They Might Be Giants
256 | “Wanna Make Baseball Cards”
Slay the Giant Questions
Nephilim, Rephim, Anakim! Oh, my! For our Geektober finale, we're grabbing our nerd glasses and going on a "crypto-biblical expedition" to track down the Bible's giants. Where did the mysterious Nephilim of Genesis 6 come from? How did they lead to the "grasshopper syndrome" of Numbers 13? And how does Goliath, the final boss, tie into the Bible's ultimate story of Christ defeating the enemy? Join us for a fun dive into one of Scripture's weirdest rabbit trails (with a healthy dose of The Princess Bride).
Takeaways
The Big Idea: The Bible’s giants highlight God’s power as his people overcome colossal obstacles.
This Week's Challenge: This week, identify a "giant" in your own life — an insurmountable obstacle, a persistent sin, or an overwhelming fear and meditate on God’s power to protect you.
-
Introduction and Welcome
Ryan: this is a weird place to end but that's where I'm ending
Bryan: love that so much. I think now I just want to make baseball cards for all the giants. But Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bible Geeks podcast. This is episode 256. I'm Bryan Sheely.
Ryan: I'm Ryan joy
Bible Geektober Finale: Giants in the Bible
Bryan: And on today's episode, the final episode of Bible Geek-tober, as the Wizard of Oz said, Nephilim, Rephim, Anakim. Oh, my. The Bible is full of strange stories of giants, from the mysterious sons of God in Genesis 6 to Goliath and his oversized brother.
Ryan: those we wrap up geek tober we are grabbing our nerd glasses and our best concordances to dive into one of the Bible's weirdest rabbit trails and we'll track these colossal figures through Scripture
Bryan: Ryan, we are nerds. We're Bible nerds, but we're also nerds.
Ryan: definitely, yeah.
Bryan: And I think it's important for us to just lean into that nerdiness at the end of Geektober and talk about something that, you know, is on our minds. Because again, you sent me a text message like two days ago with a picture of Goliath on a wall in your church building, I'm guessing?
Like in a Bible classroom setting? Why are you sending me pictures of Goliath? Yeah,
Ryan: Well I knew this episode was coming up but yeah in our middle school class I'm teaching Wednesday nights but on Sunday morning evidently they had just studied about giants and about Goliath and so there's a sister here that was very artistic that made an awesome drawing that is like life-size whatever the stats are 10 feet tall or
Bryan: yeah.
Ryan: however many cubits Goliath was
Bryan: And a span. Yeah.
Ryan: yeah
Bryan: It was great. It looked great.
Ryan: yeah
Bryan: Although, of course, you know, you guys are a little deficient in the heights department with the size of your ceilings.
Ryan: yeah
Bryan: So in the picture, Goliath's head was kind of like, you know, leaned forward along the ceiling. It was cool. I can remember that for our Bible classes as well.
And it coincidentally, as I saw your picture, I walked by our Bible classes at Monta Vista and I looked down the hall and there was a Goliath standing, staring at me. And so apparently we're all studying about Goliaths and giants and things like that. So why don't we just tackle it here in our episode?
They might be giants.
Ryan: and in Geektober we've we've gone through some flyover things that we skip over sometimes but there is one giant that David one little shepherd boy defeated that we don't skip over so
Bryan: No.
Ryan: deal with Goliath but we've got some other more frequently skipped over texts that we're gonna get into
Bryan: Yeah. So before we get too deep into traveling back in time into this sort of what I'm calling a crypto biblical expedition, which is like, okay,
Ryan: zoology
Bryan: zoology. Yeah. So we're going back to these, you know, questionable characters in time. But before we do that, I think it's important for us to kind of just answer the question right off the bat.
Nerding Out: Favorite Giants from Childhood
Bryan: What is your favorite giant from a book or a movie from either your childhood or someone that you've come to really lean on in recent years?
Ryan: okay well I'm gonna give you the beginning of a quote and if you can and complete it you will know exactly who my favorite giant from childhood is
Bryan: Okay.
Ryan: stop rhyming and I mean it
Bryan: Anybody gone to peanut?
Andre.
Ryan: bride Andre the Giant
Bryan: Love
Ryan: I mean Andre the Giant generally as a wrestling fan when I was a little boy but then then when he shows up at princess bride come on that's awesome what
Bryan: it.
Ryan: you what's your favorite giant from childhood
Bryan: That's that was my answer. I there's no other answer there from there cannot be another answer. It has to be Andre the giant. He was
Ryan: yeah
Bryan: had the word the giant in his name. Like, come on.
like if they hadn't asked him to rhyme in it. I don't think I would have enjoyed Andre the giant as much but that was that's pretty solid. I love that one.
Ryan: that's awesome
Time Travelers: Exploring Biblical Giants
Bryan:
Ryan: so last night Adrian and I were looking at giant texts and connecting to
Bryan: like big big word big letter Bible.
Ryan: large print Bibles
Bryan: I got it.
Ryan: older but no we were looking at some of these texts and we found another princess bride connection because there was one of these characters that had six fingers and you know in ego Montoya you killed my prepared to die so anyway I just wanted to note while we're nerding six fingers are also part of the real biblical story and and then there's the giant so let's get into time traveling from
Bryan: So here we are in our time travelers segment thinking about how to travel back in time and we're going to do this crypto biblical expedition. As I said, we're going back in time to look for these mysterious
Genesis 6: Sons of God and Nephilim
Bryan: creatures, these people of mysterious origin and I think it's helpful for us to start from the beginning back in Genesis 6 and you know, if you could go back and really start tracing through the the boogeyman stories.
I'm just going to call them that the the children of Israel held. I'm sure that like parents told their kids about these really interesting characters, but these are the sons of God in Genesis 6 verses 1 to 4. Do you have any idea who these are because they're brought up a couple of times throughout the Bible?
Ryan: sons of God
Bryan: Yeah. Yeah. And the daughters of men by the way are also in this passage,
Ryan: yes well that's a little bit less mysterious although there are some some theories there yeah I mean in the book of Job is where it's maybe the clearest that the sons of God are angelic spiritual beings right the sons of God are coming before him before the Lord in heaven
Bryan: right?
Ryan: this the Satan Satan is one of those on there is another like a word of praise about the sons of God so the sons of God to me based on Job seems to be seems to be angels but there is a there is a theory that it could involve the descendants of Seth versus the descendants of Cain in the daughters of men and then there's also another interpretation that involves these tyrant Kings who are by demons and and we're getting into craziness already here and it didn't take long and
Bryan: No,
Ryan: so but but you know that I I would lean towards the earliest the one that all the Jews and and you know the writings we have from the time of Jesus and early Christian writing and that kind of thing viewed these sons of God in Genesis 6 the connection to Job and and other of other textual evidences lead me to that direction but I'm interested in your take do you go Seth the Sethites or another one of these interpretations what do you think
Bryan: I don't I it just feels to me very much like like you mentioned with the Job connection. It feels very angelic and I'm okay with that. Like I'm okay with whatever that means. I don't know what it means and I don't need to know what it means necessarily, but Maybe it'd be helpful just to kind of roll back here and read this passage that we're talking about in Genesis 6, maybe just one through four. The whole thing is really helpful in establishing what on Earth we're even talking about here.
The first one says when man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. I mean, of course they were and they took as their wives any that they chose. Then the Lord said my spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
Then it says in verse 4 the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them These were the mighty men who were of old the men of renown.
it almost seems to me there that this, angelic being relationship with mankind or the daughters of man are producing some kind of like super giant mighty kind of race.
I don't know like the Nephilim,
this is the tricky word here. I think in the Hebrew this means to fall.
The root of this word means to fall and so there are some, you know, views that this word actually means the fallen ones, you know, and I don't know specifically if we can take that much liberty with the meaning of that word but apparently as it says here these were mighty men who were of old men of renown.
So we know this they were they were strong, they were big, they were men of renown.
Ryan: so with the fallen ones that's where you're dealing with those first few verses we were just talking about maybe some connections to first Peter 3 verses 19 to 20 Jude verses 6 and 7 some of those kinds of things but the Septuagint has a word that just means Giants here this word Kiborim the the mighty men is also connected to them and so they're strong they're mighty they're valiant and they are Giants and so that's the origin story of the Nephilim as I interpret this this text of verse 4 and then we can follow the rabbit trail of these Nephilim or or the thread we might say because it is thematic and important it is in the biblical story and and we'll start to piece together why they're important and why they keep showing up as often enemies of the people of God and and it all begins right here in this rebellion I think from the the spiritual beings who have fallen and have opposed God and brought about through taking it's kind of a opposite
Bryan: Yes,
Ryan: what happens in Genesis 3 right
Bryan: right.
Ryan: something they want they reach out they take and now they are bringing their descendants into the world and we see here interestingly they were in the world in those days and also afterwards so in case you're confused later on whenever we see in the next few verses the flood come the the writer here wants us to understand they're gonna be around for some time
Bryan: Yeah, yeah. So these are not these are not a people that just disappear from the face of the earth necessarily.
Numbers 13: The Nephilim and the Promised Land
Bryan: They pop back up and we see them in the book of Numbers actually. So as we're sort of in this like cryptobiblical expedition we're now looking for the giants. We're searching for them and we find them in Numbers 13 and this is not an obscure verse.
We know this verse. This is when the children of Israel are standing at the edge of of the promised land and they're, you know, thinking about going in and can we make it and so they send in the 12 spies and of course we all know the story. Joshua and Caleb are the only ones who are confident enough to say yes, we can do this.
But you know, as we see their response, they see a whole bunch of giants and they see a bunch of people who it very specifically says were descendants of the Nephilim. Like, you know, it's talking about this as like, don't you remember the stories we've heard about these people and it's them and they're real afraid of them.
They say that we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes and to them it's like, well, wow, I mean, it's an interesting way of phrasing that like we're just tiny little bugs and these guys are huge.
Ryan: yeah yeah and that's that becomes the defining characteristic of their whole generation defining in the the history of Israel that seeing big people made them doubt the power of God think that you know they had this grasshopper syndrome right
Bryan: Yeah,
Ryan: that they feel like we're bugs and we've got nothing to offer and and then they wander for 40 years of course and then the next generation led by Joshua one of those two spies goes in and and conquers of these people doesn't drive them all out but conquers them and and so we see the Nephilim in verse 33 and then there's another word it says the sons of Anak
Bryan: yeah.
Ryan: or Anak who came from the Nephilim and we seemed like grasshoppers to them I don't know if this is a time to check in on a lesson for us or if we want to save those for
Bryan: Yeah,
Ryan: start I've felt like small at times and not not thought of God's bigness enough and leaned on that and so there's already we're starting to see sometimes things seem colossal as they're opposing us the obstacles you know though we don't fight Andre the giant or any bigger Giants are going to face giant challenges and so we need to continue to see what Joshua and Caleb soft from the beginning which is that our God is big enough to defeat any obstacle
Bryan: and and I have a whole lesson on Caleb here in, you know, that I think is like just super compelling how Caleb went out and saw these giants. He saw the same thing everyone else saw. I mean, of course, Joshua was with him too. But if you fast forward to Joshua 14, you actually see how he gets to essentially demand his inheritance now, which God had promised him.
And oh, by the way, it is where the where the sons of Anak actually lived. It was the Anakim's land was in Hebron. So he basically said, give me the giant land that's infested with giants, by the way. And I want that land now. After his, you know, 45 years of wandering around and waiting, he was able to say, like, I want that land.
And, you know, for me, it's like there are there are things that people are afraid of. And I have to be like Caleb in this moment. I have to be like Caleb and understanding that, like if God is on my side, I understand why you're afraid. Like, I get it. It makes sense to me, but I don't need to be controlled by that.
I don't need to be gripped by that. And that was something that Caleb definitely learned here. I mean, if you're if you're looking for applications here, sort of mid journey in our giant search, I think it's it's definitely these giants are here for a reason. And I think a lot of the reason why they're here is for us to compare our smallness with God's bigness.
You know, even when we're confronted with an enemy that appears to be too much for us to handle. So then we move on to a couple of other giants, I suppose, in the story. We've got like Og and the king of Bashan and his bed.
Deuteronomy 3: Og, King of Bashan
Bryan: You think about this this giant situation in Deuteronomy three. why are they recording this bed being so long?
Ryan: well evidently it still exists at the time that it's being written and you know you get the sense that this is one of those notes that added by an inspired you know editor that's putting something in here afterwards because it's it's like you know Moses isn't in the land he didn't cross
Bryan: No.
Ryan: but whoever is writing this seems to be saying hey go check it out now it's you know it's still in the museum this massive you know whatever 15-foot long iron bed and this is the beginning of the Iron Age
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: so like he needed a bed that was and and made of iron and the legend again not legend as in mythical but it's like imagine how the lore of these real figures would just grow in your mind
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: even the people that Joshua and Caleb and the other ten spies are talking about all of the people of Israel didn't see them and so they're left to imagine these
Bryan: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: and it
Bryan: like that game of telephone we just talked about. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: become even worse and bigger
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: larger as their shadow starts to creep over you in in your imagination and so yeah I think that's why is because it's it's starting to tell us how big the enemy was and how much God has done so that we can we can build our faith and understand how great our God is
Bryan:
Ryan: okay well again this is gonna take us into even weirder territory than Giants if we go too far into
Bryan: Bring
Ryan: will
take us off of our path but as we get into the way for instance Isaiah uses this word and refers to to the ref a.m. we see that there's a connection two people who are dead this word has to do with shades or shadows and this is where the idea that some really good scholars I like like Bruce Waltke come to the conclusion that there is a connection between these early figures in Genesis 6 and Kings that have angelic beings or fallen angels or demons and so there is this kind of shadow of the spirit world that enters and I think that's where this comes from
Bryan: I'm thinking about Deuteronomy two, verse ten. Where's like this parenthetical statement talking about the or formerly lived there a people great and many and tall as the Anakim like the Anakim. They are also counted as Refeam, but the Moabites call them Amim. So it's like, you know, they're tall. So it's the the reference to
Refeam is not actually only about them being tall, but apparently something else.
And like you're saying, maybe this demon possession or, you know, spirit possession, something is is inhabiting them somehow. It's all very fascinating, you know, but there was certainly some some understanding from the Hebrews who would have been reading this at the time about what these things meant.
And they they get what's going on, that these people are special, they're different, they're huge, and there may even be something else going on. We're not entirely sure.
Ryan: I mean that's that's pretty well said because there's things we just accept that we don't know all the things we want to and we dive into it and we study it we know the Giants were real we know that demons and angelic you know beings both good and fallen are real
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: it seems my best interpretation Genesis 6 that there is a connection there between those angelic beings and these these Giants and from there we're just kind of trying to work through some of these texts but let's get into the big the big guy
Bryan: The big guy. All right. So
Ryan: Fells
Goliath: The Ultimate Giant
Bryan: so we're moving to Goliath and there is a connection. I mean, so that we're all on the same page, there is a connection between Goliath and these giants that we've been talking about, the sons of Anak. They were they were basically wiped out from Canaan, although remnants and pockets of them did exist.
And where was one of those pockets? It was in the Gathites. And that is where we see Goliath living. And that's where he comes from. So you can imagine after having, you know, vacated them from his property, Caleb did.
Now they're sort of in these little pockets and we've got Goliath out here. I just you know, just stopping for a second.
We we talk about David as like, you know, the great giant slayer. And that's all great and fine. In that story of Caleb and
how he wipes out the giants of the land, like he's dealing with potentially lots of giants. And that's pretty amazing to me. So like credit to credit to Caleb, who was also 85 at the time when he did that.
That's pretty amazing. But back to Goliath. Lots of rabbit trails here on this little expedition.
Ryan: and we do have an episode on Joshua and
Bryan: We do.
Ryan: so
Bryan: So that'll be good.
Ryan: tied back together
Bryan: All right. So we've got Goliath here. And boy, he is. Yeah, he's the guy. And why is it so important that he's a giant in this story? Like, why is it you could he couldn't he have been anybody or like even a big army of people?
Like, why is why is that the fact that he is a giant that's so frightening to them?
Ryan: well Giants are scary I mean like imagine I mean even like like a huge I don't know mixed martial arts fighter that's you know 6'4" and 240 pounds comes to fight you
Bryan: Okay. Okay.
Ryan: would be scary
Bryan: Formidable
Ryan: yeah formidable but it like a yeah 10-foot guy and then there's there are these elements in the story of the serpent being called back in the way that his armor is described with scales and some of the language that's used it's letting us know that that this is one of the descendants of the serpent not not in a supernatural way like I'm saying that the serpent you know the Satan is possessing Goliath or anything but those who are opposing God
Bryan: is the opposer.
Ryan: yeah that are there on the there on the wrong team
Bryan: Yep.
Ryan: the the serpents team and not on the descendant of the woman's team and so you see him representing that opposes God and then he's taunting God's people and bringing shame to God's name and this is why David just can't stand it any longer I don't know that's what I see here is that's why it's it's scary and that's why it's important but maybe there's more to it what do you see
Bryan: Yeah. Well, I think his size, his sheer size is one thing. I think you hit on something earlier when you were talking about the children of Israel at the land of Canaan not seeing the giants for themselves. I don't know how familiar they are. Like how how close had they ever been to a giant up to that point?
At least? Don't know.
Ryan: yeah
Bryan: But, you know, seeing these people for the first time must have been shocking to them, I'm sure. And of course, generations have passed and things have things have elapsed since then. And I don't I don't know how many people were just familiar with a big giant walking around. But I definitely think this had grown to become lore, like real boogeyman stuff, like real
Ryan: sure
Bryan: your kids in the middle of the night, kind of sitting around the campfire stuff.
And I think that's why this really is a powerful deterrent against the children of Israel, because I feel like they've they've grown up talking about these people and now they see one face to face who is also, like you were just saying, taunting them as the adversary. That's got to be a scary situation.
Ryan: yeah so we have this massive dude we have one figure who is taunting and fighting and representing all of the the forces that oppose God and one figure steps out one who is anointed as if to say the anointed one
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: to step out
Bryan: It would be as if we said that.
Ryan: of it was I was gonna say Christos Messiach but you know what I mean
Bryan: I do. Yeah.
Ryan: I mean it's it's clearly picture before Jesus comes of what Jesus what the Christ is going to do for his people
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: going to step out and represent all of the people who defeat the great enemy that is going to represent all of the forces of darkness and with that defeat all of the people have a victory just because one little shepherd boy one good shepherd in our case steps forward and and fells the enemy and so it is it is such a archetype for the rest of the Bible story it's a center point and and kids love it we all love this story because you know it's it's the as we talk about all the time it's a David and Goliath story
Bryan: Right.
Ryan: it's the David
Bryan: It is the David and Goliath story. Yeah.
you did something in our snakes and dragons episode that I think was helpful here. And you use the word archetype, but like I think you've got an opportunity here to see Goliath as more than just a big dude.
And I think that's where you were headed there. He he represented the final boss, like he was the unbeatable pagan power that like before David shows up, an entire army of God's people are just gripped in fear about his taunting. And what an embarrassment. Like, I'm I don't know that I would have been any different in their shoes.
I don't know if standing there in that moment, you know, gripped by fear. I don't I also don't know how I would have been in the ten spies situation back in in Aynan. I would like to hope that I would have more faith. But if if the the number sheer number of people tells you anything, I don't know that I would have been any different at seeing this huge guy.
And it really did represent more than Goliath. It was clearly their own failed faith on clear display. And it was the fact that God could easily without any effort at all from, you know, this little anointed David kid over here could have easily taken care of the situation if only somebody would have trusted enough to say, hey, we know we've got this.
Like they didn't learn the lesson of Caleb and Joshua. They didn't learn any of that stuff. And now they're right back in it and just kind of confronted with the same blazing evil, like standing on clear display, telling them to throw down. And they just cower in
Lessons from Giants: Faith and Courage
Ryan: you bringing up the crowd kind of brought opened up something for me there like you think about the way a crowd can start to define a way of thinking and then if you in this case are saying no I'm gonna be the one person that's gonna step out in front and step away from the crowd and
you know well why do I need to be like the lamb sent to the slaughter boy that's an
appropriate phrase as we just late later on pick that thread up with Jesus but you know being the one that goes forward and and thinking
I mean I know I don't have a chance so I'm gonna be the one to step out and it took this you know gigantic faith pun intended of of David to say this isn't about me
this isn't about you this isn't about the crowd of us I think differently than the group because I see who God is and he steps out you know I mean you can definitely get judgmental towards the the group and then start to think maybe maybe I should check my own life and see where I am going along or where I am not stepping out in front of in front of the Giants and I could think bigger than I
Bryan: do
you think when we talked in the Elijah lesson, I thought it was really helpful in that discussion that God didn't minimize what Elijah was going through he didn't tell him, like, suck it up or, whatever. Like he didn't make make him feel bad or anything like that. I think in a story like this, the connection I'm seeing is that God is not like there's no opportunity to be like, oh, Goliath wasn't so bad.
Oh, don't be. There's no reason to be afraid. Look at him. He's just, you know, the text is like pumping him up as the most bad enemy. Right. Like, I mean, it's given the weight of his stuff and all of his equipment. And like, I mean, I think it's doing that for a reason. And it's not to say like you have no reason to be afraid.
what what we're reading here in this text is like, you've got a reason to be afraid. Yeah, you absolutely should be afraid if you're only thinking of it, physically speaking. Like if you're only seeing the person of Goliath, then you should be terrified. And that just feels like a much more biblical way of trying to teach us something than like throwing our fears under the bus and saying, I don't don't even worry about that stuff.
It's not a big deal. It's not minimizing anything, but it is absolutely highlighting that like there is a bigger power on display than the huge power you seem to see right in front of
Ryan: yeah I mean I think there is a wisdom and maybe it comes the more you get older and understand with humility her own moments of fear and weakness and
Bryan: you.
Ryan: that you start to read the Bible with a different kind of empathy and then it unlocks something for you
Bryan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: you know I mean it doesn't take anything away from right and wrong and there is there was a right way to respond to this but whenever you can put yourself in that situation and maybe connect it to moments in your life where you you needed to find that backbone to stand where nobody else was everybody was cowering you know or everybody was was saying it's not that big a deal or whatever it was you had to find that then you can see how hard it is and how much it takes and how important it is then for us to keep finding that and and so yeah that's that's helpful and I think that the the text pulls no punches in David's defeat either
Bryan: Right. Correct.
Ryan: you know there's the there's the defeat there is the stone then there's the sword coming and you know there's there's a full and utter literal decapitation going back to the know to the story of the serpent and the crushing of his head the serpents head
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: there is that storyline continues here as God And
his representative do take the victory and always will in the end
Bryan: even outside of just the story of Goliath here, obviously he lost big time. but then you go on to the like second Samuel 21 and other passages where you actually see the rest of of Goliath's relatives and these other giants being taken care of, taken down
Ryan: yeah
Bryan: David's mighty men.
So it's it's clear that this job is not over and that there's still more to do. But it is an utter defeat. I mean, you know, going along from like our our curses and laments conversation, like when God wants to enact justice and when he wants to take care of business, he takes care of it completely. And Yeah, I think that's super helpful. And, you know, this whole conversation has really been about things that I find fun and giants seem to be fun. And there's a lot of questions that we raise here that who knows what some of these things are. But it's so cool that God puts them in here on purpose.
And throughout this whole discussion, as we've been like weaving our way through searching for giants, you could not help yourself, Mr. Joy. It's like trying to make the connections to Christ. So I'm just going to let you do it here. Bring us home to Jesus here, because I think the story of David and Goliath is absolutely a parallel to some of the great things that Jesus did for us.
Ryan: well and it doesn't just bring all of the thread of the Giants together with the thread of Christ it also folds in as we started to see that that serpent and dragon theme that we started
earlier in Bible Geektober so it's all coming together and everything comes together in Christ who holds all things together but it makes me think of those texts where it talks about Jesus the conqueror or Jesus like in in Luke who takes and binds up the strong man right the strong man being
Bryan: Yeah,
Ryan: in in the text and all of these you know passages about us through Jesus being conquerors and you know we looked back at at at how we conquer the the dragon through all of this so where in this story of the Giants is there one passage or one idea that you kind of settle into to take this home to Jesus because man it is he's all over the place
Bryan: he is all over the place You know, it is easy for us, I think, to land on the story of David and Goliath. And I think that's the most appropriate one. I do, of course, go back to the story of Caleb. I think that is really helpful to understand how he saw the same thing everyone else saw. He saw through it all. And that's what David does here
David sees Goliath. He knows who he is, but he sees through it all. And isn't that exactly what Jesus did? He saw everything we saw. He experienced life exactly the way we experience it. But he wasn't fazed by the giantness of of the enemy. You know, and that that reminder for me is just a it's really helpful that I don't have to I don't have to be so stricken by fear or overcome, paralyzed by this situation that I see this giant enemy or this uncertain diagnosis or like whatever is on the future.
Again, goes back to our time travel episode. But I don't have to be so worried about what's going on because Jesus sees right through it. And if I have his eyes, I can see right through it as well. I can see in faith what God can do through all of these things. And that that is what we were talking about in our in our snakes and dragons conversation.
How, these chaotic moments, these seemingly impossible adversaries, God's got it. And I can just trust him that he's got it. And of course, Christ is making all of these things possible for us, like he's fighting for us and he is defeating the enemy, not just for himself, but of course, for us.
And he's doing that, willingly and lovingly and sacrificially for me.
Ryan: you know we talked so much about all these different of Jesus that are so admirable and I don't find myself talking about or thinking about his courage that much
Bryan: Yeah,
Ryan: what what courage it takes to defeat the giant that is the essence of the story is faith that faith enough to have courage and what courage it takes to go through the Garden of Gethsemane and go through the cross and know that on the other side the victory is is yours to
set your face like steel like Flint
Bryan: I don't think about courage as often as I should when I think about Jesus. And that is absolutely the case. You know, as a story about giants can resonate with young people, a story about courageous acts can also resonate with them. And I think it's why a lot of this discussion about giants really gets thrown into our Bible classes with our young kids.
Like I think they love it and I love it and we all love it. We love our giants. And this has been a fun conversation to have about giants and things that, boy, I'm still just trying to figure out, like, what is a ref a.m.?
Ryan: yeah we could we could just like throw word studies into this as the as the bait that wouldn't be very much fun though
Bryan: Nah,
Ryan: the fun stuff for Geektober is to spend some time thinking about the crazy heritage of Goliath and then how our king overcomes all of our giant
Bryan: it is great.
Conclusion and Challenge
Bryan: So that actually leads us pretty well into our challenge for the week.
The challenge for the week is to identify a quote unquote giant in your life. Maybe it's a real giant. Maybe you actually know a big dude who's giving you trouble. I don't know. But an insurmountable obstacle, some kind of sin that you're dealing with, some fear that you're going through. You know, instead of focusing on that as some giant insurmountable thing, meditate on the story of David and Goliath and ask yourself, how is how is God able to take care of this through his strength
Ryan: yeah and think back to the story of Caleb and Joshua that you were bringing us to and numbers 13 and the grasshopper syndrome and we have to we have to overcome that we have to see that we might be grasshoppers I mean what what are we really but with God grasshoppers can overcome any Giants right
Bryan: He sure can.
Ryan: yeah
Bryan: All right. So as we wrap this thing up, you know, we've been talking here about how the Bible is highlighting God's amazing power over people who have become these incredible obstacles to us. And I'm thinking about how in this story, we just have so much richness in the Bible to lean on. And when you go and look at these stories about these characters and creatures and all, you know, sort of a geektober wrap up for me is just there are so many things in the Bible that are there for a reason and they're there for you to chew on.
And I just really appreciate in these discussions how how helpful it has been to look at some weird stuff and to consider it with you and just ask ourselves questions we may not ask ourselves very often. And I think that's always a good maybe rabbit trail, a diversion in a Bible study. You don't want to do this stuff all the time.
I don't want to become like the expert in, you know, the unseen realm or anything like that. Like, you know, we need to apply these things to our lives. I need to. But it is interesting to kind of take some deep dives into some of these super nerdy subjects. So it's been fun talking about big people.
Ryan: yeah we'll get back to you know the the fundamentals these are those are important things and we've got lots of those kinds of episodes about prayer and joy and that kind of thing but you know even when we take these rabbit trails where do we end up we end up back at Jesus we end up at faith we end up at fundamentals because that's it is all there to support the one story and yeah as we wrap up October I I see you know we've talked about how even last week how scribes are like coders and we've gotten into details and knowing the number of all these things and maybe this is a pretty nerdy weird place to end but I was thinking about the stats for these Giants and how they're there for a reason you know
Bryan: yes,
Ryan: love stats
Bryan: we do.
Ryan: I know how many my favorite player has has scored and you know we think of how the greats of baseball have you know had this many how many home runs
Bryan: Yep.
Ryan: Aaron
had and we love statistics because it is a factual testament to the greatness the bigness how unique someone or something is and so God has recorded for us these statistics about a giant iron bed and a and a super heavy spearhead
and a super tall guy from gath know these details so that we can see even in these facts God sees these things as nothing I
mean think about the stats about the the size of our planet the distance to our Sun the distance you know think about the greatness of God and all of these stats seem very small but in our imagination and our fears and our anxieties that we've been talking about this season can loom very large and so whatever the stats are that seem to oppose you the number of the majority that opposes God the size of you know whatever it is God is greater and God can take down our giant so like you know stats this is a weird place to end but that's where I'm ending
Bryan: love that so much. I think now I just want to make baseball cards for all the giants.
Wrap Up and Next Episode Preview
Bryan: But all right, everyone, thank you so much for bearing with us here in our Bible Geektober. We're done now. We're going to put this one to bed and we'll be back maybe for another Geektober next year. We'll see.
Ryan: yeah let us know what you thought
Bryan: Yeah, it's been nerdy, but we're getting back into some practical stuff here in the next conversation.
In our next episode, actually, I mean, we've just danced around it all over the place. We're talking about Joshua and Caleb. And we're going to have Joshua and Caleb face off in the next conversation, and I'm excited about that. I preached a lesson on Caleb. Ryan preached a lesson on Joshua. And we're going to fight next episode.
So thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in to the Bible Geeks podcast. You can find us on our website at biblegeeks.fm. You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player or at biblegeeks.fm. And you can leave us a note there on our website. You can search for all of our resources we have available.
And, you know, if you want to rate us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your shows, we would love that. And until next episode, everyone, may the Lord bless you and keep you.
Ryan: shalom