Why Is There Wilderness Imagery in the Lord’s Prayer?

Speaker 1 Hi, John. Hey, Tim.
Hey, hi there. I was wondering if you would do that.
Mm-hmm. Well, you were just looking at me, because normally you start, but you're...

Speaker 1 You know, but it's a Q ⁇ R episode, so things are a little different. Great.
Mix it up. Hello.
Lovely. And hello, everybody out there in the listening world to the Bible Project Podcast.

Speaker 1 This is a Q ⁇ A episode where we are going to respond to your questions that you sent in about the wilderness series. Yes.
Came in for a landing on that one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 In as much as you can, I mean, it's the wilderness, though. The point is it's the in-between where you haven't arrived.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 How can you arrive when you're in the wilderness?

Speaker 1 Because that's not the point.

Speaker 1 The point is the journey and what it does to you.

Speaker 1 And it was a great journey going through the theme.

Speaker 1 And this will be a great opportunity to revisit a few things and hear how people have been reflecting on the journey through the wilderness. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I feel like I say this every time because it's always true. One, you all, the listening audience, are a really smart, perceptive group of people.

Speaker 1 And when you send in questions, I'm just like, wow, that's fantastic. Great observations, but great questions.
So I'm really...

Speaker 1 excited to dive in. We can't get to them all.
We usually don't even get to all the ones I selected. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But we try and hit the main repeated themes in the questions and have a good time with it. So should we just get rocking? Let's jump in.
Cool. All right.

Speaker 1 Let's start with a question from Edwin, who lives in the Philippines.

Speaker 2 Hi, Tim and John. This is Edwin from the Philippines.

Speaker 2 In light of the theme of the wilderness as a place of divine preparation, where God forms people before leading them into the promised land, could Genesis chapter 2, 7 to 8 be read as a prototype of this pattern?

Speaker 2 Specifically, does the act of God forming Adam from dust and breathing into him the breath of life suggest not only physical animation, but also moral or spiritual preparation for life in Eden?

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 So is he asking Adam being formed of the dust and then put in Eden?

Speaker 1 You could think of it as just being physically created, but is there something there to meditate on in some sort of process of being prepared at that point to be put in the garden?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a fantastic question, just high five on a rad observation. Because you're pondering, there's all these stories later in the Bible about people going through hardship in the wilderness.

Speaker 1 It's dusty, it's dry, there's no water, no food, all that.

Speaker 1 And then if you're going into a garden land, can we already see a pattern that that pattern was itself first laid out in the Eden creation story?

Speaker 1 So definitely, I haven't come back and listened to the first couple episodes in the wilderness for a while, so I don't remember. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But if we didn't hit on these themes explicitly, then this is a great chance to now. So the first thing, Edwin, is absolutely the prototype pattern is right there in Genesis.

Speaker 1 So a few things, John, I've got the story open in front of you.

Speaker 1 But recall that the second creation story that begins in Genesis 2 verse 4 begins with no cultivated plants, like no garden plants, no wild plants, no water, and no human.

Speaker 1 So there's four problems, no plants, no water. But then water comes up out of the ground.
And the first thing God does is form human from the dust of the ground.

Speaker 1 So what we know about the dust of the ground is that it's lifeless unless there's water and God's breath is involved.

Speaker 1 And then he blows into the nostrils the breath of life. The man becomes a nepheshayah, living being.

Speaker 1 Verse 8, God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the human whom he'd formed.

Speaker 1 I have tried to point out this observation a lot over the years, that the humans formed outside of the garden exactly

Speaker 1 and put inside. Right.

Speaker 1 Now, the actual testing of the human happens in the garden. Exactly.
Yeah. Where in the theme of the wilderness, the testing we've been talking about is testing that happens outside of the garden.

Speaker 1 Yep, that's right. And that became kind of a main through line of the whole conversation.
Yeah. If we failed the test in the garden, why would we pass the test in the wilderness? Right.

Speaker 1 Or is it really kind of the same test? Whether you're in the garden or in the wilderness,

Speaker 1 it's the test is, can I trust the voice of God? Yeah. Whether you have perhaps more good than is good for you,

Speaker 1 or whether you have an extreme lack of anything good,

Speaker 1 the test remains the same.

Speaker 1 So I think the question was, can we read into this moment of being created out of the dust and then planted in the garden? Is that journey from the dust to the garden?

Speaker 1 Is there any sort of spiritual preparation happening at that moment? Is that the question? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Is the breathing of God's breath into the human, not just physical animation, you ask, Edwin, but a moral or spiritual preparation?

Speaker 1 I think why I appreciated your question was it's a question I've had to ask myself many times.

Speaker 1 When there's a pattern set up that repeats through many stories, so that you have whether it's Hagar in the wilderness or Moses in the wilderness or the Israelites in the wilderness, and these all map onto each other and there's often hyperlinks that are comparing right their experiences to each other and contrasting them and then all of those are hyperlinked through different vocabulary on analogy back to the human so the question is how much of what happens in later repetitions of the pattern can I read back into earlier repetitions of the pattern that is a yeah really

Speaker 1 important it's a question about reading and method like how do you read this literature right well?

Speaker 1 Because oftentimes, for example, with the story of Solomon and his request for wisdom to discern between good and bad,

Speaker 1 that gives you insight back into, oh, I wish Adam and Eve would have just done that when the snake

Speaker 1 tried to deceive them. I guess I'm imagining then a story being told of God taking Adam from the wilderness, planting him in the garden and this whole journey.

Speaker 1 To me, that just like took them put them in now we're going yeah but is there a story there is that what we're yeah meditating on so maybe i'll add one more parallel edwin that i think addresses what you're talking about when you get to ezekiel and we did talk about these key passages in ezekiel probably pretty briefly because it's a huge book we did talk about ezekiel chapter 20 i remember in the episode whatever uh ezekiel calls the babylonian exile of israel the wilderness of the nations uses that phrase.

Speaker 1 It's like a long wilderness. But then there's these chapters of hope in 36 and 37 of Ezekiel.
In 36, God says, I'm going to take out your stony heart that would never listen to my commands and wisdom.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you a new fleshy heart. I'm going to put my spirit in you.

Speaker 1 It's very similar to the language of what God's doing to the human in Genesis 2.

Speaker 1 And then you get, and you do mention this, Edwin, the valley of dry bones in the next chapter in Ezekiel 37, where there's a bunch of dead human, not even bodies, but just bones.

Speaker 1 And so, first of all, the bones come back together and grow flesh, and you get these humans, but they're all just laying there lifeless on the ground.

Speaker 1 Just like... the clay human formed, but lifeless on the ground in Genesis 2.
And then God breathes breathes his breath into them and they stand up in the ready rock, a new human.

Speaker 1 And it's the image of God recreating Israel to be faithful covenant partners on the other side. So what's cool about that, Edwin, is that Ezekiel sees what you are seeing.

Speaker 1 Namely, that retelling the story of Israel to become God's faithful covenant partners who are dying in the wilderness of exile is like a recreation of them in that wilderness place to get put back into the new Eden.

Speaker 1 So how much of that moral and spiritual recreation should I be reading back into the Adam story?

Speaker 1 Here's my thought, Edwin. Okay, you could have a thought? Have a thought.
But I wanted to paint all the, like, here's how I'm arriving at that thought, which was all of that prologue. So

Speaker 1 moral or spiritual preparation through a test is about God inviting me to grow and mature, right? And to become something that I'm not presently.

Speaker 1 In that sense, what Israel has failed at in the garden, just like Adam and Eve did, the wilderness exile is kind of like the consequence of that decision.

Speaker 1 So they are in need of a really different way of valuing good and bad and God and so on. And so the wilderness and God recreating them is that moral and spiritual preparation.

Speaker 1 It doesn't seem like the human

Speaker 1 before the test at the tree in the garden needs, like the the test in the garden is the preparation. Right.

Speaker 1 That's where that story focuses. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But the breathing in of the breath is very suggestive. Like, it's obviously about life.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it is also about God sharing with a dirt creature a kind of divine capacity for responsibility, for choice, for partnership with God

Speaker 1 that is more than just like being physically animated. But it seems like what Ezekiel is saying is the breath of God is needed once humans have failed.

Speaker 1 And when God's creating the human, you know, in Genesis 2, the human hasn't failed yet.

Speaker 1 So the test at the tree actually is the preparation, which brings back to what we're saying. You can be tested in the garden.
You can be tested in the wilderness. The test is really the same.

Speaker 1 It's like to help us grow. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, we've talked a lot about how there's these other Second Temple texts of scribes

Speaker 1 who are thinking about a biblical passage and poking at it and saying, well, what if? You know, like

Speaker 1 passages that don't end up in your Bible, but these were things that people read and meditated on and thought about as a way to kind of continue to think about the wisdom of these stories.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's right. And so, you know, example of that would be in the ascension of Moses.

Speaker 1 Is that what it's called?

Speaker 1 The ascension of Moses or the Testament of Moses? The Testament of Moses. Yeah, that'll be talked about.

Speaker 1 And it'll actually come out in next year

Speaker 1 when we talk about it in detail. But there's this moment where Moses dies and then he's buried and we don't know where he's buried.
Right? This is talked about at the end of Deuteronomy.

Speaker 1 That's in Deuteronomy. So that's in the passage.
Shanna says nobody knows where he's buried. Nobody knows.

Speaker 1 So then some kind of just some literary, nerdy, like God-fearing scribes are like, huh, I wonder what that story is.

Speaker 1 And then they do this kind of an imaginative exploration. And then you get that scroll of the Testament of Moses.

Speaker 1 And what they're doing is they're further reflecting on these biblical motifs

Speaker 1 that are all through the Bible.

Speaker 1 Anyways, I just bring it up because what this question has done is made me think about what is the story? between Adam being formed and put in the garden.

Speaker 1 Because it could have been as simple as God just puts him there. But what if he had to like take a couple day hike into that garden? Yeah, Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 Like to find his way to the garden, he actually had to listen to the voice of God and follow the voice of God into the garden.

Speaker 1 There's like this training time where once he gets to the garden, you know, he's had all this practice listening to the voice of God.

Speaker 1 And you're like, oh, yeah, like how wonderful it is to be that in tune with the voice of God. And then he gets there.
And now the tree

Speaker 1 is such a

Speaker 1 more important note. Yeah, because let's say it was a five-day hike

Speaker 1 to get into the garden. Then that would have been five days of the human looking around and saying, like, man, it's lifeless out here.
Yeah. Man, I'm thirsty.
Yeah. Man, I'm hungry.

Speaker 1 Without God helping me, I'm dead. Right.
I'm done for. And then you would get to the garden.
You're like, ah, thank you. And I'll listen to you now since you led me to the good stuff.
Right.

Speaker 1 So it seems like the dynamic of the Adam and Eve story is exactly that, that Adam and Eve Eve are portrayed not knowing good and bad is a phrase used that Moses uses in Deuteronomy chapter one to describe children.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like moral infants.
They haven't had enough practice at knowing what's good or bad

Speaker 1 to make the right call. They haven't made any call on their own yet.
But they just woke up in a garden. Did they? I guess that's the question.
Did they just wake up in the garden?

Speaker 1 Or was there this little journey to the garden?

Speaker 1 Well, the fact that they fail at least means that they didn't fully appreciate the the abundance that God provided them because they thought they had a better idea of what to do with it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I see. But yeah, you could imagine a what-if there.
Yeah, it's the what-if

Speaker 1 that I think it's okay for us to have those what-if moments and think about it. Because I think the point here is

Speaker 1 the way the wilderness is, there is a journey from the wilderness into the garden.

Speaker 1 And for us to then think, okay, well, what would that have been for Adam

Speaker 1 who didn't know good from bad yet? And all he could do was listen to to the voice of God. Yeah, what would that have journeyed been like into the garden?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, if there was a journey, yeah, that's right. That's just kind of I don't know.
That's great. I think Edwin just allowed me to imagine that for a second.

Speaker 1 It was kind of a fun little thought to me. No, it's good.

Speaker 1 I think, so what we're getting into is in that imaginative experiment, and this is what Ezekiel is doing with Genesis, and it's what the story of Moses is doing in relationship to Genesis: is that the biblical narratives are a way to ponder

Speaker 1 the real life questions and circumstances that we all find ourselves in. And they're like, think about it this way.

Speaker 1 And the stories are not just telling us about an interesting thing that happened. The interesting things that happen are framed in such a way that we meditate on the bigger questions.

Speaker 1 And that's a really good example of it. Yeah.
Yeah. So thanks.
Thanks, Edwin. And actually, your question, Edwin, and the conversation we just had really links

Speaker 1 well into the question that we got from Natalie in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 Hello, my name is Natalie Fox. I'm from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
In episode eight of the wilderness, you mentioned that going through the fire is purification imagery.

Speaker 3 I have a hunch that the fiery sword that was to guard the way to the tree of life is connected to this purification since the humans were in the wilderness landscape. Can you connect these dots?

Speaker 3 Thank you for all you do.

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 yeah that's great

Speaker 1 and i have heard you kind of maybe you didn't use the word purification but you've talked about this idea of the fiery sword yeah going through death yeah if you want to go back into the garden if you're going through a fiery sword yeah that's gonna destroy yeah a human going into a whirling sword or into a fire usually means done for yeah you're done you're done for

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 yes yeah exactly so

Speaker 1 a couple thoughts one let's just think about the sword and the fire appear along with the cherubim the angelic bouncers who were put at the boundary of Eden when Adam and Eve are exiled so

Speaker 1 they are outside the garden they're still in the land of Eden because it's Cain that's exiled east of Eden

Speaker 1 like outside of Eden itself. So they're still in the region of Eden, but they are outside and it's apparently the realm of thorns and thistles, you know, from what God said in Genesis 3.

Speaker 1 So they are in a wilderness landscape, as it were. They are separated from the garden of life.
So they're in the place of the consequence of having failed the test of trust. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then the wilderness is going to provide them and their...

Speaker 1 right, their descendants, lots of testing moments. So already they're in the realm associated with test, the wilderness.

Speaker 1 And then to get back into the garden land, you have to go through either the sword or the fire. And absolutely, fire imagery is really cool.

Speaker 1 If you wanted, you could get some kind of concordance, a digital concordance, and where in the Psalms, but especially the prophets, how fire imagery is used in the prophets, especially Zephaniah.

Speaker 1 of all places has some really cool fire imagery. And the way that it functions is that it seems like it kills and destroys everything.

Speaker 1 But then there is a version of the faithful remnant that goes through the fire that appears out the other side in a more faithful state where they do right by God and others.

Speaker 1 And this is surely what the story of Daniel's friends who go into the furnace of Babylon also. They go in and they go out of it, and they come out more loyal and dedicated to the God of Israel.

Speaker 1 So fire and sword are purification, definitely.

Speaker 1 So the one way to think about the whole wilderness period is it's like a purifying fire or a cutting away, which is an interesting way to think about it. A couple other connections.

Speaker 1 One in Isaiah 43, he talks about how Israel's exile to Babylon is like going through the fire. He talks about it.
And he talks about going through the rivers. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 flood or fire. Flood and fire.
Yeah. And both are purification.

Speaker 1 And I'm thinking also of,

Speaker 1 oh, in the story of Abraham, when Abraham picks up the knife and the fire to take up to Mount Moriah

Speaker 1 with Isaac. Yeah, the knife is called the eater, the thing that consumes.

Speaker 1 But you know, a common phrase that we use for swords that have sharp edges on both sides, we call it a two-edged sword.

Speaker 1 But in the Hebrew Bible, it's called a two-mouthed sword. Oh.

Speaker 1 Okay. Because it eats mostly, well, if it's a sword for battle, it eats flesh.
So he has the eater in his hand. And then Isaac, this is Genesis 22, verse 7.

Speaker 1 Isaac said, ah, look, here's the fire, and here's the wood. But where's the lamb for the burnt offering?

Speaker 1 So Abraham takes the fire and the knife. Yes.
And then later later we also learn that there's a wood. That there's a wood because yeah, he had put the wood on on Isaac's shoulders.

Speaker 1 So it's really interesting that the fire and the sword both play a role in this story. Fire and a knife.
And then there's a flaming sword at the garden. Is this a hyperlink? This is...

Speaker 1 Well, because he's ascending a high place. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And there's going to be an angel up there that he meets who's going to say, like, don't use that knife on your son. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So this is Abraham's ultimate purification test. Interesting.
And this is where he passes this test because he's willing to surrender his son back to God who gave him his son.

Speaker 1 And God both gives him back the life of his son and provides, as it were, the ram in the bush who was offered in the place of his son.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 Isaac does kind of die in a way. And Abraham, in his son dying, is himself dying.
How does he sort of die? Oh, symbolically, because

Speaker 1 Abraham was willing to give the life of Isaac back to God. Okay.
Or, as the author of Hebrews says, it's as if Abraham received Isaac back from the dead. Interesting little meditation.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So my point is that the fire and the sword play a key role

Speaker 1 where Abraham meets an angelic figure on a high place at his ultimate test. Okay, so in Genesis 3,

Speaker 1 the angelic figure, the cherubim, are placed there at the gate.

Speaker 1 So, right there on the entrance to Eden, not an angel, but a cherubim, spiritual being, flame, and sword

Speaker 1 on a high place to enter into essentially the place of God's presence. Because of their failure at a tree.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
And so when you get to Abraham's story, and Abraham is bringing fire

Speaker 1 and sword, essentially,

Speaker 1 up to that place to make a sacrifice,

Speaker 1 those two

Speaker 1 worlds are merging in a way. Yeah, those two stories.

Speaker 1 It's another example, back to Edwin's question, of like a parallel moment where the story of Genesis 22 has been shaped with all this vocabulary to help us imagine that this is, as it were, Adam and Eve reapproaching Eden

Speaker 1 and doing the right thing, of surrendering the fruit.

Speaker 1 What is Isaac except the fruit of Abraham and Sarah? Yeah. And he gives the fruit back to God.

Speaker 1 And God says, actually, I'll let you keep your fruit,

Speaker 1 your son.

Speaker 1 And they meet together, and God and Abraham meet each other on the high place there. So the author shaped it as like his success, his passing of the test.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so the way that the fire and sword work in Genesis 3, it feels like

Speaker 1 stay out.

Speaker 1 This is just a barrier now.

Speaker 1 This is off limits now. Where purification isn't stay out, it's go through.
Yeah. But it's going to be painful.
Yeah, sure. And maybe, yeah, you're right.
When you're just at Genesis 3,

Speaker 1 the meaning of the fire and sword could have multiple layers of meaning as you go on through the story. As you go on through the story, back to this imaginative

Speaker 1 thinking about these stories. Are you supposed to imagine, what if Adam and Eve went back and somehow went through the fire? Right.
What would that have looked like? Exactly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think that is what is on the mind, say, of the author of Daniel and why the story of them going through the fire and coming out the other side. Yeah, with some angels in it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, or why, you know, the poet in Isaiah 43 talked about the Babylonian exile as going through a fire.

Speaker 1 So fire imagery is that it really does destroy something, but it destroys something that cannot endure the fire. But apparently something can endure.

Speaker 1 God has created human beings in a way that they image something that can endure through the fire.

Speaker 1 And what else can endure fire except?

Speaker 1 Well, either precious metals.

Speaker 1 They get melted down.

Speaker 1 Isaiah uses fire imagery to talk about.

Speaker 1 I think essentially what it is is light, like the fire itself. You become the fire.
Our God is a consuming fire, and we become the fire.

Speaker 1 I think this is why resurrection imagery is almost always associated with shining and brightness, is you actually become one with the fire.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Just to throw that out there. One with the fire.
Yeah. I mean, I'm speaking in just the biblical images here.
Yeah. That the righteous in the resurrection will shine like stars in the sky.

Speaker 1 Like the angels. Yeah.
Anyway, I just took that resurrection body. body.

Speaker 1 Think about that for a second. Yeah, but the point is that whatever is a part of me that's connected to disordered desires that drag me back into the dust, but I think I need them to stay alive.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That stuff's kind of cool. Can you rid yourself of that? Yeah.
And how? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 And this is where we got to the stuff about where the starvation or being hungry and thirsty in the wilderness can be a kind of gift, even though it's very unpleasant because it's teaching you about

Speaker 1 needing that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the stuff we think keeps us alive,

Speaker 1 food, sex, our children, in terms of keeping our name alive for the future.

Speaker 1 What really keeps us alive is the word of God. And the first word of God is, let the divine fire shine into the darkness.

Speaker 1 Let there be light. Let there be light.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, that got interesting. I think we should stop there.
Okay.

Speaker 1 We had a short but really fun conversation about David. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was a cool episode. The stories of David are so cool.
I want to spend a lot more time there in years to come, John. So we covered really just one story

Speaker 1 in detail, 1 Samuel 25. So let's hear a question about that story from Ifrek, who lives in Georgia.

Speaker 4 Hi, Tim and John. This is Ifreku Ifreku Omana from Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Speaker 4 And what interested me about your episode with Naval is that I realized that when spelled backwards can also spell Levan from the Jacob story.

Speaker 4 So I'm interested if there is an intentional hyperlink between Jacob and David's story with how they both had to flee from people trying to kill them and work among shepherds and also receive mistreatment from Levan and Naval respectively.

Speaker 1 All right, thank you.

Speaker 1 That's interesting. Mm-hmm.
Dude, Ifrek,

Speaker 1 double,

Speaker 1 triple gold star, man. I love that.
I love that you noticed that. I just feel really happy about that.
Yeah. Because you're 100% right.
Really? Yeah, yes. So

Speaker 1 remind me, Nabal means

Speaker 1 malicious idiot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Levon

Speaker 1 is both in Hebrew and in English. the name Naval backwards.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Does Levon have a name? Oh, Levon is the root word for white. Okay.
The shade of white, which also is a word play at work in the Jacob and Levon stories, too.

Speaker 1 Laban is how a lot of people say his name. So you're 100% right.
There's an important set of hyperlinks and parallels between David fleeing from Saul and then he meets Naval.

Speaker 1 And then he has to flee from Saul some more on the other side. And that is all set on parallel to Jacob fleeing from his brother Esau, who's trying to kill him.

Speaker 1 And then he goes into exile, meets a guy named Lavan, which is Naval backwards. Or Laban.
Yeah, Laban.

Speaker 1 And then when Jacob leaves Laban, then he goes back and he encounters Esau again and thinks that Esau is going to kill him. But he doesn't.
So this has to do, how do you say?

Speaker 1 There's a whole section.

Speaker 1 of Jacob's story, his exile because into the East because of his brother's threats to murder him, his long sojourn, exile, 20 years in the East, where he is end up as a slave, essentially, to his uncle Laban, and then he goes back to meet Esau.

Speaker 1 And each part of that sequence is hyperlinked and there's all these very unique vocabulary and theme parallels to David's journey from Saul.

Speaker 1 It's like whoever wrote that section of David's flight from Saul has the Jacob story on the brain and keeps making hyperlinks to really unique words, but in order, in the same order of the Jacob story.

Speaker 1 It's super cool.

Speaker 1 So you'd notice the name.

Speaker 1 So I did a little project on this a number of years ago, so I have a handy-dandy chart

Speaker 1 to look at. So remember that the whole thing about Jacob and Esau is that Jacob is the younger,

Speaker 1 but he was chosen to actually inherit the blessing over and above his older brother, which has also got Cain Abel stuff written all over it. Right.

Speaker 1 And also David and Saul, kind of. Yes.
Yeah, exactly. Right.
Yeah, totally. So in a similar way, Saul is jealous of David and all the fame and favor that he's getting.

Speaker 1 And so he starts trying to kill him. So for example, in the story right before David and Naval

Speaker 1 in 1 Samuel 24 is where we actually, we talked about this because David was hiding in a cave. Saul went in to go to the bathroom and David doesn't kill him.

Speaker 1 Saul comes out and David has this speech and he's like, Saul!

Speaker 1 And the whole focus of that is

Speaker 1 when Saul hears David speaking to him from the cave, he says, in 1 Samuel 24, is this your voice, my son, David?

Speaker 1 And then Saul realizes that it's David and that David spared his life. And so Saul lifted up his own voice and he wept.

Speaker 1 Similarly, when Jacob is deceiving his old blind father, Isaac, with the food,

Speaker 1 so that he can get the blessing and the promise, you know, that's for his older brother, and Isaac is blind.

Speaker 1 He can't see anymore. And so what he asks is he says,

Speaker 1 is that you, my son Esau?

Speaker 1 And Jacob says, like, yeah, it's me, it's Esau. And, you know, he famously puts on like the ghost

Speaker 1 or whatever. Yeah.
Yeah. And so what Isaac says is, well, the voice is the voice of Jacob.
But what I feel like and the food that I smell sure seems like it's coming from Esau.

Speaker 1 So it's all about the voice

Speaker 1 is the thing that gives it away. Okay.
So there's little clues like that

Speaker 1 that run parallel through, but especially in the story of Naval paralleling Levan, because both Naval is a shepherd with lots of flocks.

Speaker 1 In fact, there's a sheep-shearing festival that's at the center of the story of David and Naval.

Speaker 1 Similarly, Levon is a shepherd, and there's a sheep-shearing festival that's at the very center of the story of Jacob and Levon.

Speaker 1 So actually, it would just be a fun homework assignment.

Speaker 1 Go read Genesis like 25 through 32,

Speaker 1 and then go read 1 Samuel 24 to 26 and just start noticing all the parallel vocabulary and it'll just like it's off the charts. It's super fun.

Speaker 1 And why?

Speaker 1 Oh sure.

Speaker 1 Why do that? That's great. But it's back to the first question.
When biblical authors are setting characters or stories in parallel to each other, the point isn't just so that it's fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The point is that the comparison and the contrast will teach you wisdom

Speaker 1 by comparing their different life stories. It's the same thing of when we watch a really powerful movie

Speaker 1 and we're watching someone's story, but the reason we find it compelling is because we see ourselves in it.

Speaker 1 And my life isn't identical to any powerful movie character I've ever seen, but it's similar enough that I can learn wisdom from it.

Speaker 1 So like a difference between David and Jacob is David hasn't deceived anybody.

Speaker 1 And so all the wrong coming towards him is because

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 1 Saul's treachery and selfishness and Naval's treachery and selfishness. For Jacob, it's the inverse, is that he's the problem.

Speaker 1 And his father Isaac and his brother Esau aren't great people, but Jacob is very much the creator of his own wilderness experience.

Speaker 1 That's a meaningful contrast. Like, oh, sometimes I can end up in the wilderness because of my own folly.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I can end up in the wilderness because of somebody else's folly. And I think both of those

Speaker 1 give you perspective on how to think about your own wilderness. Right.
Something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I guess my point is that the narrative parallels are in the service of the same thing you were doing earlier

Speaker 1 with thinking about how the story of Adam and Eve might be paralleled by the story of Moses or something like that. Right.

Speaker 1 The stories are vehicles to teach us wisdom. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's cool that this came out of a word play on the name. Yes.
It was the kind of the first clue. Oh, yeah, it is.
It's a little like low-hanging fruit. Yeah.
Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's really fascinating. And then you're saying you go and just watch how it's not just the name, there's a lot of vocabulary.
Yeah. Key vocabulary, like the voice

Speaker 1 that then will share in each story.

Speaker 1 And you're saying that the vocabulary actually happens in order. In order.
It feels very intentional. Yes.
And the fact that they're both shepherds and there's a sheep-shearing festival.

Speaker 1 And so all of those details are saying, dear reader, pay attention to and think about these sets of stories together. And as you do, think about the similarities and differences.
And as you do,

Speaker 1 you're going to

Speaker 1 find God's wisdom.

Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. That is part of how the stories do their work.
I never learned that in Sunday school. No.

Speaker 1 But hopefully a whole new generation will because

Speaker 1 I have been waiting for the day that I could share this news. Okay.
So there's a Hebrew Bible scholar, Seth Postel, who I've learned a lot from over the years.

Speaker 1 He and I both had the same really formative teacher back in the day, John Selhammer, who taught me probably the most important things I ever learned about how to read the Hebrew Bible.

Speaker 1 So Seth Postel was also a student of Selhammer's back in the day.

Speaker 1 And Seth has done us the favor of writing the first accessible, introductory, kind of like handbook on hyperlinking

Speaker 1 that I am so thrilled to recommend to people now. Cool.
Just released real time, like eight days ago, November 4th, 2025. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Called The Art of Narrative Analogy, Identifying and Interpreting Parallel Passages in the Bible. So Seth...
walks through in a very fun way.

Speaker 1 He uses Star Wars and Lord of the Rings as kind of like the main illustrations.

Speaker 1 So, it's written for a very accessible audience.

Speaker 1 If you've ever wanted to kind of deepen your understanding or sharpen your toolkit of how to identify hyperlinks and then what to do with them, like your question. Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is a book-length treatment of that.

Speaker 1 This is not an academic book. This is more popular-level book.
Oh, I mean, it's about hyperlinking in the Bible. Okay.

Speaker 1 So, it is nerdy in the sense of it's about that, but it's not, you don't have to know Greek or Hebrew. Okay.
It's written for a wide audience. And

Speaker 1 it's easy to read. You'll learn a ton.
And it's the book that I wished for many years

Speaker 1 existed. Great.

Speaker 1 Do you have it? I do, actually, because

Speaker 1 I wrote a little

Speaker 1 short little paragraph to endorse it because it's such a fantastic little book. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it's really great. So if you wanted, for example, to follow through this parallel between David and Naval and Jacob and Laban, you could do it on your own.

Speaker 1 You could also get Seth's book and then do it. Okay.
And I bet you would notice a lot more and get a lot more insight out of it. Awesome.
Yep. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's move into some questions that arose out of our conversations about Jesus in the wilderness. We did multiple episodes.
The wilderness comes up a lot in the Gospels. So we have a question from,

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure this isn't your real name, Darndus Dabbler, which is just a fantastic name, but it's also your email address. So my hunch is your real name's a mystery.
And that's okay.

Speaker 1 Because Darndus Dabbler, you have a really great question about the wilderness and the teachings of Jesus.

Speaker 5 Hi, Tim and John Collins, Darndus Dabbler from Connecticut. Although Jesus proclaims that the kingdom of God has arrived, the daily prayer that he prescribes for us has some wilderness in it.

Speaker 1 What's up with that?

Speaker 5 Thank you and thank you for all you do.

Speaker 1 What's up with that?

Speaker 1 Is that the daily bread? Yeah, I pulled it up here. Okay.
The Lord's Prayer. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 So we should just say it together. Okay.
All right. This is in the Lexim English Bible version.
But our Father, who is in heaven, may your name be treated as holy. Whoa!

Speaker 1 That's almost exactly how we translated it in our translation.

Speaker 1 May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today

Speaker 1 our daily bread.

Speaker 1 Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Don't bring us into

Speaker 1 they render temptation. It's the same words test.
I'm going to say test. Yep.

Speaker 1 But deliver us from the evil one. Yeah.
So you're hearing, well, first of all, darndest dabbler. Yeah.
You didn't tell us. You didn't tell us.
So, John, your hunch is that the wilderness is coming.

Speaker 1 The daily bread? Yep. That's wilderness.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The bread of the moment. That's exactly right.
What do I need in this moment? So you're referring to the manna. The story is about

Speaker 1 God providing manna in the wilderness, which is daily, every day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just enough for the day.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You're not storing it up.
Yeah. You're just day by day, what do I need today? It gets wormy if you store it up.

Speaker 1 Which, you know,

Speaker 1 worms are kind of just like little tiny snakes.

Speaker 1 No, why worms? It's mentioned that the Israelites who kept the manna

Speaker 1 could have been just bacteria, you're saying? It could have been like... Yeah, why mention little, little slithery worms?

Speaker 1 Except to echo the snake. Okay.
They're listening to the snake saying, God won't provide enough for you. You better get two days' worth.

Speaker 1 Anyway. Okay, so daily bread.

Speaker 1 And then the test. And do not bring us into the test.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now, one large point of the discussion was the test happens in the garden and it happens in the wilderness and it happens in the wilderness how are you going to pass the test in the garden well maybe by learning to pass it in the wilderness first yeah because and then maybe you can handle the garden

Speaker 1 so i guess the test could really be in either

Speaker 1 but the point here is there's some wilderness themes in the prayer

Speaker 1 and the question is if the kingdom of god has arrived right does that mean the garden has arrived that's right yeah and if the garden has arrived why would i be asking for daily bread wouldn't i just be like thanks for all the wonderful trees yeah that i can eat from yeah yeah because in the in the manna story that's being echoed by the daily bread the israelites are in the wilderness they're in it yeah and they would die if they don't have bread

Speaker 1 But the bread, you know, it's called the bread of heaven, the bread from the skies.

Speaker 1 And it has mysteriously shiny qualities about it. It's like resin, right? That glints in the sun or something.

Speaker 1 Why is it described that way?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it is a little Eden gift, as it were,

Speaker 1 but it's in the wilderness setting. So I think, Darndestabler, I just like saying your name.

Speaker 1 I think what you're noticing and naming, like what's up with the fact that the kingdom of God has arrived. Yeah.
but I'm still in the wilderness.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's a great way of just naming the dynamic of the kingdom of God is here

Speaker 1 in moments, in foretastes,

Speaker 1 in experiences, but it has yet to envelop and recreate the whole cosmos.

Speaker 1 So an Israelite going out and gathering some manna, picking it up, looking at it, marveling at it, could go, the kingdom of the skies has arrived. Yeah, the bread of the bread of the skies.

Speaker 1 The bread of the skies has arrived. This is it.
Yeah. Yeah.
It arrived. The kingdom of the bread of the disguise.
skies And I only need to take what I need right now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, I was also reflecting on how,

Speaker 1 you know, in the garden,

Speaker 1 Adam and Eve aren't collecting fruit, right? They don't have to store fruit. It's just always on the trees.
Totally. So what do I want to eat today? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Like, I'll just choose my tree and I'll eat it. Yeah.
So you're not storing up. Yes.

Speaker 1 And so it's the fruit of the moment in the garden. It's the same thing, but you're just surrounded by it versus the manna.

Speaker 1 It's like you're surrounded by desert Yeah and the temptation is okay, maybe I do need to store this up

Speaker 1 Yeah, but in both is the temptation is Hmm, can I trust that God will give me what I need or do I take what I think I need? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So the Lord's prayer then is training us to Think of myself every day as being in that wilderness generation.
The kingdom of God has arrived.

Speaker 1 I mean, my goodness. He liberated us from slavery in Egypt.
God is king. Those are the final words of the worship song that the people sing in Exodus 15 after they walk through the sea.

Speaker 1 Yahweh reigns as king. It's the final line.
So it's the king of the cosmic kingdom leading us through the wilderness. And he gives us just what we need for each day.

Speaker 1 So Lord's prayer, whether my life happens to be surrounded by abundance or surrounded by a lack of abundance, or maybe I'll

Speaker 1 go through both in my lifetime, the Lord's Prayer is teaching me to see I'm always actually sojourning in the wilderness with the cosmic king with me.

Speaker 1 Well, you could also imagine Adam and Eve praying this prayer. Totally.
Right? Yeah, it still works.

Speaker 1 You know, give me today

Speaker 1 the fruit I need today. Yep.
Like,

Speaker 1 you know? Yeah, totally. That could be their prayer.
Today, my daily fruit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I love that. And don't, I know there's that tree you told me not to, so don't, you know, don't lead me into the test.
Don't lead me into the test, please. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Deliver me from the evil one. The evil one's here whispering into my ear.
Yeah. Like, don't just trust that God has enough for you.

Speaker 1 There's something he's holding out on you. Totally.
It could have been their prayer. Yeah, that's right.
So it's not a wilderness prayer. It's a garden prayer.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's a test prayer. It's a test prayer.
I guess it's a prayer of those facing the test. But it's true, because if I'm in the garden, I still want to view all that abundance as daily provision.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And

Speaker 1 I think it's why I think the wisdom of Jesus' teachings, I think, is teaching us that even when we do have material abundance, to

Speaker 1 treat it and do with it

Speaker 1 whatever it takes so that it doesn't catch catch a hold of my desires in my heart.

Speaker 1 Do you have to pray this prayer once you're a new creation? Hmm.

Speaker 1 What a fantastic question. I don't think so.
Ultimate Garden? I don't think so. Because the idea is that if every creature is so satisfied,

Speaker 1 all our desires are satisfied with the presence and power and goodness of God

Speaker 1 intimately, then why would I desire anything you have and do wrong to you that all of a sudden I need to ask for your forgiveness anymore? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Maybe another way to say it is you can't help but pray this prayer. Oh, what do you mean? The prayer is so in tune with your spirit that you're not trying to pray the prayer.
Your life is the prayer.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 You're saying, because you're living out the desire to only depend on and live by the creative word and goodness of God. And escape every false temptation to not do that.
Yeah. That's great.

Speaker 1 Thanks for that, John.

Speaker 1 This is a great chance to go to the question that we got from Gareth, who lives in Leeds in the United Kingdom.

Speaker 1 You ask a great question about Jesus in the garden.

Speaker 6 Hi, John and Tim. This is Gareth from Leeds in the UK.

Speaker 6 You've mentioned a few times in the series that the wilderness is often a place in which people are required to learn to trust God God and his will, to see whether you're ready to be in the garden.

Speaker 6 In reading the Passion narrative, I wondered whether there was a wilderness moment for Jesus when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, because at that moment he felt separation from the Father and he needed to place his trust in the Father so that he could submit to the Father's will rather than his own.

Speaker 6 Is the Father testing Jesus at this moment, or is Jesus showing us that the way to trust God in our wilderness times is by submitting everything to his will?

Speaker 6 Thank you for everything that you and the whole Bible project team do.

Speaker 1 God bless you all.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's fantastic.
So there, Jesus is praying the prayer, right?

Speaker 1 Well, thank you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, you're remembering our conversations about it. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's kind of cool to think about how he probably couldn't help but pray the prayer.

Speaker 1 You know, like,

Speaker 1 he's so one with the Father.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so this is the story where Matthew 26, we'll look at his version. This is verse 36.
Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane.

Speaker 1 It's actually the Gospel of John that calls it like a garden orchard.

Speaker 1 And Gethsemane is a Greek spelling of the Hebrew phrase

Speaker 1 Gat Shemon, which is the pressing floor for olive oil.

Speaker 1 So it was like where you would stomp on the olives and the oil would start to drain out. So it was olive orchard.

Speaker 1 And he said, sit over here to the disciples while I go over there and pray. But then he took along Peter and James and John.
And he quotes from a psalm because he's got those in his blood.

Speaker 1 My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. That's from Psalm, I think, 42.

Speaker 1 He went a little ways and said, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. That's a whole hyperlink back.

Speaker 1 to his cup and baptism. But then he says, Nevertheless, not what I desire,

Speaker 1 but what you desire.

Speaker 1 And you're looking at a translation that says, not what I will, but as you

Speaker 1 and that's how I typically have ever heard the story. Not my will, but your will be done.
Exactly. Yes.
It's the classic rendering of that. That's right.

Speaker 1 It's exactly the same Greek phrases from the Lord's Prayer. And that's the point.
Yeah. Which in the Lord's Prayer is.

Speaker 1 In both cases, it's the Greek word anthele, which means what you desire, what you want.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Which echoes back to the language of desire and the tree and the snake from Jesus Christ. And the Lord's Prayer, it's may your kingdom come, may your

Speaker 1 desire be done. And so Jesus is praying that part of the prayer.

Speaker 1 He's praying the prayer. Yes.
Now, so Gareth, what you're asking is

Speaker 1 Jesus. Was he being tested or was he just showing us how to be tested? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 So one thought is this story is a bookend because this is right before the moment that he goes to get arrested and his trial and so on.

Speaker 1 And so it really is kind of the culminating moment of his whole journey that began with his baptism and his wilderness sojourning. In that test.

Speaker 1 And I think Matthew's connecting back, it's only Matthew that tells us that Jesus went back and forth three times to pray this prayer.

Speaker 1 He goes back a second time.

Speaker 1 Disciples are sleeping. He goes back a second time, and then it's the same prayer.
And then Matthew tells us he went back a third time, which echoes the three wilderness tests.

Speaker 1 And remember, the three wilderness tests were all about Jesus preserving his life.

Speaker 1 Provide bread for yourself.

Speaker 1 Throw yourself down. In that case, it would be risk your life to force your father to save your life.

Speaker 1 And then in the third case, it's, you know, I'm going to give you power over all the kingdoms.

Speaker 1 So it's all about Jesus securing on his own timeline and by his own strategy all the stuff the Father wants to give him three times over.

Speaker 1 And now here's Jesus in the opposite of the wilderness, the garden, facing another threefold test.

Speaker 1 Oh, he also says to the disciples when he goes back, watch and pray so that you don't fall into the test or fall into temptation. Okay.

Speaker 1 which is also from the Lord's Prayer. And also the wilderness story of Jesus began with saying the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness in order to be tested.
yeah

Speaker 1 so the question is why would jesus need to be tested right

Speaker 1 and the gospel authors just give us the narration of it i think what's important is to say when jesus says not my desire but your desire father when he's talking about my desire we've only ever seen jesus be completely in union and one with the father and act according to the father's desire.

Speaker 1 So, I mean,

Speaker 1 Jesus, he's going to his death and he knows it.

Speaker 1 But what he also talks about when he goes back to the disciples and they're asleep, he says, Watch and pray, you don't fall into the test. The spirit might be willing, but the flesh is weak.

Speaker 1 It's kind of a famous saying to Jesus.

Speaker 1 So, this is a moment where Jesus is bending the desires of his flesh into union with the desire of the Father.

Speaker 1 And so, in that sense, he's unifying his human will with the divine will that he shares with his father. Right.

Speaker 1 And to the degree that he experienced that was his test. Totally.
Yeah. You know, there's a moment when whoever wrote the letter to the Hebrews

Speaker 1 reflects back. It's a cool hyperlink in the New Testament letters back to the Gospels.
Yeah, because for that author,

Speaker 1 there's something for us in that he can empathize with us, is that?

Speaker 1 Right? Yes. Yeah, in two places.

Speaker 1 One is in chapter two of the letter to the Hebrews, where he says, since the children, I mean, the children are human beings, since humans have flesh and blood, he, that is, the Son of God, shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of the one who holds the power of death, namely the slanderer, the devil.

Speaker 1 So he could liberate into freedom all of those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. So the first thing he wants to say is,

Speaker 1 how

Speaker 1 did God

Speaker 1 save people who are dying because they keep choosing their own death through their folly?

Speaker 1 If someone's tangled up in death. Yeah.
So God doesn't just, as it were from the outside, just scoop them out of danger. God actually joins humans in their mortality and dying.

Speaker 1 He shares in their humanity. That's a really big theme in the letter to the Hebrews.

Speaker 1 So when earlier in chapter two, then he kind of backs up and he puts it this way.

Speaker 1 He says, in order to bring many human sons and daughters into a state of glory, which is his word for the resurrection, like a glorified human. It was appropriate that God,

Speaker 1 for whom and through whom everything exists, it was appropriate that God, who's the creator of all things, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect, but it's the word teleos, complete,

Speaker 1 through what he suffered.

Speaker 1 So it was actually by

Speaker 1 the father sending the divine son so that the Son, who's one with the Father, would suffer the same thing that they suffer, but go through it

Speaker 1 and be completely like unified with the Father. That's called perfecting or completing the human being.
I don't understand the phrase, make the pioneer of their salvation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's the Father and the Son working in partnership.

Speaker 1 The Son of God doesn't need to be perfected. Right.
Like, he's cool.

Speaker 1 But humans really do need to... We're in a bad way down here.
And we're in a bad way because of our disordered desires, right? That's the diagnosis of Genesis 3.

Speaker 1 So what if the complete Son of God became one with incomplete, mortal, dying, suffering humans?

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 actually completed humanity. perfected that humanity.

Speaker 1 I think what the author of Hebrews, when he looks looks at Jesus in Gethsemane, he sees the Son of God having become human, actually finally

Speaker 1 being the first real human being who's willing to live in union with God.

Speaker 1 And if we're wondering how this links to the garden, or does the author of Hebrews really have the garden on the brain? In chapter 5, he really links to it most directly.

Speaker 1 He's talking about the divine son in chapter 5, verse 7, and he says, in the days of his flesh. When he was cruising around

Speaker 1 Galilee. So

Speaker 1 once God had become one with human flesh in the person of the Son, he, that is the Son, offered up prayers

Speaker 1 and requests with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death. And he was heard because of his piety or his devotion to God.

Speaker 1 So this is clearly a reference to his prayer in the garden.

Speaker 1 And he sees that in that moment, Gareth, it's interesting, the author of Hebrews doesn't see Jesus being separated from God in the garden.

Speaker 1 He actually sees this as a moment of Jesus expressing his devotion to God and being heard. Because he says the Father heard him because of his piety.

Speaker 1 So it's a moment, I think, of intimate union between the Father and the Son.

Speaker 1 But it's because the Son was going into

Speaker 1 death, which I don't know what could be more opposite of death

Speaker 1 than the infinite, eternal, life-giving Son of God. Like, the point is that God is embracing the thing that's the most opposite of God, which is death.

Speaker 1 This is a great mystery here, but the point is, Gareth, that the Gethsemane story, the testing, is echoing the wilderness. It's echoing Adam and Eve in the garden.

Speaker 1 It's a way for Jesus Jesus to really experience what does it mean to be human

Speaker 1 and to have to bend your flesh

Speaker 1 and the desire of your flesh into union with God.

Speaker 1 And it's interesting that the author here says as he was crying, praying to the one who was able to save him from death, he was heard.

Speaker 1 Because in the garden story, it almost feels like Jesus is saying, can I not, can you take this from me? Oh, sure. Yeah.
And

Speaker 1 he had to drink the cup. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He had to go through death.

Speaker 1 But it's interesting that here it said he was saved from death.

Speaker 1 So the way he was saved from death was to go through. By going through death.
That is going through the sword and the fire. Going through the sword and the fire.
Yeah. Yeah.
100%. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it was, according to Hebrews 5, 7, it was his flesh. It was the divine son.
But in a way, it was like it was his flesh that was saying,

Speaker 1 I don't want to go through this. This, I think this is we're so hyperlinking now, but this is what the Apostle Paul is trying to name in his letter to the Romans

Speaker 1 in chapter seven and eight, where he says like, in my truest self, I want to do what God commands. Right.

Speaker 1 So when God says, do not covet, do not desire.

Speaker 1 And he says, what does my flesh end up doing? Desiring all this stuff that's going to kill me.

Speaker 1 And that's why he says, wretched human that I am, who will save me from this dying body?

Speaker 1 Yeah, man, that story in the garden is worth a lifetime of prayer and pondering because it's the moment when

Speaker 1 the truest version of what a human is meant to become is what's happening there. And it's when God becomes human to be that for us.
So remarkable.

Speaker 1 So that I can meditate on that story and be like, that's who I can be today. I can do that.
Yeah. I am capable of it.

Speaker 1 It's going to be hard because I'm in a version of myself and my body that has all this disordered stuff going on, but it can be bent into union with God's will. Jesus did it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And because he did it, because he can hang in the wilderness. Yeah.

Speaker 1 If I'm with him,

Speaker 1 I can hang too. I can hang too.
If I'm with him, I can bend my will, my desire.

Speaker 1 Or really, is it me bending it at that point or is it him bending it for me? That's a great question.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Paul just said it both ways to the Philippians: work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Yeah, bending because God is the one at work in you, both in your doing and in your desiring.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, is that

Speaker 1 what he says? Oh, wow. And so you're like, is it me or is it God? And Paul's answer is absolutely 100%.

Speaker 1 How could it ever not be both? Yeah. Yeah, but it can't be you on your own.
No.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you on your own is just an illusion. It's called not existing.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So this has been a very rambling meditation on your question, Gareth, but it's a wonderful question. I'm so glad you asked it and brought that up.
Yeah. And we're out of time.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And there was many more questions, but always.

Speaker 1 That's a great place to end.

Speaker 1 So thank you, everyone, for your thoughtful questions. and for engaging with this topic and then reading through the Bible with us in such a meaningful way.
So cool. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We love knowing, especially these Q ⁇ A episodes, hearing from y'all.

Speaker 1 It's really just a fun reminder that as we sit in this room by ourselves talking into microphones, that we actually are participating in a big Bible reading community.

Speaker 1 We're learning together as we go. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 why are we doing this whole thing that we call Bible Project? It's a great question. We are trying to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus.

Speaker 1 That's what Bible Project is, a non-profit media studio making all kinds of stuff to help people have that experience.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and we are able to make everything, not because it is free to make, but it's all been paid for by generous people, which is so wonderful.

Speaker 1 And we're thankful for everyone who has participated in making it with us.

Speaker 1 This podcast is produced by an amazing group of human beings. Check out the show notes to see some of those names, of those images of God.

Speaker 1 Thanks again for listening, and we will see you in the next episode. We're going to start a new series on all of the key words associated with Advent leading up to Christmas.
It's going to be fun.