ANNOUNCER: What would you say are your favorite five old Testament books? Though our hosts this week are telling us about theirs, and we’re glad you’ve joined us today here on Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society and our website is FaithAlone.org. We are wanting to let  about Grace Evangelical Theological Seminary. It is our online seminary with full scholarships available for students maintaining good academic standing, and you can earn an MDiv degree. Application and registration open now for our fall semester. Start working on it today. Get the information you need at faithalone.org/seminary. We’d love to have you study with us. 

Now with today’s discussion, here’s Bob Wilkin, along with David Renfro. 

BOB: All right, David, we’re going to try to finish our top five books, and we’ve done three each, I think, so far. I said, I like Genesis, Judges, and 2 Samuel, and you said, you like Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, right? So what are your fourth and fifth? 

DAVID: Well, let me go back just a little bit about the reason I like two wisdom literature books, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, is I love the way the Old Testament put the wisdom literature together. Job is a wisdom literature book and it handles the universal question of why do God’s people suffer. 

BOB: And that’s important in every age. 

DAVID: It’s extremely important.

BOB: It’s certainly important today. 

DAVID: Absolutely. The book of Proverbs deals with things that we can apply in our lives to make our lives wise, 

BOB: And happy. 

DAVID: Yeah. Well, see, what’s interesting is the word wisdom means skill in the Old Testament, and it was first used to describe the people that built the tabernacle, like they were master craftsmen. And so what Solomon does, which is genius, is he says, okay, we’re going to use that word, so people can learn how to be master craftsmen at life. 

BOB: I only remember one Hebrew word, but it’s chokmah, which is skillful living. Well, we translate it wisdom like in Greek, it’s sophia, but it’s basically more than that. It’s how to live skillfully.

DAVID: It’s way more than that. It’s the way to live skillfully, having the result is that your life is a masterpiece, a work of art. That’s the whole point of Proverbs and Proverbs, what I think I love about the book of Proverbs with wisdom is it deals with things that you and I can have some control over like our speech and various other things. Then you go to the book of Ecclesiastes. And how do we live a skillful masterpiece type of life in a world that we do not understand? And we cannot put together.

BOB: And it’s fleeting. It’s a fleeting life. 

DAVID: Yeah, it is. Vanity of vanities. The word means breath or vapor like a said. And yeah, in other words, the things that we cannot control, Proverbs deals with things we have some control over. Ecclesiastes is a teaching about how do we live a wonderful, beautiful life in a world that we have no control. 

BOB: I’ve never heard it put that way. Give me a magazine article 800 to 1500 words and I’d like it by the end of the month. 

It’ll be closer to 1500. I’m a little on the wordy side. I don’t know if you noticed. 

BOB: No, I have noticed. Okay. Now you still haven’t given me four and five. 

DAVID: Okay. The number four is the book of Micah. And I wrote my thesis on biblical theology of Micah. I was really big in biblical theology. I was really big in biblical theology back then. 

BOB: What is biblical theology? It’s different than systematic theology.. With systematic theology you’re picking out a theme all the way through every book of the Bible. But biblical theology is you’re looking at the teaching of a given biblical author on various subjects. 

DAVID: You let the author pick the topic.  And which theological issues are dealt with.

BOB: So you would let Micah tell you what his biblical theology was on various issues.

DAVID: Yes, like on the character of God. And I love this passage in Micah chapter 6. And, this is part of his approach to the people, like get it together. Micah 6:8, after he discussed, how people were saying, we have this holy God and He’s way too high for us to even approach. And then Micah 6:6-8 is very interesting. It says, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?” which is valuable. And then he says, “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, and thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn,” and so it goes into almost an exaggeration. In other words, what does the Lord want? If He wants me to worship Him, is He going to make me go through all of this, an incredible sacrifice? By the way, did you notice all of it is pure ritual. 

BOB: Right. Which is what people tend to focus on even today? 

DAVID: Exactly. And then the key verse that I think everybody listening ought to memorize. Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O, man,” it’s emphatic in the Hebrew. Adam, which means everybody, it’s not just males it’s everybody. “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy”, that’s the Hebrew word, chesed, lovingkindness. “And to walk humbly with your God.” 

BOB: Read that again. That’s beautiful. 

DAVID: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” 

BOB: That is beautiful. And you find the same thing with David saying “sacrifices and burnt offerings You haven’t desired but a broken and contrite heart You will not despise.” David recognized, as Micah recognized, that the key to pleasing God was having the right attitude and notice justice and righteousness. These are the things which please God. 

DAVID: Exactly. It’s a heart thing. It’s not you dragging yourself to church on Sunday morning just to see if the Lord’s okay with you, being there. 

ANNOUNCER: We will return to our program content shortly, but we’re taking this break to let  that Grace in Focus is shortly going to be transitioning to digital delivery only. We’ve appreciated this fine radio station and being part of its lineup has been a privilege indeed. But we’re going to say goodbye to this time slot and make room for another ministry right here. You can continue to listen to Grace in Focus, just pick the time of day, anytime 24/7, and find us on Spotify, Apple, and many other podcast outlets.

BOB: It’s not the rituals that please God. 

DAVID: No, it’s not. It’s what’s in that heart of yours. 

BOB: And by the way, a lot of people are drawn to orthodoxy and Catholicism because they have the incense. They have the candles. They have the icons, right? I used to go to orthodox churches and there were pictures of all these saints on the walls and things.

DAVID: You look like a saint. I’ve seen the statue of you. 

BOB: And that’s not a compliment. And they have altars, right? Yeah. They have altars and they’re able to turn the wine into blood and they’re able to turn these wafers into the body of Christ. And so a lot of people are attracted to this. 

DAVID: And they think that because they do all that, that God’s on their side, what does this say? We need to be on God’s side. 

BOB: Exactly. It’s not about sacraments. It’s about pleasing God with the right attitude.

DAVID: And wanting to please God. I mean, it’s like dealing with people justly means that you love other people. That’s what Jesus said, love one another. To love mercy, lovingkindness, that word chesed is used a lot in the book of Psalms and to walk humbly with your God means that He’s God and you’re not. And He’s not there for your satisfaction. We’re here to serve Him.

BOB: Yeah. And by the way, that brings us joy. Our skill in living is related to finding out how to do what He wants us to do. 

DAVID: Yeah. And we actually get joy at being a servant. And that’s what Micah is trying to get through to this miserable group of people that are only thinking about themselves is do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. 

BOB: Now, I think I know what your fifth favorite book is because it’s one of my five favorites. 

DAVID: It’s the Book of Judges. 

BOB: And why, would you have the same reasons I gave? 

DAVID: Well, one of them too is, believe it or not, there’s three appendices to the Book of Judges. There’s, in fact what some people say the book of Ruth is the third appendix too, because Ruth happens during the period of the judges. But there’s a story. I think it’s in 21. I’d have to look it up. And it’s one of my favorite sermons to give. And it’s called the hippie Levite. And what it is, is there’s this guy wandering around like he has nothing, like the old hippies, “I’m just wandering around man and trying to find out what’s in life.” And you heard that all the time back in the day. 

BOB: And this is a Levite wandering around?

DAVID: And this is a Levite. And he goes to this guy named Micah, appropriately enough, which means “who is like God,” which is ironic in this story. And then he, Micah, has set up his own little tabernacle, which he’s not supposed to do. And then this little, this guy is a Levite. He comes up and then Micah hires him to be the priest in his own little thing, and then the Danites, which is a horrible tribe back then, they hired him away. And he set up when the tribe of Dan went north of the sea of Galilee way back then. He set up pagan practices that plagued Israel for hundreds of years. 

BOB: This is all bad news.

DAVID: This is all bad. And you know who the hippie Levite was? Moses’ grandson. A lot of people say no, but I think it was Moses’ grandson. 

BOB: And this was your master’s thesis in Dallas Seminary? 

DAVID: No, this is a sermon I love to give. 

BOB: Oh, no, that was on Judges. 

DAVID: No, no, my master’s is on Micah. But what I was the lesson in there, in that hippie Levite is you’ve got Moses who at the end of his life was a completely faithful person. And two generations later, the grandson’s a hippie and doing, I mean, he’s a Levite, he should be in one of the Levitical cities, helping people with their worship of the Lord. 

BOB: Not setting up pagan worship. 

DAVID: Not going out there and going, Hey, man, this is really cool; he should be there serving the Lord. Instead, he’s out doing his own thing. And, but what it shows is how God’s people can stray from the practices of the Lord in just a few years. 

BOB: Even someone in professional ministry like a Levite. 

DAVID: Exactly. And to me, that’s the big lesson of that one appendix of the Book of Judges, the hippie Levite. 

BOB: Wow. That’s great. Well,  what we haven’t done yet, David, we haven’t gotten to my fourth and fifth favorite books. 

DAVID: Let me hear them. 

BOB: Well, I don’t have time right now. So I will in the last, hopefully this will be the last, part four, I think it will be of our five favorite books. 

DAVID: To be continued.

BOB: To be continued. We’ll get my last two and you can give your critique over my last two. 

DAVID: Oh, I’m looking forward to that. 

BOB: That’s right. But since you love every book in the Old Testament, I don’t think you’re going to find fault with the two I pick. But let’s all remember to keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Be our guest and subscribe to our 48-page magazine, 6 issues per year also called Grace in Focus. It’s free by emailing your name and snail mail address to GES@faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s radio@faithalone.org. That’s radio@faithalone.org. And when you do, please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible. That would be a great big help.

On our next episode: the conclusion of the favorite five Old Testament books. Join us again and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.