05 Why Matthew Quotes Hosea When Hosea Isn't Predicting Anything (Matthew 2:13-15)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome back to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is our fifth talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. Today we're going to study Matthew chapter 2, verses 13 through 15. If you're driving, jogging, or doing dishes, you don't have to worry about taking notes. There are lecture notes on my website. You can find those notes on the link below this podcast, or you can go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 5. So glad you joined us today. We are continuing in chapter 2 of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew started his gospel with the genealogy of Jesus, and I argued that he is making the point that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is that one descendant of Abraham and descendant of David who will fulfill the promises that God gave them. And those promised blessings are not just to the Jews, but to the entire world. In these early chapters, Matthew is going over the account of Jesus' birth and his early life, and he tells the story from the point of view of Joseph. He has told us that Joseph accepted Mary as his wife and Jesus as his son, that gave Jesus a legal right to the throne of David because Joseph was a son of David. The angel tells Joseph that Mary's son will save his people from their sins, and that is the language of kingship and points to the Messiah. Four times in this account of Jesus' early life, Joseph is given a dream that gives him some revelation from God, and then he acts in obedience on that dream. And four times in this section, Matthew tells us that an Old Testament passage is fulfilled in some way. Last week we did an overview of chapter two. What we're going to do now is go back into chapter two and look at the three fulfillment quotations that are found in this chapter. A number of times Matthew quotes an Old Testament passage and then says, something is fulfilled, and each quotation has a similar kind of formula. He says something like this This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet. Now it's often difficult to tell exactly what Matthew meant by fulfilled or what he means by it, because at first reading the Old Testament passage doesn't seem to have anything to do with Jesus. And let me remind you that many, many books and articles have been written on these four fulfillment passages. The debate can get really long and complicated. Different scholars have different answers to the question of what exactly is Matthew doing here with the Old Testament. And I do not claim to have all the answers. I decided not to get into the debate because it just gets too confusing. You can read about that in most commentaries. Instead, I'm going to give you my best shot. And let me remind you, this is just my opinion. I am no one from nowhere. I am just one Bible student telling other Bible students here's what I think I learned. Now we already looked at the first of the fulfillment passages. That was back in chapter one in 123. Matthew talks about a child being born who will be named Emmanuel. We're going to look at the second one today and then take the other two in the next two podcasts. Now to understand Matthew's point, we're going to talk as we go through these passages about interpretive choices. When we approach any passage of Scripture, but particularly the more difficult or obscure passages, we're faced with a number of choices. And you can think about those choices or visualize those choices like a fork in the road. At the first choice in the road, or the first fork, some scholars are going to go east and some are going to go west. And then very soon, no matter which path they took, both those scholars are going to come to another interpretive fork in the road. And again, scholars are going to diverge. Some are going right, some are going left. For some passages, there's only one interpretive fork in the road. For other passages, there are multiple forks in the road, and those forks have forks, and those forks have forks, and so on. Now sometimes all the branches lead back to the same conclusion and we all end up in the same interpretive spot. That's great. But sometimes the branches lead to very different interpretive conclusions and we end up in very different spots. Every scholar, every Bible student, every pastor and teacher has to make these choices. If you're going to come to any conclusions about what the passage means, you have to make a choice. And sincere Bible believing Christians do not all make the same choices at these forks in the road. Hence, we disagree on what various passages mean. Sometimes we agree on the bottom line, but we reach that bottom line by different paths. Now when we disagree, we ought to humbly acknowledge there may be several legitimate options, and we ourselves may have very well taken the wrong interpretive turn. Yet we have to make interpretive choices to arrive at any kind of conclusion. That's normal, that's necessary, and it's okay that we may choose differently than others, but we ought to hold our conclusions humbly, especially on passages that are more obscure or more difficult, or present us with more choices. Now as we go through these passages, I'm going to try to point out to you what choices I've made. Hopefully, not only will that let you evaluate my understanding, but it will illustrate the kinds of choices that we have to make. Again, I don't claim to be an authority, I don't claim to have all the answers, I'm giving you my best understanding with the study I've done so far. I am not ordained in any denomination or group and my views carry no authority whatsoever. If you disagree with a choice I've made, hopefully you'll at least learn something about how to study the Bible and how to approach those choices. Okay, let's get started. In chapter one, Matthew told us that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah, the son of David and the Son of Abraham. As the Messiah, he is the one who stands to inherit the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the promises to David about his throne and kingdom, and he is the one who will fulfill those promises and bring them about. Then Matthew explained the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth, mostly from Joseph's perspective, and in chapter two we have the account of the wise men finding and visiting Jesus. And we're going to pick up the story in Matthew chapter two, verses thirteen through fifteen, right after the wise men have left. Let me read that for you. Now when they had departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son. And that's the verse we're going to look at. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son. Now Matthew is referring to a passage from the prophet Hosea. Hosea eleven one reads When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. So let me explain the interpretive problem. Hosea was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel for about forty years. He was a contemporary of Amos in the north and Isaiah and Micah in the south. More than any other prophet, Hosea's personal life illustrates his message. His adulterous wife Gomer illustrated the spiritual adultery of the nation of Israel. The prophet Hosea is pronouncing a judgment on the northern kingdom of Israel. Soon the Assyrians are going to conquer the northern kingdom and take them into exile. And in the midst of this judgment, God reminds them of the Exodus. He reminds the people that through Moses God led them out of slavery in Egypt. Hosea 11 1 is talking about the past. It refers backward to the Exodus. Hosea is saying back in the time of Moses, God called his metaphorical son, the nation of Israel, out of Egypt. Yet Matthew is saying that these events in the life of Jesus, when he was taken to Egypt to escape Herod's knife and then brought back after Herod's death, that those events somehow fulfill this passage. Well, on the surface, there's nothing to fulfill, at least in terms of predictive prophecy, because Hosea is not predicting any future event. Hosea is remembering a past event. And therein lies the interpretive problem. How can Matthew say that the life of Jesus fulfills what Hosea was saying when Hosea is not predicting anything, he is looking backward on a past event. Now as I approach this issue, these are the assumptions I've made and the convictions I hold, and this will be true for all the fulfillment passages. First, I trust Matthew. That is an interpretive choice, and not all scholars you read make that choice. You can pick up a number of commentaries in which they will argue that Matthew just made a mistake here, that he was playing fast and loose with the Old Testament, and this is sloppy exegesis on his part. I think Matthew knows what he's doing, and I think he's doing it well. He has a point to make. I think he accurately understands what is going on in Hosea. Second, as we talked about in the last podcast, the term fulfill does not always refer to predictive prophecy. The word literally means to fill up, like you pour water into an empty bucket and that fills up the bucket. In some cases, it does mean predictive prophecy. It does mean an Old Testament passage said sometime in the future X is going to happen, and now X has happened. So it can mean fulfilled in that the event predicted before it happened has now happened. And in those cases, the prophecy has been filled up or fulfilled. And we've seen one example of that. The Old Testament said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and in fact, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But there's another way to use the term fulfill, and many scholars have pointed this out before me, and I think Matthew is frequently using the word fulfill to mean the second meaning. In the Old Testament, we find themes and we find pictures. And then in the New Testament, we see a fuller revelation of or expression of those themes and pictures. So in later redemptive history, the spiritual principle is shown in its fullness or its completeness. We might say it is the epitome, it's an analogous reality, it is the best example of it. For example, I might say just as Moses led the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, Jesus leads us out of captivity to sin. In that sense, I could say Jesus is a fulfillment of Moses. Something in Jesus' life fills out the Old Testament passage in some way. Now I'm not saying that Moses' actions were predicting Jesus' actions. I'm making an analogous reality. I'm making a comparison. What Moses did in his day, Jesus did even more so in his day. And in that sense, he fills out the picture that Moses gave us. Jesus is the complete and perfect example of that principle or that moral truth that you see in the story of Moses. Jesus is the fullest picture, the epitome or the culmination of it. And quite often, when you see the scripture was fulfilled, it is this second meaning that we are talking about. Now that means, as Bible students, when we see Matthew say something is fulfilled, we have a choice to make. We have to decide is Matthew using fulfilled to mean predictive prophecy, or is Matthew using fulfilled to mean the second meaning that an old testament principle or theme is now being expressed more fully. We're seeing a more complete example or fuller expression of it. Sometimes Matthew does mean the first meaning, predictive prophecy has come to pass, but sometimes Matthew means the second meaning, that we see a fuller expression of this principle. And that's a choice we're going to have to make in each of these passages. My third conviction is that Matthew expects his readers to know and be familiar with the Old Testament. And we saw this already with the genealogy, we're going to see it as we go through his gospel. Matthew expects us to know who Abraham and David are. Matthew expects us to understand the covenant that God made with Abraham and the covenant that he made with David. He expects us to know the rise and fall of David's kingdom and what happened to his throne. And Matthew expects us to know that the Old Testament speaks of a coming king, a Messiah, and he expects us to know what the Old Testament says about that Messiah. I think this is true throughout Matthew's gospel. He quotes the Old Testament a lot, and he does not stop to explain his quotes. There's always more going on than he explicitly says, and he expects us to know the Old Testament well enough to draw on that history and background and understand the point he's making. We are supposed to understand the Old Testament passages in their context. Fourth, I believe that Matthew expects us to understand that there is a strong theological connection between the nation of Israel and the Messiah. And that's the connection that makes this Hosea passage relevant to Jesus. Now, again, a lot of scholars before me have pointed this out, but there's a lot of debate about exactly what the connection is and how far it goes. Here's my best understanding, and I reserve the right to change my mind as I study and learn more. But this is my best shot right now. The nation of Israel has a unique relationship with God. God made promises to the children of Israel that he did not make to other tribes and other people groups. God gave the tribes of Israel a mission to fulfill and promised them a unique destiny. How is that mission to be fulfilled since the nation cannot remain faithful to their covenant with the Lord? Ultimately, as the story unfolds, we learn that that mission is going to be fulfilled through the greatest of Abraham's sons and the greatest Davidic king, the Messiah. How is Israel going to inherit its promised destiny of blessings, righteousness, and peace? That destiny is going to come about through the Messiah. In fact, we could say that Israel's unique mission and destiny finds its fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is the one who will bring it about. That means the events in Israel's life had significance and implications for the Messiah and vice versa. This connection is based on the promises and the purposes of God because when God made promises to Israel, he had in mind Israel's greatest son, the Messiah, whom and Matthew tells us that Messiah is Jesus. In that sense there is a theological connection between Israel and Jesus, and I think Matthew expects us to know that. And finally, I believe that God, as the ultimate author and the creator of history, orchestrated events in the life of the nation of Israel and events in the life of Jesus to reveal this connection between them. I think Matthew understands that God did this on purpose, and Matthew is explaining that connection. Now in many cases we're going to see that Jesus succeeded where Israel failed, but the connection is still there. Alright, so here then is the big interpretive choice we have to make for these verses. We need to decide what the word fulfill means by observing how Matthew is using it. And remember, I think Matthew expects his readers to know the Old Testament passages in their context. I think Matthew sees a strong theological connection between Israel and Jesus, and he expects us to see it too. And I think God at times orchestrated events in the history of Israel and the life of Jesus to reveal this connection, this theological connection. So first let's review the Old Testament background that Matthew expects us to know. The Hosea verse that Matthew is quoting is referring backward to the Exodus, so we need to review the Exodus. I'm going to briefly summarize that story. God made promises to Abraham that his son Isaac inherited. God repeated those promises to Isaac, and Isaac's son Jacob inherited the promises. God then repeats the promise to Jacob and renamed Jacob Israel. Jacob had twelve children who fathered the twelve tribes of Israel. One of those children was Joseph, who happened to be Jacob's favorite. But his jealous brothers sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt and told his father that Joseph had died. However, God had plans for Joseph. Over many years and through a series of complicated events, Joseph rose to be Pharaoh's right hand man. Now Pharaoh was the supreme ruler of Egypt, and Joseph was his number two. Joseph ended up saving not only Egypt during a famine, but his family as well. His father Jacob and his eleven brothers and all their family came to Egypt to escape the famine. They were reunited with Joseph and they ended up staying in Egypt. Now as they grew in number, they became slaves in Egypt. A new pharaoh took the throne, who forgot who Joseph was. He forgot how Joseph had saved the nation through the time of the famine, and he enslaved the descendants of the children of Israel. But God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that their descendants would live in the promised land, which we now know as the land of Israel or the land of Palestine. But at this point in history the people are far from that land and they're living in slavery in Egypt. Then God raised up a man, Moses, to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt and bring them back to the promised land. God miraculously saved Moses from execution as a baby, and Moses was raised in Pharaoh's own household. One day Moses intervenes when an Egyptian guard is mistreating one of the Israelites' slaves and he ends up killing the guard. He then has to flee Egypt and he lives in exile for many years. Eventually God comes to Moses and tells him it's time for him to go back to Egypt, confront Pharaoh, and tell Pharaoh to free the Israelites, but Pharaoh is not going to respond well to this request. Let me read you Exodus chapter four verses twenty one through twenty three. And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son. Notice that God calls the nation of Israel his son and his firstborn son in Exodus four twenty two. Now this is a really rich metaphor about Israel's unique relationship with God. They have this great mission and this great destiny. Culturally, the firstborn son was significant in at least two ways. First, the firstborn son was second only to the Father in authority. The way you treated the son reflected the way you treated the father. If you disrespect the firstborn son, you are disrespecting the father. The son could tell servants to do something and it was as if the father was speaking. If you respected the father, then you should respect the firstborn son. So the son was second in authority only to the father. He represented the father, and the way you treated the firstborn son reflected your treatment of the father. And we see this relationship in God's words to Pharaoh. He says, Look, I told you Israel is my firstborn son, you refuse to treat him with the respect that relationship deserves, so now judgment is coming upon you. Second, the firstborn son had the largest inheritance and received the greatest blessing. This makes it an apt metaphor because God made promises to Abraham and his descendants. He made them his representatives to the world like a firstborn son represents the Father. He told them that the nations of the world would be blessed through them, and if other nations blessed the children of Israel, then God would bless those nations. But if other nations disrespected or mistreated the children of Israel, then God would judge them. The nation of Israel is like God's firstborn son. The Father stands behind them. When you deal with them, you're dealing with God. The way you treat them represents the way you treat God. God promised Abraham and his descendants a great inheritance for themselves, but not only that, that all the nations would be blessed through them. So they will receive this great inheritance and through them all the nations of the earth would be blessed. But the Old Testament takes this metaphor a step farther. Much later, when Israel is settled in the promised land and David is ruling over them as king, David is called a firstborn son of God. And I think we are to bring this same understanding of blessing and representation with it. This is Psalm eighty nine verses twenty through twenty nine. I have found David, my servant, with my holy oil I have anointed him, so that my hand shall be established with him and my arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him. I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him. My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. He shall cry to me, You are my father, my God and the rock of my salvation, and I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth, my steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him. I will establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of the heavens. So here we see God calling David his firstborn. Let me read Psalm eighty nine, twenty six and twenty seven again. He shall cry to me, You are my father, my God and the rock of my salvation, and I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. Now in fact all the Davidic kings are called firstborn sons of God. The king speaks for the father and plays that special role as God's anointed ruler over Israel. In a sense, they become the focus of the promise made to Abraham. The throne of David is the means by which God is going to fulfill the promises he made to Abraham and his descendants. It is the means by which God will ultimately bring blessing to the world and the means by which God is going to bring blessing to Israel itself. But as we know the story, David's throne was lost to Babylon. Because of the sins and rebellion of the people, they did not fulfill their role as being a light to the nations and extending the blessings of God to the nations. When Jesus comes into the world, there is no Davidic king. The promises seem to be lost, and yet we know from the Old Testament that this is not a surprise. We know that from the beginning God intended to bless the nation of Israel and bless the world through one particular son of Abraham and son of David, the promised king, the Messiah who we know to be Jesus. And how is this promised Messiah described? He is described as the firstborn son of God. Like a firstborn son, when you deal with Jesus, you're dealing with the Father. God will bless those who bless his son, God will judge those who reject his son. It is through this son that the promised blessings and the inheritance will come to his people. This is exactly the story that Matthew was telling in chapter one with the genealogy when he said, This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, son of Abraham. Okay, so back to the Exodus. When God tells Pharaoh that the nation of Israel is his firstborn son, he's not saying, you know, these guys are my friends, so I want you to leave them alone. He's saying these people represent me to the world. I plan to do great things through them and for them. Through the nation of Israel would come the greatest of all God's sons, Jesus, the Messiah, Son of God. That means that Israel being God's son is related to the fact that Jesus is God's son. The promises weave together through this line of people that produces the Messiah, God's firstborn son. Now the Exodus is the event in which God delivers his people from slavery in Egypt and eventually settles them in the promised land and eventually gives them King David. After his death, David's son Solomon takes the throne, but after the death of Solomon there is a civil war, and the kingdom divides into a northern and southern kingdom, with two separate sons of David each claiming to be the next Davidic king. The people in both the northern and the southern kingdoms turn away from God, and eventually God tells the northern kingdom that he is bringing the Assyrians down on them to judge them and discipline them for their disobedience, and they will become slaves once again. This Assyrian threat is the situation that Hosea is writing about. He predicts that God will judge the northern kingdom by bringing the Assyrians to conquer them. Let me read some from Hosea. I'm going to start in the last verse of chapter ten and then read through 11 7. As I read this, Bethel is a city in the northern kingdom, Israel is a name for the northern kingdom, and Ephraim is a name for the northern kingdom. Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great evil, at dawn the king of Israel will be utterly cut off. When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the bales and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke of their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king because they have refused to return to me. The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the most high, he shall not raise them up at all. So the people have done a great evil, they have rebelled against God, they have ignored his ways, they've sacrificed to other idols, and to discipline them God says Assyria is coming to conquer you. God reminds them that at one time he rescued them from slavery in Egypt, but now because of their sin that they are going back into slavery, but they're not going back to Egypt, they're going to Assyria. It's as if they are going back to Egypt, only Assyria is the new Egypt. He's painting this tragic picture of having been brought out of exile and slavery only to go back into exile and slavery again. Now Hosea is echoing the language of Moses. Moses had told Pharaoh that the nation of Israel was his firstborn son, and here as God looks back on that time, he refers to them as my son. This is Hosea eleven one again, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But notice this message doesn't end with judgment. Yes, a great judgment is coming, but so is redemption and restoration. Hosea goes on, I'm going to read you eight through eleven. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Adma? How can I treat you like Zeboim? My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not a man, the holy one in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. They shall go after the Lord, he will roar like a lion, and when he roars his children shall come trembling from the west, they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord. Now I'm not sure I understand everything Hosea is saying here, but at least one point is clear. Yes, judgment is coming, but God is not going to abandon the northern kingdom and leave them in exile forever. He's going to rescue them once again, just like he did when he called them out of Egypt. There will be a new exodus, and God will gather his people once again. He will roar like a lion, and his children will come back home. Now Hosea may be talking about the return from Babylon when that exile ended and the people returned to their homeland under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. Or Hosea could be looking farther into the future and talking about the time when the Messiah will come and fully and finally gather his people into the kingdom of heaven. I think Hosea is talking about the days of the Messiah here, when God will ultimately recogn rescue his people, but I am not really sure. But that brings us back to Matthew. Let me read Matthew again. This is chapter two, verses thirteen through fifteen. Now when they had departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt, I called my son. Hopefully you're beginning to see the connection I've tried to make. Matthew sees a picture of the Exodus in the life of the young Jesus. In the Old Testament, God communicated with the patriarch Joseph through dreams. The Old Testament Joseph protected the young nation by taking them to Egypt to survive the famine. But though Egypt started out as a place of protection, they were ultimately made slaves there, and it was not where they ultimately belonged. So God led them out of Egypt back to the promised land where they would fulfill their destiny. Likewise, in the New Testament we see another man named Joseph, and this Joseph is also a son of Abraham and a son of David, and God also communicates with him through dreams, and Joseph is protecting the young Jesus by taking him to Egypt. But Egypt is not ultimately where Jesus belongs, so God led him out of Egypt and back to the land of Israel where he would fulfill his destiny. Rather than just quoting the Exodus story, Matthew quotes from Hosea, and I think he deliberately picks Hosea to add another layer to the story, because in Hosea we see God looking back, reminding Israel of how he called them out of Egypt as his son. But in Hosea we see that they have failed in their great mission and their destiny, they have disobeyed the Lord, and so God is judging them and sending them back into slavery once again. Yet also through Hosea, God promises them a day when they will be gathered back to the land and these promises fulfilled. In the future there will be a new exodus, and this one will work. And this son of Abraham, this son of David, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who has been born, is the one who is going to bring that new exodus about. Jesus is that firstborn son who will bring Israel's sonship to fruition. In the life of Jesus, we see a son called out of Egypt back to the promised land to fulfill his destiny. But in contrast to Israel who failed, as we know from Hosea, this son will succeed. This time the Son of God will enter into the promised land, fulfill his mission such that God can bring blessing and redemption to the world through the nation of Israel. And this is the true Exodus. God is bringing his people into blessing and righteousness once and for all, and it will come about through Jesus, son of Abraham, son of David, firstborn son of God. I think Matthew is saying, look at these two pictures, the Exodus and the life of the young Jesus. They are similar for a reason, and the more we think about it, the richer that comparison becomes. The more we understand about the Old Testament and the promises that God made to Abraham and David, the richer that comparison becomes. Theologically speaking, God bringing Jesus out of Egypt is a fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham and David because they are part of the way God is keeping those promises. God brought his people out of slavery in Egypt through Moses and the Exodus, and God will bring his people out of slavery to sin through Jesus, the Messiah.andtheWord.com, and I encourage you to go there. My website has no ads whatsoever, only Bible study resources. It's all free for you to use. I don't take any advertising, I don't accept donations, but if you want to thank me, please join the mailing list, subscribe to the podcast, leave a positive rating wherever you listen to your podcast, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.