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- [Jon] So if you lived in ancient Bible times,
odds are you lived under the authority of a king.
- [Tim] And many of these kings claimed
that they were gods,
and they would even call themselves the image of god.
- [Jon] Meaning they had authority
to tell people what to do, order things to be made.
- [Tim] Yeah, they got to define good and evil.
And these kings would often make statues of themselves,
which in Hebrew were called tselem,
often translated as "idol" or "image."
- [Jon] But for Israel,
they didn't view their kings as the god.
In fact, they were never supposed
to even make images of God.
- [Tim] It's exactly right.
And that was really unique for that time and culture.
This is rooted, first of all, in Israel's belief
that you can't reduce the creator God
down to any one thing in creation.
But there's another reason.
People aren't to make images of God
because God has already made images of himself.
- [Jon] When did he do that?
- [Tim] Well, let's go to page one of the Bible,
and the first person we meet there is God.
He's the one with authority over all creation.
He speaks and creation obeys,
and he defines what is good and not good.
In other words, he alone is king.
But then surprisingly, as the pinnacle
of all of God's creative work, he makes humans
and he calls all of them the image of God.
- [Jon] Wait, so he gives
all humans the authority to rule?
- [Tim] Exactly, that's what he goes on to say.
He tells the humans to subdue the Earth and to rule it.
And so this task that once belonged only to elite kings
is here in the Bible the task of every human being.
This was a revolutionary statement in its day
because all humans are being called to rule
and to participate in the human project.
- [Jon] So what does this mean?
I mean, how are we all supposed to rule?
- [Tim] So the picture we get
in Genesis is gardening.
- [Jon] Gardening?
- [Tim] Yes, gardening.
So they rule the Earth by cultivating it,
by harnessing all of the Earth's raw potential
and then making something more and new out of it.
- [Jon] So growing food for each other.
- [Tim] Yes, but that also includes
growing families then which become neighborhoods
and then they create communities where people are gonna work
and take care of each other and build businesses
and cities that will expand to new places and so on.
- [Jon] So ruling is really the day-to-day acts
of our work and creativity.
- [Tim] Yes, we take the world somewhere.
This is humanity's divine and sacred task.
- [Jon] Yeah, and this all sounds really nice,
and humans have designed some pretty great things,
but just as often we create things
that cause a lot of suffering and a lot of injustice,
so maybe we shouldn't actually be ruling.
- [Tim] Yeah, so the Bible addresses this.
In Genesis, what happens is that God gives humans a choice
about how they're going to rule.
So are they gonna use their authority
for the benefit of others which is God's definition of good,
or are they going to turn away and define good and evil
for themselves and use their authority for self advantage?
- [Jon] And in the story they choose
to define good and evil on their own terms.
- [Tim] And so this is the Bible's depiction
of the human condition.
So sometimes we pull off amazingly good stuff,
but just as often, despite our best intentions,
we act selfishly and we create evil in the world.
- [Jon] And so we're stuck
as mediocre rulers making a mess of things.
- [Tim] But that's not the end of the story.
So the Bible goes on and it makes this claim
that all of this was resolved when God bound himself
to humanity through Jesus and he showed us
what it looks like to truly rule as a human.
- [Jon] So what does it look like?
- [Tim] Well, Jesus ruled by serving
and by seeking the best for others,
by putting himself underneath them
and loving not just his friends but also his enemies.
- [Jon] And that's not a typical way to rule.
- [Tim] And not only that,
Jesus confronted the consequences of all of the evil
and the death that we have created
by our messed up ways of ruling,
and he takes it, I mean, he lets it kill him.
And so when the New Testament writers looked back
to Jesus' resurrection, they see a whole new future
opening up for all humanity.
- [Jon] Jesus is a new way to be human.
- [Tim] Yeah, that's why they called Jesus
the image of God or the new human.
And not only that, they also believe that Jesus' divine life
and power is now available to heal
and to transform us to become our life and power.
- [Jon] And this sounds really nice,
but what does it really look like?
- [Tim] So practically, the apostle Paul
said it looks like people being filled
by Jesus' own presence and Spirit,
filled with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness
and goodness and integrity and gentleness and self control.
He says this is the new humanity that God wants
to create in us so that we become people
in whom God's image is being restored,
people who will move the human project forward.
And that's actually how the story of the Bible ends.
It's a renewed world where God is on his throne
and his servants are all around him,
but they're the ones ruling over this new world,
taking it into new uncharted territory
with Jesus as their healer and their guide.
(gentle music)
- [Jon] Thanks for watching this channel.
We do this because we believe the Bible
is one unified narrative that leads to Jesus
and has profound wisdom for the modern world.
- [Tim] So we're making different video series,
some that walk people through the design
and message of books of the Bible
or whole sections of the Bible.
- [Jon] Yeah, we also do a series that take one biblical theme
and trace that through the whole narrative arc of the Bible,
kinda like the one you just watched,
and we have a lot more series coming up
that we have planned.
- [Tim] The BibleProject is possible because of your support.
So if some people give one time gifts,
and there's a growing number of monthly supporters as well,
and we're all behind this.
We wanna make these videos free
and available to anyone anywhere.
- [Jon] Yeah, so you can join us, be a part of this,
go to jointhebibleproject.com, you can give there.
There's also downloadable stuff like full res videos,
study guides, posters, it's all for free.
and it's all because of your guys' support,
so thanks a lot.
- [Tim] Yeah, thank you guys.