Week 1 (Days 001-007): How did we get the Bible?

Hey Bible readers, welcome to the Bible Recap Deep Dive. In TBR Deep Dive, we take one week's content of the Bible Recap reading plan and we pull some questions from our Recap Dance Facebook group to discuss with our host. Let me introduce you to our host. We have Emma Dauder. How's it going? And Kirsten McCloskey. Hi. And these are the two ladies who are going to be carrying you through this podcast every week. Occasionally we'll have a guest. Occasionally it will be me. And I'm so excited to jump into more topics that are going to help us read, understand, and love God's Word. And so without further ado, let's get this year rolling. All right, that sounds good. Okay. So our first question for today is a little bit more of a general question. And I think this is going to be a really fun one to kick us off. So the question is, how was the Bible made? Who decided on the layout? How did they choose? What books would be separated into two books? Obviously it's all God's Word, but who were the people who laid it all out? This is I agree, Kirsten. Such a fun question to start the year off with. But when it comes to the conversation, it's really important that we separate the Old Testament from the New Testament because it went a little differently for each half. So let's start with the Old Testament. And then Kirsten, you want to take the New Testament here to second, he'll see pop in whatever. And as a side before we dig in, the website got questions super helpful. There's some great additional resources there. We love that website. We do. We really do. But when it comes to the Old Testament, the Old Testament came together over centuries. And this was a process that unfolded rather than a bunch of people sitting down at a table and saying what books go in, what aren't. That's not really how it went for the Old Testament. And the proper way to talk about this is to ask how were books recognized as scripture? Recognized is the key word there. So over generations, the people of God recognized the writings that bore the marks of his voice or the signs that showed, hey, this really is God's Word. And so they looked at things like, was it written by a prophet or leader connected to God's people? Did it align with truth that had already been revealed? Was it widely used and accepted in the Jewish community of faith? And then by the time of Jesus, what we call the Old Testament was already functioning as the revealed word of God. Nobody was questioning it. Yeah. And in fact, one of the things that I think is really great and helpful for us looking back at these passages that were recognized as scripture is that Jesus actually quotes from every Old Testament book. That's a fun fact. Verifies the validity of these. And I think it just gives credence to what was already being accepted in his community prior to all that time. Yeah, that's so good. I also think about part of the question was, what about the books that were split into two? Right. So you could you could think like was Jesus quoting first Samuel or second Samuel or to him wasn't just Samuel, you know, but but those divisions, they were not theological divisions. They they were likely done because of scroll length. Scrolls were expensive. And something interesting I found as I studied was that most of the time scribes didn't leave margins like if we're working in a document, we can set the margin to be one inch or half an inch. They didn't do that. Paper was expensive. So they'd write from the very edge to the very edge. And in some cases, they needed to split the books in two because it was it was a better use of paper versus cramming it in a way that became eligible or it was more difficult to transport. And also in the Old Testament, just like they have books that are split like first Samuel, second Samuel, they're also groupings of books that appear as a collection of books. And so one thing that's important to note when I said earlier that Jesus quotes from every Old Testament book, sometimes if there's a collection of a couple of books, he maybe only quotes from one of those books, but it's certifying authorizing the collection authenticity to the collection as a whole. So that's important to note, I think. Yeah, definitely. All right, so let me jump in and we'll talk a little bit about the New Testament. And even before I do that, though, I do just want to say that for those of you that maybe have never experienced this conversation before or this is kind of a new concept, I think this is really important to just kind of a general layout of how the Bible got put together so that we can really trust and believe that God had His hand over all of this, the writing of it, and the fact that we have it with us today. So it's very exciting. Okay, so New Testament. So the 27 books of the New Testament were written in a more condensed time period than what you were talking about Emma in the Old Testament. And so basically all of these books and the letters were written sometime between about 50 AD to 90 AD, give or take a few years. So with the New Testament, we've got lots of different authors and we've got people that are coming from a wide variety of different backgrounds. So a Pharisee, a fisherman, Jesus's half brother, and they're all writing from all around the Roman empire, which is really remarkable too. It's not like they were all in one place. They're writing from Rome, they're writing from Jerusalem, from Ephesus, and we even have a Gentile author who wrote on the land and the sea. Looking at you, Luke, I love your epic travel writing skills. This is my favorite travel vlogger before there was vlogger. He was the original travel vlogger. Yeah, for sure. And all of these people were eyewitnesses of Jesus. So they had credibility because of that. I mean, give or take the author of Hebrews, we don't know who that was. Mystery. Mystery. We all have our thoughts and opinions on that. But he seems to have been in Eyewitness to Jesus based on how accurately he portrays him as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. So yeah, just really that also lends credence to the people and what they've written. And that was part of what the church was looking at when they were coming together to talk about, okay, we're recognizing that these are on the same level as the Old Testament scriptures. And that was part of that kind of authority, that apostolic authority of whether someone had seen Jesus. And so relatively quickly with the New Testament, there was this understanding, like I said, that these new writings should really be recognized as scripture alongside the Old Testament. And so we get a couple places where we can kind of see this clearly in 2nd Peter 3, 15 to 16, which was written in about the mid 60s. So we're talking 30 years after Jesus is walking the 1960s. Right. Exactly. Just 60s. Exactly. And so their Peter is talking about how it's sometimes hard to understand Paul. Yes, Peter, we're with you. We totally agree. Thank you for validating. Thank you for validating that Peter. But what the most important thing is the way Peter refers refers to Paul's letters as being a part of scripture. So he puts it on that same level with the Old Testament. So there was already this recognition that the things that the apostles were writing were as important as the Old Testament. And then Paul does something similar in 1 Timothy 518 when he references scripture and he quotes from Deuteronomy and from Luke. And so Paul, it seems, viewed Luke's gospel as authoritative and scripture. And again, this is also just in the 60s. And so that's 30 years after Jesus' ministry. So we're already getting this understanding of what's authoritative, what's recognized in the church. So it's really cool. Yeah. And you referenced a couple of books from the New Testament that have numbers before their names like the Old Testament books. But it's a different scenario in the New Testament when we have those numbers because those were letters. And so the numbers indicate the sequence of the letters as opposed to that the scribes didn't have enough space on their parking. And sometimes there were letters in between. They're not considered scripture. So they're numbered as the letters that were considered scripture in the sequential order. And there's even a letter to the Corinthians that we believe seems to have been lost. That in TBR we refer to it as zero Corinthians because it predates first Corinthians. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. It was the Corinthians. Yeah. It's good. Okay. And so by the second century AD, we've got churches that are all around the Roman Empire. So remember, it's not just one place. It's not just in Jerusalem or in Rome. It's all throughout that have copies of many of the letters and the gospels. And they're reading them together in their Sunday worship. And so even at this time, they even have people writing commentaries already on the gospels. So clearly, they're seeing these these gospels as scripture. And then eventually, where we get to the place where the church comes together and says, okay, we're going to be really specific about which new testament writings are going to be labeled as on par and recognizes on par with the Old Testament. The reason for that is because there were heresies popping up. So they had to really just take what was already being used in the churches and be like, okay, we're doing this and we're not doing this to protect against those heresies. And so at the council of Carthage, which was in 397 AD, okay, which is significant amount of time after all the books of the Old Testament were or New Testament, excuse me, were written, the church leaders decided that nothing but the canonical books, so the 27 New Testament books were to be read and recognized in the churches as holy scriptures. So that might seem like again, a long period of time between when they were written and when we kind of finalized the New Testament. Yeah, the list. Right, the list. But what's important in that is that the list was already really being finalized in the churches. It was already what they were using. This council of Carthage just put kind of the whole church's stamp of approval on it, the leadership being like, okay, this is what we're going to stick to. Let's all follow that. So would it would it be fair to say that the list that we know today came about because false books or false writings, if you will, we're starting to circulate and so it became necessary to create a list. Is that in some ways? Is that fair to say? I think in some ways. Yeah, I mean, I would imagine that if it hadn't been the heresies that God would have done something else to bring about kind of just the order and the organization of preserving his word. But this was the way that it ended up and he preserved it all along. Exactly. Those books had always been there. Yeah, it wasn't like they just showed up at 390, it was 397. 397. Yeah. I think of it as like the kid who when he gets his drivers permit is driving his parents car and then he's driving the car. He's driving it. He's in the car. Nobody else is driving it. He's driving it. But then when he turned 16, they give him the driving permit. Yeah. Like it's just made official in this way with a paper. Yeah. It's always the liability. Right. Uh-huh. But it's just put on paper at that point as like here is the official statement saying you can drive a car. Right. Yeah. And that might be a imperfect analogy. But that's kind of how I have viewed the churches time where they certified that these were the scriptures that would be recognized and read in the churches. Yeah. I think it's also important that we remember God's word wasn't preserved by accident. Yeah. Like if you think about that example, Terri Lee, that teenage boy who's so excited to get his license, he didn't learn to drive on accident. There were things in his life or even just his parents intentionally teaching him that led to him being able to get that license and it being official. God preserved his word intentionally. It was him working through real people throughout actual history to carry his word across generations and now even languages. So I think as we're as we're talking about this, it's really important that we remember that a preserved Bible, a well-preserved Bible means a trustworthy God. And so we don't have to wonder. Like have his promises changed? No, they haven't. Has truth been watered down? No. Right. It hasn't. The same God who we read this week spoke light into darkness has spoken through his word. It's been well preserved and he's still today speaking to us through it. And so in a world where where so much shifts and changes, the preservation of scripture is, it's like it's God's gentle reminder. He's like, my word is steady. My truth stands. My promises endure. So when we open our Bibles, we're hearing from the God who never changes. And that is such a timely thing for us to hold to because in a world today where everything can be faked, we can watch fake videos, historical figures doing things they never would have done. Yes. Words coming out of their mouth that look like they're real might even sound like the voices of dead people. And everything, I can generate an entire false reality for us. Yep. And I was having a conversation with Bobby Grimmwald recently. He is the man who created the Bible app. Oh, he said something that Bobby, forgive me if I misquote you in any way. But I thought it was so profound and so encouraging. He said in a world where more and more content is going to be less and less trustworthy, people are going to begin to seek out the ancient truths that the rise of AI is actually going to catapult people to seek out the truth of scripture. And people will find that it is trustworthy. People will find that it is consistent. People will find that it is living and active and still speaking to them today. And that is so encouraging to me that this ancient truth that we've built our lives on, that God who wrote those truths and delivered them to us, he can be trusted when most of the rest of everything else around us can't. Yeah. That's such a good way. So when doubt whispers, can I really trust the Bible? Is this really true? Is this really true? We can remember God's faithfulness didn't stop at the last page of revelation. And he is continuing to be faithful today so that we might know him when everything in our world is crazy. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Amen. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to our next question. So this question comes from day one. Genesis 3, 14 to 15. And here's the question. What does it mean that the serpent's head would be crushed? So let me read those verses for us. Genesis 3, 14 to 15. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly, you shall go and dust, you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. I love this question because I think it's understanding this question is going to help us when we get to those more boring genealogies and passages of the Bible that are a little tricky. They help us make sense of why many of them are there. So here's what's happening. Adam and Eve have just sent. We've got a problem and God is speaking at this moment directly to the serpent. And he's telling the serpent, hey, there's going to be conflict. But then we get to this key promise in 315 that one day, the serpent would strike the heel of the woman's offspring. And then some translations instead of brews, they say that the offspring of the woman would absolutely crush the serpent's head. So from the very beginning of the Bible, which maybe for some is probably like three pages from your table of contents. We read that this victorious child will crush the enemy. And now we know that that is pointing to Jesus, to Jesus, at the cross or on the cross, Satan struck his heel or bruised his heel to speak, which to us maybe seems a little bit like an understatement. But though Jesus has wounded and even killed, his death and resurrection was him crushing the enemy in victory. And so this verse, many theologians call it the first gospel or proto-Evangelian, some people say proto-Evangelian, I don't know, which pronunciation to run with. But before you get Abraham, before you get Moses, before David, God was already promising a savior who would come. In the whole story of the Old Testament, it is moving us toward the day when this victorious child would arrive. Yeah. And the proto-Evangelian or Evangelion, whatever your fan say, whatever your preference. Yeah, however you want to do it. A lot of people believe this is the first prophecy of the Christ in Scripture, the first gospel. And we talk about on TBR how I actually think that maybe the first prophecy is Genesis 13, where the first words God speaks let there be light, that that is God speaking, that over this darkness that's about to happen, over this fall, where everything's about to go terribly wrong, like, hang on, light is coming, that it's not just a creation command, that it is a promise of the light of the world that is coming in to save the world. And I kind of love that idea of the first words of God that are recorded in Scripture, being a prophecy of the coming Messiah. But either way, one thing that I think is cool about this passage in Genesis 3 is if you fast forward to Romans, I believe it's Roman 1620, double check me on that, Paul says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. And so there's a crushing on the cross that ultimately Satan has defeated, but then there's this ongoing process that God's people get invited into, that we get engaged in this process of crushing Satan under God, crushes him under our feet, like we get invited into this. I just think that is to be able to participate in what Jesus has already accomplished. Yeah, and to participate in God's ultimate victory of good over evil. Yeah, which I, that's really cool. That's really cool. Yeah, and I think, I mean, as we look at this in short, that's what we're talking about. I mean, you did such a good job explaining that, but what it is is it Satan's ultimate defeat, even though we're only a few chapters into the Bible at this point, and we see sin come in, we see darkness, deception, pride, like this is not going to go well. But God plants this in there already that again, we get to see it as Jesus in the cross. We know what we know what happens there, but what Adam and Eve knew, they just were looking for then this offspring, like who's going to make right what we've made wrong. So I think that's just an interesting thing that we get to see the ultimate defeat, like we, we read about that, we know what that is. They are just seeing it as this little glimmer of hope after what has just happened in the garden. And so this is an amazing promise from God. God had a plan, and it was plan A, Jesus would come, and he would deal with sin and evil. Sin was never going to win, and Satan was always going to be defeated. And now it's going to take a little bit of time, because again, we're only in Genesis three. That's right. We got a lot of books to go through. If you're with us for the first time, we, it's going to take a year. So stick with us. If you've already done this, you know, you know how it goes, but it's going to take a while. And there's going to be times where maybe even in our own lives, but I'm thinking about in the biblical story where people are like, where are you God? Where is this offspring? Where is this good person who is supposed to come and deal with what happened? And so yeah, it can just encourage anything. Yeah, it's such a good practical reminder for us, because as we continue reading through the story of Scripture, we're going to hit genealogies, we're going to have to read a bunch of laws, long stretches of history that might make us wonder, he is this relevant for me or what is this? What does this have to do with me? Yeah. But Genesis 3, 15 reminds us that we're reading a story. And this whole story with laws and genealogies and history is heading somewhere. Yeah. It's it's it's God moving history toward Jesus. So every law, every prophecy, every king and deliverer is part of that storyline. So when we feel like we're weighted down or weighed down, I should say reading the Old Testament, remember, it's not just random texts. It's tracing the thread of a promise that God made in the garden and kept in Christ. And so it's helpful often to to approach the scriptures through that lens, especially when we feel maybe bored or like it's irrelevant. It got what are you trying to show me about your nature as a promise keeper? It's a helpful question. Like me. Yeah, I think we got to keep going. I could keep talking about that question for a while. But we've got another question that comes from day two. And the question is, how can God experience regret? Did God really regret making humans? And the verse this question comes from is Genesis 6.6, which says, and the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So what what I think is important as we consider this question is that we're really starting from a somber understanding and recognition of the evil that God is seeing and responding to in saying this. So the heading title in my ESV Bible, probably yours as well, if you read in the ESV, is increasing corruption on the earth. So that is the title. Again, that titles in the Bible are not divinely inspired, but they are helping summarize what we are seeing. And I think this is a pretty good summary, increasing corruption on the earth. And the verse right before this one in Genesis 6.5 says, the Lord saw that wickedness of man was great in the earth. And every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's the situation that we're stepping into. And so the author using this language of regret, which can also be translated as God's suffering grief. So grieving as he surveyed the state of the good world that he created. And the evil that has come into it and not just kind of corruption on the outside, but corruption within the human heart that is continually propelling forward towards more and more and more evil. And one thing that's important is that this grief isn't because God didn't know that this would happen. Right. That's wildly important. Yes. Exactly. This section of the story, I think, is for us to recognize the reality of evil and sin and the way that evil and sin destroys what God loves, destroys his creation, it destroys us. And this is a place to see ourselves as recipients of God's grace. And so just like Noah and his family were saved from the flood, which was God's judgment, we are also saved from sin and the penalty of God's judgment. So thank you, Jesus. That's right. Yeah. And at first, it's when we read this, especially when you just pluck that verse and read it in isolation. It sounds like God made a mistake. But that cannot be the case. This scripture is so clear that God is perfect in wisdom and doesn't change his mind the way people do. Numbers 23, 19, for Samuel 15, 29. So I loved that you pointed out here, send the meaning of that word regret. And Hebrew, it's what you might be able to help me with the Hebrew pronunciation. I'm a little rusty. Nacom. I sounded so good. I'm going to go with Nacom. No, that even better. It's really just can still could be wrong. I just know the CHF and goes, I can't even know if I can be God's help. It can mean to be sorrowful or even move to pity. So this is not saying that God, all of a sudden, right, realized, oh my goodness, I've done something wrong. It's not that at all that's not what's happening. Instead, it's showing us the depth of his sorrow over sin. And so some scholars explain this by using a very big word that I looked up the pronunciation of, anthropopathadism, and maybe wasn't it? Anthropopathadism. That was for sure. And it's this idea that human emotions are being used to help us explain God's heart. Because God's heart and emotions are so much greater than ours. So this is the best attempt to describe in human language what God was feeling. And it's communicating his holy grief over how far humanity had fallen. I think it's beautiful that we get to see God's emotions because it's easy to view him as a God who, I think a lot of people when they look at the Old Testament, mostly see or perceive from a distance anger. Right. Oh, definitely. And that would be something that they might describe as the primary emotion that they perceive with God in the Old Testament. If they haven't paid attention, there's a whole lot more going on in there. But to see his grief, just to see that God can have his heart broken, shows that he really does deeply, deeply love. And then I also, I think it's so important to just double stamp, to double click what you guys have said about this not being because he didn't know what was going to happen or that he regretted it, like in that sense of regret, because there is no such thing as a sovereign, perfect outside of time, God, having regret in the way we experience. Like grief, absolutely, but regret impossible. Like that would imply that God could be wrong about something. Yeah. You know, like, oh, no, I did the wrong thing. Right. And so that's why I think the Hebrew word, however it's pronounced, is so helpful here to the English reader who reads the word regret and is like, what does that mean? Right. We need to understand it from that perspective of their language, rather than just, what do I think of regret as in the first century? Because we think of regret as second guessing yourself. Like, oh, I really wish I hadn't done X, Y, or Z. That's not what's happening here. We're seeing God's personal pain as he looks at human rebellion. It's God's pain and human rebellion. Yeah. And his grief is revealing his love. He's not indifferent. He's not detached. Our sin matters to him because he cares so much about us. So I think Genesis 6.6 reminds us that that sin isn't just breaking the rules. It's breaking God's heart because he cares for us. So it's also here then setting the stage for his mercy because even in the flood, he preserved Noah's family, keeping his promise to bring redemption through the line of the woman through that victorious child that would one day come. And it's the whole picture is that redemption has always been the plan. Yes. Yes. Like we just talked about in the last question. And Revelation 13.8 talks about how the cross has always been the plan from before the foundation of the world that has always been the plan outside of time. And so that shows us it didn't take God by surprise. That it wasn't a one-off. And again, I just love when you were talking about this isn't just breaking the rules. I just I imagined in my human, the way I try to adapt things to modern understanding. I'm imagining me getting pulled over by a police officer for speeding and him just being like, I'm just deaf. He's waving. He's not just breaking the rules. It's those rules are there to protect the people that he loves and the things that he loves. Things that break God's heart. The rules that God makes are things that protect what he loves. And so yeah, I think just it shows us how much he loves us. He loves us. Yeah. Again, we could keep talking about this, but we got to go to the next question. And so I'm going to keep us moving. This question comes from day four. And it's a general question from Job that looks like one of the recaptains and the recaptains Facebook group left. And so I think it's a really great question. There's two parts. So the first part, if God is holy and can't be in the presence of sin, how was he able to talk to Satan in the book of Job? And then the second part, how was he able to be in the presence of Adam and Eve and talk with them before he made a sacrifice and clothes to them? Yeah, there's a great question because I do think a lot of people have this understanding. And so it's a really good to get some clarity around what we're actually talking about. And I would say have this misunderstanding. Yes, yes, yes, but what is the misunderstanding? Yes. So first point, yes, God is holy. Yes, that is very important to understand. And that's what we're seeing the whole way through as we get started with our Bible reading. God is holy. He's different from creation. He's other. He is perfect. And so we have to understand that clear distinction, but what is not true is that God can't be in the presence of sin. So that is not true. God is holy and he can be in the presence of sin because how else would he have been able again to do these things like that this person is asking, but also visit Moses in the burning bush, dwelt in the tabernacle with the people of Israel. And it would have also been if we fast forward to Jesus, a really big problem for Jesus, right? Yes, he lived among the sinners. Yes, exactly. So Jesus was fully God and fully man and was so rounded by sin constantly, right? While he was on the earth. And the whole storyline of what we see in scripture is God pursuing sinners. Yes, like him just coming to dwell with us, him coming to build a relationship with us. He is not running from, he couldn't even be anywhere on earth. He couldn't even be in heaven. Like heaven was tainted by sin when the angels fell. And so that is a real problem. God would have on his hands if he couldn't be in the presence of sin. And it would be a bigger problem for us because we can't clean ourselves up. Yes. So if we're just back to our own devices, we got a real problem. Yep. We need him to clean up our mess. Yes, absolutely. And so I think where sometimes the confusion can come in is that God is trying to be very clear that he is different from his people. He is holy. They are not. And he needs them to understand. It's like he's saying to them, I'm not like you. I created you. And you, my people, you need to see me as different as holy as other than you. And so that's where we really need to see that distinction, but that distinction doesn't mean that God can't be in the presence of sin. So we see this with the way that Adam and Eve were meant to depend on God. He's the creator and he's and they are the creatures. So that's where God is establishing that distinction. Then when sin entered the picture, we see God making it very clear. He is holy. The sin is the problem. God is holy, but that doesn't mean that they're that God can't come in and deal with that. Obviously, which we've just been saying and we see. And one thing, just kind of, I know I'm fast forwarding to the New Testament here. Do it. Do it. Do it. I think it can be a really helpful kind of example. Is that the way that Jesus makes people clean in the gospels and the way that he heals people, he directly touches them. He comes into contact with them. So I'm thinking of the bleeding woman in Mark 5. So by touching Jesus, this woman should have technically made Jesus on clean, but because she was on clean, but Jesus in his holiness, in his purity, in his cleanness, he just makes her totally clean. So that has no effect on him. Which I think is really helpful. It is sick need the doctor. Imagine going to a doctor and him not coming to the room. The examiner. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting because that's it's a common thing for people to say. God can't get in the presence of sin, especially when we're presenting the gospel. People often say that, which is confusing. So I started thinking, okay, where does this idea come from? And in Habakkuk 1, we read that God is too pure to look on evil. And I think that's probably part of where we get that saying from. And it's interesting because it's not saying that he's incapable of perceiving evil or knowing what's going on in the world. Like how much evil is going on in our world right now at this second. It means that he cannot approve of or partner with or overlook it. Right. It is, it is grieving his heart, but he can't look away because he cares about us. Yeah. If you can't overlook something, you're looking at it. Yes. Yes. And we talk about this later in TBR when we read Habakkuk, but God definitely looks on their sin. Like he sees it all. He addresses it repeatedly. He tells them to repent. He tells them how he's going to punish it. So this is obviously just a figure of speech here. Like Emma said, it's not saying he doesn't cease and can't look at sin, can't be in the presence of sin. He can't approve of it. He can't partner with it. He can't overlook it. Well, and I think too maybe where some of the confusion comes in as well is because sin separates us from God. Sure. Another thing kind of going back to the context of Job, Satan appears in God's heavenly court not as an equal, but under authority. God allowed that conversation. God authorized it. He permitted it, but he was never compromised by it. In the same as true in Genesis 3, God comes near to Adam and Eve and judgment and in grace. Yeah. Which doesn't looking for them. Yes. And that doesn't mean that his holiness vanishes. Instead, as he draws near, their sin is exposed. And then in his presence, he continues to draw near and he provides covering. So there's consequences for their sin. They can't stay in the garden among many other things, but he doesn't leave them in their sin. He helps them in their sin. So God's holiness doesn't mean specifically distance. It can also mean decisive action, because sin can't change his nature, but his nature always, always, always demands a response to sin, whether that's judgment or mercy or both. So sometimes I think we believe the lie that the enemy tells us that our sin is going to keep God so far away that he won't come near until he clings ourselves up or do enough good things. But Genesis and Job remind us that God comes near even in our brokenness. He confronts the sin. Yes. But he also provides the path to restoration. Yeah. I remember the first time I heard a pastor say this so succinctly, it was transformative for me. He said, a right understanding of our sin and God's love creates a relationship with him that draws us to him when we sin, not pushes us from him when we sin. Yeah. That we understand that he is the place where we find healing. He is the place where we find grace and mercy. And so it, I think it changed the way that I respond in my sin instead of going like, oh, God's like angry at me and he's going to punish me, just remembering that in God's great love and mercy and provision, Jesus already paid for that sin. I'm free to repent and walk in freedom and joy and not be burdened down by it and to not like Romans 8, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus. And so in that space, recognizing that Jesus already took the penalty of my sin, it is paid for. I am clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It is so far beyond my understanding, but it's something I, when I accept it and lean into it, it draws me to God with just such praise and gratitude and joy. And so I think if you, if you listener, viewer are sitting in a space where you have walked in sin and you are carrying shame and you feel like God is angry with you, but you are in Christ. Jesus took all the Father's wrath for you. There is no wrath left for you. Jesus took the full payment for your sin on the cross. You are free to repent and walk in freedom and walk in joy. Go and sin no more. Amen. Amen. Amen. Ladies, we're ready for the last question. Yes. Great. This one comes from day seven, Job 1412. And the question reads, did Job know about the resurrection? In Job 1412, it sounds like he might. The verse says, if a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service, I would wait till my renewal should come. So what's important to point out with this is that Job likely didn't understand resurrection the way that we do. Okay. So throughout scripture, God teaches his people more and more about resurrection. And even even for us, we know a lot about it, but we don't know all the ins and outs of this reality. And I'm sure that probably as you're reading, you're going to have more questions about resurrection. So we know a lot, but we still have questions. And that's where we're sitting. But with Job, he probably maybe understood that there was some sort of life after death. It seems like he's pondering that possibility, considering that possibility. And I think that in thinking about that, so if resurrection was possible, was a reality, then this is making some of the difficulties that he's experiencing more bearable. So it's definitely seems like it's pointing him to a more hopeful response. Which I think is also true for us, the way that we think about eternity. Again, we might have questions about resurrection, we might not know all the ins and outs, but eternity with God, that is so hopeful. Resurrection is so hopeful. And it does help color the way that we are experiencing all the tough things that happen with us down here on earth. So I do think that it's possible that he's thinking about some sort of an afterlife. But we don't know what he thinks of that with these thoughts. So what's interesting is, as I was researching this verse, I came across several scholars who noted the verse and then said something like, first glance, it seems as though Job is denying the resurrection. And I thought, that's an interesting perspective. It's not really how I thought to approach this question. But regardless, what's happening here is that Job is describing death from a very limited human perspective. So I think maybe even the fact that the first part of the verse is a question, if a man dies, shall he live again? Could he read as a rhetorical? Like, of course not. Which we know as modern readers. Well, of course they could. Jesus did it. Lazarus did it. Yep. But I think Kirsten, you're exactly right to say, Job didn't have the full picture that we have this side of Christ. An Old Testament believer's had hints of resurrection hope. We see that in Daniel 12, Isaiah 26. But this idea of the resurrection wasn't fully revealed until Jesus' resurrection. I mean, you see that even his disciples, he died on the cross. They went back to their jobs thinking he's dead, he's gone, and then when he rose from the grave, everything changed. So Job seems to be wrestling between this despair, obviously his current situations and hope. Maybe there's maybe when I die, there's something to look forward to. Later in Job 19, 25 through 27, he powerfully declares, I know that my Redeemer lives and at the last, he will stand upon that earth. So he probably didn't understand resurrection with as much clarity as we do. But he did seem to cling to God as the one who who could possibly vindicate him beyond the grave. The Old Testament understanding was so limited. And again, we are very early in the reading plan. Yes. One week, one, people believe that Job is one of the oldest books written. And so if God progressively reveals things throughout Scripture, then we are getting in at a space where there's probably less information. Yes, revealed. Probably so. Right. And so that progress or revelation, we're going to continue to see more and more. And even, you know, I think of David referencing being united with his dead son. And so just we'll continue to see more and more of this. And that was not something that was that shows up a lot in the Old Testament. It does show up. But it doesn't show up a lot. There's not a lot of information. And the information that's there isn't very clear. So hang in there. We're going to, we're going to take a long journey of coming to understand more about the resurrection. But I love that this question is planted from the very beginning. We want to know what happens in the afterlife that Job was even thinking about the afterlife. Yes. And Job reminds us that faith doesn't mean we have every single doctrine figured out a biblical question perfectly answered. Yes. Faith means yes, faith in Christ for salvation. But it also means in our day to day trusting God with our unanswered questions. Job didn't know everything about the resurrection, but he held on to God. Even through his terrible circumstances. And so I think that's the invitation for us to trust our Redeemer knows he sees us. He cares about us. He has a plan when the details feel incredibly unclear. And we're going to have a lot of questions throughout the year that we don't necessarily get complete answers to. We can talk about this. We can give our responses to these questions. We can give you scripture and scholars quotes and things like our own opinions. And ultimately, I think we're going to continue to learn new things. We're going to learn new stuff all the time. There are notes that I took in the margins of my Bible on my first, second, third, fourth, this trips through that I have now marked through because I've learned that the things that I jotted down that I was so delighted about learning were not right. And so we are we're continuing to learn. And I love that that God continues to teach us more about himself. Scripture says his ways are insurgeable. And that doesn't mean that you can't discover more about him. It just means we'll never plum the depths of him. And so at the beginning of this year, as we're moving through this, I know the book of Job is hard. Don't give up. Stay with us in this. Listen to the daily episodes. Watch the daily episodes. Read the book. Watch the weekly episodes. Stay engaged with this. You're going to have questions. And this is going to help you think through them better. And some of your questions you might never get answered on this side of eternity. That's okay. The point every day, what we're doing every day is looking for God and his character. That's what we're looking for. What he loves, what he hates, what motivates him to do what he does. And so I hope something that you heard in our conversations today helped you love God and others more. Thanks for taking a deep dive with us. We'll see you every week on TBR Deep Dive as we continue to read, understand, and love the Bible and the God who wrote it.