In this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, PPJ and PR delve into the biblical definition of goodness, contrasting the actions of believers and non-believers such as Bill Gates. The discussion also addresses the theological debate on the morality of good deeds from a God-centered perspective. The episode transitions to church logistics, tackling questions about multiple church services and whether it creates multiple congregations. The hosts argue for the necessity of multiple services to accommodate growth while still maintaining the unity of the church. The episode wraps up with an exploration of Genesis 30-31, examining the moral complexities of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, and emphasizing the importance of humility in interpreting biblical narratives.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:14 Defining Goodness from a Biblical Perspective

01:54 Addressing Listener Questions

02:04 Discussion on Multiple Church Services

07:59 The Importance of Community Groups

08:17 Genesis 30-31: A Dramatic Soap Opera

08:24 Rachel and Leah's Rivalry

11:14 Jacob's Wealth and Deception

12:22 Jacob and Laban's Confrontation

13:43 Closing Prayer and Reflections

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

Hey everybody.

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Welcome back to another addition

to the daily Bible podcast.

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Good.

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Lots as good or nothing's good,

depending on how biblical you want to be.

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No one is good.

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No, not one.

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Hu humanity.

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Not good.

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Okay.

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I wasn't referring to humanity.

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Yeah.

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But there's good things that people do.

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In fact, I was talking to my sons

the other day and talking about

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the distinction between the good

that an unbeliever does versus

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the good that a believer does.

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Sure.

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Can you help elucidate

some of those things?

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Because my kids are from me, but maybe

you can talk to our audience here.

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What's the difference between a guy

like bill gates who gives lots of money?

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He's a philanthropist.

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It's tons of billions of

dollars to organizations.

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There's other people that are

philanthropists as well, who give tons

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of money away to different organizations.

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And some of those organizations are evil.

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Let's grant that.

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Yep.

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But there's others that

we'd say, oh, that's good.

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That's a good thing that they're doing

that, Building Wells and making medical

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care, accessible different people.

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So talk about the distinction

between those things.

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I think we have to go back to when Jesus

is approached by one of the lawyers who

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says to him, good teacher, and Jesus

says to him, why would you call me good?

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No one is good, except for God alone.

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Good is ultimately going

to be defined by God.

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He is the ultimate standard

of that, which is good.

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And so good is that which is done.

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Ultimately for him and for his name,

for his glory, for his honor, for

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his praise, that is why we exist.

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We exist as the first question in

the Westminster shorter catechism

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says for the glory of God.

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So that's the rub.

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That's the main difference when you

have somebody who's an unbeliever

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doing something that is good.

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We can.

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In on one sense, objective,

we say, yeah that's good.

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From a humanistic perspective.

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But as soon as we consider that, which

is good from the perspective of the

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divine or from the perspective of God.

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Then we're dealing with the problem

and that's why the profits can say

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that the good deeds visual or like

filthy rags before God, because they

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were not done for the glory of God.

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So when bill gates gives away his money

to philanthropic organizations those that

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we would classify as something good, like

building Wells or something like that.

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Yeah.

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There's a measure of objective goodness

in that, but there's also a measure

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of objective evil on that because bill

gates is doing that inherently for his

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own glory and not for the glory of God.

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That's a really helpful answer.

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Speaking of questions and answers.

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There's several that came in.

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So maybe I'll just pick

one of them to tackle.

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And if you sent a question in and we

didn't get to yours today, just know.

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We're working on it.

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We will get to it.

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So here's one that is really on

the heels of this weekend, sir.

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Sermon, you talked about

adding multiple services.

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Yup.

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And someone heard about that and they

were talking to another friend and they're

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discussing the nature of the church.

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And one prominent pastor.

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Said something to the effect of multiple

services, create multiple churches.

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Just be honest about that.

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If you're going to do it, you just have

to know you're no longer operating.

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Let's just say biblically, you're

operating to do something different

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than what the Bible prescribes.

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Can you talk to that person

who will leave nameless?

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It doesn't matter who it is just to know.

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That is a prominent figure.

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Is it true that you're creating

multiple congregations when

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you create multiple services?

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Is there anything.

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That should prevent us biblically

from doing something like that.

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Yeah.

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I think we have to start with

what is a church and a church.

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Is going to be defined by its

polities leadership and also

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what it does, its ordinances.

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It's baptism it's it's

communion within our context.

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And then the gathering of the church.

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And so that's clearly what we

have laid out for us in scripture.

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The Bible is silent when it comes to

you, how many services should you have?

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The Bible is silent when it comes to a

multi-site, even when we get into that,

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because it wasn't really a thing that

was going on in that day and they didn't

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have that technology now, believe it or

not, they didn't have that technology.

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Okay.

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They also were constrained

in their meeting spaces.

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They, these were house

churches by and large.

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And so a lot of them were meeting in.

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Largest house they could find to.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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And that's what they did.

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And they filled that up.

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And then when they needed another one.

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We don't have anything clearly laid

out for us in the new Testament

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where it says this one filled up.

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And so then they went over here.

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We know that Paul was planting churches

all over the place, wherever he went.

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But you also needed qualified

leaders and you needed to have

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a space to be able to meet.

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And so to argue, the biblical

model is one service time period.

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End of story.

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I think goes further than what the new

Testament allows us to, to conclude.

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I think that's going beyond

the pale of scripture.

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I understand the point I've been a

part of churches with multi-services.

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And yeah it's hard to feel like you're

connected to somebody when you go to,

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for example, from our sending church.

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You're part of the 5:00

PM Saturday night service.

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Somebody else is going to the

Sunday morning, 11 o'clock service.

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You're rarely going to

run into each other.

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And that makes it hard to feel

like you are part of the same

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body of Christ, except that.

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You're under the same polity

or under the same pastors.

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And you are gathering together

to observe the same ordinances

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you're gathering together.

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Do you, as the church observe baptism

and communion together, albeit maybe

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in different services but there's

one flock that's being shepherded

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by one set of pastors set of elders.

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And so as we consider the idea

of going to two services, one

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of the motivations on our end.

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Is a, is we want to reach as

many people as we possibly can.

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Now you may look at our gymnasium

right now and say we can still add

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more people to our gymnasium, even

when we hit this 200 number or whatever

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the number is that we decide when

we're going to go to two services.

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And I would say, yeah, we can.

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But the more comfortable we get with

the numbers going up it feels good

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in there when we've got a full Sunday

and the more we get used to that, the

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less urgency we're going to feel to

reach people around us for Christ.

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And so one of the things that we want

to do even maybe before we need to,

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is go to that, to service model and

it's going to feel we're going to feel

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the hurt we're going to go from man.

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This feels really good to feel full and.

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It feels like we've got a lot of momentum

and the voices are filling up the room

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and all of a sudden it's gonna feel

like we're planting all over again with

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with these two services, not having

as many people, but what that's going

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to do is remind us of the mission.

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It's going to remind us of the

urgency of what's at hand, that we

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need to reach more people for Christ.

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So that's our motivation and drive

in going to two services is not to

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say we're going to do this because of

the church down the road, does it or

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anything else, but it's going to help

us be more effective at carrying out

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the mission of reaching, teaching,

and training people in our midst.

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Yeah, don't forget to that.

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In those multiple services, they're

all hearing the same sermon.

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They're hearing slightly

different variations of that.

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But on top of that, They're going to

small groups where you're interacting

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with people about the same sermon.

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And so you might have a group where

one group goes to this service.

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One group goes to that service.

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And this family goes to that service over

there, but you could still be in a group.

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That highlights the centrality

of the sermon and the way

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that it's meant to be applied.

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At the larger level of

the body, don't forget.

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Men's and women's Bible studies.

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And there's as our church grows and

we add more ministries, you'll still

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have a great deal of cohesion from the

weekend sermon while still experiencing

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the benefits of having a larger and

varied body from different places.

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So the ministries that the church does

will still be for the whole church.

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It's not going to be like, Hey, this

is only for the nine o'clock service.

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If you're at the 11.

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Can't come.

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This is only for these guys.

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So the church is still going to by and

large, be one congregation of believers.

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Just because they go to different

service times does not negate the

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fact that they are still one body.

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And so.

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That's a big deal.

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And there are certain things that

some friends of ours are reformed.

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Brothers and sisters are going to say that

we're going to strongly disagree with.

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The end of the day.

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We're going to say, show us chapter and

verse where it says this is the necessary.

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Biblical model.

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And then the only one.

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I think that's much harder to prove.

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And even in the clip that we were sent.

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Our friend.

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I think we can call him our friend.

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I don't know if he call us his friend.

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We call him our friend.

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He never cited a verse, right?

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He never said here's what first

Timothy says, thou shalt have

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one congregation of believers.

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At one service time and did one

house alone, something like that.

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It gets full.

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It gets fuzzy.

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RO and that's the problem.

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People will look at, like the multi-site

church, you just brought that up.

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And we would probably look at that

say, we don't think that's good.

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We don't like that.

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If you're beaming in the pastor

at different locations, we

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don't think it's the best call.

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And so there's certainly edges.

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And our comfort with those edges are

going to be by and large determined by

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our local gathering of believers and by

a lot of the influences that have shaped

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us in the way that we think about that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I was just going to bring up,

I think that the broader concern that

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I would have in a church going to

multiple services is not so much Mandu.

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Do I feel as a church attender

connected to the person in another

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service, but can my pastors

effectively shepherd to services?

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Kim.

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I.

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Pastors effectively account

are given account for.

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And I talked about that this last

weekend in the sermon about how we

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are going to be held accountable for

those in our midst, Hebrews 13, 17.

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And so I think it's an imperative and

it's on the leadership of a church as

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the church grows and services, to make

sure that there's enough shepherds

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on staff there to adequately give an

account for the souls that are going

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to be showing up in those services.

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And if you're.

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At some point and that's why one of

our distinctives is we're always going

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to be working to plant more churches.

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That's a big task.

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That's a big undertaking.

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Just ask the church that just

sent us out and planted us.

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So we've got to be ready for that.

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And there's gotta be a lot in

place before we can do that.

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But there's a point at which it makes

more sense for us to do that than to say.

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Yeah, let's keep adding services.

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Th rather than to say let's send

out a group with more leadership

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and start a new church over here.

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And this is why to put a point on

this for the end of your sermon here.

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This is why we need a lay shepherds under

shepherds to help us do the work right.

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We need community group leaders to

help us facilitate that shepherding

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and to reach the body at large.

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We can't effectively shepherd

people the way that they would need.

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And this is why you should

be in a community group.

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Yup.

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Yup.

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And we need, yeah, we

need you in community.

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Yep.

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A hundred percent.

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All right, let's jump into

Genesis 30 through what are we?

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30 through 30 31, 1

just two chapters today.

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Yeah.

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Chapter 30, the first 24 verses really

unfolds like a dramatic soap opera

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taking place here as Rachel and Leah

compete with one another for honor.

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And for Jacob's affection.

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It's it's tragic in some ways here in the

way that it goes about in their quest to

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outdo one another, they ended up giving

their servants to Jacob as additional

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wives, which again is not condoned by God.

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This is not a good thing.

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And through these four women,

Jacob ends up having seven more

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sons and a daughter in this.

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And then the only remaining son to be born

at this point after verse 24 is Benjamin.

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And he's going to come

along a little bit later.

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To Rachel be her only one left to have

as, as she'll die in childbirth there.

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But it's not a great scene

in verses one through 24.

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Now, albeit God uses this because these

seven additional sons that are born,

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aren't going to make up the heads of

the, these seven more tribes that are

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going to be well, except for Joseph.

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But.

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That gets confusing later on too.

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Cause sometimes Joseph is listed among the

tribes, but the six of them at least are

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going to be more tribes that got heads of

more tribes that God uses as Jacob becomes

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Israel and Israel becomes the nation.

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Through.

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The descendants of these men.

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This is related to

another question we got.

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So I'm just gonna throw it in there.

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Yep.

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This person writes that I understand your

thoughts on God blessing Leah, because she

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was hated quote, but what about Rachel?

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She was not the one who did the

deception and yet God closed

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her womb in the beginning.

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What do we do with that?

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Yeah, look at Hannah.

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Hannah was barren as we're

going to see with Samuel.

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And so God chooses and does this

from time to time, not necessarily

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as a punishment or a judgment.

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And I think we have to be careful

about that to conclude that is

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one, one for one correlation.

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This is something that, that

God in his sovereign purview

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chooses to do from time to time.

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And yet with Hannah, he eventually

opens up her room and she gives

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birth to Samuel, and then she ends

up having additional children.

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And beyond that, and here with Rachel,

God's going to look at Rachel with

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favor and give Rachel Joseph, and then

ultimately Benjamin, although she's

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going to die in childbirth there.

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I don't know that I would go so far

as to say that Rachel's bareness

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is a sign of judgment upon her.

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It may be simply the.

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The contrast to the foil, if you

will, to the blessing given to Leah.

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So it's not that she's being

judged, but it's, it is about

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the blessing given to Leah there.

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It's a difficult season for Rachel.

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No doubt about it.

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And in a way that we, as men probably

can't relate nearly as well as some

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of the ladies listening to this

podcast can relate to the idea of the

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significance of having a child and what

that means and everything else there.

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There's a lot in there in the

way that God has created women.

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With that good desire.

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And Rachel, unfortunately at this

I didn't have that desire fulfilled

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and we see that play out in her.

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Her back and forth competition here with

Aaliyah in the beginning of this chapter.

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Not all suffering is due to sin.

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Correct.

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As we've previously

seen in the book of job.

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Some suffering is for God's glory.

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We see that even in the gospel

of John, this blindness was

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not because of some sin.

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But it was for the glory of God.

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And so we're going to trust that

similar situation is taking place here.

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Yeah.

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And though she doesn't give birth

to the, to Judah in the line of

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Christ, she gives birth to one who

is a type of Christ and Joseph who

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ends up being the one to deliver.

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The people of Israel

through his time in Egypt.

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So Rachel receives her honor, even

though not at the beginning here.

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Versus 25 to 43, then.

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Jacob continues to multiply his wealth

and prosperity and he wants to to leave.

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And there's some back and forth between

him and leave and about when the right

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time for that is Laban gives them

the charge over his flocks and says,

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Hey, you can keep all the speckled

and striped and really hear it.

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Layman's deception is matched

by Jacobs in this chapter, Laban

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attempts to hamper Jacob's wealth

by making it harder for there to be

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any speckled or spotted lambs born.

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And Jacob and turned devises this

plan to ensure that there are speckled

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and striped, that would be born and

born to the strongest in the flock.

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And it's this unique situation of

stripping these sticks and laying them

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in the feeding troughs, which I don't

know if anyone's ever done a test on

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this to see if this actually works.

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And if this is a, if there's legitimacy

here, but it worked at this time.

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Cause Jacob ended up

multiplying his flocks.

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And that's another sign of God's blessing

upon Jacob here in chapter 30, some.

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Commentaries questioned whether

or not he was engaging in some

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kind of sorcery divination.

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Attempting to anyway,

and maybe he was, yeah.

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If, so what about that?

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He'd be wrong.

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He'd be in sin.

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There's prohibition against that,

even though the law hasn't been

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recorded yet at this point in

time it's certainly something that

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would have been looked down upon.

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And that goes to show that the people

got used were not flawless, right.

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Deeply flawed people.

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Correct.

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And yet God still chose to utilize these

very people to bring us the Messiah.

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This is really cool.

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Yeah, it is.

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It is.

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One chapter 31, then we I

want to highlight the word

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stole for you in chapter 31.

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It's repeated multiple times.

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Albeit it may not appear that way

at first because you're going to

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notice that Rachel stole her father's

household gods, but there's also

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something here where we read that Jacob.

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It says Jacob.

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Th the actual translation

here should read, stole the

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heart of his of Laden there.

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Both are committing this thievery,

so to speak but Jacob is.

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Committing the thievery through

his deception, which is stealing

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the heart of Laban here.

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And so both are stealing and

that's what's happening here.

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Late.

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Laban catches up to Jacob.

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And confront some on

that saying, Hey, you.

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The word is translated, tricked

like in verse 20, but that word

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there, if you look at the Hebrew

there, it says, stole the heart.

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Look at the footnote in the

ESV, stole the heart of, and so

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Rachel steals the household gods.

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And Jacob steals the heart of Laban.

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And that's what's going on here.

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Laban confronts them.

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Yeah, it catches up there and

Rachel covers up the not she does

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cover up the gods and says, Hey she

can't get out because of certain

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circumstances that had come upon her.

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Laban gives up searching for these things.

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And Jacob pleads innocence, albeit

not really innocent because his wife

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had stolen those unbeknownst to him.

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And the two agree to part ways with

this idea of, Hey, God's going to,

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God's going to deal out justice.

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As he sees fit in the

situation he's gonna oversee.

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He's going to look.

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Over between us what's going on here

and make sure that justice has done.

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Not a great departure here

between Jacob and Laban.

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We'll pray then and wrap up this

edition of the daily Bible podcast.

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All right.

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Yeah.

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We are grateful for your word and

grateful for this time and thankful for.

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Just your kindness to us in.

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Bite of our own foolishness at times.

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Jacob's foolishness shows

up time and time again.

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We are grateful for your kindness to

us in spite of that, because we are

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not really any different than him.

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We seen her in our own ways and in commit.

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Foolish acts in our own ways.

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And yet you're gracious

to us and merciful toward.

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Towards us and we need that.

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And so help us to read.

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Accounts like this with humility.

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And not to say, look how much better

we are than some of these people in

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the Bible, but to really try to learn.

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And say, how can I avoid maybe committing

the same error, the same sin myself.

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And so give us that mindset, that

mentality we pray in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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R I'll keep, bring your Bibles and

tune in again tomorrow for another

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edition of the daily Bible podcasts.

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Bye.