(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

Hey, you're listening to Cut For Time, a podcast from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. My name is Claire Kingsley. And I'm Dan Breitwieser. 

Each week, one of us will sit down with the person who gave Sunday's sermon to discuss their message. Cut For Time is a look behind the scenes of sermon preparation, and they'll share with us a few things that we didn't hear from the sermon on Sunday. Thanks for listening.

Hey guys, Claire here. Right before we jump into our conversation with Nick, I did receive a question that came through shortly after we recorded. And so I'm going to just mention that, and then we'll get into our conversation.

So the question that came in was, the obvious Cut For Time question is, did the plunger trick work? In a household with four children, I found it to be an essential tool. But being a germaphobe, I would carefully sterilize the sink afterwards and eventually purchased an extra plunger dedicated to the kitchen and bathroom sinks. That pro tip might save some marriages. 

And Nick replied, yes, it did work. And we did exactly what you did. We now own a kitchen plunger, which is just a toilet plunger, and it is not allowed to go in the toilets. 

So for everyone wondering, so glad we could clear that up. And here's my conversation with Nick. All right. 

Hey, Nick, welcome back to Cut For Time. Thanks for having me. Um, well, you are in an office and not on a farm right now. 

Sometimes I'm wondering, like, what's the split? Because I know that you do, like, wear a lot of hats. Yeah. Uh, it's majority in this office, unfortunately. 

Although I would love for it to be majority out on the farm. Especially on a day like today. It's Monday, so it's beautiful.

Um, but you do spend a lot of time on the farm, which made this sermon today or on Sunday, uh, feel like a great fit for you. Yeah. I had a little bit of, uh, background knowledge that made some of it fit a little bit easier for, or examples easier for me to come, come up with, you know, low memory. 

Yeah. Perfect. Well, we'll get into that in a second, but before we do, just for context, why don't you summarize your sermon from Sunday just before we dig in? Sure. 

So it was on the, uh, dietary loss from Leviticus, uh, 11, and then, uh, the descending texts as we've been calling them, it's just a really brief restatement, um, from the end of chapter 20 and summary is first off, what are we even doing still studying this? And what was the point to begin with? And the point of these laws to begin with, I proposed as a, an object lesson to try and help Israel, uh, remember and realize constantly in the daily mundane things of their lives that they've been separated. So they should live separately. Uh, I spent a little bit of time unpacking clean and unclean, the idea that unclean is not sinful. 

Uh, and I think that's really key. That's going to be very, a very important, um, sort of foundational truth as we go through the next three weeks together as a church, um, next week, leprosy a week after that, we'll just say a lot of bodily function stuff. Uh, and, and you can get the wrong idea. 

If you think that being unclean, it means that you've sinned or that in some way, you know, you've, you've done something wrong. It's not that it has to do with. And so this is what I kind of a central point of the sermon was, um, a reflection of God's good created order. 

So something being in a state that reminds us that reflects the original good created order that's clean or things that are just that happen now in life, animals that now exist in nature, things that happen to us, things that we have to deal with, like burying a dead relative, but that those things are a reminder. They're a pointer to the curse in one way or another, they're considered unclean and are not, you know, they're not designed to be in God's presence. So this was getting into cut for time. 

One of the things about being cut for time, I didn't get into the tabernacle architecture and the fact that the tabernacle is arranged to mimic Eden. So going into the tabernacle is in a very literal way. It's heading back in toward Eden. 

Well, these things that occurred from the curse, they can't be brought back into Eden. And then, so with that idea, we, um, we then, uh, came back around to, well, but, but we eat bacon today, right? So we're still not following these dietary laws today. How do we have cultural distinctives that define us as Christians? And I chose intentionally not to make a list because I think that would have been a real bad plan. 

Um, but instead just challenge our hearts and myself included. I, I tend to think that rules should not exist for me anyways. Like I somehow am the exception to rules. 

And why is that? Why is it that I, and all of us, I think a lot of Christians can relate with this. We don't want there to be a list of rules and I get that on one sense. Um, but why are we so averse to, to living out any kind of standard? So that was where I ended. 

Um, that's a summary. Yeah. Okay. 

So we had a text in question last week. Could you talk about how chapters 26 and 27 fit into the chiastic structure of Leviticus? Yeah, I'm glad somebody caught this. Um, we probably should have been more explicit about it rather than just hope nobody noticed, but someone noticed, uh, we've laid out a chiastic structure that ends at the end of chapter 25. 

Well, there's 27 chapters in the book and the short answer is they don't fit inside the structure. Um, 26 makes some, some sense. So the way that the structure is all laid out and centering in on the day of atonement in chapter 16 and everything chiastically or, you know, pairing and concentric rings out from there, it sort of ends at the end of 25. 

Um, 26 is a very typical, uh, addendum or, you know, like appendix put onto the end. It is the blessings and curses. This goes on with any kind of, uh, suzerain vassal treaty, which is a model for how these, this covenant between God and his people existed. 

And they're always capped on the end with blessings and curses. Look, you, you obey this and it'll go well for you. And if you don't, it won't. 

Uh, we see that at the end of Deuteronomy as well. Um, so the blessings and curses, uh, being an addendum to the end makes sense. And then you get to 27 and it is, it deals with vows and how you value items that have been pledged to in service to the tabernacle. 

So I guess there, there's one big component to this whole structure that, uh, we've made an intentional decision not to really talk about from the pulpit, not as though it's a secret, but as it just doesn't really preach. And if it's not going to be beneficial to proclaiming the gospel, then why, but the topic is this it's the topic of later editing. It's the question of, well, when did Moses's words come into this structure? In other words, did, when we say this is Moses and we affirm that, that we're reading the words of Moses, did Moses write it down in this order? Or, and what a lot of scholars today would suggest is that it was actually later edited or organized into this format of Moses's words for the benefit of understanding it and reading it in this way. 

Um, and I should, I'll just pause a little bit of sort of text criticism and apologetics there, but the text in Leviticus there, there are, um, there's something called JEPD. There's a documentary hypothesis. These are liberal ideas that are not sound biblical exegesis. 

And they, they refute the, um, authorship, Mosaic authorship of Leviticus. And I, and those have been pretty easily disproven for one Leviticus is clearly very ancient content. So source material is, is obviously talking about living a nomadic lifestyle where like the temple isn't even mentioned. 

It's all talking about a tabernacle, a tent, the location of Jerusalem. So it, it just does not follow that the, the source material of this was very late. It's very ancient. 

Um, and it's likely Moses says that's what we affirm, but we know that, for example, the Psalms were organized later, you know? Um, so who and when that took place, we're not certain could have been post-exilic, uh, for the benefit of the reading of people to understand the covenant that they had broken. And what was really insignificant in that covenant, all that aside chapter 27, chapter 26 fits what I don't know. And this is, should this is where I should have started. 

I don't exactly know. I don't know if any of us do it's possible that, that because you're dealing with sacred words and you didn't know where to fit it in the con in your structure, but you ain't going to cut it. Right. 

It's so, so that's one possible understanding of it. It also just could be that it didn't fit in the structure or, or it was, um, you know, added as an appendix outside of the overall structure that clearly points in toward the day of atonement and makes that significant. So ancient source, um, possibly, probably, I would say from my opinion, probably later edited into its current structure and the vows that are, are conceived of there in chapter 27 or, you know, described and outlined, it just didn't fit anywhere else in the structure, but these are Moses's words.

This is part of God's laws and commands for his people. And so they weren't just going to be like, well, it doesn't fit the structure I came up with. So why don't we just cut it and lose it to eternity? No, they put it into the scroll. 

They just put it in at the end. Okay. Thank you. 

Yeah. Um, all right. So I also just want, we touched on it at the beginning, but I'd love to know how much from your farming background or versus how much research did you need to do to put this sermon together when it comes to like how animals behave and things about pigs and other things, like how much did you actually just know already that maybe somebody else preaching this text wouldn't have no idea where to start? Well, I would say that the main point came from commentaries. 

Um, I had to learn from Mary Douglas is who I quoted, um, on the, the purpose of this clean and unclean distinction coming from the created order. I didn't know that prior to the research I was doing for the sermon series. And matter of fact, I probably would have aligned more with the idea that I ended up sort of refuting or downplaying in my sermon, a more of a rational, well, of course, you know, you can get parasites from this. 

So that's why God's called them unclean. I would have fallen more in that camp. And, but I became really persuaded once I understood and read Mary Douglas's argument about the created order fitting into their kind. 

Uh, however, what I will say because of my background, it immediately, it clicked way faster and all the examples of how that made sense just immediately fell into place once I saw it, but they're not, they're not so, uh, I don't know. So dependent on a, on a agricultural knowledge that people don't get. I mean, if you've watched the Lion King, you've got the circle of life, right? The, the idea of, of a symbiotic relationship with the grass, um, the destructiveness of pigs, maybe you wouldn't know, but I mean, holy cow, you, you cannot pin up a pig on a dirt lot and expect to still see grass 10 days later. 

I mean, they just destroy it all. It's crazy. Okay. 

That's great. Thank you. I love that. 

Uh, then you had this text to preach from it actually, it made a lot of sense, but I would have never made those, some of those connections on my own. So it was really helpful to hear. So Nick, what did you have to cut from your sermon this Sunday? Um, two things, uh, having to do with just, well, one having to do with a word, which is really cool. 

And I'm still debating on whether I should have cut it. Uh, and the other was a caveat that just would have made things murky and unclear. Um, as I was talking it through with Kendra, she was like, Hey, locusts swarm on the earth and they're a clean food. 

Uh, so I had made the point that in Genesis one, there was nothing created that swarmed on the earth and things that swarm on the earth are unclean for that reason. But as you look at locusts in the old Testament, the only times that they swarm, that is a disordered form for them. They're not, they don't naturally do that. 

And so it actually reads most of the time, like God is causing that to happen as a judgment, but that's not their, that's, that's not their normal way of existing. Um, so it's such a trivial sort of like caveat that I was like, this was going to be a distraction. No reason to cut that for, or no reason to include that. 

The other one though, separated. I have separated you. Well, if you're familiar with Genesis, he begins by separating the waters. 

He separates day from night. He separates saltwater from freshwater. So separation is a key verb, and this is the same word. 

It's a key divine act of creation. What God did with Israel then was a new creation act. I have separated you, kind of like going back to creation. 

I'm restarting and I'm making a good, clean, holy, well-designed, well-ordered people group amid the chaos that exists in this world. And so the things that would remind you or could represent what's outside of that good creation than are unclean. So that word separated, I could have spent some time on that and, um, talked about the, the act of creating new, um, which is a key theme in the Old Testament. 

Yeah. Well, that sounds, that reminds me of some things in the New Testament as well as being set apart. And so could you talk to more, talk to us more about that? Yeah. 

Um, I mean, Peter also talks about us being a holy nation. So set apart. Um, I think it's second Corinthians, maybe chapter five, that if you're in Christ, you're a new creation, right? And then revelation, the whole story arc ends with the new heavens and the new earth. 

So this, this idea of there being, um, a second or a redo, a mulligan on the creative creation act, if you will, that man screwed up to begin with. And God comes back and he's like, I'm going to fix it. I'm going to make a creation good. 

Like it was to begin with, I'm going to do it through a family at first. And then, um, that's Abraham's family then through a nation, Israel. Um, yeah. 

And then finally through the church, but this, this new creation, uh, which is in view when, when Moses is using the word separated, which is the same words that were used to describe God's initial creation acts. That's, that's a theme throughout all of the scripture. All right. 

So part of your application, uh, that you referred to was just, um, how do we feel about being set apart? Like we don't have some of these same rules and dietary restrictions, but we still have some cultural distinctives. We should be different. And if you had given us a list of things, which you said you weren't going to, but if you would have, um, we might've been offended, been offended by that because we like our freedom and we like being, we don't like being told that we can and cannot do.

So what can we learn from the new Testament of what we are called to do? And then when we feel that offensive and like, uh, taking offense to it, how do we proceed? Yeah. So one of the things that did end up getting cut for time is the fact that I said, I wasn't going to get on stage and give a list, but the new Testament does a couple of different times, you know, there's the Jerusalem council and they all got together and they agreed. And they wrote a letter that said, Hey, you know, avoid foods that have been strangled. 

I think. And, uh, those that have been sacrificed to idols, uh, elsewhere, then Paul says to a different audience and a different time, actually, if it's been sacrificed for an idol, that doesn't matter unless somebody's conscience is pricked by And so here's the short version. There is no longer one uniform and all, um, cultures and places and settings rule set that, that is, that defines what it means to look distinct and Holy.

And so the hard part then becomes discerning what is set apart, what's going to be unique for you in your setting. So, um, a couple of examples. So professionally, um, like we were talking about at the beginning, I wish I was spending more of my time on the farm, but I spend a lot of my time in the office here. 

And, uh, as we'll get into actually in the coming weeks in the sermons, justice dealing, how you deal with people, how you treat people in the business world, um, in a way that actually is self-sacrificial to a degree, um, to create, uh, opportunity, um, and just fairness, uh, can be Holy because it is incredibly unique to work, to work in that way, to, to have that outlook, to be willing to take a loss when you don't have to, or because if you played the game in the right way, you wouldn't, um, but that's going to unjustly injure somebody else. So making those decisions on your own is, is Holy, uh, but to, but in other settings that, that, that doesn't fit at all. And it doesn't really help. 

Right. Um, so I would think like there are areas or settings where the language that we choose to use the vocabulary that we're going to use, even if it comes down to cuss words or not cuss words, which change in ebb and flow over time, you know, my mom wouldn't let me say cred when I was a kid. Um, but how we speak of one another, whether we're willing to constantly engage in words that tear people down, gossip, uh, criticism, open criticism. 

Um, these are all just ways that our behavior can mark us as different. And we have to do the work of figuring out who we need to be and how we need to represent Christ, where we've been placed. And I think that maps on very well with what, uh, why we see different forms of different iterations of a list, if you will, on the new Testament.

Would you say that, um, if the people we interact with on a daily basis, like our neighbors or our coworkers have no idea that we are Christian, then we're not doing it. Right. Um, I think that all generalities are false, but generally that's a, that's a really good barometer, right? If you look exactly like everyone else around you. 

And I, and I think then going back to the heart diagnostic, that's your goal, right? If it's uncomfortable to think that they're going to know you're different, then that's where God wants to work on your heart. And those are the idols that he wants to help you tear down. Uh, and he will reveal those things as you are capable. 

We don't, we don't always have to be looking for those, like what, you know, what all are all the things that I need to now purify and make Holy the Holy spirit. He knows where your growth edges are. And, and like the things that he was working on in me 20 years ago, he's hopefully knock on wood, right. 

He's done working on those now, but man, now we're just digging into deeper things and harder things and things that get more meaningful. So be sensitive to those things. But I would, I definitely would say, yeah, if your heart is in a place where, and I don't want to look weird or different.

Um, so I'm gonna, I'm going to join in on the course joking. I'm gonna, uh, you know, use whatever substance, right. Um, yeah, maybe, maybe you should be more comfortable looking different. 

Thanks. So to close, um, you are preaching next weekend. And so I was wondering if you would do us a favor and just remind us what should we carry from the last few weeks, or even just this past Sunday into the study of scripture this coming Sunday, and what would be helpful to hold on to as we prepare to hear your message? Yeah. 

So, so last week again, was about being set apart and being different in, in the most mundane things like food. But we, we read texts that talked about not living after the customs of the people around them, the corruption that existed in the nations around them. And so it's only going to get deeper and deeper. 

And I can maybe say darker and darker over the next two weeks, this coming week, uh, we're going to be talking about justice. So the title of the sermon is disorder and the camp, um, just beyond the mundane. Now we're getting into the real nitty gritty, how the interpersonal relationships, how, how inner workings of society are going to look different, uh, or Israel. 

And then in two weeks, Jeff will be preaching on, um, it's called, we titled it disorder in the tent, um, which is inside the family tent in the, in the home, um, in the marriage really. So, um, just remembering that being set apart doesn't end with living out some nice, neat set of cultural distinctives, uh, not drinking, dancing or chewing or going with girls who do. Um, but it is harder than that. 

And it impacts, uh, deep aspects of life that are, are, um, are where it really hits the road where the rubber really hits the road. Okay. Sounds good. 

Thank you, Nick. Thanks for your time today. No problem.

Thank you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of cut for time. If you wish to submit questions to our pastors following Sunday's sermon, you can email them to podcast at faithchurchindy.com or text them into our faith church texting number, and we'll do our best to cover them in next week's episode. 

If this conversation blessed you in any way, we encourage you to share it with others. We'll be back again next week.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)