Hey everybody, I'm Tim McEy and this is my podcast Exploring My Strange Bible.

I am a card carrying Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is

utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have.

On this podcast I'm putting together the last ten years worth of lectures and sermons

where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites

us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith.

And I hope this can be helpful for you too.

I also help start this thing called the Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology.

You can find those resources at thebibelproject.com.

With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week.

In this episode we're continuing a series that's exploring the Old Testament book of Daniel.

This is a teaching I did a couple years ago about Daniel chapter 3.

It's a famous story, perhaps one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament about the three guys

Shadrach, Meshach and Avednego who gets thrown into this Babylonian furnace.

Because they want worship an idol of the kingdom of Babylon as if it is God.

Unfortunately, because most people are introduced to this story as the children's story,

they miss out on the extremely adult themes being treated in this chapter.

This is not a children's story.

It's an expose on how nations exalt their power, national security and economy as if it is God

and force people to give their ultimate allegiance to it and know as if it's divine.

And if that doesn't sound like a contemporary and relevant theme to you,

...