structure. And so I just think that translators have—they’re not trying to be mean or bad or to twist God’s Word. They’ve just missed, I think, a structuring feature of the Hebrew text that those who are asking questions of structure can find helpful to look at a more formal translation like the New American Standard. The ESV and the NIV and the CSB—I mean, we use the ESV in our own church—just demands that we celebrate that God does raise up some church leaders to work in the original Hebrew text and we can learn from them and we can benefit from a commentary that’s engaged the Hebrew. And then we see the benefit of using different types of translations. So the NIV or the CSB might really communicate well in English. It might be sweet to the ear, but when I’m preaching, I’m likely going to have to make greater corrections or observations because naturally the NIV is doing more interpretation than the New American Standard is in the way that it’s communicating in English. And so that’s just a small parenthesis there, Tom. We shouldn’t necessarily be frustrated with our ESV and want to throw it out because it failed to communicate. I wish that it would do a better job in the Old Testament highlighting the conjunctions because I think they’re important with respect to macrostructure, but the New American Standard attempts to retain more of them, and so we do have a translation that we can look at even if we don’t know Hebrew for more of those connectors.

TK: That’s helpful. So, Jason, as we wrap up and we’re going to put a PDF in the show notes—the statements here will show where the Hebrew vav, or as you said “and,” appears before each of these “these are the generations” headings—as we wrap up, think about Moses considering all this material. We started with a story of God’s glory filling the earth, a commission of blessing given to mankind. Moses is thinking it’s a big story, and I’ve got actually five books of material to tell, but I’ve got this introductory book, Genesis. He’s not naming it that right there, but I’m going to tell it. How would you describe it as he’s making his five major chunks? And real briefly, what’s he thinking? I’m going to break this story up?

JD: Yeah, what’s in his mind? I think, first of all, I’ll draw attention to the fact that if we just look at the five chunks where we get a generations heading that has no conjunction preceding i

TK: that vav you’re talking about—there’s no “and” starting it.

JD: If we just consider where each of the five chunks start, what we see is a movement from the heavens and the earth to Adam, to Noah, to Shem, to Jacob. What that means is that we’re moving from all creation in the heavens and the earth to humanity in general in Adam, to all living humanity after the execution of the rest in Noah, to a subset of living humanity through a shift in genealogical focus—now it’s focused on Shem—and then to Israel in Israel’s birth from Jacob. So we start with all creation and we narrow down to Israel. That’s the movement

TK: it’s like a funnel, exactly.

JD: When we just consider the five major units in this book, most of the Old Testament is focused on the end of that funnel. It’s focused on Israel. So Genesis, what it does is give clarity for Israelites to know their place in the bigger story. It shows how they fit in the whole creation, and that’s a beautiful part of Moses’s purpose.

TK: Yeah, he didn’t start with the fourth chunk, for instance, the Shem part. That’s right. He didn’t start with Shem, but he fits the story of Shem—that is, the generations of Shem—within a greater story reaching all the way back to the Garden of Eden and the commission of mankind to fill the earth with God’s glory.

The second element I would note, Tom, along with that narrowing is what appears to be some intentional parallelism that gives us a greater understanding of the book’s overarching structure. That is, we start with the generations of the heavens and the earth, and then “this is the book of the generations of Adam.” That generations heading introduces the first of two linear genealogies in the book. Each of those units that are introduced by linear genealogy has two overarching units. That is, there’s the linear genealogy followed by a greater story. First, it’s the linear genealogy associated with the generations of Adam, followed by the generations of Noah and Noah’s sons, where a story is given followed by that segmented genealogy. What I’m proposing is that it may be that Moses intends us to read each of the linear genealogies—the linear genealogy of Adam and the linear genealogy of Shem—as introductory to the units that follow. They stand in some way in parallel. If you’ve got the first unit of the book as the preface, the introduction in Genesis 1:1 through 2:3, the second unit of the book is the generations of the heavens and the earth, where the need for blessing is highlighted. Then, if we’re seeing two parallel units side by side, it’s as if we get unit three A and three B. Three A is the unit that runs from Adam through Noah’s sons, that’s introduced by that linear genealogy of Adam, and then three B would be beginning with the linear genealogy of Shem that stretches all the way down to the generations of Jacob. And it’s intriguing that after the problem is introduced, what follows is hope for the answer. If the problem is the lack of blessing or the need for blessing, then from chapter 5:1 with that introductory linear genealogy all the way to the end of the book, it’s dominated by this vision of hope for blessing. In 5:1 through 11:9, God reaffirms humanity’s blessing commission, even using some of the same language: “be fruitful, multiply.” he affirms his covenant with creation, now given through Noah. And then after the fall at the Tower of Babel, we get the next unit that runs from 11:10 to 25:26, where God declares how his kingdom blessing will indeed reach the world. He’s going to do it first by perpetuating kingdom hope through the life of Abraham and his sons, and then by preserving this promise line through famine as they hope for this coming royal deliverer from the line of Judah.

The handout that will be put in PDF form for our listeners will unpack this further. But I think that we’re actually seeing the five units where the last four units are actually standing in parallel with one another, each introduced by a linear genealogy. And it’s creating this overall structure for Genesis where the introduction is focused on God’s blessing commission. Then you get the need for blessing in the only generations heading associated with non-human members—the heavens and the earth—and then the rest of the book is dominated by the hope for this blessing in chapters 5:1 through 50:26. There are two parts in that unit, each of those parts introduced by the linear genealogy. So that’s how I’m seeing the macrostructure of the book, and it really plays into our understanding of the theology of the book itself.

So I summarize in a very short way the overarching message of Genesis this way: God will restore the blessing of being part of his kingdom to all the nations. He will do it through Jesus, the offspring of Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. This is the message of Genesis, and that message springs out of a book that’s dominated by genealogy and generations—the hope of God’s glory filling the earth through those made in his image and the ultimate hope that curse will be overcome by blessing through the work of this individual seed.

So what we’ve done is look at macrostructure and how it’s informing biblical theology today, specifically within the book of Genesis.

TK: That’s really helpful. By the way, we had Taylor DiRoberto talking about Ecclesiastes in his dissertation. You have spent quite a bit of time yourself thinking about this because this theme—at least the macrostructure—was the focus of your dissertation, wasn’t it?

JD: Well, the idea of macrostructure, not the book of Genesis structure, was a focus of my dissertation now completed twenty years ago. But it’s influenced how I approach all of Scripture—when I am thinking about biblical theology, how does the whole Bible progress and integrate, climaxing in Jesus, it all starts by understanding structure and how units are communicating and how they relate to other units to shape books, which in turn fit together with other books and create portions of our Bible like the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. And how all those units and those books and those major sections of Scripture then communicate and work together to magnify the person and work of Jesus. So biblical theology really does stem out of a careful reading of books, and that’s what we’ve tried to do today with the book of Genesis.

TK: I love it. I love it—looking for signals that the authors are sending that are not pedantic or nitpicky sort of things, but you’d say no, the authors, in this case Moses, had something in mind and he’s wanting his readers to see it. Well, go to the show notes, check it out. This will be a blessing to you. Also, just need to say, Jason, you have focused on this not in total, but your Delighting in the Old Testament. The book that came out more recently, you talk about this and also How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament—both of those talk about this in a way that is accessible for, I would think, anybody and will be a blessing to people as you read and preach and teach from this book.

JD: That’s right, Tom. Thank you for pointing that out. In “Delighting in the Old Testament,” it’s on pages 110 to 115, and in “How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament,” I discuss this feature of Genesis on pages 107 to 109. So both discussions include different elements based on the specific purpose within the book. So you’ll benefit from both of those. And, as you said, we will put a PDF for listeners in the show notes.

TK: Okay, well, Jason, blessings to you. Thanks for taking the time today.

JD: Thank you, Tom. Bye.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. Go to our show notes to download the three PDF resources related to today’s topic. For resources related to biblical theology, go to handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com.

 

The post Moses’s Chunking Strategy in Genesis appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

Hebrews 11 and Seven Fruits of Faith

Hebrews 11 and Seven Fruits of Faith Hebrews 11 and Seven Fruits of Faith

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/geartalk-jason-sermon-on-fruits.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today we’re replaying a sermon that Jason DeRouchie preached at Sovereign Joy Baptist Church on February 9, 2025. The sermon is based on Hebrews 11:23–31. As you might expect, the sermon focuses on faith. More specifically, Jason describes seven fruits of faith.

JD: Serving as one of your pastors is a great privilege and joy. I love singing with you, praying with you, and teaching you. I cherish getting to see you serve one another and to watch you delight in building relationships together. Week by week I get budget updates and by this learn that you continue to give to this work. I praise our God for every life represented in this room. I look forward to growing with you and to seeing our faith produce more and more fruit. Turn with me today to Hebrews 11:23–31, and as you do, pray with me…. Follow along as I read….

Eighteen times in this chapter we read examples of fruit that comes forth “by faith.” Faith here is a proper disposition or orientation of the heart toward God’s promises. Faith is future-oriented for in it we trust God to fulfill promises not yet realized. As it states in 11:1, faith is believing things hoped for, things yet unseen. Or again in 11:13, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.”

Throughout this chapter, faith in God leads people to pursue certain patterns of life. “By faith Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain” (11:4); “by faith Noah … constructed an ark for the saving of his household” (11:7), “by faith Abraham obeyed,” going to the land of promise (11:8). What we hope for or dread tomorrow changes who we are today. Faith is the root, obedience the fruit (Gal 5:6; Eph 6:23; 1 Thess 1:3; 2 Thess 1:11; Jas 2:18, 20, 22).

The main idea for this morning’s message is this: faith bears fruit. This passage displays seven fruits of faith in God’s promises. By faith God’s people (1) value and preserve human life, (2) refuse certain positions and pleasures and accept persecution, (3) forsake evil, (4) admit our need for forgiveness, (5) keep following God, (6) heed his Word, and (7) experience life. Faith bears fruit.

1. By Faith We Value and Preserve Human Life (v. 23)

In 11:23, the author continues his journey through Old Testament history by highlighting moments of faith related to the life of Moses, beginning with the faith of his parents. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict” (v. 23). You’ll recall how after the patriarch Jacob and his family settled in Egypt, “the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them” (Exod 1:7). A new king arose over Egypt who didn’t know Joseph, and he sought to contain Israel first by oppression through forced labor and then by demanding the Hebrew midwives kill all male babies. But when neither decree was effective at halting Israel’s growth, Pharoah commanded the Egyptians to cast “every son that is born to the Hebrews … into the Nile” (Exod 1:22). Like the murdering serpent in the garden who sought to kill God’s son, Pharaoh sought to destroy a potential future army of Israelites who could stand against him.

We then immediately read about an offspring of a woman, recalls the promised male deliverer who would crush the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15). “Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months” (Exod 2:1–2). To say the child was “fine” or “beautiful” could simply point to the fact that, in an age of high infant death, Moses was healthy and flourishing. But I think it likely points to more.

Stephen, reflecting on this same passage in Acts 7:20, says that the baby Moses “was beautiful to God,” helping us recognize that the parents sought to preserve his life not because he was cute or in good physical condition but because they knew God valued him and had shaped him with purpose. Therefore, following in the paths of the midwives who “feared God” and stood against Pharaoh’s command to kill the Hebrew boys (Exod 1:17, 21), Moses’s parents hid him from the Egyptians, not fearing the serpent-king’s edict. They knew if the Egyptians learned of their civil disobedience, they and their boy would be killed. Yet they valued Moses’s life as one made in God’s image, and they treasured by faith God’s pledge of a coming serpent crusher. Faith leads us to value and preserve human life for God’s saving purposes regardless of the cost (Heb 11:23).

I think of Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) whose Christian father by faith led his family during World War II to hide Jews in their home from the Nazis. In time the family was found out, and both Corrie and her sister were sent to various concentration camps, the last being Ravensbrück, a woman’s labor camp in Germany. Corrie’s sister died in the camp, but then a clerical error allowed Corrie to be released just one week before all the women in her age group were sent to the gas chambers. The sisters’ teaching and relentless love had led many of these women to Jesus. By faith they rescued Jews; by faith they went to prison; by faith many of their fellow inmates were saved. Faith leads us to value and preserve human life for God’s saving purposes regardless of the cost (v. 23).

2. By Faith We Refuse Certain Positions and Pleasures
and Accept Persecution (vv. 24–26)

The Nile was to be the place of death for Israel’s sons, but God used Moses’s own little “ark” to save him from the judgment waters that brought him to be adopted and raised as son of Pharaoh’s daughter (Exod 2:10). At this time, Egypt was the elite empire of the ancient world, which means that Moses as grandson of Pharaoh would have been trained in the highest schools, becoming equipped in languages, literature, science, history, politics, international diplomacy, war, and economics––all features that equipped him to lead a nation. As Stephen later says, “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7:22).

Into this context, Exod 2:11 notes, “When Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.” Moses authored Exodus, and twice here he says that the Hebrews and not the Egyptians were his people. Having witnessed an Egyptian battering a fellow Israelite, Moses “struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (2:12). Then the next day he again went to his people and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the man in the wrong why he was being so mean, and he responded, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exod 2:12–14). Stephen tells us that Moses “supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not” (Acts 7:25).

Even as an adult with all the prestige and power of the king’s house, Moses remembered his roots and rejected Egypt. He would have recalled the faith-filled stories his parents had told him of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah. He knew Abraham’s offspring nation would inherit the land, and he believed the promises that Abraham’s individual offspring would one day inherit the gate of his enemies and bless the world (Gen 12:1–3; 17:4–8; 22:17–18; 26:3–4). So, Hebrews 11:24–25 declares: “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”

Moses’s position in Egypt’s royal house granted him ease, safety, security, power, and pleasures unenjoyed by his oppressed Hebrew brothers. But he recognized that identifying with Egypt would have been apostasy, for he would have been embracing self-rule and self-reliance and rejecting God’s word, ways, purposes, and people. So, Moses chose “to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” Sin is pleasurable, but only for a time (cf. 1 John 2:16–17). The selfishness of sin in time isolates us from others. The guilt of sin stains us with shame. And repentance and forgiveness in Jesus are the only way to find cleansing and freedom, hope and healing. We must be born again.

What drove Moses, by faith, to turn from Egypt to embrace God’s people? Verse 26 says that “he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” This is the only time that Christ explicitly appears in this chapter, which is striking in view of its focus on faith. In John’s Gospel Jesus stressed that the Scriptures “bear witness” about him and that “Moses … wrote” of him (John 5:39, 46). Hence, Moses hoped in Jesus’s coming and was among the “many prophets and righteous people [who] longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matt 13:17). So, the phrase “the reproach of Christ” could mean the reproach Moses willingly took on for Christ’s sake (Luke 14:33; 1 Pet 4:14) and for Christ’s glory (Phil 3:7–8). But I think there is more going on here.

Specifically, I think “the reproach of Christ” means reproach like Christ would endure from the hands of those who stood against God and his saving purposes for the world (cf. Ps 69:9; Rom 15:3). The disgrace and disapproval Moses took on in identifying with Israel foreshadowed the suffering Christ himself would endure on behalf of the many, and Moses consciously and intentionally stepped into this pain for the cause of God’s plan of salvation that would climax in the cross of Christ. Using the same term for “reproach,” Hebrews 13:12–13 says that, because “Jesus … suffered … to sanctify the people through his own blood … let us go to him … and bear the reproach he endured” (cf. 12:1–3). Moses knew Jesus would suffer to save many, and Moses identified with him and with Israel for the same cause. In Paul’s language, Moses recognized that in choosing to be persecuted by Egypt, he would be “carrying in [his] body the death of Jesus” (2 Cor 4:10; cf. Col 1:24) and thus displaying the type of abuse Jesus himself would endure to save a people for God.

And why did Moses do this? “He was looking to the reward” (Heb 11:26). Verse 6 told us that the faith that pleases God believes “that he rewards those who seek him.” God’s promises clarify our reward, and they motivate the life of faith. What we hope for tomorrow changes who we are today. Moses believed that aligning with God’s people would bring something better than fleeting pleasure, and this conviction motivated him even to suffer for Christ’s sake. As Paul said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18). This is the power of God’s promises. So, I summarize: faith leads us to refuse certain positions and pleasures and accept persecution to identify with God and his people (Heb 11:24–26).

3. By Faith We Fearlessly Forsake Evil (v. 27)

Look at verse 27: “By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for endured as seeing him who is invisible.” Once Moses found out that others were aware that he had killed the Egyptian, Exodus 2:14 says, “Then Moses was afraid, and thought, ‘Surely the thing is known.’” Yet while he was initially afraid, his faith established his resolve, and he forsook Egypt without fear of the king’s wrath. The text then says that he “endured” or held fast, as if “seeing him who is invisible.” Foundational to faith is believing that the invisible God actually exists (v. 6; cf. Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17)––the Creator of the world (Heb 1:1), the one in Majesty over all (1:3; 8:1), and the designer and builder of our future, heavenly city (11:10). And if this powerful being is with us and will never leave or forsake us (13:5), we can endure unafraid. Faith leads us fearlessly to forsake evil while holding fast to the invisible God (v. 27).

4. By Faith We Admit Our Need for Forgiveness (v. 28)

Moses’s flight from Egypt led him to the wilderness for forty years where God equipped him as a shepherd. But then God led him back to demand that Pharaoh let God’s people go. Ten plagues followed, the last of which was the killing of every firstborn in the land. To be protected from the Destroyer, God instructs Israel to kill the Passover lamb and to mark their doorposts with its blood (Exod 12:21–30). That night, Yahweh struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, but he passed over the houses marked by the blood, sparing Israel. We’re told the cries through the land were great “for there was not a house where someone was not dead” (Exod 12:30).

Our God is perfectly just and worthy of all our trust, obedience, and lives. When we fail to give him what he deserves, his justice requires that we be punished. He must make things right, and doing so demands that he shed the blood of either the sinner or a substitute (Rom 6:23). The blood of the lambs placed on the doorframes in faith protected Israel from the Destroyer. The lamb’s death stood in the place of the death of the firstborns and pointed ahead to the one of whom John the Baptizer would say, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Paul was equally explicit, declaring that “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). In Hebrews 11:28, we read that, to secure forgiveness of sins, Moses led Israel in trusting God’s provision of a substitute. “By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.” Faith leads us to admit our need for forgiveness by means of a substitute (v. 28).

5. By Faith We Keep Following God (v. 29)

After the deaths of the firstborn in Egypt, Pharaoh finally relented––at least temporarily––and freed Israel to go to the wilderness to worship Yahweh. Yet the king soon changed his mind and pursued the Hebrews, who were led by God’s glory cloud to the Red Sea. Faith bears fruit, and with water before and the Egyptians behind, Moses urged Israel, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Exod 14:13–14). With this context, we now read Hebrews 11:29: “By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.” Exodus 14:31 declares, “Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.”

Biblical faith leads us to keep following God even when life appears hopeless (v. 29). When the bills are due and the bank account is low, we believe the promise, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19; cf. Matt 6:33). When we fear the repercussions of standing true, we by faith choose not to “fear those who kill the body” but to “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell,” all the while reminding ourselves: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father…. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt 10:28–31). When we are tempted to lust, we say No to sin and Yes to purity, believing “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8). When we are overcome by the guilt of sin, those in Christ Jesus trust that “there is … now no condemnation” for “Christ Jesus is the one who died––more than that, who was raised––who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Rom 8:1, 34). And when we battle the fear of failure and not enduring, we believe the promise that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). Biblical faith leads us to keep following God even when life appears hopeless (v. 29).

Yet this faith must endure. We must keep trusting, keep believing, keep hoping. Since the mention of Moses’s birth, the author of Hebrews has simply walked through the story. But now he will skip the final forty years of Moses’s life as recorded in Exodus 16–Deuteronomy 34. Why? Because the exodus generation did not continue to believe and because of this died in the wilderness. Thus, back in chapter 3 the author of Hebrews charged:

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. (3:15–19)

Both the exodus generation and Moses himself died in the wilderness due to their lack of faith. Do not take lightly the silence in Hebrews 11 regarding Israel’s time in the wilderness; instead, take it as a warning. As the author already said back in chapter 3, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God…. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Heb 3:12, 14). Do not stop believing like Israel did but instead walk by faith. Faith leads us to keep following God even when life appears hopeless (11:29).

6. By Faith We Heed God’s Word (v. 30)

Following Moses’s death, God takes Israel into the promised land under Joshua’s leadership. God declares to him, “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life…. I will not leave you or forsake you” (Josh 1:5). Israel’s first conflict arose against the city of Jericho just north of the Dead Sea. God commanded Israel to march around the city once per day for six days with the priests blowing trumpets before the ark-throne of God. On the seventh day, they were to circle it seven times as the priests sounded their trumpets (John 6:2–4). And this is what Israel did. We then read that on “the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, ‘Shout, for the LORD has given you the city.’ … As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city” (Josh 6:16, 20). God’s word may not always make sense, but it’s always right. As we trust his promises and heed his Word, even miracles can happen. James tells us that Elijah, with a nature like ours, prayed for God to withhold rain, and for 3.5 years the skies were like iron. Then he prayed again, and the rains came and the earth bore fruit (Jas 5:17–18). Therefore, James urges elders to pray over the sick, and promises, “the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up” (Jas 5:15). “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days” (Heb 11:30). Faith leads us to heed God’s Word even if it seems strange, knowing God can work miracles (v. 30).

7. By Faith We Experience Life (v. 31)

After Israel captured the city of unbelieving, unrepentant rebels, everyone was killed except one woman and her family. Earlier, before Israel had even crossed into the promised land, Joshua had sent two spies to scope it out. They found haven in Jericho in the home of a prostitute named Rahab. When questioned by the city administration, she deceived them by claiming the men had already left the town and should be searched for. Having protected the men, she then declared her faith in Yahweh (Josh 2:9–14). Rather than rebelling against the Lord’s authority like the rest of Jericho, she sought refuge in his glorious power, trusting that those aligned with him would live.

And so, while the walls fell and Jericho was destroyed, the text says, “Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho” (Josh 6:25). Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, is the only woman other than the matriarch Sarah who is named in Hebrews 11 (but see v. 35). While she was a Canaanite, she was treated like an Israelite because, as it says in verse 31, she “by faith … did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

Faith leads us to experience life after turning from sin and aligning with God’s cause (v. 31). Regardless of your past, this day you can put your hope in God and find the life that Rahab enjoyed. Rahab was the mother of Boaz, great grandmother of King David, and one of the great women of faith through whom God brought the Messiah (see Matt 1:5). A Canaanite prostitute believed and now lives, and the call of this text is to ensure that you will see her and not fail to keep believing and keep following like the exodus generation in the wilderness.

Believing God’s promises bears fruit in our lives (2 Pet 1:4; cf. 2 Cor 7:1). His promises motivate our actions, and what we hope for or dread tomorrow changes who we are today. Faith bears fruit.

By Faith We Value and Preserve Human Life Regardless of the Cost (v. 23).By Faith We Refuse Certain Positions and Pleasures to Identify with God and His People (vv. 24–26).By Faith We Fearlessly Forsake Evil While Holding Fast to God (v. 27).By Faith We Admit Our Need for Forgiveness by Means of a Substitute (v. 28).By Faith We Follow God Even When Life Appears Hopeless (v. 29).By Faith We Heed God’s Word Even If It Seems Strange, Knowing God Can Work Miracles (v. 30).By Faith We Experience Life after Turning from Sin and Aligning with God’s Cause (v. 31).

Believe God’s promises today, remembering always that true faith bears fruit.

Lord’s Supper

As the music team comes forward and we transition to communion, I wonder if there are any of these fruits of faith for which your heart longs to see more evident in your life: (1) valuing and preserving human life; (2) refusing certain positions or pleasures; (3) fearlessly forsaking evil; (4) admitting your need for forgiveness; (5) following God; (6) heeding his Word; (7) experiencing life. Today, if you hear his voice, believe that he will never leave you or forsake you. Believe that perseverance will result in great reward. Believe that lasting life can be enjoyed by all who hope in him.

This bread and this cup represent true hope for life and a future if you put your trust in Jesus. All who have confessed with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believed in their hearts that God raised him from the dead and who have been baptized are welcome to enjoy this table. Hold the element until the song is concluded, and then we will partake together. Pray by faith today, asking God to let that faith bear fruit. As the music team goes through the first song, feel free to let your lips remain silent and to let your heart reach out to God in faith. Jesus died and Jesus rose that we might hope for growth and lasting life by faith.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For resources related to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com.

On Moses’s household being grounded in generational faith, see Gen 15:6 and Exod 6:2.

The post Hebrews 11 and Seven Fruits of Faith appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

The Close Context

The Close Context The Close Context

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger | The Prophets

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/close-context-3-final-cut-geartalk.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today, Tom and Jason continue our series on the prophets. Last week, we talked about three contexts. The preacher, teacher, or reader needs to consider when reading the prophets. We talked about the close, the continuing, and the complete context. Today, we talk about the close context.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. I am Tom. I am with Jason, and we are talking about the prophets. We talked about it last week, and we laid a foundation, talking about the major, major spot we were at. Jason was talking about context. So you talked about three contexts.

JD: That’s right, Tom, and we’re going to focus on the first of these, the close context, which is the passage’s immediate historical and literary setting. So I’m a Christian preacher, and I open up a biblical Old Testament prophet, and I find a passage that I want to preach, and I want to propose the first step is to be thinking about the close context. That is, what’s happening historically, and at an even more important level, what does my passage contribute to this book? If I was to take my passage away from this book, what would be lost? What is it contributing to the overall flow and message within the immediate literary setting?

TK: And your assumption there is it does contribute something otherwise it wouldn’t be there, correct?

JD: That’s right. God has given us these words, and every word matters. It’s not just words. He’s communicated texts, thought units that are to be read together, and then he’s placed them in succession within a book, and they’re all tied together with main ideas and supporting ideas, and it’s our responsibility to know with any passage that we’re preaching, what are the historical details and the historical—the function of those details within my passage, and how does my passage fit within its broader setting? What comes before, what comes after? If I have a grand outline of the whole book, what role is my passage playing in the overarching argument? That is, this is a preacher. He’s shaping a sermon or a book that includes many sermons, and God intends us to gain something from this book. And as we preach, we want to have in mind our goal is to preach, as if preaching the very oracles of God, 1 Peter 4:11, to understand what is this, what is the point of this particular prophets message?

TK: I asked you a question last week, and I said, I’m sitting down in my quiet time reading the Bible, and one of the first questions maybe a lot of us have had thoughts like this is, “I don’t get how this applies to me,” and I said, I think you’d say at this point that’s not to be your first question.

JD: That’s right, before we can ask the question of application, we need to be concerned with meaning, and the first step of meaning demands an assessment of the close context.

TK: All right, we’ll get us there. How do you start? And we want to actually have, so I don’t know how much we’ll be able to get into it today, but be able to say, here’s an example, here’s how you would do it. So Zephaniah would be a book that we picked, say, we’re going to use examples from this book. Jason, where do you start looking for the close context of a book in the prophets that you’re preaching?

JD: Well, close context, number one, we want to know that the prophets themselves were operating within history. These are men of their times who are writing in a context with specific problems, perspectives, powers, practices, and they’re engaging them. Every prophet grows up with a superpower. It could be Egypt in the days of Moses, or it could be Assyria in the days of Isaiah. If we’re talking about a non-writing prophet like Elijah, or before him, Samuel, then we’re talking about when Israel was the superpower in the ancient world. Following Isaiah in the days of Assyria, we could jump ahead to the period of Jeremiah, or Zephaniah. When Babylon is on the rise, and Assyria is waning, and then when we come to the final prophets of the Old Testament, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, we’re talking about the age of Persia.

So major superpowers that are informing the prophets from the outside, but what’s also informing them is the state of Israel’s situation within Israel itself. So all the classical writing prophets, the earliest being Jonah, the last being Malachi, they’re writing during a 340-year period. 770 is Jonah, 433 is roughly Malachi, and this is the age where you have the divided kingdom. Northern kingdom of Israel, southern kingdom of Judah, all of them supposed to be Yahweh followers, but certainly the North is going wayward in paths of idolatry. After 723, the northern kingdom gets destroyed. And so while you still have certain impoverished Israelites, among the ancient tribes, the 10 northern tribes, all that’s left after 723 as an institution is Judah in the south, centered in Jerusalem. And these are factors that inform our reading of the prophets. Up to 723, Judah is struggling in poverty and the northern kingdoms surrounding Samaria is experiencing massive wealth, massive international influence. And that informs why books like Hosea and Amos are dealing not simply with materialism, but massive abuse of the poor. And that’s not a major issue in Isaiah and Micah, who are preaching at the exact same time, but they are preaching from Judah, which is—so my point is that the history is indeed influencing these texts.

TK: Where am I going to find that, Jason? I have opened my Bible to a book, and he’s not saying right at verse 1 of that prophecy, “Here’s my historical situation” in as clear of terms as you said it, but there are clues in the book, and then there’s helps outside. So where would you start? If you said, “Yep, I’m kind of starting ground zero with this particular prophet, where do you go?”

TK: Well, first stop would be whatever the book’s heading is. Most of the prophets have a heading. Looking at Zephaniah, the Word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah, and then it gives us a five-person genealogy, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah. That’s king Hezekiah, and Zephaniah is his great, great grandson. But then it says, “In the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, King of Judah.” And this is informative to us because we can pause it from the book of Kings, when Josiah would have reigned, and not only when he reigned, but what was specifically happening in those days of Josiah, the other king that’s mentioned, Ammon, one of the most wicked kings in Judah’s history. And the son of Manasseh, who was the most wicked king in Judah’s history. So Zephaniah is born during these days, and it tells us he’s got a troubled situation. He’s growing up in a very dark, dark time in Judah’s history. And if we just go seeing the name, Josiah, the son of Ammon, and go look up the story, and it might mean, okay, I’m going to open up the book of Kings, and I’m just going to start paging through. And because I may not even know quite where to find it. But the divided kingdom comes in 2 Kings, because the Second Kings opens with Solomon, overseeing the complete monarchy, and it’s only a punishment that God gives him for his idolatry, that the kingdom gets divided in the first place. So I have only got to look through the book of Second Kings, and I would be coming up to Second Kings 22 when I read the name Josiah. And just the heading in the ESV, Josiah reigns in Judah. Then, next heading, Josiah repairs the temple. Then, Hilkiah finds the book of the Law. And the book of the Law is shorthand. It seems for the book of Deuteronomy. That’s the title that Moses himself gives the book that he writes on a scroll. He calls it the book of the Law. So one of the factors, as I’m entering into Zephaniah, is I’m wondering, okay, during the days of Josiah, the book of the Law is found. And this is the book of Deuteronomy. And I wonder if there’s any instances where Deuteronomy appears to be influencing Zephaniah’s preaching. Because most likely, that book would not have influenced his preaching if he was preaching before the book of the Law was found. Because it had been buried during the reigns of Manasseh and Ammon. And nobody wanted to listen to Moses. Nobody wanted to hear God’s Word. And yet, in the days of Josiah, when he finds that book of the Law, it grips his heart. He realizes, I have sinned against God. All of a sudden, he knows the instructions that God has given for Israel as a nation to live by. And the guidelines that he’s placed for what the king is supposed to do and be. And the detestability of things like idolatry.

And so in a book like Second Kings, in chapter 23, we find out that Hezekiah initiates a massive reform. And many of the sins that he addresses are actually spoken of directly in the book of Zephaniah.

TK: And this didn’t take any language work for you in Hebrew to discover this. You just went to kings.

JD: Right. And so I haven’t looked at a study Bible yet. All I’ve done is looked at verse 1 and said, I want to try to be able to put Zephaniah on the map. Maybe I’d take the time to read these 53 verses. It’ll take about nine minutes to just read through the book out loud in English. So that’s not a big task. You could do that in your morning devotions if you’ve got 30 minutes. Well, you could spend your first morning in Zephaniah reading the book out loud and then saying, I want to know something about this history. Who’s this king, Josiah? And what do we know about him from the book of kings? Because Zephaniah the prophets not mentioned in the book of kings, but Josiah is. And so we begin to fill things out. And one of the elements of something that I might do is say, okay, this book of the Law, it appears that people think that that was Deuteronomy, then I might go back to Zephaniah. And I look at the cross references that are in the margin of my Bible that the translators have placed there. And I might say, are there any cross references that point me to Deuteronomy? And as I’m walking through the book, sure enough, you’re going to find a handful of them that the translators have said, this looks like Deuteronomy is being used. And all of a sudden that could inform my understanding of when Zephaniah may have been preaching, after the book of the Law was found, and yet before the reform movements of Josiah had really taken effect because Zephaniah is preaching against so many of the same sins that Josiah as king was trying to reform the nation from.

TK: I like this, I like that I can look at one, and I can do some homework on my own to just kind of get my bearings. And I also like reading the book, and I’m just thinking a lot of us would read it and think, “Okay, I have whole sections, I’m not quite sure what it’s talking about here.” But the goal here in that first read-through is not complete understanding. It’s just to actually read through the book.

JD: That’s right. And we would only have to get to verse six in chapter one, and we’d see a number of parallels with 2 Kings 23. Zephaniah simply says, I’ll stretch out my hand against Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem. That suggests Zephaniah was a Judean prophet, and even 1:1 said he was preaching during the reign of Josiah king of Judah. So God says, “I’ll stretch out my hand against Judah, against the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I’ll cut off from this place the remnant of Baal.” And I don’t have to know much to know, okay, well, Baal was a God of idol—that’s an idolatrous God, that was a God of the Canaanites. And clearly, there’s people, people are worshiping. Yes, people are worshiping in Judah, they are worshiping Baal, so that Zephaniah could even call him a remnant of Baal worshipers. And then it says that he’s going to punish, that God’s going to punish priests who are engaged in idolatry. And those who bow down to the host of the heavens, and those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom. And I might say, I don’t know who Milcom is, but it sounds like parallel to Yahweh, the Lord, maybe he’s another god.

And as you go into 2 Kings 23, you’d find out that wow, this bowing down on the roost to the host of the heavens, there were star worshipers that Josiah’s house cleaning of Judah targeted, and there were priests that he killed for their idolatry. And the Israelites in his day were worshiping many gods of the nations. And so all of a sudden, I’m getting historical details that are informing my reading, and I’m not gaining them from a Bible dictionary, though you could do that. You just have to remember that the Bible dictionary finds its answers in the very text of Scripture. So even rather than being a second-hander and going to see what someone else in a Bible dictionary or in a study Bible has said, you could be doing your own work by simply following the trail and reading 2 Kings 23 and reading Zephaniah and seeing the two working together with all the prophets. That’s what I would be doing. I’d want to be seeing the historical backdrop that the authors of Scripture, these prophets are expecting us to know. They know the history, and they’re living it out, and God has allowed us to read that history as the inspired interpretation of what was going on in space and time. We’re getting God’s perspective on the days of Josiah in the Book of Second Kings. And we can see that the same God who gives us the prophet Zephaniah, indeed it opens by saying the Word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah. This is God’s inspired Word through the prophet who has a time in history, and we can go to the rest of the Bible to try to figure out what we can learn and what might inform our teaching and preaching, our devotional time in the Book of Zephaniah.

TK: That’s really good. I think as you kind of work through this and that thought of your starting with just hopefully some things though, you could say I already can put some things on the map. I know certain things about what prophets in general do. You mentioned it last week that we should think of them as covenant enforcers, covenant policemen I’ve heard people say that the Mosaic covenant is in their mind, and they are pointing—the prophets in general point towards the Mosaic covenant. So if my category is they’re only prophets only talk about the future, that’s not telling the whole story of what prophets do, it’s not even telling most of what they do.

JD: That’s right. I mean when these prophets were preachers in an age, they were declaring truths and very specifically that the language of covenant enforcer, I’m drawing that from the biblical text itself. Texts like Second King 17 that says the Lord warned Israel in Judah by every prophet and every seer saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with the law that I commanded your fathers. The law is the covenant law, the commandments and statues of the commandments and statutes of the covenant. It then says, “They despised his statues and his covenant that he made with their fathers and they went after false idols and became false.” This is what the prophets are proclaiming. Or I could go to Jeremiah 23 where God confronts the false prophets and he says, “I didn’t send the prophets yet they ran. I didn’t speak to them yet they prophesied, but if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people.” That’s how we understand what Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Nahum and Habakkuk were doing. They were individuals who actually got transported as it were into the heavenly counsel where God is seated on the throne and he’s giving instructions to his messengers of what to do or what to proclaim. And that’s what God’s prophets are. And in time when they prophesied short term events like the destruction of Samaria in the north or the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah in the south and those events came to pass all of a sudden, the listeners, the watchers of these prophets grew to know who were the true prophets of Yahweh and who the false prophets were. And I think that’s actually how we got our Bibles Tom, the way that we have retained these 15 prophets from history and we don’t have the words of the false prophets is because the short term prophecies were shown to be true. And so people recognize these, this is indeed the Word of God. And if the short term prophecies were true that were fulfilled during Old Testament days, then the longer term prophecies that are fulfilled in New Testament days, we should believe are also true.

TK: When I’m going through Zephaniah, Zephaniah is not kings. So that could be a temptation is just to almost replicate what you just described in the book of kings. And here’s the situation. Here’s notice, notice there’s a remnant here, whatever, but it’s very different. And there’s a word that people associate with how the prophets speak. The word is an oracle. So can you help us think about that a little bit? What we’re finding in a book?

JD: Yeah.

TK: Because it’s not just straight history and that’s for me, that’s easier to read. So and so did so and so did so and so. But after verse one, that’s not what I’m getting.

JD: That’s right. So if the first step in the close context, assessing the close context is to know that the prophets operated within history, the second step is to know the boundaries and nature of the prophetic speech. So this is why when we go into Scripture, the prophetic word, we’re often reading things like “thus says the Lord” or “the declaration or utterance of Yahweh.” And these statements, these introductory statements set us up for units of thought called oracles that are to be read together. Oracle is simply a word meaning a message from God and an oracle could relate to the present, it could relate to the future, but it’s a specially given message, whether by dream or by vision or by wrestling with earlier Scripture that God gives to be proclaimed as a lasting word for all time. I think of a text like Jeremiah 30 where God says, this is what we read, “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord.” Sorry, “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.” So that’s an introductory statement. It tells us, okay, we’re moving into a new, a new part of this book and then it says, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, write in a book, all the words that I have spoken to you.” So all of a sudden, we were seeing a statement about how Scripture was written. The word comes to the prophet first and now God says, I want you to listen to what I’m saying and write it down in a book. All the words that I have spoken to you. And then he gives the reason why, and this is fascinating Tom, he gives the reason why he should write it down. “Write in a book, all the words that I have spoken to you for behold, days are coming declares the Lord when I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and Judah and I’ll bring them back to the land.” Now what’s amazing in a book like Jeremiah is nobody wanted to listen to Jeremiah.

TK: Right.

JD: he‘s called the whaling prophet because he is suffered so greatly. They don’t want to listen to his words. So the king cuts up his scroll and throws it in the fire. They don’t want to listen to his words. So they take him and throw him into a pit so that nobody has to listen anymore. “Write the words down in a book, Jeremiah, for behold, days are coming when I will restore the fortunes of my people.” That suggests that Jeremiah already knew that his book was less for his day and more for that future restoration community. “Write it in a book today because in the future I’m going to bring a people who will listen.” So, an oracle is this designated sermon, as it were, with a set beginning and ending that were to read as a whole. And as we’re walking through the prophets, one of the key steps for a teacher or preacher would be saying I want to try to identify where the beginning and the end of an oracle is so that when I’m seeking to interpret it, even if it’s too long for me to preach in one message, although that would be ideal if you could do that (if it’s small enough). But even if I’ve got to preach it, you know, over multiple weeks, a single oracle, as would probably be the case with Zephaniah, which is only one specific speech acted appears, not multiple sermons or oracles stitched together, but just one sermon on one oracle. It’s probably too much to preach in a week. I want to be remembering that I’ve got to be thinking about the whole together. It’s like an independent poem in the in the Psalms. You want to be able to understand that that poem that has a beginning and an end and oracle has a beginning and an end and it usually has a signal like “Thus says the Lord.” In the book of Zephaniah, all we read is at the beginning, “The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah” and then the sermon starts and then we go all the way to the end of the book and it simply says, “The Lord has said,” that’s my translation, “the Lord has said.” So the beginning, “the word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah” and then at the end, “the Lord has said.” That’s what we, so it’s framed and even when we’re going through the book, there’s these punches that we get these, these emphases that says, “declares the Lord, declares the Lord,” but we don’t have any within the book anymore, thus says the Lord. But in a bigger book like Isaiah or Jeremiah, we get those a number of times and they can be signals that, okay, here’s a, here’s a beginning and I need to be aware that everything following this shapes a unit and I need to read it together.

I would add Tom that another key thing to think about when you’re looking at the prophets is not only the oracles, the beginning and the end, but the types of speech within those oracles. And there’s basically four different kinds, and this is where we really get a sense that these prophets were preachers, both proclaiming a word for the present. And predicting a word about the future. Four different types of prophetic speech. Number one indictment: This is where the offenses made clear and those offenses are stated almost always in direct relation to things that Moses had already preached. Like Isaiah or Amos were not coming up with their own rules for right and wrong. They already had a Bible that defined it. Moses had given instruction and so when they confront their audiences on sin, it’s sin that was already laid out in the Law. And so they’re specifically noting covenant stipulations that have been violated.

TK: We have in our developing leaders curriculum. This is the curriculum you can access this on hand still plowed dot or G, but a picture of a prophet and he’s talking to a group of people. We have a way of designating that most of them are not listening in this illustration Mark did. But he’s pointing back to Mount Sinai and the mountain is really clear. Like we have no question that the prophet fully knows what he’s talking about and he’s talking. He’s pointing at something specific talking to the people about it. Later on, he’s going to point forward towards a cross, but the cross is fuzzy in that picture. Jesus hasn’t come yet. So he hasn’t seen the future as clearly as he’s seen the past. But that thought of an indictment there, a statement of the offense. This is what you have done.

JD: Yeah, in a book like Zephaniah you could go to chapter three and he’s talking to Judah and he says, whoa to her who is rebellious and defiled the oppressing city. This is Jerusalem. She listens to no voice. She accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord. She does not draw near to her God and then he begins to target the officials. Her officials within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves that leave nothing till the morning. Elsewhere, the leaders in Israel are called shepherds that are supposed to care for the flock. But now they’re being portrayed as beasts who are feeding on the flock. Zephaniah says, “Her prophets are fickle treacherous men. Her priests profane what is holy. They do violence to the law.” So in Leviticus 10:10 we learn the priests are supposed to distinguish the holy from the common and then they’re supposed to teach God’s statutes in Israel. But instead, Zephaniah confronts them. He indicts them for profaning what is holy and doing violence to the law. So it’s a type of speech.

A second type of speech would be instruction where rather than saying this is what you’ve done wrong, this is what you should be doing. Simply clarifying the expected response and often this comes in the form of simply teaching what Moses had already taught. This is what you should be doing. This is how you should be living. And within this book it comes in the form of “seek the Lord. Seek the Lord all you humble of the land, who have heeded his judgment. Seek righteousness. Seek humility.” Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord. So that context of righteousness right order in God’s world as he defines it. Where he’s always at the top. Seek righteousness. Moses is big on righteousness. And what does righteousness look like in the household? What does it look like in the community? What does it look like for administration? And Zephaniah is simply giving the instruction. This is what you should be doing. Seeking the Lord. Seeking righteousness. Turning from arrogance. And seeking humility. This is the second type of speech act.

But then maybe this is the third and fourth types of speeches. This is actually what people often think of when they’re thinking of the prophets. The warnings. And the promises of restoration. That is the declarations of punishment and the declarations of salvation. And here the authors are drawing on both covenant curses from Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. And then the restoration blessings of what would happen after the days of exile. And after the days of punishment when God would restore his people. And Zephaniah includes both of these warnings of punishment and these promises of restoration. And he packages them. He captures them in the context of what he calls the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is coming in fiery flames. In punishment. But after the punishment comes a new creation will dawn. And the world will be renewed. And Zephaniah has a framework for both realities. Both punishment and restoration. And in the process he’s drawing on curses and restoration blessings from books like Deuteronomy. And so that helps us see him. And we’re going to have, when we get into the continuing context, we’re going to talk about Zephaniah’s use of Scripture. But right here all we’re doing is saying there’s different parts to books. And we want to be thinking about the structure of these books. And the different types of prophetic speeches that are given so that we can rightly understand what’s happening. And Zephaniah as a whole is principally an exhortation for the audience to seek the Lord together in order to avoid punishment. And then to wait for the Lord to enjoy salvation. Those are the two sides to the day of the Lord. And we would, as we entered into this book of Zephaniah, we’d see that there’s two main areas where he gives commands. And if we could summarize those commands and then consider how those commands are motivated, we would see that he’s principally saying, seek the Lord together. “All you remnant in Judah and from other lands seek the Lord together to avoid punishment and wait for the Lord to enjoy salvation.”

TK: In your Bible, Jason, do you read with a pencil or anything? And are you marking up or passages? So we have a list of types of speech. We talked about four types, indictment, instruction, warning, punishment, or restoration salvation. Are you somehow doing your homework that you can go back and look at it and say, okay, that’s what I was reading here?

JD: Yes, I use a pen in my Bible, and very often I am going through the prophets, and I’ll put a full bracket around an entire paragraph and I’ll say restoration. Or I’ll put a bracket around a paragraph and note punishment. Instruction, I’ll be putting passages from Leviticus or Deuteronomy that I’ll be writing them in my margin, where it seems to me likely there’s an illusion happening or there’s a quotation happening. And so I’m trying to really recognize, as I’m walking through the biblical text, yes, how is Zephaniah talking? Where’s the main thrust of his argument? In Zephaniah, he opens up with this massive portrayal of the day of the Lord, but even the day of the Lord is the basis for the need for Israel to revere God. In verse seven of chapter one, it says, be silent before the Lord God for the day of the Lord is near. So many, many times, Bibles will just have a heading over chapter one that says something like the day of the Lord, but actually chapter one is a call to revere God. That’s the main idea. That’s the main goal. Revere God because of the nearness of the day of the Lord. It is coming, and specifically in chapter one, it’s coming as a day of punishment, so that it’s supposed to even arrest our souls the great day of the Lord is near. “A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements.” This portrayal of the day of the Lord is supposed to awaken in our souls this sense of dread, and what we dread tomorrow is supposed to change who we are today. And a right preaching would recognize this, and then we would move on in Zephaniah and we’d see, oh, now we’re coming to commands, “gather together, yes, gather, oh, shameless nation, seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, seek righteousness, seek humility,” and as a teacher and a preacher, when I get to these points in a book, I’m saying, okay, now I’m understanding this is the main idea of the book, this is the main exhortation. Everything else—the portrayal of the day of the Lord—is designed to motivate me to seek the Lord now. And then when we get to the end of the book, he’s going to say, wait for the Lord, wait for me for the day when I rise up. And I don’t think he’s saying, wait for me, when I get home, you’re going to get punished. No, he’s talking to the remnant again, wait for me. And then he gives two reasons for I am going to punish the nations. It might seem like everything’s delayed, but I’m going to take sin seriously, keep waiting. And then he says, “Wait for me for at that time, I will change the speech of the peoples to appear speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.” The motivation for waiting on God, patiently trusting in God to act is that the day is coming when he will restore. And the entire end of chapter three is just loaded with one of the most beautiful portrayals of the age of the Messiah, what I believe is the church age, an international people of God gathered around the throne, protected by God the warrior and celebrating their salvation.

So we’ve already began to consider here, Tom, number three. So number one in the close context, studying the close context was know that the prophets operated within history. Number two was know the boundaries and nature of the prophetic speech. Or number three is, know the oracles, the specific units of thought, and then the type of speech that’s being given. And then number four is know the function of the prophetic speech within the flow of the book. And so that’s where I’m highlighting these, like the flow and recognizing that the statements of punishment and the statements of restoration are actually the way they’re functioning within the flow of the book is to serve as motivation for a higher level command that we’re being called to obey. And in 2:1 and 3, the command can be summarized, seek the Lord together. And then what surrounds it is the motivation because of the state and the fate of the rebels from the surrounding nations and the rebels in Jerusalem itself. In light of what God is going to do in taking sin seriously, seek the Lord together, while he still can be found. And then you move to the command, “wait for me, wait for me.” And what’s the motivation there that we are to wait for the Lord? It’s this amazing portrayal of redemption, new creational redemption. And we’re going to talk more about that. But right now my point is, as we’re considering the close context, we’re thinking about these three areas. We’re thinking about history. We’re thinking about the type of oracle and the boundaries of the oracle. And then we’re thinking, well, what’s the function of the specific type of speech within the flow of the book? This is close context. I’m trying to see what comes before the passage that I’m going to preach, what comes after, and what exactly—what role is my passage playing in contributing to the authors overall purposes?

TK: Or to put it an opposite way which you already mentioned. If I took it out, what would be the cost to this book? What do we lose?

JD: That’s right. If we take it out, what would be lost? So as we look at the whole book of Zephaniah, I break it down into these sections. 1:1 is just the heading: as the Savior King invites people through his commands, invites them to a life of satisfaction, saving satisfaction.

JD: And you didn’t know that at the, at the, before you go through the book, you don’t know the, okay, what’s the, how am I going to summarize this? you’re, you’re saying though, I’m seeing, I’m seeing a separate section here and based on what you see further, that’s where you get the saving satisfaction. Yeah, as I’m looking through the book as a whole, I’m seeing that it’s pointing me like the highest level motivation comes at the end of the book and it’s this vision of renewal where God is delighting in his people and his people are delighting in their salvation. So it’s this invitation to satisfaction that Zephania is making. And so I, I begin to shape an outline for this book that is surrounding that theme of the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction. And we’ve got the main heading in 1:1 and then the setting for the invitation. The invitation actually doesn’t start until the commands come in chapter two. And we see commands in two one and three and then another command in chapter three verse eight. So the setting in chapter one that is so focused on the day of the Lord, but not just the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord provides the context for the need to revere God. And so I, I say the setting of the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction is this call to revere God in view of his coming day.

But then we get down into the substance of the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction. That’s the really the body of the book, Tom. It’s chapters two and three and we see it comes in the form of two stages. Stage one is related to the first set of commandments and this appeal to seek the Lord together to avoid punishment. And then from chapter three verse eight and following, you get the appeal to wait for the Lord in order to enjoy salvation. And then at the very end of the book, just that closing little statement “says the Lord,” you get the, the closing to the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction. And I’ve begun to set an understanding of how do I understand all the parts of this book? How do they all fit together? And, and then I can say, well, what’s my particular passage that I’m wanting to preach? What’s it contributing to the whole?

JD: And you, you were saying in Zephaniah, you, you thought, might be, it might be too much to preach in one sermon. So then you’re, you’re deciding where, where to break it. That’s right. Even in a 53 verse book, I’ve preached Zephaniah in 15 sermons, but I’ve also preached Zephaniah in five sermons. And I think five is probably a great way to start. It’s hard in Christianity today to have preachers even preach more than one sermon for each of the 12 Minor Prophets. But I want to propose that we should be thinking more because this is Christian Scripture. Be thinking more about preaching Zephaniah just the same way that we would preach Ephesians. Give it the same type of weight and wrestle hard to understand how is it Christian Scripture? How is it that Zephaniah proclaimed the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow? And the forgiveness that we enjoy today. How is it that, as Paul says in Romans 1, that he was set apart for the gospel of God, the gospel that finds its source in God, which was promised beforehand through the prophets in the sacred writings concerning the Son? Paul proclaimed the gospel that was promised beforehand by the prophets concerning Jesus. And as a preacher, I want to know how do I do that? And so first step, close context, consider the history, consider the oracle and the types of speeches, prophetic speeches, and then consider how do those individual speeches contribute to the overall flow and message of the book? That’s the close context.

But we’ve got two more contexts, Tom—continuing context and complete context—that we’ll consider in future podcasts.

TK: This is really helpful. I’m thinking of myself and so many people, I know whether it’s your reading, your reading the Old Testament, or your preaching through it, your pastor leader, teaching a class, something like that, but that thought of this is too hard and it’s strange. I like your challenge here of we ought to consider this in the same way we would be preaching through Ephesians and say, all of it matters. It’s all important. And we are going to do the best we can to work our way through this book. And I would say that because of God giving us his Spirit and Spirit informed people in the history of the church, the long history of the church, to say this is actually something that we should be able to say we can do this. Not because we’re great in our own light, but because God gave it for the church, he gave it in a way therefore that we can actually get something out of it.

JD: Amen. I hope that this and the coming podcasts will help Christians be less nervous to dive into the prophetic literature. Yes, it takes time. But Paul takes time. I think of Peter saying there’s some things in Paul’s letters that are just hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction. And I want to urge Christian ministers to not be ignorant about the prophets and not be unstable in the way that they handle them. But to handle them like Peter calls us to handle Paul: with good wrestling so that we can serve our people as God intended. As Jeremiah was told, write these things in a book for that future day of restoration. And Jeremiah knew, as Peter tells us, these prophets like Jeremiah and Zephaniah knew that they were serving not themselves, but us.

TK: But us.

JD: And that’s how we need to think about, that’s how we need to be thinking about these prophets that this is Christian Scripture. It was written for us. And we want to think about what that would mean.

TK: Beautiful. Well, thank you, Jason. I look forward to our next time together.

JD: Likewise, Tom. Thanks.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. Next week, we will consider the continuing context. Make sure to check out our show notes for links related to studying the prophets. For resources connected to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com.

The post The Close Context appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

Three Contexts When Reading the Prophets

Three Contexts When Reading the Prophets Three Contexts When Reading the Prophets

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger | The Prophets

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/geartalk-2-feb-9th-2025.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. We’re starting a new series on the Prophets. This is the second section in the Old Testament. Today Tom and Jason talk about the Prophets’ audience. Who were they writing for? They also talk about the Prophets’ knowledge. How much did they know about the coming of Christ? Jason and Tom also talk about the importance of considering three different contexts when reading the Old Testament Prophets. Everyone using these books needs to consider all three of these contexts. When you’re done listening, be sure to check out our show notes for links to resources that will help you as you use the Prophets.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk, Tom and Jason here. Jason, we’re starting something new, we’re going to be going through the Prophets.

JD: We are, so we’re in Gear 2 of our structure, why we call it GearTalk. As we consider each of the major portions of our Bible as different gears working together, and we’re going to focus on Gear 2, the Prophets, specifically the focus is on interpreting the Latter Prophets. So those that we normally think of as covenant enforcers. These are messengers of the heavenly court commissioned by God with a message to speak a covenantal message, to call people back to faithfulness in their relationship with God, and a covenantal message that reaches beyond the borders of Israel to the nations, and that addresses, indeed, followers of God in all times. So we want to think about these Prophets and what it would mean that these Prophets are Christian Scripture, that Christian preachers today, living this side of the cross, are commissioned to proclaim for the glory of Christ and the good of the people.

TK: When we think of this section, this second gear, we have the Law, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, written by Moses, and then you have four books that are historical: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. And then you have the Prophets. They would have arranged them in different order, same books though, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and then The Twelve. It would be The Twelve; we call them sometimes Minor Prophets. Jason, I think a lot of us would find it easier to read, for instance, Joshua than we would Isaiah or Ezekiel or Hosea. Do you think that’s fair?

JD: I think it’s fair because we’re all drawn into stories, and when we get into the realm of dreams and visions and even very explicit Scriptures, use of Scripture, we’re not fully certain of how to handle it. I mean, these were, old covenant preachers talking to an old covenant people. So what would their sermons have to do with us? And then the simple challenge of interpreting the prophetic words that they give when they’re dealing with future realities, and there’s just all these questions regarding, how do I rightly interpret them? What are the bounds of my interpretation? What’s guiding it? What’s justifying it? How would I establish warrant for claims that I would make? Am I supposed to see these prophecies related solely to old covenant Israel? Do they in any way relate to the church today? Do they—

TK: Have they happened already?

JD: Have they been fulfilled or are they going to happen? How are we supposed to be seeing things in the 21st century that are directly spoken of in those biblical texts? There’s all these questions and if you’ve grown up in the church for any amount of time, it’s very likely that you’ve encountered things that seem maybe even strange or where you’ve heard interpretations that seem a little wacko and we’re wondering, is that right? How am I supposed to think about it? And so I think it’s more natural to be drawn to the parts of the Bible that seem clearer on the surface, which would be books like Joshua. We know what’s happening there and preaching Joshua can have its own challenges, but the story itself seems a little more clear on the surface in contrast to a book like Habakkuk.

TK: I feel like I have some footing as far as I can land myself somewhere and know, okay, this is what we’re doing. But I think our goal here is to celebrate the prophets and say, these are a gift from God, these men are a blessing to the church today and he wants us to be able to read and understand and use them and use them if we’re a parent or preacher or teacher, use them in a way with confidence, I would say. So Jason, I’m thinking we’re going to do something we talked about a little bit shorter today, just getting into this. So I’d love to ask you a few questions as we enter into the prophets. So first question for you, how do we think about the prophets in terms of what they knew? How in the dark were these men? Do they know the gospel that we have? So a presupposition I bring in, Isaiah, does he know about the cross? Jeremiah, do they—maybe not the cross itself as a means of death—but do they know about a king who’s coming and that how much of the gospel do they know? And can you prove that anywhere?

JD: Those are great questions, Tom. We could start in the Old Testament, and I think we’d want to go there, but most of our listeners are most familiar and comfortable with the New Testament and we want to affirm the New Testament claims as they’re thinking about the prophets. What did they declare was true for those prophets? We start out in a book like Acts, Peter’s sermon in Acts 3, he makes some amazing claims. What God foretold, thinking about the resurrection of the Christ, the crucifixion of Jesus, what God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that his Christ would suffer, he is fulfilled.

TK: So right there, if it could I add the word, even though it’s not there, what God foretold by the mouth of all the Old Testament prophets, just for me and understanding, that’s what he’s meaning, correct?

JD: That’s right. He is thinking about David as a prophet and I mean already at that point in the book of Acts and I’m thinking of Acts 2, he cited the book of Joel and he said, but this is what was uttered through the prophet, Joel, Acts 2:16 and he goes on and unpacks it earlier and in chapter 1, he says, speaking about Judas, “This is what was written in the book of Psalms, may his camp become desolate and let them be, let there be no one to dwell in it and let another take his office.” We have already in this book citations of Old Testament prophecy in Acts 2, he even called David a prophet, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on the throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Jesus. So when we’re talking about the prophets and the book of Acts as something, as a group through whom God spoke, it seems pretty evident that Peter is thinking of Old Testament prophets. It’s something that—these are words that had been written down that were already recognized as the Word of God, and for Peter in the early church, there’s no New Testament written yet. Jesus had just risen climaxing in his ascension. The church has just in-broke, broken into history at Pentecost. So there’s not even any New Testament revelation that has been recorded, Jesus has spoken a lot and his words are much later going to be written down, but at this point, as the history is being proclaimed, Peter is a character in the story in Acts and at that point, the only prophets that God had used to not only speak through but have written down his words were the Old Testament saints, the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah and Haggai and Malachi, those kinds of folks is what we’re talking about here that Peter says all of them. And what’s intriguing is in the coming weeks, we’re going to use Zephania as a case study Tom of interpreting Old Testament prophets and he’s a distinct example because Peter says all the prophets wrote of Christ’s sufferings, yet if you go into the 53 verses in the book of Zephaniah, you’ll never hear any mention of the Messiah explicitly, no predictions related to the coming of a royal priestly deliverer who would stand as a prophet proclaiming the Word of God, other prophets talk about such a figure. They call him a future David, the new creational branch. They call him a coming king, a shepherd, but not Zephaniah, and yet Peter in readings Zephaniah would say he was among all the prophets who foretold the sufferings of Christ and so it puts a level of pressure on the interpreter to say, how was Peter reading his Bible, how did he understand that Zephaniah spoke of Jesus’s sufferings? But the fact is that Peter simply said,

TK: He did though.

JD: He did, all the prophets, not only did all the prophets speak of Christ’s sufferings, Acts 3:18, in Acts 3:24, we see here all the prophets who have spoken since Moses from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed these days, so Moses proclaimed the days of the church, Samuel proclaimed the days of the church, and all the prophets who came after him spoke of those days. That’s a significant statement, that we read about the church age in all the prophets. We could go to Acts 10, Peter again talking and it says to Jesus all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So here it suggests all the prophets are going to be among those who spoke of the opportunity for making your life right with God to enjoy the forgiveness of sins and find reconciliation, right relationship, a declaration of right standing with God, all the prophets, and so that would that would include Ezekiel and Amos, Obediah, Nahum, these men were proclaiming the sufferings of Christ, the days of the church and the opportunity for forgiveness of sins, so that’s what we should find when we open up their text, that’s what we as Christian interpreters should be expecting to find and should be expected to proclaim when we’re preaching their books.

TK: I think that’s really helpful coming into a book. You don’t know anything about it, so let’s just assume you don’t know anything about Zephaniah, coming in you’d say, “I know he is writing about the sufferings of Christ because the New Testament authors already said that.” So a question I would have—not just the sufferings also the glories to follow, so another presupposition or question we should have is, okay, let’s grant that they wrote the coming of Christ, his suffering, the glories to follow, was that accidentally included in things that did they know what they were writing about I guess is the question or did it just happen like whoa they spoke much better than they knew and if you’re going to say they did know, how are you going to prove that?

JD: In the Gospels, Jesus says, “Many prophets and righteous men long to see what you see but they didn’t see it. Many prophets and kings long to see what you see and didn’t see it, but they long to hear what you hear and didn’t hear it.” And that type of expression by Jesus suggests they were seeing something. In John 8, “Abraham saw my day he was just thinking about that and was glad.” “Moses wrote about me,” in John 5. These are our conscious elements where they’re longing for something. Yet, as Hebrews 11 says, “They all died in faith not having received what was promised but having seen it and greeted it from afar.” So these Old Testament saints had something. They didn’t have the fulfillment, but they had the promise. They didn’t have the realization or the substance, but they were holding on to the anticipation and the shadow. They had something that they knew was theirs. I think specifically Tom about 1 Peter 1:10–12. What Peter here—so we saw Peter speaking in Acts 3 and in Acts 10—same apostle declares concerning the salvation that you and I as Christians are enjoying today, “The prophets of the Old Testament who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours.” So they were talking about the good news of salvation that you and I enjoy. They were prophesying about saving new covenant grace. These prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours. Peter says, “They searched and inquired carefully well what were they seeking to know they were inquiring Peter says what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.” So that’s Acts 3:18 and 3:24. All the prophets predicted the sufferings of Christ. All the prophets predicted the days of the church, the sufferings of Christ, and the subsequent glories. So they were searching and inquiring and I think, Tom, this suggests they’re not only diving into the dreams and visions that they had, but they were looking into written Scripture. Isaiah was looking at Deuteronomy. Jeremiah was reading Genesis. And Zephaniah was reading Isaiah.

TK:  With a specific goal in mind too they’re looking for something.

JD:  That’s right. It means specifically what it says: they want to know something about the person of Jesus and they want to know something about the time of his coming. What person or time the spirit of Christ was indicating meaning as they went into the biblical text that was given to us by the Spirit of God. They were wanting to know what the Spirit was indicating about the person and timing of Jesus is coming when that Spirit was predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. So these prophets understand understood that the Spirit was indicating things about the Messiah, and they were approaching previous revelation to better understand and make known things about Christ’s person and the specific time in history when he would come. So they were—at times we read that the prophets were actually counting the clock. They were wondering, when is it going to happen. They know that certain things have been predicted in certain orders and they’re expecting certain things, they’re anticipating certain things, and then verse 12 really captures it. It says, “It was revealed to them.” So this is known. This text is about what is known. “It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that have now been announced through the preaching of the good news.” So this good news, this gospel proclamation that new covenant preachers are making, we are making it, grounded in the Old Testament Scriptures. And those Old Testament prophets, God had revealed to them, says Peter, they understood that they were writing for Christians. They understood that they were writing not for themselves but for you when they talked about the timing of Jesus is coming and when they talked when they talked about the nature of the kind of person he would be.

This is what they were searching and inquiring to know. They were wrestling with the biblical text to discern what was the Spirit saying through Moses, what was the Spirit saying through Ezekiel. And so later prophets building upon earlier prophets, and when we come to the New Testament that’s what we have. We’ve got these end times prophets called the apostles who are doing exactly what the Old Testament prophets were already doing. The New Testament prophets are searching and inquiring carefully to rightly understand how these Old Testament prophets were reading their Bibles. So with respect to what did they know, Tom, the sense we get from the New Testament texts is that these Old Testament authors knew a lot. They knew that they were longing for the Messiah, hoping in the Messiah, they knew that they were writing about his sufferings and writing about his—the mission that he would spark through the church age, and they also knew that because most of their audiences were rebellious, unbelieving, and stubborn that their writings were principally for a future people. That we would now understand as the new covenant church.

TK: That is really helpful. Makes sense of so many passages. I’m looking at right now Hebrews 11:25-26. It says about Moses, “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” And it doesn’t just say he considered the reproach of Yahweh, for instance, or being connected to God’s people. It actually says he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth—that there’s something he was thinking about, and it’s the coming King who he himself had written about all throughout that Moses writes about in his book. So, Jason, if this is a presupposition I’m bringing in, that the prophets are writing about the Christ, that they don’t know his name yet, he hasn’t come, but they’re writing about the sufferings of Christ his glory is to come, I land in a book and we’re going to get there later, but frequently hear about what you got to know the context. For you, context is more nuanced than just saying one particular thing, so you talk about kind of three areas of context. Can you spell that out for us? Like, I’m approaching a book how do I get the context for myself so that I can move forward?

JD:  When we think about the fact that these prophets, by the power of the Spirit, were talking about things beyond themselves, things beyond their age, they were writing not for them but for us, and they saw ahead. Many righteous many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you and I are getting to experience now living in the age of the resurrected Christ. Living in the age where the future has entered into the middle of history. The dawn of the end has come, new creation has been birthed. These prophets were longing for that day when the curse would be overcome, when blessing would begin to intrude until the whole earth is filled with the glory of God like the waters cover the sea. It demands that we not only read about the shadow but we read that the materials related to the shadow in light of the substance that has been revealed. We have to read the Bible as it was intended to be read in light of the Messiah’s coming. That the Old Testament authors are wanting to point us ahead as they’re searching and inquiring to know about the person in the time of Jesus, they’re wanting to move readers to see him alone as the answer to their greatest dilemma. And once you meet Jesus, then you have to read the Bible through him and then read the Bible for him. To read the Bible through him is demanding that we’re approaching these Old Testament prophecies as believers, that we read the spiritual book as spiritual people, using Paul’s language from 1 Corinthians 2.

TK:  So you’re saying that the prophets are the prophets are writing for Christians.

JD: It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you and me. They are writing for Christians, and so it takes being a believer to rightly understand their book because this is spiritual material written for spiritual people. And with respect to the contexts, there are—we can’t just read our book, read the Old Testament prophets in light of themselves, because they were expecting—even as they were writing, they were writing for a future generation that would have the eyes of their hearts enlightened and that would have been living in an age of fulfillment. They were writing their books to be understood rightly by the people who would be living in the age of the Messiah. So we approach their writings in light of the whole.

So I propose three different levels of context. And the words I use are taken out of a little book by Trent Hunter and Stephen Wellum, and I don’t even remember the name of that book. It’s over on my shelf.

TK: I got it right here. Christ from Beginning to End.

JD: There it is: Christ from Beginning to End. So that’s where I get the—I had the categories, but they gave me the words, and they’re helpful to memorize and easy to reproduce in the lives of those who want to interpret the prophets rightly.

The three contexts are this, Tom: the close context, the continuing context, and the complete context. So let me unpack each of these.

TK: Okay, so three C’s: close, continuing, complete.

JD: So when it comes to the close context, just think about if you’re entering into a passage in the prophets, you enter into Isaiah 53, and the close context is specifically related to—well, I’m reading these words, what is happening in the immediate? That’s the close, the immediate historical and literary setting that is informing my passage.

So the context is the environment in which our passage is found, and the first environment we have to consider is that close environment, both historically and literarily. So we’re asking what, how, and why does the passage communicate? What does the passage communicate immediately, right here in the text? How does it actually communicate? How does it say what it says? Not just what does it say, but how does it say it? But why relates to why does it say it that way? And we want to consider carefully the passage’s words, its thought flow, its theology in light of where it shows up at the period in history.

Who are the major players, powers, practices, perspectives of the age, and how might they inform our passage? And how might our passage be speaking into those contexts? And then within the book, the literary—the literary context is like, what’s coming before? What grows out of our passage? And the biggest question related to the close context is: if I was to take my passage away, what would be lost? What would be missing from this book if my passage wasn’t present? And if you can answer that, you’ve got a good grasp of the contribution your passage is making within the flow of the book itself.

TK: So you’re saying, if you mentioned Isaiah 53, if I cut out Isaiah 53, how does that—how would that impact the rest of the book? What does it add? What does it—how does it contribute to what Isaiah wrote?

JD: That’s right. That—that’s the immediate literary context—what is Isaiah 53 contributing to the book itself.

TK: So with this close context, Jason, if I am reading my Scriptures in the morning and I’m thinking, ‘What does this have to do with me? What is this—what is this word saying to me?’ Am I—am I ignoring at that point the close context and not asking the question you’re saying—you’re suggesting we should ask to start?

JD: That’s right,

TK: —because I’ve applied it to me right away.

JD: That’s right. Before we are seeking to apply a text to ourselves, we really need to understand it in its original setting. That’s where everything begins. Before the Spirit allows the Word to bridge into the modern world, we need to know what the Spirit is saying in the Word itself first before we can cross that bridge. So yes, we pause, and we’re considering the historical influences, the historical details of our passage, the function of the passage within the book as a whole, what precedes leading up to it that might be informing why the prophet speaks the way that he does, and what do we see following it that is building upon the claims made in our passage. These are all close context elements that we have to ask if we want confidence that our application into our own hearts is actually on target.

TK: Okay, that’s good. That’s good. I’m looking at my bookshelf right now, and I’m looking at book you edited, What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About. A book like that, which is kind of a survey of Old Testament books, or the introduction in study Bibles—how would you say that is as a tool for quickly grasping the close context tools like that?

JD: You said, How to Understand—which of my books did you say?

TK: What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About.

JD: Yeah. That—that book is focused on the message. It’s book by book. It’s going to aid the reader in understanding what are the major themes that are being addressed in this book and how might my passage be contributing to one of those themes.

TK: So that would you’re saying, for the close context, that’d be a great starter?

JD: It would be a great starter in thinking about what is my passage contributing to the message of the book and how does the message of the whole book it inform my particular passage. It would be a great place to start. That—that book does, though, move beyond simply the immediate questions to the next context level.

So if we’re starting with a very small circle, now we’re going to go out one level to the continuing context. And when we’re talking about continuing, you can think of movement through Scripture, and there’s two layers of that movement that I want to highlight. One is simply, Scripture is being progressively revealed. So if we come into a book like Isaiah and we’re in Isaiah 53, we want to say, ‘What theology would Isaiah have had available to him in the Bible that he had?’ he didn’t have the whole Bible that we have, but he did have some Bible. What Bible would have been available to him, like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus? All of a sudden, we have a context to understand the image of a—like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And there’s informing theology coming from the law that Moses had already laid out that Isaiah seems to be expecting his readers to know and understand.

So that’s a continuing context. We’ve gone beyond the level of the book. Now we’re looking at the whole of Scripture, but specifically the earlier Scripture and how it might be informing the Scripture that we have. So how does Scripture using Scripture is part of continuing context. And then the second level is the story. And there’s a story that has been birthed in Genesis that continues all the way to the Book of Revelation. And what we’re asking is, how does our passage contribute to that overarching story of redemption? Each of the high points being seen in the progression of the biblical covenants: from the Adamic-Noahic covenant where Adam and Noah are the covenant heads, and through them God builds a relationship with all creation; the Abrahamic covenant, where Father Abraham becomes the covenant mediator, influencing all those who are in him; building out of the Abrahamic covenant, stage one fulfillment is Abraham would be the father of one nation in one land, and so we get the Mosaic covenant; then stage two, Abraham the father of many nations in many lands, realized in the new covenant; and then anticipating the new covenant is that Davidic covenant where there’s the foreshadowing of a son in the line of David who had sit on the throne forever.

We want to be thinking about the progression of the storyline and how all of the covenants are interrelated, and really climax in the person of Jesus. So we want to be asking the question here in the continuing—sorry, the continuing context—one of the key questions is, how is my passage contributing to the story that climaxes in the person of Christ? What is Isaiah 53, for example, contributing to the overarching development of salvation history—the fall lead—sorry—creation leading to the fall, leading to redemption all the way unto complete consummation? What is my passage contributing to that overarching storyline?

TK: It’s somewhere—it’s somewhere in that arc, though. It’s—

JD: It has to be in that arc.

TK: It’s not a—it’s not a weird, strange thing. And I think I grew up a little bit like that, like so take a—take one of the smaller books of prophecy that I didn’t know, and be like Micah. And Micah, you’d say, ‘Well, there’s prophecies of Bethlehem,’ so that I can put it more on the map. But there’s certain books you’d say, ‘I don’t even know what to do. This is just out there somewhere.’ And what we’re saying today is, actually, it’s not out there. It’s—it is in this arc—the continuing context. But the prophet is actually writing about the suffering of Christ, the glories to follow. We just have to figure it out. Um, we’ll talk about covenants more, Jason, if you’re good, in weeks to come, because I think that’s important.

JD: We will talk about it more. One thing I would just add is that they’re not only talking about Jesus. They’re also talking about immediate realities in their present: Assyria, Babylon, Persia. These are real peoples in history that dot the storyline of Scripture and help the movement of Scripture. The prophets foretold that the northern kingdom of Israel would be destroyed by Assyria, and when it happens, all of a sudden God’s prophets are shown to be true. They foretold the destruction of Babylon, and when that happens, all of a sudden false prophecy is distinguished from true prophecy, and the people are given immediate predictions. When they’re realized, what it does is it forces the listeners to say, ‘If they were true about the immediate predictions, then they’re likely going to be true about the longer-term, longer-range predictions related to the Messiah.’ And so the immediate prophecies play a key role in substantiating the validity of the future-oriented, longer-range prophecies.

TK: And that just answers one of my questions: if I am a preacher, teacher, and I’m wondering why would I talk about Assyria or Babylon or Persia for that matter—what does it have to do with someone living in—in our time in our place? Is a lot of it has to do with what you said, is we watch how God kept his word at a certain point of time, and it informs what he will do in the future. It gives us confidence in God.

JD: That’s right, Tom. It plays a key role in seeing God’s faithfulness in the past to his promises, both the blessing to curse. We gain our own confidence that God will continue to be faithful to his promises, both the blessing to curse. That’s not the only element, though. There’s also this element of typology, Tom, such that Assyria and Babylon, the return to the land, are all portrayed as events that foreshadow greater future events, so that we’re anticipating a new Assyria, a new Babylon that stand as enemies to God’s ways and God’s people, yet stand also as agents in his hand to bring about his purposes, culminating in Christ. And the return to the land was foreshadowed. It happens in space and time, and it, by its nature, anticipates an even greater return, a greater new exodus. And that’s also part of why we would be preaching Assyria and Babylon and Persia—is to help show how they are part of a greater story. And those events of judgment anticipate the greatest judgment that is still to come and the event of judgment at the cross. Those events of renewal and restoration and return are all anticipating the greater restoration, renewal and return that is secured in Jesus, not only for one people but for a global, international people.

TK: I feel like you’re bumping into that third category, or the complete context.

JD: Well, we—I am in that the continuing context naturally leads us to the end of the story. That’s end. And that’s where we cannot be done with our prophetic preaching—that is our preaching of Old Testament prophets—until we help our people see where the end is. So we need to determine how our passage fits within the whole of the biblical canon. And we do this in a number of ways, but a key way is looking at how later Scripture is actually using or building upon our passage. How does—how do the later prophets use earlier prophets? How does Zephaniah use Isaiah? That’s part of the complete context when it comes to interpreting Isaiah—considering how later prophets like Zephaniah, like Zechariah, are using Isaiah’s book and interpreting it.

But not only that, we don’t stop with those Old Testament prophets. We move all the way into the New Testament prophets to consider how Luke, Peter, Paul are appropriating and interpreting Old Testament Scripture and then, in turn, applying it to the church age—how they’re seeing—how they interpret Jesus as the culmination of the story itself, how they view him as the anti-type to all the previous types, how he’s the substance that fills up the form that was the Old Testament prophets.

So we’re considering, how does later Scripture utilize or fulfill our passage, or clarify or develop the meaning of our passage? And then we bring all of our reflections together, and we’re considering elements of doctrine. We’re considering specifically, how does our passage contribute to the progress of revelation and point to or clarify Christ’s person or work? And much of that is even determined by looking at how the New Testament authors are—that—that’s the complete context, the complete biblical context of every Old Testament prophecy is the end of the story and the interpretation that the New Testament authors give. And I’m proposing that when we approach Old Testament prophecy, we need to be thinking about all three contexts. And our right interpretation is not done until we arrive at what the complete picture that the biblical author—capital A—and the biblical author—lower A—expected us to have when we read his book.

That’s helpful, and ended to know that all Scripture is given and profitable. God gave it. God intended it. It’s intended to help us. I think sometimes—I’ll sometimes stay when I’m teaching somewhere, I’m going to meet—we’re going to meet, for instance, Hosea in heaven someday, and he might say to us, ‘How did my—how did my book help you? I labored over that.’ And we want to be able to have an answer to that question. We don’t want to say—I mean­­—

JD: He was writing for you.

He was writing for us. Yeah. So if we—if we said to him, ‘I did, Hosea, I—it just seemed strange, and you use strange words, and I found it uninteresting,’ that I may—that not be said of us. May we instead join in the struggle to say, ‘Lord, you put this here for a reason, and a Spirit-filled man put this down for my help and the help of many.’

JD: That’s right, Tom. That’s right. I look forward to these coming weeks when we can step by step, with examples from Scripture, unpack the close, continuing, and complete biblical context for approaching Old Testament prophecy.

TK: Perfect. I’m going to put some links in the show notes just of some things that’ll help. But Jason, look forward at next week.

JD: Awesome, Tom. Thanks.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. Next week, we continue our study of the Old Testament prophets. For additional resources connected to the prophets, go to our show notes. For resources related to biblical theology, visit HandsToThePlow.org or JasonDerouchie.com.

 

The post Three Contexts When Reading the Prophets appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

Seven Fruits of Faith: A Sermon on Hebrews 11:23–31

(Audio Download / PDF) DeRouchie gave this message on 2/9/24 at the Sovereign Joy Baptist Church plant in Liberty, MO.

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Serving as one of your pastors is a great privilege and joy. I love singing with you, praying with you, and teaching you. I cherish getting to see you serve one another and to watch you delight in building relationships together. Week by week I get budget updates and by this learn that you continue to give to this work. I praise our God for every life represented in this room. I look forward to growing with you and to seeing our faith produce more and more fruit. Turn with me today to Hebrews 11:23–31, and as you do, pray with me…. Follow along as I read….

Eighteen times in this chapter we read examples of fruit that comes forth “by faith.” Faith here is a proper disposition or orientation of the heart toward God’s promises. Faith is future-oriented for in it we trust God to fulfill promises not yet realized. As it states in 11:1, faith is believing things hoped for, things yet unseen. Or again in 11:13, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.”

Throughout this chapter, faith in God leads people to pursue certain patterns of life. “By faith Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain” (11:4); “by faith Noah … constructed an ark for the saving of his household” (11:7), “by faith Abraham obeyed,” going to the land of promise (11:8). What we hope for or dread tomorrow changes who we are today. Faith is the root, obedience the fruit (Gal 5:6; Eph 6:23; 1 Thess 1:3; 2 Thess 1:11; Jas 2:18, 20, 22).

The main idea for this morning’s message is this: faith bears fruit. This passage displays seven fruits of faith in God’s promises. By faith God’s people (1) value and preserve human life, (2) refuse certain positions and pleasures and accept persecution, (3) forsake evil, (4) admit our need for forgiveness, (5) keep following God, (6) heed his Word, and (7) experience life. Faith bears fruit.

1. By Faith We Value and Preserve Human Life (v. 23)

In 11:23, the author continues his journey through Old Testament history by highlighting moments of faith related to the life of Moses, beginning with the faith of his parents. “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict” (v. 23). You’ll recall how after the patriarch Jacob and his family settled in Egypt, “the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them” (Exod 1:7). A new king arose over Egypt who didn’t know Joseph, and he sought to contain Israel first by oppression through forced labor and then by demanding the Hebrew midwives kill all male babies. But when neither decree was effective at halting Israel’s growth, Pharoah commanded the Egyptians to cast “every son that is born to the Hebrews … into the Nile” (Exod 1:22). Like the murdering serpent in the garden who sought to kill God’s son, Pharaoh sought to destroy a potential future army of Israelites who could stand against him.

We then immediately read about an offspring of a woman, recalls the promised male deliverer who would crush the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15). “Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months” (Exod 2:1–2). To say the child was “fine” or “beautiful” could simply point to the fact that, in an age of high infant death, Moses was healthy and flourishing. But I think it likely points to more.

Stephen, reflecting on this same passage in Acts 7:20, says that the baby Moses “was beautiful to God,” helping us recognize that the parents sought to preserve his life not because he was cute or in good physical condition but because they knew God valued him and had shaped him with purpose. Therefore, following in the paths of the midwives who “feared God” and stood against Pharaoh’s command to kill the Hebrew boys (Exod 1:17, 21), Moses’s parents hid him from the Egyptians, not fearing the serpent-king’s edict. They knew if the Egyptians learned of their civil disobedience, they and their boy would be killed. Yet they valued Moses’s life as one made in God’s image, and they treasured by faith God’s pledge of a coming serpent crusher. Faith leads us to value and preserve human life for God’s saving purposes regardless of the cost (Heb 11:23).

I think of Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) whose Christian father by faith led his family during World War II to hide Jews in their home from the Nazis. In time the family was found out, and both Corrie and her sister were sent to various concentration camps, the last being Ravensbrück, a woman’s labor camp in Germany. Corrie’s sister died in the camp, but then a clerical error allowed Corrie to be released just one week before all the women in her age group were sent to the gas chambers. The sisters’ teaching and relentless love had led many of these women to Jesus. By faith they rescued Jews; by faith they went to prison; by faith many of their fellow inmates were saved. Faith leads us to value and preserve human life for God’s saving purposes regardless of the cost (v. 23).

2. By Faith We Refuse Certain Positions and Pleasures
and Accept Persecution (vv. 24–26)

The Nile was to be the place of death for Israel’s sons, but God used Moses’s own little “ark” to save him from the judgment waters that brought him to be adopted and raised as son of Pharaoh’s daughter (Exod 2:10). At this time, Egypt was the elite empire of the ancient world, which means that Moses as grandson of Pharaoh would have been trained in the highest schools, becoming equipped in languages, literature, science, history, politics, international diplomacy, war, and economics––all features that equipped him to lead a nation. As Stephen later says, “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7:22).

Into this context, Exod 2:11 notes, “When Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.” Moses authored Exodus, and twice here he says that the Hebrews and not the Egyptians were his people. Having witnessed an Egyptian battering a fellow Israelite, Moses “struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (2:12). Then the next day he again went to his people and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the man in the wrong why he was being so mean, and he responded, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exod 2:12–14). Stephen tells us that Moses “supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not” (Acts 7:25).

Even as an adult with all the prestige and power of the king’s house, Moses remembered his roots and rejected Egypt. He would have recalled the faith-filled stories his parents had told him of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah. He knew Abraham’s offspring nation would inherit the land, and he believed the promises that Abraham’s individual offspring would one day inherit the gate of his enemies and bless the world (Gen 12:1–3; 17:4–8; 22:17–18; 26:3–4). So, Hebrews 11:24–25 declares: “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”

Moses’s position in Egypt’s royal house granted him ease, safety, security, power, and pleasures unenjoyed by his oppressed Hebrew brothers. But he recognized that identifying with Egypt would have been apostasy, for he would have been embracing self-rule and self-reliance and rejecting God’s word, ways, purposes, and people. So, Moses chose “to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” Sin is pleasurable, but only for a time (cf. 1 John 2:16–17). The selfishness of sin in time isolates us from others. The guilt of sin stains us with shame. And repentance and forgiveness in Jesus are the only way to find cleansing and freedom, hope and healing. We must be born again.

What drove Moses, by faith, to turn from Egypt to embrace God’s people? Verse 26 says that “he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” This is the only time that Christ explicitly appears in this chapter, which is striking in view of its focus on faith. In John’s Gospel Jesus stressed that the Scriptures “bear witness” about him and that “Moses … wrote” of him (John 5:39, 46). Hence, Moses hoped in Jesus’s coming and was among the “many prophets and righteous people [who] longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matt 13:17). So, the phrase “the reproach of Christ” could mean the reproach Moses willingly took on for Christ’s sake (Luke 14:33; 1 Pet 4:14) and for Christ’s glory (Phil 3:7–8). But I think there is more going on here.

Specifically, I think “the reproach of Christ” means reproach like Christ would endure from the hands of those who stood against God and his saving purposes for the world (cf. Ps 69:9; Rom 15:3). The disgrace and disapproval Moses took on in identifying with Israel foreshadowed the suffering Christ himself would endure on behalf of the many, and Moses consciously and intentionally stepped into this pain for the cause of God’s plan of salvation that would climax in the cross of Christ. Using the same term for “reproach,” Hebrews 13:12–13 says that, because “Jesus … suffered … to sanctify the people through his own blood … let us go to him … and bear the reproach he endured” (cf. 12:1–3). Moses knew Jesus would suffer to save many, and Moses identified with him and with Israel for the same cause. In Paul’s language, Moses recognized that in choosing to be persecuted by Egypt, he would be “carrying in [his] body the death of Jesus” (2 Cor 4:10; cf. Col 1:24) and thus displaying the type of abuse Jesus himself would endure to save a people for God.

And why did Moses do this? “He was looking to the reward” (Heb 11:26). Verse 6 told us that the faith that pleases God believes “that he rewards those who seek him.” God’s promises clarify our reward, and they motivate the life of faith. What we hope for tomorrow changes who we are today. Moses believed that aligning with God’s people would bring something better than fleeting pleasure, and this conviction motivated him even to suffer for Christ’s sake. As Paul said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18). This is the power of God’s promises. So, I summarize: faith leads us to refuse certain positions and pleasures and accept persecution to identify with God and his people (Heb 11:24–26).

3. By Faith We Fearlessly Forsake Evil (v. 27)

Look at verse 27: “By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for endured as seeing him who is invisible.” Once Moses found out that others were aware that he had killed the Egyptian, Exodus 2:14 says, “Then Moses was afraid, and thought, ‘Surely the thing is known.’” Yet while he was initially afraid, his faith established his resolve, and he forsook Egypt without fear of the king’s wrath. The text then says that he “endured” or held fast, as if “seeing him who is invisible.” Foundational to faith is believing that the invisible God actually exists (v. 6; cf. Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17)––the Creator of the world (Heb 1:1), the one in Majesty over all (1:3; 8:1), and the designer and builder of our future, heavenly city (11:10). And if this powerful being is with us and will never leave or forsake us (13:5), we can endure unafraid. Faith leads us fearlessly to forsake evil while holding fast to the invisible God (v. 27).

4. By Faith We Admit Our Need for Forgiveness (v. 28)

Moses’s flight from Egypt led him to the wilderness for forty years where God equipped him as a shepherd. But then God led him back to demand that Pharaoh let God’s people go. Ten plagues followed, the last of which was the killing of every firstborn in the land. To be protected from the Destroyer, God instructs Israel to kill the Passover lamb and to mark their doorposts with its blood (Exod 12:21–30). That night, Yahweh struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, but he passed over the houses marked by the blood, sparing Israel. We’re told the cries through the land were great “for there was not a house where someone was not dead” (Exod 12:30).

Our God is perfectly just and worthy of all our trust, obedience, and lives. When we fail to give him what he deserves, his justice requires that we be punished. He must make things right, and doing so demands that he shed the blood of either the sinner or a substitute (Rom 6:23). The blood of the lambs placed on the doorframes in faith protected Israel from the Destroyer. The lamb’s death stood in the place of the death of the firstborns and pointed ahead to the one of whom John the Baptizer would say, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Paul was equally explicit, declaring that “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). In Hebrews 11:28, we read that, to secure forgiveness of sins, Moses led Israel in trusting God’s provision of a substitute. “By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them.” Faith leads us to admit our need for forgiveness by means of a substitute (v. 28).

5. By Faith We Keep Following God (v. 29)

After the deaths of the firstborn in Egypt, Pharaoh finally relented––at least temporarily––and freed Israel to go to the wilderness to worship Yahweh. Yet the king soon changed his mind and pursued the Hebrews, who were led by God’s glory cloud to the Red Sea. Faith bears fruit, and with water before and the Egyptians behind, Moses urged Israel, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Exod 14:13–14). With this context, we now read Hebrews 11:29: “By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.” Exodus 14:31 declares, “Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.”

Biblical faith leads us to keep following God even when life appears hopeless (v. 29). When the bills are due and the bank account is low, we believe the promise, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19; cf. Matt 6:33). When we fear the repercussions of standing true, we by faith choose not to “fear those who kill the body” but to “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell,” all the while reminding ourselves: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father…. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt 10:28–31). When we are tempted to lust, we say No to sin and Yes to purity, believing “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8). When we are overcome by the guilt of sin, those in Christ Jesus trust that “there is … now no condemnation” for “Christ Jesus is the one who died––more than that, who was raised––who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Rom 8:1, 34). And when we battle the fear of failure and not enduring, we believe the promise that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). Biblical faith leads us to keep following God even when life appears hopeless (v. 29).

Yet this faith must endure. We must keep trusting, keep believing, keep hoping. Since the mention of Moses’s birth, the author of Hebrews has simply walked through the story. But now he will skip the final forty years of Moses’s life as recorded in Exodus 16–Deuteronomy 34. Why? Because the exodus generation did not continue to believe and because of this died in the wilderness. Thus, back in chapter 3 the author of Hebrews charged:

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. (3:15–19)

Both the exodus generation and Moses himself died in the wilderness due to their lack of faith. Do not take lightly the silence in Hebrews 11 regarding Israel’s time in the wilderness; instead, take it as a warning. As the author already said back in chapter 3, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God…. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Heb 3:12, 14). Do not stop believing like Israel did but instead walk by faith. Faith leads us to keep following God even when life appears hopeless (11:29).

6. By Faith We Heed God’s Word (v. 30)

Following Moses’s death, God takes Israel into the promised land under Joshua’s leadership. God declares to him, “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life…. I will not leave you or forsake you” (Josh 1:5). Israel’s first conflict arose against the city of Jericho just north of the Dead Sea. God commanded Israel to march around the city once per day for six days with the priests blowing trumpets before the ark-throne of God. On the seventh day, they were to circle it seven times as the priests sounded their trumpets (John 6:2–4). And this is what Israel did. We then read that on “the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, ‘Shout, for the LORD has given you the city.’ … As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city” (Josh 6:16, 20). God’s word may not always make sense, but it’s always right. As we trust his promises and heed his Word, even miracles can happen. James tells us that Elijah, with a nature like ours, prayed for God to withhold rain, and for 3.5 years the skies were like iron. Then he prayed again, and the rains came and the earth bore fruit (Jas 5:17–18). Therefore, James urges elders to pray over the sick, and promises, “the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up” (Jas 5:15). “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days” (Heb 11:30). Faith leads us to heed God’s Word even if it seems strange, knowing God can work miracles (v. 30).

7. By Faith We Experience Life (v. 31)

After Israel captured the city of unbelieving, unrepentant rebels, everyone was killed except one woman and her family. Earlier, before Israel had even crossed into the promised land, Joshua had sent two spies to scope it out. They found haven in Jericho in the home of a prostitute named Rahab. When questioned by the city administration, she deceived them by claiming the men had already left the town and should be searched for. Having protected the men, she then declared her faith in Yahweh (Josh 2:9–14). Rather than rebelling against the Lord’s authority like the rest of Jericho, she sought refuge in his glorious power, trusting that those aligned with him would live.

And so, while the walls fell and Jericho was destroyed, the text says, “Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho” (Josh 6:25). Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, is the only woman other than the matriarch Sarah who is named in Hebrews 11 (but see v. 35). While she was a Canaanite, she was treated like an Israelite because, as it says in verse 31, she “by faith … did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

Faith leads us to experience life after turning from sin and aligning with God’s cause (v. 31). Regardless of your past, this day you can put your hope in God and find the life that Rahab enjoyed. Rahab was the mother of Boaz, great grandmother of King David, and one of the great women of faith through whom God brought the Messiah (see Matt 1:5). A Canaanite prostitute believed and now lives, and the call of this text is to ensure that you will see her and not fail to keep believing and keep following like the exodus generation in the wilderness.

Believing God’s promises bears fruit in our lives (2 Pet 1:4; cf. 2 Cor 7:1). His promises motivate our actions, and what we hope for or dread tomorrow changes who we are today. Faith bears fruit.

By Faith We Value and Preserve Human Life Regardless of the Cost (v. 23).By Faith We Refuse Certain Positions and Pleasures to Identify with God and His People (vv. 24–26).By Faith We Fearlessly Forsake Evil While Holding Fast to God (v. 27).By Faith We Admit Our Need for Forgiveness by Means of a Substitute (v. 28).By Faith We Follow God Even When Life Appears Hopeless (v. 29).By Faith We Heed God’s Word Even If It Seems Strange, Knowing God Can Work Miracles (v. 30).By Faith We Experience Life after Turning from Sin and Aligning with God’s Cause (v. 31).

Believe God’s promises today, remembering always that true faith bears fruit.

Lord’s Supper

As the music team comes forward and we transition to communion, I wonder if there are any of these fruits of faith for which your heart longs to see more evident in your life: (1) valuing and preserving human life; (2) refusing certain positions or pleasures; (3) fearlessly forsaking evil; (4) admitting your need for forgiveness; (5) following God; (6) heeding his Word; (7) experiencing life. Today, if you hear his voice, believe that he will never leave you or forsake you. Believe that perseverance will result in great reward. Believe that lasting life can be enjoyed by all who hope in him.

This bread and this cup represent true hope for life and a future if you put your trust in Jesus. All who have confessed with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believed in their hearts that God raised him from the dead and who have been baptized are welcome to enjoy this table. Hold the element until the song is concluded, and then we will partake together. Pray by faith today, asking God to let that faith bear fruit. As the music team goes through the first song, feel free to let your lips remain silent and to let your heart reach out to God in faith. Jesus died and Jesus rose that we might hope for growth and lasting life by faith.

On Moses’s household being grounded in generational faith, see Gen 15:6 and Exod 6:2.

The post Seven Fruits of Faith: A Sermon on Hebrews 11:23–31 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

How Should Christians Think About the Apocrypha?

How Should Christians Think About the Apocrypha? How Should Christians Think About the Apocrypha?

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brian-tabb-geartalk-2.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today we’re not focusing exclusively on the books in the Bible. We’ll be talking about the Apocrypha. How should Christians think about these ancient writings? Today, Jason and Tom welcome Brian Tabb to the podcast. Brian is not only the president of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also well versed in the Apocrypha. He’s going to help us think about these ancient words. After our all-too-short interview with Brian, Jason and Tom conclude the show with some final thoughts. When you’re done listening, be sure to go to our show notes for links to some of Brian Tabb’s work, including his excellent summaries on the Apocrypha in the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk. I’m Tom. I’m in Wisconsin today. But Jason, you are not in Wisconsin and you have somebody with you who also, well, he should be in Minnesota, but he’s not.

JD: This is right. It’s my dear, dear brother, Brian Tabb, who serves as a long-time colleague of mine. I mean, he was a colleague of mine for ten full years while I was at Bethlehem College in Seminary, and he now serves as the President of Bethlehem College in Seminary, and Professor of Biblical Studies. By God’s grace, the administration at Midwestern Seminary was able to bring him down to share with our doctoral students and speak and chapel today, and now he gets to bless our GearTalk listeners. So I’m delighted to have my good brother, Brian Tabb, with us.

TK: Hey Brian, before we start, can you just give us a window on your family and where you grew up and your schooling? And we don’t have a ton of time, so obviously there’s a long story here, but just briefly put yourself on the map for us.

BT: Happy to do that. Thanks for the invitation. I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma. I went to college at Wheaton in Illinois, fell in love with the local church and with the Bible there at Wheaton. Eventually, I’m at Kristin, my now wife of almost 20 years. And as part of a call to give my life to study in the Bible and serving the church, I wanted to get further equipped. So I went to Minneapolis to be a part of a pastoral apprenticeship program at Bethlehem Baptist Church and the Bethlehem Institute. And I’m still there after about 20 years. I’ve came as a student, started teaching part-time then full-time, had a few different hats over the years, and for the last year I’ve been serving as president of Bethlehem College and Seminary. The Lord’s Blessed Kristin and me with four kids who are now ages 15 down to 10.

JD: Brian and I surfaced together for several years in the makeup of our building at that time, the office building. We had walls, but no ceiling. So there was a roof, but it was much higher, so we could throw a soft baseballs over the walls and talk to each other. He served as my boss for multiple years, first as assistant dean, and then as the head academic dean and such a dear, gifted brother. He’s also served for over a decade as the managing editor and now general editor of the Themelios Journal, which is a free online journal for pastors. And Brian himself has served as a pastor at Bethlehem for multiple years. Taking on this presidential role, he’s stepped down from that, but he is active in the local church. He is one of the leaders of a kid Sunday School class on a regular basis. And I just love that I have a brother who is just grounded in Jesus and we get to talk to him today.

TK: Well, Brian, what are we going to talk about today? Because it’s not one of the, we’re not talking about specifically, even though it touches on it, the books in our Bible, are we?

BT: You guys wanted to talk to me about the Old Testament Apocrypha, which I’m glad to do. I’d be glad to talk about the Old Testament or the New Testament as well. Those are my main loves. But I do think that it’s helpful and important to give time to other things that are not bound in our Bible, sometimes it helps us to appreciate what’s in there even more. So Apocrypha, we’re actually talking about real books, some of which were even influencing the New Testament authors. So these are books that were written between the close of Malachi’s prophecies—so he was the last Old Testament prophet chronologically—and then the coming of John the Baptist. So books that were themselves reflecting on the Old Testament during the period when the Old Testament was finished and the New Testament hadn’t yet started to be written.

BT: That’s right. And so you could call this the Intertestamental Period. Sometimes it’s called the Second Temple Period, because this is after Cyrus orders that the temple be rebuilt and eventually that happens. And then that’s the temple that’s standing through the New Testament. The one that Jesus says is going to be torn down. Sometimes this is also called the Silent Period. And I think that’s another helpful category. That’s in part taken from a few different sources. Josephus talks about that way.

JD: And Josephus was a historian.

BT: Josephus is a Jewish historian, writing in Greek from Rome. He was an eyewitness to the destruction of Jerusalem and a participant in the Jewish war with Rome. And then he was captured and is famous as one of the really great historians of antiquity. And so he, one of his main big projects was a, basically a retelling of the history of the Jewish people. It’s called the Antiquities of the Jews. And he starts with creation, and he goes up to his day, really. He even mentions Jesus and John the Baptist, though he doesn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah. But anyway, he refers to some of the events that are included in the Apocrypha. Some of the interesting stories like the battle of the wits between three of the king’s bodyguards. And this is a story that’s preserved in 1 Esdras in the Apocrypha. And it’s meant to show the rise of a really important leader in the post-exilic community Zerrubabel, who was the wisest of the King’s bodyguards. Anyway, the Apocrypha is reflecting what we would call the silent period by which we don’t mean that people were silent. It means that God wasn’t giving new revelation to his people. And the Jews even recognize that. They did. And there are several references in the book of 1 Maccabees, which is probably the most important historical book among the collection of the Apocrypha. And they say on several times that they’re going to just put a pile of stones here or they’re going to wait until the Lord sends a prophet to tell them what to do. And so they’re sort of absent new revelation from God, they’re trying to be faithful to what he has already revealed in a pretty dark and difficult period. And there are really two historical issues that the Jewish people are wrestling with. These are sort of meta issues that flavor most of the Apocryphal books. And one of those—

TK: By the way, how many are there?

BT: It depends on how you count it. The books that I would include all would be preserved in at least one of the major Septuagint codexes. So they would be preserved in Greek, bound together with some New Testament books, with some Old Testament books translated from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek, in their sort of compendium, in a sense. And there are several major collections of these Septuagint books. We call them codexes. And those are from like the fourth and fifth century AD. So early manuscript support from these. There are other Jewish writings from this period. But the Apocrypha is kind of the mainstream stuff. If that’s a helpful way to think about it. They’re all going to be preserved in Greek. One of the books, we know that it was written originally in Hebrew and then translated by the author’s grandson. All the other ones sure seem to be either original Greek, or if they were translations, you don’t have Hebrew original. So these books are the four books of the Maccabees. And this is sort of a historical spine, in a sense, of the Apocrypha. First Esdras has some overlap with Ezra-Nehemiah. And then it has some additional material. There’s a Greek version of Esther, which has some new material and it’s rearranged. Judith and Tobit are really beautiful stories. There’s probably a combination of history and legend involved in these. There are two very short poems, the Prayer of Manasseh, which doesn’t actually mention Manasseh, but is associated with the wicked king who repents. Psalm 151, the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach, or the Wisdom of Ben Sira are lengthy wisdom books. Two of the most important in the collection to be sure. There’s a couple of books then that are associated with the books of Daniel and Jeremiah. And so on the Daniel side, these are basically expansions or legends associated with Daniel and his friends. And they’re preserved within the Greek translation of Daniel. The book of Jeremiah is also associated with a book called Baruch. And then a book that sort of misnomer letter of Jeremiah, it’s not really a letter. It’s more like a polemic against idols. But anyway, those are the books that I would consider to be part of the Apocrypha. Sometimes one or two of those might be added or there might be other ones. But I think objectively it’s helpful to see each of these is preserved in one of those major Septuagint codexes and so has sufficient kind of manuscript support for it.

JD: Now let me just hop in here because a number of our readers or listeners rather, they hear us talk Apocrypha and they’re like, I’ve never heard of these books. I didn’t even know they existed. But then you begin to list some of them and they may be like, “Huh, I remember a Bible in the house I grew up in that actually had some of these in it.” So why? you just mentioned that there’s some ancient books from around the fourth century AD that would have included them. How might our modern day listeners be more familiar with the Apocrypha? What contexts do they show up even among contemporary religious circles?

BT: If a Protestant Christian has any friends that are Roman Catholic or Orthodox, their Bible would have at least most of these books. One of the first times I remember hearing the Apocrypha read in the context of a liturgy was at a friend’s Roman Catholic wedding. And the book of Tobit was read. There’s a beautiful love story in the book of Tobit. And as a part of this story, there’s a quotation of the book of Genesis. Man will leave his father and mother hold fast to his wife. The two become one flesh. There’s this prayer of consecration that Tobias and his wife are making. And so that’s a story that is commonly referred to in the context of a Roman Catholic wedding. Some other contexts where you may come across the Apocrypha, it may just be referenced in passing. There may be events like the intense period of persecution for the Jews under the evil tyrant, Antiochus IV. This is one of the kind of crucial events that flavors much of the book, much of these books. Or there’s another huge issue is the tension that Jewish people are facing during this period with a majority culture that is speaking Greek and is also bringing in other Greek customs and religion and worldview. And they’re trying to figure out how do we survive and remain faithful to God in these changing times. So even the fact that these Jewish books are written in Koine Greek, common Greek, the same style of writing that you have in the New Testament, reflects there’s been a change from the Old Testament where things are written mainly in Hebrew, a few things in Aramaic, to now this whole collection in Greek. What happened? Well, some things happened in the world, like Alexander the Great swept from West to East and conquered from Europe to Persia, uniting East and West with language and cultural influence. And so that’s a huge factor that Jews around this period are wrestling with and trying to hold fast to the truths that have been passed down from generation to generation, which is particularly difficult if there’s a Gentile tyrant that’s going to execute you, if you circumcise your children, if you refuse to eat pork, if you try to stop desecration of the sanctuary and those sorts of things. This is one of the darkest days in Israel’s history during this time of Antiochus IV’s rule.

TK: So, Brian, what would be if we had you mentioned Orthodox Roman Catholic Church saying that these things would be found in the canon, and maybe you could briefly just define for us what that would, what canon is, but Protestant churches would say they’re not, how was that, how were those determinations made?

BT: I think canon is a really crucial category that we need to think about. So, a canon means a rule, in terms of its, the original term in Greek, you could think of that as a rule of faith. We come to talk about it in terms of a collection of authoritative books, and that’s fairly straightforward in the Old Testament and the New Testament, though there were some questions along the way at different times. We talk about the Law, the Prophets, the Writings in the Hebrew ordering of the Old Testament, or in our Protestant ordering. You have the Law, the historical books, the Wisdom books, and then the Prophets. In the early church, there were questions about what to do with these books that we would call the apocrypha. These books were known. Some of the—they were providing historical color. They were providing stories that some people found to be edifying or encouraging. And there were questions and debates even about whether or not these should be considered scripture or supplementary to scripture. On one side, you have someone like Augustine who was more comfortable treating these books with something like scriptural status. And then Jerome was more cautious about that. He still translated these into Latin, but he noted in the translations and in some of his comments and letters that he regarded them differently than the authoritative scripture. Around the time of the Reformation, as the church was kind of recommitting itself, I think, to the faithfulness, to the Scriptures, there was also important clarification that was happening. As people were going back to the sources, reading these in Greek and Hebrew, not just Latin translation. As people were reading it in their own mother tongues, thanks to translators like William Tyndale and Martin Luther and others. There was a, there was a clarification happening about which of these books were authoritative scripture and which were maybe useful, edifying, but of a different category than God breathed scripture. And you have, you have a clarification by the Protestants. You then have a sort of counter clarification by the Roman Catholic Church establishing these books as a deuteron-canon, or a ceutero-canonical collection. And so that’s why a Roman Catholic Bible will have these bound either in between the Old New Testament or at the end.

JD: It’s interesting that historically the Catholics still use that language. It’s not just the canonical books. These apocryphal books are specifically called the deutero-canonical books, like the second canon. Even, even the Catholics are recognizing there is a different level of authority. And yet the Protestants would make clear, and this is vitally important for all that we are regarding sola scriptura, that we say scripture has the 66 books that are found in our English Protestant Bibles. Those alone came from the Great King. The rest is legitimate reflection in the same way that here, you and I sit here in my office and it were surrounded by all these books, many of which you and I would consider quite significant. And we would appreciate them, and we’ve been influenced by those who are reflecting on the Scriptures and on the history of Christianity, the history of God’s work from creation, all the way to consummation. We would distinguish even things that you and I or Tom are writing. We must distinguish those things from the Word of God itself. And we would test our words, the validity of our words and our claims to truth based on the objective, unchanging Word of God, and we wouldn’t put these apocryphal books in that category.

BT: Correct. Objectively, I think that there are several clues to distinguish these books that we would call the Old Testament Apocrypha from the Old Testament books, the Law of the Prophets, the Writings, and then the New Testament. One of those is that these books are not claiming themselves to be Scripture. In fact, you have statements like I mentioned earlier in First Maccabees where they’re waiting for God to give further revelation to send a prophet. Second, as I mentioned, the Old Testament books are written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and Josephus and many others noted, but there’s a difference once you get to the Greek period. These are, there’s a different era here. And then I think a third one that’s more theological is that there is a self-authenticating quality, a sort of ring of truth. You might say where God’s Spirit is sort of testifying along with his Word, “This is my words.” And many Christians throughout time have recognized that there is a difference about this collection in contrast to other books that would be, say, kind of in the post-exilic period. Some of the prophets like Hagai, in Zechariah, the books like First and Second Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, even Esther, one of the more controversial books of the Old Testament. But there’s still a different flavor, a different character. There’s other factors, but I think those are some of the main ones to keep in mind that it wasn’t arbitrary that some Christians along the way just decided to cut out these books that were biblical, but they just didn’t like them. It wasn’t that. There were objective criteria along the way in terms of why they aren’t considered canonical Scripture for Protestants.

JD: It’s just, I mean, our time is ticking, but I would love if we could take one topic that you’ve wrestled with a lot, the topic of suffering. I think of the book of Acts, it opens with the reality of Jesus having just endured massive suffering. The recognition in a sermon like Peter’s at Pentecost declaring all the prophets foretold the sufferings of Christ. Jesus, the resurrected Christ showing up before Paul in saying, “God has purposed that you would take my light to the Gentiles and know this, you will suffer much for the sake of my name.” That the church as we’re seeing it develop in the book of Acts is growing in the context of suffering and we’re really getting a biblical theology of suffering. Compare that to a vision of suffering in one book from the apocryphal. Just compare a vision of suffering from one of the Maccabees collection to the vision of suffering in the book of Acts. You’ve thought about this a lot because it’s actually what you wrote your doctoral dissertation on and then comparing it with one other Greek voice. We know for example, in Acts 17, Paul speaks of Athenian poets. He’s not just bathed in the Old Testament, Paul is aware of what’s going on in Greek culture. In Titus, he speaks of a prophet of Crete. In Jude, he actually mentions the book of Enoch in a testimonial prophecy that appears Jude believes was authentic from the historical figure Enoch that’s been retained in that book in the book of Jude 14 and 15. We know the New Testament authors were aware of this intertestamental literature as well as aware of other literature that was rising in the same period from the Greeks. Take the theme of suffering and just compare and contrast of the vision as we see it in the New Testament compared to something you might see in the Apocrypha.

BT: A really important category to have in mind at the outset is the category of covenant. The historical books of the apocrypha, by and large, are reading history and interpreting their times in light of what is written in the past in the authoritative scriptures. And so, think, for example, of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, these blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. So, the people who are facing Gentile tyranny and foreigners coming into their land and oppressing them or scattering them, the faithful are understanding that there’s a disciplinary role here. And they’re wanting to get back to the blessing side. And so, they’re in 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees, some of the clearest statements outside of the New Testament for this idea of human sacrifice atoning for sins, the righteous suffering on behalf of the unrighteous. And so, in these—in 2 Maccabees, chapter 6 and 7, and then this account is expanded and dramatized in most of the book of 4 Maccabees. It’s the account of these seven brothers and their mom and a faithful priest named Eliezer, who suffer horrendous torture and execution under Antiochus. And their deaths are presented as, in some way, a swaging God’s anger. Turning his heart towards his people and from a frown to a smile. And so, their deaths are also seen as exemplary, like they believed God’s promises so much, they trusted him and the goodness of his law so much that they wouldn’t compromise even unto death. So, they’re a model in that sense, but their deaths accomplish something. And in Second Maccabees, particularly, there are statements that sure sound like a hope of resurrection, which we would of course see amplified tremendously in the New Testament as one of the central things that we, as Christians, are proclaiming with Christ’s victory over the grave and then our hope when he comes again. So, they’re viewing suffering as God’s chastisement of his people, but also the faithful endurance of suffering as the way of sort of accomplishing salvation or deliverance from this time of testing or trial. And there are some parallels that some people have noticed between some of these martyr accounts and how the apostle Paul will talk about the death of Jesus, for example, being a propitiation for our sins. That’s the language that’s coming from the Word of—

JD: God’s wrath.

BT: Yeah, that’s right. Literally, it could be the place of propitiation, the place where God’s wrath is assuaged. The language that’s drawn from the Greek Old Testament of the mercy seat, but then it’s applied to these martyrs in several places in 4 Maccabees and come by extension in 2 Maccabees. And Paul is saying, Jesus is that he is our Hilastarian, our mercy seat, our place where God’s wrath is dealt with, where it turns from frown to smile because of his righteous suffering in our stead. And so that’s a pretty important category and even development as they’re reading their Bibles, trying to understand what God might be doing here that we see in these books. Now, there’s other places in the Apocrypha where you would see suffering. For example, some of the expansions to the book of Daniel, you have Daniel’s three friends give two songs. So, in the Greek version, when Nebuchadnezzar is going to throw them into the fiery furnace, it’s pretty brief account. It keeps moving in Hebrew, but in Greek, there’s this extensive prayer from the furnace. And they’re confessing sin on behalf of Israel. So, prayers like in Daniel 9 become really important at this period of time. They’re sort of models. You see that in the song of the three young men, one of the expansions of Daniel. You see it in the book of Baruch. Where they’re thinking about their plight, their struggle, and wanting to draw on biblical resources to find help. And so, confessions like Daniel 9, where you have the righteous prophets and we have sinned. And your judgment has come upon us. Or think about Ezra and Nehemiah, some of the confessions there. Those become really important at this period of time as they’re really calling one another to renewed faithfulness to God and his Word, even when it’s difficult. Even when that might cost them something for holding fast to what they believe is true.

TK: Brian, as we move forward here, just because we’re getting close to a time where I know you got places to go. What would you say to a pastor who is feeling ill-equipped in this area? Just how would you counsel somebody? he says, I got people who are saying you need to know the Apocrypha or something like that. I don’t know what to do. He’s thinking I was never trained in that. How would you counsel encourage somebody?

BT: I think it’s wonderful for every pastor and every Christian to be lifelong learners. Fundamentally, though, a pastor is charged with knowing the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, and applying that from the pulpit in the classroom, in the home, in various contexts. That’s your area of focus. At the same time, though, as questions come up in the life of your church, it’s good to try to look for good resources on those and try to be informed and have an answer. And there are questions that have thought about and written about these books before. That’s one of the areas that I’m trying to do some writing and thinking about. In part, even to help my own students, my own kids, who have questions about these hidden books. A place I might even suggest going is to just notice that there are a couple of historical events that the New Testament references that would be introduced in the Apocrypha. So, for example, the Feast of Hanukkah, or the Temple of Dedication, that’s the setting of Jesus’ great shepherd discourse in John 10. And that’s significant in part because you have in the Maccabean period some false shepherds that lead Israel to compromise, to forsake God’s Word, to try to get in good with the ruling powers, and disaster results. In contrast, Jesus is a good shepherd. He’s not like those kinds of shepherds. And so that’s just one example of how the Apocrypha serves as a kind of historical context to inform some of the events that are going to show up in the New Testament, even the different factions within Israel, like the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the people out in the wilderness. Those are, in some ways, responses to some of the events that are taking place in this time.

JD: Those weren’t leader titles in the Old Testament period. These are all arose during that intertestamental period, and we read about them in these apocryphal books.

BT: Yeah, that’s right. So, even picking up a good dictionary article in an evangelical dictionary, some study Bibles have short articles that would be on the Apocrypha in the intertestamental period. I’m, Lord willing, going to work on an accessible book that’s firm on a Protestant view of canon that’s going to still address the question, what is the apocrypha? Why does it matter for us? But for a pastor feeling inadequate, I would just say your sufficiency is in Christ and your authority comes from knowing his Word and applying it in the power of the Spirit. And there’s lots of other things that you won’t be an expert in, but if you can be a man of the book, that’s going to go so far.

JD: That’s so good, Brian.

TK: That’s really helpful.

JD: The greatest influence on the New Testament authors is unquestionably the Old Testament itself. If you can be a Bible man, a Bible woman, that’s ultimately what’s going to serve your people. It’s what we’re saved by. We are born again through the living and abiding Word of God, and that’s why being able to distinguish our true Scripture from secondary, important, but nevertheless secondary materials from the ancient world is very important. Brian is a leader in this area. He has written for very helpful essays in the new Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old that we will add to our notes, just telling you where you can find these. And it would be a great introduction if you are a shepherd and want to know more about the significance of these non-canonical, non-scriptural materials that were written between the periods of the Old and the New Testaments that were even influencing the New Testament authors. This would be a great place to start. Dr. Tabb, my dear brother, Brian, we’re delighted that you joined us today on GearTalk. Thanks for introducing our listeners to this fascinating area that so few of us know much about. Thank you also for being able to clarify the difference between the Word of God and the secondary material. So important, such an important distinction. And yet, we also want to recognize these are useful books in the same way that we would point authors to a book by Don Carson, or Greg Beale, or voices that today we hold dear. There were many of those voices during this intertestamental period, and a number of them are among these counted as Old Testament Apocrypha. They were reflecting on the Scriptures as Jews, and some of them truly hoping in the coming of the Messiah. And so they can be valuable for us historically and filling in gaps, but still not Scripture itself. Until next time, brothers and sisters, thanks for joining us today on GearTalk. Thank you, Brian.

BT: Thanks for having me.

TK: All right, Jason, that was a help from an expert in the field. I would not call myself that. But as I was just thinking about what we’ve just heard, and obviously Brian didn’t, he had to run, so he didn’t get to share everything that he would have shared. But how would you wrap this up, or what would be things that you’d say, OK, as I summarize thinking about the Apocrypha, here’s things I would want to say to a Christian pastor, or a mom or a dad, or a young person. And one thing I thought of people can have certainly in our age is with so many people thinking things about there’s something hidden or secret going on that they’re trying to keep good stuff away from us, and should I be thinking of it in terms of that at all? “Hey, they’re trying to keep books that should be in the Bible out.” How would you answer that, Jason?

JD: Oh, handful of questions there, Tom. I’m delighted that Brian was able to give us some moments. It was a rushed discussion, but as an attempt to wrap up this reflection on the significance of the Apocrypha, I just want to reiterate some things that Brian said and then build upon some things that he has written elsewhere that he actually didn’t say here. But we’re talking about a collection of books roughly the size of the New Testament. He mentioned 12 different books or he mentioned two poems included in that list, including 151st Psalm. So we’ve got 150 Psalms in the Bible, and here’s 151 that is added on, and yet historically the Christian church, the gospel-centered church that we now call the Protestant church has not counted these books as canonical. We haven’t recognized them as coming from God. Instead, these are mere human works. So the Bible is 100% from God, 100% from man, and yet while it includes all the characteristics of individual humans with different use of genre, different use of vocabulary, different styles in grammar, even two different languages that are grounded in history, Hebrew and Greek. We also believe all that is scripture, recognized as scripture, is it wasn’t something that the church decided, which books were in, which books were out. Instead, the canon was something that the church recognized. They were able to recognize that there were certain books that came from God. And then there are other books that are merely from man and they weren’t recognized as scripture even if they were good books. I think your new dissertation, Tom, is a really good book. And we hope that it’ll get published and be available on Amazon, but neither of us ever want that book to be viewed with the authority that scripture has. Indeed, scripture itself is going to be the test to whether and what in your book is worth listening to. And so the apocrypha, I would just want our listeners to be thinking about, like when you go to do your devotions or you go to prepare a woman’s Bible study or a sermon for Sunday morning, up on your shelf is your Bible. And we hope you use it as the foundation for your message, but then there’s other books. There’s, say, a systematic theology by Wayne Grudem or by Stephen Wellum or there is a good commentary from Tom Schreiner or Doug Moo or Greg Beale. And all of these tools are going to be used to prepare your message, but there’s a massive distinction between our responsibility to speak as if speaking the very words of God and using other resources to help us do that well. And the Apocrypha would have been among other resources that were simply Jewish reflections on the Old Testament and Jewish reflections on the significance of Old Testament theology for the history of their era. When we’re talking about the Apocrypha books, we’re talking about wisdom literature, historical writings, historical stories, and then supplements to biblical books that, as I said, shape a collection about the size of the New Testament. But these would have been helpful resources that I believe every Jew would have been distinguishing from the sacred writings, from the scriptures themselves.

So the first takeaway for our listeners is that this is in a group of hidden, authoritative materials that have been just kept away. No, actually, they’ve always been there. Since our, I mean, our early days, for you and me reaching back to the 60s or 70s, these Apocrypha were available, but they are just ancient writings, alongside of a number of other ancient writings that we know about that stand alongside of but in distinction from the sacred text itself. And that’s helpful. So that’s the first takeaway.

The second takeaway that Brian, he wasn’t able to fully develop, but he has developed in a number of his writings. So I just want to build on some things that he’s written and highlight them for our listeners. We could dive into the 12 apocryphal books that he mentioned, Old Testament apocryphal books, and consider themes that are apparent in our biblical text, humanities, creation and fall, the design of marriage between a male and a female. The righteousness of Abraham, a righteousness that Genesis 15:6 says was declared by faith, and yet a righteousness that was proven in his willingness to offer up his son, Isaac, in Genesis 22, commands like, “you shall not covet,” or the promise that stems from Genesis 3.15 and is built upon by promises given to the patriarchs, and then added to, in the rest of the Pentateuch, by Moses, and then by the prophets, this promise of a coming king. We could dive in and assess the new exodus, the anticipation that in light of the first exodus, it foreshadows, anticipates, and even greater exodus. Or the promise of a coming Elijah. These are all built within Scripture, and they’re all major elements that both the New Testament and the Apocrypha are reflecting on. And in one of the articles in the Dictionary of the New Testament use of the Old Testament, that Brian writes on.

TK: And we’ll again put a link to that work in our show notes.

JD: Yes, yes we will. He offers reflections on how the apocrypha’s handling of the Old Testament compares to the New Testaments, engagement with the Old Testament, specifically on those various themes that I just mentioned. And he notes that Jewish and Christian writings, wrestling with the Old Testament Scriptures, equally, they’re meditating in the same themes. They affirm that God is faithful to his covenant promises to David. He’s going to bring a king. The Apocrypha anticipates a new Elijah that is coming. The Apocrypha is convinced that Israel will be saved. This is things that the Old Testament teaches, and the Jews of the intertestamental period are affirming it. But when it comes to the New Testament, there’s distinctions that rise. The New Testament stresses that God has already begun to fulfill these promises of a new Elijah and the coming of a new David. God’s faithfulness to save Israel. The New Testament says, and standing against so many of the Jews of his day says, Jesus is the one through whom all those future hopes are in breaking into space and time. The future is entering into the middle of history with Jesus. He is the long-awaited Son of Abraham and Son of David. He is the one that he’s the new Moses. He’s the one who’s leading a new exodus. The forerunner to Jesus, John the Baptist, was the new Elijah. The New Testament just goes out of its way to say that a number of these elements that the Apocrypha affirms about the Old Testament are now being realized in the person of Christ. And that’s new and distinctive about the New Testament writings.

Another thing that in one of the other essays in that same Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament that Dr. Tabb draws attention to is that while there are some similarities of world view in relation to the concepts of forgiveness or that for God’s wrath to truly be appeased, human blood has to be sacrificed. Humans have sinned, so humans have to die. And we got a sense of that when he was talking about how in Second Maccabees and fourth Maccabees, they talk about the seven martyrs. That idea that not only are they providing examples of sustained faith, but there is that clear view in those apocryphal works that in some way the blood of the martyrs was appeasing the wrath of God. And that actually stands counter to how the New Testament talks. So here’s some differences of theology and ethics that stand against certain perspectives that are presented in the apocryphal material. Jesus’ death alone appeases the wrath of God.

So for some, God does call Christians to martyrdom. Revelation 12 declares that they stood against the dragon, that great serpent evolved the devil because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony that they were willing to remain faithful even to the point of death. May God help us be those people who were willing to live for Christ even to the point of our death, whether that’s through martyrdom or old age, whether God takes us home by sickness or by a sword. Those are the kinds of Christians that show they are truly in Christ, but it is against Christian theology to say that in some way our death is appeasing God’s wrath that somehow our death becomes the ultimate good work that will finally save us or make us right with God. No, Christianity declares on the basis of Scripture alone that it is by faith alone in Christ alone that it is his blood and righteousness alone by which we stand right with God. We need that great exchange that no mere human could provide but the ultimate God-man could provide. That our sins are placed on him and his perfect obedience is counted for us and by that alone are we declared right. That’s a distinction between apocryphal theology and biblical theology and we could stop there but we can go further. The very charge that Jesus makes love your enemies, stands against the ethics of someone like Ben Sira in Sirach 12:6–7. Jesus is called to bear his yoke alone to find our rest in these last days is far more radical than what we see in the works of Ben Sira in the apocryphal materials that says take on the Torah’s yoke, take on the yoke of the law in order to find rest. Now the New Testament would say if you try to bear the yoke of the law you will fail every time and it will bind you in curse and the history of Israel proves it. And so what we need is Jesus who perfectly obeys and now we need to simply rest in him and let him be our guide, let him control our actions and only in that context do we find life and rest.

These are just some examples, Brian draws attention to a number of similarities and a number of contrasts in his four articles in the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old. And so maybe I’ll just stop there and just point readers to those articles. It would be a very helpful tool to have in your libraries. Some of the articles are more technical than others, but it’s a very useful tool. If you want to dig deeper it would be a great resource. The Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old to read in just like a four-page article a summary of very helpful theologically grounded conservative perspectives on a host of different issues. So there’s some reflection, Tom.

TK: I think that’s really helpful and I think Brian Tabbs work here in this Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Maybe you’re feeling like I don’t have, I want to know something but I don’t have time to be fully versed and really give myself to a in-depth study of this topic. Having some articles you can read just to get acquainted and get you pointed in a right direction have some references to real help. So Jason I’m really glad we were able to tackle this today and I pray it really does serve you who’ve listened and won’t bless me.

JD: Awesome. Thanks, Tom.

JY: Thank you for joining us for your talk. Go to our show notes for links to Brian Tabbs work. In regard to today’s topic take a look at Brian Tabb’s helpful articles in the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. For works connected to biblical theology visit handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com

The post How Should Christians Think About the Apocrypha? appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

A Scholar’s Journey

A Scholar’s Journey A Scholar's Journey

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/scholars-journey-2.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today we’re playing another interview we recorded at the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting in San Diego. This podcast features Tom and Jason, along with Lance Kramer and Ian Valancourt. Ian shares his story today. The story involves, as we might expect in a Canadian scholar, a few references to hockey. We know the Lord’s work in Ian’s life will encourage you. This podcast was recorded outside, so be prepared for a little background noise. When you’re done listening, be sure to check out our show notes for links to Ian’s books.

TK: All right, welcome to Geartalk. Tom and Jason, we have Lance Kramer with us. Jason, who else is with us today?

JD: We have a growing dear friend of mine, Ian Valancourt. Actually, how do you say your last name?

IV: Valancourt.

JD: Just Valancourt.

IV: Yeah.

JD: See, we’ve never talked about this. I don’t even know how you know how to say my last name.

IV: I actually asked one of your students.

JD: Okay, what did they say?

IV: They said DeRouchie.

JD: DeRouchie it is.

IV: Yeah.

JD: Yeah, so I have my dear lifelong friend, Ian Valancourt. Actually, Ian and I have known each other for several years, and we have a similar mentor in our lives, and that is Stephen Dempster, and both of us just came from a presentation that Stephen gave. Not just us, he gave it to a big room filled with people. But Ian has a sweet story, and we thought it would serve our readers to engage him. He is a fellow Old Testament professor. He is a lover of all things Scripture and Jesus, and so in that sense, very like-minded. And he also loves the church, and we’re going to get to talk about that a little bit.

TK: Love it. And we have Lance Kramer sitting with us, who has been on the podcast, but Lance, why don’t you say what your connection with now these two men is right now, because it’s pretty significant.

LK: Yeah, I just finished my last class in my doctoral studies, and both of these men will be readers for my dissertation. So I’m really thankful for that opportunity to continue to learn from them and have them tear me apart.

IV: Looking forward to that part of mine.It’ll be something fun during my sabbatical.

JD: Oh, no.

JD: This is good. This is good.

IV: I have time on my hands.

TK: Love it. All right, well, Ian, it’d be fun to hear your story a little bit.

IV: Sure.

TK: I think that’s the goal today. We were laughing when you came in, actually, because Lance and I were sitting down earlier waiting for these two while they were in their private seminar, and I got an email from an academia website, and I had a journal article from you, which actually this would, let’s see if I can, do you remember the title of this article? Can you recite it?

IV: Yeah.

TK: Yeah. I’m looking at it, so I’ll tell you if you did it wrong.

IV: Formed in the crucible of messianic angst, the eschatological shape of the Hebrew Psalter’s final form. Is that good?

TK: That, you nailed it.

IV: I took a long time to come up with that back in 2013.

JD: Yeah, that’s a lot. But 2013.

IV: Yeah, that’s my first article.

JD: That’s not too long ago.

IV: That’s my first article.

JD: So that’s, we’re looking at 11 years ago, and you had a lot of life before that.

IV: Yeah.

JD: So, whereas I went through college sensing a call to vocational ministry, went off to graduate school, not sure whether it would be the academy or a local church, and then I went straight into my Ph.D. after my graduate studies, had a chance to serve in pastoral ministry during that window, but then taught right away. That’s not your story.

IV: No.

JD: So, give us a little taste of Ian.

IV: All right. Well, I became, God saved me when I was 19. I was a college dropout working at Home Depot, and God opened my heart to believe, and gave me hope. He gave me joy.

TK: Would you say you lacked, did you lack that before?

IV: Yeah. Yeah. And I went to Bible college. I audited a course four months later, and I did not read, I read one book in high school. It was Wayne Gretzky’s autobiography. So, at least it was a classic.

JD: you were a hockey boy, man. That’s good.

TK: What country are you from?

IV: Canada.

TK: Okay, yeah, this is—

JD: Did you grow up in Toronto?

IV: I grew up, before I was nine, we moved around. We lived in Western Canada, like Wayne Gretzky, Edmonton Oilers fan, lived in Alberta. And then when I was nine, we moved to Oshawa, which is just east of Toronto.

JD: Okay.

IV: And that’s my dad’s hometown, so I grew up there. And, but anyway, so God saved me when I was 19, audited a course, and I was not, I didn’t know how to read well. I just knew I wanted to know Jesus. And the following fall, a year after becoming a Christian, I went to Bible college for a year, expecting, I just want to grow as a Christian. And I was telling one of you guys earlier, one year Bible college turned into 12. And I, after that first year, I transferred schools to Tyndale in Toronto. And my roommate, he was in his last semester, and he wanted to mentor me, so he asked me to be roommates. And his name’s Ryan Fullerton, and he introduced me to the ministry of John Piper. And at that massively formative time in my Christian walk, I was hearing God-centeredness, Christian life is joy, and I just, I bit, hook, line, and sinker. It was just massively formative for me. And then we were at a church, our pastor was mentored by Tim Keller, and this was before Tim Keller was writing anything. And so I was hearing on Sunday expository preaching, Reformed theology, apologetics, and evangelism, and I was seeing people from, they’re just dead in sin and locked in sin, coming and welcomed, but not affirmed in sin, and then seeing them exploring the gospel and watching regeneration take place, watching them saved. And that was also hugely formative for me.

So, my wife says, when she met me, someone said something about me, and she said, isn’t that the guy who always rollerblades and listens to John Piper tapes on his Walkman? Isn’t that that guy?

JD: That’s awesome.

TK: Are you still that guy?

IV: Not a Walkman.

LK: But definitely rollerblades.

IV: Yeah. I haven’t rollerbladed in a while. I’m 47 now. With bad knees. But no, yeah, so that period, and went through my undergrad, and I discovered a love for studying the Scriptures academically that I did not see coming as a guy who only read one book in high school. And I was known as the guy who was always in the library, and it was just wonderful, and learning about the centrality of the local church through my local church, and then studying the Scriptures academically, deeply, and then seeing that applied all the time in the local church, leading evangelistic small groups for unbelievers to explore Christ, preaching my first sermons, discerning a call to ministry.

And then during the time in my undergrad, I would say there was a struggle with, one of the sins I struggled with was academic pride. And one of the ways I reacted against that was pushing away what I thought of as dry and dead academia, because I didn’t see—I saw life in the local church, and I saw spots of life in academia. But like we, like I said about Steve Dempster’s talk just now, he oozes delight in Christ, and if he was my faculty member, I probably would have done your route, and gone right into a PhD. That’s what I want. But I wasn’t seeing that modeled. But just the whole, should I be a professor or pastor, I went into the pastoral road, and after my undergrad, I did an internship at my local church for two years, paid like 30 hours a week, and then I did an MTS, master’s at Tyndale, and…

JD: A master of theological studies.

IV: Yeah. And then I pastored a local church for six years, a solo pastorate, and then just through a series of providences, I went through pastoral burnout as a solo pastor. I saw God’s blessing, saw good ministry, but I think the burnout, there’s a whole mix that you, it’s—how do you unpack it, right? But it was to the point where I resigned, and it was just very, I thought I was going to retire from that church at the end of my career. I had no plans on it being a stepping stone, and… just very difficult. But we went back to our local church that we had gone to after the, the Tim Keller Church was a PCA, and I never became Presbyterian. I’m Baptistic theologically. And so, during my master’s, we went to a church called Grace Fellowship. Paul Martin is the pastor there. And, for lack of a better way of putting it, learned how to be a Baptist. And, and still heard the expository preaching, still heard the same theological influences.

But we went back there after my time solo pastoring. And it was just such a blessing to be shepherded by these, by these godly men. And, I remember going to them one day and saying, really sheepishly, I really have a desire to do a PhD, and Natalie’s, my wife, is on board. And I expected them to rebuke me, and they, all the elders that I went to just said, “We could see it,” and I thought, I thought they were going to call me lazy for wanting to do a PhD, “and we could really see that as a fit for you.” And, I think it’s really important to discern and call the ministry in the context of the local church. And so, that was just such a blessing, and that was a surprise. I didn’t think that’s what the advice I’d get. And, so I just started putting out feelers and seeing what doors God might open, and he opened the door to do the PhD at the University of Toronto, and very thankful. And I, I pastored part-time throughout my PhD studies. So, I preached about, I did a couple interim pastorates, where I preached every week, and then, for four years, it was, 20 Sundays a year, I co-pastored with another. The guy I co-pastored with is the dean of the school where I now teach. And so, that’s the, bit of the highlights you can flesh out, but that’s a bit of my story.

JD: So, as we go back to those early years in pastoral ministry, we’ve got listeners that are in all different types of places, but you faced, you faced that weariness.

IV: Yeah.

JD: That worn, that wornness through serving others, and apparently, at some level, not even getting to fill up yourself. So, you—

IV: Well, there is a filling up of yourself, because Paul says to Timothy, as you put these things before the brothers, you’ll be a faithful steward of Christ, a faithful servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the word of truth. So, preaching does fill you up. And I was still doing my long walks with Piper and Keller, and just the people that filled me up. And as the Gospel Coalition was emerging and becoming, I was just delighting in this little town I pastored in. But there were certain elements, yeah. It really bothers me when pastors treat professors and authors like they’re somebody. I actually think the opposite. That pastors are on the front lines.

TK: Absolutely.

JD: Yep. Yeah.

IV: And they’re the ones that need support from us. Yeah. And we need to be servants of pastors. And I have so much respect for people who serve full-time as pastors.

JD: That’s beautiful. In my role as a professor, I’ve always told my students, I am, I’m support staff. I’m a mobilizer. So that you can go out to those front lines. And, and even now as I’m engaging in a, in a church plant, I’m feeling the privilege, but also the challenge of entering back more on the front lines and not just equipping others. But it is, it is really a high calling. And, it can wear on families. And so, so what would you, what would you say if, if we’ve got a listener who finds himself in pastoral ministry right now, or it may be a spouse of a weary pastor, having walked that journey a little bit, what, what might you share with them? What would you challenge them? I love what you just said regarding, it’s the Word of God, that, that continual engagement with God’s Word that’s going to fill us up.

IV: Yeah. There’s so much, and there’s so many different situations. And I would say to some, don’t run away from ministry unduly quickly. I’d say to others, how’s your family? Like, how is this situation not week to week or month to month, I mean, big picture affecting your ability to, like the Puritans called the home, the little church, like you’re a pastor of your little church before you’re a pastor of a local church. So how is your ability to shepherd and care for your family this last year? And if the answer is almost nothing, well, maybe that, that can be an indicator to what can change. There are so many situations. I would rather not give advice like stay or go and more give advice: Do you have someone that you look up to that’s pouring into you? And if the answer is no, maybe that’ll be part of your decision to stay or go, but, and do you have people in the congregation who are elders who actually know the inside? Because you can’t tell a friend in the church who’s not an elder everything that’s hurting your soul right now, but an elder you can. So is there an elder with you that you trust that you can walk this journey with? That might be completely different than a situation where, you don’t. So anyway, those are some things that come to mind. Feel free to probe more, but…

JD: So you move from pastoral ministry into school again. Yeah. And at what point had you gotten married to Natalie?

IV: We got married in 2004, so.

JD: Okay, so you, like, you’re married at this time?

IV: We got married like a month after I graduated from my master’s.

JD: Okay. And so I’ll, yeah. So you’re in this journey now heading toward having a sense of academic ministry as a potential for the future.

IV: Yeah.

JD: So what was it like to go back to school at that point in your life? And what would you, for those that are in, for those listeners that are in the midst of that journey as a married couple, did you have any of your children yet?

IV: Both.

JD: Okay, so heading through doctoral studies with children and wanting your family not to wither, not to have a wife who’s frustrated that you’re engaged in academic ministry training, but who’s supportive. So how did you maybe handle things differently or what would you, what was, as you reflect on that, how did you maintain what you needed to do to get all the way to the end?

IV: Okay. Well, the first thing is my wife, my wife, Natalie, I always say her name should be on the diploma. We’re a team. And we made the decision together to do this.

JD: She got her PhT. Yeah. Putting Hubby Through.

IV: Yeah, that’s, that’s probably right. She didn’t write a word of the dissertation, I promise, but she did win, when she, she has an MDiv and when she graduated, she won the theology award. So I’ll brag on my wife. I delight in that. And she used the money that she got to buy a glider for our firstborn for nursing. And so that was just wonderful back then.

But yeah, so Natalie and I were together. And we decided we had, we had just bought a home and we decided to sell our home and to use the down payment as seed money for the PhD, which is a special woman who would, who would do that. And we, we really decided, we were thinking radical risk for the glory of God, but not radical risk that’s foolhardy or uncalculated, blind. We went to the elders of our church and they have, they encouraged this, “if your wife’s on board.” And but we don’t know how God’s going to provide, we, but we’re willing to take a step and a step. And the other thing, the Lord opened the door for me to do the PhD and we had the seed money and Natalie and I decided every year we’ll check in and say, how has, how is this on our finances? How is this on our family? And every year we came by and say, that was hard, but it was doable. And then before the last year it was, that was too much. And we, we made the decision at that point, okay, I can pull out or we can just grit our teeth and do one more year of this and be done.

TK: And did you come close at all the same that I, I can pull out? Like did, did that—

IV: it was on the table as an option because I’m a husband and father first. And there was a lot of plates—like I was pastoring part-time and you know what it’s like as an adult and my wife was a full-time homeschooling mom. And we just said that was so much. We felt like we were too busy. One of the mistakes I made: I should have slowed down and I just wanted to press through and get done so I could get a job. And, but we decided together, let’s keep going for another year and then we have a PhD. And so we did, but it was a decision again, we made together and, yeah, so that’s, that’s kind of how we worked it. I don’t, I don’t know what else to say, but, yeah.

JD: So you graduate and how soon after, or maybe even before graduation, when did you get the job at heritage? Yeah, God opened the door. I taught a couple of courses at Tyndale where I did my undergrad and my master’s, in Toronto. I did two courses there during the PhD. And then near the end of the PhD, my co-pastor was the dean at heritage and still is. And he asked me to teach a course. And I said, no. I said, I’ve got too much on and there’s not going to be a job there for me. And I’m just not going to try to get another line on my CV. I want to finish this degree so I can get a full-time job. But what he knew and I didn’t is the Old Testament professor at heritage was on his way, stepping out. And so I had said no. And then a week later he shared this news and said, “I really encourage you to take this.” So the church allowed me to take a leave of absence and that allowed me, and I taught a very similar course before, so it wasn’t a ton of extra prep. So I was able to replace church with school and teach an adjunct course during the PhD. And then I graduated and they had me teach three adjunct courses that year while I pastored.

TK: can you, can you guys explain what adjunct means? Cause I think a lot of people wouldn’t know what that is.

IV: Yeah. Just teaching, not being a core employee of the school, but being hired to teach like a contract to teach one course or however many courses. You get paid per course instead of a salary. So, and the church kept me on to pastor while I did the three courses throughout that year.

JD: And what’s your, as a prof, you’re now how many years into teaching?

IV: Now?

JD: Yes.

IV: I’m in my seventh year full time. So I did the three courses that one year and then I got hired full time the next year.

JD: So seven years in, what is your heart as a prof? What is your, your desire when you enter into that classroom? What are you wanting to engage in? What are you wanting to see happen in the lives of your students?

IV: I want my, I want to give my students a framework to understand the Scriptures and see their interconnectedness, like biblical theology, and to see Christ as the focal point of the Scriptures. Like everything leads into Christ and just gospel centered hermeneutics. And I want my students to be as excited about Christ or more so even than I am. And so it’s my calling to, to know Christ and to delight in him, to go deep in him and have that overflow in the classroom. And especially as a seminary professor, like I’m preparing pastors. And so it’s just such a joy and people coming into the course, people often aren’t taught the Old Testament well. And so when they start to see how the progression of the storyline and how it all fits together and culminates in Christ and points to Christ and they love it. And I want them also to see preaching the gospel in every sermon, whether we’re in Genesis or Leviticus or Revelation or the Gospels is not an option. It’s essential. Like, so those are a couple of things.

And also the languages. I think Lance and I were talking earlier about those rollerblades with Piper discipling me through tapes, which dates me. But the Bethlehem conference for pastors, the biographical messages he did every year. I probably listened to each of those 6, 8, 10, 12 times, depending on which one. But one of the things that was modeled in those biographical messages was the importance of the biblical languages. Like Martin Luther, crediting the return to learning biblical languages with the—the Reformation could happen because of the biblical languages and the precision that comes. So one of my jobs, I have, half the courses I teach are Hebrew. And so just, it’s my job to, to get, to show students how exciting it is to read God’s Word from the original.

TK: What would you say to somebody who would—because I think if, if somebody, when you look at it, you look at it and say, I could never do that. And I would imagine almost everybody has that thought. What, what do you say to students when they kind of have that thought?

IV: I say, I say, I read one book in high school. That’s what I say. And, do you know your phone number? Okay, well then you can memorize something. I like to break it up into increments though. I tell my Hebrew students, you need—Hebrew is not more important than your other courses, but Hebrew is like the needy child. You don’t love the needy child more, but the needy child needs a bit more of you. And so you need to set aside eight to 10 hours a week, spread over six days a week. And just that immersion. And then you need to sleep well because sleep and memory go together. And I coach them a little bit on that. And I say, if you can do eight to 10 hours a week, hopefully of your most alert times, throughout that week, over six days, you can do it.

JD: Yeah, that’s right.

IV: And I try to just break it down like that. And, and then just little tricks and tools like the Crossway Reader’s Hebrew Old Testament. It’s just so helpful because one of the biggest impediments to language learning is vocabulary. When it’s a dead language like this, it’s not spoken anymore. If you go to Jerusalem, we’re not speaking biblical Hebrew. It’s a, think of how different English is today from the King James in 1611. And that’s only 400 years ago. Now think about Moses writing, you know, 3,500 years ago or 3,400 years ago. That’s different Hebrew now. And so that reader’s Hebrew Old Testament is so helpful because it helps you with vocabulary a little. Some of the less common words are footnoted. And so it helps—

TK: you don’t have to look up every, you don’t have to look up everything,

IV: But I use it every day, in personally, in my, so anyway.

LK: So now seven years into academic ministry, what does service to the church look like for you?

IV: Oh, great question. I think about that a lot because one of the tricks in any sort of ministry is, what to say no to. Opportunities come and just getting to know myself. But, a couple of years ago during COVID, I just hit a point in my teaching where my core preps were done and you’re always growing as a professor, but I was able to take that creative energy and put it into some writing. And I really held my, like with a loose hand, an open hand before the Lord and I was praying, I desire to have a writing ministry, but your will be done. I don’t know what you’ll have. And I started writing, and COVID in Canada was two years of lockdown and one of the silver linings for this introverted guy who’s been wanting to write. I was able to write two books during that time and, so I really try to prioritize writing right now as one of the ministries and the ways I serve the ways I serve the church and try to guard time for writing and not fill my time with other things. So, and then I lead a small group at my local church. We meet bi-weekly and we’ve really bonded, supporting each other, shepherding each other, praying for one another, applying the sermon to life and, just active members at a local church. I teach a course once in a while at church, just for lay people. And I was telling you guys, the seminary I teach at has just freshly, struck up a partnership with my local church. And we’re going to start teaching seminary courses on site at Hope Bible Church in Oakville, where we are members, my wife and I are members. So those, I’ve, I’ve been part of the liaison between the two, kind of planning that. So those are some of the things.

And I would say, too, just trying to encourage my pastors and tell them how much I appreciate them and support them in any way. And if they ask, sometimes they’ll ask, what’s a good book to read? And I say, read Steve Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty. That’s kind of my pat answer.

JD: This is good. Yeah.

TK: Jason, can, why did you, so Lance is sitting here. He’s got his dissertation coming up. And he’s asked you to serve as his first reader, his doctoral father. Why, why would you say Ian would be a good choice? For you, why would Ian be a good fit for Lance?

JD: Oh, there’s many reasons why I would want to partner with Ian in order to serve Lance through this process. First, Ian is a Psalms scholar. He wrote his dissertation on it. He’s recently one of the two books that he mentioned. And both of these books are so accessible for all of our listeners. And so why don’t you just give us the two titles of those two books so that people could find them. But one of them is on the Psalms, and the other is an introduction to Moses’ five-part book, the Torah, the Law.

IV: Yeah.

JD: And so Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and, and step-by-step, how they point to Jesus. And so the, the titles of these two books.

IV: Yeah, so I’ll say first: the dissertation, not accessible.

JD: Yeah, that’s different. That’s a different book.

JD: That’s by definition.

IV: That’s a different book. So if you go on Amazon, the more expensive one, don’t get that one. Right. If you go on that’s a hundred bucks, don’t get that. But the more recent ones, the Pentateuch one is called The Dawning of Redemption: The Story of the Pentateuch and the Hope of the Gospel. And so I just, I walked through, I walked through the five books of Moses, and each chapter ends with looking forward to Christ. And, and so Creation, the Theater of Redemption, Eden, the Promise of Redemption, Genealogy, the Lineage of Redemption. And I have a bunch of—

TK: And could a, could a pastor or, church member who didn’t know Hebrew access these, read these?

IV: There’s no Hebrew in it. Okay. So the target readership there is thoughtful Christians who have never been to seminary. Love it. And, hopefully useful in the seminary classroom as well, but written so someone who’s thoughtful, like, read more than one book in high school, maybe. But someone who’s a little bit conversant with the Scriptures from being in a healthy local church would be able to access. And there’s discussion questions for small groups to digest this stuff together.

And then the second book is called Treasuring the Psalms, How to Read the Songs that Shape the Soul of the Church. And, yeah. So, and that’s more primarily an accessible seminary Bible college textbook or undergrad textbook, but hopefully accessible for thoughtful Christians who have never been to seminary.

JD: So, Ian is giving so much of his life to the works related to David. Like, he’s getting ready to write a big commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel.

IV: Yeah.

JD: And he’s also already given so much of his time to studying the Psalter. He’s aware of what others are saying, other scholars are saying. And so, I thought it would be really good to have someone of his caliber along with someone with his heart. A heart for Jesus. An Old Testament scholar that treasures Christ like I know Lance does and like I know Lance wants to write in a way that’s going to glorify Christ and his purposes in Scripture. And even though we’re working in a new sphere like Chronicles, I thought that Ian would be a great choice to partner side by side so that we, the two of us, will be able to serve Lance to accomplish his book on the use of Psalms in this big book of Chronicles.

TK: Lance, you in with these guys?

LK: I’m all in.

TK: All right. All right. Well, Lance, can you pray for our brother before we close this out?

LK: I’d love to. Father, thank you for this time to hear from Dr. Valancourt and the story that you have woven for him. The ways that the church has been a source of blessing for him and now in the academy you are using him to serve the church. I pray you would continue to do so. Give him joy in his writing and in his service in such a way that the church is equipped, that pastors are equipped, and that you are glorified and enjoyed forever. Amen.

IV: Amen.                        

TK: Thanks for joining us.

IV: Thank you so much. Joy to be with you guys.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. We’ve included links in the show notes to Ian Valancourt’s books. Among his recent works, you’ll find a terrific introduction to the Pentateuch and a very helpful introduction to the Psalms. Both of these works are highly readable. While Dr. Valancourt’s perspective on Christ’s place in the Psalms differs in places from the perspective we’ve shared on GearTalk, we heartily recommend Ian’s work on the Psalms and believe it will add to your love of Christ and understanding of the Psalms. You will be blessed. For resources related to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com.

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