BEMA Episode Link: 190: Session 4 Capstone
Episode Length: 51:29
Published Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2020 01:00:00 -0700
Session 4
About this episode:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings hold the usual capstone conversation, concluding our journey through the remainder of Scripture and reviewing the entirety thereof.

Session 4 Capstone Presentation (PDF)

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Transcript for BEMA 190

Notes

*Note: The following notes are handwritten by me, Adam, and I reserve the right to be wrong.

BEMA Episode 190: Session 4 Capstone - Study Notes

Title & Source Summary

Episode: 190 - Session 4 Capstone Hosts: Marty Solomon and Brent Billings Focus: Comprehensive review of the entire biblical narrative from Genesis through Revelation

This capstone episode provides a sweeping overview of the entire Bible, reviewing all four sessions of the BEMA journey. The hosts walk through the complete biblical narrative, from the preface in Genesis 1-11 through the Book of Revelation, highlighting key themes, characters, and movements. This episode serves as both a review and a roadmap, helping listeners understand how each book fits into God’s larger story of redemption and restoration. The episode emphasizes the importance of having a working familiarity with the whole biblical narrative rather than a disconnected, “hopscotch awareness” of favorite passages.

Key Takeaways

  • The entire biblical narrative can be understood as a Tale of Two Kingdoms: Empire (force, coercion, self-preservation) versus Shalom (invitation, restoration, other-centeredness)
  • Understanding the Bible requires knowing who God’s people were and what they were doing at each point in the story
  • The central call to God’s people is to remember where they came from (slaves in Egypt) and to care for the alien, orphan, and widow
  • The preface (Genesis 1-11) establishes that creation is good and God invites His creatures to trust this story
  • The prophets provided warnings, woes, and hope - different messages for different seasons of Israel’s journey
  • The New Testament represents “Text and context” - applying the living Text of Jesus Christ to unique situations
  • Each biblical book addresses a specific context while contributing to the overarching narrative of God restoring Shalom to chaos

Main Concepts & Theories

The Structure of Biblical Narrative

The BEMA framework divides Scripture into clear sections:

The Preface (Genesis 1-11): Introduces foundational ideas that creation is good and God invites humanity to trust this story. Humans struggle throughout this section to rest in Sabbath, to trust that they are loved, valued, and accepted without striving.

The Introduction (Genesis 12-50): Presents the family of God through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. These imperfect characters demonstrate the defining characteristic of God’s people - the ability to return to God’s story even after mistakes and failures. This section introduces the pattern of faith and forgiveness.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms (Exodus - Revelation): The entire biblical narrative demonstrates the conflict between:

  • Empire: power through force, coercion, the stick, imposing will, self-preservation
  • Shalom: power through invitation, word, voice, restoration, other-centeredness, putting things back together
The Exodus and Covenant Pattern

God rescued His people from Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai for a marriage covenant. At this marriage, God declared His intention: “You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This calling shapes everything that follows.

The tabernacle served multiple purposes:

  • The honeymoon suite for God’s marriage to Israel
  • A literary retelling of Genesis 1-3, a mobile Eden
  • A visual demonstration of what priesthood looks like

Leviticus functions as the owner’s manual for the tabernacle - the handbook for priesthood that teaches both literal priests and the entire nation their priestly calling.

The Central Command: Remember

Deuteronomy emphasizes remembering as central to covenant faithfulness. “Remember you were slaves in Egypt” appears repeatedly throughout the book. This remembering creates a cycle:

  1. Remember where you came from
  2. Recognize you were alien, orphan, and widow
  3. Notice and care for the alien, orphan, and widow in your midst
  4. Caring for them reminds you where you came from

This “beautiful endless cycle” keeps God’s people grounded in their identity and mission.

The Redemption Cycle (not Sin Cycle)

The Book of Judges presents a repeating pattern that can be viewed two ways:

  • Sin Cycle: focuses on human failure and garbage-ness
  • Redemption Cycle: focuses on God’s goodness and patience

The cycle includes: things going well, losing the plot, God’s correction, crying out, God raises up a redeemer, rescue, and repeat. The BEMA perspective chooses to emphasize God’s faithful response rather than human failure.

Two Perspectives on History

Samuel/Kings (Story A) versus Chronicles (Story B):

  • Story A: Israel’s perspective, written like agenda-driven headlines, real-time newspaper style
  • Story B: Judah’s perspective, written centuries later with documentary perspective

Both are right - they simply view the same history from different angles. Story A attributes the fall to immorality and idolatry. Story B sees deeper: injustice and lust for empire lie beneath the surface symptoms.

The Prophetic Movement

The prophets operated in three phases:

Pre-Assyrian Warnings: Amos (plumb line, ripe fruit), Hosea (marriage to prostitute), Micah (the judge), First Isaiah (vineyard expecting good fruit)

Assyrian Period:

  • Jonah (potential - God sees potential even in enemies)
  • Nahum (diyn - pronouncement of judgment, retributive justice)
  • Zephaniah (t’shuvah - return, repent)
  • Second Isaiah (woes upon woes)

Babylonian Period: Jeremiah (weeping prophet urging acceptance of discipline), Lamentations (alphabetic chiastic acrostic of lament with hope at center), Habakkuk (watchtower - learning to listen more and talk less), Obadiah (to Edom/Petra), Joel (locust plague imagery)

Exilic Hope: Ezekiel (strength), Daniel (Son of Man), Job (loss and suffering), Third Isaiah (suffering servant)

The Remnant: Esther (staying in Persia to bless nations), Ezra and Nehemiah (different leadership styles for return and rebuilding), Haggai (time to build), Zechariah (apocalyptic perseverance), Fourth Isaiah (restoration, repairs of broken walls), Malachi (Q&A discourse on not losing the way during rebuilding)

The Silent Years and Second Temple Judaism

The 400 years between Malachi and Jesus saw crucial developments:

The Synagogue System: Educational response to captivity, ensuring people knew their story:

  • Bet Sefer (ages 5-10): memorize entire Torah
  • Advanced students: memorize rest of Tanakh
  • Best students: study with rabbis for ministry

Responses to Hellenism:

  • Sadducees: Priesthood, corrupt but strategically positioned
  • Herodians: Compromised with culture but positioned for influence
  • Essenes: Withdrew to Qumran, devoted to text (Isaiah 40), preserved Dead Sea Scrolls but removed from society
  • Pharisees: Devotion to obedience but lacked compassion
  • Zealots: Zeal for God but used tools of Empire (violence)

Each group had strengths and fatal flaws in responding to God’s call.

The Gospels: Story in Flesh

Matthew: Theme of mumzer (outsider). God is for the outsider who is an outsider in society but an insider in God’s world.

Mark: Written to Roman audience, communicating to the dominant empire in familiar terms.

Luke: Ordered - written as parashah companion to weekly synagogue readings (based on Goulder’s work).

John: Grafted Gospel - addressing Gentiles being grafted into the Jewish church, pastoral care for Asia.

The Early Church: Text and Context

Acts: Epilogue - the Hebrew scriptures culminate in Jesus and find resolution in the empowered community of the early church.

Paul’s Letters:

  • Galatians: Freedom
  • Romans: Justification
  • 1 Corinthians: Division (broken body)
  • 2 Corinthians: Apostleship
  • Ephesians: Family membership (dividing wall removed)
  • Philippians: Joy
  • Colossians: Heresy (particularly Docetism - separation of soil and spirit)
  • 1 Thessalonians: Parousia (second coming)
  • 2 Thessalonians: Man of lawlessness
  • 1 Timothy: Timid Timothy
  • 2 Timothy: Continued pastoral care
  • Titus: Tough Titus
  • Philemon: Faith works

General Epistles:

  • Hebrews: Supremacy of Christ (better Moses, tabernacle, sacrifice, high priest)
  • James: Obedience (written to Jewish church, emphasizing hospitality to outsiders)
  • 1 Peter: Persevere
  • 2 Peter: False teachers
  • 1 John: Love and truth
  • 2 John: The woman (church/individual/both)
  • 3 John: Diotrephes causing problems
  • Jude: Full of Apocrypha
  • Revelation: Overcome

Examples & Applications

Practical Application of Remembering

The command to remember creates practical ethics: When ancient Israelites remembered being slaves in Egypt, they were motivated to treat foreign workers, refugees, and the powerless with dignity. This same principle applies today - remembering our own vulnerabilities, past struggles, or seasons of need should motivate generosity toward those currently in similar situations.

The Wisdom Literature as Journey Tools

The hosts compare wisdom literature to tools needed for a 70-year journey into captivity:

  • Psalms: Songs to sing while marching through the desert
  • Proverbs: Nuggets of wisdom to keep your head above water
  • Ecclesiastes: Meaning and purpose when everything feels lost
  • Song of Songs: Intimacy (dowd) to hold communities together through hardship

This illustrates how biblical books meet specific human needs across the spectrum of experience - from joy to mourning, success to failure, persistence to temptation.

Multiple Perspectives in Scripture

The dual accounts of Israel’s history (Samuel/Kings vs. Chronicles) demonstrate that Scripture itself presents multiple perspectives on the same events. This validates the practice of examining issues from various angles rather than assuming only one “right” interpretation exists. Both the immediate, newspaper-style account and the reflective, documentary account have value and truth.

Prophetic Progression

The prophetic movement shows how God’s message adapts to the season:

  • Warnings when there’s still time to repent
  • Woes when judgment is imminent
  • Hope when people are in exile and need encouragement to persevere

This progression demonstrates pastoral wisdom - different messages for different moments, all from the same God pursuing the same redemptive purposes.

Contextual Application of Truth

The New Testament letters demonstrate “Text and context” - the same Gospel of Jesus applied differently in:

  • Thessalonica (struggling with questions about Jesus’s return)
  • Corinth (dealing with division and immorality)
  • Colossae (confronting false teaching about spirit vs. matter)
  • Rome (needing theological foundation on justification)

This shows that faithfulness isn’t one-size-fits-all but requires wisdom to apply truth appropriately to specific situations.

Potential Areas for Further Exploration

Deep Dive into the Tabernacle

How did the structure and furniture of the tabernacle function as a retelling of Genesis 1-3? What specific parallels exist between the creation narrative and tabernacle construction? How would ancient worshippers have understood these connections?

The Priestly Calling of All Believers

What does it mean practically for modern believers to live out a “kingdom of priests” identity? How do the specific instructions to physical priests in Leviticus translate conceptually to the life of ordinary believers?

Empire vs. Shalom Framework

How does the Empire/Shalom framework apply to contemporary political, economic, and social structures? What does it look like to pursue Shalom (restoration, invitation, other-centeredness) in specific modern contexts?

The Role of Feasts and Celebration

Why does God ordain celebration and party as essential to covenant faithfulness? What is the relationship between joy, remembering, and mission? How might contemporary church practice incorporate more intentional celebration?

Synthesis of Old and New Testament Ethics

How do the specific ethical commands of the Torah relate to New Testament teaching on the same subjects? What principles remain constant and what applications shift based on covenant context?

The Development of Second Temple Judaism

How did the synagogue system, various Jewish sects, and rabbinic traditions shape the world into which Jesus was born? How do these developments inform our reading of the Gospels?

Apocalyptic Literature

What are the unique features and interpretive principles for reading apocalyptic texts like Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation? How did this genre function in its original context?

Church History and Contemporary Application

How did we get from the church described in Acts and the epistles to contemporary expressions of Christianity? What factors shaped this development? (This will be the focus of Session 5)

Comprehension Questions

  1. What is the central difference between Empire and Shalom as presented in the biblical narrative? Provide specific examples of each from different periods of biblical history.

  2. Explain the relationship between the tabernacle and the book of Leviticus. How does understanding this relationship change how we read Leviticus?

  3. Why is “remembering where you came from” central to the book of Deuteronomy, and how does this create what the hosts call a “beautiful endless cycle”?

  4. Compare and contrast the two historical accounts (Samuel/Kings vs. Chronicles). What does Israel’s perspective emphasize versus Judah’s perspective? What lies beneath the surface according to Chronicles?

  5. Trace the progression of the prophetic message from pre-Assyrian warnings through the Babylonian exile to the remnant period. How does God’s message adapt to the changing circumstances of His people?

Summary

BEMA Episode 190 provides a masterful overview of the entire biblical narrative, demonstrating that Scripture tells one coherent story from Genesis to Revelation. This story centers on God’s persistent work to restore Shalom to a world dominated by Empire. Beginning with the good creation and humanity’s call to trust, the narrative follows God’s covenant people through rescue from Egypt, formation as a kingdom of priests, struggle to maintain identity and mission, exile and restoration, and ultimately the coming of Messiah and the formation of the early church.

Key to understanding this narrative is recognizing patterns: the call to remember leading to care for the vulnerable, the redemption cycle highlighting God’s patience rather than human failure, the wisdom to apply truth contextually rather than mechanically, and the consistent choice between Empire’s coercive power and Shalom’s restorative invitation.

The episode emphasizes that biblical literacy means more than knowing favorite passages or individual books - it requires understanding the flow of the whole story, being able to answer “who were God’s people and what were they doing at this point?” This working familiarity enables believers to see how each part contributes to the greater whole and how the ancient story continues to speak with relevance and power today.

As the BEMA journey prepares to move into Session 5 (church history), this comprehensive review serves as both conclusion and foundation, inviting listeners to carry a biblical worldview into engagement with how the church has lived out (or failed to live out) this narrative through the centuries.

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