BEMA Episode Link: 191: Session 5 Intro
Episode Length: 21:24
Published Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2020 01:15:00 -0700
Session 5
About this episode:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings prepare for the beginning of Session 5 and our journey through church history by taking one last look in our rearview mirror.

Session 5 Intro Presentation (PDF)

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Transcript for BEMA 191

Notes

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

BEMA 191: Session 5 Intro - Study Notes

Title & Source Summary

Episode: BEMA 191: Session 5 Intro

Hosts: Marty Solomon and Brent Billings

Focus: Comprehensive review of the entire biblical narrative (Torah through Revelation) as preparation for entering Session 5 on church history

This episode serves as both a conclusion to Session 4 and an introduction to Session 5. Marty and Brent provide a rapid, comprehensive review of the entire biblical narrative from Genesis through Revelation, condensing the major themes and movements of Scripture into memorable frameworks. The episode prepares listeners for the upcoming journey through church history by ensuring they understand the full arc of the biblical story and how each section contributes to God’s overarching narrative of partnership, redemption, and mission.

Key Takeaways

  • Session 5 will explore church history to answer the question: “Where are we today and how did we get here?”
  • The entire biblical narrative can be understood through specific thematic frameworks that make the big picture accessible
  • Each section of Scripture serves a unique purpose in advancing God’s story of partnership with humanity
  • Understanding the flow from Torah through Revelation is essential for comprehending how the early church functioned and what they understood their mission to be
  • The story culminates in “text to context” - applying the way of Jesus to each unique cultural and historical setting
  • Listeners are strongly encouraged to complete all previous sessions (1-4) before beginning Session 5, as the entire podcast builds as a consistent narrative
  • Session 2, while sometimes perceived as “a slog,” contains essential concepts like “two stories, one source,” the prophetic table, and understanding different voices in Scripture

Main Concepts & Theories

The Biblical Narrative Framework

1. Torah - Partnership

The five books of Moses establish the fundamental concept of partnership between God and humanity:

  • Genesis: Basis of the partnership - introduces the big ideas and the characters involved in this divine-human partnership
  • Exodus: The formal choosing - God chooses Israel as his partner, and Israel chooses God in a covenant marriage relationship
  • Leviticus: Defining the partnership - God establishes what the partnership will look like in practical terms
  • Numbers: Shaping the partner - God takes his partner into the desert to mold and shape them into what he desires
  • Deuteronomy: Remembering the partnership - God asks his partner to remember everything the partnership was built upon

2. History - Redemption Cycle and God’s Patience

The historical books demonstrate a recurring pattern of human failure and divine faithfulness:

  • Joshua: God places his people at the crossroads of the earth, in the middle of the action
  • Judges and Ruth: God’s people struggle to walk the path of God and trust the story; some succeed, some fail
  • Samuel and Kings: The struggle with identity and obedience, wrestling with integrity and morality
  • Chronicles: The struggle with empire, becoming the anti-story as injustice takes root when people forget to bless all nations and focus only on blessing themselves

3. Wisdom - Tools for the Journey

God provides resources to help his people navigate the highs and lows of life:

  • Psalms: Art and song for worship and expression, connecting beyond just intellectual understanding
  • Proverbs: Nuggets of conventional wisdom for navigating daily life
  • Ecclesiastes: Purpose and reason to get up every morning
  • Song of Songs: Relationships and intimacy necessary for human flourishing

4. Prophets - Warning, Woes, and Hope

The prophetic literature moves through three distinct phases:

  • Warning (Pre-Assyrian/Pre-Babylonian): Prophets like Amos, Hosea, Micah, First Isaiah, Zephaniah, Second Isaiah send warnings to God’s people
  • Woes and Judgment: Prophets like Jonah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Joel pronounce judgment
  • Hope and Encouragement (Exile): When people sit in exile, God sends prophets not to condemn but to strengthen - Ezekiel, Daniel, Job, Third Isaiah

5. Remnant - Returning, Yearning, and Learning

After Cyrus the Great allows God’s people to return home:

  • Returning (Fourth Isaiah, Ezra, Nehemiah): The physical return to rebuild and restore what once was
  • Yearning (Haggai, Zechariah): Longing for what used to be, remembering former glory
  • Learning (Malachi, Esther): Recognizing that this new world demands a new approach

6. Silent Years - Synagogue and Hellenism

The intertestamental period (not actually silent, just not in most Christian Bibles):

  • Synagogue: Demonstrated a passionate return to the Text, a new education system, devotion to becoming people of the Scriptures
  • Hellenism: The cultural context that proclaimed “man is the measure of all things,” upending traditional value systems from appeasing gods to appeasing self; emphasized self-preservation over self-sacrifice, empire over shalom
Five Responses to Hellenism

Different Jewish groups responded differently to the challenges of Hellenistic culture:

  1. Sadducees: Corrupt partnership despite being called by God
  2. Herodians: Compromising idolatry despite being perfectly placed for God’s mission
  3. Essenes: Absolute devotion and commitment to the Text, but isolated from the world
  4. Pharisees: Absolute devotion to obedience and walking out the Text, but lost compassion in their pursuit of righteousness
  5. Zealots: Had zeal and would take physical action, but used imperial means (Rome’s weapons) to accomplish their goals

7. Gospels - The Story in Flesh

Jesus incarnates the entire Tanakh narrative:

  • Matthew: Highlights God’s commitment to the mumzer/mamzer (the outcast, marginalized)
  • Mark: Presents everything Rome needs to hear about the true King
  • Luke: Provides an ordered parashah companion, placing Jesus’ story alongside the Torah readings
  • John: Makes the story relevant for the Greco-Asian/Greco-Roman world of Jews and Gentiles together in the grafted story

8. Acts - Epilogue of the Early Church

What happens when the Kingdom of God (empowered by the Holy Spirit) meets the kingdom of empire:

  • God’s people remember their call to be a blessing to all nations
  • The result is a very Jewish church existing in a very Gentile context

9. Early Church Letters - Text to Context

The epistles demonstrate applying the way of Jesus to unique contexts:

  • Paul’s Letters: Applying the way of Jesus to each unique context and setting (Philippi, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, etc.)
  • Hebrews: Instructing Hebrew believers to persevere in the face of a destroyed temple; Jesus has a better way
  • James: Doing the mitzvot with purpose - the mitzvot makes faith alive and real for Jewish readers
  • Peter: Holy living as God’s chosen people
  • John: Loving others IS the truth
  • Jude: Using the apocryphal and midrash to exalt God’s people and call them to a better walk

10. Revelation - Using the Past to Illuminate the Present

  • Uses Tanakh, apocalyptic literature, and past experiences to illuminate the present context
  • Text illuminates context; the past story sheds light on their current experience

Examples & Applications

The Whiteboard Exercise

Marty encourages listeners to create a visual timeline of the entire biblical narrative on a whiteboard or butcher paper. This practice helps:

  • See the big picture and overall arc of the story
  • Understand the movement and flow from one section to another
  • Recognize how each part contributes to the whole
  • Make the abstract concepts concrete and memorable
The Movie Analogy

Starting with Session 5 without completing Sessions 1-4 is compared to watching only the last 20 minutes of a movie - you don’t know the characters, the world that’s been established, or the story that led to the conclusion. This emphasizes the importance of understanding the full narrative arc.

Session 2 Reality Check

Marty acknowledges that approximately half the listeners he meets have skipped Session 2, despite it containing essential concepts. This demonstrates:

  • The human tendency to skip what seems difficult or tedious
  • The importance of foundational material even when it’s challenging
  • How Jesus quotes Session 2 material throughout Session 3, creating a “guilt trip” for those who skipped it
  • The value of persevering through challenging material for the “real goodies” it contains
Financial Partnership Example

The hosts model transparency about their financial needs, demonstrating:

  • How even small recurring gifts (10 per month) make a significant impact when multiplied
  • The reality of “unsexy” administrative overhead in nonprofit work
  • The value of regular, predictable support versus one-time gifts
  • How listener support has enabled Brent to transition from doing BEMA “on the side” to full-time work, improving the quality and depth of the podcast

Potential Areas for Further Exploration

  1. Deep Dive into Session 2 Concepts: Explore the specific teachings on “two stories, one source,” the prophetic table, and different voices in Scripture that many listeners have missed

  2. The Five Responses to Hellenism: Examine how these same response patterns appear in contemporary Christianity when engaging with modern culture

  3. Text to Context Methodology: Study how Paul and other early church writers applied consistent principles to diverse cultural contexts, and how this informs missional engagement today

  4. The Redemption Cycle Pattern: Track how the pattern identified in the historical books continues through church history and into contemporary experience

  5. Empire vs. Shalom: Investigate the ongoing tension between imperial approaches (power, control, force) and kingdom approaches (service, sacrifice, blessing) throughout history

  6. The Mumzer Theme: Trace Matthew’s emphasis on God’s commitment to the outcast through the entirety of Scripture and into the church age

  7. Synagogue Education System: Examine how the developments during the “silent years” shaped the educational and interpretive methods Jesus and the apostles used

  8. Incarnational Theology: Explore what it means that Jesus is not just someone who fulfilled Scripture but IS the story itself in flesh

  9. The Grafted Story: Investigate how John’s Gospel addresses the integration of Jewish and Gentile believers in the early church and what this means for modern ecclesiology

  10. Church History Preparation: Consider what specific aspects of the biblical narrative will be most important for understanding the church history journey in Session 5

Comprehension Questions

  1. How does understanding Torah as “partnership” rather than simply “law” change the way we read Genesis through Deuteronomy, and what implications does this have for understanding God’s relationship with humanity?

  2. Explain the three phases of the prophetic literature (warning, woes, hope) and discuss why God’s approach changes when his people are in exile versus when they are comfortable in the land.

  3. Compare and contrast the five Jewish responses to Hellenism (Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes, Pharisees, Zealots). Which response patterns do you see in contemporary Christianity’s engagement with modern culture?

  4. What does it mean that Jesus is “the story in flesh” rather than simply someone who fulfilled prophecies? How does this understanding change the way we read the Gospels?

  5. How does the concept of “text to context” in the early church letters inform how we should apply biblical principles to our contemporary contexts? What are the dangers of either ignoring context or over-contextualizing?

Personalized Summary

This episode provides a masterful synthesis of the entire biblical narrative, condensing four sessions of detailed study into memorable frameworks that reveal the big picture of Scripture. The journey from Torah’s establishment of partnership through the prophets’ warnings and hopes, into the incarnation of the story in Jesus, and finally to the early church’s application of text to context demonstrates a coherent narrative arc. Each section of Scripture serves a unique purpose in advancing God’s story of partnership with humanity for the blessing of all nations.

The episode emphasizes that understanding this full narrative is essential preparation for Session 5’s exploration of church history. You cannot understand where we are today without understanding the entire story that brought us here. The hosts’ vulnerability about their financial needs and acknowledgment of listener participation patterns (like skipping Session 2) creates a transparent, authentic relationship with the audience.

What stands out most powerfully is the concept that Jesus doesn’t simply fulfill Scripture - he IS the story in flesh. The entire Tanakh narrative becomes incarnate in Christ. This profound theological insight elevates our understanding of the Gospels from mere biography to the embodiment of everything God has been doing since Genesis. When the early church then takes this incarnate story and applies it to diverse contexts across the ancient world, they model for us what it means to live out the way of Jesus in every time and place. As we prepare to explore church history, we carry this complete narrative framework with us, enabling us to evaluate how well God’s people in various eras have remained faithful to the partnership, navigated the redemption cycle, and applied text to context in their unique settings.

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