TRANSCRIPT Episode 35: Bible Overview – one story

Leah Sax:
Hello and welcome to episode 35 of Delight Podcast I am Leah Sax.

Adam Curtis:
Hello and I am Adam Curtis and today we’re doing a Bible overview. This is the episode which no one thought was possible. We’re going to go from Genesis to Revelation all in one sitting.

Leah Sax:
That’s insane. Our guest today is Matt Searles. He is a man of many talents. He calls himself a writer songwriter, a podcaster, and I’m pretty sure there’s some more. Anyway, let’s get into it.

Leah Sax:
Hello and welcome, Matt Searles to Delight Podcast.

Matt Searles:
Hey, great to be with you.

Leah Sax:
We’re so thrilled to have you, especially as I know you’re a fellow podcaster, which I know we will dip into a little bit later. But Matt, what are the top things our listeners should know about you and who you are?

Matt Searles:
Live in Cumbria. So beautiful. Part of the world. Married with a 17 year old daughter. Got a little mad spaniel who may bark in the background but probably won’t. And it’s sunny in Cumbria today so I’m enjoying that – quite nice.

Leah Sax:
With love from the cloudy south. What keeps your days busy? What are you up to at the moment?

Matt Searles:
Bible teaching, I guess, has been the dominant theme for 20 years or so. That was in a church then that was across a group of churches for a little Christian university. Now, mostly writing and a bit of speaking here and there, particularly trying to do stuff locally in Cumbria, but writing quite a bit at the moment. So that’s the main way I’m keeping myself busy.

Leah Sax:
Oh, would you be happy to share what you’re currently working on?

Matt Searles:
A couple of things. I’m writing a book on the character of Christ for The Good Book Company. I’m looking at the fruit of the spirit as describing: What’s Jesus like? Lots of people know what Jesus gives. He kind of saves us, forgives us. Cool. But Christianity’s a relationship, what’s he like? Someone starts a relationship. You want to say, tell me about the person. But I wonder how many Christians could actually answer that about Jesus. And so, looking at the fruit of spirit, Jesus loving, Jesus is joyful, Jesus is kind, Jesus is gentle. So oh man, it’s just been such a joy to do that. So that’s been really exciting. And also doing a book of like a little daily prayer book and podcast is the other thing I’m working on. So I certainly I know what I’m like in the morning. I’m not there, like ready to kind of conquer the world before I’ve had my morning coffee. And so something that helps me just there’s the Bible passage. Here’s some prayers you can pray. That’s been something I’ve been working on, sort of just to help people first thing in the mornings. I mainly write stuff that I know my heart needs thinking. Probably none of us are actually so unique, and therefore probably if it’s what I need, probably it’s what someone else somewhere might need.

Leah Sax:
Oh how wonderful. That’s the one that’s ‘Quiet Paths’ am I correct in saying that?

Matt Searles:
That’s right. Exactly.

Leah Sax:
Amazing. I’ve got the name right sticker for Leah. Matt, how did you first come to know Jesus?

Matt Searles:
I’ve told this story quite a few times and it makes me chuckle. Every time I got sent to church by my parents when I was a kid. By which I mean they sent me to Sunday school and then had a quiet morning at home, which at the time I didn’t realise. That’s a bit sneaky because they weren’t churchgoers, but they sent me, um, so they read the paper. I went to Sunday school, but actually I was taught the faith. I had faithful Sunday school teachers. I had an amazing situation a few years ago when someone asked me that question. When I was speaking at a church, I told the story, and afterwards someone came up to me and said I was one of those Sunday school teachers. And the name Searles is unusual enough. And he actually knew my dad that it kind of stuck. And I, I hadn’t remembered this guy’s face or name because I was like 5 or 6 at the time. But yeah, I was taught the faith from a young age, actually, as the church might have hoped, my parents did start gradually coming along and both became Christians. And so I then grew up in a Christian family. But there was definitely a time when I was the sole churchgoer in the family, aged 5 or something. I’m hugely grateful to both my parents, but also those, yeah, the Sunday school teachers who taught me from a really young age, lots of sort of moments along the way when, you know, pennies dropped, but really from quite young, I knew of the Lord and and I think I trusted him. And gradually as I grew, what that looked like grew as well.

Leah Sax:
In that journey of faith, since that 5 year old was sent for some peace and quiet for the parents to church, how has the Lord been at work growing you? And alongside that, what made you decide to go into that ministry world?

Matt Searles:
I remember the top deck of the 141 bus in Manchester. I was a teenager and we were all kind of larking about, and I think someone, someone said something, you know, we’d got into a little scuffle with someone for something, and I think someone was critical of my behaviour, probably rightly. And I remember afterwards thinking, and I was just being a bit of an idiot. Is this the way I want to live? And I think I was a Christian, but not really living much like it. And I remember thinking from childhood, actually, Jesus lived a life that was compelling, and I was kind of as you are when you’re was like 14, you’re trying to work out who you are and what you stand for and what life’s about, and you start to get a bit of freedom from your parents. And we’d recently moved house, and so even church had become a question mark. It had been the same church for years. And then suddenly you move house and it’s like, oh, do I start a new church? But now I’m older, I don’t possibly don’t have to. And all that was going around my mind. And so that was definitely a turning point. And and actually the life of the book and the character of Christ, it was it was not so much I needed forgiving and wanted Jesus to die on the cross for my sins. Those things were true, but that wasn’t what sort of particularly grabbed me at the moment. It was just thinking, here’s just someone who was compelling, who knew how to live, but not in a really dull way. And I thought, actually, I want to listen to him and follow him and be like him.

Matt Searles:
Probably from that time, I think probably got more into the Bible for myself and years to come. Just seeing, I think foundations in a way, or sort of scaffolding around my faith. I think for a while it was probably quite experiential, which meant that it sort of ebbed and flowed with my mood or whether I’d remembered to have breakfast. I remember being paranoid, actually. I remember being paranoid that someone would ask me at school, why do you believe what you believe? Because I thought, I know, I just I’ve just got this kind of vague sense. And I thought, oh, I don’t want to have to ask that because it feels a bit flimsy. And as I spent a bit more time in the scriptures, I came to realise, not that that sense is is untrue. The Lord God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. But also there’s more. We can have more confidence than I had aged 14 or 15, which leads on, I think, to possibly what was pointing me towards Bible teaching ministry. Just feeling that something that I wanted to be able to help others with and I enjoyed it. I like books, I like reading, and so it kind of it fit from that point of view as well. But I think it was realising there’s good news and it’s true. And to be able to play a part in sort of offering that to others, whether those outside the church or like me, age 14, 15, those inside the church, but maybe not quite as sure and confident as we might be.

Leah Sax:
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Adam Curtis:
Okay, Matt, I know you have a podcast on a Bible overview. I know you’ve written a book in fact, I’ve got it right here: ‘God’s story’ giving us a Bible overview. But why should someone want to do a Bible overview?

Matt Searles:
It’s one of those things that it could sound like, you know, I need to get an overview of the Tudor period of history, and I should probably get an overview of. I’ll be honest, it doesn’t sound brilliant. Second only to whoever was naming the books of the Bible and decided to call one of them numbers. Like, I’ll be honest, it’s not jumping out saying read me. When I was a pastor in London, when people became Christians, often trying to help people with the Bible Overview was one of the first things we did. It’s not a kind of an intellectual, I need to get my head around this, but actually the Bible’s God’s Word, God speaking to us. And it’s one story. Actually, that story is a story we all inhabit. Getting a sense of the Bible as a whole is helping us know who God is, helping us know what God’s doing, and helping us know who we are and actually where we’re going. In a sense, there’s nothing more foundational to kind of understanding the Christian life, the world actually. We all have a sort of a story about the world. What it’s all about is it just kind of meaningless blowing on from one thing to the next? Is it all just circular, the same thing happening again? Is there any purpose to it? What’s life about? All these questions really the Bible looks at.

Matt Searles:
So to say I get an overview of the Bible is saying, what is the world? Why are we here? Who’s God? What’s he doing? What’s life all about? Small little things like that. And if that weren’t enough, I can’t imagine there’s anyone listening to this who hasn’t had a moment where they opened the Bible in a particular bit. Let’s say the Old Testament doesn’t just have to be that, but a bit the Old Testament. And you go, right, okay, the Book of Kings. I mean, that’s a more promising title already than the book, The Book of Numbers. So you go for The Book of Kings. But okay, great. So there was this King Solomon, and he did this, and then there was Jehoshaphat did that right? Great. Uh, and so, you know, what do you do with that? And actually, to realise the Bible isn’t a sort of just a collection of different books all sort of put together, but but it’s really one developing story. And so you jump in and you’re reading about, let’s say, King Solomon.

Matt Searles:
That’s part of that unfolding story. And it’ll make no sense unless you have a sense of the whole story. It’s one of the reasons we did it quite early with people who had recently become Christians at a church I worked for, was because we want people to be able to get into the Bible for themselves, but when you open it and you go, how does this fit and how does it relate? And what’s it doing here? In a sense, you want to know how it fits in the whole. So I’ve sometimes said the Bible storyline, it’s like the kind of the spine on which everything else hangs and everything finds its place in relation to that storyline. It’s both. It answers those huge questions about who we are, what God’s doing, what God is like, where we’re going, but also it’s very practical. I don’t often like that word, but but in terms if you open the book of Numbers and why is that there? And what’s that all about? And open John’s gospel and what’s that all about? Actually getting a sense of the overall story of the Bible will help all the little individual pieces find their place.

Adam Curtis:
Oh, I hear you there. It is so practical and it’s so helpful to do a Bible overview. I grew up in a Christian home, went to a great Bible believing, Bible teaching church. And so as a teenager we did a really long, really detailed Bible overview. And it wasn’t until I was a young man in my 20s which I realised what a privilege that was, that I did that. Whereas suddenly interacting with people who had become Christians later in life and who had no idea. Yeah. What does King Solomon have anything to do with Jesus? And yet that was just, like embedded into me. And so you’re right. Just the ability once you’ve got a Bible over you, you can turn to Scripture and see how this all holds together. It’s just such a joy.

Leah Sax:
Just as an aside, the first five books of the Bible in German are erste Mose, zweite Mose, dritte Mose, vierte Mose and funfte Mose which is first Moses, second Moses, third Moses, fourth Moses, and fifth Moses.

Adam Curtis:
Okay, so that’s even less jumping out of the page.

Leah Sax:
Even less jumping out of the page like, gosh, Moses was onto something for those first five books. But I was I was actually at Bible college in America when I first did my Bible overview, and it was absolutely revelatory. I just had no image that it was all unified, and there was a purpose and there was an absolute direction. Everything was connected. As an 18 year old, it just seemed very, very random to me. And there were these bits in there. Are we going to start at the beginning, Adam?

Adam Curtis:
No, we’re not actually going to start at the beginning. We’re going to start with a challenge. Matt, are you ready for my challenge?

Matt Searles:
Go for it.

Adam Curtis:
My challenge is this. You’ve said the Bible is a story. Can you summarise that story in one sentence?

Matt Searles:
How many commas am I allowed? Summarise the Bible in one sentence. I’ll give it a go. I’ll give it a go.

Adam Curtis:
Come on, Good Man!

Matt Searles:
Here we go. I’ll start and let’s see how we go. And at some point, you know, you need to just put a full stop. If I’ve gone on for too long, can I preamble. There will be a number of ways you could do this. It’s one of the things the Bible is both a unified book, but also a rich book. No one theme is going to cover it, and people argue about which is the best theme to summarise the Bible, something I find are really helpful lens and summary is kind of where the Bible begins and ends, which is humanity dwelling with God. So I think that’s a really useful lens. So the Bible is the story of God choosing to dwell with his people, brackets and all the wondrous joy, bliss, beauty that means for us, his people, to dwell with him. Close brackets beginning at creation and the Garden of Eden, spoiled due to human sin, leading to humans being cast out of the presence of God and really God working to bring his people back; ultimately through Jesus, who brings people back to God so that God’s people can dwell with him forever. Something like that.

Adam Curtis:
I feel like I shouldn’t laugh because that is just beautiful. But but I would I would say that is a Paul-like sentence.

Matt Searles:
There is that is that like a really code way of saying really, really long?

Adam Curtis:
That is my code way my “I’ve been a Christian for a long time and studied Paul’ Way, saying that is a long sentence, but at the heart of that sentence is an absolutely rich and beautiful idea. That is the story of God dwelling with his people. And you spoke there about the beginning and the end. Tell me about how this story begins.

Matt Searles:
Begins with creation. Creation of the world. Lots we could say but the high point of creation is God creating humanity in his own image to dwell with him, putting humanity in this garden. Eden gets called. Loads that could be said, and I know there’s lots of debates about creation and Genesis, but I think what all those debates shouldn’t blind us to is the fact that it’s just a beautifully relational picture. Yet God and humanity in Paradise. It is Paradise. You get humanity spending time with God, enjoying being with God, actually with a mission to then go and fill the earth and make the whole earth like the garden, I think. So it’s not a static picture, but it’s a beautiful picture of harmony, of relationship, and a picture that’s echoed at the end of God’s initial plans for creation, plans for the world are fulfilled. Maybe that’s the surprise. It’s not plan B by the time you get to the rest of the story. Even though sin comes into the picture, actually, God’s plan was to glorify himself by sharing his life with his creatures. And though in a sense we do our best to spoil that, God’s grace is greater and he brings us back, and that’s where we end up. So it starts with this picture of beauty and intimacy, of humanity and relationship with God.

Adam Curtis:
What went wrong?

Matt Searles:
Haha. There’s different bits of the Bible that are sort of familiar, and probably the eating the forbidden fruit, even if people don’t necessarily know the, you know, the reference, there’s something of that that’s in culture. Adam and Eve, the first time humans they’d been given the world, they were in the garden, they’d been given the world to rule over it and to to bring it from one degree of glory to the next. There was one negative prohibition. There was lots they were told to do. It’s not like there was one command don’t eat. They were told to fill the earth, subdue it. There are loads of stuff to do, but the one thing they couldn’t do was eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was God. God could decide good and evil, and really, to eat from that tree was to say, we want to be like God. We’re not happy with things as they are. God being God, us being creatures. I mean, admittedly ruling over the whole earth, ruling over other creatures. An amazing privilege. But in a sense, the one thing that they weren’t allowed to do, they said, no, we want to do that. We want to be like God.

Matt Searles:
God is withholding good things from us. Just to say that is such a common theme through the Bible. So often people screw up. I’m people, you know. I’m one of them. When we think God must be withholding something good, God’s intentions aren’t good. And so I will go against God’s ways. And that was the original sin. And I said, I’m going to take from this fruit. I think life would be better if I ignored God on this point, took the fruit and God did what he said, which would be to separate Adam and Eve from himself as they did that. And that led to separation being cast out of the garden. And really, that’s the problem the whole rest of the story is going to look at solving. I mean, it could have been full stop end there. If you eat of it, you will surely die. God said they ate. They died. The end. No. God’s good plans need to be able to overcome even human sinfulness and rebellion. So they disobeyed God. It led to a separation being cast out of that place of Paradise. But amazingly, God said, But I’m going to come up with a plan so that you can come back.

Adam Curtis:
Let’s keep on tracing the story. So Adam and Eve are cast out from the garden. Then their sons, Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel. Then in Genesis we have the account of the flood, the whole world being flooded, but Noah and his family being saved. Then we meet Abraham. How does Abraham fit into this narrative of God choosing to come and dwell with his people?

Matt Searles:
And it’s such a great question because in a sense that how does this fit into the narrative is actually the question you must ask of any passage to really get what it’s doing there. God choosing Abraham. God said to Abraham, go to this land. I’ll tell you, I will bless you. I will make you into a great nation. I’ll give you the land. They’re not just sort of promises at random. They are all answering the problems from Genesis. The problem is, humanity was supposed to dwell with God. Be fruitful and multiply and live in this kind of bliss and abundance under his blessing. But sin spoilt that. And so, rather than God just letting things go from bad to worse, as they pretty much were Cain and Abel and all that, God is reversing all the problems. And so actually, I’m going to make you a people. Even though sin has led to things being scattered and hostility and all the rest of it, I am going to bring you into a land, and the land that God promises Abraham will start to see gets described quite a bit like Eden. So this is sort of a return to Eden of sorts. And they’re going to be God’s people. They’re going to know God’s blessing. So God’s promises there really are. I’m going to restore all that was lost through you, Abraham, and through your family.

Adam Curtis:
And how does that go? How does that work of restoring all that that was lost go?

Matt Searles:
Well, I think when we read Genesis, when we read any part of the Bible, really, we need to have all these promises in mind. And so as we flick the pages, we’re thinking, okay, it’s through Abraham and his family that everything is going to get better. And so you turn the pages and Genesis in hope, and you think Abraham through your family, but then, oh, you can’t have kids. And that’s a problem to be an obstacle. Um, but then God miraculously gives children to Abraham and his wife even when they’re old. But then you look at Abraham and his family and they’re, oh, man, they are dysfunctional. They’re a complete mess. And it’s one of those reasons that having that sense of the big picture is really helpful. If we just think the Bible is nice stories of good moral people in the olden days to copy you look at Abraham’s family, you think, oh my goodness, be like Abraham. Sometimes. Often.

Adam Curtis:
No, that’s a bad idea.

Matt Searles:
Be like Isaac. Even worse. Be like Jacob. Are you kidding me? What you start to see is actually. The problem is humans are sinful. Yet amazingly, God manages to keep his promises even through these people. We haven’t got there yet. They’re not in the land. But despite human screwing up and mess and wickedness and there’s some pretty dark bits at times God is managing to work his purposes out. And so these stories are not so much be like Abraham as wow, God can even do his good purposes through messed up people. And suddenly that becomes a much more exciting story. And actually, for most of us, a much more hopeful story. So the end of Genesis promises a beginning to be fulfilled, but we’re still looking on, and that’s why we keep turning the pages. But they’re not in the land yet. In fact, at the end of Genesis, they’re precisely the other direction. They’re in Egypt.

Adam Curtis:
I just want to do a little bit of a side quest before we come back to this story.

Matt Searles:
Love a side quest, love a side quest. My life is basically side quests, unfortunately. If you could have a job doing side quests, that would be my job. Carry on.

Adam Curtis:
I want that. I want that job. My side quest is that you’ve spoken about these promises which were made between God and Abraham. Now, someone who comes to read the Bible for the first time, they might encounter it instead of the word promises, the word covenant. Could you maybe tell us a little about what is a covenant?

Matt Searles:
There’s lots of long words in the Bible, but some of them are those words that you kind of want to get your head around, because they get used a lot and are pretty important. A covenant is a relationship, and probably the best example would be something like marriage, where two people make a commitment to another. So it’s a relationship, but that’s kind of formalised in a particular way. It’s not just a casual thing. We’re going to be together and this is what it’s going to mean. Covenants are where God makes relationship with his people, but sets out what that’s going to look like. And again, covenant, it’s just not the coolest word. It doesn’t sound great. God is a covenant God. We might think, oh, that sounds a bit bleak and austere or conceptual. It means he’s a God who’s is relational. He’s a God who wants relationship with his people. Covenant theology is relationship with God. Theology. The covenants are where God says to his people, you will be my people and I will be your God. That’s the classic covenant sort of expression that comes a number of times in different forms. That could be another way of telling the Bible story is God saying, you will be my people and I will be your God, and we’re going to need to find a way to make that happen that even overcomes human sinfulness and folly.

Adam Curtis:
Okay, Matt, we’ve already got one way of trying to read the Bible. Let’s not add in a second. And let’s go. Let’s go back to to our story. We’ve hit the end of Genesis, and the people are far away from the land. They’re in Egypt. Why did Egypt not turn out to be this land of blessing for them?

Matt Searles:
People may have seen the Disney film. Of course. They ended up being slaves in Egypt. What you forget, of course, is time passes between the pages of the Bible. So between the end of Genesis and what for us is the next page? Quite a bit of time passes and they were welcomed in Egypt at the end of Genesis. But then a new pharaoh has come and doesn’t like God’s people. Being there sees them as a bit of a threat and so oppresses them, makes them slaves, forced labour, kind of build my pyramids kind of thing. God had promised them your own land and blessing. And being a great nation, they’re a great nation. They’ve become fruitful and multiplied. It’s the Abraham promise. Words are now fulfilled at the start of Exodus, but they’re not in the land and they’re not knowing. Blessing. If Genesis was about the family that family promised to Abraham, that’s now pretty much there or on the way to being there, but there’s still two bits of it left. But wait a minute, they’re not in the land and they don’t know God’s blessing. So Exodus well, onwards. Certainly the next few books are going to be looking at these things. God is going to move his people into the land, and certainly out of a place of slavery, with a harsh master Pharaoh into a place of blessing with a good master God.

Adam Curtis:
Tell me that story. How does God move them from that harsh master into the land.

Matt Searles:
This is where you’ll need to hurry me up, because it’s just a great story. God could have done it any number of ways. I mean, I’m a storyteller and story writer. I love stories, and that The Exodus is just one of those amazing stories. We kind of get the sort of the famous encounter between Moses, who’s the leader of God’s people, and Pharaoh, this Egyptian king. And Moses let my people go. And Pharaoh says, sure, you can go. And then he changes his mind and there’s drama. There’s 12 plagues as God really punishes Pharaoh for his wickedness. And the final plague is when the people are actually allowed to go and escape through the land. It’s dramatic. I think it’s dramatic deliberately, because I think this is a story that would be told around campfires for generations to come. They would say, remember when we were slaves in Egypt? And Egypt at this time is one of the most powerful nations going. Certainly in that part of the world, they’re kind of a superpower. Remember when we were slaves to the great Egyptian army? And this is just some little, you know, Abraham’s family and a few others. They’re nobodies. But they say, remember we were rescued when God defeated Pharaoh.

Matt Searles:
I think that was to remind them, we worship a God who is stronger than Pharaoh. But crucially, Pharaoh oppressed them and made their life miserable. God brought them to himself and said, rest be my people. Enjoy my blessing. That story teaches them firstly who God is. He’s strong and he’s mighty, but also he’s not like Pharaoh. He’s not there just to use them for his own ends. He says, no, you’re going to be my people and I’m going to bless you. That’s how this is going to work. You’re not going to be my slaves. I’m going to bless you. And again, it’s that kind of think of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Does God have our best interests at heart? If we think no. We’ll turn away from him. And this is one of those moments where the people could say, wait a minute. God has got our best interests at heart. We’re not here to be his slaves. He wants to bless us. And I think they were to remember that and tell that for generations to come, when perhaps they were thinking, can we really trust God? Is our future secure? Yes. He rescued us. Then he’ll rescue us now.

Adam Curtis:
Amen. And maybe just a side quest for myself on the nature of that rescue is the fact that actually, God told the Israelite people when that final plague was coming, all the firstborn sons were going to die in Egypt. That actually they should go take a lamb, kill it, put the blood over the doorpost. And so when that angel of death comes, the angel of death will pass over those homes. And that is giving us a little picture, hint, hint, listener, to the wonderful work that Jesus Christ is going to do for us.

Matt Searles:
And just to say, that’s more than a side quest. Absolutely. That the sin has been the problem the whole time, and God’s going to come in judgement. Egypt is sinful. They’re going to be judged, but so are God’s people. And so actually needing someone to stand in place, this spotless lamb, this firstborn son, is going to be killed in the place of the people that’s pointing us somewhere. They didn’t know it at the time, but we will come back to that.

Adam Curtis:
We will indeed. Now I’m going to guess that the listener was on the edge of their seat, or they should be, wanting to know how the people’s experience of being in the land. But first, before we get there, let’s have a third side quest. This time. It is for you, Matt. On the way to the people getting to the land, they meet God at the mountain and they get given the law. Can you tell us the significance of Moses going up the mountain to be given the law?

Matt Searles:
Yeah. So God said to the people in Egypt or said, Through Moses, let my people go, that they may worship me. He brought the people to himself to worship him. And that worship word again, one of those sort of Bible words. It’s quite a relational word. It’s kind of praising God, knowing him, enjoying his goodness, all that kind of stuff, really. That’s what was happening in Eden. Eden, by the way, was a mountain. Eden was a mountain where God dwelt. Rivers flowed from there to the ends of the earth. So it was a high up mountain place, this Paradise where God dwelt, and new relationship with his people when he brought the people out of Egypt to Mount Sinai. Actually, that was kind of Eden type place where God met with his people and they knew something of his blessing. It’s only kind of temporary. Moses wasn’t there forever, and it certainly wasn’t all the full kind of Eden shebang. But we get this kind of Eden sense. More than that. Then what he did at the mountain was said, you’ll be my people here. The laws are going to live by not. This is how to earn salvation. That was never the case. He just rescued them. But here are the laws. Here’s what it looks like to live as my saved people. Really important. We get that right. I’ve saved you. That happened first. Then he said, now really? This is what love looks like. This is what loving me looks like. And crucially, this is what loving your neighbour looks like.

Matt Searles:
We can read the laws. The Old Testament says why they have to do all these things. That seems a bit. There’s some that are maybe harder to get our heads around, but actually so much of it was about caring for people so much about not mistreating other people as well as God. God brought them to his mountain, brought them to himself, gave them the law. Here’s how to live as my saved people. Here’s how to respond to my goodness. But he also gave the tabernacle. It’s a word for a tent. This place where God would dwell. This very Eden like tent with all pomegranates and blossoms and gold and all the Eden type stuff was in there. But crucially, it wasn’t static. It would go with the people. So now the presence of God would go with the people on their journey. So again, it’s this developing of the story. God wanted to dwell with his people. And actually now in part that’s happening. There’s still some problems. Actually, the most holy middle of this tabernacle, the most holy place, is separated from the rest of it by this great big curtain with these cherubim, these mighty guardian angels. So you can kind of come quite close to God, but not all the way. But we’re seeing God’s plan to dwell with his people is being fulfilled even before they’ve got to the land, because they’ve got this tent, this tabernacle where God dwells among them.

Adam Curtis:
Okay, let’s keep on tracing this story. So from this Eden like place, Sinai, the Lord leads his people incredibly dramatically may I say in the book of Joshua into the land. That’s definitely a book which will grab you and hold you. What are the people’s experience in the land is that? The Eden they were hoping for?

Matt Searles:
Huh. Yeah. So the land has been described in Eden like terms. What’s life like when they get there? The problem is, I once heard an Old Testament lecturer say that the Old Testament was quite boring. And of course all his students kind of looked up, shocked, and he said, because you get the same thing over and again. Human sin just keeps on coming up again and again and again. And actually that’s the problem. Okay. If the land’s a new Eden, what happened in the first Eden? Well, they disobeyed God, and that led to problems. The new Eden, the same thing happens they’re in the land, they’re in this sort of presence of God. But their hearts are still the problem. And you get, I mean, depending on how quickly you want to go. But the book of Judges straight after Joshua. They’ve come into the land. When God sends a deliverer, this leader, to kind of rescue them and lead them and deliver them, things go well and then that great leader dies and things get worse again. And so we get little moments of blessing. But clearly things are not all they should be, largely because the people are in the right place, but their hearts aren’t in the right place yet.

Adam Curtis:
Okay, so the time of the Judges, it’s not going well. But then we enter into the books of 1 or 2 Kings. Is it better under the Kings? Like why were these kings established in the first place? And is life better under them?

Matt Searles:
This is one of the things where I love doing a Bible overview, because if you are new to the Christian faith, let’s say Sunday school, let’s say me, age, whatever I was sent to Sunday school so my parents could have a quiet Sunday morning. One of the things that you learn is Jesus is the King. It’s one of the most common sort of descriptions, actually. Even the name Jesus Christ, that word Christ, is just a kingly word, or Jesus is the Messiah. Both of them just mean king, really. But what your view of a king is depends on where you live. It’s quite conditioned by society. Like if you live in the UK, you might think of this largely symbolic figure who we kind of wheel out at Christmas. And so saying Jesus the King. Oh, okay. Fine. Sort of a slightly irrelevant figure in the day to day life. Actually, if you live under a very oppressive regime and you get told Jesus is the king, you might think, oh, I hate rulers, that’s bad news. But when you say Jesus is the king, we mean the king as promised in the Old Testament. And that’s why these books of 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings are so vital. Because what were kings supposed to do? And why was it a good thing? And what you found was the kings were given by God as a good gift, basically to do two things to defend them from their enemies out there, you know,

Matt Searles:
David killing Goliath so that people could be rescued. That’s this wonderful little microcosm. That’s what kings did. They protected from the enemies out there. The other thing the kings did this is less familiar. They led the people in righteousness. They led the people in following God. And so under a good King, Solomon let’s say: this is a lovely line I saw just yesterday. “The people they ate and they drank and they were happy.” That’s what it meant. Having a good king meant peace, prosperity, blessing, life as it should be, because enemies out there were kept away. But also the people were led not into silly turning away from God, but to following God. Some of the kings did that. David at his best, Solomon at his best. And there were great times. You then read on, and lots of the later kings didn’t do it so much, and the people really suffered. And what you learn through these books? Loads of stories though there are in a great read. The fate of the people depends on the king. A good king means life is good. A bad king means life is miserable. So it’s pointing us to maybe one day God will send the King who will finally make life good. Defeat the enemy, the great enemy, evil, Satan, the devil, and also deal with the problem of the people’s hearts.

Adam Curtis:
As people read the Bible, they’ll hear about these kings, these good kings. These should have been good, but it turned out to be bad kings. These bad kings. But then they’ll also encounter Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, what we call the wisdom literature. How does this wisdom literature fit into this story of God dwelling with his people?

Matt Searles:
And that’s where if you just sort of try and read the Bible from beginning to end, you’ll get stuck, because lots of it is sort of on the storyline, and then you get to bits that kind of, well, that doesn’t seem to come after what was just before. And the ones you’ve mentioned are a classic example. And in one sense, they don’t fit into the story. They sort of sit alongside. They’re wisdom. God is both advancing his purposes in history, and that’s some of the story we’ve been looking at Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Kings. They’re sort of the historical books that tell what God is doing. But also you get wisdom books where God really is equipping his people to live for him. And so they don’t advance the story in a sense, but to God’s people back then. And if we understand them rightly now, they help us live in this world God has created. And so they’re different category of book wisdom for that reason. To be honest, I wouldn’t spend much time on them in the kind of the Bible overview when I first do it with people, not because they’re not important, but they’re not part of this kind of main narrative line. I probably shouldn’t call them side quests, because I’m sure I’ll get into trouble for relegating bits of the Bible, but in terms of the main narrative, they are definitely not on that main narrative line through which is remember: God wanting to dwell with his people in this mountain Paradise, sin led him to be cast out, God making promises to restore things. And if we’re tracing those promises, then actually the wisdom we can leave that for the minute as we are looking for these promises to be fulfilled.

Adam Curtis:
Okay, back to this narrative arc. So you’ve told us about the Kings, but we’ve also hinted, actually not even hinted, stated very clearly that it didn’t go so well. So how badly did it go with the Kings and maybe introduce us to the prophets?

Matt Searles:
You’ve how badly did it go? That’s one of those questions. I think the listeners, even if they haven’t read the Bible, they can kind of guess the answer. Not so good.

Adam Curtis:
It’s bad, folks, it’s bad.

Matt Searles:
Spoiler alert it doesn’t go so well. The prophets were people who spoke God’s word to the people and actually to the kings, calling them back to faithfulness. We perhaps think of prophecy as the chosen one will come and kind of fantasy literature. Sometimes it’s predicting the future. And there is some of that in the Bible. A lot of it is just calling them back to what God has already said. God promised, if you walk in his ways, you’ll enjoy this blessing. But if you turn from him, we’ll have an Eden type situation and you’ll be cast out again. So a lot of what the prophets are doing is telling the people, be faithful. Don’t make an Eden type mistake now in the land. As well as saying but there is a hope to come. There is a king coming who will sort things out. There is a new covenant coming when there will be a new relationship made between God and His people, which you won’t even be able to mess up in a way like you did with the old one. So the prophets have both kind of darkness. Here’s what will happen if you persist on this course of rebellion, but also light. Here’s the hope for the future. And so they can be harder to read because they have both of those going on.

Matt Searles:
But what happened was that things did go from bad to worse. The prophet said, you keep on going like this, you’ll be kicked out of the land. That was one of the big messages of the prophets. Keep on going like this. You’ll be kicked out of the land. And guess what they were. Go back to Eden. What happened? The people rebelled against God and they got kicked out. Interestingly, they got kicked out to the east of Eden. The people in the land, they rebelled against God. They got kicked out to the east. They got taken into exile. Biblically, East tends to be the away from God direction. And so really you start to get to when they go into exile, they people got foreign nations. Babylon, Assyria came and basically trashed the land, stole all their gold, took the people off to be effectively slaves again. And really, we’ve come how many hundreds, thousands of years? But the story hasn’t really advanced. We’ve got again: okay the people are now far from God. They’re not knowing his blessing. They’re not dwelling with him. What’s going to happen? But the prophets have promised there is hope, and particularly there is hope through one particular figure, the Messiah, the King who will come and who will put this whole thing right.

Adam Curtis:
Before this Messiah comes, though the people who have been exiled to Babylon, they are brought back. How does the Lord bring them back to the land?

Matt Searles:
This is one of the moments I love, because I could answer you by saying, go to the British Museum, find the Cyrus Cylinder, obviously learn to speak ancient Persian and read it because we get this in the secular history of the day. So the people were off in Babylon, which got taken over by the Persians, and they got sent home. Ask Cyrus why he did it. He said, well, because that’s what I wanted to do. The Bible says the Lord prompted him to do that, so they came back into the land. You get this weird bit at the end of the Old Testament where the people are back in the land and you should think, yes, everything’s as it should be. They rebuild the temple. Even the tabernacle was this tent where God dwelt, these people that became made permanent as the temple. They even rebuild the temple. And you get this weird moment where the old folks who remember the first temple weep. Because this is not even as good as it used to be, let alone all the promises fulfilled. And I think this is really important for understanding the New Testament. The people at the end of the Old Testament, the people are back in the land, but still far from God. And we start to realise, oh, okay, so there’s more than just geography going on. God needs to bring the people to himself physically, and they’re in the land, but spiritually they’re still far off. I think it explains a lot of the New Testament what’s going on there in the right place, but they’re still far from God. Something more needs to happen. Pregnant pause.

Adam Curtis:
A pregnant pause, indeed. And that actually takes us to scene close. The Old Testament is done.

Matt Searles:
Yeah,

Adam Curtis:
I was once in a Bible overview and the individual leading the Bible overview. He then opened his Bible to the place where there was a page gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and he ripped out that page and he says, this page shouldn’t be here, because actually, the Old Testament flows immediately into the New Testament. Scene open New Testament, which takes us to the person of Jesus. How does Jesus enable God to dwell with us Matt?

Matt Searles:
Scene open New Testament and what you get is not we’ve talked about kind of appealing books. What you get is you open. The New Testament is surprising. If you don’t know the old, you get this list of names, you get Jesus family tree and you think, what? Come on. You know, when my life history is written and is on everybody’s shelves, neither of you are laughing. You should, you know, like I don’t. I don’t expect however many 40 generations of my family to be listed. The world may want to know about my great exploits, but really, 40 generations or however many it is. But for Jesus, the whole point is he’s fulfilling ancient prophecies. And so we go back to Abraham. We go back to King David, we go back to the exile. Jesus comes to put right all of what went wrong. Jesus comes to fulfil this story. Abraham is name checked. Remember, Abraham it’s through you and your family, through you and your offspring could be plural, but actually it’s going to be one offspring. There will be one offspring who will bring God’s people back into blessing. King David was a king, a good king. But we got promised there would be one greater than him, the Messiah who would come. Jesus, that King who would defeat evil forever and who would lead his people to be with him, depends on how quickly you want to go through the Gospels. We’ll basically see all that was wrong in the Old Testament. Jesus would be the one who truly leads his people home to God, not just geographically into the land, but actually brings their hearts back. Here’s the thing that most people in Jesus day didn’t get. There is a note through the Old Testament that’s been really ever present, but kind of blink and you miss it. David was a suffering king. David suffered even as he led the people. Often the righteous suffered. In the Old Testament. There’s a prophecy in a book of Isaiah that there will be a suffering servant, a servant of God, this figure who would die for the sins of his people to take their place, take the punishment they deserve, so that God’s people could know blessing.

Matt Searles:
What the people in Jesus day, by and large, hadn’t put together is that yes, the one to come would be an all conquering king, but also that they would suffer and die for the sins of the people. They hadn’t realised these two things that were in one and the same person. And Jesus was that he is both the king who would reign, but in the most surprising way. And so often in the Gospels, Even his disciples didn’t get that. You are the Christ, says Peter. You are this great promised King who’ve been waiting for. Now let’s get rid of the Romans who are oppressing us, and go on into victory. And Jesus says, well, first I’ve got to suffer and die. That’s how I’ll achieve my victory. And Peter says, no, no, no. Sorry. Jesus. None of that. They hadn’t worked it all out yet. Actually, the sacrifices in the Old Testament you mentioned in the Passover, when God’s people were saved, a spotless lamb died in place of the people. This problem through the Old Testament has been the sins of the people. And so sin needs to be dealt with fully. And finally and so Jesus, as well as being this great victor, this great king, would also be the sacrifice who would fully and finally deal with the sins of his people.

Matt Searles:
And so Jesus on the cross is both of those things coming together. That’s where he paid for the sins of all his people, so his people could know access to God. While we’re there: when Jesus died on the cross, a number of things happened. Mark’s gospel, the sky went black. That’s a sign of judgement in the Old Testament. In the plagues and other places the sky went black. Judgement was falling. Jesus cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That’s a separation word. He’s now separated. That’s like what happened to Adam and Eve in the garden. They were separated from God because of sin. Now Jesus is taking that separation. But what happens in the temple? The curtain is torn in two. Mentioned back in the holy place that God’s dwelling place was separated from the people by this curtain. You can come close, but no closer. You can’t really dwell with me because of sin. When Jesus died, that curtain, that symbolic barrier that was ripped up so God’s people could finally come into the presence of God, Jesus dying on the cross. Was all these things coming together really the great fulfilment of all these promises in what for the people of Jesus day was actually the most surprising way. But if we’ve read the Old Testament, we’ll see. It was it was all there anyway, even if people just couldn’t see it.

Adam Curtis:
I was going to say, I feel like that’s the quickest whistle stop tour of the gospels ever. But I realised we should probably add that after Jesus died, he rose again.

Matt Searles:
Let’s not forget that.

Adam Curtis:
Let’s not forget that. Okay, so after Jesus died, he rose again. Then he ascended into heaven, which takes us into the Book of Acts beautiful book which tells us the history of the early church. How does the book of Acts continue this story of God dwelling with his people?

Matt Searles:
Just pausing a moment on the resurrection and ascension, which you said is absolutely crucial to the story. Jesus didn’t just pay for the sins of his people and stay dead. He came to life again and he ascended into the presence of God. And actually, that’s significant because in the Old Testament, really the only person who ever came into the presence of God was the high priest. We didn’t touch on this, but in the book of Leviticus, there’s a day of atonement, the great day of sacrifice, when sacrifice for sins are made and the high priest goes into the presence of God, the high priest goes into that holy of holy places, bringing the people with him. He carries these stones on his breastplate, representing all the tribes. In a sense, he takes the people in. Actually, as Jesus ascends into heaven that’s what he’s doing, in a sense, he’s going there saying, and I will bring my people with me. When this kind of curious stage after the ascension of Jesus in that sort of the stories over humanity is back in the presence of God, that was the goal. Jesus, fully human, is in the presence of God. But we, his people, await the full experience of that when we in the new creation will dwell with him forever. And so we get this kind of overlap.

Matt Searles:
The age to come has begun. Jesus has ascended, but we are not yet in heaven. And really, in this period in between, sometimes called the last days in the Bible is, well, a number of things, but a lot of it is, as we get in the book of acts, is Jesus kingdom expanding? Jesus has gone before us. But what’s happening is more and more people are coming to know Jesus. And the last 2000 years of history has been the good news of Jesus going round the globe. And goodness knows what various percentages of the world now know. Christ is hard to know exactly, but Jesus kingdom has been expanding so that on that final day when God ushers time on history, there will be countless multitudes will go to be with Jesus and enjoy him forever. Really, this is age of the church. This is the age of mission of God’s kingdom. Expanding the book of acts really shows us the beginnings of that. It’s what the ascended Jesus began to do. But the end of acts is not job done. But it’s almost like chapter one of this new beginning is done. But this is now going to go global. And so I think we are very much to see ourselves as continuing in that spread of the good news.

Adam Curtis:
And what is glorious is as we’re continuing to build this kingdom, to spread this good news. Jesus has ascended, but he hasn’t left us alone. He hasn’t left us alone because he’s given us His Holy Spirit to fill us. God is in a very real way, is with us right now, and we’re just so thankful for that. Now, if anyone’s got the contents of their Bible open, they’ll see that we’ve hit the end of acts, then takes us into the New Testament letters of Paul and James, John and others, and then takes us into Revelation. Do you want to give us maybe a final word on Revelation and how this concludes this story of God dwelling with his people.

Matt Searles:
Just on the letters, a bit like we said in the Old Testament, you have the Psalms and Proverbs and wisdom literature. They don’t advance the narrative, but they teach you how to live in this world. The letters have something of a similar effect in the New Testament. They don’t advance the narrative as such generally, but they kind of sit alongside and say, how do you live as God’s people? Revelation is then this picture of the future, of where things are going. There’s lots that’s in there. It’s very symbolic. This is a lovely picture in chapter four, John the Apostle John, it’s his vision book of revelation. He sees heaven, he sees a throne and one sitting on it. And even just that is wonderful because God’s people in the New Testament day life was uncertain. They’re still in the Roman Empire who are not particularly nice. And things were hard. But John gets a picture. There’s someone sitting on a throne. There’s someone directing the course of history. And where is it all going? The end of Revelation we get that glimpse of the future, the final destination. Revelation 21-22 it’s an Eden like picture, but Eden, as it should have become not just a going back to Eden, but an Eden perfected and glorified. It’s not just a garden, it’s a garden city. It’s not just now. Just Eden is the dwelling place of God, but the whole world. The whole thing has become the dwelling place of God. He will dwell with his people. They will dwell with him. He will wipe every tear from every eye.

Matt Searles:
It’s all that we’ve been longing for finally fulfilled. God’s original creation plans are fulfilled. Originally there was one man, Adam, and God said, live my way and be my ruler, and represent me to the world. And Adam failed, and disaster and sin and chaos were the result. Now we’ve got what the Bible describes as the second Adam, Jesus, the one who put right all that went wrong. Jesus has one extraordinary blessings, and we, his people, get to share in all of them. We get to share in the life of God Himself and wonderfully Unlike every moment along the story so far. At every moment. So far, we’re thinking. But at some point sin’s going to come along and spoil it, isn’t it? That’s the problem. Every high point along the way we’ve known sin is probably just around the corner, but where we’re going, sin’s been dealt with. It is finished. On the cross means there is no sin, there is no accusation, there is no condemnation. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. And that’s what John paints in this glorious picture, I think, to orient our hearts, knowing this is certainty. Jesus is there, and if he’s there, his people will be there with him. This is reality. And so that should give us confidence as living a Christian life can be hard. And again, it’s why knowing the story and where it ends is so vital to know that God is in control. God has got this. God is working his purposes out and they are wonderful and so we can trust him.

Leah Sax:
One story. What a marathon, what a truth of God dwelling with us. I’m so impressed that Matt got through the entire Bible. But I need to remember my heart. That it is the same God at the beginning. It is the same God now, and it is the same God in eternity.

Adam Curtis:
Yes, it is Leah. And that is just such a beautiful telling of a beautiful story. I just am rejoicing that God has made us so that we could dwell with him, and has enabled it, so that we can dwell with him forever.

Leah Sax:
Matt Searles thank you so much for being our guest today and frankly, running a Bible marathon, which was amazing to listen to. Our season 7 bonus question is, can you tell us about a person God has used to shape your faith?

Matt Searles:
It would be my mum, I think. Yeah, an amazing, amazing with the Lord has been with the Lord for many years now. In many ways on many metrics humanly speaking. Poor background, not much education, humanly speaking, and quite a small person in many ways, but I saw faith and the Lord shining through her in works of service. Kind of quietly behind the scenes in a world of lots of big dogs. She was not that and inspires me still.

Leah Sax:
Thank you so much to Matt Searles for being our guest on episode 35 of Delight Podcast.

Adam Curtis:
Newt week We’ve got some breaking news for you because I am going to be interviewing Leah. I’m pretty excited for this. We’re going to be interviewing Leah about her life and what it looks like to live for Jesus in the music industry. So that is Adam and Leah delightfully signing off. Goodbye.

Leah Sax:
Bye bye.