Who Invited Sarah?

The Bible Project has given me a new perspective on how to approach understanding the Bible. After each podcast series, I am going to try to write a little bit about what I have learned. My goal right now is to finish one series a week if they are 10 episodes or less. If they are more, I will split them up and once I catch up I will probably switch to one a week. I just finished listening to the Heaven and Earth series.

I tend to have a very logical brain when trying to understand things that should make sense to me through fact. But I am also a very emotional person and also have an anxious brain which tends to leave me wanting to know 100% about something before I decide to believe it’s true. This is not possible with God, because a large part of having faith, at least to me, is letting go of my expectations and need for control and trusting that God has me. So far in my life, my relationship with God has been extremely emotionally driven, which to be honest has left me with questions and also this feeling of disconnect between the contents of the Bible and my faith.

It has been super cool to listen to Tim and Jon talk about the Bible in a very logical and conversational way. In this specific series, they talked about how Heaven & Earth are discussed in the Bible. Some of the things that were discussed in this episode that I thought were interesting were:

1. Angels are not described as having wings anywhere in the Bible. It is strange that we are so attuned to this image when it is not something that is described.
2. There is not a lot of evidence for the “rapture” view of Jesus returning to earth in the New Testament. There is one passage in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 that could be interpreted in a similar way.
3. Jesus is the one person in which heaven and earth overlap. He has come to create a movement to “show us the way” to the complete reunion of heaven and earth.
4. I am very interested in their view of hell and how they talked about the way we speak and imagine it. It was described as a place where God allows people to exist without a relationship with him. I hope they talk more about this.
5. One day, our hope and faith will be fulfilled and we necessarily “won’t need” them anymore, and so the most important thing is love. So strange to think this way, but it’s a great way to put things into perspective.

All of these things have helped me reflect on the different ways we, as humans, interpret the Bible. I learned some cool things this week about heaven & earth. Next week’s series is on holiness. See you next Wednesday to chat!