Bible Fiber

This week we are parsing Ezekiel 18, the prophet’s extended theological sermon on individual responsibility and divine justice. We can divide Ezekiel’s message into two themes. First, individuals will not face judgment for the sins committed by their ancestors, nor will God credit them for the righteousness of their ancestors (18:1-20). Second, God judges everyone based on their current faith and...

This week we are pausing our study of Ezekiel to talk to my friend Derek Gilbert who was recently on a solidarity mission to Israel.  Derek has been in the world of broadcasting for decades. He is producer and host of the web radio programs A View from the Bunker and P.I.D. Radio. He also co-hosts Unraveling Revelation with his wife Sharon Gilbert. They are both part of the SkyWatchTV team. We met...

As an innovative prophet, Ezekiel never ran out of teaching methods, whether it was a mime, public shaving, small scale enactment of a siege, judgement speech, or a twisted fairytale. In Chapter 17, God commanded Ezekiel to compose a riddle (17:1). The riddle was supposed to expose the treachery of King Zedekiah, a favorite subject of his condemnations. He had already performed an elaborate charad...

Welcome to Bible Fiber and thank you to Dan and Charlene Selvage for sponsoring this special episode! We are taking a break today from our Ezekiel deep dive to catch up with my friend Brian Sanders who returned from Israel two weeks ago.  Brian is the president and CEO of All for Zion ministry based in Dallas, TX. He is also the director and producer of a film series called Why Stand With Israel....

This week we are studying Ezekiel 16:44-63, the last third of the longest oracle in the book. Ezekiel replaced the story of the generous king and his adulterous queen with new characters and a different plotline. In the marriage metaphor, Yahweh adopted Jerusalem as an infant and betrothed her when she matured. Ezekiel’s follow-on allegory inspected other branches of Jerusalem’s family tree. Ezeki...

This week we are studying Ezekiel 16, the longest chapter in the book by far. Ezekiel’s extended allegory is 63 verses, which makes this one chapter longer than the books of Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Malachi, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai. Because of this, we will divide Ezekiel 16 into two parts. This week, we focus on the initial 43 verses, which are reflective. In the next episode, we will study...

This week we are studying Ezekiel 15.  For the first fourteen chapters, Ezekiel’s divine dispatches included overpowering visions and bizarre sign-acts. In Chapter 15, he switched his method of communicating, choosing instead to reinforce the message through a series of six parables and metaphors (Ezek. 15-19). The other worldly theme of a throne chariot motored by winged and wheeled composite cre...

Welcome to Bible Fiber! We are taking a break today from our Ezekiel deep dive to catch another archaeologist before he sets off for a summer expedition in Israel. Today’s guest is Chris McKinny. Chris has his PhD from Bar Ilan University in Israel. His dissertation focused on the historical geography and archaeology of the town lists of Judah and Benjamin in the book of Joshua. If you have never...

Hello Bible Fiber listeners. Today we are doing something new that will become a monthly feature. Bible Fiber is starting up interviews with Bible scholars, archaeologists, and historians as part of a series we are calling Bible Fiber BFFs. Our first guest is someone who I have pretty regular interaction with as he is the provost of the seminary I attend, The Bible Seminar in Katy, Texas. Dr. Stri...

Our sponsor of today’s episode is Jim Werner who has kindly dedicated his sponsorship to my family. As many of you know we are a military family and like lots of other military families this month, we found out we have orders to move again which means there has been some tears mixed with silver linings. So thank you Jim! You probably did not even know how timely your dedicated sponsorship message...

This week we are studying Ezekiel 13. At the end of Chapter 12, last week, we discovered Ezekiel had resisters among his peers in Tel Abib. They rejected him as a doomsayer and doubted if his prophecies would materialize (12:28). In the next two chapters, we discover Ezekiel was not only up against cynics dismissive of his prophecies. He also faced counterfeit prophets who actively contradicted hi...

In last week’s episode, Ezekiel offered encouragement and comfort to the exiles, who worried that they were excluded from God’s plans for the nation of Israel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel identified them as the prophesied remnant. To help them chart a fresh course, God promised to gift them a new heart made of flesh (11:19). Instead of rejoicing over the good news, Chapter 12 reveals that a contingent o...

This week we are studying Ezekiel 11, the concluding sequence in Ezekiel’s multi-part vision, and his last message before the glory of the Lord departed Jerusalem. So far, the prophet has taken a tour of the temple’s abominations, observed a squad of executioners on a killing spree, and watched the man in linen drop fiery coals on Jerusalem. The last episode ended with the Lord mounting his throne...

In Ezekiel’s vision of the departing presence, the glory of the Lord was represented by a cloud. God’s glory coming in the form of a cloud would have been familiar to Ezekiel and his audience. In the early days of Israel’s wilderness wandering, the Israelites were comforted by the divine cloud as it settled atop the tabernacle and filled the tent with the divine glory (Ex. 40:34). Throughout those...

This week we were going to go over Ezekiel 10, the next chapter in our Ezekiel study. Ezekiel 10 is one of the lowest lows in the entire book because it records when God’s glory exited the Jerusalem temple. But that did not seem like the right message two days before Resurrection Sunday. I still regret doing a podcast on the Philistines five days before Christmas. So, we are going to pause Ezekiel...

Ezekiel watched as God summoned six executioners forward to take their places in the temple courtyard. The executioners each wielded a weapon for slaughter (9:2). Initially, Ezekiel referred to them as “guards,” but their task was not to protect the temple city. Although he also referred to them as “men,” they behaved more like angelic assistants than regular mortals. They only purposed to do God’...

This week we are studying Ezekiel 8, the prophet’s second visionary experience. Ezekiel had been living in exile for five years without any updates about the situation in Jerusalem. One day, toward the end of his 430-day stint of lying on his side, he envisioned a messenger of God, fiery like gleaming amber, picking him up by his hair and supernaturally transporting him to Jerusalem. Out of all th...

This week we are studying Ezekiel 7. On last week’s episode, our prophet-in-exile addressed the mountains of Israel from the plains of Babylon. In the two episodes before that, Ezekiel spoke to the city of Jerusalem. This week, he expands his message to all “the land of Israel” in a highly evocative sermon (7:1).  We are only seven chapters into Ezekiel, but the message is starting to feel like th...

This week we are reading Ezekiel 6. In his previous demonstrations, Ezekiel centered his actions and oracles around his Jerusalem city model. After that drama, God instructed the prophet to turn and address a new audience, the mountains of Israel. God said, “Set your face towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them and say: You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God” (6:2...

This week we are reading Ezekiel 5, a continuation of the prophet’s bizarre series of sign-acts. The Lord commanded Ezekiel to get a sharp sword, instead of a barber’s razor, and shave his head and beard (5:1). The laws of Leviticus forbid priests from making bald spots on their head or shaving off the edges of their beards (Lev. 21:5). Yet, as a priest, Ezekiel did not protest this defiling perfo...

Prophetic sign-acts pop up frequently in the Major and Minor Prophets. They were real-life dramatizations that represented divine messages. I think of them as prophetic versions of immersive theater with object lessons. Knowing humans are visual, auditory, and tactile learners, God used all three communication methods to shake the covenant people out of their spiritual apathy. Elijah, Elisha, Hose...

Today we are studying the rest of Chapter 3. The section opens with the spirt of God once again lifting Ezekiel up to his feet after he had fallen prostrate at the sight of Yahweh’s glory (3:11). As the Spirit transported him to the colony of exiles in Tel Abib, Ezekiel heard the commotion of the living creatures’ wings and the rumbling of the chariot wheels (3:11-12). When Ezekiel had faced the t...

Last week, we studied Ezekiel 1, the prophet’s first inaugural vision, which provided an intense peak at God’s heavenly throne chariot. The experience overwhelmed Ezekiel so much that he collapsed prostrate on the ground, which is where we find him in today’s episode when God verbally commissioned Ezekiel (2:1–3:11).  Although Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all included the narratives of their divine...

If you have ever dipped your toe in Ezekiel’s waters, you know why the book can feel unapproachable: the quirky symbolic gestures, the bizarre visions, complex allegories, and harsh oracles. However, Ezekiel has also carved out a permanent place in the imagination of every Bible reader with his vision of God’s throne-chariot, the valley of dry bones, and the apocalyptic battles with Gog from the l...

The Edomites are unique in our miniseries because much of what we know about them is from the Bible. Although archaeologists have excavated ancient Edom, they have found few inscriptions or epigraphic evidence shedding light on the religion, language, or government of the Edomites. Yet, the Bible pays more attention to the Edomites than any other ancient people group. The Bible presents their orig...