16 Burst results for "Jerusalem Council"
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"jerusalem council" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"Motivated by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses all throughout the ancient world went to cities. City to city, to city, preaching, preaching, preaching. And so you have a little map of where they went here. They just went into Asia at this point, Asia, and he actually ends up there most of the third missionary journey as well. But he starts in Antioch, they pray, they ask the Holy Spirit to attend them, and they send them out in this first mission. Okay? Second mission goes a little bit further. To the ends of the world, there's this parenthesis Jerusalem council, 50 AD. What do we do with all these gentiles who are becoming Christians? Is everybody who is Jewish pretty much to that point? What are we going to do with all these gentile Christians? So there's this parenthesis and X 15 where they deal with that. And you'll notice this, this is the first letter in your Bible that was written as far as Paul goes. Pauline letter, okay? So galatians would be the first one and actually he's dealing with a similar situation. If you've read galatians, what do we do about the law? What about these people who say you have to keep keeping the law to be right with God? Does not say very good things about them. All right, but that was the first letter written. Glaciers. Okay, so then he moves on to the second mission two and a half years from 50 80 to 52 AD and last was his two weeks ago before the baby dedication we dealt with the scene in Athens is Athens a city, yes, yeah, so all these regions are city regions or cities. But look at this current is another big city in that day. And he spends a year and a half there on his second missionary journey. These missions take ten years into the imprisoning ones. And out of those ten years, he's going to spend a year and a half at least in Corinth. He actually visited a few times. But here in the second mission, two and a half years as the mission in a year and a half, he's going to spend in a city.
The Bible Recap
"jerusalem council" Discussed on The Bible Recap
"Yesterday we wrapped up Paul's letter to the church at Rome, and today we jump back into Luke's account of the early church in the book of acts which covers a lot of Paul's actions that take place in between and behind the scenes of the letters he's writing. The last time we were in acts, Paul and the others narrowly escaped a riot started by a local silversmith who was upset that their ministry resulted in people buying fewer idols. Today he leaves Ephesus and he and a handful of other disciples, including Luke, pop around Europe and Asia, en route to deliver the financial support to Jerusalem. Luke tells us a story about what happens once Sunday when the church at troas is gathered to eat and hear Paul preach. There's a young man named Utica in the crowd. He's probably in his late teens or early 20s, at some point he's sitting in a window, maybe he wants to get some fresh air because they've been listening to Paul talk all day and it's nearly midnight and they finished off the last of the coffee at 8 p.m., but the fresh air doesn't cut it. Utica sinz Paul a clear message that it's time to wrap it up by falling asleep and plummeting three stories to his death. But Paul is like, nice try buddy. I've still got two points left in my sermon. You're not going anywhere, and he raises him from the dead. Then they all go back upstairs and Paul talks until the sun comes up, and they eat some breakfast before they leave on the next few legs of their journey. By the way, if visual aids are helpful for you, check out the map of Paul's third missionary journey that we've linked to in the show notes. While they're in Ephesus, Paul tells the people that in every single city where they stop, the Holy Spirit reminds him that imprisonment and affliction await him. He's on his way to deliver the support to Jerusalem where the persecution is far more intense than in a lot of other cities he's visited. But God is the one who gave him this ministry, so he'll continue to receive this gift and calling, even though it comes with persecution and trials. He expects to die soon, so he tells them he'll never see them again, but that honestly he doesn't really need to because he's already preached the fullness of the gospel to them. They already have the best of everything he could ever offer them anyway. He reminds them of two major things before he leaves. First, he tells them to keep a close watch on what they believe because people will try to lead them astray, and not just outsiders, but even people who are in their church now. And second, he reminds them that he's been generous with his time and his life and his heart, and he encourages them to be generous, too. They continue on toward Jerusalem and at their stop in Tyra, Paul gets a strange message from the people. We already know from 2022 that the Holy Spirit is leading Paul to Jerusalem. But 21 four says through the spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. Huh? Is the Holy Spirit talking out of both sides of his mouth? Here's what lots of scholars think is happening in this scenario. The Holy Spirit has revealed to others what he has already revealed to Paul that things are not going to go well for him in Jerusalem. However, the people think this is a warning more than a fact. So they take what God has revealed and add their own fears and emotions to it and try to deter ball from going. When in fact, Paul probably sees it as a confirmation of what God has already revealed, so it's not a deterrent. It's a directive. One of their next stops is caesarea, which has a lot of prior connections for us. This is where Peter first reached the gospel to the gentiles after having his vision on a rooftop. This is also where our friend Philip, the evangelist lives. He was one of the 7 men appointed to care for the widows in chapter 6, and he's also the one who rebuked Simon the magician and explained scripture to the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter 8. Philip has four unmarried daughters who all have the gift of prophecy, and while Paul is in town, their visited by another prophet named Agatha. Agatha does a sign act, showing Paul how he'll be bound and delivered to the gentiles in Jerusalem. This is a repeat of what happened in Tyra, where the people take the message of God and add their own emotion to it. They beg Paul not to go, but again, this all only serves as confirmation for him. He knows he can't outrun God's plan, so next up, Jerusalem. Shortly after they get there, they meet with Jacob slash James, the brother of Jesus, and tell him about all the gentiles who believe the gospel. Then Jacob tells Paul, that's awesome. I have some good news and some bad news. Good news, there are loads of Jews here who have believed too. Bad news, there are a lot of rumors about you here that are not winning you any fans. Ever since the Jerusalem council where we decided gentiles didn't have to convert to Judaism and obey our laws, people are saying that you're telling the Jews to disregard those laws too. So here's what you need to do in order to get them to simmer down and be open to hearing the truth. There are four men who are under a vow, so if you join them in that vow, it will probably soften people's opinions of you a bit. By the way, Jacob is likely referencing the nazarite vow, which is probably the same bowel Paul took while he was living in Corinth. We'll link to more info on that in the show notes. Paul has always been willing to lay down his rights to advance the gospel, so he does it again here, joining these four men in their vow so that the locals can see he's not opposed to Jews keeping Jewish traditions. When the week of the vow is almost up, some juicy in the temple and start spreading rumors that he had brought a gentile into the temple defiling it, which was an act punishable by death. They grabbed Paul, drag him out of the temple, beat him and begin to riot. Things only settle down when a local leader, the tribune, arrests him, and probably saves his life in the process. It becomes clear that the tribune has him confused with someone else, but when he realizes Paul is an educated Roman citizen, he agrees to let Paul speak to the people. Paul recounts what has happened to him, speaking to the Jews in Hebrew, they're with him. Right up until he says God told him to share the gospel with the gentiles. As soon as he says that, they start to riot again and demand he be killed. The tribune brings him back to the barracks so he can be examined by flogging, which is an ancient version of torture interrogation, but Paul reminds the soldier that he can't beat him because he's a Roman citizen. They keep him overnight, then interrogate him in the morning. While Paul is speaking the next morning, he accidentally disrespects the high priest, so he apologizes for it. We see Paul practicing what he preached in his letter to the Corinthians. He's humbly submitting to authority, showing respect for the high priest. Then, as the conversation continues, Paul realizes that some of these guys are pharisees like him and some are sadducees. These two groups have a few things in common that disagree in one major area. The resurrection of the dead, so Paul, being super clever, uses this to his advantage. He crafts his response in such a way that it takes the focus off their problem with him and puts it on their problem with each other. The pharisees take his side and Paul gets carted off to prison for another night, but he's not alone. God shows up in his jail cell and says, you're not going to die here. You've told the truth about me here and you're going to have to do it again in Rome. This is a timely word from God, because at the same time, 40 plus people have arranged to go on a hunger strike until someone kills Paul. Paul's nephew hears and tips him off and fills in the tribune too. The tribune orders 470 soldiers and 70 horses to take Paul back to caesarea. At the time, there were only a thousand soldiers in Jerusalem, so this is almost half their army. They deliver Paul by night to governor Felix. My God shot was in all the nuances of Paul's arrest and survival. In order for all this to line up like it did, Paul had to have the rare combination of dual citizenship speak Hebrew and Greek be a knowledgeable theory and even be mistaken for an Egyptian. When I zoom out, I see God lining everything up here from before Paul was born, just like he said, to work at all together so that the gospel would be advanced. Paul's not done sharing the gospel yet, just because he's in prison, his ministry hasn't been thwarted. There's more yet to come and God has always been in every detail, and it's not even hard for him. He has infinite power and infinite attention span and can handle every kind of complexity and nuance imaginable. God isn't just in the grand scheme of things, he's also in the tiny scheme of things. And in all the schemes
Evangelism on SermonAudio
"jerusalem council" Discussed on Evangelism on SermonAudio
"Well, let me begin by saying, first of all, how gratified I am, and encouraged that with the response that we've received to a part one of this series, no preaching law. I do think that the average Christian wants to know and understand the law properly. They want to understand what is the role of the law and evangelism. Is the law something we should preach to sinners first? Should we bring them to Moses? Before we bring them to Christ. And I told you last time that that's simply not the case. There's nowhere that the New Testament teaches that. I know it sounds very pious. It certainly sounds very logical that we want a sinner to be good and guilty, good and convicted before we offer them the gospel. But let me remind you that the gospel is a gospel of free grace. We don't have to torment the sinner's conscience. Nor should we take it upon ourselves to do such a terrible thing before we offer somebody that which we have been so freely offered. And that is the gospel of grace. The grace that's absolutely sufficient. I mentioned to you before that nowhere in the New Testament, the disciples, the apostles, preach, law, before they preach the gospel. Either an chapter two, acts captain four, certainly not when they preached to the gentiles. Paul did on a suitcase Peter when he went to Cornelius and acts after ten, did not preach. He did not come and say, well, I must preach to you Moses. I must preach to you the Jewish lie must preach to you the old covenant before I can offer you any message and preach to you, Jesus. It's not at all what Peter did. In fact, Peter had to overcome his own scruples. Tied to the law before he could even go visit with a gentile. And so the law was not serving the gospel at that point. Peter went and simply began to tell Cornelius and his company about Jesus. It was as he was preaching Jesus that the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius and those with him, his associates, they received a baptism in the Holy Spirit. They were converted, and that, for Peter became the sign that God had granted repentance. The gentiles. And so when they went into acts after 15 and the Jerusalem council, when the great question was, what is the role of the law for the gentiles? Now that they're being converted, it wasn't so that it wasn't so that they could impose the law, the question was this, do we impose the law? And the answer was no. We don't. There are certain moral restrictions that we would request of the gentiles, not to eat things strangled or drink blood or to abstain from sexual immorality and so on. But they weren't saying you must first come to Moses. Before we can freely offer you the gospel of Jesus Christ. So the actions of the apostles himself in the book of acts and throughout the epistles never point to the fact that Paul Peter James John anyone preached the law to the gentiles or to anyone else before they offered them that which was so freely offered to them, namely the gospel of grace and Jesus Christ. Now, we must understand that the grace that's involved in the gospel is a sufficient grace. It's all sufficient. Throughout church history, we struggle with this question about grace.
The Bible Recap
"jerusalem council" Discussed on The Bible Recap
"Who are the galatians? In short, there are a group of people from the gentile region Paul and Barnabas visited on their first missionary journey. We read about this in acts 13 through 14. As we know, what's been going on with this influx of gentile believers is that some of the Jewish believers have been trying to force their culture on them. The laws of circumcision and whatnot. Paul has already addressed this at least twice, and they attempted to resolve things that the Jerusalem council. But some of the Jews didn't get the memo. Either that or their intentionally rebelling against the spirit led decision from the Jerusalem council. They started going around to all the places Paul preaches and undermining his teaching by telling the people they have to convert to Judaism first. The general term for people who do this is Judaism. People who combine God's grace with human effort. We'll link to an article with more info on the Judaism in the show notes. This general idea is still alive and well in religion today, but it's not usually called by that name. We usually refer to it as legalism or moralism. Paul is furious with these undermines, and at some points he even seems to be furious with the church for believing them. But he opens his letter with grace and peace to the galatian churches before making a quick segue into his rebuke. By the way, Paul's intros are not fluff. They're dense with theology. Try not to rush over them. Paul points out that this distortion of the gospel that they're believing is a false, gospel, and he pronounces God's judgment on anyone who preaches it. Then Paul launches into his own story to give him some credibility for making this argument. He was a zealous Jew, eager to live out the traditions of his fathers even to the point of violently persecuting those who disagreed. But he said God chose him before he was born and at the right time God graciously called him and revealed Christ and Paul Smith three years being taught the scriptures. Apparently by the spirit and the word, before he ever consulted with the apostles in Jerusalem. Then God directed his steps to preach the gospel to the gentiles. He went to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus to submit his doctrine in his efforts to the church to make sure he was aligned with them and the truth. He mentions tied us here because Titus was a Greek gentile with no Jewish ties and he wasn't circumcised. So if the Jews in Jerusalem didn't insist on circumcising Titus at that point, then Jerusalem obviously wasn't requiring it. But even then, Paul said, some people were suspicious that his message was too easy, and they tried to undermine it. They didn't like all the freedom in it, it needed more laws. the apostles of the early church were happy to direct Paul and a ministry to the gentiles and Peter in a ministry to the Jews. They only asked Paul not to forget the poor, and they were probably referring specifically to the persecuted Jews in Jerusalem, even though his ministry was to the gentiles. Paul tells the galatians about a time when he had to call Peter out. Peter had been pretty great about eating with just any believer, Jews, and gentiles alike. But when James sent some people to visit him, Peter suddenly started eating only with the Jews because of his fear of man, and then other people started following Peter's lead. Because Peter was misleading people, leading them poorly, leading them away from the truth, Paul had to publicly correct him so that they would all be corrected in their thinking too. Paul says, look, I'm a Jew, not a gentile, and even I know that your actions don't save you. Only faith in Christ saves a person. Furthermore, if I were to even attempt to earn my own righteousness, I'd be vetoing his death on the cross. Because why would he even need to die if I could just do this on my own? I could just get circumcised and avoid a few foods and rest on Saturdays. If I could earn my own righteousness, he died for nothing. In chapter three, he goes on to say, you have the spirit too, so let's talk about this. How did that happen? How did you get the spirit? Did you do some kind of action and that summoned him to come to you? Or did he just come to you through the faith God granted you? And now that you've got the spirit, you're trying to start doing some kind of work to gain God's approval, as though the spirit himself isn't God's very seal on you. Stop it. That's not how this goes. Salvation is by faith and sanctification is by faith. They're both gods doing. Then pulses something revolutionary in a very succinct way twice. This message shows up throughout scripture, but here's where it's distilled and neatly packaged for us. In three 7, he says, no, then, that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. He repeats this idea again later in three 29, which says, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs, according to the promise. And remember, he's riding this letter to the galatians who are gentiles. Do you know what all this means? It means that even though God has a unique, irreplaceable relationship with ethnic Israel that gentiles can still be counted among the descendants of Abraham. That relationship isn't contingent on ethnicity or circumcision. It's contingent on faith in Christ, available to anyone of any ethnicity Jew or gentile. God made that promise to Abraham 430 years before God gave the law to Moses. Promising Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. If abiding by the law is how we obtain Salvation, then what happened to all those people who lived in the 430 years between Abraham and Moses before the law was given. Salvation has always been about faith in yahweh, and as always been available to anyone who has that. Paul has been hammering this one point home for three chapters. He's approaching it from every angle trying to dismantle any potential counter arguments before they even come up. He's pointing to his own story, the story of Abraham, the guidance of scripture and the spirit, along with the decisions of the apostles, all to drive home one point. Salvation is the gift of God by grace alone, who faith alone in Christ alone. What was your God shot today? Something we don't discuss much in all this circumcision talk is that if that's the way they had to enter the kingdom and only men were circumcised, then what about women? How would women enter the kingdom? I bet these new female gentile converts may have wondered the same thing and maybe even felt hopeless or overlooked. Paul leans into that question in three 28. He says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female for you are all one in Christ. This has to be so encouraging for his audience. If the only people who could do what it took to know God were male Jews, that would be tragic. It would eliminate so many people. But because of Christ, the door is open to everyone, and in God's family, we're united even across our differences and distinctions because of the spirit. He's where the joy is. When I talk about D group, maybe you're like, I've tried Bible studies before Terri and they are not for me. That's why I listen to a podcast. Maybe your experiences have mostly centered around gossip or complaining or showing off, or maybe it's just all been self help studies about how awesome and powerful you are, and you're like, I don't have time for this. I want to learn about the lord, not about myself. That's exactly why I started de group. We study the Bible, and we have a structure in place to help eradicate and prevent the problems that are the biggest complaint of Bible study expats. Some of our groups are connected to a local church and others are made up of people from different churches. We start new studies every 6 weeks and we'd love to have you join us when we launch our next session. Check the link in today's show notes for more info or visit my D group dot org.
The Bible Recap
"jerusalem council" Discussed on The Bible Recap
"Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Kabul and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Before we popped over to the book of Jacob slash James, Paul and Barnabas had just arrived back from their first missionary journey in the church at Antioch was celebrating with them. They've been there for a while, and today some guys from Jerusalem show up for a teaching trip. And guess what, they're teaching. Circumcision. They start all the drama back up again, saying people have to convert to Judaism in order to convert to Christianity. Paul and Barnabas pushed back. They've already been down this road about a decade earlier. They make a trip back to Jerusalem in hopes of dealing with it once and for all. When they arrive, we find out who is behind this circumcision requirement. The pharisees. These are believers who are varices, though, according to 15 5, people who have the Holy Spirit. Isn't it his job to teach us and help us reach unity? Yes, he totally does that. But like with most things, change happens slowly, not immediately. It's often when we look back over the course of years that we see the fruit. By the way, Paul is a pharisee too, but he obviously disagrees with this pharisee in Jerusalem. While they're debating this, Peter says, hey, remember when this all started, remember how God used a Jew like me to preach to the gentiles? Remember how those uncircumcised people received the Holy Spirit in a way that was so obvious and evident that none of us could deny it? It's clear that God doesn't make a distinction between Jew and gentile. He knows all hearts and he cleansed the gentiles hearts too. By saying he requires them to be circumcised, you're doing two very foolish things. You're heaping a burden on them that none of us have been able to bear anyway, and you're also testing God because he's made himself clear. Knock it off. All who are saved are saved through his grace alone not by keeping the law. Then Jacob slash James pipes up and says, Simeon reported the same thing as Peter. But this isn't a new idea, even the prophet Amos talked about this like 800 years ago. God has called them by his name, according to Amos. Their relationship with God is intact. So what we should be concerned with are things that disrupt the harmony of our relationships within the church. Circumcision isn't on that list. Our code of conduct should be about creating unity in the family of Christ, let's figure out what those things are. This sounds like a great idea to the apostles, so they hold a meeting called the Jerusalem council to decide what to require of gentiles. It's important to point out that this list isn't given as a way to obtain righteousness. It's given as a way to make sure
The Bible Project
"jerusalem council" Discussed on The Bible Project
"Us as attention. Like the laws, you know, once and for all for all time. But then those same laws are getting adapted. Well, it seems like the laws are presented in such a way of saying like, hey, this is it. Follow it completely. And things will go well and you don't follow these things and there's big consequences. And so you get the sense, it's like don't mess with these laws. And in one sense, that's true. Don't mess with them in a way that will lead you out of covenant faithfulness. Start worshiping other gods. Put your loyalty somewhere else. Like that's a huge problem. Yeah, that's right. But then you get these stories where Israel's in a new setting. The other story was in leviticus maybe with the Passover and if you're like unclean. Actually that's earlier in the number scroll. That's actually really cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the guys are rich, really impure. And so they can't do Passover on the day. Okay, yeah. That's right. And so they have to add to the law and kind of come up with a loophole of sorts in the law. And so you get these stories and then becomes attention of, yeah, okay. So you do adapt. How do you do that in a way that's still honors your covenant relationship with that way? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, John, at the end of your question, is does this open a dangerous door? Manipulating God's law. And man, I think it really depends on what side of the debate, I guess you're on. Because certainly, we brought it forward to the Jerusalem council in the New Testament, and certainly by we you mean you and I did in our conversation about the story of the daughters of we went forward. We talked about. Yeah, 'cause you had the messianic Christians, who were pharisees, who were, I mean, they could appeal to scripture about circumcision and kosher food laws. Yeah. And you're talking about the early apostles and acts. Yeah. And so to those pharisee messianic followers of Jesus, this was a dangerous door. Being opened. But what James and the apostles conclude is this actually is not an innovation. This is actually honoring even more consistently what has been God's heart from the beginning, which is that the blessings of Abraham nations. And really, it's about the identity of God, as Paul will say, in Romans, is God the God of Israel only. Is he not the God of all nations? And if he's the God of all nations, then so for Paul, this isn't just about rules about how to obey God. It's about the identity
The Bible Project
"jerusalem council" Discussed on The Bible Project
"See how they apply in new ways. And that's what this story is about. Yeah, so for some reason, I think I just like this one as much as I like the Passover one back earlier because it's a cool hyperlink between genesis one and two and this generation in the land. It's about male and female with shared responsibility over the land. And then also it's showing a dynamic in the Torah itself that Jesus clearly saw and saw himself fulfilling and caring forward when he said I didn't come to set aside the tour and profits, but to fill them for, and that's his introduction to the 6 case studies where he says you've heard it said in the Torah, and I say to you, what God wants us to do is take the wisdom of the laws and take it further into the new creation. And yet Jesus doesn't give us some sort of comprehensive rule book for being human or how to take wisdom principles forward no, yes. Sermon on the mount is only three chapters. But man, it's like there's a universe in those three chapters. There's the universe of wisdom There's not a universal law for all of life, but there's a universal wisdom derived from the loss. Okay, so let's cache this out. Yeah. I want to be a person who listens to God's voice. I can listen and then if God says this is the way I'm like, okay, that's the way. Yeah. I don't have a Moses figure who's coming down off a mountain and saying like, hey I got an update. Here's the new here's the new law code. I can't go to you don't think you have one? Yeah, I mean, I have one? I think you do. I do. Yeah. Really? Yeah, I think he sustaining your existence, right? This very moment. You're talking about God himself. We're talking about the spirit of God. The spirit of God. Toy. And I'm trying to catch you off guard a little bit. But I think that's what Jesus and the apostles would want us to. Okay, but there's a difference right between like, here's a guy, we can all see him, right? Yes, okay. There he is. That's an important difference. We all can see this dude. He can go up the mountain, and we could come to a movie and be like, hey, Moses. Here's the situation. I want to do Passover. I'm unclean. Like, what do I do? Or you can imagine it's like, hey Moses. Here's the situation. Like, yeah. My wife died and you know, whatever the situation is and you're like, what should I do? And then Moses, that's a good question. I'll be back. And then I watch him go up the mountain, come back down and he goes, here's the law. And we can look back. Awesome. Yep. Just tell us what to do. Moses, it would be great if I didn't have to exercise any like moral reasoning. Or thinking of my own, just give me the instruction. I'm being facetious, obviously. Well, you're making that sound like it's a bad thing to ask Moses, but here, this is like, totally. It's great if you have one Moses. That's right. Yeah, in person to go ask. That's right. And so, that guy doesn't exist. Or maybe he does exist, but like the relationship isn't such that he's standing there in the flesh and that you can talk to him. Right? Yeah, so what you're saying is Jesus is the greater than Moses who has given us a spirit. Yeah, so you have Jesus is clearly presented as a new Moses prophet priest king figure. The sermon on the mount is him doing in his day what Moses was doing right here. And then for us, post resurrection and Pentecost, the spirit sent by the father and the son, to be the presence of Jesus in our midst. I think is our equivalent of the prophet priest king that we consult. I mean, yeah, I think this all the way back to years ago, our series on the book of acts. This is precisely a parallel set of problems that the apostles faced in the first decade of the Jesus movement, which is Jesus Israel's messiah to create a remnant among Israel to participate in the renewal of Israel so that the nations can be blessed. And within the Hebrew Bible that is mostly depicted as nations incorporated into the national ethnic entity that is Israel. And what starts happening on the ground is that non Israelites start following the way of Jesus and the spirit that came upon methane juice starts falling on Cornelius, a Roman centurion in his family. Right? I mean, that's the dynamic. Yep. It surprises them. Yeah. And so the way they go consult well, and then the question on the ground is do these non Jewish followers of Jesus. And follow the ritual feasts. That's right. Yeah. Because the laws as stated say, they're supposed to do Sabbath, get circumcised, eat kosher. Yeah. That's what the law say. The Torah of God says that. So what they do is their version of what the daughters do here. Their version is what we call the Jerusalem council and acts chapter 15. But all the way starting back in chapter ten, leading up to it of the book of acts. So what
Latest Sunday Audio
"jerusalem council" Discussed on Latest Sunday Audio
"It's no big deal. To wherever you want. No. Do your best. That's what he's saying to Timothy, you see. Timothy, you are uniquely gifted. But you have to stir up the gift that is in you. You've got a fan the flame that is in you. How was the, how was the flame fan bite in Timothy's life? It was flamed by the people who were around Timothy. Who were able to say to him, thank you, who were able to say to him, that's an encouragement who were able to see them, hey, look out Timothy. They were able to say, you better not say it like that again, Timothy. That's how it happens. The one that he went away on our retreat by himself and walked in the hills and tried to do something. No, it was because of the context in which he served. That's where it happens. That's where it happens for you. And that's where it happens for me. In the old days of coal fires, and I grew up with them in Scotland. You can take one coal out of the flame and lay it on the hearth and within minutes it's out. You can take a piece that's lying there and within minutes, snuggled in with the rest. It is back into flame. That is the point of emphasis here. Now, he had previously been a little disinterested in the next character. Incidentally, if we don't finish this, I'll just continue at this evening, which will give you something to look forward to. Look alone is with me, and then get Mark and bring him with you. Now, this is a good point for you just to turn back in your bibles. That way, if I hear the pages I'll know that you're actually still alive out there, acts chapter 13, and then I accept her 15, just to point this out. I actually 13 and verse 13, Paul and Barnabas are at Antioch and presidia. And Luke records that Paul and his companions set sail from us and came to perga in pamphilia, real history, real geography. And John, that is John Mark, left them and returned to Jerusalem. It's just there. It's just a sentence. You come to chapter 15. And in anticipation of the Jerusalem council, Luke records, first one, some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers unless your circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you can not be saved and they had to deal with that, error, and inverse two. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. And so being sent on their way by the church, they went on their journey.
Asian America: The Ken Fong Podcast
"jerusalem council" Discussed on Asian America: The Ken Fong Podcast
"I think in the superior court system, I see judges that will keep 9 people locked up pending their trial because of the fear that the tenth one may commit another crime. So you don't want judges that are ruling based out of fear for fear of losing their job. At the same time, I believe does need to be some sort of accountability. Now I do believe we have impeachment processes that are theoretically possible, but virtually never. Virtually never happens. So it's a fine line between the accountability that I think all of would like to see versus the judges that might be ruling and putting their finger out to test the prevailing political winds before they make a decision. So it's horns of a dilemma that we're on with respect to how long these federal and Supreme Court terms should be. And I think a current example may be almost the opposite of what you just described Patrick is justice clarence Thomas with his wife Ginny and all of your emails and text messages. Okay, wouldn't the honorable thing to do is to recuse yourselves. So there's no possible appearance of conflict of interest when these cases are, but it's like, well, thanks for sharing. But I'm not going to recuse myself. And it's like, okay, then there's no recourse. Those kind of things, a little frustrating. I was just thinking, as we get into the end of our time here, that among judges, especially when it comes to the constitution, there's these originalists. And then there's those who see it as kind of a living document. And I think there's parallels with how different groups of Christians view the Bible. Absolutely. And they're like, no, no, I don't interpret the Bible. I don't interpret the constitution. It's what the original authors said, intended, which gets a little subjective. What more do you think about that, especially not necessarily the Bible, but taking this kind of originalist point of view because even right now, with the roe V wade case back, what's leaked out is justice Elio was basically saying, well, it was never in the Fourteenth Amendment. It was never implied. That someone can have a right to their own pregnancy in their own body. Following that line of thinking, there are things about the Civil Rights Act. And same sex marriage and all these other things that the original writers of the constitution clearly didn't have in mind. Even the abolishment of slavery and the human value of a person from Africa that they had been brought here in chains. So what's your understanding of these two views of the fundamentals? Well, you know, we have to interpret documents, whether it's the scriptures or the constitution. It must be interpreted. There's no way around it. So we have a right to bear arms, but does that mean that everyone is entitled to have hand grenades and rocket launchers? Exactly. So that absolutely must be interpreted. So I think kind of the crux of it comes down to whether we believe that we are bound by what the writers of that text be it constitution or scripture meant at the time or do we take a look at given the great values of the constitution of equal justice and equal protection and personal freedom, is that the greater context in which we should interpret the words of the constitution or do we take a more wooden literal approach? I mean, I experienced that in my own struggling with the scriptures that I grew up with, but I had an experience where I looked at, well, how did these scriptures function within the pages of scriptures themselves? Because there's people at almost worship, the text, not realizing, well, at the end of the day, I think, as people of faith, we're trying to figure out what does God want here and now. And there was famously a Jerusalem council where the literalists came and said, you know, the Bible, the scriptures are clear that these gentiles, if they want to be part of the community of faith, must be circumcised, and then the more progressive said, well, we think that we sense the spirit of God is moving somewhere else and we can step away from this literal reading that everyone took. So I think, you know, there's some parallels there. A great example. Yeah. Yeah, I would say that I was born and raised a baptist. So not wesleyan, which is more methodist and I guess Anglican. But one of the things when I was teaching at a wesleyan school as an adjunct, I had to learn the wesleyan quadrilateral, and I was thinking in its odd sort of way. It kind of applies to how you're describing the constitution. This approach to the constitution, because the west thing quadrilateral with John and Charles Wesley, they would basically say, okay, in the quadrilateral, there's four quadrants, and one of them is clearly a scripture, and that's a big quadrant. That's our holy writ. But there's three other quadrants. And we weigh off four, right? So as we look at scripture, we weigh tradition, we weigh experience, and we weigh reason. And when I learned that, I gosh, you know, I could be a wesleyan. But I was thinking, I think everybody actually uses all four quadrants, but certain people only admit to using one. Which is the Bible. And the example that you used in the book of acts, the more progressive Jewish Christians at the time were saying, well, what do you see? They're speaking in tongues, that's what we were speaking at Pentecost. When we were all Jews, right? And so there's been multiple occasions of this, so maybe there's a spiritual circumcision, a circumcision of the heart that even though you have Bible verses and tradition on your side that male has to be physically circumcised in order to become a believer in the messiah, we think new developments begged that question, right? And I feel like that's kind of descriptive of what you're saying about the constitution, our constitution is like, yeah, okay, that's one quadrant. That's kind of our sacred document as a country. But back when it was written, most of those people who wrote it were owning slaves. And they wiped out indigenous people and they didn't see women as being valued enough to vote, let alone non landowning males. So we've learned a thing or two since then, and so shame on us and it's certainly it flies in the face of those original principles that we're talking about. Liberty and justice for all and freedom. So it's like, yeah, that's not, that's not changing things. That's actually trying to be our word progressive if saying, well, this is what we've learned since. And we think it's still rooted in this document. But it wasn't fairly applied. What did you think about that? Amen. Yeah. All right, we crossed the streams. So tell our listeners, especially those in LA county, when will they be given opportunity to vote for you? And when are those ballots coming out, the sample ballots, where your name is going to appear, all of that so that they can start paying attention. The sample ballots, a lot of morale, we haven't received ours, but people have been texting me a photograph of the race for office number one 51 on their ballots. And there's a one month of mail in balloting, so we're right on the brink of the process starting. And of course, there's a lot of locations that used to be only had to go on election day, but there's a lot of locations where you can go ahead of time, I think that was one of the blessings of COVID. But so between when the mail in ballots arrive and when the polling stations open up and January 7th, that is the window of time where people can vote here in Los Angeles for mayor and sheriff and city attorney and judge, so we're coming up right up on it here. Did you say January, June 7th? Yeah, I was like, wait a minute. That's like, no, no, it's much sooner than we think. Take two. Again, listeners, if you're an LA county, I brought Patrick here, not just because he's a friend and not just because I think he's very well qualified. I'm going to go one step farther than the LA bar association. To be a superior court judge, I just want you to know that there are people like Patrick, who are putting in the time of the effort investing their own money with the backing of a lot of people who've come to know you and respect you. And love where you come from and believe like I do that we need people like you on the bench. So I hope you're paying attention, Ellie voters. Because I don't think it takes that many votes to turn the tide on some of these judicial elections..
Apex Church
"jerusalem council" Discussed on Apex Church
"With the question of education public school private school home. School is christian. Family has to make that decision for themselves but not act like they have the answer for every christian family. We need to be flexible. And into section in acts chapter fifteen and sixteen. We see both instances where a there were times of firmness and flexibility for example earlier in acts fifteen. We have this jerusalem council. They were dealing with the question. Do gentiles need to become jewish. And bear the marks of being a jew in order to become a christian and thankfully the jerusalem council was firm and saying no it is essential that we do not add to the gospel. But coming out of that. And it's a bit ironic since consensus. This unity was reached painstakingly. But what happens after that is a bit of sharp contrast to that because we have these two friends. Paul and barnabus have this this unity among them. I want us to consider the nature of the relationship of pollen barnabus soon after his conversion paul went to jerusalem and the leaders of the christian believers in jerusalem weren't sure what to think of him. This guy was just throwing people like us in jail but he had someone advocating for him. Someone who vouched for him someone who stuck his neck out for him. And that was a man whose name meant to sun of encouragement barnabus. As paul and barnabus were commissioned together as missionaries and they went around and and they saw god's to some incredible things. Many people come to faith in the gospel but they also experienced trials together and experienced persecution together. Look nothing will bind you to a person like suffering with them. Imagine how tightly the hearts of pollen barnabus were knit together. They were thickest thieves so that makes what happened between them. It must really hurt arneb. Paul says let's go visit the churches that we planted barnabus. That's a great idea. Why don't we take my cousin. John mark and it must've been that barnabus and john mark had a conversation with john. Mark says you know. I know i left you guys and i don't like the way that that ended like another shot at that. I wanna make it right. Artist proposes to paul pulses. I don't think that's a good idea. It escalated to this sharp disagreement between them and the word in the greek for sharp disagreement is where we get an english word. paroxysm. I don't use the word paroxysm in my everyday vocabulary. But it means that this kind of violent outburst of emotion violent action this. It's actually a medical term for convulsions. It's it was actually a word used elsewhere in the new testament in that well known. I corinthians thirteen passage about love where says love is not provoked. Love is not easily angered so the sense of the word here indicates that this was no mere. Let's just agree to disagree. And i'll see you at christmas. This heated faces were made voices were raised.
Leading Saints Podcast
"jerusalem council" Discussed on Leading Saints Podcast
"A fine artist and the lord through a lot of different experiences. Let me know that was not his plans for my career. So I joke that he led me into the big money of religious education. Instead of the big money of fine art. And the fun thing about it though is I still get to use all things. It's interesting to see the lord work things in your life. When I left fine art to become a religious educator, a professional educator, I wasn't sure how my art would tie in, but now 20 years later, one of the things I do is I paint scenes of the restoration that have a third important that have never been painted before. They're kind of tied back together. That's cool. And there's a lot of scenes that I mean, we see a lot of church history scenes, but you found a lot of pivotal ones. They're surprising. There's more than people think that are pivotal important scenes that have never been visually shown before. So do you approach that from obviously, there's a business behind everything, so you think, well, if I point this scene, it'll show up in more world library. What's your approach of finding these scenes and what motivates you to my approach is I am a terrible businessman, business is not the motivation for me. Nor is even like, I'm not out to make a pretty mantelpiece or something that somebody is going to hang in their front room. I want my art is about people learning. And so some of the paintings I do are kind of uncomfortable to be totally honest. I just did a painting of Joseph and Emma, arguing after Joseph Smith wrote the revelation, which is section 132 at auction covenants for plural marriage. Oh wow. And when Joseph brought it home, you know, by some accounts William Clayton said that Emma threw it in the fire. And for the next three or four days, they argue heavily. So I did a painting of Joseph and MS sitting in front of a burning fire symbolic there. While Joseph holds this revelation and the looks at him hurt and angry at the same time, that's not something someone is going to hang in their ward library. Or over their mantelpiece. But to me, it opens an important historical discussion. To help people learn. So that's my goal more than anything. Because that type of depiction, there's so much emotion that you're probably trying to communicate, that Joseph was feeling talk about a difficult position to be in as it has been, let alone as a profit. Exactly. Wow, that's interesting. As you get opportunity to teach about the doctrines and then paint the doctrines as well. Yeah, I do. It's a fun, I get to teach my role here at bios on what's called a teaching professor. So I'm assigned to teach the larger classes I teach about 6 classes each semester of about 200 students each show. I get to teach over a thousand students every semester here. So as you were growing up in your teenage years, perfecting your craft of painting and art. It was teaching always in the back of your mind as a backup plan or did it come just out of nowhere? No, it was never in my mind. It was a providential turn where I happened to speak in a sacrament meeting. When I was in college and a man came up to me afterward and said, what are you thinking of doing for your career? And I told him that I was either going to go into be a full-time painter or something into business. And he said, well, have you thought about teaching for the church? And he said, I think you'd be really good. You should think about it. And for whatever reason, I dismissed it, but the lord didn't let me dismiss it. It stuck in my mind and dwell on my heart and I couldn't shake it and finally went and talked to him and looked in the seminary institute training program and the rest was history for me. And so did the shift really happening in graduate school when you moved towards these types of topics or in terms of what kind of topic as far as teaching the gospel and that your intent. So I was hired and I finished my bachelor's degree. I was hired by seminars and in case to teach full time for that. I started teaching. 700 Institutes were more generalists than specialists here at BYU were more specialists. I taught in San Francis every year, one year I'd teach the New Testament, then book a more in the docker and covenant center Old Testament. But I always found myself leaning towards Joseph Smith in church history in my own personal interests. And in church doctrine. So those were some of the topics that I wrote on early on and how we teach about our doctrine and our history has always been important to me. So that's what my graduate work led me into was my graduate work is all in education, religious education. How do we teach people, religiously, that is the most effective? Is what my dissertation really looked into. Nice. So there's a lot of good content needed and our culture for sure. Anything else about your background would be worth mentioning before we most important. My lovely wife been married for 21 years. Awesome. Her name is Cindy. I have known each other since we were 12 years old. We didn't date, but she didn't know me when I had a mullet. I'll put that on record. She's still agreed to marry me. So have the days of miracles ceased, I say nay. Nice. And we hit it off after our mission. And then we've been fortunate enough to have 7 children. We have currently a daughter who's 20 here at BYU and a little guy named Truman, who's two years old. We're running the gamut. We've got college kids high school kids, junior high kids, grades, cool kids, and kids still at home. Wow, I'm sure they're fun. You need to be like on TLC on these reality shows. They're on there. Well, cool. So I wanted to really talk about the concept of doctrine. Let me set up a scenario for you that I'm sure you're familiar with a new bishop or someone serving as bishop is up on the stand sitting in the sacrament meeting and suddenly the speaker or maybe some standard bear testimony. States some things that aren't quote unquote, doctrinal. And there's sort of this, I don't know, I guess there's some verbiage in the handbook that addresses this. But obviously, as the presiding authority, it is that authorities role to correct false doctrine is the failing. And so there's always this feeling of how I have to stand up and awkwardly correct this and maybe make a person feel bad. I don't mean to make you feel bad. Or it's in a Sunday school class. From my experience in leadership and others, I sometimes hesitate because I think, well, is a doctor in, you know, do I really understand the doctor? And of course, the core foundations of a doctor are easy to defend in articulate. But sometimes I'll hear things in Sunday school that I don't think is doctor. But everybody's rolling with it. It's sort of culturally doctor. So where do we start with understanding what doctor is and what the leader's role in in promoting and facilitating doctrinal teaching in a church? Well, like every discussion, words, man, words, you have to define words. And the very first thing to do is define what is doctrine. And doctrine, the root word doctrine simply means a teaching. Something that is taught. And some others might say something that is authoritatively taught. That's a slightly different definition of doctrine than sometimes we hear in sometimes we hear that the doctrine is the eternal unchanging truths of the gospel, which that is doctrine, of course. But that's more called the doctrine of Christ or the core doctrines, or what we might call the gospel. Say through penance baptism holy ghost enduring in the faith. But everything that's authoritatively taught in the church is doctrine. So that's the first place to start. And then the second place to start is what establishes official doctrine for the church. I think it would be good for anybody to know both those things. So I kind of share with my students a model that defines different types of doctrine. And another model that helps people understand what could be considered authoritative church teachings. And maybe use some of those examples using that education week of where you stated just some common things that we think are doctor or maybe not doctor. And you sort of quiz the audience on. You got me a few times that's for sure. I thought, oh, I should know this stuff, but I was wrong. What are some examples of maybe where this example is let's say somebody's teaching a gospel to a friend class and they read in Moses, for example, that savior has created many worlds without number by my son, I have created them. It says that in Moses one. Well, let's say the teacher then says, well, we know that Jesus has created many worlds and he's the redeemer of many worlds. He saved more worlds than just this one. Is that true? I think number one, that's the first question. Before we even say is it doctrine? We should say, is it true? Because it's a good place to start. It's a good place to start as a church of truth. But secondly, if somebody says the savior's saved many worlds, if someone goes, yeah, yeah, he has. Well, how do you know that? How do you know that that's an authoritative church teaching or something that the church would stand behind? Is it? Yeah, I would say that is, I'd say it's doctrine. The Christ suffered for multiple worlds. And so then the next thing is, I think most of your listeners right now if I throw that out, they would have a metric in their mind. They just ran through some sort of internal filter. Exactly. To try to determine whether something was doctrine. And what was your filter, you just ran through? I have I remember it being brought up in certain seminary institute classes. That's a dangerous filter right there. It comes through some of these Institutes. And I remember certain quotes, and that's where I think I remember someplace where there's this quote where a profit mentioned that. It must be. So does if a profit says that does that make it doctrine for the church? Well, since then, I've learned that not necessarily. There has to be that's what I want to get at. And so their metrics like this or another one that I threw out there was and your listeners right now have probably heard this that we should take the sacrament with our right hand. All the listeners right here, if you're not driving, raise your right hand if you think that's church doctrine. I said that was not church doctrine. Yeah. And there are many people who think it is. And there's many people who think it's not, and some people say it's cultural, other people say no, it's an ordinance, and you have to do ordinances the right way. You know, if somebody decided to baptize with an alternate method, we would stop them or if they didn't do it right. So and you can find some statements from church leaders saying that you should take the sacrament with the right hand. However, it's not found in the handbook of instructions today and handbook one or two. And so it's left with, is that a church doctrine, and how do we know? So that's another example. So how do we figure that out as leaders? Is there do we just stick with the handbooks and even the manual can sometimes have questions over? Particularly handbook too is excellent in teaching what I call core doctrine. The front part of handbook two is excellent. And preach my gospel has a lot of core basic doctrines true to the faith. These are all great resources the church has put out that have been reviewed by correlation and have been reviewed. My gospel was reviewed by all the brother and obviously Hamburg wanted to, as well. So those are some great places. But they're limited as well. So the model that I give. So if you want to know if something is an authorized church teaching, the best places to look, first of all, in the standard works in the scriptures. We call them our standard works for a reason. There are standard for doctrine is what BH Robert said. Or it's what president Nelson has said where we measure the correctness of doctrine. So when somebody teaches something, can we find it in the harmonized scriptures? And I use the word harmonized intentionally. Not just in the scriptures, but harmoniously, detailed Christopher and elder packer have both said that scriptures authenticate each other. There's multiple scriptural witnesses on the truth. It's dangerous to try to establish a doctrine on one versus scripture alone. So take, for example, John one 18 no man has seen God at any time. And the problem with that, you could say, well, right there, there it is. It's doctor. Nobody's ever seen God. But if you take the harmonious scriptures, there's multiple accounts of multiple people seeing God. And so it's kind of like in statistics where you're looking for, I don't want to bore you. I mentioned statistics and somebody just fell asleep. That's right. But if you look at a scatter plot like an XY scatter plot of some data, you're going to see data consistently grouped in an area. And then, occasionally, you'll see outliers. And you look for the consistently grouped data in the scriptures. You look for what it's harmoniously teaching. And then you take the outliers individually and wrestle with them. But some doctors you may find a whole bunch of references towards that doctrine and stuff. Maybe just one or two. Some one or two, and some none. For example, is it church doctrine that we have a mother in heaven? I would say definitely. And yet you can not find any explicit mentions of mother and have an inscription. Right. So the second thing to look at is, can we find the second most? And I don't want to pitch them against each other. It's not like scriptures are the most authoritative. And then this is second most. Section one O 7 versus 27 of the doctor and covenants says that every decision made by the profits should be a unanimous voice. And if you pay attention, you will listen to the profits even some of the recent changes on ministering and the two hour church schedule. They will explicitly say we are united on this decision. One O 7 says that they should be united, and if they're united their decisions have power and validity is what those are the two words that stand out to me in sexual one O 7. I look for united statements from the first presidency in the quorum of the 12. It's the profit with his counselors in the 12. Their job is to establish doctrine for the church. That's what president hinckley said. So take something like the family proclamation to the world or take the 1909 statement that was repeated in 1926 and that was also published in the enzyme in 2002. They all say we have a mother in heaven. Family proclamation says we're the children of heavenly parents. So I can use that to say united voice of the first presidency on 12 power and validity. We have a mother in heaven. So that's the second thing I look for is unanimous statements. Yeah. Love that. Third thing to look at, sometimes there's not like a unanimous declaration like a letter from the first presidency, but sometimes there are cohesive statements from the church leaders acting in their official capacity. This is where general conference talks comes in or an article in the enzyme by a church leader or something in a worldwide leadership training broadcast or so what you look for is can I find a cumulative statement of the brethren and the sisters, the generally site president young women's president, general primary presidency, people acting in their official capacity as church leaders teaching this church doctrine. And you start to see things that are cohesively taught by them. So maybe there's not a signed document or a sign united statement. You can find consistent teachings from church leaders on the subject. And then the fourth thing I look at is can I find it in official church publications? Is it on LDS dot org, Mormon dot org, Joseph Smith papers? History LDS dot org. Any church website that has been reviewed by what's known as correlation or the curriculum departments who try to keep an eye to make sure that the doctrine of the church is teaching state consistent and cohesive. So if I can find it in church statements, church manuals, church websites that have been reviewed and approved, then you're on pretty good ground as well. So those are the four areas I look for. So quickly review those. First one is scriptural harmonized scripture. Second is united statements by the first presidency and or the 12. Third is cumulative teachings of church officers acting in their official capacity and then fourth one is can I find it in church reviewed materials that have been published? Awesome. And you also mentioned in your presentation education week that it's not a black or white thing. There's maybe different levels of doctrine like the core doctrine. Another one is what I call. I need to make sure you give a shout out to my Friends, doctors, Michael McKay, and Garrett Dirk Mott. They're the ones who wrote this paper with me. And that helped develop some of these models. So I want to be sure to give them credit. So that's called sources of doctor in the first one. Sources that established authoritative teachings in the church. The second thing is types of doctrine. And there are different types of doctrine. So in 2007, I would highly recommend every church leader who listens to this. Pulls up a statement called approaching Mormon doctrine. The LDS newsroom put it out in 2007 when Mitt Romney ran for president. And it's really important for a number of reasons. Because different commentators were out there saying, hey, do you know Mitt Romney's a marvel? Did you know that Mormons believe? And they would find one one off statement by someone in the journal of discourses, you know? Yeah, the white horse prophecy when they come to mind. So the church came out and said, let's clarify what is church doctrine. And by the way, with that, one of the sources of doctrine, I mentioned harmonized scriptures, the united voice, cumulative teachings, they said this important statement, a single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a well considered opinion that is not meant to be binding doctrine upon all church members. That's an important, because sometimes people will they'll play the I don't want to be too light with this, but they'll be like, well, did you know that? Fill in general theory name here. Said this, as though that one established his church doctrine forevermore. It doesn't. And then someone will say, well, I see your James detail talmage, and I'll raise you a Bruce armor conkey. And they'll want to lay down an opposite statement. Neither of those established doctrine for the church. They may very well be true, or they may not be. They may be the person's opinion. That's why we look for those authoritative sources of doctrine. But with that same statement, they also said, they hinted that there's different types of doctrine. Some in that statement they say some are more important than others, for example, the atonement of Jesus Christ is much more important than the location of the Garden of Eden. And they said some could be considered core doctrines. And so it opens up this idea that there are different types of doctrines in the church. And the model that we developed was the center are called core doctrines. These are the unchanging fundamental truth of Salvation. This is we have a loving father in heaven, his son Jesus Christ is already deemed. There's no way to Salvation, but through faith and repentance and covenants with him. Endur to the end marriage as eternal, the resurrection, these core basic parts of the gospel. Sometimes what we would just call the gospel of Christ. But then there's more supportive doctrines. That's the second ring is supportive doctrines. Supportive doctrines might not be necessary for Salvation, but they help us understand core doctrines better. So core, Jesus, atone for our sins, he is the Christ he is the messiah. A supportive doctrine. Well, he grew up in Nazareth. He held the sick. He bled from every pore in the garden. He suffered in the garden and on the cross. He felt all of our pains. I'm not sure I need to know that stuff to be saved. You know, our missionaries don't go out and say, do you believe that Jesus, blood from every single pore? And if you don't say, yes, we won't baptize you. They say, do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? And so like doctrines, there's core doctrines like atonement and Jesus is the saver, but then they're supportive doctrines like him bleeding from every pore. Or let me give you another one that in the millennial rain, there will be a thousand years of peace or that Christ will come down and touch the amount of olives and it will split in two. That's not a core essential doctrine of Salvation, but it helps us understand the core doctrine of Christ as king better. Does that make sense? Yeah, and it doesn't mean that it's maybe isn't exactly going to transpire like that or I mean, I think there's some ambiguity in there. There is. And that's okay. Sometimes we want to state like, well, you know, it's doctrine that Christ blood forever poor. And consider that Christ actually suffered in the garden. And on the cross. And you're like, well, you know, there's been certain leaders that have said that, and we look very cohesive voice and I'm not sure you have to know that to be saved or believe that you could have a differing opinion and you're still a faithful Mormon. Right. I think that's important thing is that one member could have an opinion differently or say, ah, necessarily believe that. That doesn't mean that they don't believe in the doctrine of the church, especially the core doctor. We have a core doctrine of Salvation. It doesn't mean they don't believe in living profit. It's either, particularly if the doctrine hasn't been settled, particularly, and one of the examples I gave was some take the concept of eternal progression in the next life. Can people progress from tea less shelter to celestial? There are some of the brethren who have adamantly said no to that subject. There have been other of the brother who have said, yes, for every quote that says, no, there's an equal number of quotes to say yes that it's a possibility. And so right now, those who are listening to this podcast might go, oh, I believe that there is. And others might say no way. Well, the answer is the church has came out in 1965 and said, we have no declarative doctrine on this point. Some have said yes, and I've said no. And you're free to believe what you want on that subject. It doesn't mean you're not faithful to the church's doctrines. Nor does it mean you're not faithful to the church leaders and sustaining them as profits years in revil later. That's important concept. And we're touching on the ambiguity, which I want to dive into, but maybe let's finish the third doctrines. You have supportive doctrines and supportive doctrines elaborate on the core of the third ring that we give is called policy doctrines. And we do call them doctrines, by the way. And the reason why, and some people could disagree with that, and that's fine. But the reason why I like to call them policy doctrines is because they're authoritative teachings, which is what the word doctrine means. So for example, the word of wisdom. The word wisdom has not been taught in every dispensation. It has taken many shifts and turns in our dispensation. It took nearly a hundred years for it to become a binding commandment on temple going Latter day Saints, by the way. It wasn't until Hebrew J grant's ministry in the 1920s and 30s. That really became solidified. But today, you can't even get baptized unless you are willing to live the world of wisdom. You definitely can't have a temple recommend. And so it has become a binding teaching, but it policy doctrine is a timely teaching that is more centered towards application, because God foresaw evils and designs that would exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days. So he gives us this word of wisdom. It's unique to our time. But it's still authoritative, and it's still binding. Similarly, the reason why I want to maybe emphasize that, that people, sometimes people want to dismiss policies, all that. The phrase I use is they want to call it mere policy. Well, that's just a policy. It's not an eternal doctrine. It's still a binding doctrine that can affect Salvation. So if you and I lived in Abraham's time, every male would have to be circumcised to be part of the covenant. Well, circumcision was done away with during New Testament times with Peter and the Jerusalem council. That doesn't mean that I couldn't say to Abraham all Abraham. This is just a policy. I thought this up yourself. I don't have to do this. And it even says, I think it's an off the top of my head, genesis 17, that if you won't be circumcised, you are not part of the covenant. So it wasn't just a mere policy. It was a covenant affecting timely cultural application of truths. And those can happen all the time. And the profits here's novel leaders have that authority to do that. And it's becoming more of almost like a buzzword or a buzz phrase of like, well, this difference between doctor and policy and do not overlap. I don't like that person. That's why I don't like it, because people want to be dismissive of binding church policies that have been authoritatively put in place by key holding profits who have the authority to do so. You can't dismiss what key holding profits establish a standards for the church. And I looked this model that you create because it's almost like the policy doctrines push us towards the support of doctrine, which pushes us towards the core doctrine. If we dismiss those policy doctors, oh, that's just what this profit feels as important. Let's give it a decade, and I'm sure this will change. But then we sort of remove ourselves from this journey to the core doctor. But even if it does change, I want to just touch on that for a moment because that's a big thing. Well, what if this changes? Because doctor doesn't change. Because doctor never changes. Doctrine does change. If you're using doctrine as authoritative teaching now, the gospel of Jesus Christ does not change. But if you're using doctrine as authoritative teachings, it does change. It changes as new revelations come that give us further light and knowledge on a subject. If I had talked to Joseph Smith in 1820 and asked him if God had a body of flesh and bone, I'm not sure he'd say yes. Or if I had asked Joseph in 1830, do we have a mother in heaven? I'm not sure he would have said yes. But by nauvoo, Joseph is very clear that because he's received further revelation, God has a body, and we have a mother in heaven. If I had asked Joseph in 1830 when the church was organized, is there eternal marriage? I'm not sure what he would have said. But by the mid 1830s, there's evidence that Joseph is starting to understand that marriage is meant to be eternal. So doctrine can change as we get new light and knowledge. The example I give is to be hard for your viewers to imagine somebody holding up an object and saying, what is this? Well, they're looking at it from one perspective. And what they're describing is true. But then as that object turns in space, if it's a three dimensional object, they're going to see other sides. And they're going to see underneath, and they're going to see on top. And as they see those new things, doctrine will be amplified and augmented and clarified. But secondly, doctrine will change because policies change because cultural applications change, such as the word of wisdom. But the reason why I want to get back to is so important that people don't say, well, this is just going to change. Because you can never get ahead of profits. If you try to get ahead of profits, you're not in a good position. Yeah. Because if there's one thing I believe and then I think scripture authenticates is that God honors his profits. So take the story of Cora and dathan in the Old Testament. They come to Moses and their levites and they say, we want to have the high priest it also, like you and Aaron, God confirms that this should be Moses and Aaron that have it, not the levites. And Cora says something interesting. He says, well, aren't we all holy? Aren't we all just as good as you? And shouldn't we also have the privilege of high priesthood? And the answer was, yes, they are just as good. They're just as holy. They're just as capable. But that wasn't what the lord revealed or approved or that his profits were giving at that time. And so because they tried to circumvent the profits, the earth opened up and swallowed them whole. Now the reason why I'm saying that is because dispensation later, other tribes of Israel would get the priesthood. And I can picture Cora in the spirit world going CI was right. He was right, but his timing was wrong and his approach was wrong. So I would just have everybody just ponder on that. Doctrine will yet change in the future. And we believe in a living church. And what is orthodox today might be heterodox tomorrow, and what might be considered heresy or heterodox today might become orthodox tomorrow. That's what happens in religions of revelation. But you can't ever get ahead of the revelators. I love that concept of from a leadership perspective. It's not just about like, oh, making sure you raise your hand and correcting something that said that's maybe a supportive that's not a supportive doctor or a policy doctor. But be mindful of those individuals. Maybe there's some individuals that are sort of feeling like they're trying to get ahead of the profits and saying, well, I'm not going to do that. I know where we're headed. I'm just going to wait this out, but to really recognize that and maybe have that dialog with them saying, well, let's talk about what doctor is. Though it's a policy, we should still embrace it as a binding doctrine. And I love when Brigham young also take the example of Brigham young when the revelation on section 76 came out of the 3° of heaven. Brigham young said, I could not understand it. He called it a great trial to him. Because it was so contrary to his traditions. But then bringing young said, I said to myself, do not reject it. Wait a little. And he waited a little, and then until the lord taught him and helped him understand it. It's okay for your faithful members of your ward to say, I don't understand this. I don't even agree with this. I don't know why this is the case. That's fine. You can say that. But just don't don't try to get ahead of the revelators. Don't try to undercut the revelators. Don't try to oppose them. That's not how the kingdom functions. And the other oak said that as much. Right. We sometimes want to approach the kingdom of God as a democracy as we approach political doesn't sway things. So then the fourth ring sorry. I forgot about that four three. The fourth ring goes into what we just call esoteric doctrine. Esoteric is a big fancy word for it's only partially known, or it's obscured or it's ambiguous. And so is there kingdom progression in the next life? That's an esoteric doctrine. What role does mother in heaven play in our Salvation? That's esoteric. We don't know what's on the sealed portion of the book of Mormon. That's esoteric, is Jesus married. That's esoteric. Surely somebody knows those answers. But they're not openly and declaratively revealed in the church. They're open for discussion and interpretation. But there's nothing binding about. There's nothing binding about them. So I want to kind of as we talked about this concept of policy and like we mentioned, this is sort of a hot topic. I mean, I guess it's a hot topic, every generation. Something you taught me about doctor and covenants one 28 versus 9 about the role of receiving revelation. I hear some people say, as far as policy doctor and saying that I don't think that was received through revelation. How would you respond to that? Well, if it's okay, I'll pull out the scripture. Section of 128 verse 9 teaches a really interesting concept. I call it the bold doctrine. And Joseph speaking of the ceiling power says this, it may be seen versus 9. It may seem to some to be a very bold doctrine that we talk of, a power, which records or binds on earth and binds in heaven. Nevertheless, in all ages of the world, whenever the lord has given a dispensation of the priest to any man by actual revelation or any set of men, this power has always been given. Now here's the lesson. Hence, whatsoever, those men did in authority in the name of the lord, and did it truly and faithfully and kept a proper and faithful record of the same, it became a law on earth and in heaven and could not be an old. And then Joseph says, this is a faithful saying, who can hear it? It's almost like he's like, do you get what I'm saying here? Yeah, I love that. He's saying that when profits who hold ceiling keys when they act in their authority in the name of the lord, truly and faithfully, and they make a record of it, it becomes a law on earth and in heaven. And the lord honors that decision. And so it might not have come down as a voice of God from on high or an angel declaring or revealing it. But if the brother in acting in their keys as the lord's agents, meaning his representatives, if their united voice and keys make a decision, it becomes a law on earth and in heaven. And that's a faithful saying who can hear it. This may be a very bold doctrine we talk. That's such a powerful phrase. Right now, we're like, but if remember, also, like, I think it's in the book of Gila and the lord said to me, that he was giving him the ceiling power because he knew that he would not ask anything that was contrary to his will to God's will. And those are the kind of revelators that we've got. And I'm just going to reference that defy in the book of humans such a great example of this that he was given that's a great example of given the keys. And I think the doctrine of keys is so important to understand. It's not just an authority. It's an authority to direct. That gives a lot of autonomy to that leader, which from a bishop's point of view. Sometimes you're just thinking, am I doing the right thing? Is the lord sanctified every direction I'm giving, but to me it takes off so much pressure and being like, listen, we called you, you're a good guy. You have good common sense. You have the keys. Now move forward. There are times on a general level and a personal and local level where the lord gives clear revelation. But there's also times on the lord says I respect your decision and will honor what you decide. So long as you do it truly and faithfully in your authority and in the name of the lord. And he uses this example in your education week address of as far as it's very typical to be in a bishopric meeting and you need a second Sunday nursery leader every other November. You need this calling okay, who do we got? And a lot of members we romanticize about this idea that the angel descended upon my bishop and told him that this is exactly where I need to serve at this time. When a reality is sort of like, we're just trying to just move this word forward and we think you could position here, and that doesn't mean that revelation wasn't received. It's that revelation was created by the bishop directing it. The concept of an agent, sometimes in the church, we say agency. And we think all the power to choose. If I could give an alternate definition, it also means the power to represent if you or I became movie stars, we would likely have an agent if we were professional athletes would have an agent if we were a musician. We would hire an agent. And what our agent does is we let our agent know our general will. And then the agent goes out and makes specific decisions and represents us. And then comes back to us and says, this is what I decided is this okay. They're vested with power to represent. And the lord has agents on this earth on every level on small levels in a family and award. And he has agents on the general level of the church as well. And I think there's several examples of an issue or a problem that may be a bishop or at least I present is really wrestling with and is taking it to the lord of the temple and really desiring that revelation. And there's others that just move forward and make a decision and that still sanctioned. And if it's wrong, the lord will let us know. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I want to talk about going to the ambiguity of doctrine. Let's pivot back to where we started in the Sunday school class. There's sort of this feeling that we have to respect every doctrine of this level as if it's a core doctrine. Sometimes people think, well, I would make a comment, but I don't know if that's doctrine, right? But if we look at it as like, well, that's a supportive doctrine or a policy doctrine. And let's just talk about it. How do you see it? As far as advancing from one king to another, I really don't think that does happen. And someone else may say, well, I think it does. That type of scenario, we sort of avoid as a Sunday school pregnancy like we don't want that to happen because people feel uncomfortable and who knows which is doctor and so let's just avoid that altogether, which then waters down the teaching in general because we stick with, well, what is faith and what does it mean for you to parade? Does anybody have an experience where they pray, right? And we don't get a deeper discussion. So what do we need to understand about the ambiguity in the doctoral model that will help us maybe facilitate a better discussion and deeper discovery at church? Yeah. Well, I would say in the doctoral model, first of all, if it is a core doctrine or a supportive doctrine or a policy doctrine, if it's clear where the church is, if you have cumulative teachings of the brother and the united statements or cohesive scriptures, then we have a responsibility in our church classes to teach those things. And to uphold those as the church's doctrine. The esoteric level, the ambiguous level is where we should be a little more open to discussion. And sometimes people are like, well, I don't want to talk about those things. We just need to stick to the core. And that's your decision as a teacher or a leader, and that's great. And they may use a phrase like we've got to be really careful here that we don't venture off somewhere. In reality, we can still be in the world of doctrine and explore, right? Especially if it's ambiguous. If it's not defined, and frankly, sometimes in the church, we have a hard time with ambiguity. We have a hard time with things that aren't clearly defined or clearly known. So we like to avoid them. But sometimes it's in the very wrestling with ambiguous concepts that clarity does come. Yeah. So what would you do if you were a Sunday school president and working with creating a more fruitful experience in gospel doctrine? How would you manage that or instruct a teacher to find that balance of doctrine and so it's a richer experience? Well, one of the first things you have to do is you have to say I call it making a split decision. And by split decision, it means you write down or you make sure you teach what's known on the subject and declared what should we proclaim and sustain and what's unknown and undeclared on the subject? And when you split it that way, then you can say, okay, this is what is declared and known through revelation or through prophetic teachings. And these are the things that are unknown and undeclared. The stuff that is known, we should emphasize that people proclaim them and sustain them. And then the things that are unknown be free to talk about them. So whatever the subject it is, if that comes up, then let people talk. Let's say that we're studying the Old Testament and somebody has something come up about the theory of evolution in a class. Well, there might be some members of the church who really quick want to say evolution's false evolutions of the devil. And other people want to come out and say, no, no, no, no, no, evolution is scientific. It's proven, it's factual by every open minded person. And as though you have to pick one or the other, and you don't. And so if I were approaching teaching the creation, for example, I would say, okay, what is known? Well, we know that the lord Jesus is the creator of this world. We know that God oversaw the creation. We know that men and women are created in their similitude in the similitude of God. We know that according to Moses, it started with lower order forms. It's interesting that the creation of the world goes from water to land to swimming things to creeping things to birds to animals than to people. I think Darwin would say, yeah, that follows my model. And so, okay, so this is what's known. This was the order of creation. So that's what the church proclaims and then say, all right, we've had some brother and say that evolution's false. We've had others who have been open to it. The church came out in 1909, and it was reaffirmed in 1926 and reprinted a 2002 that the church has no position on evolution other than God that man can evolve into a God. They use that play on words. But they say let how man came to be pursued by science. And so then you could open it up to maybe say all right, then if that's what's known, and this is what the church proclaims, then how can we balance some of these teachings and still sustain it but still be open to what science is teaching and revealing through their methods through the scientific method and be open to a discussion that way and not just try to shut everything down if somebody says, I think evolution is true and someone says, I think it's false. And you're like, I don't want to have this discussion. Because I think it's more like a managing the opinions in the room. I wonder if it would be beneficial for gospel doctor teachers identify these levels of doctrine and say, you know, yeah, that is a core doctrine. What that said, you know, that's a supportive part of doctor. This is a policy doctor. This is an unknown or an esoteric or only partial. I think it's helpful. And then also to say, how do we know it? Yeah. How do I know this is a doctrine? Is this coming out of the harmonized scriptures, united statements, cumulative teachings or church manuals? Because I've done a lot of writing and brought a lot of discourse to this as far as conflict in Sunday school class. There's some that feels like, well, I can't check off all these, I believe all these things. And so I don't feel like I can go to gospel doctrine and share my perspective because I just get shut down. Directly or passive aggressively. The gospel doctor has to manage that as far as how can we hear maybe some alternative supportive doctrines or an alternative perspective of support of doctors without offending this person or having the person raise your hand and say, well, we've got to be careful here that we don't talk about false doctrine. Uses these Trump cards. Well, I mean, that's an art. It really is. This is where it's a blessing and a curse to have a lay ministry. Because we're not trained professionals on this. If you're a trained discussion facilitator, you might be doing a little bit better. But everybody can begin by number one respecting everybody's opinion. Follow what section 88 says that every person's speech and Joseph Smith one time even said, I think it's in the council of 50 minutes. I'd have to go check, but I'm going to paraphrase him. He basically said, we have to agree to disagree longer. And he said, sometimes we try to come to agreement too quickly because we're trying to just diffuse any tension or weirdness. That's not his words. This is maybe the psychology behind it. We don't like there to be uncomfortable disagreement nuance. And Joseph is saying, we need to disagree longer and allow the disagreement to take place. Because it's in the very nature of the disagreement that we come to clarity on certain subjects. So I would say number one don't think that if there's disagreement on the subject that you're doing wrong or that anybody in your ward or your Sunday school is like being unfaithful. Those are frankly judgmental positions to take unless they are directly trying to oppose and undermine established core fundamental teachings of the church. Then we do have a responsibility to say no. This is very clear. If somebody comes out and says, I just don't think that Jesus is the Christ. Well, you better say something about that. That's pretty established. But if it's not, let's open let people discuss and be okay with it. And it try to establish a tone where we're open to people's ideas. We're not going to shoot people down. We're not going to criticize, and then if people disagree with you, it doesn't mean that anybody is offending you. Let's not take offense so quickly. I've heard people say before, I don't say anything in gospel doctrine because nobody listens to me. What do they mean by that is nobody agrees with me. Listening to you and agreeing with you are two separate things. People can listen to you and I all day long. That doesn't mean they have to agree with us. People might be listening to this podcast or not agree with me. And I'm totally fine with that. And we need to be a moral K with that. And say, well, thanks for hearing me, even if you don't agree with me. Yeah. Anything else as far as ambiguity in doctrine that would be worth mentioning or just with you need to embrace ambiguity. There's less that's known than that's unknown. You know, there's just we have answers. I do believe that in the restoration, that's one of the reasons why I love it. We do have answers that others don't. But there's still so much we don't know. And there's still so much that's unclear. And I think my take on it is I think God wants it that way. If I can use an art analogy, I was with an artist more of an abstract artist who does installation art. And he was telling us that he did this installation piece of art and somebody said to him, you need to tell us what it means. You need to put up like a placard next to it explaining it. So I can get it. And he said, no, I refuse to do that. He said that would be the worst thing for me to do. I want you to wrestle with it. I want you to have to engage with it. I want you to have to think it through and analyze it, and he said, I'll drop hints, but I'm not going to explain the whole thing. Spoken like a true artist. So that you can come to your own conclusions. And he said, and if you're not willing to put in the price to wrestle with it and to engage with it, and you're going to walk on to another piece of art, then that's your call. And I think God operates kind of like an abstract artist sometimes. If God wanted to make everything extremely clear, he could make it really easy. He could manifest himself every Sunday afternoon at noon and say hi to everybody and yell from the rooftops that The Church of Jesus Christ a lot of these things is his authorized restored church and that we should all keep the commandments, but he doesn't do that. He places hints, he places drops. He puts the sculpture out there or the abstract art. And then he wants to see if you and I will wrestle and engage with it. And it's more unknown and undeclared than it is known and declared. And as we wrestle with things, the ambiguous the unknown, we hope that we come to more clarity. And I love that the way to think of that, correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe speaking from a teaching perspective in churches, as students leave that classroom, we want them to have some answers and these things we learn, but maybe a deeper desire to go or wrestle with some of this information they've learned not in a negative way or doubtful way, but to really dig in and find a deeper understanding. God needs seekers. Yeah. He wants people who are willing to seek anisha find ask knock. And that requires things that aren't exactly clear. I got one more question for you, but before you do that, if people want to learn more about you about your art, I know you do a good Instagram, you're a good Instagram. Follow me on Instagram, brother, Anthony sweat, or I have a website, Anthony S.W.A.T. dot com where you can see some of my books and paintings and yeah, awesome. All right, last question I have for you is I typically ask leaders as I interview them like what is being a leader taught you about being a follower of Jesus Christ. But I'm curious as you have painted leaders and illustrated leaders and family stories, what is painting leaders, how is that influenced you as a follower of Jesus Christ? That's an interesting question. Well, I've mainly taught, sorry, I've mainly painted.
The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey
"jerusalem council" Discussed on The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey
"Hundred and fifty. Three scholars think that. That's the number of fish types. There were in the sea of galilee and this represented one of every type which then sort of gives this demonstration of jesus his the gospel going out to every nation people from every tongue and tribe and nation being caught in the net of the kingdom. That's unbelievable isn't it cannot wait to kick the. What is that going to be like. No it's gotta be october november air plan. That is amazing. Yes you've got. We've got it in this. Israel's we've got a trip together and teach on the light of the world and that spot pick some of your favorite spots and we'll have you teach there. Do we just plan this. Twenty twenty one. Happy hour okay. So you just told me that which is just blew my mind here in. I don't want that to be your answer. What was the coolest thing you've learned this year. Oh the thing that just blow your mind or the thing that made you love god war. Okay i'll tell you. I'll tell you something that really humbled me because when i it was one thing that i was like i never knew this and i was telling people. They're like we are like. Oh okay well that's happened to me before This is this is one of those things scholars debate but Elijah who was carried away in a cherry to fire. I always thought that was like him. You know that was that was his bis beautiful rare kind of death you know that. He's like carried away into the kingdom. He's crosses over. There are theories out there that makes sense that he actually was still alive for like decades after this. Because there's a letter that shows that they think is from him so where is like no one knows to pock like people don't know where he is such a you know what i even got lumers. Yeah so it's like this theory. That like he still actually alive out there somewhere. Not right now no no no not right now okay league right now the gas for while he was still alive out there where where did they do. They think they know the death then or do they just now. We think he might still be alive because we just got a letter. That's allegedly from him. That's crazy you see that in or is that just lie that was in it was scripture. But it's kind of like a subtle. It's very just one of those like loop like just a blip on the radar and I was like. I never just thought that was this beautiful death and it's like maybe it was but maybe not but maybe not and it's been super you learn to hold a lot of things with an open hands. One of the things say over and over again as we don't scream or scripture whispers and we don't whisper wish scripture screamed so that's good and You know there are some places that it's interesting. I always felt like scripture was whispering. But the more you study at the more you see like no scripture screaming anything regular Sovereignty of god is like all over the place and another thing. Is i until i started reading. This year is a year where a lot of the new testament i was reading with new eyes like particularly the letters. The epistles paul's letters to the church. Luke's letter says acts those very i was seeing it through their lens like trying to read it as they would read it instead of like health because it is it's a to to a specific Right and so. I was always thinking. Like what can we take from isn't apply to our modern churches and some of that's helpful but also learning like they are in really specific circumstances and so one of the things that you see over and over and over is the racism and cultural divides over and over and over every church in the new testament struggles with that every single one and they just keep leaning in there. Like we're in this together because the some of the questions are. I'm a gentile not. I'm not jewish person. Do i need to convert to judaism convert to christianity like. That's a huge debate. And do i need to lay down my culture and pick up. jewish culture. Wasn't even a debate in between people following. Jesus us debating what you needed to do like he needs to follow these rules or do you not. Yeah and so you know. There's the jerusalem council and they say like the only things that you need to lay down in your culture are these things and the only things you need to pick up as the culture of christ you don't need to convert to judaism pick up jewish culture but don't eat meat sacrifice to idols. It's going to be a stumbling block for your brothers and so things like that. That are like the church learning to live across the cultural divides which were still dealing with. Yeah yeah and. I just didn't realize how prominent that was in every new testament church. You hadn't seen shot with fresh eyes. Time yeah I'd be interested to hear in th two three four years every year. What is your fresh. I because you could see a theme kind of rise up in your own personal life. And i would even i've for me thinking a lot right now about women And so i would listen and read a lot trying to find when were women treated well right and so i've been reading a lot through that lens. Of what is it looks like. And how does god care for women in the culture wasn't right. Jesus treating women when the culture was an so. It'd be interesting to see the different lenses. Read it through and it's so one of the things that is challenging is when you zoom in on one verse and you don't look at the whole context because there are some things paul says that are hard to read but then you look at and you're like oh he's here. He told them to be women to be silent and churches but back there he was telling women when you prophesy and churches here's how to do it and like don't forbid these women from prophesied like so so like it feels and you know one of the things that you learn when you're studying. The cultural context is each of these. Churches has a different scenario that they're dealing with and the church at corinth when he's telling the women to be silent in the churches one of the one of the theories that i read that made a lot of sense to me was This is roman culture. This isn't jewish culture roman culture. The men would come into the forum and they would have their debates between each other and the women were often outside so outside the church there kind of a potentially yelling into find out. what's like. Hey what's going on. And they're like asking their husbands. And so paul saying just knock it off asked him when you get home because you're disrupting things interesting eight order here and so i. I wasn't there. I don't know but given roman culture at the time that makes a lotta sense and it would be the way i compared on the bible recap is like it might be kind of like telling people to.
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"And he started in one. He says the gentiles are bad. Right he gets the jews on his side. He says the gentiles are awful. And you can hear the jews and the background going. Yeah paul we agree amen right and then he goes the jews are no better and then they go boo right. He got them on his side and then he's like the jews are no better and then in chapter three he talks about the issue of sin that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god which was a difficult thing for those israelite christians to stomach and they would turn immediately to abraham is father. Anyone talk about boasting at the end of chapter. Three where is boasting then. It is excluded by what law right of works. No but by the law of faith you can't boast simply obedient to god and we're gonna see why in just a second look at chapter four verse. One he says what. Then shall we say that. Abraham our father was according to the flesh for his abraham was justified by the works by works he has something to boast about. But not before god for what does the scripture say abraham believed god and it was accounted to him for righteousness. This phrase is an accounting term accounted to him not just because it like accounting but it was accounted to him for righteousness given to him. He was made righteous. Like when you go into a restaurant and you order your food and you eat your food. And then the bill comes and you're like oh. I forgot my wallet and someone comes up and they pay your bill. You didn't do anything to engender that. Mercy that grace someone who was simply kind to you. And in this case that's what he's saying. Abraham didn't do anything to warrant or to earn. That's the word. Abraham didn't do anything to earn the gray scott gave him. There is nothing you can do to earn the grace that god gives us. God redeems us of our sin and if there was one activity if there was action if there is a plethora of actions if it was a scale which is how most people see it if you do more good than bad but it's not a question of balance it's a question of whether you're a center and if you have sinned the new fall short of the glory of god and if you sin and fall short of the glory of god the wage you earned from that romans. Chapter six verse. Twenty three is death. Romans five says that we are without strength that we ought our own can't fix this problem. And neither could abraham and yet god justified abraham because of his faith and as such abraham didn't deserve it he didn't earn it but his faith gave god credence or caused god to forgive his sins. And if you pick up an well. I love five eighth. So we're going to read it. He says but to him who does not work. Oh no. I forgot verse four. I was awesome so back up to three. I just keep going back. We're gonna end up in chapter one by the time i'm done for. What does the scripture say. Abraham believed god and it was accounted to him for righteousness now to him who works. The wages are not counted as grace. But as the debt did abram. Or abraham either one. Did he work to earn righteousness. No he was accounted righteous by god. He was justified treated just as if not send. I love that verse. Five says to him who does not work but believes on him justifies the ungodly. His faith is accounted for righteousness so in the same way that abraham because he was faithful to god got accounted righteousness to him so the same situation as the case. Now if you are saved it is because god accounts righteousness to your account is because your your account that is in the red because of sin god makes zero. You get to heaven now because you've done more good than bad that has nothing to do with it and i argue. That's impossible. We should try. But it's impossible more precisely you go to heaven if you go to heaven because jesus paid the price for your sins. Now abraham didn't understand that at the time abraham had god told me. This was the case. I'm going to go with it. Thank god we later on. Get the full understanding of how this works. That the blood of christ cleanses us from our sins. And he says versus. Just as david also describes the blessedness of the man to whom god imputes righteousness that is wipes away apart from works that you don't earn it. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the lord shall not impute sin. That's actually next week's part of next week's lesson. So i'm gonna stop there. Well i'm gonna keep going i nine. I'm not gonna talk about versus seven and eight. They're also but that's next week vs. Does this blessedness. Then come upon the circumcised. Only what an amazing question does this blessedness. Only come upon the circumcised. Only that is to jews. Only come to people who are faithful under the old testament or even just people who are circumcised. According to estimate teachings how then was it accounted while he was circumcised or uncircumcised. Historically you'd have to go back in genesis chapter fifteen in verse. Six god tells abraham that he has been accounted righteous but abraham's not circumcised until genesis seventeen. That's two chapters later so this justification has nothing to do with abraham circumcision. And that's what the jews were associating it with. They said well he was. He was blessed by god because he was circumcised. Because he was the first of the jews will. He was blessed because it was faithful to god. It was accounted righteousness to him because he was faithful to god in it and it had nothing to do the work of circumcision. It had nothing to do with any of those things and he received the sign of circumcision. A seal of the righteousness of faith which he had while still owned circumcised that he might be the father of all those who believe though they are uncircumcised that that righteousness might be imputed to them. Also that's us. We as far as i know. There's no there's no. There's no familial jews there's no jews have. There's no people. Here who have jewish ancestry. I don't know maybe i know so. It's really important to me that god made away that did not involve jewish circumcision. Not just their condition but jewish circumcision. That i don't have to become a jew. In order to become a christian and actually paul and silas pollen barnabus argue that and it gets all the way in acts fifteen to the jerusalem council and they argue it and they determine accurately that.
The Bible Nerds Show
"jerusalem council" Discussed on The Bible Nerds Show
"As an apostle to the gentiles. So again why peter. I believe there are two key reasons. I peter was with jesus for his entire earthly ministry and would have known jesus teachings on this issue he would have understood that jesus compassion reach beyond the physical descendants of abraham isaac and jacob second jesus knew peter's heart especially in light of his earlier denial of jesus and then his subsequent restoration. Peter would never again deny his rabbi or go against his clear commands. So peter was the only one who could go to the jewish believers and convince them that the gospel was now going to the uppermost parts of the earth and that meant it was going not only the juice scattered were worldwide. But to the gentiles as well petersons to Drift into the background of the story. After this we do see him at the jerusalem council and acts fifteen abbott again. His words are only in connection with how. The gospel applies to the gentiles We really read more about any miracles or teachings from him Peter knows that everything has changed i. He does write some letters. Search and in one of them seems indicate that he might have traveled a battle honour. that could be rome. And he's using a metaphor there This isn't surprising if we understand that. A large jewish population continued to live in babylon even after the return to jerusalem After the captivity or he was visiting other jews in rome Either way. Peter simply continued to minister to those to whom he was sent and he was content with knowing that he was being faithful to his calling. I like to imagine peter sitting in his prison. Cell layer in rome a remembering that morning on the sea of galilee after the resurrection. When jesus asked him three times. Do you love me. Peter and as niro soldiers prepared the cross upon which peter would be crucified just as his rabbi had been i can see.
Knowing Faith
A Seller of Purple Goods, a Jailer, and an Unknown God
"Listen we are. We're jumping back into ax today to continue our journey In Discussing Acts Sixteen. And today we're looking at a seller of purple goods a jailer and an unknown God. There's some incredible stories in these few chapters of the book of acts. And so we're going to dig in and so right off the Bat and act. Sixteen we encounter a friend and CO worker of Paul who is going to factor in heavily just future ministry from here on this Timothy in acts. Sixteen you hear Paul came also to Derby into lie. Stra and disciple. Was there named Timothy now on Timothy? That's like he's like he is probably outside of Barnabus right. He's going to be such a prominent figure for the rest of the New Testament right. He's pulse keynote. Address letters to Timothy and their ministry collaborates. Paul talks about missing Timothy wanting to send timothy when like these guys. Are Thickest thieves so what this Timothy Sharing Common with Paul that we find out real quickly here because he says disciple their name Timothy the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer but his father was a Greek. So what do we know kind of a is there a reason maybe that they hit it off so closely rank as Paul also has great gin Jr like this Ju- Greek connection right? I see what you're trying to get an I. Maybe this is just being like not seeing this before. Maybe other people have seen this in. It's really evident how ironic that chapter sixteen in terms of the contents is coming right after chapter. Fifteen right because what do we just talked about in chapter? Fifteen is this gentile inclusion in Jerusalem Council. Of what are we going to Ask Gentile converts to its fulfillment of the Jewish faith. Now what are we Gonna? Ask THEM TO DO. Or WE'RE NOT GONNA ask them to be circumcised. They just need to abstain from sexual immorality abstained from food sacrificed to idols food with blood in it. And then here you have. Timothy who is perfectly kind of representing both of these cultures of Christianity is going out into a Jewish culture because his mom is Jewish but then but then his father is. Greek is gentle. And so I certainly number one and God's providence that this is the kind of Co laborer that he would give Paul to help him Of course so Paul is is thoroughly Jewish right. She makes clear New Testament. Also somebody who understands in converted from also a Greek culture. But here's what's crazy about this Mason King and I in our colleague here at the Institute. We're talking about this yesterday. As he was preparing for a lecture. The training program is your little further so in chapter one dollars. Okay so this is Timothy. He's the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer but his father was Greek. He's spoken well of strap but then in verse three We. We learned that Paul Wants Timothy to accompany him. So come be my ministry partner. This is now the missionary journey that we're going out on any took him. And what does he do? Circumstances sizes them. Yeah right after we were just told. Hey you don't have to do that. Like some stage fright about becoming a Christian you. You're you're you don't need to do that. All you need to do as abstain from sexual immorality but here he gets a ministry partner. They're going to go on a Jewish gentlemen but primarily gentile mission. Yeah any circumstances them. Yeah why I think you know. It's funny because I was. I was hoping that we would talk about this I think that it is partly or I think it. Lines UP WITH PAUL's vision of laying down prerogatives and privileges. For the sake of ministry like pulsing. Listen you know like he talks about later on said I could I could earn incomes off my ministry but I'm choosing not to. I'm laying down right in order that you know I could be available to you that there are no road blocks in the going forth of the Gospel. I think this is a strong and weak thing. I think that Paul Sang Listen. Hey Timothy they're going to be people because right because his ministry you find out later we're gonNA talk about it. He goes in. He gets into a town where to go synagogue right right. He's he's going right there. So that's where even if the mission extends out to gentiles each newtown? He's coming into. He's he's jumping into the synagogue. I and I think that with Timothy. It says that hey. They knew that his father was Greek. Right all new all new that new the Jews father was Greek so I think Paul saying listen. You know obstacle. Let's just remove all of the things. Don't pause for awkward. Well it does seem like a like okay. Did they lift up? Everybody's rogue don't think honestly. I do have questions about that. I just I can't heads or tails of it. Everybody knew this guy was not a gentile. I mean do. Do you walk different. That'd be what is the deal. Evidently there was widespread information about this. That Paul was like listen. It's going to be a stumbling block. We have this. We're not gonNA having side conversations that distract us from Gospel conversations. Yes but it's really. I mean so basically you have. Hey you guys don't get circumcised. This guy get circumcised which I think is really informative for us in the modern church where anytime. There is a temptation to widely prescribed. Something that is Has already been noted. Hey this is not a test for Orthodoxy That we should we should question what. What's the cost benefit to whether someone here's your particular command or not? Yeah and and I think a coal here a picture to that part of the burden of spiritual leadership regardless of where it's at is the willingness. Yeah lay down. Because he's yes. He's a leader. That's important distinction. Here is is is that it's prescribed for him because he'll be a particular position of visibility exactly and so you can think of all kinds of correlations for for leaders in the Church today being above reproach being probably yeah number one of them And often we can talk about things like Christian Freedom That's like a theological category to say like wherever the Bible doesn't speak but your conscience doesn't allow you to do something. Don't prescribe that for me. We get to walk in freedom. And that's true and that's really important especially in some maybe kind of heavily. Legalistic circles fundamentalist circles. That would say we're going to go beyond scripture and demand that you also maintain these ethical boundary markers but the other side is also true. Is that that could lead to an anti communism where we basically don't WanNa follow any law at all. Yeah and Paul's really charting a middle course here and saying yes. We are free in Christ acts fifteen while at the same time. We're willing to lay down our rights for the sake of the rest of the Gospel Acts Sixteen. Yeah that's a really incredible tension. It really didn't find myself. You know go on my own personal life. Moving between both of them. I am free in Christ but I also I don't want to leave anything down. You know freedom all you have to do. Is these things. Then you realize you know what this could be a stumbling block or an officer for the Gospel. Lord help me lay this down. We'll and yes all yes to all of that. That's really important. I think it's also an indicator that we've mentioned multiple times in acts that that the Church's formation is emerging from from not just thoroughly but almost completely Jewish sensibilities and sources. So it's easy for US specifically for non Jewish people to really quickly rush past all of the The Jewish roots of this story and access. Full of these little glimmers where you start to see like their self understanding of this is as the full expression the proper expression of what all the. Old Testament was about three. It's still very much we rush. Pass it in almost Judaism as like this all together separate thing and we know that in light of the resurrection how the Christian community forged it has from the Resurrection Onward. It became increasingly more distinctive. The the difference but at this point they are still very close to that. Yeah for sure. Well and I think our unfamiliarity with the Old Testament means that as as as New Testament gentile believers were like circumcisions. Weird guys like. Why are we even talking about this like? Why is there a Jerusalem Council? You know you would think they'd want to dump that off as soon as possible front. But if you're familiar like with the story for example Moses where where God says. He's he's going to kill him if he doesn't circumcise his son because he hasn't been Abedian to to circumcise his son. And then Tzipora gets in there and fixes the problem in a rather dramatic fashion. Those are the stories that are are looming large in the consciousness of the Jewish mind. And so it's not it's not a small thing at all. I mean it is it is it was a it was such a strong dividing line in the Old Testament and Paul understands that in order to initiate a conversation about The shedding of blood for the renewing of life. Yeah he he needs to make accommodations
Knowing Faith
A Blanket Full of Bacon
"This is Shirley. I'm joined by my co host. Jim Wilkin JT English. I wish we should just give you everything off the it was just a repository Eh. One day we will put that on. Today's episode we are an ax to look at a blanket. Full of Bacon in acts chapter. Ten hope you enjoyed the discussion hey. Jt why did did you immediately come in here and make fun of my Mug. There's this problem like we have these huge coffee mugs in here right now and I can't fit my coffee Mug in my ears. Looks like it in your mind ends Jenas but it's big like that's like a gallon or so over there we had a microphone in there. The microphone with your your Coffee Mug. It's a to hold it with both hands. Yes driving a small bucket. uh-huh drive and your yeah. This is interesting Well we are back. And today we're talking about acts chapter ten and a blanket full of Bacon And so just figuring out what's happening in acts chapter ten and well you know what. Let me tell you something. You're you're never going to indict me for not having an interesting episode title. Just I'm like I'm free from that. Ah Chan what would you call this episode pigs in a blanket. That happened off air. We were very proud of that. We brought it back on here. You know we we're GONNA leave people without pigs in a blanket so then I had a weird moment after that hit me when we actually my daughter I want to give her credit. She's the one who was like Mama teaching pigs in a blanket. And then I took everything in me to resist googling to see if there was actual a tie between the tidal title pigs in a blanket and this chapter really like I thought maybe the International House of pancakes red x ten and then named it back. Wow Oh oh wait. Wait wait so so you thought that it was possible that the idea because of the head coach for a viable. Wow you're so. Yeah Bible rival literary you're like the beautiful mind person maybe where you're just like though subject to further discussion. Well today. We're talking about about pigs in a blanket or a blanket full of Bacon. We're an act SHEPPERTON. Let's just do a quick recap so far jen. How did we tax ten? I mean wh where have we been at before we got here. Well Kyle. It's been a long haul. No actually it's been really good we've gone through So the first half of is focusing mainly on the the emergence of the Ministry of Peter Within the narrative and So the first half of the book wraps up at the around the end of chapter twelve. And so. When you're in chapter ten you would know? Then we're really getting disordered. The the main point of what's happening in Peter's Ministry and interestingly right before you get to chapter ten ten you see the conversion of Saul so the Texas has spent a lot of time talking about Sol And we actually did on an earlier podcast and so you can kind of get get the sense that oh well I guess. Now we're gonNA talk about Saul Slash Paul and Saul Slash. Paul is commonly thought of as The one who takes the Gospel to the gentlemen tiles and said it's a little bit of a surprising. Turn when we flash back to Peter and find that actually. This is a story about Peter Taking the Gospel to the Gentile Anti. And he's GonNa he definitely gets kicked their right. It's not like he's not looking for the opportunity right. He wasn't. He wasn't out vision-casting for the Gospel. Going forward right Paul right with the Lord Kinda seized him into it right. Hold them into it. And that's the story Enact Shepperton focusing on Peter Cornelius and so I and also what's brought us to this point is like this expansion. This sort of ratcheting out of the Vision for who the Gospel is going to go to. And so I it comes to the Jew and then you start seeing you know like. Oh there's the Ethiopian Eunuch you know it's like each each vignette that's in here of WHO Receives The Gospel. Is this this this picture of the Gospel going as Jesus said in acts one eight from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and so this week is the ends of the earth and so and this is a fascinating story right right Oh man it's fantastic. I mean it's just it's really interesting just from like a history of redemption perspective. It's really interesting from a Kosh the spirit moving and Peter Peter and Cornelius perspective. It's interesting from what our visions and dreams perspective. It's interesting from a just like the pictures that are are interesting. They agers so it's just a fascinating story so we're not going to be able to read the whole story of petering to Cornelius. Because it's it's long it would take we're trusting when we cover these chapters. You're maybe reading along with us or you're familiar with the story. So the broad kind of contour here just to give us like a big arc of acts chapter. Tim Is that Pete. There's this guy named Cornelius Milius And Cornelius is a centurion of what was known as the Italian cohort and it says that he was a devout man who feared God with all his household he gave generously to the people and he prayed continually to God and that he is going to have a vision and that vision is going to be the Lord speaking to him And that around the same time Peter seems to be having having a vision and that is a vision that involves pigs in blankets. Hallelujah yes and so oh I think one of the questions that we immediately ask ourselves here is. What's the big deal between gentiles and Jews like? Why is this even talking point of significance at all like y casual reader of the Bible? And you get to this story. Why did Peter have to be kicked so to speak into bringing the good news to Cornelius? He is why wasn't that. Just a factor like hey I mean Jesus has come. This is good news. Why not bring it to everybody? Yeah I mean I think one of the main themes that we're going to see probably throughout this. This episode is the significance of promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis chapter. Twelve verse three Specifically that that That Abraham or Abram Room at the time was this man who was going to be elected for the purpose of his family than blessing the nations events he subsequently in Genesis. Fifteen and. Seventeen this this Promise promise of the good news. Of God's favor and blessing being given to Abraham and going through Abraham there is a sign given to this covenant specifically the sign of circumcision which is now the Jewish people. It's the Israelites and but over. The course of time I think they began to to forget that the purpose of their election of the Gospel the good news being given to them was actually not just for them but elections for the purpose of others of blessing the nations corporately and they begin developing a spiritual superiority based based upon this sign of circumcision. And it could not see how God would bless or or make somebody clean. who was in their mind unclean unless they they had been circumcised so really when you come to the New Testament one of the primary questions that is being asked like their their theological conversation is around this question? Do you have to be Jewish right in order to be a Christian. We're GONNA see this later in acts chapter fifteen at the Jerusalem Council. But that's really what's happening. Luke is doing. He's giving us a theological narrative errative to show us that the primary question that that that that God is trying to show his church is that by intentions. The whole time has been to bless everybody to bus the gentiles. Not just Jews but gentiles through the Jews yeah Because obviously the Messiah comes through Abraham's family right well and one of the reasons that we wouldn't read through this on the on the podcast Is because it repeats itself. So God's right and and and one of the things that we have to ask then is like the R- the repetition is like we get all the details over. I mean the the number of times that Simon the tanner who lives by the sea is mentioned. In these in these retailing's you're like stop and and it's repeated three times. The story is repeated three times. And they're actually a number of threes in the story Or multiples of three. That are are trying to tell us something They're we're going to be three men who accompany that. Go to get Peter. They're going to be six men that come with Peter Back to Cornelius House because they are bearing witness. It's the idea of on on the on the testimony. The money of two or three is the truth is something established. So that's all going on. The story is given to US three times. It itself is bearing witness and what we have to ask is why so much over and over again the same thing and it's because I think we we're looking back on something in and most of us are gentiles. We don't have a Jewish heritage and and we have to recall That this level of repetition and this much care taken around communicating this particular message about clean versus unclean about is is Christianity Eh Something that is placed within Judaism and grows out from it like. Do you have to observe Jewish custom that to the original audience. This is mind mind-blowing at the point that it is being given to them like it is like that cannot possibly be and yet it's in here three times because his. Jt said it it's the fulfillment is a fulfillment fulfillment passage for the promise. To Abraham that through him. All the families of the Earth would be blessed and I think it is easy for us to to to be dismissive of some of the tensions between the Jewish people. And somebody like Cornelius. Like it's not like the Israelite people were had no the reason to have a little bit of certainly hesitancy but if not if not just hesitancy but outright resistance to the idea idea of gentiles being heirs of the promises why because they had a history of being enslaved exiled and oppress by these groups of people right. That's right so like Cornelius when we kind of turn to the question of who is Cornelius with Cornelius. Is He's a leader. He's a soldier of an oppressing army occupying hang army exactly. So it's like the idea of Peter Going to Cornelius. And saying there's good news for you. Cornelius would be to bring the good news of Christ the Lord and this better kingdom to an oppressive enemy. That's exactly right and so it can feel a little bit like if you're reading this you're like well why the hesitation well not only were. There are strict tradit religious traditions that separated from cleanliness perspective Jews from gentiles engine towels from the inner presence of the Lord or the holiest places around the presence of Galway But there were also very big cultural and political realities that that kept division alive among Jews and gentiles so cornelius is a centurion It was What was known as the Italian cohort but he has described arrived as a devout man? Feared God with all his household gave generously to the people and pray continually to God. Now I wanted to pause here And just ask a little bit so coriolis just describe somebody who fears God and yet. He hasn't heard the good news of the Gospel. What's going on here right? Is this like the is this the sometimes. I read this passage. I feel like this is where people would go when they're like well you know there's somebody out there who maybe has never heard about the name of Jesus but it is like but does fear the Lord right so who. What does this mean? Why is this significant? I think this is a classic example of why we can't take the book of access prescriptive given everything that it's saying because what we're seeing as you're right at the hinge point right you're right at that place in between The way that we see faith demonstrated rated and credited his righteousness in the Old Testament and the way that we're going to see Belief in credit credited as faith and salvation in the New Testament I meant and Cornelius is right at the center of it. He's going to help us. Answer the question of how to salvation come by grace through faith alone has always been the answer but we would speak of like those is who are listed in Hebrews eleven as having looked forward to the promise of salvation and then New Testament believers is having looked back. He's right at Ground Zero and and so I think that what we see here. Well so just strictly in terms of what the text wants to communicate. He is a Jewish pro slight right so he is he. He is probably on the verge of conversion to Judaism so he's he's probably attending synagogue but he's not circumcised He someone who in the past would have been like if you think. Think about Rahab. She converts to Judaism or or or ruth is brought into the community. He's not yet in the community but it's interesting that he is already demonstrating. He has works to accompany his faith. So so I think what we're seeing here is a simple obedience to a forward-looking looking faith that is only forward looking in so far as no one has come to preach the Gospel to him yet. There there is a completeness to Gospel but he hasn't heard it yes. I actually don't think this is my hot. Take that when Peter Shares the Gospel with him. I'm not sure that that's the moment of salvation for him because we already see the Lord appearing to him and saying prayers MOMS have ascended as a memorial before God But I do think what we're seeing is. The connection of the idea of what is what has been salvation. An and now what is celebration. Yeah and we do see throughout acts. I don't know that we we've hit another one of these yet. But we do see these moments where there's essentially a group of Characters Jersey have a part of the story and that one of the apostles you gotta bring it to bring the other part of the story right so you see this with typically The receiving of the Holy Spirit or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. where it's like? You have a part of the story people like. Yeah I've been baptized by John. The baptist. Well there's there's more you know that like the the Christ price came that he died that he rose again and that he has sent the spirit right and so there are these kinds of points. I think it's important. You said that about Cornelius that there are so many scenes and acts where we need to fight. Maybe the the temptation to go okay. This is how salvation works As supposed to go okay. This is a very specific. Overlap moment in the history of redemption and this is one kind of cut away scene right of that very unique back once in a history redemption. Kind of moment. Yeah right that's right. Also just find a lot of comfort in the fact. That God was wasn't his providential ential over all of it in other words. This doesn't work if God isn't clearly. Directing writers clearly directing directing the men who were with them like God is moving moving all of these tectonic continental plates and there's there's just movement in redemptive history happening we get. We get this great confidence or assurance in this narrative narrative God ultimately is the one doing. Yes Yep that's good guy gets his people he doesn't have to be more anxious about God's mission than he is and Edberg. Yeah you're right Let's go. I needed to hear that today.