Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S1 || Zechariah's Timeless Messages || Introduction to Zechariah || Session 1 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Unlock the prophetic mysteries of Zechariah as we journey through ancient history and unravel its hidden messages about the Messiah. Join us in examining the profound teachings of this minor prophet whose words resonate with significance despite the book's brevity. We set the stage with the historical backdrop of the Jewish people's return from Babylonian captivity, delving into the division of the Jewish kingdom and the pivotal moments that shaped their destiny. Our exploration is not just about recounting history; it's about understanding the enduring impact of Zechariah's prophecies and their relevance today. Through each chapter, we aim to uncover timeless lessons on faithfulness and God's assurance. Join us on this enlightening journey and gain a new perspective on God's unfolding plan.
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name is Glenn and I'm here with Steve. We have a ministry where we go verse by verse, sometimes phrase by phrase, through the Word of God. In a little bit about our ministry, we offer teaching materials to help churches to teach the Word of God. That's one of our primary missions is not only to help you learn the Word of God but to help you spread it. Look at our website, reasoningthroughthebiblecom. On there you'll find audio and video resources. You'll find print materials that you can download, and all of that is in an effort to help churches around the globe to teach the Word of God very carefully and exegetically. Today we are starting the book of Zechariah. Steve really excited to start this book. We've probably done more prep for this book than we have most of any of the books we've done so far, simply because it is very different and we wanted to be sure and get it right. To explain it all. We tried to explore different views and I think it's going to be a very exciting book.
Speaker 2:I know it's going to be an exciting book. I had somebody ask me today how did you choose to do Zechariah? And I said well, I don't know, we got to get to it at some point. We just thought now is a good time to do it.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons I'm excited to do Zechariah is because it's very prophetic. It's one of the Old Testament. What's called the minor prophets and the minor prophets are called minor not because of their teaching is any less important. In fact, the teaching is quite important. It's just the books are shorter. Zechariah is 14 chapters compared to, such as Isaiah, 66 chapters, the minor prophets. The books are just a little shorter, but boy are they powerful, especially Zechariah compared to many of the Old Testament prophets. It's very clear If you really just look at what it's saying. There is not a whole lot of confusion about what the text is saying. Now, as we'll get to towards the end of today's session, there's some disagreements amongst different Christian teachers about when these things would occur, disagreements amongst different Christian teachers about when these things would occur but for the most part the book is quite clear, quite plain, and it gets to some extremely important things about the Messiah. Some of the prophets are minor prophets, but boy are they sure power-punched.
Speaker 1:Now the person of Zechariah. Let's start with that. Who is this person? Now, the person of Zechariah. Let's start with that. Who is this person? Zechariah? There were 28 people in the Bible named Zechariah. This particular prophet was a major part because he gets mentioned in the New Testament. The book of Zechariah is quoted in the New Testament as much, or possibly even more, than some of the other longer books. Am I right, steve you?
Speaker 2:are right. It sounds like what you're saying is that in the 4th, 5th and 6th century BC that Zechariah was a popular baby name to name people's children.
Speaker 1:It would seem that way, there's many people named Zechariah. There was a Jewish commentary called the Targum. The Targum would give an overview, a summary, of the Old Testament text and add some context and explanatory notes. The Targums tell us that Zechariah was a priest and a prophet that was slain in the sanctuary. This aligns with what was alluded to in the Gospels, because in Matthew 23-35, jesus says that Zechariah was slain between the altar and the temple. We have here the Zechariah that Jesus spoke of, as we would seem to be most probably this Zechariah, and he was indeed giving a message that didn't want to be heard, as many of the Old Testament prophets did, but he was then slain by the Jewish people for the message he gave. So if the prophet was slain for this, then probably something we should pay attention to, because of its importance.
Speaker 2:This is a time frame of whenever they're coming out of the Babylonian captivity. He's also in conjunction with the prophet Haggai and also Nehemiah at that time frame. Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Esther this is all in the time frame of them just coming out of the Babylonian captivity and rebuilding the temple and also rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Probably best to give a bit of an overview of Old Testament history and where Zechariah fits. The Jewish nation, of course, was started back under King Saul and King David, under King Saul and King David and even prior to that, with Abraham. But the time of the kings started under Saul and David and there was a series of kings, most of which were bad, a few of which were good. God told them and sent many prophets to them saying return to me, return to me and follow my ways, because many of the kings were in rebellion. Then the country split. There was a northern kingdom of Israel and a southern kingdom of Judah. The 12 tribes had split into these two countries that had two sets of kings. Again, god's sending prophets to them to try to get them to listen. Over time they did not. In fact, it got worse and worse, with increasing immorality. They adopted the horrible pagan practices of the Canaanites around them, to the point where God sent in judgment. He sent in Syria in 722 BC that conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and took those people away captive. Later, in 586 BC, Babylon comes in with God's providence, and takes over the southern kingdom, including Judah and Jerusalem, and took them away to Babylon. We're going to hear Babylon as we go through Zechariah because, as you mentioned Haggai and Zechariah, they are at the end of the time of the 70 years of captivity and God is now allowing them to return to the land.
Speaker 1:In 538 BC, king Cyrus issues a decree that the Jews can return to the land they had come back and started to build a second temple. Remember the first temple, the Temple of Solomon, had been destroyed when the Babylonians came in. Now, here it is, decades later, they're starting to rebuild the temple. They lay the foundation and they had to stop. Time goes on still, and both Ezra and Haggai and Zechariah come in and encourage spiritual renewal and encourage construction of the temple, so that during the time of Zechariah, the temple had been renewed, construction to where it was indeed finally completed in what is called the second temple period. In what is called the second temple period, zechariah fits in this time period where some people had started to come back to Jerusalem and Judea from Babylon, but they were discouraged, they were not really focused on God. God is sending his message through Zechariah to encourage his people into godliness.
Speaker 2:We've gone through a study of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a timeframe after the temple is rebuilt, but the walls of Jerusalem haven't been rebuilt. We encourage our listeners to go and listen to our study on Nehemiah. There is a decree there from Artaxerxes, which is a successive Persian king, from Cyrus, for Nehemiah to go back and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. In Nehemiah we saw the conflict that came up with Sanballat and Tobiah to stop Nehemiah several times. Nehemiah was just staying on target to finish the wall. We get a flavor of what type of opposition that they were getting from. Nehemiah was just staying on target to finish the wall. We get a flavor of what type of opposition that they were getting from Nehemiah and also through the book of Ezra.
Speaker 1:The timing and the dating. Actually, in Zechariah, chapter 1, verse 1, gives us a date the eighth month of the second year of Darius. That corresponds to November of 520 BC as two months after Haggai. We can compare Haggai 1.1 and Haggai 2.10. And again giving comparisons to this, king Darius tells us when this was. Zechariah started in 520 BC, at least the first part of Zechariah. The second part was a few years later. We know that from Zechariah 7-1. And that's how we can fit this very accurately into Jewish history.
Speaker 1:For those students out there in our audience that really want to come to terms with the dating of these things, I could recommend what is probably the definitive book on the dating of these Old Testament times. It's called the Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings by Edwin Thiel. That book, the Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, goes through all of the datings and all of the Old Testament and tells us how these things are dated. He goes through all of the prophets in the Old Testament and goes through why the years are the way they are and corresponds it to secular history. If you really want to fit all these things in, then get that book. But with the encouragement of Ezra, haggai, zechariah, the Jews finally finished building the temple in 515 BC. That's the period where Zechariah comes in. The people are discouraged. They've been beat down by 70 years of captivity by the pagan Babylonians. Now God is encouraging them to return to the land and to return to him in godliness.
Speaker 2:You mentioned the Messiah that's spoken of here and Zechariah many times spoken of here. In Zechariah many times, messiah just means the anointed one. This is what has been encouraged among the people that there was going to be a restored nation of Israel, because during this time they're under occupation from the Persians. They had been under occupation from the Babylonians. Now they're under occupation from the Persians. When I say occupation the Babylonians, now they're under occupation from the Persians. When I say occupation, they're a province of Persia, they're going to be a province of Greece. Whenever they come in, they're going to be a province of the Romans and that's where they are whenever we see the opening of the New Testament from the Gospels and they never really come back to a point where they have a king like they did before their captivity.
Speaker 2:You rightfully pointed out most of the kings that they had were not really good kings for them and they went through that divided kingdom part. In the prophets, psalms and other places they're spoken of this Messiah or the anointed one spoken of, this Messiah or the Anointed One. He was going to be a priest and a king that was also going to sit on the Davidic throne in a restored nation of Israel. That's why Zechariah is referred to in the Gospels so much. That's the expectation that we see the people having as their history progresses, from this point forward, of this restored kingdom where they're free, they're on their own and they're able to be a nation on their own and free, with God dwelling with them, with their Messiah over the Davidic throne.
Speaker 1:People, ask the question why study Zechariah? You mentioned Steve. Somebody asked you that this morning. Why study Zechariah? You mentioned Steve, somebody asked you that this morning. Why study Zechariah? Well, you just mentioned one of the answers, which was it's mentioned and quoted many times in the Gospels and the New Testament. If it's going to be quoted as much as some of the longer books, then there's probably something here that we need to understand the context around these New Testament quotes. Again, it's very prophetic, very focused on the Messiah, very focused on what has to happen to return to God. There's some end times things in here as well.
Speaker 1:Very interesting book, very descriptive book. There's a bit of an outline I guess we could give at this point. The first part of the book gives a series of visions that Zechariah saw. Depending on how you count them. Some people split some of the visions into two, some of them combine them, but there's either eight or ten visions in the first six or so chapters.
Speaker 1:Then the second part of the book changes the flavor and tone quite a bit into more of a traditional prophetic message. There's four messages on fasting, repentance, restoration and rejoicing. Then after that, the final couple of chapters gives two prophetic revelations about the king, the last part of Zechariah. If you just look up Zechariah, most of the time you'll see people talking about the last chapter or two, which talks about the king that gets rejected. The Messiah as king comes and gets rejected, and then the king returns, the second coming of Christ. That's what's in Zechariah. There's a series of visions and then a series of prophetic messages and it colonates with these wonderful, wonderful chapters about Christ coming prophetic messages and it colonates with these wonderful, wonderful chapters about Christ coming the first time and the second time. Steve, I really can't wait to get to the end of Zechariah because I'd almost rather start at the end and work backwards, because the last part talks about the Lord Jesus and it's so clear and so wonderful that I really can't wait to get to the end of the book.
Speaker 2:Glenn, you mentioned that there are some end times things that are talked about in here. Maybe we can talk just a little bit in this introduction on how we approach the scripture in general. I think the theological term for that is the hermeneutics. Can you give our listeners a description of how we approach looking into and studying these scriptures?
Speaker 1:Glenn? Yes, I'd like to, because I think we should do this. Probably a good time as any to talk about it now. We will touch on it more specifically as we go through the book. But if you look at Zechariah, there's a story of a vision of a woman in a basket that gets covered by a lead cover and angels grab the basket and fly off with it. There's visions of horses with chariots running over the earth, and it talks about these things.
Speaker 1:Different Christians over the centuries and still today look at this and interpret it different ways. How do we interpret it? Well, one of the ways that we approach things is what is the plain meaning of the language? In any language, english included, there's things that should be taken literally and there's things that should be taken figuratively. There's idioms, like when I was a kid, my mother used to say you're driving me up the wall. Well, that's not literal, it just means you're frustrating me. So there's things like that. When do we take language as literal and when do we take language as figurative?
Speaker 1:Well, I think there's been some misunderstandings and some criticisms around how to interpret language. We take language in the normal use of the word. By that I mean there's people that have criticized what's been called wooden literality or you're being too woodenly literal. Well, I don't think that's a fair accusation, simply because I don't know of anybody that would take all of these things and say that they're completely literal, but we take it in the plain meaning of the language. I think it would help if we look at, for example, zechariah 1.19 says this Zechariah is talking to an angel and in 119 he says this I said to the angel who was speaking with me, what are these? And he answered me these are the horns which have scattered Judah, israel and Jerusalem. Well, how should we interpret that? Well, the horn, it's not a literal horn. The reason we know it's not a literal horn because it says these horns have scattered Israel and, plus two verses later, it says the horns of the nations.
Speaker 1:If we just look at the sentence in the context, we know that the word horn is used figuratively for a king or a leader of a nation. That aligns with what we see both in the context here and in the context over in Daniel. It talks about horns and also other places. However, it also in that same sentence these are the horns which have scattered Judah, israel and Jerusalem. Well, we have three other words there Judah, israel, jerusalem.
Speaker 1:What's the plain meaning? The plain meaning of Jerusalem means Jerusalem and the plain meaning is Israel is Israel? What we can't do in any text, not just here. But we can't bring in some sort of presupposition about what Israel really means and impose that on the sentence and make it mean something else.
Speaker 1:The plain meaning of the sentence in the context of one of the reasons we went through the history a minute ago was that Israel as a nation and Judah as a nation had been taken captive, literally and physically, and taken away to Assyria and Babylon. So when it says here that these horns have scattered Judah, jerusalem and Judea into the other countries, that's very plain, very literal. We don't look at that and say, well, it's some sort of symbolic meaning about salvation in the church. The text in the context doesn't allow that. It's talking about nations that have gone in and scattered the Jewish people out of Jerusalem. That's how we interpret this. When we get to these passages at the end, where it talks about the Messiah putting his feet on Mount of Olives and the mountain splitting in two over in chapter 14, we have to take that in the plain meaning of the language and not use it in some fantastic interpretive way that bends and shapes the text to mean something very different than what it just says.
Speaker 2:Let me also add that the horns being used symbolically of nations it's not just here. You mentioned that, it's also used over in Daniel and other parts of Scripture. I also like to point out that you have God speaking, Yahweh speaking through the prophets to the people in roughly around the 500 BC era. How do you have someone describing to people of that era something that's going to take place at least 25 centuries later in time? Nations, their names change, technology changes increases, weapons of war change. The symbology of horns as the example that we're using, meaning nations, is a generic way to describe the nations that are being impacted in that particular text that we're reading in any part of Scripture. Symbology is not bad, but we need to understand when it is used and interpreted properly, as it's associated with the different things and activities that are going on.
Speaker 1:When we look to the question of how to interpret this. I think we could explain this just a little further To give some context for some of our readers. There's different approaches to end times and different approaches to the church age past and present and future. One of the ways of looking at the scriptures is called premillennial. Premillennial just means that there's going to be a literal millennium coming in the future. We're before that Pre-millennial. Another one is amillennial. Ah means without, so without a literal, physical millennium.
Speaker 1:The premillennialist tends to focus a lot on future things and future millennium. The amillennialist tends to focus a lot on today and they look at passages and they say well, this is symbolic of the current Christian life in the church through Jesus Christ. There's also a view that tends to focus on the past, saying that many of the things in the scriptures happened to the Jewish nation in the first century, and they interpret vast sections of the Scripture, both New and Old Testament, as having been completed in the first century in the past. There's also post-millennialists that look forward to many of these things being culminated when Christ returns. We said at the beginning we had done a lot of homework, as much homework as we had done on any of the books trying to get ready for this, and I really did I spent a fair amount of time saying, okay, if I look at these views, which one is best of interpreting the sections? And, my friends, there's just too many things that lead us towards the premillennial view.
Speaker 2:Glenn, you used the term millennial. I just want to pause you here just a second before you go further. When you say millennial, you're talking really about a kingdom. We get the millennial timeframe from Revelation 20. Don't really want to go into that right now. I just want for our listeners that when you say premill or premillennial, or premillennial, amillennial, it's a view of an actual restored kingdom of Israel, a physical kingdom where Jesus Christ is going to reign from Jerusalem. So I just wanted to insert that here before you go on, correct?
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 1:For example, in preparing for this, one of the teachers that I had encountered took the book of Zechariah, and the first part of Zechariah we mentioned has all these fantastic visions a woman in a basket and chariots going over the earth and things like this. It's a very different style than the second half. The second half is more of a prophet giving a message to people. Half Second half is more of a prophet giving a message to people. One Bible teacher that I encountered said well, the first half has these visions that are figurative, as this teacher taught. The second half has to all be figurative too, or it was written by somebody completely different than Zechariah and kludged on to the end by some later editor. I just look at that and throw up my hands and say, my goodness, how could you get any meaning out of the rest of the Bible with that type of approach? For example, in Daniel, the first part of Daniel has the three friends of Daniel not bowing down to a statue, and the second part of Daniel has Daniel with a vision of a statue that is symbolic of nations. Well, if we take the symbolic vision of a statue and apply it to the first, are we to then conclude that there was no literal three friends and there was no literal refusing to bow down, in which case the entire first six chapters of Daniel we can't take as the plain meaning of the language. Did he not really refuse the food? Did they not really bow down to a real physical statue? That was the whole point of the first half of the book. We really can't have any kind of consistent method of interpretation if you don't take the plain meaning of the text in the paragraphs and the sentences as they come to us. We would then just hold that, yes, there's some symbolism, but it's very obviously a symbol of something real. We can't just mold the text as a lump of clay to make it shape like we want it to be. Therefore, what we've got is some very clear teachings. If we just take the plain meanings of the text, as we've alluded to so far, the themes of the book we would hold to be this God will come and deliver his people. That's one. God delivers his people in the immediate times, out of Babylon and Assyria, but that message also applies to all times. The message from God is he is capable of delivering his people. He's going to deliver them out of Babylon, but he can also deliver us when need be, or his people of Israel when need be. Another theme is that God has power over the entire world. God has the power to move nations around. He has the power to fix things. He has the power, as we're going to see in the first parts of the book. There can be relative peace on the earth, but he has the power to bring his people back to Jerusalem. He raised up Babylon. He's going to take Babylon down. God has the power to do this.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, he's going to judge the wicked People. May think we've gotten away with things because God hasn't come down and done anything just yet, but the message of Zechariah is that he will judge the wicked. He used the wicked Babylon to judge his wicked people from Israel, but in the end he judged the wicked Babylonians as well. Steve, we in the church if we have any wickedness in us, we won't get away with it. God will come along and deal with it. The themes of the book. If we have any wickedness in us, we won't get away with it. God will come along and deal with it. The themes of the book as I see it. God's going to deliver his people. God has power over the entire world to do with the world as he sees fit. God's going to judge the wicked when the Messiah returns.
Speaker 2:With all of these themes. What runs through it is God keeping his covenantal promises to the nation of Israel that he made with them, related to the land, related to them being a great nation and related to that there was going to be a blessing that was going to come from them, that was going to bless all the nations of the world. As we look at not only this book but the other books in the Old Testament and even the New Testament, that theme of God keeping his promises, if he doesn't keep his promises that he's made to the people of Israel, then how can we be assured that he's going to keep his covenantal promises to us of eternal life?
Speaker 1:With that, we can't wait to get into the meat of the book of Zechariah. Be back with us next time. We're going to dive right in chapter 1, verse 1, and go through chapter by chapter, verse by verse. Through this wonderful book. I think you're going to find some really important gold nuggets, as we go along.
Speaker 2:It seems like we say this with every book, but this is going to be a great book. Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
