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Wisdom-Trek / Creating a LegacyWelcome to Day 1301 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomMastering the Bible – Holy Ground and Sacrifices – Worldview Wednesday

Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1301 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is important to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, it is required that you also have a proper understanding of God and His Word. Our focus for the next several months on Worldview Wednesday is Mastering the Bible, through a series of brief insights. These insights are extracted from a book of the same title from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars, Dr. Micheal S. Heiser. This book is a collection of insights designed to help you understand the Bible better. When we let the Bible be what it is, we can understand it as the original readers did, and as its writers intended. Each week we will explore two insights.

Mastering The Bible – Holy Ground and Sacrifices Insight Twenty-Nine: Biblical Writers Took the Concept of Holy Ground Seriously.To the ancient Israelite, the world was a perilous place. Not only did most people live a subsistence lifestyle, where daily bread was a literal concern, but they were surrounded by hostile supernatural forces. God’s choice of Israel was a blessing, but it came on the heels of the terrible judgment at the Tower of Babel, where all the other nations were allotted to the dominion of lesser gods as we looked at in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 in a previous week. At that point it Israel was alone against the world.

This worldview operated in tandem with an idea fundamental to biblical theology: the holiness of God. Last week we discussed how if something was set aside for God was considered holy; therefore, the things associated with him were holy or had to be made holy. Wherever the presence of God was to be found, that place was by definition holy ground. The most obvious example is the territory encompassed by the tabernacle and, later, the temple. Only priests—people who had been made holy that is, set apart or “sanctified” by ritual acts, were allowed on that holy ground.

The concept was actually broader. While the Israelites journeyed to the promised land, “holy ground” was also equated with the entire camp of Israel since the ark located within the Holy of Holies was at the center of the camp (Numbers 2—3). This is why, in the Day of Atonement ceremony, the goat that bore the sins of the nation was driven out of the camp (Leviticus 16). Sin has no place on holy ground.

Once the Israelites settled in the promised land—God’s domain—the entire land was considered holy ground. Everywhere outside Israel was unholy.

Some odd episodes in the Old Testament are understandable in light of this worldview. In 2 Kings 5, we read the story of Naaman, the Syrian captain who had leprosy. Once miraculously healed. Naaman asked the prophet, Elisha, if he could load his mule with dirt to take home with him. The request seems ridiculous, but isn’t. Naaman recognized that Yahweh of Israel was the true God, so Naaman wanted to take some holy ground back with him to Syria, which was ruled by another god, Rimmon. This is found in 2 Kings 5:15-18 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kings+5%3A15-18&version=NLT) , Then Naaman and his entire party went back to find the man of God. They stood before him, and Naaman said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So...