Introduction to the Book of the Covenant

As we prepare to study a section of Exodus known as "The Book of the Covenant", Pastor Jeff shares challenges raised by scholars and walks us through some key concepts to keep in mind when studying Scripture.

Transcription (automatically-generated):

And we're going to be getting into a very different kind of message today, we're getting into a section of scripture that has a lot of unique challenges. And so I have to spend a whole message getting you ready for that section of scripture. This is going to be a little bit like a seminary class, but it's going to be an opportunity to learn some valuable principles about how we approach studying the Bible. If you love the Bible or if you're new to the Bible, whatever it is, I'm probably going to say something that's going to make you feel uncomfortable today.

OK, don't cancel me before the message is over, OK? Don't get up in a grand show of disgust at my heresy. Wait and see where it's going. That's just a general good rule when you hear me teach. If you think I'm being heretical, just give me five minutes.

I'll bring it back. I'll get you back. So I just want to give you that heads up. The Book of the Covenant is the term used by scholars to refer to the section of scripture between Exodus, Chapter 20, verse 22, through Exodus, Chapter 23, verse 19.

And the term comes from Exodus 24 seven, which is on your outlines where we are told that Moses took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people.

This section of scripture describes civil wars that were followed by the Israelites in order that they might fulfill their covenant with the Lord, wherein they would be his people and he would be their God. In Chapter 19, we read about how the Israelites reached Mount Sinai and God spoke to Moses. The Lord revealed to him the offer of this covenant with Israel. And here's what happened in Exodus 19, also on your outlines. So Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before them all these words which the Lord commanded him.

Then all the people answered together and said all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. That was part of the Covenant agreement. The official covenant ceremony is going to come up later, but that's the gist of it. They understood that part of being God's people would include living as God's people. Crazy thought, right? If you're going to call yourself the people of Iowa, you actually have to live in a way that reflects the fact that you're the people of Iowa.

A very obvious point, but one that to this day, a lot of people find very offensive. What do you mean?

Just because I call myself a Christian, I have to live a certain way. That's crazy. Is it? Is it, though? So write this down. The purpose of the Book of the Covenant was to help Israel apply the values of the Ten Commandments to everyday life.

Its purpose was to help Israel apply the values of the Ten Commandments to everyday life. That's the idea. The Ten Commandments speak to every area of life through the values behind them that can be translated to every area of life. Now, I need to let you know that among biblical scholars, the Book of the Covenant is highly controversial and debated for several reasons that I'm going to get into in a minute. And the reason we're going to spend some time talking about this stuff is, again, it's going to teach us some principles about how to study the Bible.

It's going to teach us the kind of questions that we need to ask if we're going to seriously study scripture and we're going to learn how to navigate through a difficult text. You know, when you join a sports team as a kid, all everybody wants to do is just play right. You join the basketball team. All you want to do is play basketball. You join the soccer team. All you want to do is play soccer. Nobody wants to go over the mechanics of how to take a shot.

Nobody wants to get in a line. And the coach says, OK, now put your arm at a 90 degree angle, put your respect, get three fingers spread on the ball.

Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to learn the the principles behind a three man weave this one to play.

But we all understand that that sort of stuff is foundational to becoming an effective player. Similarly, you can have fun studying the Bible from scratch. You can pick it up, you can read it and you'll be blessed, you will you will grow in your relationship with the Lord. Absolutely. But if you want to study the scripture at a deeper level than you're going to need to wrestle with some of the types of issues that we're going to look at today.

So let's start by talking about a few key principles for studying scripture. These are not exhaustive. They're just a few that are going to help us with this and many other texts. Firstly, as you study the Bible, you're going to encounter.

Scripture that you cannot understand at first reading or find offensive, can you say amen to that, that it just happens, right? It happens.

And when it does, I want to encourage you to do this as a habit.

I have a journal, a spiritual journal of some kind. Write down the verses in question, write down the date, write down your issues and your questions and your concerns and then pray about it.

Pray about it. Ask the Lord to lead you to an answer, then read some good Bible commentaries, listen to some different preachers, preach on that text.

Share the question with your home group.

And you know what? God will lead you to an answer. It may be days, it may take decades, but I can promise you he will be faithful to give you peace about the issue one way or another. And when you find that peace, when you find that answer, you'll be able to go back in that journal and write the date that the issue became settled for you.

And you will be so blessed as over time you build this journal that tracks God's faithfulness in answering your questions about scripture.

Now, why don't we just give up when we encounter something in scripture that we don't fully understand? Because there's more than enough that we do understand and the part that we do understand clearly reveals to us a loving and good heavenly father. And so where we don't yet understand. We have faith in the goodness of God.

That one day we will we fill that gap between the question and the answer with faith, because we know enough, we know the character of our heavenly father, let me tell you something about the truth.

The truth can handle your questions. Do you know that the truth can handle your questions when something is genuinely true, it can hold up to scrutiny. And this is why it's so dangerous that as a culture, we're starting to exhibit this belief that conversation and questions should just be shut down and questioning should be forbidden when it comes to certain topics. This is true. We've established it. No more questions. Let me say it again.

The truth never needs to be protected from questions because it has nothing to fear from questions. Listen, we don't need to ban people from suggesting that the earth is flat. We need to do a better job of sharing why it is that we really, really sure that the earth is round, that's what we need to do.

The solution is not shutting down questions. The solution is providing better, clearer answers and evidence. It's laziness or at worst, cowardice to just say, no, we're shutting down the questions.

No more asking. Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life.

Jesus doesn't need to be shielded from our questions and his word.

The Bible does not need to be shielded from our questions. The more you question the truth, in fact, the more clearly it reveals itself to be the truth.

And our job is not just to question the truth, but to pursue the truth. Please understand the difference.

I hear people all the time who say, Oh, I'm a spiritual seeker. I just have all these questions. Well, what are you doing to actually look for the answers?

Because sometimes we're just throwing out questions so that we don't actually have to commit or respond in any way to the evidence. Will I have this question? I have these doubts. Have you pursued answers in any way?

Well, not really. Well, enough, you know this, but the term seeker implies action, it implies that you're actively looking, you're not really a seeker, you're more of a sinner if you're not doing anything.

I'm a spiritual sinner.

What does that mean? Well, I have questions and doubts, but I just don't do anything with them. I'm a spiritual sinner. Copyright 2020. Geoff Thompson. And our job is to pursue the truth.

So write this down. Record your questions and issues. Pray and seek the answer. Record your questions and issues. Pray and seek the answer.

Second, spiritual principle. You know, when we talk to somebody, when we read something, we always begin with the assumption of literalism. If I ask you, are you going to church tonight? Your first response is not going to be based on the assumption that I'm speaking metaphorically to you because there's no reason to make that assumption right.

You're going to assume that I'm asking you as a human being with a body if you're physically going to the gathering of the church this evening.

Now, if I said, oh, it's so beautiful outside right now, I feel like I'm in church, you wouldn't say, I don't understand.

I don't see any walls. There's no worship team. We're not in a. You wouldn't say that. You wouldn't take what I said literally, because I use the word like and I told you by doing that that I was not speaking literally.

But in everyday conversation, we always begin with the assumption that we're speaking literally and then we change our interpretation if there's a good reason to do so. And so we approach the biblical text the same way we approach the biblical text the same way. And let me say this. It's too difficult to understand is not a good reason to not take the text literally. Well, it just seems unbelievable to me.

That's not a good reason. I'm a naturalist.

I don't believe in miracles. So if this is about a miracle, then it can't be speaking literally. It's not a good reason or you know what I find a literal interpretation. It's going to embarrass me in front of my friends.

If I say I actually believe in the flood and the plagues of Egypt and all that stuff, your embarrassment is not a good reason to not adopt a literal interpretation.

Our ego and our level of knowledge should not determine when the word of God is and is not speaking literally. So write this down. We begin by taking the biblical text literally and change our approach if there is a compelling reason to do so, if there's a compelling reason to do so, that's the second principle.

The third principle is already on your outlines, the primary meaning of a text.

Any part of scripture in the Bible is determined by the person who wrote it, their intended audience and the historical cultural context of the time it was written. So if you want to understand the main meaning of a biblical passage, you got to understand who's writing it, who are they writing it to, where are they living and when are they living?

You got to understand those things to really understand what it means. And many biblical passages, let me say, have secondary meanings and even tertiary meanings. But those cannot be entertained or explored until the primary meaning is first established.

And this requires this requires a much greater level of humility than most of us realize at first, because if we take Exodus as an example, none of us are experts on ancient Near Eastern anthropology or archaeology.

I play one on TV on Sunday nights at five, but I am not an expert on ancient Near Eastern anthropology or archaeology. We have not studied the oldest Torah manuscripts in the original Hebrew. Even though I've been studying this text all week and reading materials, I'm only scratching the surface of what we know about it and how much there is to know.

And so with that in mind, how arrogant would it be for any of us to say, if I can't understand any of these verse is in Exodus after reading it once, then I'm not going to believe it.

Right, that would be like me trying to build a house from scratch, inevitably failing in the first 10 minutes and saying, well, it can't be done. It's impossible to build a house.

Is it? No, of course not. What's the problem? The problem is I don't have the skills or the knowledge required for the task, so I need to acquire the skills or knowledge or I got to get some people involved in the process who have the skills and knowledge.

But wouldn't I be a fool to essentially elevate myself so highly that I declare if I can't do it, it can't be done?

If I can't understand this verse, it's incomprehensible and therefore cannot be speaking literally why I am the smartest human being alive, I am the gold standard of biblical hermeneutics.

Come on now. Come on. Now, as I said earlier, there's enough that we can learn from scripture, all of us right now to reveal to us that we have a loving and good heavenly father.

And when we understand that we're able to keep faith in those areas of scripture that we don't yet fully understand.

Now, I'm going to share a couple of different views on the Book of the Covenant and I'll share which view I subscribe to personally. But you don't have to agree with me.

As always, I encourage you not to believe anything I say simply because you hear me saying it. Do your own research, do your own study, come to your own conclusions, pursue the truth actively.

Now, the first view holds that the Book of the Covenant was not recorded by Moses at Mount Sinai, but is rather a compilation of case laws that document rulings made by judges in Israel decades after Israel's time at Mount Sinai.

And I'll tell you why this view exists. These are the questions Bible scholars ask. These are not men who are setting out to destroy the credibility of scripture.

These are men who love God and ask really important questions and believe in the authority of scripture.

And here's why some of them hold this view. Firstly, many of the laws in the Book of the Covenant only apply to a settled community.

And what I mean by that is a community that's built homes, they've planted fields, they've engaged in domesticated livestock farming. Additionally, it includes commands on how to deal with slaves. Does Israel have any slaves at Mount Sinai right now? No, because just a few weeks ago, they were all slaves write the Book of the Covenant addresses a context that Israel is not in at this time, at this point in their journey, their wandering in the wilderness.

And they're going to be doing that for almost another 40 years.

And by the way, this entire generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt is going to die before they enter the promised land.

Their children are going to go into the promised land with Joshua and they'll still have to conquer the promised land before they settle.

And so many scholars will say, listen, it makes no sense that God is laying out all of these laws at Mount Sinai when pretty much all of those who are hearing these laws are going to be dead before they get into the promised land, which, by the way, is still decades away.

They'll point out that Moses is going to die. He's not going to enter the promised land.

Therefore, they'll say it cannot be Moses who recorded the Book of the Covenant and it cannot have happened at Mount Sinai. Tension plus one, I could feel it. Now, scholars also note that the commands in the Book of the Covenant seem to be incredibly specific. The Ten Commandments, they're broad laws that encompass all of life and they could be applied at any place in any time.

The Book of the Covenant deals with incredibly specific scenarios that seem bound to a specific part of the world at a specific time in history.

And there's no moral code that could possibly encompass every potential scenario a person and community could face.

And the Book of the Covenant doesn't cover every possible scenario, which makes scholars ask the obvious question, well, why these specific scenarios?

Why not others? And when you read through it, the commands can be seemingly very random, leaping sequentially from issues like executing a sorceress to not charging interest on loans back to back.

Seems a little random tension up another notch. Thirdly, some of these commands bear a striking resemblance to commands that appear in other contemporaneous.

That means, at the same time in history, ancient Near Eastern moral codes such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Mesopotamian lore codes of Qanoon, which we probably all read growing up.

So scholars note this and they say, well, well, well, doesn't that mean this is kind of evidence for human authorship in response to surrounding cultures rather than commands coming directly from the mouth of God?

Another notch of tension and then lastly, scholars note that there seems to be sort of a contradictory heart behind some of these commands. Next Sunday, B.J. is going to teach on Exodus 21, Verse is one to 11.

And it lists some commands related to slavery that paint a powerful picture of our relationship with the Lord.

And be just going to walk us through exactly why it's such a wonderful illustration.

And in those verse is, there's this relationship described between a slave and a master that's so wonderful that when the time comes for the slave to be released in the seventh year, the slave doesn't want to leave. Because living and working for his his masters just so wonderful and so the Book of the Covenant prescribes how to walk through the scenario, what do you do with a slave who says, I don't want to leave, I just want to stay with you for the rest of my life?

It's a vivid, beautiful, wonderful illustration of a biblical truth and it's clearly from the Lord.

And then later in the same chapter, Exodus 21 versus 20 and 21, we read this. It's on your outlines. And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished for he is his property.

So those verse is are saying, if you own a slave and you beat them so bad that they die right away, you're going to be considered a murderer. If it takes him 24 hours to 48 hours to die, you're in the clear because the slave is your property.

And that leads some scholars to say there seems to be sort of a different heart between these two laws about slavery, that maybe one is written by God and maybe one is written by a man attempting to apply the law of God and not doing a very good job.

And when some scholars put all this evidence together, they posit that perhaps the Book of the Covenant was written decades after Mount Sinai when Israel was settled in the land and perhaps it wasn't directly spoken commands from God.

Perhaps it's case law, legal verdicts from court cases by godly men in Israel who were appointed as judges and were attempting to apply the values of the Ten Commandments to everyday civil life in Israel, much like the Supreme Court in the United States is charged with applying the Constitution to everyday life.

Now, perhaps at this point in the message, if you're a Bible loving Christian, you're feeling super uncomfortable and you're telling yourself, OK, Jeffs got at least one other view he's going to share, maybe he'll come back from the heretical edge of the cliff and bring everything home.

And I'm going to get to that other view. But I just want to encourage you, if you're tense, remember what we talked about. The truth can handle being questioned, can handle being prodded and poked.

And when it comes to the truth, the solution is never to say, let's just shut down questions that shut it down. Let's not talk about it. The truth doesn't need you to do that.

So I'm going to stretch you further by addressing a couple of obvious objections that people might have to this first few, just as a quick reminder, when I refer to the Torah, I'm talking about the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus numbers, Deuteronomy in Greek.

It's called the Pentateuch. So perhaps you're thinking, well, Jeff, the answer is really obvious. If the Book of the Covenant shows up at this point in Exodus, then it was obviously recorded at this point in history and not decades later. Well, the problem with that is there's lots of stuff in the Book of Exodus and other places in the Torah that's out of order chronologically. And the reason is really simple.

They didn't write history back then the same way we do it right now. They recorded it accurately. They recorded things as they happened.

But when they were putting them in a book or in the Torah, editors would often group things together by theme. So it's entirely possible that an editor of the Torah moved the Book of the Covenant from decades later to this point in Exodus, because the more radically it's connected to the Ten Commandments, it documents the people trying to apply the Ten Commandments to everyday life.

And we hear that and we go, well, that's wrong. That's a crappy way of writing history.

Well, we're really. Really, just because 3500 years ago in the ancient Near East, they didn't deal with history exactly the same way we do in the West in 2020, they're wrong.

It's just different, as we talked about earlier, we have to understand the historical and cultural context in which the author was writing as well as their intended audience.

Well, perhaps you're thinking. But Jeff, Jeff Moses wrote the Torah. Even Jesus said so on this point.

I believe that we know for sure or as close as we can get to sure. That Moses was not the only author of the Torah.

Now, it's true that during his earthly ministry, Jesus quotes from all five books in the Torah.

And every time he does so, he credits Moses as the author.

It's clear from Scripture that Jesus considers Moses to be the primary author of the Torah, which includes Exodus. However, there are places in the Torah, including Exodus, where it's undeniable that somebody else is the source.

Joshua Miriam, if the Ma Lazar and the Levitical priests even during Moses lifetime.

There's also information in the Torah that could only have been added after the death of Moses, for example, the death of Moses in Deuteronomy 34. Now, yes, technically God could have had Moses write about his own death, but how awkward would that be? You think God is like, OK, Moses, sit down. I'm going to give you today's chapter for the Torah. Let's start with the title, The Death of Moses. What?

What now? Yes. Could that have happened? Yes, technically it could have happened.

But I think that suggestion is a little bit of a stretch, and I hope you'll agree with me on that. And so for this reason, I would consider myself to be what's known as a supplementary and when it comes to the Torah.

So a supplementary and agrees with Jesus that Moses is the primary.

He is the core author of the Torah, but a supplementary and believes that the Torah was also added to and edited a little bit later on across the centuries by other qualified writers who were also inspired by the Holy Spirit.

So a supplementary one believes that the Torah is still 100 percent divinely inspired. Just over centuries, rather than the lifetime of one individual, in this case, Moses, this is viewing divine inspiration of the scriptures as a process rather than a singular event. And if you're nervous, let me just point out, we already hold this view regarding the formation of the biblical canon. If you have a Bible in your hands, you're already a supplementary.

And when it comes to how the Bible was formed, collectively, we believe that it was added to it was a process of coming together. Books were selected to be left out and considered extra biblical. And we believe that process unfolded over thousands of years.

We just believe that God was in control of the entire process from beginning to end. We're all supplementaries when it comes to the formation of the Bible. What I'm just suggesting is I'm also a supplementary.

And when it comes to the part of the Bible, that's the Torah.

The tradition of the Jewish fathers teaches that Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai. He handed it down to Joshua, who then handed it down to the elders, who then handed it down to the prophets, who then handed it down to the men of the great assembly. And any of those men may have been part of God's divine process in assembling the Torah. Now, just to restate this again, this view does not clash with Jesus's teachings that Moses authored the Torah.

Moses was the main author and editor, and he should be considered as such.

Almost any book you read has an editor that's different to the author, any book, and nobody then says, well, then the author didn't really write it. Of course he did. He just had an editor involved in the process, often more than one. Or how about this?

Objection. So, so. So then, Jeff, after all that. Are you claiming that the Book of the Covenant is not inerrant? Are you claiming that it's not inspired by God or are you claiming it's not true because it may contain man's view and not God's?

Now, for those who haven't heard the term ignorant before, when we say that the Bible is an errant, we're claiming that the Bible is without error in its original form, without error when we say that it's inspired.

I think we need to be very clear about what it is that we're claiming, just as we do when we claim that the Bible is true. What are we actually saying when we say that it can't be as simple as we're saying everything in the Bible is true.

It can't be that simple because the Bible contains different genres. In other words, not all of scripture is God declaring absolute universal truth. That's not what all of scripture is. And two of the most obvious examples are Psalms and Proverbs. Psalms is primarily poetry. A lot of it is David's poetry. It's a songwriting journal, and much of it expresses David's heart personally. And therefore, it's not always absolute truth. Not every statement in the Psalms is an absolute truth.

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes contain observations of general truths recorded by the wisest human, not named Jesus, who ever lived Solomon.

But guess what? Ecclesiastes and Proverbs there's still tainted by Solomon's personal emotions and sin. Let me give you an example.

When we read something like Proverbs 22 six, which says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Let me ask you, is that an absolute truth? If a Christian set of parents raise a child, do their best to raise that child to love Jesus, is this verse 8 guaranteeing that without exception that child will end up following God? Is it guaranteeing that? Because if it is, then if you know any Christian's parents whose children walked away from the Lord and died in that state, then applying this verse 8 means that you can say to them, you did not raise up your child in a godly way.

That's what it means if this is absolute truth. Now, we all know this is not the case. We all know wonderful people. Unfortunately, wonderful godly parents and some of their children rejected God as adults and sometimes did not come back. What about To verse, where Solomon says Vanity of vanities all is vanity, where Solomon essentially declares life is meaningless?

No, no, don't try and get clever and be like will. I mean, without God, it is no the verse 8 itself. Is that an absolute truth?

Is life utterly meaningless? No, of course not, Solomon is writing this in a dilapidated, sin infused state, his mind is not right when he's writing this. It is not an absolute truth. And so what I'm sharing here to help you understand is the Bible contains genres. And when we say the Bible is true, we do not mean that every single statement in the Bible is an absolute universal truth.

We don't mean that. And if you're uncomfortable, that's because you've been taught something that's not true.

OK, now hang with me and then you're like, OK, everything's going to be OK.

The Bible also contains the genre of history, it records things that are true in the sense that they happened, but not true in the sense that they are right. So when we asked the question, is the Bible true, the answer is more nuanced than we might first realize when the Bible is dealing with issues of absolute truth and reality. Yes, the Bible is absolutely true. When the Bible is recording poetry, it's recording poetry. There may be truth within that poetry, but we would need to discern that by examining the parts of the Bible that are not poetic and that deal with absolute truth.

So write this down, the Bible contains different genres, and we need to be aware of what genre we are studying. We need to be aware of what genre we are studying. You know, you can't just read the Psalms and be like, I am so thankful that the Lord is here to smash the teeth of my enemies. I am so thankful for that.

That's my that's my theme verse 8 right. Now, seriously, I got to say, there's like songs out there today, worship songs. Churches still sing about things like God's Smiting My Enemies. And I'm like, you've read the New Testament, right? Where Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Like like you're aware of this, that this was David's journal. He was having a really, really bad day. And he's like, God, would you just take this person out?

It's not a piece of theology you were supposed to actively apply, OK, genre. Genre matters. Now, when we look at the issue of inspiration, the key verse, of course, is second Timothy 316, which tells us all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Some of you have like, oh, finally something I can say, amen to all scripture is given by inspiration of God. So write this down. Here's what that statement means. It means that God is the ultimate initiator. He is the ultimate author. He is the ultimate editor. And he is the ultimate preserver of his word. Now, here's what that means when we say the Bible is inspired, it means everything that God wanted to be in there is in there, and there is nothing in there that he does not want to be in there, including the poetry, including depressed Solomon, including all of that stuff.

The history is there because God wants it in there. The poetry is there because God wants it in there. The philosophy, the truth statements, the parables are in there because God wants them in there. When we say that scripture is inspired, we mean that God is the ultimate initiation initiator, author, editor and preserver of scripture.

If you subscribe to the first view of interpreting the book of the Covenant that I've talked about, it does not mean that you don't believe scripture is inspired. It simply means that you believe that the Book of Covenant, the Book of the Covenant, has a different purpose.

You may believe that these commands are recorded in scripture to make the point that God expects us to apply his word to our everyday lives, even though sometimes we get it wrong. So, Jeff. Kind of sounds like you believe this first few. I don't I don't personally, I hold to a second view, I believe that Moses received the Book of the Covenant on Mount Sinai and shared it with the people of Israel at that time. And I'll tell you what its journey through this.

Write this down. It's wise to start a study of any biblical text by simply reading what the text says. It's wise to start a study of any biblical text by simply reading what the text says. You don't need to listen to somebody talk about a text without actually reading it.

You've got to start by reading it. And when we examine the text itself in this case around the Book of the Covenant. We find two undeniable truths, undeniable even in the original language. In Exodus 20 22, the first verse of the Book of the Covenant, we read, then the Lord said to Moses and the commands that make up the Book of the Covenant follow. There is no break or interjection that ever changes the subject of who is speaking, it's all got all the way through and then on the other side of it, in Exodus 24/7, as we read at the beginning, we're told that Moses took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people.

This is telling us explicitly that Moses read from a list of commands known as the Book of the Covenant at Mount Sinai. That's what the text says, and so remember, the only reason to not interpret the text literally or plainly is if we find what a compelling reason to do so.

So is there a compelling reason? Let's take a look again at the first set of points we made.

The Book of the Covenant speaks to a context Israel wouldn't be in for decades. Therefore, Moses cannot have written it at Mount Sinai. Really? Really. God is incapable of giving Moses a revelation that pertains to Israel's future.

It would kind of seem that the entire biblical genre of prophecy would disprove this idea.

But why would God do it so far in advance? There's honestly lots of good reasons. Perhaps he wanted to give them time to digest his commands. Perhaps most obviously, it's because he wanted these standards to be in place long before Israel ever settled in the land, so that when they finally did, they would have a clear understanding and expectation of how they were supposed to build the society.

Perhaps it's because God just wanted to speak in one authoritative blast at Mount Sinai and cover all the issues that were going to come up for the next several decades, maybe he wanted to give all the instructions he needed to give for society in one go at Mount Sinai.

There's lots of good reasons. Well, why only these very specific random commands. Perhaps while these laws seem random, it's not really about the specific laws themselves, but about the principles that they reveal. Perhaps the point is that these principles and values behind these commands do actually cover all the different examples that can come up in society.

And as BJ and I journey through the Book of the Covenant, we're going to see concepts come into play like personal responsibility for livestock, children respecting parents in greater detail.

And so perhaps when you look at the heart behind all these commands, it really covers everything. And perhaps for the judges of Israel, these are the only examples they would need to begin to figure out.

Oh, this is the pattern of how you apply the Ten Commandments to everyday life. We've got enough examples in the Book of the Covenant. We can spot the pattern and we can begin to do the same thing and apply it.

Well, couldn't some of these commands have been stolen from other law codes that were around at this time?

Yes, but but equally and quite frankly, it's more likely that those cultures were borrowing from Israel and the best dating doesn't actually tell us which came first between the Ten Commandments or the Code of Hammurabi.

But additionally, some similarities in any moral law code are inevitable. Just because two cultures have laws about stealing bread doesn't mean that one stole from the other. Oh, my gosh. You have a command about not stealing. We do too. This is crazy. I don't know if you've noticed this, but sin is super prevalent everywhere. Every people, every point in history, sin everywhere, no shortage of it.

And then lastly, well, well, what about the seemingly contradictory hearts behind the different laws on slavery? As I said, next week, B.J. is going to lead us in a Bible study on the hot issue of slavery. It's so great.

I'm just going to sit back and watch him deal with that.

I'm really, really, really looking forward to it. It's going to be it's going to be a great study, because if you if you don't know, this is still a hot topic. There are people who say I could never be a Christian because the Bible condones slavery. Have you looked into it? No, I'm a spiritual sinner, but it's going to take it on for us.

He's going to walk us through what the Book of the Covenant has to say about slavery. And he's going to deal with the whole issue of slavery in the Bible.

And so I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I am going to tell you before we can address Verse is on the subject of slavery, again, we need a thorough understanding of who wrote it, who he was writing to and the historical cultural context, because we can't offer an opinion on a text we don't even understand yet.

Any more than I can hear someone speak in a foreign language I've never heard before and critiqued their grammar, I don't even know what they're saying yet.

And this is going to help us understand what the word of God is saying on this issue next week. And when we do that, I'll tell you this.

You're going to find that a whole lot of these supposed contradictions disappear very, very quickly.

Now, at the same time, even if the contradictions don't disappear and I look at this and I'm like, I don't like what this verse is saying.

Heaven forbid that I read one difficult to verse I can't understand and say this cannot be from God, even though the text says it is. Again, humility is key.

And just because I find it very difficult doesn't mean that it's not from God. So for me, the bottom line is that there is not, in my humble opinion, a compelling reason to not simply take the Book of the Covenant at face value.

That is to say that God gave it to Moses at Mount Sinai and he read it to the people there. But as always, you study, you research, you pray, discuss with mature believers and come to your own conclusions.

I'm going to close with this one point of practical application, no matter what view you take on interpreting the Book of the Covenant.

One thing is eminently clear. God expects his people to live out their daily lives in light of his values. That is crystal clear.

Let me say it again. God expects us people to live out their daily lives in light of his values. What that means is that he expects his word to be the lens through which we perceive reality. He expects his word to be the lens through which we see him ourselves and each other.

And can I tell you, the Lord still expects that from his people, he still expects that from the church, from you and I, but there is a difference for us.

For the Old Testament, Israelite, the law, the Ten Commandments, were to serve as their lens on life for us, for the New Testament church. The gospel is to serve as our lens on life.

So would you write this down?

The gospel is the lens through which the church is to view all of life and all of reality.

It's the lens through which we ought to view all of life and all of reality.

Obviously, you can't know the gospel without knowing the word everything we do, everything we say, everything we think, every person we interact with, our relationship with God.

The goal is to perceive all of that through the lens of the gospel as revealed in the word of God. That's the goal.

And to help us do that moment by moment, day by day, we have his word. But yes, even in those moments where it's not physically with us, we have the Holy Spirit.

Should we choose to be led? The Holy Spirit will in any moment lead us in the way to live in light of the gospel. If we choose for the Christian, the question we must ask ourselves every day is not is this legal? It's not a bad question as a start, though, let me just also say that I saw some people who were like, really? No, no, no, no.

Let me say it's not the only question. OK, I heard Pastor Jeff say the question that we asked primarily should not be how does society say I should live? The question above every other question for the Christian every day is how does the gospel say I should live? How does the gospel say I should respond? How does the Gospel say I should treat them? How does the gospel say I should manage my time, my resources, how does the gospel say my relationship should function?

That's a sermon in and of itself. And because I'm a gracious preacher, I'm not going to preach it right now, but I'll ask you to think on that and pray on that this week. And so we had a lot of academic stuff this week going into the Book of the Covenant. And it's going to be fascinating. It's going to be a blessing. And we are going to get into the thick of some of the most challenging passages in the scripture.

But hopefully we've got an overview of how to do that. And you've learned a few things about how to study the Bible more effectively.

And so that would you just by your head and close your eyes and let me pray for us. Father, thank you so much for your word.

And Lord, more than anything, help us not to simply be hearers of the word Lord. Our primary concern is not to be smarter. It's not to be greater academics. For the sake of our own ego, Lord, our desire is to be doers of the word. And so, Father, our desire is that the gospel revealed in your word, would grow in clarity and greatness in our lives. Lord, that it would rule and reign over everything, over every thought, over every deed.

So, Father, may we be led in everything we do by the Gospel?

May we live in light of the Cross of Christ, what it says about you, what it says about us, what it says about the world and what it says about our brothers and sisters. You are the way you are the truth and you are the life. And Lord, we just want more of you and we want to know more about you. So we ask even in this time of worship, Lord, would you just reveal yourself to us, give us a fresh in filling of your spirit right now?

Because we need it, Lord, wherever we are, we need it.

And Father, help us to just grow in our knowledge. One little bit more of you this evening, because as they would say of you in the days of old, your glory is like a multifaceted diamond being struck by the light. And every microscopic movement reveals a new angle of your glory.

And so, father. Just give us a different angle of your glory this evening, Lord, we love you, Jesus, we're in all of you speak to us now and your mighty name we pray. Amen.