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Episode 541: In this episode, Chris and guest host Kyle dive into a lively discussion about the Bible, focusing on 2 Samuel 19. We highlight key moments in the chapter, including David's kindness to Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul. We discuss the significance of David's actions, especially considering the historical context where it was customary for a new king to eliminate any potential threats from the previous regime. David's mercy towards Mephibosheth, who is crippled and vulnerable, serves as a powerful example of grace and humility.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to the Bible Guys. That's right. My name is Kyle, Yes, and I'm Chris, and so today Jeff is out of pocket, so Kyle is joining us for this week, and so we're very excited. Yes once again to give you back. In fact, even you pointed this out to me just a moment ago. But if you're watching, you can see that it says Bible Guys with Kyle and Chris. So you made Yeah, I like it. Nice little logo. Yeah, and your little photo right yes there it is. Pretty head exactly what I've got the same haircut today is nice and high hair. In fact, let me just mentioned about my hair really quickly, because people do make make how much about my hair because it is definitely spike sticks up. There is somebody who's driving down my street. A couple of days ago. This lady stopped and I was talking to somebody who was out in the street, like a contractor was working across the street. I'm talking to him. This lady pulled up stuf backed up and said, is that Kyle? And I was like, what is going on? So I walk over there and I was like hello, and she goes, no, I thought that was you. I recognized your head from far away. I thought that was Kyle from Heritage and it was just the hair. She reckonized my head, like from the back of my head. She goes, I saw the hair and I thought that was Kyle from heritage. That's pretty good. Yeah, I guess. So I get recognized from my voice a loon, Oh yeah, absolutely, but never in the back of my hair. And I'm sure the contractor is just thinking what is going on because he's like, why is that lady calling? That's really funny, that's funny. Hey. Well, first of all, we're super excited to dive into this today. But before we get into the scripture, we have a segment and today do you know did you know Jeff and I how we introduced the segment. No, let's here, so you have to sing it, okay. Yes, okay? Where he goes today is back. All right, you have a better voice than I do, so that's all right. That's right, we'll spare the listeners. We'll go with it. This one is from Linda h So, Hi, Linda, thank you for writing in. I appreciate you very much. And this is what she says, thank you for all you guys do exclamation mark. I know that a lot of time goes and work goes into this. What is your favorite part about being a Bible Guy? Now, of course this question was probably meant for Jeff for you, No. Not meant for me, but you have definitely psychicked. You've been a guest Bible Guy for many times. So what is your favorite part about being a guest Bible Guy? Well? I enjoy being on here just because it's fun to hang out with you guys and read scripture together. And it's even even as a person who's reading and maybe you know, I know a lot of people take things away. It's also really great to be on this side of it things to be growing as well. But I'll just share as well. I've heard from so many people even recently who've talked about how it's impacted them for the better. There's a couple that I'm actually doing a wedding for this coming weekend, and we were just talking two days ago. They're both in their mid twenties, and they were talking about how they're referencing a verse that they want to use in the ceremony and they're like, oh, yeah, the Bible Guys talked about it a few months ago and we thought that's such a great verse. So it's really cool. Yeah, it's really cool this verse that I'm using in a ceremonies because they heard it more in context on a Bible guys aside. So it's so cool. It is it is about you. That's great. What do you like about being a Bible guy? You know, it's it's a I want I have a lot of things to say that are good. I'm just only pausing because what I wanted to say. Wash. It's one of those things where I'm reminded of all the good from the people, right. But like, but it's sort of like this morning when I was getting up, I was like, oh, I have a four and a half hour recording session, right. So it's I'm not saying that I'm complaining at all, but it's just it reminds me of how good it is when people give feedback. So I do appreciate the feedback a lot, because if nobody would ever give feedback, I'd be like, oh my goodness, this is a lot to work, you know what I mean. So anyway, so let's get past that, and let me just say that the best part about it is, honestly, it's when I hear stories exactly like what you just said. Right, you can get that a lot, I imagine you do. But yeah, we do, and we really do. And I bet you I have with that exaggeration, at least maybe ten to fifteen people a week that mention how much they appreciate the Bible. Guys, great, and it's really cool. You know, I was explaining this last night. But my whole goal, sorry, last night, in my small group, my whole goal of my whole life is to help people understand the Bible in a really clear and concise way, very practical, very relevant. Right, It's my whole goal in life. And so last night in our small group, we were talking about verses that are confusing, and Jesus has this pesky way of saying, you know, he has ears to hear, let him hear. Not everybody is given to understand, right, And sometimes we have to understand that, you know, we have to really press into the scripture because not everything is crystal clear. Some verses can be taken out of context, and sometimes that frustrates me because my whole goal in my life is to is to give something really really clear. Anyway, all that to say that the best part for me is when people come up and say, I never understood that, and now I understand with more clarity. That's great, and I think, man, that is that's the whole goal, right yeah. Yeah, And in a thirty five minute message on a Sunday morning, when you're covering a few verses you're trying to apply to their lives. This is totally different. This is not it's a totally different approach, but yet it's got the same outcome, right, that's what you're hoping for, the same outcome, And a thirty five minute message on a Sunday morning versus what you're seeing here. So that's really cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, hey, thank you Linda HS for writing in. And I'm sure that if Jeff were here, he would say the same thing. He'd say you say things about you know, people who come up to him and mention the Bible guys that that's really what it's all about. Yeah, so awesome. So hey, we're going to dive right into a Second Samuel nineteen, and we have skipped over a few little stories because remember we're in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament. We're going through this chronologically, of course, but more importantly than that that we're focusing on the highlights of the Old Testament, which is sort of like the milestones or the main stories, and so we're not reading, you know, everything, verse by verse, and we're skipping over just a few highlights. Here David mourns Epsolom's death. We read that, and then there's a part in there. I think we skipped over where Joev rebukes the king, David returns to Jerusalem, and then David shows mercy to SHAMAI and then and now we're reading, we're picking up where David shows kindness to Phibischev Fibiev yep. And he actually already did that, but he's showing more kindness here. So yes, all right, yeah, Second Samuel, chapter nineteen versus twenty four to go all the way to forty three in this one, all right, So here we are now Maphibischef, Saul's grandson, came down from Jerusalem to meet the king. He had not cared for his feet trimmed his beard or washed his clothes since the day the King left Jerusalem. Wow, why didn't you come with me, Maphibichaff, the king asked him. Maphibischeff replied, my Lord the King my servant, and Zebra deceived me. I told him, saddle my donkey, so I can go with the king. For as you know, I am crippled. Zeba has slandered me by saying that I refuse to come. But I know that, my Lord the King is like an angel of God, so do what you think is best. All my relatives and I could expect only death from you, my lord, but instead you have honored me by allowing me to eat at your own table. What more can I ask? You? Said? Enough, David replied, I've decided that you and Zebra will divide your land equally between you. Give him all of it, Maphibichef said, I am content just to have you safely back again, my Lord the King. So keep in mind that the person he's doing this too, if you remember from a future ten chapters prior, is actually Jonathan David's close friend. It's his son Maphibashev and and also yes, yes, yes, okay, So then next proportion. Says Barzillai of Gilead had come down from Roguelim to escort the king across the Jordan. He's very old, about eighty, and very wealthy. He was the one who had provided food for the king during his stay. And Mahonna, I'm come across with me and live in Jerusalem. The king said to Barzilai, I will take care of you there. No, he replied, I am far too old to go with the King to Jerusalem. I am eighty years old today, and I can no longer enjoy anything. Food and wine are no longer tasty, and I cannot hear the singers as they sing. I would only be a burden to my lord the King. Just go across the Jordan river with the King is all the honor I need. Then let me return again to die on my own in my own town, where my father and mother are buried. But here's your servant, my son, kim Hem. Let him go with my lord the King and receive whatever you want to give him. Good. The King agreed. Kim Him will go with me, and I will help him in any way you would like, and I'll do for you anything you want. So all the people crossed the Jordan with the king. After David had blessed Barzilai and kissed him, Barzilai returned to his own home. The king then crossed over to Gilgal, taking kim him with him. All the troops of Judah and half the troops of Israel escorted the king on the way. Let's see, and we continue on just a few more verses. Yep, it says, but all the men of Israel complained to the king. The men of Judas stole the king and didn't give us the honor of helping take you your household and all your men across the Jordan. The men of Judah replied, the king is one of our own kinsmen, why should this make you angry? We haven't eaten any of the King's food or received any special favors. But there are ten tribes in Israel. The others replied, so we have ten times as much right to the king as you do. What right do you have to treat us with such contempt? Weren't you the first to speak of bringing him back to be our king? Again? The argument continued back and forth, and the men of Judah spoke even more harshly than the men of Israel. Yeah. So one of the first things that would be helpful is to read the Note and the Life Application of Study Bible. We always promote that, and it says, although Israel is a united kingdom, it was still made up of twelve separate tribes. These tribes had officially or excuse me, had difficulty agreeing on the goals of the nation as a whole. Tribal jealousness had originally kept Israel from completely conquering the Promised Land. Read the Book of Joshua for that. And now the tribal jealousies were threatening the stability of David's reign by giving Sheba an opportunity to rebel. So so, yeah, it was just one of those things where you know, good gosh, have we ever have we ever gotten away from politics and you know, power and. Same stuff happenedands of years ago. Yeah, everybody can relate to that as soon as they read it, right. But you know what's so interesting about this is that it's not just the fact that David is showing kindness to the Phibuisheth once again. Because listen, just as a reminder to our readers, it was very customary in those days. You know, if you know David, you know he takes over a house, saw that the house rose up against David. Everybody was against him. It would have been customary for David to wipe out the entire house of Saul. Anybody related to Saul would be wiped out, because that's a claim to the throne, right, So if you're related to Saul, then technically you could start a rebellion and come back and all these different things. And so everybody who was related to Saul when there's a regime regime change, look out right, so they run, they hide everything else. And so David actually makes a promise to Saul. He's so unusued. You'll remember back when David was in the cave and he wouldn't raise his hand against Saul, and he says, God forbid that I should raise my hand against God's anointed, even though that Samuel had anointed David king. Samuel had promised David king. Saul also was also hunting David down. Saul was so distraught and so jealous and so unstable that he was, you know, trying to spear David to a wall. David was running from Saul. He had every reason to rise up and kill Saul. But not only did he not do that, but David here, long after Saul's death, is still honoring who he is as a person. David's honoring himself, David's honoring God. And David is saying, hey, when I was alive, I made a promise not to rise up and raise my hand against Saul. And and so I'm I'm gonna carry on that promise to his family. And so he shows kindness back in chapter number nine to mamphibis Eath, and so here, anyway, that's not I said all that to say, that's not what stands out to me in this chapter. What stands out to me in this chapter is Maphibiath's absolutely humble posture. So what does he say? He says, divide the land, and David's trying to give him half the land, and Mephibichef says, hey, give it all, give it all to Zebra, because to be honest with you, I'm just content with What does he say? What? More? He says, all my relatives and I could expect his only death from you, my lord, but instead you have honored me by allowing me to eat at your own table. And he says, what more can I ask? So think about that. That is a posture that all of us need to have with our heavenly Father. This is a beautiful picture of the king who has every reason to you know, smite us, right, you know, our heavenly thought is uh the perfect king of kings. Here we are, you know, at fault in our own sin. Uh. You know he has the right to uh to you know, if not smite us, at least discard us from his kingdom right and uh, and yet he shows mercy to us, and and so uh and and he's and he's giving him above and beyond. This is a picture of what God does for us. God treats us this way. And our sin, we are not worthy to be in uh communion with our perfect, sinless heavenly Father. We betray him, we let him down, We break our promises, We are unfaithful, we are inconsistent. And God gives over and above continuous love and mercy and forgiveness above and beyond what we deserve. Right and a lot of us as Christians, we feel entitled, right, we feel we feel like we put in our time, We feel like we you know, we're we're the we're important in our church, you know, we're important in our community, or maybe we're just not such bad people and we feel like we're deserving of God's blessings. In some way, we feel entitled. But yet Maphibuschev not so much. What does he say is he says? He says, what more can I ask? Yeah, Gosh, I love that You're right. It is very humble. The thing that stood out to me when I'm reading through this is David. I know you mentioned this earlier. He had every right to come back as the king after he'd been turned on, I mean, his whole story with Absolom and people turning against him. He had every right to have one of many different reactions. Right. He could have come back with vengeance. He could have come back and like you know, had retribution upon those who had done what they had done. He could have come back and hidden in shame. He could like, there's so many different outcomes to what David could have done. And then we're seeing really quickly in these two two big sections back to back, talks about his kindness to others, and it makes me think of, you know, how many of us have been betrayed, not probably to the level that David had been betrayed, and yet how it's so easy for this the outcome of betrayal to be something other than kindness. It made me think, as we're going through that and even prepping for this, I was remembering something that I actually don't share with many people. But when I was growing up my parents' side of the FAMI, or my mom's side of the family, there just was not a lot of There's a lot of hostility, a lot of anger, frustration, Like if someone got in a fight with somebody, there would just be like a huge falling out. And so I'd go years without talking to certain cousins or aunts or uncles because there was a fight going on. I never knew who was fighting with who, but I just knew that there hadn't seen my cousin in six months, there must be a fight going on. And then even when it comes to my grandparents, what ended up happening when I was in high school, my mom had gotten a fight with my grandparents, and then from my entire high school year never saw my grandparents and they only lived, you know, down the road from me. So when I hit eighteen, I was like, you know what, I'm a man. Now I can go stop by my grandparents' house and I'm gonna go talk to them and just you know, show it was. My intention was just to show love to them, see how they were doing and what's going on. So check this out. I'm eighteen years old, I got my own car, I got my own life. I'm feeling proud of myself. I drive to my grandparents, I knock on the door. My grandma comes to the door, she opens it sees me, and she didn't see me in years. I looked older and all this stuff. And then she she looked at me and I said hey, and then she yelled for her husband, my grandpa, and said hey JD. She goes, hey JD, this one's for you, and then just walked away. And then my grandpa came to the door and was like, what do you want? Like that was his response, and I was like, hey, Grandpa, it's me. And I literally spent the next like twenty or thirty minutes trying to like almost woo my grandparents over, like to seeing like, hey, this what's been going on in my life? And slowly but surely like kind of like broke down some walls. But I was like trying to like win them over. It was very weird now that I think back on that as an eighteen or when I was eighteen years old twenty years ago, but it was just a weird spot to be in. And I think about those as well as several I'm sure everybody's got those stories of feeling betrayed or feeling like confused, is there somebody's hurting you or turning from you? And I could have had many moments with certain people in my life right I could have walked away, I could have felt burned by betrayal. I could have felt dismissed. I could have been hurt. I could have been you know whatever. I mean. It happens in church so often right with other Christians, where you're like, man, I'll never get burned like that again, or I'm gonna have to have the upper hand, I'll never trust people again. And you have to really seek kindness no matter what's happened to you, no matter how difficult to be. You have to choose to like go the other way. And I've had many instances like that where I'm like, man, I just can't do what's been done to me. I have to choose kindness. Yeah that, I'm sure you have examples of that as well. Oh sure, you know you know what, being in the church world sometimes it's great. Yeah right, I mean everything that's good about church. When it's good, it's great, isn't you know? I say my favorite part of church is number one the community. When there's a true small group of friends and you have relationships that are there for you in a way that feels like family, it is absolutely the best. Another really great experience in church for me is worship, corporate worship, when you are able to worship with somebody side by side, even though you may not even know their name, you feel this bond, right, and that's only true for people in your church, in your community. That's true when you visit other countries. Isn't it like you're in Africa and you're worshiping side by side with somebody and you're like, I don't even know this person, and yet I feel like there's a common bond in Christ. Right. So the church capital c can be great, but unfortunately it's you know, the inner workings of church are managed by imperfect people, aren't we We're all imperfect people, and so being in the church gig right, you know, you know, for this being our jobs, it could be really challenging because not only do you work for people sometimes that don't necessarily behave the way that we want them to behave, you know, and that's unfortunate, uh, you know, and hopefully you know, hopefully we're not saying that about previous people, right. But but also more more, more difficult than that are the people of the church, right, because if you have a church of thousands, then all of a sudden you have, you know, some people who get in there who maybe who quite haven't matured, you know, and on the outside they look a certain way, but on the inside they've got a lot to learn. And we all do it. We all have a lot to learn. So yeah, it could be it could be a lot, It could be really a lot. But you know, to your point, you know, choosing kindness, choosing love. Gosh, there's so many great memes and quotes and reels about uh, you know, they're so they're so wise about uh, let's not spend time with people who uh, you know, treat us poorly. Let's not give them energy, Let's not give them the time of day. You know, life is too short to respond to people who are petty and they're mean, or they're you know, bitter, or they're you know, they're they're they're in the church and they and they cause the vision. Man. Life's too short to give them energy. So therefore what we do is we just think of the things that Christ challenges us with. You. We think of you know, God's love. We think of the experience of like love and forgiveness. That's what we choose because after all, you know, we want our lives to be filled with life abundant blessings. That's just what God promises to us, right, he promises us peace and joy and blessings. This is where we get it from by by choosing Christ's way, not not the world's way. Yeah, that's really good. You know, we were talking about Maphibosheth's posture and his attitude. So I got to tell a quick story and I hope to tell this from stage soon if it fits. But so I literally just got back yesterday twelve or six am is when my plane touchdown, uh from the Dominican Republic. And I was there for a long time. We were doing this survey and summit, and we were there scouting out potential partners, but we were also I was there training leaders and volunteers and it was a very long trip. It was exhausting, but it also took place directly after our five k race. So transform one is an organization for our listeners who don't know that our church has adopted as one of our global partners, and they rescue children from sex trafficking and help them and then even do prevention by feeding children and you know, addressing food and securities and giving them reasons not to go into the industry in the first place and things like this. Anyway, there was a girl that we ran into while we were there, and she was a rescue. Okay, so she's a survivor. And I may get emotional telling this story, but her name is k And when I saw her, she's just this cute little thing. You know, she's just sweet as a button. She's just her posture is like like like so sweet and innocent. It seems like right. And I can't even believe that she was a survivor of of you know, of this, of sex trafficking. But I found out a little bit of her story and I'm telling you this because of her posture Okay, So here's her story. So we actually went out to dinner with all of you know, some of our staff and on Transform one and her and we're out to this fantastic, you know, barbecue place, and come to find out, she has this really short hair and it looks like, to be honest with you, like a boy's hair, like like just that's that's what she looks like. And I was wondering why you know that she had hair like this, but of course she don't say anything. We'll come to find out she used to have this really long, beautiful hair. But she was involved with people who were involved with voodoo, and she was sort of like a nomad. She she lived in the bushes, and she lived with this of people and she was an orphan and she just sort of joined up with these people and lived in the bush and she contributed to the community by working the streets and then giving the money to the community. That's the way that they survived. And so so she wasn't pulled out of like like a pimp or you know, people who had guns, and you know that it wasn't like that at all. She was just pulled out of a community where she was expected to contribute, and this is the only way that she can contribute. So anyway, when the organization was pulling her out, apparently they got so mad at her that they took a lock of her hair and they did a view voodoo ritual calling a curse upon her. Well, she had said, she had said that she had seen the evil spirits work, and she had seen this stuff was dangerous. She knew this stuff was dangerous. So the very first thing that she requested was that she shaver had balked so that this voodoo curse would have no effect on her. And so when she got out, and this was less than a year ago, she completely had her head shaved down to be bald. It was just amazing to see the gratitude and the posture of this girl who is now on the receiving end of kindness and love and mercy. And she's going through this restoration program. And what they're doing is they're teaching her how to make her own money. And so they're teaching her how to make jewelry. Right, so she makes this beautiful jewelry out of stones that are native to the Dominican Republic. There's just this bluestone that's I only know what they're called with coral. And so what we did as a thank you for all of our volunteers back in the States is we decided to buy purchase some of her bracelets so that she can have her own money. That's great. Uh, yeah, it was really great. But her posture is it was just unbelievable how thankful she was, you know. And and it's it's this fibishev kind of attitude? Right? You know what? More that's great because yeah, this thing, when you look at it, a lot of the focus is on David's kindness, and we touched on that for sure, but you're right, it's the posture that he had approaching this gracious king, which is us on a daily basis approaching a very gracious and merciful king. Yep, that's great. Well, that story went long, So that was that's that's definitely our time. So thank you so much for tuning in and we'll see you next time on the Bibble guys,