Chad and Keith discuss the importance of the centrality of scripture and introduce the concept of upper and lower stories in the scriptural narrative.
Intro (Keith): Welcome to the Kanakuk Institute Podcast, where we continue to equip leaders with biblical skills for a lifetime of ministry.
Chad (00:13): And welcome back to the Kanakuk Institute Podcast. With me, as always, Keith Chancey, Chad Hampsch, and we are excited to be together it’s been a while since we’ve been in studio together and, Keith, you know, we were talking about this on the way over here. One of the things that we hear when we’re out at camp all the time is, “What’s going on in the Old Testament?” Talk a little bit about what you’re hearing from kids and staff and just misconceptions that you’re hearing about how the Bible fits together.
Keith (00:43): You know, Chad, it’s so fun to kind of even think about that because we’re hearing so much. These kids, we’ve seen over 2000 kids already this summer. And it seems like these guys are asking the greatest questions ever coming out of the Pandemic. It seems like they are more excited to learn of God’s word and to be equipped. So, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this excited about investing into people and to hear what God is doing. So, you know, Chad, the questions I keep getting that kids want to know is they say, you know, “If God is good then why is there evil?” And, “If God is good, you know we understand in the New Testament how we are saved, but how were Old Testament saints saved?” They have no idea about that, and “Why were there all these stories in the Old Testament?” And they go, “I can’t really put together what the Old Testament’s about, can you help us?” And they want to look at stories like Adam and Eve. They want to look at, you know, Abraham, Isaac. They want to put together all these stories, Noah. And so they say, “We’ve always heard these stories as a kid, but they just seemed like little stories that we told at night to put us to sleep, but it never was anything that really helped us? Can you help us?” So it’s kind of fun to think about that.
Chad (01:54): That’s really good. So, let’s before we jump into a couple of examples, let’s talk about what are some principles that you and I can discuss for our listening audience as we approach the Old Testament to go, “I want to make sure I’m not doing it right, or I’m not just taking Old Testament stuff that’s written to Israel and applying it to my life.” What would be some rules of interpretation?
Keith (02:16): Well, you know, one thing we have to do is really realize in the beginning God created. And so we have to establish who created everything and we have to agree that God did it. And, the timeline I don’t know if I’m so much worried about, you know. How fast God did it is, you know, a lot of people differ, but what I think is so important here is that we go, “God created, and then he created man, he created woman, but in Genesis 2 when he created man, he created man from the dust, he put him on the earth, and he said, ‘Listen Adam, and I give you everything in the Garden, but in the day that you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.’” And then, he says, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” So he established a guideline there. “Eat from this tree, you die. You don’t, you live.” And then he says, “well, it’s not good for man to be alone. So what I’m going to do, is I’m going to make him to be a help mate.” So he put man into a sleep, he took out a rib, he fashioned a woman, and there was Eve. Woohoo. You know? And now he says, “Now be fruitful and multiply.” Then you turn to Genesis 3 and you see, “And the serpent, more crafty than any beast of the field the Lord God had made,” God had created this fallen angel called the serpent, and we don’t know in the prefill nature, was that serpent wicked, was it good looking, we don’t know. But it’s there, and it’s very deceptive. Because it says, “Surely you won’t die. But in the day that you eat your eyes will be opened and you’ll be like God.” And then something happens. God spoke to man, and he gave man a mandate. “In the day that you eat, you will die.” All of a sudden, you see a woman speak up, who she second hand had to hear the information of what would happen. And now the devil has confronted both Adam and Eve, and Eve speaks up and she misquotes what Adam has told her. Therefore, there is a fall. Adam and Eve eat from the fruit, there is a broken relationship between God. God is holy, God loved man, God wanted nothing more than for man to have fellowship with him in the garden, he created man and woman, he says, “Be fruitful and multiply.” And then all of a sudden, there’s a broken relationship that was not caused by God, but was totally caused by man. Man now is a sinner, separated from God, and God can no longer have a relationship with man because man is unholy, God is holy, the two can’t come into relationship anymore, so God has to do something. And he begins to send messages through man, I mean, we’re going to see this in Genesis 3:15, and we’re going to go, “Woah, this is awesome.” And so all these stories of the Old Testament, they’re about to make sense.
Chad (05:02): Yeah, so I, so many specific questions come to my mind. So Adam was given this instruction, Eve had not even been created yet, and then we see Satan tempting Eve. What do we see here about leadership from the man’s perspective? And where man has failed in regards to passivity.
Keith (05:26): I’m raising my hand right now Chad because, I am guilty at times of not leading the way I should. And what happens here is Adam does not lead the way he should. He’s passive. And so that word passivity. I don’t know if there’s any worse word I would ever want to be described in my life about me. Because when you’re passive, that means you don’t step up to the plate and you don’t do what is right because you are so, you know, wishy washy so to speak, that you’re not really understanding what’s right, what’s wrong, and so you just kind of blend, and so at this moment, Adam knew what God had said. And he allows the woman to say what is not said. And he speaks back to God, or he speaks back to the serpent, the devil with misinformation, confusing information, and it actually, it is the key to separation. We no longer have a relationship with God because of Man’s inability to lead well and to help the woman, even if the woman would have been wrong she stepped in, he could have still said, but Adam said, “No, Eve. You need to understand, that’s not what I said.”
Chad (06:37): Yeah, God’s instruction
Keith (06:38): You know, he’s very passive in that and he lets her say it even though it was wrong, and you know Chad, we’re like that. You know, it’s not that we just do it with our wives, we do it with people. We know they’re wrong, but yet we don’t say what is right, because, maybe we’re afraid, Will they hear it right? Will they reject me? Will they like me? And we’re so concerned about being liked rather than being righteous.
Chad (07:05): Yeah, and when you said that passivity, male or female passivity is really rooted in a lack of conviction. The New Testament idea of conviction being convinced of the truth, God gave Adam that instruction, but clearly he was not convinced that that instruction was important enough to step up in that situation. I think the other fascinating thing is the question that Satan asks. That question, “Did God really say?” What’s at the core of that question, because really that’s a question we all face.
Keith (07:36): Well, you know, “Did God really say?” that looks at the Word of God and says, “Is it real?”
Chad (07:42): Yeah, can we trust it?
Keith (07:43): Can we trust it? And you know, we go, well, I believe according to scriptures, 2 Timothy 3:16 and many others that this Word is inspired of God, and if it is, then I need to look at it. But what I’ve got to do is I’ve got to understand when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, one thing he does a great job of, many things God is good at. But the great thing he does in that wilderness when tempted by Satan, before he ever is tempted he prayed, he fasted, and then he quoted God’s word. The very essential thing that the word of God is quoting God. You know, and you go, “Wow, Jesus is the Word, and he quotes the Word.” And he says, “It is written.” And so we have to understand, the Word is so important for us to be able to stand not on what I think, that’s called my opinion, but on What God says, that’s called a conviction.
Chad (08:40): Yeah, and it’s almost like we, it’s so clear, it, the Bible is either the Word of God or it’s not. But so many of us want to find some middle lane that doesn’t exist. “Well, yeah that verse is really good and I like the way that one applies, but these other ones make me feel uncomfortable and so I’m going to determine what is true.” Which is not really conviction, because you’re essentially not believing the Word of God, and we’re going back to that question, do I really take God at his Word? Do I trust it?
Keith (09:10): And Chad, you know, right there, when I don’t understand what God’s Word says, I start formulating my own opinions. I start making the Bible say what I want it to say. And so, now, it becomes really fuzzy. And in our world today, that’s exactly where we’re at. We’re probably in a fuzzy world, I call it crazyville. You know, we’ve stepped out of normal into abnormal. And the reason is, is because we have taken away from the Word. You know, if we were still adhering to the Word of God, there would be, we would be doing just fine. But what we’ve done is we say, “That’s really not, the exact thing that Adam and Eve were faced with with the Devil’s question”
Chad (09:54): Did God really say? And that’s what we’re asking today is, “Does the Bible actually say, does that word actually mean what that’s saying?”
Keith (09:56); Oh my gosh, and just thing how that applies to us today. Because, I will make you a guarantee, there’s certain things in my life that I don’t want to say that God’s said, because it’s going to make me feel so convicted. And so, when you think about that, really, to the way we live today. We just thinking about what this passivity and thinking of man’s responsibility, and I’m just talking about man’s responsibility. It is a huge responsibility for a man to say, “I need to be a leader and I need to know God’s Word and I need to communicate God’s Word.” But I can’t communicate what I’m not disciplined to do. If I’m not in the Word, if I’m not studying the Word. See, every day that I’m out of the Word, I’m more likely to be a victim of Satan’s schemes. And so, today, I just want to encourage all of us in the listening audience, you know, you’re never, God is never far from God, but you can be far from God, because you choose that, it’s your choosing. And that’s exactly what happened during the garden. A choice was made.
Chad (10:57): To reject God at his word.
Keith (10:58): To reject God. And not to step up when Eve said, “Oh it’s ok.” You know. And listen to the devil more than what he knew her husband had told her God had told him to do.
Chad (11:11): And it’s interesting, I know you have these conversations as well, but so many people say, “Well, I don’t feel conviction.” And I always say, “Well, if conviction means to be convinced of the truth, and you’re not spending any time in truth, then of course you’re not going to feel conviction.” You don’t have anything to bump up against what you’re trying to do. And so, just a reminder, I think that’s what you’re saying is like, “We have to be in the Word of God.” If we believe these to be God’s words, we have to spend time, and then we have to take God at his Word, which is where Adam and Eve really failed. Thankfully that’s not the end of the story.
Keith (11:45): Oh no it’s not.
Chad (11:46): God left us a little hint, a shadow, a nugget, in this story that he had a plan from the start, explain how Adam and Eve’s sin led to God laying out his plan for redemption.
Keith (12:03): You know, what’s great about that is that, and I know next week, we’re going to talk a whole lot more about this, but the plan of redemption is through one person only. Is that God would become a man, and that he would be tempted in all things as we are, he’d be born of a virgin, he would die on a cross, he would resurrect from the grave, and all of these are seen in the Old Testament at prophecies that would one day be fulfilled, and there’s going to be stories here of foreshadowing these things that we’re going to see they were all the way through the Old Testament, but most people don’t even have a clue that they were there. So, I get kind of excited about what we’re about to do, because I’m going to go, “You’re not going to believe this.” This story really had a redemptive message in it.
Chad (12:49): So, we’ll leave you with that cliff hanger, but here’s where we’re going. We’re going to start unpacking stories in the Old Testament. Stories that are probably common to us, and what we want everybody to understand is, when you’re reading the Bible, there’s usually two things going on. There’s upper story, what God is doing in the Big picture, and then there’s lower story, like, “How do I apply the nuggets of God’s Word to my life?”
Keith (13:15) And see, Chad, right there, you said something very very important. We’ve got to be careful how we apply that story to our life. Because, we love to share a story like Noah, and the ark, and go, “Look at me.”
Chad (13:27): Yeah, let’s go build a boat.
Keith (13:28): And we don’t really realize that’s a story of judgement. And so, it’s really going to fun for us to kind of play with that.
Chad (13:35): So we’ll capitalize on each of these Old Testament stories and we’ll talk about upper story and lower story, and when we approach the Old Testament, we want to make sure we do both. We want to make sure we don’t take it out of context we handle it accurately. We cut it clear as Paul says in 2 Timothy. So, we’re really excited about this, and so, we will see you next time here on the Kanakuk Institute Podcast.