It's really fun to do, and a lot of the time the questions some of our listeners have are the same ones I have. It is encouraging to see so many eager to learn more about the united story of the Bible.
Top Podcast Episodes
UNDERSTAND THE LAW JUSTICE Q+R CHARACTERS IN THE BIBLE YOU ARE A SOUL WHAT IS THE BIBLICAL VISION OF JUSTICE. NEPHES/SIEL Q+R THE JEWISH EXILE: HOW IT MADE THE BIBLE ACTS EP1: THE STARTUP OF CHRISTIANITY HOW TO READ THE BIBLE INTRO WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE DIE.
The Exile video introduces how the concept of home evolves
Atmosphere of Exile
House is represented by "the gold world." The color palette consists of gold and yellow. The most striking scenes in the video are when the blue world and the gold world intersect.
Our Way of the Exile video explores the inner turmoil of
Characters in Way of the Exile
To give the characters more depth in Path of Exile, we put in extra time to fine-tune each character's posture and movement. As we started working on this video, we knew we would be representing different cultures and even different time periods. We wanted the cultures to be recognized quickly, so that each culture has a unique body shape and clothing design.
In Tim Mackie’s office there are bookshelves to the ceiling, a desk which is usually covered in notes and dictionaries, and whiteboards
PATTERNS OF EXILE
Tim Mackie's office has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a desk usually covered with notes and dictionaries, and whiteboards. With each iteration of the cycle, different readers will identify with different characters. But when you are in an "exile" season of your life and long for home, those same prophetic books become a source of hope.
If you find yourself in a moment in your life that feels like coming home, you may be more drawn to the stories of Jacob or Ezra and Nehemiah, which focus on moments of life.
Exile in Genesis
So the book of Genesis is a whole series of exile stories, leading up to an exile in Egypt. And because of all this, we can see that in the bigger picture, the Israelites' exodus from Egypt is also a return from exile; it's a homecoming story. And then once the people finally get to the land of Canaan (and it's also a complicated series of exiles), the pattern plays itself out again.
The Israelite Cycle
Exile in the New Testament
And the finality of the Kingdom, the restoration of Eden and Jerusalem, this is what Jesus announced and brought into reality. One important thing Tim pointed out is that in all of the "return" stories (of Abraham, Jacob, or Ezra-Nehemiah), the place they return to is never the former full glory of home. But at the end of the Bible's macro story, the goal is to finally experience all that Eden and the New Jerusalem stand for.
But if you think about it, Eden and the new Jerusalem are different places.
The Evolution of Return
Once mankind has done something, however foolish and sinful, God undertakes to work within that orbit. It's not the only way, but that's where humanity went, and so now God will work within the framework of growing and redeeming this city. It will be a disaster, but God is working in the monarchy of Israel, despite knowing the destruction it will bring.
The monarchy and the city bring only doom to the story, but imagine what a redeemed, Eden-like version might look like. This suggests that each season of human history and of our own lives fits into some culmination that God has in view. So what we hope for is not to return to infancy or to the Garden of Eden.
Why Exile?
For Abraham, God pronounced judgment on Egypt to bring him home, and so it happens in Exodus when Pharaoh drives the Israelites away because of the plagues. When David returns home to Jerusalem, it is because of the loss of his son Absalom. This is the creativity of the biblical narrative where none of these exile narratives are the same.
And the claim of this biblical story is that the return from exile began with the coming of Jesus and has yet to be fulfilled in full restoration. So at this moment, we followers of Jesus are like Daniel, living in Babylon and striving to be faithful in light of the hope of our return home. This is similar to the way the prophets consistently use childbirth as a key metaphor for this waiting and hopeful expectation.
The anticipation of the event is often as formative as the event itself, and that is what the Christian life is really about, living in the now and not yet of our return to the full glory of the new Jerusalem.
The Translations Before the Storm
In our winter issue of The Quarterly, Donald
As we've expanded into other places, we've encountered roadblocks, some amusing, some terrifying, and they often put our work into revealing perspective. In Europe we are blessed by the work of a German team who continue to faithfully produce their versions of our videos and release them on a regular basis. As we look forward to the next year in localization, we know we'll see a lot of translated videos on YouTube between now and next summer.
We'll also continue to identify the languages we want to support and track them. We are improving our verification processes and engaging new partners to help us with our growing pains. We will also apply lessons learned to help us speed up our processes and more quickly identify teams to help.
And I'm looking forward to going over some interesting analysis from the numbers people that will tell us where our current audiences are and where we're growing them.
Josh is one of the animators at TBP,
Josh Espasandin
One of the reasons he loves working at TBP is that the story of the Bible is the one that has influenced him the most. There were also some particles in the air to show depth and wind movement, and he was working on that animation as well. It will be a bit more restless, but it will emphasize the expressions and body language of the characters a bit more.
He said a lot of time is spent on planning and roughing out concepts. The hardest part of the job is probably trying to deliver work that the rest of the team can understand and buy into and that is consistent with what everyone else is doing. This means that many people want to know more about the Bible and really appreciate the art that we create.
OPPOSITE: ABEDNEGO ANIMATION FRAME FROM ROUTE OF EXILE TOP AND BELOW: JOSHI WORKING AT HIS DESK ON CHARACTER DESIGN FOR ROUTE OF EXILE.
However, these events didn’t occur in a
Jerusalem Has Fallen
Despair & Hope
God is faithful to his promises, those that come in the form of blessings and those that come in the form of punishment and exile. The king who came between these two, Manasseh, took Israel's apostasy to a new level, unmatched in the family of David. Samaria, ruled by corrupt kings in the spirit of Ahab's ways, was taken into exile by the Assyrians.
If we turn to the same speech given by Moses at the end of Deuteronomy that predicted the exile in the first place, we can see hope. For there will be many desolate places in the land, but a tenth will remain, and even it will be burned up. But as the terebinth or the oak leaves a trunk when it is cut down, so the holy seed will be the trunk in the earth" (Isaiah 6:12-13).
Let us not forget that in the midst of all this doom and gloom, Isaiah kept the sparks of hope burning.
Recommended Reading
God has not lost his love for his covenant people, and he has not forsaken them. He is then suddenly released from prison by the king and exalted high above the other rulers of that land. The prisoner was Joseph, and you will also remember that he had to change his clothes before seeing the king in person, which is the same thing that happens in this short story about Jehoiachin.
He plays the Joseph story to a tee, and so this final story in 2 Kings invites us to see a similar divine purpose at work in the cataclysmic destruction of Jerusalem. Most of our customers have never set foot in a church, let alone had the chance to study God's Word.
Supporter Corner
We get letters, phone calls, and emails from
I've attached one of my illustrations because after reading "Job Gets a Virtual Tour of God's World," in Wisdom Quarterly, I was inspired to take stock of the natural world around me—the wonderfully created and awe-inspiring things that surround in Florida. Thank you for blessing me everyday on my way to/from work as well as now on my lunch hour as I "dig deeper" and "get out". There were also times when God's people found themselves in powerful cultures, such as that of Babylon, whose wealth and power threatened to assimilate them and turn them away from faithfulness to God and into apathy and idolatry.
The culture that once endorsed and supported biblical values no longer does, and it is pretty clear that we are not going back to the "good old days". God's people throughout history have often found themselves in times and places that were hostile to their faith. The question is, will we be assimilated by the culture's values, or will we all withdraw from culture together and criticize and complain, or will we find the way of faithfulness.
Faithfulness in exile means that we practice our faith in such a way that we are transformed by the word and the Spirit, blessing the culture while resisting the culture.
