Podcasts about pharisaic

In the Christian church, the Pharisees are often seen as the epitome of hypocrisy.-- the essence of all that is wrong with Judaism. But what if Jesus' teachings were borrowed straight from the traditional writings of these rabbis? What if Jesus wasn't teaching something "new" but something "true" that had always existed in the sacred teachings of these Jewish sages. Kathy and Gary demonstrate how Jesus' teaching flowed in the stream of Pharisaic teaching of his day. Placing his teachings in their proper perspective and context hopefully chips away at underlying anti-Jewish messaging in the Christian church.

Deuteronomy 26 contains the offering of the first fruits and the tithes. The first fruits of the land are always Yahweh's and they needed to be humbly and thankfully presented to the priest with an acknowledgment of Israel's great debt for the Almighty delivering them. Speaking of Jacob's, ie Israel, history they were to recite the words of verse 3. Following the priest's response they were then to answer with the words of verses 5 to the first half of verse 10. Slowly read those verses and reflect how feeble and insignificant we are; and yet how great is our Sovereign's redeeming hand that has been outstretched for us. Verses 11-12 tells us that they were to give their tithes joyfully and acknowledging God's gracious provision to the Levite, the widow and the fatherless. Then they were to recite the words of verses 23-15 in thankfulness to their Creator for the privilege that He has provided in His evident care and compassion for all classes within His nation. The last words of their invocation are a prayer for divine acceptance. Do we give help from a bountiful and generous heart? Verses 16-19 declares that this spirit of obedience is essential and when it is shown will become a preserving blessing for each individual and for the entire nation. In Song of Solomon 6 verse 1 we hear of the bride's companions offering to go with her to seek for the groom. The bride's response is recorded in verses 2-3. Here she says that he has probably gone to his spice garden and that she expects to find her beloved among the lilies. The bride proclaims her intense love for her husband. In verses 3-11 we have the bridegroom's declaration of love for his perfect and magnificent spouse. In a succession of grand metaphors the bride is described. Her presence is awesome and takes his breath away. Her eyes are striking and have captivated her groom. The hair of the bride is thick and shimmering. Her teeth are perfectly formed and matching from top to bottom. The bride's cheeks flush with a healthy rosy glow. When Solomon compares this loved one her beauty excels that of 60 his queens, 80 of his concubines and unnumbered virgins from his realm. In her and in her alone does king Solomon find perfection. The groom's metaphors conclude in verse 4 in the same way that they commenced. His bride is in every way formidable and a worthy companion of her king. Verses 11-12 tell of the bride's response. She sees herself with her incomparable husband transported into a location of many great delights to her senses. She sees herself in Solomon's chariot and her powerful prince the master of every situation. In verse 13 the companions of the bride ask her to come back to them as they are missing her peaceful and calming presence. The song concludes with the groom's endorsement of the pacific qualities of the bride and find those qualities a match with his, ie Solomon's, own character. Acts 21 records Paul's journey to Jerusalem. The Apostle comforts and encourages many groups of disciples as he heads to Jerusalem. An old prophet, named Agabus, attempts to persuade Paul to go no further. Paul will not, like his lord, be dissuaded from going. The first thing Paul does on his arrival is to see James who advises him of the best course of action to be taken so as to avoid trouble. The Apostle is advised to complete his Nazarite vow and to cover the expenses of four other brothers who are completing their vows. James reiterates to Paul that the only binding requirements on Gentile believers are the keeping of the four matters agreed upon at the Jerusalem Conference. However, Paul cannot peacefully complete his vow since he is arrested in the temple by Asian Jews. These hostile Jews mistakenly believe that Paul has profaned the temple by bringing Trophimus, a Gentile Ephesian into the temple. A Tribune from the Roman fort of Antonia rescues Paul and commands that he be chained. The crowd clamours for the Apostle's blood, just as they had for his Lord's some three and a half decades earlier. In the barracks Paul speaks with the Tribune dismissing many of the fanciful thoughts as to who Paul might be. Paul asks for permission to address the crowd from the steps of the fort and his speech is recorded in chapter 22. Paul gives his defence in Hebrew and initially the crowd pays close attention. The aged Apostle describes his own education in the Pharisaic tradition under Gamaliel and his zeal for the Law. After this he tells of his experiences on the Damascus road, his conversion to a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says that he is warned by Jesus his Lord to immediately leave Jerusalem since his testimony will not be accepted. The Jews attentively listen until Paul speaks of being sent to the Gentiles. Once again uproar follows and the Tribune commands that Paul be scourged that the Tribune might understand why the multitude were so angry with the Apostle. Paul, on this occasion, uses his Roman citizenship to avoid a pointless flogging. The chapter concludes with the Tribune intending to have Paul examined by the Jewish Sanhedrin on the next day.

Deuteronomy 27 commands Israel that when they enter the land the nation should be assembled together at Shechem – which means the burden bearer. This town has an incredible history from the time Joshua gathered the nation to this location as soon as the major conquests of the land had been completed until the advent of our Lord Jesus' visit as John 4 records. The village lies in a valley between two mountains – Ebal and Gerazim. Six tribes were to stand upon each of these mountains to hear the reciting of Deuteronomy chapters 27 and 28. The curses for disobedience are found in chapter 27 and the blessings for obedience in chapter 28. Before this happens large stones were whitewashed and the words of the curses and the blessings were written on them. These were to be a record to remind the Israelites of the LORD's favour and goodness in bringing the people into the Promised Land. Additionally an altar of unhewn stones was to be built on Mount Ebal – the mountain of cursing. We, perhaps, puzzle that it should be the mountain of cursing where God's altar was to be. Why? Perhaps since the curses become more prominent in the nation's subsequent history as Joshua would point out towards the end of his life – Joshua 24 verses 18-22. Sacrifices were offered on Yahweh's altar. It is interesting to note that the confusing worship of the Samaritans had its focus on Mount Gerazim (John 4 verses 20). The tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin were to stand on Mount Gerazim. On Mount Ebal stood the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulon, Dan and Naphtali. The Levites were to recite in a loud voice all the curses and the blessings. After each curse the people of Israel were to audibly respond with the word “Amen”. Think about that as we find that word in chapter in each of the verses from 15-32. In past ages it was normal practice for each member of the congregation in our ecclesias to audibly say “Amen” as a sign of accord with what had been said. It meant that we were participating in the prayer and agreeing that the prayer was not just for the praying brother, but that it was our prayer. And so we said “Amen” meaning ‘so be it'.. Song of Solomon chapter 7 is in two parts. In verses 1-9a the groom continues from the last verse of chapter 6 in his praise of his bride. This song starts in the concluding words of the sixth chapter. The groom speaks of his soulmate in metaphors describing her feet, her thighs, her navel, her belly, her breasts, her neck, her eyes, her nose, her head, the locks of her hair, her poise and her pleasantries. He knows her every part. Just as our Lord Jesus Christ intimately knows everything about us. And we must come to know him just as we are known – John 17 verses 3-8; 1 Corinthians 13 verses 9-13. In verses 9b-13 the bride responds by declaring that she finds her groom to be desirable in every respect. In verses 11-13 she wholeheartedly gives herself to him in enraptured love. Acts 23 tells of Paul before the Sanhedrin. In a similar way to when our Lord Jesus Christ appears before them, the hearing commences with an illegality from the High Priest, Ananias. That corrupt priest commands that the Apostle be smitten on the cheek – this is contrary to the Law of Moses. Paul reacts to this violation by saying that God would in His time smite the high priest. For this answer Paul is rebuked by those of the Council. The Apostle says he had not recognised the high priest. This seems unusual as in Acts 9 this high priest had given letters to Paul authorising the persecution at Damascus. Some such as Ramsay have suggested Paul's eyesight was poor, due to malaria possibly contracted on his first missionary journey. Others suggest that this is in fact a rebuttal of the high priest's right to hold that office. Paul undoubtedly had poor eyesight as many of his letters attest eg Galatians 6:11. The Apostle sees the impossibility of him getting a fair trial and so he divides the Council on the question of the teaching of the Scriptures regarding the raising of the dead. Verse 8 tells us of the difference in teaching between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Verse 10 informs us that the disagreement became violent. Paul is once again rescued. Paul's sister's son learns of a plot to assassinate Paul and informs the chief captain. The chief captain immediately responds by sending Paul to Felix the Roman Governor in Caesarea with a heavily armed escort – a journey of two days. This heavily armed company carry with them a letter explaining why the Chief Captain has taken these measures. Chapter 24 speaks of Paul before Felix and of the flattering orator the Jews hired to prosecute the Apostle. The Apostle defends each charge magnificently. Paul points out that he came to Jerusalem for worship and to bring charitable gifts for his nation. The aged Apostle also is a Pharisee. The Pharisaic teachings were an allowable teaching among the Jews. Felix finds himself in a difficult place having some understanding of the teachings of the Way (an early name for believers in Christ Jesus). Felix detains Paul not wanting to fall out of favour with the Jews. Paul is provided with protection and liberty. Having heard of Paul's bringing charity to his fellow Jews Felix hopes to secure a bribe. Felix becomes very disturbed knowing that since he understands the reality of the coming judgment and that he would be subject to the judgment of God. Felix's life makes it certain that he will be rejected when that judgment comes. After two years Rome replaces Governor Felix with Governor Festus. Festus maintains Paul's imprisonment to please the Jews.

Acts 21 records Paul's journey to Jerusalem. The Apostle comforts and encourages many groups of disciples as he heads to Jerusalem. An old prophet, named Agabus, attempts to persuade Paul to go no further. Paul will not, like his lord, be dissuaded from going. The first thing Paul does on his arrival is to see James who advises him of the best course of action to be taken so as to avoid trouble. The Apostle is advised to complete his Nazarite vow and to cover the expenses of four other brothers who are completing their vows. James reiterates to Paul that the only binding requirements on Gentile believers are the keeping of the four matters agreed upon at the Jerusalem Conference. However, Paul cannot peacefully complete his vow since he is arrested in the temple by Asian Jews. These hostile Jews mistakenly believe that Paul has profaned the temple by bringing Trophimus, a Gentile Ephesian into the temple. A Tribune from the Roman fort of Antonia rescues Paul and commands that he be chained. The crowd clamours for the Apostle's blood, just as they had for his Lord's some three and a half decades earlier. In the barracks Paul speaks with the Tribune dismissing many of the fanciful thoughts as to who Paul might be. Paul asks for permission to address the crowd from the steps of the fort and his speech is recorded in chapter 22. Paul gives his defence in Hebrew and initially the crowd pays close attention. The aged Apostle describes his own education in the Pharisaic tradition under Gamaliel and his zeal for the Law. After this he tells of his experiences on the Damascus road, his conversion to a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says that he is warned by Jesus his Lord to immediately leave Jerusalem since his testimony will not be accepted. The Jews attentively listen until Paul speaks of being sent to the Gentiles. Once again uproar follows and the Tribune commands that Paul be scourged that the Tribune might understand why the multitude were so angry with the Apostle. Paul, on this occasion, uses his Roman citizenship to avoid a pointless flogging. The chapter concludes with the Tribune intending to have Paul examined by the Jewish Sanhedrin on the next day.

In this session, biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan examines the fundamental conflict between two competing visions in the ancient world: divine deliverance and human resistance. He contrasts the positions of two self-identified Pharisees - Paul and Josephus - revealing how Josephus portrayed Rome's imperial power as divinely ordained while Paul offered a radical alternative vision. Most provocatively, Crossan uncovers evidence of organized nonviolent resistance movements in first-century Judaism that predated Jesus and Paul, suggesting these movements connected Pharisaic beliefs about the resurrection with nonviolent opposition to empire. This historical context illuminates Jesus' command to "love your enemies" as a form of nonviolent resistance, challenging us to consider whether humanity must embrace Paul's radical vision of justice over empire to become a sustainable species. Through archaeological and textual evidence, Crossan demonstrates how these competing worldviews physically manifested in the ancient world, ultimately asking whether Paul's alternative vision remains our best hope against escalating violence. To access all 5 of Crossan's lectures, submit questions, and join future live streams, head here to join the class. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube John Dominic Crossan, professor emeritus at DePaul University, is widely regarded as the foremost historical Jesus scholar of our time. He is the author of several bestselling books, including The Historical Jesus, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, God and Empire, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, The Greatest Prayer, The Last Week, and The Power of Parable. He lives in Minneola, Florida. Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp Paul, Rome, & the Violent Normalcy of Civilization Paul & the Fictional History of Luke-Acts Paul & Thecla Ask JC Anything Diana Butler Bass & John Dominic Crossan: The Resurrection of Jesus Brian McLaren & John Dominic Crossan: The Message of Jesus & the Judgement of Civilization Brian Zahnd & John Dominic Crossan: God, Violence, Empire, & Salvation Why the Biblical Paul is Awesome Christian Resurrection & Human Evolution The Cross & the Crisis of Civilization The Coming Kingdom & the Risen Christ The Parables of Jesus & the Parable of God How to think about Jesus like a Historian the Last Week of Jesus' Life Jesus, Paul, & Bible Questions Saving the Biblical Christmas Stories the most important discovery for understanding Jesus The Bible, Violence, & Our Future Resurrecting Easter on the First Christmas   From Jesus' Parables to Parables of God  Render Unto Caesar on God & Empire Join Dom Crossan at ...Theology Beer Camp | St. Paul, MN | October 16-18, 2025 3 Days of Craft Nerdiness with 50+ Theologians & God-Pods and 600 new friends. ONLINE CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT: The Many Faces of Christ Today The question Jesus asked his disciples still resonates today: "Who do you say that I am?" Join our transformative 5-week online learning community as we explore a rich tapestry of contemporary Christologies. Experience how diverse theological voices create a compelling vision of Jesus Christ for today's world. Expand your spiritual horizons. Challenge your assumptions. Enrich your faith. As always, the class is donation-based (including 0), so head over to ManyFacesOfChrist.com for more details and to sign up! _____________________ Hang with 40+ Scholars & Podcasts and 600 people at Theology Beer Camp 2025 (Oct. 16-18) in St. Paul, MN. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 80,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 45 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcast for March 23, 2025RighteousnessDescription:J.P. discusses true righteousness from Matthew 5:19-20, emphasizing inner transformation through faith, surpassing Pharisaic superficiality, and adhering to God's unchanging truth.Chapters:0:00 Opening00:00:49 What Does It Mean to Be Truly Righteous?00:06:57 Jesus' Sermon on the Mount-00:15:14 The Absolute Truth of Scripture00:21:31 Matthew 5:1900:30:41 True righteousness is not about looking righteous or even living a Christian life00:39:14 All About ItRecorded on March 23, 2025 at Skycrest Community Church.

In Good Will Hunting, a math professor watches in anguish as Will Hunting burns a page of groundbreaking equations—his life's passion reduced to ashes. Will, however, is unfazed. This clash of values mirrors Paul's perspective. He takes everything his opponents prize—status, heritage, achievement—and sets it ablaze. Circumcision, Pharisaic righteousness, and zeal for God are mere ash heaps compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. True status isn't found in human credentials but in being united with Christ, conformed to His death and resurrection. Any boasting apart from Him not only misses the point but insults God Himself. This is the scandal of grace—the radical message that righteousness comes not by human effort but by the resurrecting power of God. This is Understanding Philippians Check out the rest of our Understanding Series: https://www.fouroaksmidtown.com/teachings Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/@fouroakschurchmidtown1962

Drop us a text message to say hi and let us know what you think of the show. (Include your email if you'd like us to reply)In which John and David explore Paul's strategic use of Roman citizenship and Pharisaic identity in Acts 22–23. We discuss how Paul navigates power dynamics, shifts conversations, and exposes the divisions within the Sanhedrin. The episode highlights how Paul's argument for resurrection sparks controversy, drawing a connection between resurrection and the inclusion of the Gentiles. They reflect on the dangers of oversimplifying complex issues, the biblical critique of power, and how Paul's testimony ultimately serves the spread of the gospel. What can we learn from Paul's wisdom in engaging with hostile audiences? Episode 183 of the Two Texts Podcast | Disruptive Presence 126If you want to get in touch about something in the podcast you can reach out on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the Two Texts podcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love it if you left a review or comment where you're listening from – and if you really enjoyed it, why not share it with a friend?Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021________Help us keep Two Texts free for everyone by becoming a supporter of the show John and David want to ensure that Two Texts always remains free content for everyone. We don't want to create a paywall or have premium content that would exclude others. However, Two Texts costs us around £60 per month (US$75; CAD$100) to make. If you'd like to support the show with even just a small monthly donation it would help ensure we can continue to produce the content that you love. Thank you so much.Support the show

Start your year with a biblical perspective on God's commands in this episode of Words of Grace with Ben Winslett. Exploring 1 John 5, we reflect on John's assertion that God's commandments are not grievous. What does it mean that His commands are not heavy or unbearable, as compared to Old Testament law or Pharisaic … Continue reading "God’s Commandments Are Not Grievous!"

Send us a textWhat does it truly mean to be part of Israel in the context of salvation? Join us on this intriguing exploration as we examine Paul's radical transformation and his reflections on trading Pharisaic zeal and Jewish heritage for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We unravel the profound shift in values Paul underwent, moving from pride in his lineage and adherence to the law to considering these attributes worthless compared to his faith in Christ. Our discussion ventures into the theological divide between Christianity and Judaism, emphasizing Jesus Christ's pivotal role as the Messiah and the implications of Paul's teachings on the salvation of Israel.We'll challenge the notion of guaranteed salvation for national Israel and confront the controversial idea of universalism. Through examining scriptural insights and Paul's teachings, we highlight that true Israel comprises those who have faith in God through Jesus Christ, transcending ethnic backgrounds. The conversation takes a fiery turn as we tackle the contentious debate on hell and universal salvation, underscoring that salvation is through Christ alone. Tune in to hear our passionate reflections and historical parallels, emphasizing that true salvation is tied to faith and being regarded as a child of Abraham, not merely by heritage or nationality.Support the show

The Pharisaic hypocrisy was exposed by Jesus in the manner by which it was being expressed. First, the legal experts had removed the keys of the kingdom, and neither entered the kingdom themselves nor assisted others to enter (Mat 23:13-14). Second, in spreading their influence among the Hellenistic world (the Gentiles), they insisted that all converts live by the laws as they interpreted them, and thereby they perverted rather than converted people (Mat 23:15). Third, their hairsplitting distinctions as to which oaths were binding perverted the understanding of God and man's relationship to Him as the Creator and Governor of the universe (Mat 23:16-22).Thank you for tuning into Daily Bible Benefits Have a good and godly day

Shalom Aleikhem, my dear listeners, believer and nonbeliver alike! Welcome back to another blog post of #FindingHyerGround - Messianic Jewish Perspectives on Modern Day Events - a Spotify for Podcasters publication now streaming on all major platforms and bringing the Good News of Salvation through Messiah Yeshua to 28 countries including Uzbekistan

This message was delivered on Nov 10, 2024 at Amity UCC in Meyersdale, PA. Text: Mark 12:28-44

This is part three (3 of 3) of a book review of a book arguing Jesus is for gun control. The book advocates criminalization of paradigmatically innocent conduct in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The book by professor Mike Austin called "God, Guns and America." This is part one of a review of the book with Kurtis Olson on FB LIVE 1 April 2021 at 7:36 pm. This episode was co-hosted and co-produced by Mr. Kurtis Olson. The Republican Professor is a pro-correctly-hemming-the-parameters-of-the-criminal-law-to-conduct-genuinely-criminal-and-not-innocent-conduct podcast The Republican Professor is produced and hosted by Dr. Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. Buy the producer a cup of coffee at Buy Me a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lucasj.mather Or, support the costs of the podcast @TheRepublicanProfessor on Venmo. Any support is much appreciated and every penny counts now more than ever. Warmly, Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. The Republican Professor Podcast The Republican Professor Newsletter on Substack https://therepublicanprofessor.substack.com/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/podcast/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/articles/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRepublicanProfessor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRepublicanProfessor Twitter: @RepublicanProf Instagram: @the_republican_professor

Delivered by Father Peter Tukan, SDB from Salesian Don Bosco Gerak in the Diocese of Labuan Bajo, Indonesia. Galatians 4: 31b - 5: 6; Rs psalm 119: 41.43.44.45.47.48; Luke 11: 37-41 DO NOT FORCE GOD TO CHANGE DIRECTION   The theme of our meditation today is: Do Not Force God to Change Direction. The city of Avila in central Spain, is the city of Saint Teresa who because of her holiness, strength, and excellence in the spirit of Christian life, was able to change the entire community in the city. Teresa, who came from the most influential noble family in the city, was seen as a sign of Salvation for the entire city.   To this day, Avila is the only city in the world that is protected on all sides by medieval walls that are still intact. There are almost no ruins or debris of its walls like in many other cities in the world due to war or lack of significant maintenance. Avila is truly for the citizens of the world, an honest confession of the strength of the Christian faith in Teresa in particular and the cultural character inherent in Spain and Europe.   Saint Teresa of Avila brought into the world, especially in her time, a Christian spirituality that saves and sanctifies. The Lord Jesus is the center of Christian life. He must not be forced to change his position and change direction which will result in obscuring many people who walk and come to Him.   A Parish Priest told a story about half of the Catholic youth in the parish who no longer wants to pray and come to church. He was worried about his congregation, including the altar servers who had chosen to become servants of pleasures of the world and not servants of God. They think that God should not be found only in spiritual activities in the Church. God is also present in parties of drinking alcohol, in free sex, in adultery, in corruption, and in other crimes. They really enjoy those pleasures of the world because there they find satisfaction. God has been made to change direction as he is no longer straight with the truth of His will.   Saint Paul in the first reading really hopes that our faith will only be straight to Christ, the Son of God. Today the life-style of the Pharisees is marked by people adoring the increase development and advancement in communication technology. Lies and hypocrisy spread so quickly and are frowned upon by people of today's world. It seems that God and his truth will continue to be forced to change direction. The Lord Jesus strongly condemned this Pharisaic lifestyle, namely hypocrisy that is spread and enforced on a massive scale.   So together with Jesus who is so firm and Saint Paul who is sincere, we need to hold firmly to this warning: don't force God to change direction. Instead, just follow the direction of Saint Paul and Jesus because that is the straight direction to the Father. Let us pray. In the name of the Father... Almighty God, we want to affirm our confession of faith to follow Christ correctly and responsibly, so bless us and our intension. Hail Mary full of grace... In the name of the Father...

On this episode of the MiU podcast, the Bow Tie Guy sits in the guest seat as Giselle and Bev interview him about his brand new book "Hookers in Heaven". Listen to the show, then go get a copy of the new book on Amazon and Apple Books.

In this engaging episode of *Exploring Scripture*, host Wayne Heins and co-host Jeremy Griffin dive into the complexities of Acts Chapter 23, unraveling the dynamics of Paul's confrontation with the high priest Ananias and the ensuing drama before the Jewish council. Kicking off with a reading from the end of Chapter 22, Wayne sets the scene for Paul's bold declaration of conscience and the heated response from Ananias, which sparks a rich discussion about righteousness, authority, and the nature of conflict. As the narrative unfolds, Wayne and Jeremy explore the strategic maneuvering of Paul, who declares his Pharisaic roots to ignite a division between the Pharisees and Sadducees. This moment not only illustrates Paul's cleverness but also mirrors the tensions that often arise within modern-day churches. The hosts bring to light the importance of unity within the body of Christ and the challenges that congregations face when differing ideologies clash. The conversation deepens as they reflect on God's redemptive plan, particularly observing how He can guide us back to our intended path, even when we veer off course. Drawing parallels between Paul's journey and their own experiences, Wayne and Jeremy emphasize the significance of patience and trust in God's timing—a reminder that His plans may unfold beyond our immediate understanding. As they wrap up the episode, the hosts invite listeners to approach Scripture with an open mind, encouraging them to seek the rich insights and lessons embedded within, even in the seemingly mundane passages, allowing the Holy Spirit to illuminate new dimensions of faith and understanding. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that promises to deepen your appreciation for the intricacies of Scripture and the ever-relevant themes of faith, conflict, and redemption. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/reduxchurch/support

We head back into Mark in our Gospel today and into the thick of Pharisaic criticism. Jesus is asked why his disciples do not wash their hands before eating. To fully understand the Pharisees' charge we take a step back and explore the heart and history of the Pharisaic school of thought. What we find in the Pharisees are Jews zealous for the law of God but fixated on ancillary things, things that inevitably distort their judgment, corrupt their heart, and prevent them from seeing that which they've longed for most: the Messiah who's standing right in front of them.

Experience the power of Jesus' teachings and miracles at a Pharisaic feast, where divine compassion confronts legalistic traditions.In this episode, we explore the tension between Jesus and the Pharisees during a feast, where Jesus challenges their understanding of the Sabbath and performs a miraculous healing. Witness the unfolding drama as Jesus' acts of compassion and justice clash with the rigid legalism of the religious leaders.Today's Bible verse is Micah 6:8, from the King James Version.Download the Pray.com app for more Christian content including, Daily Prayers, Inspirational Testimonies, and Bedtime Bible Stories.Pray.com is the digital destination for faith. With over 5,000 daily prayers, meditations, bedtime stories, and cinematic stories inspired by the Bible, the Pray.com app has everything you need to keep your focus on the Lord. Make Prayer a priority and download the #1 App for Prayer and Sleep today in the Apple app store or Google Play store.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Delivered by Shalaza and Ajay from Saint John Bosco Church in Archdiocese of Jakarta, Indonesia. 2 Kings 2: 1.6-14; Rs psalm 31: 20.21.24; Matius 6: 1-6.16-18. SPREAD A SPIRITUAL IMAGE   The theme for our meditation today is: Spread a Spiritual Image. There is a story about a family that held one of their annual family celebrations. There was an instruction that required every member to exhibit each one's best achievement. It started with the father, who displayed on the wall his academic titles and work experience certificates in various large and well-known companies. The following were the three children displaying their bachelor, post-graduate and doctoral degrees from their respective fields of study.   The last in line should be the mother. She didn't feel so insignificant at all for she was only up to high school. Her all dedication and works experience has been a good and faithful housewife. She has been a wife to her husband and a mother to her proud children. She came out from the room holding marriage certificate and baptismal certificates of the three children and she also displayed them on the wall. Seeing that, the father and the three children were only speechless. They did not dare to say anything either.   This is a story about the family that was doing an imaging activity. The father and his three children were showing off their images to prove themselves that they were very good for all the achievements obtained. This proves that there is a strong intention to show oneself to be the best or greatest than the others. This is actually the reflection of the basic human nature desire. Jesus always reminds us that self-imaging style, praise seeking and honor pursuance intending to benefit oneself both physical and spiritual power, to the extent to even humiliating or destroying others are absolutely sinful. This is the Pharisaic lifestyle.   On the contrary, the mother did a different kind of spreading a spiritual image. She was presenting something more important and higher than all other kinds of achievements made. The mother actually reminds us to prioritize our relationship with God. When people do not prioritize their relationship with God, they will surely go for all the interests of the world.  A spiritual self-imaging style is basically an invisible thing. We should go more on this aspect.    The invisible type of showing oneself that we are saying is a spiritual building manifested in a strong relationship with God. From within come out the activities of prayer, fasting, charity, collaboration and so on. On the other hand, the lifestyle of the Pharisees was all about showing off  to be seen by others. This style was not interested with spiritual growth with and in the Lord. They were more concerned with their superficial imaging. The relationship between the Prophet Elijah who was elderly and his young substitute Elisha, showed a spiritual relationship, from there Elisha could continue the work of God that had been mandated from God and inherited by the Prophet Elijah. A spiritual imaging leads us to the greatness and glory of God, and not to the importance and supremacy of human nature.   Let's pray. In the name of the Father... O Lord, may in our words and deeds, only Your glory that concerns all our desires and never for the glory of this world. Hail Mary full of grace ... In the name of the Father ... --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/media-la-porta/message

The familiar story of Jesus' nighttime conversation with the Pharisaic leader, Nicodemus, centers on the “birth from above,” a birth that allows us both to see and enter the Kingdom of God. Audible whispers of the One True God as Triune echo throughout the conversational exchange. Although the Church's teaching on the Trinity is so deeply rooted in the Scriptures and the deepest theological reflections of the Church, and although trinitarian teaching is one of the most foundational and distinctive teachings of the Christian faith, it is a doctrine that, while surely acknowledged by orthodox believers, is avoided and neglected. The doctrine of the Trinity is thought to be merely abstract and philosophical, largely detached from day-to-day living. But trinitarian thought is at the center of God's Being, as the God who “loves [us] and gave himself for [us]“ (Gal 2:20). God is love [agape]” (1 John 4:7), and agape love requires an “Other” to whom and for whom One offers Oneself in self-giving, humble, Other-centered service. This God of eternal, loving, communion is the One who gives us new birth, into the kingdom of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and into a new family of brothers and sisters in Messiah Jesus. The image associated with this podcast is "Jesus and Nicodemus (a study)" by Henry Ossawa Tanner.

In this episode, Mike chats with Jason Hensley about his book 'One Family' and the importance of recognizing the Jewish roots of Christianity. They begin by discussing the historical setting of first-century Judaism, discussing the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes. Jason underscores the importance of viewing Jesus within his Jewish context, highlighting how his teachings align with Pharisaic teachings. He describes Jesus as a “reformer working on the inside”.  Mike and Jason examine the impact of the temple's destruction in 70 CE on the Jewish religious leadership and Christian followers. Finally, Jason shares his hope that readers will recognize the deep connections between biblical Christianity and Judaism, urging them to stand against anti-Semitism. Purchase book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CT8CHWXV --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/a-little-faith/message

This is part 10 of the Read the Bible For Yourself. We've taken our time working through the Old Testament, section by section. Before we tackle the New Testament and look at the Gospels, we need to talk about the time between the Old and New Testaments. In the gap of roughly four hundred years, massive political and cultural changes occurred. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we see anything about the Romans, Pharisees, Sadducees, or the Sanhedrin. In today's episode I'll catch you up on what happened after the OT and before the NT so you can better understand the world in which Jesus functioned. Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3humYIVYho&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV2TrdUEDtAipF3jy4qYspM_&index=10 —— Links —— See other episodes in Read the Bible For Yourself Other classes are available here, including How We Got the Bible, which explores the manuscript transmission and translation of the Bible Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here —— Notes —— Recent History Persians: Cyrus the Great Greeks: Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes Hellenization (2 Maccabees 4.7, 10-15; 1 Maccabees 1.41-53) Maccabean Revolution: Mattathias, Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan Apphus, Simon Thassi, John Hyrcanus, Aristobulus I, Alexander Jannaeus, Salome Alexandra, Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II Romans: Pompey the Great annexed Judea in 63bc Herodian Dynasty: Herod the Great and his descendants Geographical and Political Setting Roman Empire: Augustus (27bc-ad14), Tiberius (14-37), Caligula (37-41), Claudius (41-54), Nero (54-68) Provinces: every region outside of Italy Galilee: Herod the Great (37-4bc), Herod Antipas (4bc-ad39), Herod Agrippa I (37-44) Judea: Herod the Great (37-4bc), Herod Archelaus (4bc-ad6), Coponius (6-9), Marcus Ambivulus (9-12), Annius Rufus (12-15), Valerius Gratus (15-26), Pontius Pilate (26-36), Marcellus (36-37), Marullus (37-41), Herod Agrippa I (41-44) Samaria: under Judean jurisdiction; Samaritans and Jews conflicted with each other Jewish Groups Sadducees controlled the temple partners with Roman governors wealthy aristocrats chief priests were the leaders only accepted the Torah as scripture didn't believe in resurrection or angels Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah accepted the law (Torah), prophets (Nevi'im), and writings (Kethuvim) oral tradition & fence laws not in power at the time of Jesus, except those in the Sanhedrin Sanhedrin Romans established 5 councils over 5 districts most important council was in Jerusalem had temple police at their disposal to arrest people could meet out punishments except capital punishment, which was reserved for the Roman governor Scribes every group had scribes even Paul used scribes to write his letters (Tertius in Rom 16.22) writing was a skill copy scripture to preserve it called lawyers or experts in the law Revolutionaries wanted to overthrow Roman occupation Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews23 “But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord” John's Renewal Movement called people to repent baptized them in the Jordan River possible connection with the Essenes Important Issues Temple Taxes Torah Unrest Review When the Greeks conquered the world, they made cities adopt their customs, culture, language, and religion. When Antiochus Epiphanes forcibly Hellenized Judah, it resulted in the Maccabean Revolution under Mattathias and his sons. After they won their independence, the Hasmonean Dynasty ruled up until 63bc when Pompey annexed Judea into the Roman Empire. Herod the Great and his descendants ruled over the region for many years, though in Judea the Romans directly ruled through governors. During Jesus' ministry Herod Antipas ruled in Galilee and Pontius Pilate governed Judea and Samaria. Sadducees partnered with the Roman government and controlled the temple. The Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah, according to the traditions of the elders. The Sanhedrin was a council in Jerusalem made of Sadducees and Pharisees that controlled a police force and ruled on legal issues. Scribes copied scripture and had expert knowledge of the Law of Moses. Jesus lived in a time of fragile peace when Roman provocations threatened to light the match of Jewish revolution at any moment.

Most people pay attention to actions more than to words. They hear what you say, but they see more what you do. We we do in life echoes in eternity.No matter what you are going through today, don't quit and do not be defeated.You are doing the best you can, Remember, giving up is not who you are. You may pause, take a long breath, pivot and then keep going. In faith and by God's grace, you can overcome. You can be at peace again soon of you trust in God and are patient.Possible Date for Christ's ResurrectionMany scholars believe that Christ died and rose from the dead again in AD 30. Even more prefer a date in AD 33, although champions of several other dates can also be found. If the events recorded in the gospels took place in AD 33, then this day, April 23, 33 is the probable date for Christ's resurrection.To be clear, the Bible does not explicitly specify the precise date of Jesus's crucifixion and it is not an essential salvation truth. But that does not make it unknowable or unimportant. Because Christianity is a historical religion and the events of Christ's life did take place in human history alongside other known events, it is helpful to locate Jesus's death—as precisely as the available evidence allows—within the larger context of human history.In the Pharisaic-rabbinic calendar commonly used in Jesus's day, Passover always falls on the fifteenth day of Nisan (Exodus 12:6), which begins Thursday after sundown and ends Friday at sundown. In the year a.d. 33, the most likely year of Jesus's crucifixion, Nisan 15 fell on April 3, yielding April 3, a.d. 33, as the most likely date for the crucifixion.

Lesson 10 Notes Download Recent History Persians: Cyrus the Great Greeks: Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes Hellenization (2 Maccabees 4.7, 10-15; 1 Maccabees 1.41-53) Maccabean Revolution: Mattathias, Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan Apphus, Simon Thassi, John Hyrcanus, Aristobulus I, Alexander Jannaeus, Salome Alexandra, Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II Romans: Pompey the Great annexed Judea in 63bc Herodian Dynasty: Herod the Great and his descendants Geographical and Political Setting Roman Empire: Augustus (27bc-ad14), Tiberius (14-37), Caligula (37-41), Claudius (41-54), Nero (54-68) Provinces: every region outside of Italy Galilee: Herod the Great (37-4bc), Herod Antipas (4bc-ad39), Herod Agrippa I (37-44) Judea: Herod the Great (37-4bc), Herod Archelaus (4bc-ad6), Coponius (6-9), Marcus Ambivulus (9-12), Annius Rufus (12-15), Valerius Gratus (15-26), Pontius Pilate (26-36), Marcellus (36-37), Marullus (37-41), Herod Agrippa I (41-44) Samaria: under Judean jurisdiction; Samaritans and Jews conflicted with each other Jewish Groups Sadducees controlled the temple partners with Roman governors wealthy aristocrats chief priests were the leaders only accepted the Torah as scripture didn't believe in resurrection or angels Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah accepted the law (Torah), prophets (Nevi'im), and writings (Kethuvim) oral tradition & fence laws not in power at the time of Jesus, except those in the Sanhedrin Sanhedrin Romans established 5 councils over 5 districts most important council was in Jerusalem had temple police at their disposal to arrest people could meet out punishments except capital punishment, which was reserved for the Roman governor Scribes every group had scribes even Paul used scribes to write his letters (Tertius in Rom 16.22) writing was a skill copy scripture to preserve it called lawyers or experts in the law Revolutionaries wanted to overthrow Roman occupation Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews23 “But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord” John's Renewal Movement called people to repent baptized them in the Jordan River possible connection with the Essenes Important Issues Temple Taxes Torah Unrest Review When the Greeks conquered the world, they made cities adopt their customs, culture, language, and religion. When Antiochus Epiphanes forcibly Hellenized Judah, it resulted in the Maccabean Revolution under Mattathias and his sons. After they won their independence, the Hasmonean Dynasty ruled up until 63bc when Pompey annexed Judea into the Roman Empire. Herod the Great and his descendants ruled over the region for many years, though in Judea the Romans directly ruled through governors. During Jesus’ ministry Herod Antipas ruled in Galilee and Pontius Pilate governed Judea and Samaria. Sadducees partnered with the Roman government and controlled the temple. The Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah, according to the traditions of the elders. The Sanhedrin was a council in Jerusalem made of Sadducees and Pharisees that controlled a police force and ruled on legal issues. Scribes copied scripture and had expert knowledge of the Law of Moses. Jesus lived in a time of fragile peace when Roman provocations threatened to light the match of Jewish revolution at any moment. The post 10: Key Background for Reading the New Testament first appeared on Living Hope.

Lesson 10 Notes Download Recent History Persians: Cyrus the Great Greeks: Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes Hellenization (2 Maccabees 4.7, 10-15; 1 Maccabees 1.41-53) Maccabean Revolution: Mattathias, Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan Apphus, Simon Thassi, John Hyrcanus, Aristobulus I, Alexander Jannaeus, Salome Alexandra, Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II Romans: Pompey the Great annexed Judea in 63bc Herodian Dynasty: Herod the Great and his descendants Geographical and Political Setting Roman Empire: Augustus (27bc-ad14), Tiberius (14-37), Caligula (37-41), Claudius (41-54), Nero (54-68) Provinces: every region outside of Italy Galilee: Herod the Great (37-4bc), Herod Antipas (4bc-ad39), Herod Agrippa I (37-44) Judea: Herod the Great (37-4bc), Herod Archelaus (4bc-ad6), Coponius (6-9), Marcus Ambivulus (9-12), Annius Rufus (12-15), Valerius Gratus (15-26), Pontius Pilate (26-36), Marcellus (36-37), Marullus (37-41), Herod Agrippa I (41-44) Samaria: under Judean jurisdiction; Samaritans and Jews conflicted with each other Jewish Groups Sadducees controlled the temple partners with Roman governors wealthy aristocrats chief priests were the leaders only accepted the Torah as scripture didn't believe in resurrection or angels Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah accepted the law (Torah), prophets (Nevi'im), and writings (Kethuvim) oral tradition & fence laws not in power at the time of Jesus, except those in the Sanhedrin Sanhedrin Romans established 5 councils over 5 districts most important council was in Jerusalem had temple police at their disposal to arrest people could meet out punishments except capital punishment, which was reserved for the Roman governor Scribes every group had scribes even Paul used scribes to write his letters (Tertius in Rom 16.22) writing was a skill copy scripture to preserve it called lawyers or experts in the law Revolutionaries wanted to overthrow Roman occupation Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews23 “But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord” John's Renewal Movement called people to repent baptized them in the Jordan River possible connection with the Essenes Important Issues Temple Taxes Torah Unrest Review When the Greeks conquered the world, they made cities adopt their customs, culture, language, and religion. When Antiochus Epiphanes forcibly Hellenized Judah, it resulted in the Maccabean Revolution under Mattathias and his sons. After they won their independence, the Hasmonean Dynasty ruled up until 63bc when Pompey annexed Judea into the Roman Empire. Herod the Great and his descendants ruled over the region for many years, though in Judea the Romans directly ruled through governors. During Jesus’ ministry Herod Antipas ruled in Galilee and Pontius Pilate governed Judea and Samaria. Sadducees partnered with the Roman government and controlled the temple. The Pharisees focused on obedience to Torah, according to the traditions of the elders. The Sanhedrin was a council in Jerusalem made of Sadducees and Pharisees that controlled a police force and ruled on legal issues. Scribes copied scripture and had expert knowledge of the Law of Moses. Jesus lived in a time of fragile peace when Roman provocations threatened to light the match of Jewish revolution at any moment. The post 10: Key Background for Reading the New Testament first appeared on Living Hope.

In the Sermon on the Mount, why does Y'shua find it necessary to assure a crowd of Jews that He will not change the Torah or the Prophets. The answer to that is in two parts, one concerns with language drift over time and the other concerns Pharisaic expectations.

Lord, as we end one year and begin another, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for preserving us to this moment, sustaining us by the power of your spirit. And we thank you Lord that you continue to reveal yourself to us. That's what we long for. More than anything else, is your presence. We long to know you. We long to know your will and Lord, as we open up the scriptures and as we look at a text where you emphasize the preeminence of God's law, I pray, make us a people that love your law, love your 10 commandments. Stare deeply, gaze deeply into your law, seeking how we can grow in faithfulness, how we can grow in obedience. And as we do, you will grow us in fruitfulness. Lord, to make our church a church that loves your word, reveres your word. Make Bostonians like the Bereans that eagerly accept your word and on a daily basis, examine to see if it's true.If it's true that you are a God who reveals yourself, a God who guides us, and God who gave us the law to guard us from evil, show us what it means that you sent your son Jesus Christ because we disobeyed the law, we sinned against you. You sent your son to walk in the ways of faithfulness and then to offer himself as a sacrifice in our behalf in order to forgive us. And we thank you Lord that you offer that sacrifice. If anyone is not yet a believer today, Lord, show them where they've transgressed the commandments and show them that sin and the penalty for is eternal damnation and that Christ took all of that on the cross and whosoever believes, repents and turns from sin to Christ is granted forgiveness and eternal life. I pray save many even today and Lord bless our time in the holy scriptures and we pray all this in Christ's name.Amen.We're continuing our servant series through the Gospel of Mark. We've called it Kingdom Come, the Gospel of Mark and the secret of God's kingdom. And the idea is that the kingdom has come and Jesus has come to establish the kingdom and we are to be a people that pray. Lord, may your kingdom continue to expand in our life and where we live. And as we end one year and begin another, it's helpful to take account of the year past. Remember lessons learned, consider changes to make and make resolutions that pesky word, pesky, pesky. We don't like that word resolutions, but I urge you, church, I challenge you, make this resolution. If you have never read the Bible cover to cover, resolve that this year you are going to change that. Cover to cover, four chapters a day. There's about 1200 chapters in the Bible, four chapters a day that's got you reading 300 or so days of the year.You've got 65 days off to study the Psalter and the Proverbs and go deeper. But four chapters a day, it's about 20 minutes and that's a tremendous time to spend with the Lord. And I say that because it's not the resolutions that change us, it's the reformation that we make in our life. It's the restructuring of the routine. It's the spiritual disciplines that we welcome in. That's what really changes us. We need not just resolutions or short-term change, we need a reformation. We need to be reformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We're like clay in the potter's hands. He's shaping us, he's forming us, he's reforming us. And this reformation or transformation as Romans 12 puts it happens when our minds are renewed according to the word of God, when our minds are saturated with the word of God. It's the word of God when applied by the spirit of God that leads to true transformation and lasting reformation.One of the great principles that came out of the reformation along with the five solos, if you're not familiar with them, here they are. Sola scriptura, that's scripture alone, Sola gratia, that's grace alone, Sola fide, that's faith alone, Solus Christus, that's Christ alone, and Soli Deo gloria to the glory of God alone.Well, along with those five, there was also the principle of semper reformanda, which is always reforming. The title of my sermon today is always becoming reformed and the idea isn't that we are capitulating to the culture, that we're evolving in order to make the message more palatable. No, the message is that we study the holy scriptures and we long for the holy scriptures to reform us and reform how we live, reform how we worship the Lord. And the church should always be seeking to change in ways that make its testimonies more faithful to God's revelation.The church is formed by the word of God and it's always being reformed by the word of God just as individuals are. And how does reformation happen in our lives and in the churches in our land? When we look into the word of God and to the law of God and say, "Lord, where have I been unfaithful to your word? Where have I added to your word or where have I subtracted from your word?" Deuteronomy 4:2 says, "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you."And you say, "Well, which word is he talking about here in Deuteronomy?" Don't add or take away from which word? Well, in the same chapter in verse nine through 14, he explains, "Only take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children.""How on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children also. And so you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain where the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form. There was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, that is the Ten Commandments. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules that you might do them in the land that you were going over to possess."Well, what word do we not to add or subtract from? It's the 10 commandments. And adding to the law of God is legalism and taking away from the law of God is antinomianism and Jesus didn't add to the law of God, but he did uphold the 10 laws to show us primarily that we have sinned against God, therefore we need Christ's sacrifice. And then once we've received Christ's sacrifice and his grace, we are then to out of gratitude, live according to the law that in primarily motivated by love for God and neighbor.Today we're in Mark 7:1-23. As we continue our series, would you look at the text with me?Now when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews did not eat unless they washed their hands properly holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?" And he said to them, "Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me teaching his doctrines the commandments of men? You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.""For Moses said, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die." But you say, "If a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would've gained from me is Corban, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do."And he called the people to him again and said to them, "Hear me all of you and understand, there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable and he said to them, "Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled?" Thus he declared all foods clean. And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him for from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual morality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within and they defile a person."This is the reading of God's holy, inherent and infallible, authoritative word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First traditions are not God's commandments. Second God's 10 commandments are God's commandments. And three, the law cuts and Jesus regenerates.First, traditions are not God's commandments. In Mark 7:1 says, "The Pharisees gathered to him and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem." These are the representatives of the big establishment religion.The scribes in the Pharisees did not approve of Jesus. Jesus did not have their stamp of approval as he's doing his ministry. They were furious with Jesus that he would eat with sinners and tax collectors. They became angrier when Jesus rejected their distinctions between clean and unclean. And the scribes and the Pharisees challenged Jesus' view of fasting as well as Jesus' view of the Sabbath observance. And Jesus showed no qualms whatsoever in defying these traditions, rejecting their oral traditions. In many ways, I was sharing the gospel recently with someone. They say, "You know what? Jesus sounds kind of like a rebel, kind of like a renegade." And I was like, "Yes, he's the revolutionary of deregulating religion. He's God, it's his law, it's his word. He's come." And he said, "That's all made up and that's all made up and that's all made up." And he's pointing people to the law of God because it's only the law of God that can show us our need for God's grace.So yes, he confounded the canon lawyers and he sent them into fits of rage. How? By just teaching the plain word of God, God's law, what it says, what it doesn't say with absolute precision. For Jesus the oral traditions were not binding, they were not law, they were just decorum. Jesus rejects the authority of their tradition and therefore he openly contradicted what they taught and practiced. And so he made a lot of enemies and that's what ultimately got him crucified. And these men were sent from Jerusalem indicating that their representatives of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling body in Jerusalem. Like Herod Antipas, members of the Sanhedrin had heard about Jesus Christ. They perceived him to be someone that can mobilize people, therefore they perceive him to be a threat. And some of the religious leaders even accused Jesus Christ of doing his ministry because he was demon possessed.They said, you cast out demons by the power of Satan. And as a result, Jesus places upon them the ultimate covenant curse that no forgiveness in this age or in the age to come was given to the blasphemers of the blessed Holy Spirit. So the Jewish leadership, the Pharisees, they've sworn to destroy Jesus, they've partnered with the Herodians and they gather to him, the verb used to gather to him here is the same one used in Psalm 2, which is a messianic prophetic Psalm about Christ that the anointed one will come and the rulers of the day will rise against him in opposition. And that's exactly what they're doing. In other Psalms, the same verb is used for the wicked conspiring against the righteous to take his life. For example, Psalm 31:13. "For I hear the whispering of many terror on every side as they scheme together against me as they plot to take my life," or Psalm 35:15."But at my stumbling, they rejoiced and gathered. They gathered together against me, wretches whom I did not know, tore at me without ceasing."And the fact that the scribes who interrogate Jesus, they come down from Jerusalem marks that the opposition is coming from the center of power from Jerusalem where Jesus will be eventually executed. In verse two, "They saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches."The hand washing is not a biblical... You should wash your hands. That's not what we're talking.We're talking about what makes you moral. That's what they're getting. What they're doing is immoral. They're sinning. That's the conversation. The hand washing that they're alluding to. It's not a biblical requirement for lay people. In the Old Testament, only the priests are required to wash their hands before offering a sacrifice. And the Pharisees however they thought, you know what, this is a good thing to do. We should have everybody do it. We're going to regulate this on absolutely everyone on the theory that every Jew should live as a priest and every Jewish home should become like the temple. The reasoning sounds very rational. And in this tradition, that's what the tradition forces forms the basis of their challenge. Though this was only a priestly requirement from the law of God, all the pious Jews at the time of Jesus had been doing this for about 200 years.So Jesus shows up and he says, that's not in the Bible, that's not regulation for everybody. And their response is, "Jesus, we've always done it this way. Our parents have always done it this way, our grandparents and they've all done it this way.By Jesus' day it had become firmly entrenched this tradition as a requirement for those that want it to be clean and people wash their hands in the morning before morning prayer. The benediction used by the priest of that time of consecration was now being recited by the people as part of the course of daily life. And many felt that even eating bread without a ceremonial washing rendered the bread unclean. And verse five, "The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?" And the word for walk here is standard metaphor for living a certain way.Why don't your disciples live in the way that our elders taught us to live? In the tradition of the elders, not the law of Moses, but oral and written tradition received from antiquity and honored only because it was from antiquity. Honored as the word of God just because it's old for the Pharisees, the oral tradition was equally binding with the law of God and with the scriptures. And some of them even believed that tradition was more precious and more authoritative than holy scripture. And with this kind of tradition, the gospels record that Jesus always expressed angry impatience. On the surface, this looks like an argument brought about Jesus' disciples watching procedures, but in reality it's a debate about authority. Is oral tradition authoritative over God's people? And the answer is no. The problem was that with the Pharisees and what the Pharisees had to be doing is they'd been controlling people with their religious regulation.They had been requiring demanding that people obey their oral traditions even though this tradition had no biblical support. Put it another way, the scribes and the Pharisees big religion, they were binding people's consciences to things that were not required of them by scripture. And as the scribes saw the matter, it was their sacred duty to teach the people and then enforce this manmade law upon the people. These legalistic religious lawyers force their rules and regulations on everyone and try to adjudicate.Jesus answers on two levels. Those who criticize him first, he answers on their level by showing that their premise, their presupposition is unsubstantiated. And then after doing that, he demolishes their position from within by going deeper. Verse six, "And he said to them, well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me teaching us doctrines and commandments of men."On the principle that the best defense is a good offense, Jesus goes on the offense against these guys and he responds to their hostility by not answering their question about hand washing but actually dismantling this false presupposition that their human traditions are on the same level as God's word in terms of binding moral authority calls them hypocrites. In the classical Greek, it was a word to designate actors, pretenders. And he's saying, you guys are hypocrites because you present a religious godly front, but it's a front based on your own regulations. You made up rules, you've been playing according to these rules. You look really wholly according to those rules, but that's not the game. You're playing the wrong game. And he accuses them of a hypocrisy because they're masking God's law with human made regulations. And the Pharisees certainly would not have agreed with Jesus here, with his charge that tradition represented a betrayal of the commandments of God.No, they would've said, "No. Tradition is part of God's revelation to us." Yet God revealed himself to Moses, but he's also been revealing himself through us, through the pharisaical sect of Judaism. This feeling of connection with ancient revelation is what has given rabbinic Judaism the successor of Phariseeism, a great sense of continuity. But what they teach depends entirely on their authority, on people's authority, not on divine authority. And humans, as Jesus makes clear at the end of the text, we're sinners and everything we touch is singe tinged with sin. And even if we try with our greatest attempts of wisdom to add to the commandments of God, those additions are going to be tinged with sin. This clinging to human traditions makes them actually neglect the plain commandment of God, which is what led to their downfall. Not only does Jesus use one of Israel's most widely red prophets, Isaiah, he quotes Isaiah, they knew this was God's word, but in that context, Isaiah was prophesying to the people of God and he says, "You, the kingdom of Israel, you're in shambles because you have left the commandments of God." And what Jesus is doing by quoting that same text to these people, he's saying in the same way that Israel had fallen from glory because they had moved away from the commandments of God, you guys are doing the same thing.And that's why Israel was in the state it was. They've replaced the law of God with laws of humans and that never leads to shalom or universal flourishing. Notice that Jesus does not even attempt to answer their trick question. He doesn't even want to talk about hand washing. These are manmade rules and traditions. They're not binding. Only the law of God is, and these rules and regulations, they may be signs of great zeal, but in actuality they demonstrate this sad fact that they don't know God. Their hearts are far from God because they're spending all of their time living according to their own interpretations of what God said. They're hypocrites because they pretend to love God, but they don't even do what he says. They prefer to do what they say about what he said. And to the people of Israel, the scribes and Pharisees look like holy and godly men, but they're not because they're not worshiping God in the way he said to worship him.These men claim to defend the law of God by arguing, but their humanly contrived rules actually block the word of God. They distort the law of God and they rob the word of God of its power. According to Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees have so buried the true meaning and purpose of the law under countless layers of canon law and oral tradition. They've made the law null and void. Their traditions not only bury the law under rules of men that so much that people don't even know what God's law actually says.So that brings us to point too. God's manmade traditions are not God's law, but God's 10 commandments are. Look at verse eight, what Jesus does. He says, "You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." Well, what does Jesus mean by the commandment of God? Well, he explicitly tells us in verse 10 that he's referring to the 10 commandments because in verse 10 he says, "Case in point hears a command that you have nullified with your own tradition." And he goes to commandment number five. So by command he's referring to the 10 commandments. In verse 10, "For Moses said, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father and mother must surely die."For Moses said here, that's what Jesus says. There's a parallel account where Jesus is having a similar conversation in Matthew 15, four. And there it doesn't say Moses said. There, it just says, for God said. God said this. These are his words. God had written the 10 commandments with his finger. So making the contrast that the commandment of God and it makes the contrast even more direct between command of God and tradition. Matthew 15:4, "For God commanded honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. Their hearts had strayed from God and the people have fallen under the sway of human tradition that emptied the divine word of its force and blinded its possessors to God's true will."And that's why in Mark 7:9, Jesus said to them and he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. They weren't in complete disobedience. Here Jesus adds the word fine as a touch of sarcasm because they had done this so beautifully. No one even noticed that they sidestep the word of God in order to establish their own tradition. But by supplanting and replacing the commandment, they're actually rejecting it.In verse 10 of Mark 7, Moses said, "Honor your father and your mother, whoever reviles father or mother must surely die." That's from Exodus 20:12, "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." And that's repeated in Deuteronomy 5:16. This is the fifth commandment and it does include material support of parents as parents grow older.That's the conversation here and that commandment honor your father and your mother. It was so important that the penalty for breaking that commandment was capital punishment. Exodus 21:17, "Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death." In Leviticus 20:9, "For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death, he has cursed his father or his mother, his blood is upon him."Just as being angry or refraining from performing a cure is equivalent to murder. So withholding support from parents is equivalent to cursing them. That's what Christ is saying, that dishonoring of parents is a capital offense according to the Torah. Yet the Pharisees facilitate it by their Corban practice. They're like, "Well, that's what the commandment said, honor your father and your mother." They're getting a little older and you should start thinking about how you're going to provide for them.And they're elderly age. And then the Pharisees come in and they say, that's a lot of money and that's a lot of time and that's a lot of resources. We could actually increase the budget of our ministries, of our synagogues, of our temples by tweaking the commandment a little bit. And children, instead of actually supporting your parents when they're older, just give that money to the Lord so to speak. And that was their Corban stuff. Verse 11, "But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you want, whatever you would've gained from me is Corban that is given to God then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down in many such things you do."Corban was a transliteration from the Hebrew and Aramaic of sacrifice, their offering. And what they're saying is, "Okay, this money I would've given to you mom and dad. I'm going to offer to the Lord therefore making it unavailable for any other use." The person declares that any material support he might have given his parents is pledged to God. Not that he necessarily intends to deliver it to God, but he just wants to remove it from the parents. If you think about it's just incredibly diabolical this rule that they invented. Yeah, they're going to fill their coffers, but you're also actually, you're doing the opposite what the commander said. Commander said, to honor your father and your mother and you're dishonoring them by pretending to honor the Lord. And Jesus here zeroes in on this specific example of Pharisaic tradition that empties the word of God of its force and it did it through a legal fiction maneuver just to avoid the law.And so what begins as a trick question quickly turns into a lesson in biblical hermeneutics or the interpretation of scripture. Jesus here is saying the law is perfect. Any addition or subtraction to the 10 commandments is the incorrect interpretation. Jesus does not set aside the law, he doesn't question its authority or do anything to weaken its demands, but he's saying traditions added to the law of God, they're not morally binding. And for these traditions and the Pharisees, it was actually subversion of the Lord of the word of God, a betrayal of it. And what's fascinating is the word for tradition in the Greek has two meanings. It could be translated as tradition parados, but there's other places where the same exact word means betrayal. When John the Baptist was handed over, this word was used when Jesus was betrayed, this word was used. And when Christians were betrayed and suffering and death, this word parados was used.So you can read this text and say you forsake the commandment of God and hold fast to the betrayal of human beings because by adding to the law, they have betrayed the word of God. You do a good job of annulling the commandment of God so that you may establish your betrayal, thus avoiding the word of God for the sake of your betrayal, parados by means of which you have betrayed. And the word for human here or person is anthropos. It's not the word for men that's used when Jesus feeds the 5,000. It's anthropos, person, human being. When humans add to the word, when they add to the law, they are subverting the commandments. Mark's point seems to be that human traditions, no matter how laudable in their original intention, they end up suffocating revelation because of the basic warp of the human heart of the anthropos.There's evil inside every single one of us that corrupts everything that we touch including the word of God. So whenever you listen to anybody interpreting the word of God, you do have to be like the Bereans. Word of God I welcome you eagerly, but I'm going to examine everything the person says according to the scriptures. Christians are not and indeed cannot be bound by the rules of men. And while many of these rules are based in wisdom, they cannot be used to bind a Christian's conscience to things that God has not forbidden in his word or expressly or implied. When we say we believe in sola scripture, what are we saying? We're saying we are bound to obey the law of God and in our case, the moral law, the 10 commandments, and that we are not bound by any manmade rules or traditions. God's word is our ultimate authority, not human tradition, not the tradition of the church.And this is why we are not Catholic. We understand that the Pope is not infallible. The Pope is actually very fallible and clearly he's adding to the word of God in a way that subverts the word of God. No, we reject that. We keep on reforming. Scripture speaks of the law of God as the perfect law, the law of liberty. And to put it rather simplistically, God gave us 10 commandments, not countless volumes of canon law. And these 10 commandments are for the most part, very simple. Even our children know the 10 Commandments and we do this in our home. You should try doing this in your home. We go through the 10 commandments and as we're doing our devotionals and we call each other out. We're Slavic, we're direct. We call it like, "Which commandments did you break today? I know, I know I live with you."And you're like, "Yes, I have broken the commandments. Lord, forgive me. I need grace. Help me and no longer break them."God binds us to obey his commandments, not to obey the rules of man. It's that simple. And this leads to the second evil that we see in our passage, just the evil of self-righteousness. These Pharisees had invented rules that they added to the commandments, which protects them from the commandments actually revealing their own sin. And then they walk around and they say, "I have the cleanest hands. I have the cleanest hands, I'm undefiled." And they judge everyone else according to these manmade rules. And that's why Jesus didn't spend time with them. They thought they weren't sick and Jesus would rather spend time with tax collectors, sinners who knew that they were sinners in need of a doctor.The 10 Commandments are given to us to show us our need for Christ and then also show us after we've received Christ what it means to follow him. And these are, I think about 10 lanes on a track. You know there's 10 lanes. I know this because I ran track as a kid for a season and my daughter reminded me of this recently. We're going through a trophy case and she's like, "Oh, here's a trophy." And it was for 10th place in track and field. That's how I know there's 10 lanes. Back when they started giving out trophies for absolutely every single person. Terrible. That was the beginning of the end.And it's like 10 lanes, 10 lanes. This is the straight and narrow. This is how we walk in the ways of righteousness. There's no other lanes and people try to add the lanes through ceremonial minutia and stuff. That's not the law.Point three is the law cuts and Jesus regenerates. Mark 7:14, "And he called the people to him again and said to them, hear me all of you and understand there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him."And this is the ultimate answer to the question of the Pharisees and the scribes when they said, "Well, why aren't your disciples washing their hands as they are?" The Pharisees thought and their system of theology, they thought that to eat with unwashed hands made you ritually impure because the contagion of impurity was outside of you. So if you ate something that was impure, all of a sudden you become impure. They thought that the evil was outside of them and they had to protect themselves from the evil coming in. And Jesus counters that false idea by saying that external things like unwashed hands have no power to transmit defilement. In Matthew 15:11, "It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that this defiles a person." And this bold statement ran contrary to all of their rabbinic teaching.To the rabbis and to the Pharisees for any defilement to occur, there must be a mother of defilement, an external source by physical contact with that source, you become unclean. That's why they stayed away from the Gentiles, your sinners. Your sin might be transmitted to me that's why they stayed away from anyone with leprosy. They thought this is how the sin or defilement comes upon, and that's why they stayed away from the sinners and tax collectors and they were shocked. "Jesus, how are you spending time with these people? You're going to get contaminated by their sin." And Jesus says, you're false because you're assuming an initially pure state. You're assuming that you are pristine and it's someone else's sin that makes you sin. And this is false. Jesus says, "The source of defilement is not external, but within." It's already existent. We're born with a sin nature, and every mom and dad in the room says, amen.Our children prove the doctrine of total depravity. They're born as little individualistic sinners and we need God's grace and their hearts and our hearts and we need the transformation to come from within. To the Pharisees, lack of ceremonial purity, as in the case of the disciples was sin. And Jesus saying, that's not sin. Don't just throw that word around. They didn't break a commandment. That's not sin. They broke the decorum. Mark 7:17, "When he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable." They didn't understand what's happening so they asked for interpretation of verse 18. He said to them, "Then, are you also without understanding, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled, thus he declared all foods clean."Here Jesus shows us that he has authority over ritual purity to redefine ritual purity. And he declared all foods clean, meaning that he, by his word and by his authority and by his power, shows that the ceremonial law, which was given by God was to point to Jesus Christ and he has fulfilled the ceremonial law. Therefore, he can redefine ritual purity. Romans 14:17 says, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up building. Do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats."So we see that Jesus in the same text does not abrogate the 10 Commandments. He actually upholds the 10 commandments, but he is abrogating the Old Testament food laws, the same laws that divided the Jews from the Gentiles and significant that this happens here because Jesus in the next section is going to begin his Gentile ministry. And we see that with the Syrophoenician woman. And then we see that with Jesus feeding 4,000 Gentiles, Gentile men.Ephesians 2:11 says, "Therefore, remember that one time you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility."So having declared all foods clean and thus having shown that there's no longer anything external to human beings that can defile them, Jesus identifies the real source of defilement. How does sin enter the world? How does sin enter our lives? It's the human heart. It's not what goes into people, what comes out of the human heart that is actually sin. Mark 7:20, "And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him for from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual morality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these things come from within and they defile a person." This catalog of human offenses truly paints a hellish picture. And Jesus says that that's all inside every single one of us.And there's a series of seven offenses in the plural, which he's showing crimes against the law, against the 10 commandments, followed by a series of more sinister things that are the reason or the root causes of the evil action. He says, out of the heart of man, come evil, thoughts, evil as defined by the law. All the other evil flows out of this one. Evil thoughts, the battleground for the soul. It begins with the mind. It begins with thoughts.In Genesis 8:21, "When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, and the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done."The word of God teaches that we're born with the sin nature, that there's sin in this world because we're born as sinners and the sin comes from within our hearts. It begins with the word sexual sin, sexual morality or porneia, which originally meant fornication. The Pharisees didn't want to talk about that. They want to talk about washing hands. Let's not talk about anything deeper than that. And after the sexual sins, he talks about robbery and murder and adultery, all transgressions of the 10 commandments. Then he gives seven singular words that talk about internal disposition that then leads to external action. Mark 7:23, "All these evil things come from within and they defile a person." And that word person anthropos, I've already mentioned it's used over and over and over in our passage, five times in a short passage, anthropo. And he says, this is where the sin comes from within the heart of a person. And that's really why adding traditions to the law of God is so sinister because anything that we add is tinged with our own sin.What the Pharisees could not see is that in their desire for piety and zeal, they were actually covering the law with their sin. These men looked like they were pious and godly individuals, but their hearts were far from God because their hearts were sinful. Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?"And then who can change it? Who can do something about it? And this is the beauty of the gospel. God gives us the 10 commandments like the scalpel. The 10 commandments show us that our hearts are stoned toward God, their hearts are sinful, that their hearts are evil. And the 10 commands, they cut, they cut, they cut, they cut. And then we look to the cross of Jesus Christ and we realized that the Son of God, the perfect Lamb of God, spotless Lamb of God who would never sinned, not one commandment that Jesus ever break in his whole life, and then he offers his spotless record as a sacrifice in our stead on the cross in order to do what, in order to transform us.Scripture talks about this as regeneration, to be born again, be born from within spiritual heart surgery. Jesus has this conversation with a Pharisee, a religious person named Nicodemus in John 3. And Nicodemus said, "Jesus, how do I go to heaven?" And Jesus answered him and said, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time to his mother's womb and be born?' And Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.""Do not marvel at this that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. So it is with everyone who was born of the Spirit.""Lord, I need a new heart." That's what Nicodemus says, and he says, "How do I get it?" He said, "You got to be born again.""How do I do that?"And Jesus' answer, "The Spirit blows where it wishes." The Spirit is the one that converts therefore, church and therefore Christians, we can just proclaim the plain word of God to people and not be afraid, not be ashamed, not try to cover it in these layers to make it more palatable. What he's saying is Nicodemus is like, I want to go to heaven. And Jesus is like, well, hopefully the Holy Spirit converts you. That's his answer. But he tells him the truth.And Nicodemus at that point then what does he do? He starts begging the Holy Spirit, convert me. Holy Spirit regenerate. Holy Spirit, I need this transformation reformation from the inside. And then later on we find out Nicodemus was converted and did become a child of God. So if you're not sure that you are a Christian, if you're not sure that you have a heart that loves God, how does your heart respond when you hear about the 10 Commandments, when you hear about the law of God, the true regenerated believer, Christian child of God, when you hear about the law of God, all you want to do is know more so that you can love God more by obeying the word. And if you hear about the law and you're like, 'I don't want the law, I want nothing to do with God's law," then most likely you still have a heart of stone.Most likely you still are on your path to hell. And therefore we plead with you. I beg you, end the year right. End the year the way you should by repenting of your sins. Say, Lord Jesus, please forgive me for breaking the commandments. Lord Jesus, give me a brand new heart. Holy Spirit, fill me and God will. And that's the promise of God. Ezekiel 36:26, "And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers, and you shall be my people and I will be your God."New heart that desires to do what? Desires to obey God's law, because of God's grace. The law is both the teacher of sin and the rule of gratitude. It is important to see that while Jesus completely rejects the rules of men with equal force, he reaffirms the authority of the law of God. The rules of men are not to be confused with the law of God no matter how much wisdom, how much piety or how much zeal these rules appear to have, it's the law of God, the 10 Commandments which are binding upon God's people. This is because the law of God reveals his will to us. Therefore, as Christians, we define sin in light of God's law, not in light of rules and ceremonies invented by the self-righteous who actually think that they keep these rules, they are righteous. While those who don't keep them as well or not. God has made his will perfectly clear. The rules of men only obscure what God has said.Jesus calls out to us today. He says, repent of your sins and believe the good news. And the moment you do, his righteousness is counted to you. His recorders counted to you. Righteousness covers you. And Jesus loves repentance, sinners, but he has no patience for the self-righteous. So let's look at this text and let's be convicted that often we are like the Pharisees and let's repent of that self-righteousness and repent of our sin, continue to follow Christ. And honestly, may this be the year that we read the Bible. Everybody, everyone's going to read the Bible this year, and that's how revival is coming into the world. In Jesus' name, amen. Let us pray.Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word and we thank you that the word of God, you became incarnate. And I pray, Lord Jesus, by the power of your blood and by the power of your Holy Spirit, make us the people that embody your word. Make us the people that love your word so much. Study your word so much that our hearts are absolutely transformed by your word. That our minds are renewed by the transformation that the word gives us. And Lord, make us a missionary force here in the city pointing people to the word of God, pointing people to the cross of Jesus Christ and pointing people to the fact that the church is God's plan to rebuild this world. Lord, we love you and pray this in Christ. Holy name.Amen.

Lord, as we end one year and begin another, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for preserving us to this moment, sustaining us by the power of your spirit. And we thank you Lord that you continue to reveal yourself to us. That's what we long for. More than anything else, is your presence. We long to know you. We long to know your will and Lord, as we open up the scriptures and as we look at a text where you emphasize the preeminence of God's law, I pray, make us a people that love your law, love your 10 commandments. Stare deeply, gaze deeply into your law, seeking how we can grow in faithfulness, how we can grow in obedience. And as we do, you will grow us in fruitfulness. Lord, to make our church a church that loves your word, reveres your word. Make Bostonians like the Bereans that eagerly accept your word and on a daily basis, examine to see if it's true.If it's true that you are a God who reveals yourself, a God who guides us, and God who gave us the law to guard us from evil, show us what it means that you sent your son Jesus Christ because we disobeyed the law, we sinned against you. You sent your son to walk in the ways of faithfulness and then to offer himself as a sacrifice in our behalf in order to forgive us. And we thank you Lord that you offer that sacrifice. If anyone is not yet a believer today, Lord, show them where they've transgressed the commandments and show them that sin and the penalty for is eternal damnation and that Christ took all of that on the cross and whosoever believes, repents and turns from sin to Christ is granted forgiveness and eternal life. I pray save many even today and Lord bless our time in the holy scriptures and we pray all this in Christ's name.Amen.We're continuing our servant series through the Gospel of Mark. We've called it Kingdom Come, the Gospel of Mark and the secret of God's kingdom. And the idea is that the kingdom has come and Jesus has come to establish the kingdom and we are to be a people that pray. Lord, may your kingdom continue to expand in our life and where we live. And as we end one year and begin another, it's helpful to take account of the year past. Remember lessons learned, consider changes to make and make resolutions that pesky word, pesky, pesky. We don't like that word resolutions, but I urge you, church, I challenge you, make this resolution. If you have never read the Bible cover to cover, resolve that this year you are going to change that. Cover to cover, four chapters a day. There's about 1200 chapters in the Bible, four chapters a day that's got you reading 300 or so days of the year.You've got 65 days off to study the Psalter and the Proverbs and go deeper. But four chapters a day, it's about 20 minutes and that's a tremendous time to spend with the Lord. And I say that because it's not the resolutions that change us, it's the reformation that we make in our life. It's the restructuring of the routine. It's the spiritual disciplines that we welcome in. That's what really changes us. We need not just resolutions or short-term change, we need a reformation. We need to be reformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We're like clay in the potter's hands. He's shaping us, he's forming us, he's reforming us. And this reformation or transformation as Romans 12 puts it happens when our minds are renewed according to the word of God, when our minds are saturated with the word of God. It's the word of God when applied by the spirit of God that leads to true transformation and lasting reformation.One of the great principles that came out of the reformation along with the five solos, if you're not familiar with them, here they are. Sola scriptura, that's scripture alone, Sola gratia, that's grace alone, Sola fide, that's faith alone, Solus Christus, that's Christ alone, and Soli Deo gloria to the glory of God alone.Well, along with those five, there was also the principle of semper reformanda, which is always reforming. The title of my sermon today is always becoming reformed and the idea isn't that we are capitulating to the culture, that we're evolving in order to make the message more palatable. No, the message is that we study the holy scriptures and we long for the holy scriptures to reform us and reform how we live, reform how we worship the Lord. And the church should always be seeking to change in ways that make its testimonies more faithful to God's revelation.The church is formed by the word of God and it's always being reformed by the word of God just as individuals are. And how does reformation happen in our lives and in the churches in our land? When we look into the word of God and to the law of God and say, "Lord, where have I been unfaithful to your word? Where have I added to your word or where have I subtracted from your word?" Deuteronomy 4:2 says, "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you."And you say, "Well, which word is he talking about here in Deuteronomy?" Don't add or take away from which word? Well, in the same chapter in verse nine through 14, he explains, "Only take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children.""How on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children also. And so you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain where the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form. There was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, that is the Ten Commandments. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules that you might do them in the land that you were going over to possess."Well, what word do we not to add or subtract from? It's the 10 commandments. And adding to the law of God is legalism and taking away from the law of God is antinomianism and Jesus didn't add to the law of God, but he did uphold the 10 laws to show us primarily that we have sinned against God, therefore we need Christ's sacrifice. And then once we've received Christ's sacrifice and his grace, we are then to out of gratitude, live according to the law that in primarily motivated by love for God and neighbor.Today we're in Mark 7:1-23. As we continue our series, would you look at the text with me?Now when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews did not eat unless they washed their hands properly holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?" And he said to them, "Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me teaching his doctrines the commandments of men? You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.""For Moses said, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die." But you say, "If a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would've gained from me is Corban, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do."And he called the people to him again and said to them, "Hear me all of you and understand, there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable and he said to them, "Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled?" Thus he declared all foods clean. And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him for from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual morality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within and they defile a person."This is the reading of God's holy, inherent and infallible, authoritative word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First traditions are not God's commandments. Second God's 10 commandments are God's commandments. And three, the law cuts and Jesus regenerates.First, traditions are not God's commandments. In Mark 7:1 says, "The Pharisees gathered to him and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem." These are the representatives of the big establishment religion.The scribes in the Pharisees did not approve of Jesus. Jesus did not have their stamp of approval as he's doing his ministry. They were furious with Jesus that he would eat with sinners and tax collectors. They became angrier when Jesus rejected their distinctions between clean and unclean. And the scribes and the Pharisees challenged Jesus' view of fasting as well as Jesus' view of the Sabbath observance. And Jesus showed no qualms whatsoever in defying these traditions, rejecting their oral traditions. In many ways, I was sharing the gospel recently with someone. They say, "You know what? Jesus sounds kind of like a rebel, kind of like a renegade." And I was like, "Yes, he's the revolutionary of deregulating religion. He's God, it's his law, it's his word. He's come." And he said, "That's all made up and that's all made up and that's all made up." And he's pointing people to the law of God because it's only the law of God that can show us our need for God's grace.So yes, he confounded the canon lawyers and he sent them into fits of rage. How? By just teaching the plain word of God, God's law, what it says, what it doesn't say with absolute precision. For Jesus the oral traditions were not binding, they were not law, they were just decorum. Jesus rejects the authority of their tradition and therefore he openly contradicted what they taught and practiced. And so he made a lot of enemies and that's what ultimately got him crucified. And these men were sent from Jerusalem indicating that their representatives of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling body in Jerusalem. Like Herod Antipas, members of the Sanhedrin had heard about Jesus Christ. They perceived him to be someone that can mobilize people, therefore they perceive him to be a threat. And some of the religious leaders even accused Jesus Christ of doing his ministry because he was demon possessed.They said, you cast out demons by the power of Satan. And as a result, Jesus places upon them the ultimate covenant curse that no forgiveness in this age or in the age to come was given to the blasphemers of the blessed Holy Spirit. So the Jewish leadership, the Pharisees, they've sworn to destroy Jesus, they've partnered with the Herodians and they gather to him, the verb used to gather to him here is the same one used in Psalm 2, which is a messianic prophetic Psalm about Christ that the anointed one will come and the rulers of the day will rise against him in opposition. And that's exactly what they're doing. In other Psalms, the same verb is used for the wicked conspiring against the righteous to take his life. For example, Psalm 31:13. "For I hear the whispering of many terror on every side as they scheme together against me as they plot to take my life," or Psalm 35:15."But at my stumbling, they rejoiced and gathered. They gathered together against me, wretches whom I did not know, tore at me without ceasing."And the fact that the scribes who interrogate Jesus, they come down from Jerusalem marks that the opposition is coming from the center of power from Jerusalem where Jesus will be eventually executed. In verse two, "They saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches."The hand washing is not a biblical... You should wash your hands. That's not what we're talking.We're talking about what makes you moral. That's what they're getting. What they're doing is immoral. They're sinning. That's the conversation. The hand washing that they're alluding to. It's not a biblical requirement for lay people. In the Old Testament, only the priests are required to wash their hands before offering a sacrifice. And the Pharisees however they thought, you know what, this is a good thing to do. We should have everybody do it. We're going to regulate this on absolutely everyone on the theory that every Jew should live as a priest and every Jewish home should become like the temple. The reasoning sounds very rational. And in this tradition, that's what the tradition forces forms the basis of their challenge. Though this was only a priestly requirement from the law of God, all the pious Jews at the time of Jesus had been doing this for about 200 years.So Jesus shows up and he says, that's not in the Bible, that's not regulation for everybody. And their response is, "Jesus, we've always done it this way. Our parents have always done it this way, our grandparents and they've all done it this way.By Jesus' day it had become firmly entrenched this tradition as a requirement for those that want it to be clean and people wash their hands in the morning before morning prayer. The benediction used by the priest of that time of consecration was now being recited by the people as part of the course of daily life. And many felt that even eating bread without a ceremonial washing rendered the bread unclean. And verse five, "The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?" And the word for walk here is standard metaphor for living a certain way.Why don't your disciples live in the way that our elders taught us to live? In the tradition of the elders, not the law of Moses, but oral and written tradition received from antiquity and honored only because it was from antiquity. Honored as the word of God just because it's old for the Pharisees, the oral tradition was equally binding with the law of God and with the scriptures. And some of them even believed that tradition was more precious and more authoritative than holy scripture. And with this kind of tradition, the gospels record that Jesus always expressed angry impatience. On the surface, this looks like an argument brought about Jesus' disciples watching procedures, but in reality it's a debate about authority. Is oral tradition authoritative over God's people? And the answer is no. The problem was that with the Pharisees and what the Pharisees had to be doing is they'd been controlling people with their religious regulation.They had been requiring demanding that people obey their oral traditions even though this tradition had no biblical support. Put it another way, the scribes and the Pharisees big religion, they were binding people's consciences to things that were not required of them by scripture. And as the scribes saw the matter, it was their sacred duty to teach the people and then enforce this manmade law upon the people. These legalistic religious lawyers force their rules and regulations on everyone and try to adjudicate.Jesus answers on two levels. Those who criticize him first, he answers on their level by showing that their premise, their presupposition is unsubstantiated. And then after doing that, he demolishes their position from within by going deeper. Verse six, "And he said to them, well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me teaching us doctrines and commandments of men."On the principle that the best defense is a good offense, Jesus goes on the offense against these guys and he responds to their hostility by not answering their question about hand washing but actually dismantling this false presupposition that their human traditions are on the same level as God's word in terms of binding moral authority calls them hypocrites. In the classical Greek, it was a word to designate actors, pretenders. And he's saying, you guys are hypocrites because you present a religious godly front, but it's a front based on your own regulations. You made up rules, you've been playing according to these rules. You look really wholly according to those rules, but that's not the game. You're playing the wrong game. And he accuses them of a hypocrisy because they're masking God's law with human made regulations. And the Pharisees certainly would not have agreed with Jesus here, with his charge that tradition represented a betrayal of the commandments of God.No, they would've said, "No. Tradition is part of God's revelation to us." Yet God revealed himself to Moses, but he's also been revealing himself through us, through the pharisaical sect of Judaism. This feeling of connection with ancient revelation is what has given rabbinic Judaism the successor of Phariseeism, a great sense of continuity. But what they teach depends entirely on their authority, on people's authority, not on divine authority. And humans, as Jesus makes clear at the end of the text, we're sinners and everything we touch is singe tinged with sin. And even if we try with our greatest attempts of wisdom to add to the commandments of God, those additions are going to be tinged with sin. This clinging to human traditions makes them actually neglect the plain commandment of God, which is what led to their downfall. Not only does Jesus use one of Israel's most widely red prophets, Isaiah, he quotes Isaiah, they knew this was God's word, but in that context, Isaiah was prophesying to the people of God and he says, "You, the kingdom of Israel, you're in shambles because you have left the commandments of God." And what Jesus is doing by quoting that same text to these people, he's saying in the same way that Israel had fallen from glory because they had moved away from the commandments of God, you guys are doing the same thing.And that's why Israel was in the state it was. They've replaced the law of God with laws of humans and that never leads to shalom or universal flourishing. Notice that Jesus does not even attempt to answer their trick question. He doesn't even want to talk about hand washing. These are manmade rules and traditions. They're not binding. Only the law of God is, and these rules and regulations, they may be signs of great zeal, but in actuality they demonstrate this sad fact that they don't know God. Their hearts are far from God because they're spending all of their time living according to their own interpretations of what God said. They're hypocrites because they pretend to love God, but they don't even do what he says. They prefer to do what they say about what he said. And to the people of Israel, the scribes and Pharisees look like holy and godly men, but they're not because they're not worshiping God in the way he said to worship him.These men claim to defend the law of God by arguing, but their humanly contrived rules actually block the word of God. They distort the law of God and they rob the word of God of its power. According to Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees have so buried the true meaning and purpose of the law under countless layers of canon law and oral tradition. They've made the law null and void. Their traditions not only bury the law under rules of men that so much that people don't even know what God's law actually says.So that brings us to point too. God's manmade traditions are not God's law, but God's 10 commandments are. Look at verse eight, what Jesus does. He says, "You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men." Well, what does Jesus mean by the commandment of God? Well, he explicitly tells us in verse 10 that he's referring to the 10 commandments because in verse 10 he says, "Case in point hears a command that you have nullified with your own tradition." And he goes to commandment number five. So by command he's referring to the 10 commandments. In verse 10, "For Moses said, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father and mother must surely die."For Moses said here, that's what Jesus says. There's a parallel account where Jesus is having a similar conversation in Matthew 15, four. And there it doesn't say Moses said. There, it just says, for God said. God said this. These are his words. God had written the 10 commandments with his finger. So making the contrast that the commandment of God and it makes the contrast even more direct between command of God and tradition. Matthew 15:4, "For God commanded honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. Their hearts had strayed from God and the people have fallen under the sway of human tradition that emptied the divine word of its force and blinded its possessors to God's true will."And that's why in Mark 7:9, Jesus said to them and he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. They weren't in complete disobedience. Here Jesus adds the word fine as a touch of sarcasm because they had done this so beautifully. No one even noticed that they sidestep the word of God in order to establish their own tradition. But by supplanting and replacing the commandment, they're actually rejecting it.In verse 10 of Mark 7, Moses said, "Honor your father and your mother, whoever reviles father or mother must surely die." That's from Exodus 20:12, "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." And that's repeated in Deuteronomy 5:16. This is the fifth commandment and it does include material support of parents as parents grow older.That's the conversation here and that commandment honor your father and your mother. It was so important that the penalty for breaking that commandment was capital punishment. Exodus 21:17, "Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death." In Leviticus 20:9, "For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death, he has cursed his father or his mother, his blood is upon him."Just as being angry or refraining from performing a cure is equivalent to murder. So withholding support from parents is equivalent to cursing them. That's what Christ is saying, that dishonoring of parents is a capital offense according to the Torah. Yet the Pharisees facilitate it by their Corban practice. They're like, "Well, that's what the commandment said, honor your father and your mother." They're getting a little older and you should start thinking about how you're going to provide for them.And they're elderly age. And then the Pharisees come in and they say, that's a lot of money and that's a lot of time and that's a lot of resources. We could actually increase the budget of our ministries, of our synagogues, of our temples by tweaking the commandment a little bit. And children, instead of actually supporting your parents when they're older, just give that money to the Lord so to speak. And that was their Corban stuff. Verse 11, "But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you want, whatever you would've gained from me is Corban that is given to God then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down in many such things you do."Corban was a transliteration from the Hebrew and Aramaic of sacrifice, their offering. And what they're saying is, "Okay, this money I would've given to you mom and dad. I'm going to offer to the Lord therefore making it unavailable for any other use." The person declares that any material support he might have given his parents is pledged to God. Not that he necessarily intends to deliver it to God, but he just wants to remove it from the parents. If you think about it's just incredibly diabolical this rule that they invented. Yeah, they're going to fill their coffers, but you're also actually, you're doing the opposite what the commander said. Commander said, to honor your father and your mother and you're dishonoring them by pretending to honor the Lord. And Jesus here zeroes in on this specific example of Pharisaic tradition that empties the word of God of its force and it did it through a legal fiction maneuver just to avoid the law.And so what begins as a trick question quickly turns into a lesson in biblical hermeneutics or the interpretation of scripture. Jesus here is saying the law is perfect. Any addition or subtraction to the 10 commandments is the incorrect interpretation. Jesus does not set aside the law, he doesn't question its authority or do anything to weaken its demands, but he's saying traditions added to the law of God, they're not morally binding. And for these traditions and the Pharisees, it was actually subversion of the Lord of the word of God, a betrayal of it. And what's fascinating is the word for tradition in the Greek has two meanings. It could be translated as tradition parados, but there's other places where the same exact word means betrayal. When John the Baptist was handed over, this word was used when Jesus was betrayed, this word was used. And when Christians were betrayed and suffering and death, this word parados was used.So you can read this text and say you forsake the commandment of God and hold fast to the betrayal of human beings because by adding to the law, they have betrayed the word of God. You do a good job of annulling the commandment of God so that you may establish your betrayal, thus avoiding the word of God for the sake of your betrayal, parados by means of which you have betrayed. And the word for human here or person is anthropos. It's not the word for men that's used when Jesus feeds the 5,000. It's anthropos, person, human being. When humans add to the word, when they add to the law, they are subverting the commandments. Mark's point seems to be that human traditions, no matter how laudable in their original intention, they end up suffocating revelation because of the basic warp of the human heart of the anthropos.There's evil inside every single one of us that corrupts everything that we touch including the word of God. So whenever you listen to anybody interpreting the word of God, you do have to be like the Bereans. Word of God I welcome you eagerly, but I'm going to examine everything the person says according to the scriptures. Christians are not and indeed cannot be bound by the rules of men. And while many of these rules are based in wisdom, they cannot be used to bind a Christian's conscience to things that God has not forbidden in his word or expressly or implied. When we say we believe in sola scripture, what are we saying? We're saying we are bound to obey the law of God and in our case, the moral law, the 10 commandments, and that we are not bound by any manmade rules or traditions. God's word is our ultimate authority, not human tradition, not the tradition of the church.And this is why we are not Catholic. We understand that the Pope is not infallible. The Pope is actually very fallible and clearly he's adding to the word of God in a way that subverts the word of God. No, we reject that. We keep on reforming. Scripture speaks of the law of God as the perfect law, the law of liberty. And to put it rather simplistically, God gave us 10 commandments, not countless volumes of canon law. And these 10 commandments are for the most part, very simple. Even our children know the 10 Commandments and we do this in our home. You should try doing this in your home. We go through the 10 commandments and as we're doing our devotionals and we call each other out. We're Slavic, we're direct. We call it like, "Which commandments did you break today? I know, I know I live with you."And you're like, "Yes, I have broken the commandments. Lord, forgive me. I need grace. Help me and no longer break them."God binds us to obey his commandments, not to obey the rules of man. It's that simple. And this leads to the second evil that we see in our passage, just the evil of self-righteousness. These Pharisees had invented rules that they added to the commandments, which protects them from the commandments actually revealing their own sin. And then they walk around and they say, "I have the cleanest hands. I have the cleanest hands, I'm undefiled." And they judge everyone else according to these manmade rules. And that's why Jesus didn't spend time with them. They thought they weren't sick and Jesus would rather spend time with tax collectors, sinners who knew that they were sinners in need of a doctor.The 10 Commandments are given to us to show us our need for Christ and then also show us after we've received Christ what it means to follow him. And these are, I think about 10 lanes on a track. You know there's 10 lanes. I know this because I ran track as a kid for a season and my daughter reminded me of this recently. We're going through a trophy case and she's like, "Oh, here's a trophy." And it was for 10th place in track and field. That's how I know there's 10 lanes. Back when they started giving out trophies for absolutely every single person. Terrible. That was the beginning of the end.And it's like 10 lanes, 10 lanes. This is the straight and narrow. This is how we walk in the ways of righteousness. There's no other lanes and people try to add the lanes through ceremonial minutia and stuff. That's not the law.Point three is the law cuts and Jesus regenerates. Mark 7:14, "And he called the people to him again and said to them, hear me all of you and understand there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him."And this is the ultimate answer to the question of the Pharisees and the scribes when they said, "Well, why aren't your disciples washing their hands as they are?" The Pharisees thought and their system of theology, they thought that to eat with unwashed hands made you ritually impure because the contagion of impurity was outside of you. So if you ate something that was impure, all of a sudden you become impure. They thought that the evil was outside of them and they had to protect themselves from the evil coming in. And Jesus counters that false idea by saying that external things like unwashed hands have no power to transmit defilement. In Matthew 15:11, "It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that this defiles a person." And this bold statement ran contrary to all of their rabbinic teaching.To the rabbis and to the Pharisees for any defilement to occur, there must be a mother of defilement, an external source by physical contact with that source, you become unclean. That's why they stayed away from the Gentiles, your sinners. Your sin might be transmitted to me that's why they stayed away from anyone with leprosy. They thought this is how the sin or defilement comes upon, and that's why they stayed away from the sinners and tax collectors and they were shocked. "Jesus, how are you spending time with these people? You're going to get contaminated by their sin." And Jesus says, you're false because you're assuming an initially pure state. You're assuming that you are pristine and it's someone else's sin that makes you sin. And this is false. Jesus says, "The source of defilement is not external, but within." It's already existent. We're born with a sin nature, and every mom and dad in the room says, amen.Our children prove the doctrine of total depravity. They're born as little individualistic sinners and we need God's grace and their hearts and our hearts and we need the transformation to come from within. To the Pharisees, lack of ceremonial purity, as in the case of the disciples was sin. And Jesus saying, that's not sin. Don't just throw that word around. They didn't break a commandment. That's not sin. They broke the decorum. Mark 7:17, "When he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable." They didn't understand what's happening so they asked for interpretation of verse 18. He said to them, "Then, are you also without understanding, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled, thus he declared all foods clean."Here Jesus shows us that he has authority over ritual purity to redefine ritual purity. And he declared all foods clean, meaning that he, by his word and by his authority and by his power, shows that the ceremonial law, which was given by God was to point to Jesus Christ and he has fulfilled the ceremonial law. Therefore, he can redefine ritual purity. Romans 14:17 says, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up building. Do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats."So we see that Jesus in the same text does not abrogate the 10 Commandments. He actually upholds the 10 commandments, but he is abrogating the Old Testament food laws, the same laws that divided the Jews from the Gentiles and significant that this happens here because Jesus in the next section is going to begin his Gentile ministry. And we see that with the Syrophoenician woman. And then we see that with Jesus feeding 4,000 Gentiles, Gentile men.Ephesians 2:11 says, "Therefore, remember that one time you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility."So having declared all foods clean and thus having shown that there's no longer anything external to human beings that can defile them, Jesus identifies the real source of defilement. How does sin enter the world? How does sin enter our lives? It's the human heart. It's not what goes into people, what comes out of the human heart that is actually sin. Mark 7:20, "And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him for from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual morality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these things come from within and they defile a person." This catalog of human offenses truly paints a hellish picture. And Jesus says that that's all inside every single one of us.And there's a series of seven offenses in the plural, which he's showing crimes against the law, against the 10 commandments, followed by a series of more sinister things that are the reason or the root causes of the evil action. He says, out of the heart of man, come evil, thoughts, evil as defined by the law. All the other evil flows out of this one. Evil thoughts, the battleground for the soul. It begins with the mind. It begins with thoughts.In Genesis 8:21, "When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, and the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done."The word of God teaches that we're born with the sin nature, that there's sin in this world because we're born as sinners and the sin comes from within our hearts. It begins with the word sexual sin, sexual morality or porneia, which originally meant fornication. The Pharisees didn't want to talk about that. They want to talk about washing hands. Let's not talk about anything deeper than that. And after the sexual sins, he talks about robbery and murder and adultery, all transgressions of the 10 commandments. Then he gives seven singular words that talk about internal disposition that then leads to external action. Mark 7:23, "All these evil things come from within and they defile a person." And that word person anthropos, I've already mentioned it's used over and over and over in our passage, five times in a short passage, anthropo. And he says, this is where the sin comes from within the heart of a person. And that's really why adding traditions to the law of God is so sinister because anything that we add is tinged with our own sin.What the Pharisees could not see is that in their desire for piety and zeal, they were actually covering the law with their sin. These men looked like they were pious and godly individuals, but their hearts were far from God because their hearts were sinful. Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?"And then who can change it? Who can do something about it? And this is the beauty of the gospel. God gives us the 10 commandments like the scalpel. The 10 commandments show us that our hearts are stoned toward God, their hearts are sinful, that their hearts are evil. And the 10 commands, they cut, they cut, they cut, they cut. And then we look to the cross of Jesus Christ and we realized that the Son of God, the perfect Lamb of God, spotless Lamb of God who would never sinned, not one commandment that Jesus ever break in his whole life, and then he offers his spotless record as a sacrifice in our stead on the cross in order to do what, in order to transform us.Scripture talks about this as regeneration, to be born again, be born from within spiritual heart surgery. Jesus has this conversation with a Pharisee, a religious person named Nicodemus in John 3. And Nicodemus said, "Jesus, how do I go to heaven?" And Jesus answered him and said, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time to his mother's womb and be born?' And Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.""Do not marvel at this that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. So it is with everyone who was born of the Spirit.""Lord, I need a new heart." That's what Nicodemus says, and he says, "How do I get it?" He said, "You got to be born again.""How do I do that?"And Jesus' answer, "The Spirit blows where it wishes." The Spirit is the one that converts therefore, church and therefore Christians, we can just proclaim the plain word of God to people and not be afraid, not be ashamed, not try to cover it in these layers to make it more palatable. What he's saying is Nicodemus is like, I want to go to heaven. And Jesus is like, well, hopefully the Holy Spirit converts you. That's his answer. But he tells him the truth.And Nicodemus at that point then what does he do? He starts begging the Holy Spirit, convert me. Holy Spirit regenerate. Holy Spirit, I need this transformation reformation from the inside. And then later on we find out Nicodemus was converted and did become a child of God. So if you're not sure that you are a Christian, if you're not sure that you have a heart that loves God, how does your heart respond when you hear about the 10 Commandments, when you hear about the law of God, the true regenerated believer, Christian child of God, when you hear about the law of God, all you want to do is know more so that you can love God more by obeying the word. And if you hear about the law and you're like, 'I don't want the law, I want nothing to do with God's law," then most likely you still have a heart of stone.Most likely you still are on your path to hell. And therefore we plead with you. I beg you, end the year right. End the year the way you should by repenting of your sins. Say, Lord Jesus, please forgive me for breaking the commandments. Lord Jesus, give me a brand new heart. Holy Spirit, fill me and God will. And that's the promise of God. Ezekiel 36:26, "And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers, and you shall be my people and I will be your God."New heart that desires to do what? Desires to obey God's law, because of God's grace. The law is both the teacher of sin and the rule of gratitude. It is important to see that while Jesus completely rejects the rules of men with equal force, he reaffirms the authority of the law of God. The rules of men are not to be confused with the law of God no matter how much wisdom, how much piety or how much zeal these rules appear to have, it's the law of God, the 10 Commandments which are binding upon God's people. This is because the law of God reveals his will to us. Therefore, as Christians, we define sin in light of God's law, not in light of rules and ceremonies invented by the self-righteous who actually think that they keep these rules, they are righteous. While those who don't keep them as well or not. God has made his will perfectly clear. The rules of men only obscure what God has said.Jesus calls out to us today. He says, repent of your sins and believe the good news. And the moment you do, his righteousness is counted to you. His recorders counted to you. Righteousness covers you. And Jesus loves repentance, sinners, but he has no patience for the self-righteous. So let's look at this text and let's be convicted that often we are like the Pharisees and let's repent of that self-righteousness and repent of our sin, continue to follow Christ. And honestly, may this be the year that we read the Bible. Everybody, everyone's going to read the Bible this year, and that's how revival is coming into the world. In Jesus' name, amen. Let us pray.Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word and we thank you that the word of God, you became incarnate. And I pray, Lord Jesus, by the power of your blood and by the power of your Holy Spirit, make us the people that embody your word. Make us the people that love your word so much. Study your word so much that our hearts are absolutely transformed by your word. That our minds are renewed by the transformation that the word gives us. And Lord, make us a missionary force here in the city pointing people to the word of God, pointing people to the cross of Jesus Christ and pointing people to the fact that the church is God's plan to rebuild this world. Lord, we love you and pray this in Christ. Holy name.Amen.

Scripture Reading: Acts 5:17-42 17 Now the high priest rose up, and all those with him (that is, the religious party of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy. 18 They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, led them out, and said, 20 “Go and stand in the temple courts and proclaim to the people all the words of this life.” 21 When they heard this, they entered the temple courts at daybreak and began teaching.Now when the high priest and those who were with him arrived, they summoned the Sanhedrin—that is, the whole high council of the Israelites—and sent to the jail to have the apostles brought before them. 22 But the officers who came for them did not find them in the prison, so they returned and reported, 23 “We found the jail locked securely and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” 24 Now when the commander of the temple guard and the chief priests heard this report, they were greatly puzzled concerning it, wondering what this could be. 25 But someone came and reported to them, “Look! The men you put in prison are standing in the temple courts and teaching the people!” 26 Then the commander of the temple guard went with the officers and brought the apostles without the use of force (for they were afraid of being stoned by the people).27 When they had brought them, they stood them before the council, and the high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name. Look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood on us!” 29 But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than people. 30 The God of our forefathers raised up Jesus, whom you seized and killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him to his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses of these events, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”33 Now when they heard this, they became furious and wanted to execute them. 34 But a Pharisee whose name was Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was respected by all the people, stood up in the council and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time. 35 Then he said to the council, “Men of Israel, pay close attention to what you are about to do to these men. 36 For sometime ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and about 400 men joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and nothing came of it. 37 After him Judas the Galilean arose in the days of the census and incited people to follow him in revolt. He too was killed, and all who followed him were scattered. 38 So in this case I say to you, stay away from these men and leave them alone because if this plan or this undertaking originates with people, it will come to nothing, 39 but if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them, or you may even be found fighting against God.” He convinced them, 40 and they summoned the apostles and had them beaten. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and released them. 41 So they left the council rejoicing because they had been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name. 42 And every day both in the temple courts and from house to house, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus was the Christ.Main ThemesIntroduction—Setting the SceneToday's text narrates the apostles' second arrest. The scene begins with the high priest “rising up.” Remember that this “high priest” was introduced in Acts 4:6 as Annas, although historically Caiaphas was high priest at this time. We have good reason to believes that Annas (Caiaphas' father-in-law) was the de facto head of the high-priestly family. Thus, Annas seems to lead the trial.The Sadducees are also mentioned. We have discussed them at length, so I will only remind you that this is the party that claims to believe in the Old Testament but that denies life after death and miraculous interventions by God.The high priest and Sadducees are described as being filled with “jealousy.” This is a strong word that in Judaism was generally reserved for religiously motivated rage. Ironically, it conveys a zeal motivated by a desire to maintain the purity of the faith.Moreover, envy is a strong, motivating emotion in an honor-shame society. Within a competitive limited honor culture the popularity of the apostles' ministry diminishes the honor (i.e., support) of the ruling elite. This is particularly the case given the apostles' claim that the leaders had unjustly crucified an innocent Jew who was anointed by God.The apostles' popularity and peaceful behavior had protected them from trouble with the authorities. But now (after the trial in chapter 4), they are defying a direct order from the authorities. Allowing the apostles to continue in their disobedience threatens the authority and power of the ruling council. They must act.I mentioned this before, but the arrests in chapter 4 and 5 work as a redemptive arc in Peter's story. When Jesus was arrested, Peter claimed that he was willing to face “both prison and death” for Jesus (Luke 22:33)—but he failed (22:34, 57-61). In Acts, Peter finally follows through.Miraculous Prison BreakThe apostles' miraculous release from prison works in two levels: on the literal level, it is a miraculous sign that validates their mission from God; on the literary level, it fulfills prophecy. Jesus's mission includes release of captives.The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has chosen me. He has commissioned me to encourage the poor, to help the brokenhearted, to decree the release of captives and the freeing of prisoners, . . . Isaiah 61:1In chapter 12, we will read of another miraculous escape at the hands of the Angel of the Lord. Many scholars note that miraculous escapes are a frequent motif in ancient literature. Perhaps the best known story would have been that of Euripides. Some try to show narrative parallels between Euripides' Bacchae and Acts. You can review them here, but in my opinion it is a stretch at best. Moreover, one could grant that a popular story such as that of Euripides could impact how Luke told the story of Peter's escape without in any way affecting the substance of the story. For example, I could begin a story about my childhood with the phrase, “once upon a time,” and then tell a true and factual tale. I would be copying how classic children stories are told, not the events they narrate. We must also keep in mind that Luke generally employs Jewish stories as his models and background, not Greek or Roman mythology. The Old Testament lacks a tradition of angels aiding in prison escapes, but it does contain stories of the Angel of the Lord helping people while imprisoned (see, e.g., Dan 6: 22).Perhaps the most important question we should ask is: Why does God release the apostles from prison? For proclamation (Acts 5:20). More specifically, the command is to go speak at the temple. This makes sense for several reasons. The apostles could address large crowds there. It is also reminiscent of Old Testament prophets tasked with addressing all Israelites. Recall, for example, Jeremiah 7.The Lord said to Jeremiah: “Stand in the gate of the Lord's temple and proclaim this message: ‘Listen to the Lord's message, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the Lord. The Lord of Heaven's Armies, the God of Israel, says: Change the way you have been living and do what is right. If you do, I will allow you to continue to live in this land. Stop putting your confidence in the false belief that says, “We are safe! The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here!” You must change the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. Stop oppressing resident foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. If you stop doing these things, I will allow you to continue to live in this land that I gave to your ancestors as a lasting possession. Jeremiah 7:1-7The apostles are tasked with proclaiming the “words of this life” (Acts 5:20). This could refer to wisdom—the behavior that leads to a better life. Given Jesus' emphasis on eternal life (Luke 10:25; 18:18, 30), and Peter's earlier preaching about “the prince of life” (Acts 3:15), the more likely conclusion is that the words of life are about Jesus being the way to eternal life.Preaching at the TempleThe apostles are specifically tasked with preaching in the temple. By proclaiming the true message of the true God in the temple, this is a sort of reconsecration—a recurring theme in Jewish history.Notice that the angel's command puts God and the authorities in direct conflict. God says proclaim the message of Jesus in the temple. The authorities say do not speak in the name of Jesus (Acts 5:21, 29), which would certainly include doing so in the most religiously significant and very densely populated place—the temple. In the narrative, the apostles have made it clear already, and will do so again, that they must obey God over people.The apostles began teaching immediately at daybreak. This is the same time at which the Sanhedrin would have gathered. Public life in the ancient Mediterranean world began at daybreak. Moreover, Jewish people offered morning prayers before work at sunrise. The priests would have already been working on the customary daybreak sacrifice. So the apostles would find a ready-made crowd to teach at that time.We should note the subtle jab at the rulers when we are told the rulers had to be informed of the apostles' preaching. “Someone” came and informed them. None of them were at the temple for early morning prayers. An outsider to the group had to tell them. In contrast to the apostles, the mostly priestly city leaders are depicted as further removed from the liturgical life of the temple and the Jerusalemites who worshiped there.The DiscoveryWe are told that the guards were at the jail. This implies that the guards had not abandoned their post and presumably also had not participated in a conspiracy. The facts clearly point towards a miracle. The Sadducees, however, who denied miracles, are not amazed—they are puzzled. As I have highlighted in the past, they never stop to wonder whether they are wrong. As the meme goes, they do not ask, “Are we the baddies?” Acknowledging the possibility of a miracle would have only made things worse. The people may have held the apostles in even higher esteem.Instead, the leaders immediately call for the arrest of the apostles. Undoubtedly, the high priest and captain of the guard lost face before the other leaders—failing to control a handful of prisoners who then openly defied them for a second time. Preaching at the temple instead of escaping was nothing less than a public challenge to the authority of the Sanhedrin. Nevertheless, the guards must arrest the apostles nonviolently. Why? “For they were afraid of being stoned by the people.”Given the history of Israel—recall the Maccabean rebellion we discussed last time, for example—a violent uprising was not implausible. Not only was this immediately dangerous to the members of the Sanhedrin, but stirring the crowds could provoke Roman retribution. On a theological level, we should note that the leaders' actions are not motivated by what is right or wrong. They act based on what is advantageous and are only limited by power. The TrialYet again the apostles find themselves in the middle of an interrogation. Surprisingly, the interrogation does not open with, “How did you escape?” This matter was less pressing to the authorities than the apostles' disobedience to their previous warning. Besides, asking such a question could open the door for a bold speech about God helping the righteous—only a rookie lawyer asks open ended questions of a hostile witness.What is the authorities' problem with the apostles preaching? We have discussed this before, so I will keep this brief. The authorities claim the apostles are bringing Jesus' “blood on them” (Acts 5:28). This refers to the concept of bloodguilt: one who carried guilt for shedding innocent blood would need to be punished. Interestingly, later in Acts this is a standard that the apostles would apply to themselves. In chapter 20, Paul implies that he would have blood guilt if failed to preach the gospel.“And now I know that none of you among whom I went around proclaiming the kingdom will see me again. Therefore I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of you all. For I did not hold back from announcing to you the whole purpose of God. Acts 20:25-27Peter's response to the authorities is also one we have discussed before. Peter claims that he must obey God over people (Acts 5:29). Although the background to Peter's claim is clearly the Old Testament prophets who often antagonized the nation of Israel for the sake of delivering God's message, Peter's response would have been intelligible to someone with a Hellenistic background as well. His words recall the story of Socrates' trial, and his obeying “the god” rather than his judges.Notice that Peter does not accuse the leaders of “crucifying” Jesus. Instead he speaks in a manner appropriate not to Romans but to Israel's leaders: they “hanged him on a tree.” The language alludes to a shameful mode of execution in Deuteronomy 21:22-23, which Jews by this period applied to crucifixion.Peter's response was surely unexpected to the council. Those on trial, much less the uneducated and politically weak, did not speak with such boldness and open defiance. In challenging the officials' behavior, Peter and the other apostles appear unafraid even of provoking their martyrdom. This fearlessness indicates their absolute convictionWhat was the divine commission the apostles were called to obey?But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth.” Acts 1:8The PunishmentThe apostles' refusal to be intimidated threatens the elite's socially accepted status of honor. This is a situation in which the message of the gospel collides against hardened hearts. The result is “fury” (Διαπρίω). The term indicates extreme rage. In its only other New Testament use, the council proceeds to kill the object of their anger.The elite wished to execute the apostles. Both an impromptu lynching or a formally carried out death sentence without Roman approval would have been against Roman law. (We discussed this during our study of John.) However, in antiquity like today, such restrictions could be finessed politically. Ancient reports suggest that the Sadducees sometimes abused their power violently. (But we should not exaggerate either. We do not have evidence of the Sanhedrin being involved in lynchings.) The Pharisees, to their credit, were probably much more stringent in evidential requirements for capital cases. So, perhaps if Gamaliel had not intervened, the Sadducees would have held the apostles until they could secure an execution by the Roman authorities.We will discuss Gamaliel in a minute, but let's conclude the discussion of the apostles' punishment. Having been calmed down, the council members decide against capital punishment. The apostles were too popular in Jerusalem to risk disposing of them the way Jesus was dealt with. However, the apostles do not escape with another warning. Not at all.A flogging was a severe punishment. Many scholars suspect that the flogging was the traditional Jewish thirty-nine lashes. (The Pharisees in the council would not have approved of more lashes in view of Deuteronomy 25:2-3.) We know that such a flogging punishment was somewhat common after an offender defied a warning. The person would be tied to a post or lie on the ground, receiving one-third of the blows on the front of the body and two-thirds on the back.GamalielLuke's portrayal of Jerusalem's aristocracy is not monolithic. Luke tells us of a fair member of the council named Gamaliel. Gamaliel, a minority Pharisee on the council, does not so much defend the apostles' views as the Pharisaic position of tolerance.Gamaliel is described as a “teacher of the law.” Gamaliel was a renown teacher, respected by all the people. This was both presupposed by Paul (see Acts 22:3) and attested in rabbinic comments on both him and his grandson. Gamaliel was also wealthy. We can learn something about his wealth from the comments made of his son. Josephus tells us that Gamaliel's son held much authority in the Jerusalem assembly; that he was a Pharisee from a prominent Jerusalem family; that he was very intelligent; and that he had influence with two high priests.Gamaliel ordered the apostles to be put outside, undoubtedly partly for privacy but perhaps also to prevent the apostles from making the court still angrier. Gamaliel's tolerance makes sense from a Pharisaic perspective. Whereas the Sadducees, who held most of the political power, were sensitive to political threats, the Pharisees would likely object to executing those who kept the law. The Pharisees are reported to have favored more leniency than the Sadducees.That Gamaliel, a renowned and respected Pharisee, was able to persuade the Sanhedrin is not surprising. The Pharisees seemed to have represented the views of the people, a status that often enabled them to sway the council's decisions. (Recall that the council was already concerned that the people might react violently and stone them.)The speech opens and closes with its main theme—a warning against hasty action. Gamaliel speaks eloquently, starting with the phrase “pay close attention to,” a familiar idiom in the context of exhortations. Gamaliel then compares the Jesus movement to armed resistance movements. Clearly, Gamaliel understands that is exactly the Sanhedrin's concern regarding Jesus followers. Gamaliel makes the point that the prior revolutionary movements came to nothing, and the same would happen to the Jesus movement if it lacked God's blessing.Gamaliel's argument is not a good one. First, the prior revolutionary movements came to nothing because they were violently stopped. So one could not draw the conclusion that because they failed then the Jesus movement would also fail without any need for violent opposition from the authorities. Moreover, the main premise of his argument invites a logical error. Gamaliel claims that a movement from God cannot be stopped. Fair enough. But we must keep in mind that simply because a movement from God cannot be stopped does not mean that a movement that cannot be stopped is from God. So, even if prior revolutions had succeeded, that would prove nothing. (Many ancients recognized the limits of Gamaliel's logic, realizing one cannot always judge what is praiseworthy on the basis of successes or failures.)Gamaliel's argument is a classic instance of the descriptive versus prescriptive question when interpreting the Bible (or any text). One cannot assume that all things the Bible narrates is teaching us lessons to follow. The Bible may simply be describing something that happened, as in this case it describes the argument Gamaliel makes. Sometimes, of course, it is teaching us how to live or what to believe. We must be careful not to get the two confused.Gamaliel's closing statement to the council does not mince words. He cautions the elite that they might be “fighting against God.” This expression appeared in a widely circulated Jewish text (2 Maccabees 7:19). In that text, “fighting against God” is what the pagan persecutors of the Maccabean martyrs did. Maccabean martyrs were national heroes.Although Gamaliel does not speak from a Christian perspective, perhaps Gamaliel entertained the possibility that God was acting though the apostles. The Sadducees were intellectually committed to the fact that no miracle had release the apostles from prison. Gamaliel, as a Pharisee, held no such commitment.A Historical Error?Gamaliel compares the Jesus movement to Judas the Galilean and Theudas. Judas led a revolt in the days of the census, that is, in 6 A.D. Judas' sons were later crucified for rebellion.Theudas was apparently an eschatological prophet (i.e., a wannabe Jesus) who tried, unsuccessfully, to part the Jordan. Theudas was quickly captured and his head was cut off.Here's the problem. Theudas' revolt was in 44 A.D. This is after Gamaliel's speech and long after Judas the Galilean's revolt in 6 A.D. (rather than before as the text in Acts 5:37 seems to imply).Various solutions to this dating issue are possible.The first solution is that our source dating Theudas' revolt was wrong. That source is Josephus. Josephus certainly makes mistakes in his writing, several times contradicting himself. Besides, Theudas' revolt, as dated by Josephus, happened when Josephus was only 7 years old. Maybe Josephus remembers incorrectly. Yet given Josephus' more detailed treatment of Theudas and Judas, explicit mention of the governors in authority during their revolts, and his apparent access to written sources, on the grounds normally used to ascertain historical probability Josephus seems likelier than Luke to have access to the correct chronology.Another solution sometimes offered is that there was an earlier Theudas before Jesus' birth. This would resolve the dating issue and the chronology in Acts 5 (i.e., first came Theudas, then came Judas). Undoubtedly, prophetic figures abounded, before and after Jesus. Theudas, however, was a rare name. But maybe “Theudas” was a nickname, short for such popular names as “Theodorus,” “Theodosius,” and “Theodotus.”Most scholars believe that the simplest solution is that Luke made a mistake, either unaware of the true date of Theudas or confusing him with some other rebel. If this is a mistake on Luke's part, it would not have been a “big deal” to him or his audience. Even the best of ancient historians made mistakes, and Luke still captures the essence of Gamaliel's speech.I wish to make two comments about this potential error. First, many Christians are committed to the inerrancy of scripture. Inerrancy is not always defined the same way. Its stronger form means that the Bible contains no errors whatsoever, of any kind, including in details such as weights and distances it describes. A more modest version of inerrancy is that the Bible contains no errors regarding anything it teaches. Without going into too much detail, this view allows for certain statements in the Bible to be false because the Bible itself is not committed to their truth. (An example would the mustard seed being the smallest seed in the garden.) Nevertheless, the Theudas mistake flies in the face of either view of inerrancy. So, I ask, if one could prove that there was in fact a mistake in Acts, such that biblical inerrancy fell apart, would that be the end of the Christian faith? No! I say this emphatically because many Christian seem to think so. As long as the Bible is reliable, we are justified in holding our faith in Jesus and in his recorded teachings. Reliability is a much more modest standard than inerrancy.My second comment is, do we know that Luke made a mistake? Luke's other significant historical assertions that can be tested most securely (Gallio, Felix and Festus, Drusilla, Agrippa and Berenice, the Egyptian prophet, local titles for officials, etc.) can all be corroborated. Over the centuries, there have been several instances in which scholars believed Luke made a mistake only to be proven wrong by later archaeological discoveries. Therefore, we have good reason to believe Luke did not make a mistake in the case of Theudas either.Joy in Persecution[I did not have time to finish this section, but here is a brief summary. The narrative concludes by reinforcing the characterization that the apostles, in contrast to Jerusalem's political elite, obey God rather than people. They rejoice when suffering for Jesus's name, as he commanded, while disobeying the Sanhedrin's injunction not to teach in Jesus's name. The apostles return with joy, as they did after Jesus's ascension. Luke often emphasizes joy over embracing the gospel.]

Scripture Reading: Acts 4:1-31 While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests and the commander of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, 2 angry because they were teaching the people and announcing in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3 So they seized them and put them in jail until the next day (for it was already evening). 4 But many of those who had listened to the message believed, and the number of the men came to about 5,000.5 On the next day, their rulers, elders, and experts in the law came together in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and others who were members of the high priest's family. 7 After making Peter and John stand in their midst, they began to inquire, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, replied, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9 if we are being examined today for a good deed done to a sick man—by what means this man was healed— 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands before you healthy. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, that has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved.”13 When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and discovered that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized these men had been with Jesus. 14 And because they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say against this. 15 But when they had ordered them to go outside the council, they began to confer with one another, 16 saying, “What should we do with these men? For it is plain to all who live in Jerusalem that a notable miraculous sign has come about through them, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to keep this matter from spreading any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” 18 And they called them in and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Whether it is right before God to obey you rather than God, you decide, 20 for it is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.” 21 After threatening them further, they released them, for they could not find how to punish them on account of the people, because they were all praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man, on whom this miraculous sign of healing had been performed, was over forty years old.23 When they were released, Peter and John went to their fellow believers and reported everything the high priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices to God with one mind and said, “Master of all, you who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, 25 who said by the Holy Spirit through your servant David our forefather,‘Why do the nations rage,and the peoples plot foolish things?26 The kings of the earth stood together,and the rulers assembled together,against the Lord and against his Christ.'27 “For indeed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, 28 to do as much as your power and your plan had decided beforehand would happen. 29 And now, Lord, pay attention to their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your message with great courage, 30 while you extend your hand to heal, and to bring about miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God courageously.Main ThemesIntroductionPersecution (But Not Immediately)Persecution is a major theme in Acts. More broadly, persecution seems inseparable with the spreading of the gospel. Christian persecution is recorded by Luke, Paul, non-Christian ancient historians, and early Christian writers. This remains a true fact today. According to data by Open Doors (which I have not corroborated but I have also not heard to be disputed), about 360 million Christians experience intense persecution today. That is about one out of every seven Christians.Nevertheless, despite the intense persecution endured by Christian in the Acts narrative, we might ask: why was the Jesus revolution not completely eliminated quickly and swiftly? Authorities did not move against Jesus' followers the way they did against the followers of other revolutionaries, such as Theudas, the Samaritan prophet, or the Egyptian prophet. Perhaps differences between the political leaders involved accounts for the slower response to early Christians. The more likely reason is that the authorities did not perceive early Jesus followers as a real threat. Neither Jesus nor his followers had taken up arms or spoken of overthrowing the government.The Parable of the VinyardThe above notwithstanding, in chapter 4, the disciples must confront the municipal aristocracy. As I am sure you remember from our study of John, the chief priests and scribes were particular targets of Jesus' criticisms and were his most critical enemies. The same is true in the Gospel of Luke. To understand the conflict in Acts 4, we should read the parable of the vineyard and the tenants found in Luke's first volume.Then he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey for a long time. When harvest time came, he sent a slave to the tenants so that they would give him his portion of the crop. However, the tenants beat his slave and sent him away empty-handed. So he sent another slave. They beat this one too, treated him outrageously, and sent him away empty-handed. So he sent still a third. They even wounded this one and threw him out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my one dear son; perhaps they will respect him.' But when the tenants saw him, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir; let's kill him so the inheritance will be ours!' So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “May this never happen!” But Jesus looked straight at them and said, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'? Everyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls will be crushed.” Then the experts in the law and the chief priests wanted to arrest him that very hour because they realized he had told this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people. Luke 20:9-19The parable treats the religious elite as people who may have had legitimate power, but who now have exceeded their proper station rendering them illegitimate usurpers of Jesus the king's rightful position.Public Perception of the AuthoritiesJesus' criticisms of the elite were shared by many others. Most of the minority Jewish sects viewed the elite as little more than Roman political lackeys. Why? Because they were little more than Roman political lackeys.The Sanhedrin—Jerusalem's ruling council—became completely dominated by quasi-Roman appointments and Roman sympathizers. With Rome's support, Herod the Great had installed his own backers in the Sanhedrin, and Rome determined who filled the high-priestly office. By the time of Jesus, the Sadducees were the dominant (although not exclusive) voice in the Sanhedrin. The Sadducees would be unnervingly familiar to us. They claimed to believe in the Scriptures—in the Jewish constitution, so to speak—while denying the Scripture's heart and soul. They did not believe in an afterlife, or the promises and curses of the Bible. The were much like modern “progressive Christians.”This background information helps us to frame the conflict between the apostles and the Sanhedrin correctly. We might be tempted to think of it as Christians versus Jews. This is utterly anachronistic. Both the apostles and the Sadducees claim to lead the people. The apostles claim legitimacy through truth. The Sadducees claim legitimacy through power. The issue is one of political power versus truth.Inventing PersecutionWe should also ask one more introductory question. Would Luke lie about the persecution of Christians? What I mean is, would Luke make it up to make Christians seem courageous? Is Luke going for those highly coveted victimhood points? (Forgive me is my commentary today sounds overly political, but what we read in chapter 4 is quite similar to modern political conflicts. Using language more familiar to us can help us understand what is happening in Acts 4.) The likely answer to these questions is no.To invent political persecution would have been counterproductive to Luke's Christian apologetic. Portraying Christians as opponents of a Roman-friendly ruling council would only worsen Christianity's reputation in the rest of the empire. I say worsen because many in Rome already disliked Jews for their foreign ways and attempts (sometimes successful) to convert Romans. If Luke was inclined to fiction or exaggeration, the more useful narrative would have been to portray Jesus followers as endorsed by the establishment.Trouble with the FuzzPriests, Commander of the Temple Guard, and the SadduceesThe apostles are arrested by the priests, commander of the temple guard, and the Sadducees. “Priests” obviously refers to various priests in the temple. We should keep in mind that they would have been under or part of the leadership of the aristocratic priests—a large percentage of whom were Sadducees.The “commander of the temple guard” was a high officer who, according to some ancient reports, occasionally even rose to the office of high priest. His rank seemed to have been only second to the high priest, and his duties included preserving order in the temple. One individual who filled this office close to the time period of Acts 4 is Ananus, who we have reason to believe was the son of the high priest Ananias. If Ananus is the same temple officer as in Acts 4, he later became high priest himself and executed James the Lord's brother.The Sadducees are mentioned only once in the Gospel of Luke—those who deny the resurrection (Luke 20:27). As we read Acts, Luke also tells us that they are the circle around the high priests (Acts 5:17) and form a significant part of the ruling assembly (4:5, 15). From other historical sources, we know they were most likely a well-to-do priestly sect who returned to power after the Maccabean era due to Roman influence. Sadducees rejected Pharisaic tradition probably by claiming Scripture as their only authority. However, because of the people's support for the more Israel-friendly Pharisees, sometimes Sadducees had to play along. In other words, Sadducees had to accommodate populist sentiments.The ArrestChapter 3 ends with Peter calling Israel to repentance. Quoting Deuteronomy and Leviticus, Peter tells them, “Every person who does not obey that prophet will be destroyed and thus removed from the people.” This is the context of the arrest. If one believes Peter's words, then the Jewish authorities appear as the very people disobeying “the prophet.”Why are the authorities arresting the apostles? Is it because the Sadducees reject the doctrine of the resurrection? On its own, that is not the issue. Pharisees also preached an eschatological resurrection of dead people. This theological difference generated considerable conflict with the Sadducees. Yet, we do not have record of the Sadducees using force against the Pharisees. So what's the difference between the apostles and the Pharisees? The apostles preached the resurrection “in Jesus”—the man the Sadducees tortured and killed. This same Jesus was the man that claimed to be the true owner of the vineyard—or, put politically, an alternative and more legitimate priestly authority. By preaching Jesus, the apostles are publicly dishonoring the ruling class. Honor was a paramount value in this society.Night trials were extremely rare in the ancient world. So, the fact that the authorities jailed the apostles overnight and convened in the morning is in keeping with standard procedure.5,000 BelieversLuke clarifies that the political pressure on the Jesus movement does not dissuade the apostles or new converts. This is in keeping with Jesus' predictions.But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you, handing you over to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will be a time for you to serve as witnesses. Luke 21:12-13Luke reports that the number of believers “came to” five thousand. This could mean that 5,000 converted on that occasion or that the total number of believers came to 5,000 in total. Given the population of Jerusalem at the time, the latter is more likely.Rulers, Elders, Experts in the Law (“Scribes”), and the Sanhedrin“Rulers” could refer to temple administrators but more likely refers to the ruling priests, who appear alongside “scribes” and “elders” in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 9:22; 20:1). The term “elders” can apply to local synagogue leadership but can also be connected with chief priests. We should keep in mind that the apostles were young men. So, they would be much younger than these “elders” in a culture that valued age.Experts in the law, that is “scribes,” had knowledge of the law (obviously) and could draft legal documents. Some scribes may well have been Pharisees, given the Pharisees' popular reputation for skill in the law and their availability for training. However, not all scribes were Pharisees. Many of the scribes may have been priests, who may have been better equipped financially to pursue such training.The assembly described in Acts 4:5 consists of the same groups as Jerusalem's “council,” or Sanhedrin. A Sanhedrin was a ruling council equivalent to a senate. Many cities in the ancient world had their own ruling senates composed of the leading citizens. Rome ruled through local aristocracies, and Judea was no different.According to rabbinic (and probably Pharisaic) ideals, judges who proved themselves locally could be promoted to the Sanhedrin, but in actuality the Sanhedrin in the apostles' day probably consisted mainly of members of the Jerusalem aristocracy and wealthy landowners in the vicinity.Jerusalem's Sanhedrin was the ruling council for Jerusalem, the major urban center that watched over Judea. Just as the Roman senate wielded power far beyond Rome because of Rome's power, Jerusalem's Sanhedrin wielded some influence in Jewish national affairs.At some point the Sanhedrin may have held seventy-one members, as tradition indicates. However, even if that were the case, not all members would have been present on all occasions, especially for an emergency meeting.Rulers could use sanhedrins to secure the end they wanted without taking full responsibility for their decision.The high priest presided over the ruling council and hence was Jerusalem's most powerful resident (with the exception of an appointed or visiting Roman ruler), to whom the Roman prefect would likely defer many decisions. Moreover, Luke assumes his audience's knowledge of Annas and Caiaphas, whom he introduced as high priests in his gospel. That Caiaphas held power as long as he did (nineteen years) reinforces the suspicion he was a skilled and ruthless politician.Some people suggest that Luke was incorrect about Annas being the high priest, since Caiaphas was officially high priest in this period. However, as we discussed during our study of John, Luke is aware (Luke 3:2) that there can be a difference between who technically holds the office and who truly wields the power. Annas reigned as paterfamilias. Besides, Luke clearly employs the term “high priests” in the plural for all the leading priests. One could argue that there was only one high priest, since that is what the Old Testament established. However, even Josephus, the Jewish historian, used the plural “high priests” (and more often than Luke). It was standard terminology at the time. This could reflect foreign influence. Perhaps the Jews began to treat the priestly aristocracy just like Greeks and Romans treated their aristocracies, removing some of the religious connotations.The TrialPeter and John stand in the “midst” of the rulers, elders, and scribes. This fits the tradition that the Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle.The authorities begin the trial with the most important question: by what power or by what name did you do this? In this question, “name” signifies authority. Notice that this is the exact question that Peter sought to answer time and time again in chapter 3. He repeatedly made clear that the miracle and the message he preached came by the power and authority of Jesus.Before Peter responds to the question, he is described as “having been filled” with the Holy Spirit—using the aorist passive participle. This verb tense more naturally points back to an earlier infilling of the Spirit (probably Pentecost) but it could mean a new infilling—meaning that Peter received fresh power and inspiration for this particular instance. Grammar alone may not be sufficient to settle the question. Some point to other passages that seem to show multiple infillings of the Spirit.Informed readers might also make a connection between Peter's God-inspired, bold testimony, and that of prophets of old. In the Old Testament, sometimes prophets were empowered by God to confront Kings and other institutions.When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he summoned 180,000 skilled warriors from all Judah and the tribe of Benjamin to attack Israel and restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon. But God told Shemaiah the prophet, “Say this to King Rehoboam son of Solomon of Judah, and to all Judah and Benjamin, as well as the rest of the people, ‘This is what the Lord has said: “Do not attack and make war with your brothers, the Israelites. Each of you go home. Indeed this thing has happened because of me.”'” So they obeyed the Lord's message. They went home in keeping with the Lord's message. 1 Kings 12:21-24He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet and I will speak with you.” As he spoke to me, a wind came into me and stood me on my feet, and I heard the one speaking to me. He said to me, “Son of man, I am sending you to the house of Israel, to rebellious nations who have rebelled against me; both they and their fathers have revolted against me to this very day. The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and hard-hearted, and you must say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.'” Ezekiel 2:1-4Peter ends up responding “boldly,” but he begins with a respectful address, “rulers of the people and elders.” In rhetoric, this would have been the customary captatio benevolentiae.After the address, Peter's response drips with sarcasm. He asks whether the apostles are being detained for doing a good deed, literally an “act of kindness.” Or perhaps they were detained because a man was healed—literally “delivered.” (Keep in mind the semantic range of the word translated as “healed.” This will be important later.)Peter is both providing a defense and going on offense. The claim is that Peter and John did nothing wrong. In fact, they did something good. And, that the authorities are opposing a good act, which by implication makes them evil. This probably goes without saying, but the argument is predicated on the idea that benefaction is virtuous—an idea universally accepted in the ancient world. Moreover, in the ancient Mediterranean ideology of reciprocity, the proper response to benefaction was gratitude. The ungrateful person was viewed negatively, and to harm benefactors was grossly wicked.Peter then reloads with the phrase, “Let it be known to you.” This prepares the audience for a shocking statement. In rhetoric, a standard practice was charging one's accuser with something. However, to employ that tactic against one's judges was highly unusual. Appealing positively to them would be expected and probably more effective in obtaining a favorable ruling.And what is the shocking truth the authorities must know? “By the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands before you healthy.” Rhetorically speaking, he stabs and then twists the knife.Peter then applies prophecy to bolster his case. “Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, that has become the cornerstone.” This is a quotation from Psalm 118:22, but Peter inserts the word “you” to remove all doubt as to whom the prophecy is condemning.The irony in the use of Ps 118:22-23 here is that in the Old Testament, Israel was the one rejected (or perhaps her king) by the Gentiles, but in the New Testament it is Jesus who is rejected by Israel. Remember that this is exactly the prophecy that Jesus used to condemn the authorities.What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “May this never happen!” But Jesus looked straight at them and said, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'? Everyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls will be crushed.” Then the experts in the law and the chief priests wanted to arrest him that very hour because they realized he had told this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people. Luke 20:15b-19.Jesus implied the identity of the “builders.” Peter outright stated it.The cornerstone or topstone (also called capstone) to which Psalm 118 refers is part of the architecture of the temple. Many scholars interpret the “cornerstone” as a “capstone,” the final stone fitted in place to hold the others in place. However, notice what the translators of the NET have to say:[The Greek word can be translated as] “capstone,” “keystone.” Although these meanings are lexically possible, the imagery in Eph 2:20-22 and 1 Cor 3:11 indicates that the term κεφαλὴ γωνίας (kephalē gōnias) refers to a cornerstone, not a capstone.The TwistPeter finishes his argument by returning to the idea of being saved or delivered. Recall earlier I pointed out that the word used to convey the lame man was “healed” also means “delivered” or “saved.” In verse 12, Peter claims this deliverance can come only through Christ, alluding to a greater kind of deliverance.That no other name provides salvation “under heaven” means that no other name provides it “anywhere.” Notice that Peter leaves little question that salvation is through Christ and Christ alone. There are many Christians and so-called Christians who deny that, but the text does not seem to allow for such theology. (However, exactly how exclusive is the group of people saved through Christ could be debated.) Moreover, early Jewish groups held a range of views, from universalism to the salvation only of a single sect. So, Peter's statement is probably not careless but an idea thoughtfully considered.Uneducated and Ordinary MenThe authorities did not expect the “boldness” of these “uneducated” and “ordinary” men.The authorities almost surely expected these commoners to fear them and seek their favor—as certainly most would have done. But Peter and John answer to a higher authority.The word translated as “uneducated” literally means “illiterate.” Many, if not most, Jewish boys would have had training at least in reciting Torah, and fishermen probably had more education than that. Instead, the term indicates lack of formal education (hence the translation “uneducated”). The term is particularly poignant in the presence of scribes—highlighting the difference between the elite authorities and the disciples.The word translated as “ordinary” formally designates an ignorant person or one who lacks training, such as in philosophy or rhetoric. However, it was used to refer to less educated “common” people.We should notice that the authorities recognized that these men had been with Jesus. Recall the last time people recognized that Peter had been with Jesus. Peter denied his lord three times and let him die alone. This scene in chapter 4 is, in a sense, the redemption in Peter's story arc. The fact that Peter lacked boldness before shows the impact of the Holy Spirit.Although the apostles are uneducated commoners, the authorities are silenced by the facts. The miracle is undeniable. A man lame from birth, a fact to which multitudes could attest since he was placed at the temple daily, was standing right in front of them (see verse 14). What to do?Saving Face—They Get Off with a WarningThe authorities need to save face. They simply cannot allow the apostles to have “the last word.” At the same time, they cannot antagonize the people, who have witnessed a miracle and an act of kindness for a member of the most disenfranchised class. Should they punish a benefaction by having the apostles flogged? This would be unwise. So the authorities release the apostles with a mere warning. The ability to issue the warning shows who is in power without having to actually punish the apostles.We should note that the leaders do not seem to question their own position. Although they cannot deny the miracle, they refuse to consider its implications. Luke may be implying political corruption and hardness of heart among the elite. This would be in keeping with the teachings of Jesus, which explicitly addressed people so set in their wicked ways they would not see the truth. In Matthew 13, Jesus applied a text from Isaiah to them:You will listen carefully yet will never understand,you will look closely yet will never comprehend.For the heart of this people has become dull;they are hard of hearing,and they have shut their eyes,so that they would not see with their eyesand hear with their earsand understand with their heartsand turn, and I would heal them. Matthew 13:14b-15 quoting Isaiah 6:9-10No More Talking About JesusThe authorities order the apostles not to speak in Jesus' name. This means not to speak as his representatives or acting on his authority, thus drawing attention to a person who was executed by the authorities. The phrasing, however, creates a narrative contrast between the elite and the apostles. The name of Jesus is precisely the authority and power by which miracles are happening and, ultimately, deliverance.Peter and John openly refuse to abide by the order. There is a sad and almost mocking difference between the “inability” of the apostles and that of the authorities. The apostles are not able to deny or keep secret that which they have seen and heard. The authorities are also unable to deny the miracle (4:16) but they are also unable to acknowledge its implications.The Jewish tradition contained examples of justified civil disobedience, particularly when obedience to God and obedience to the government became unavoidably contradictory. Perhaps the most memorable example is in Daniel 3.Then Nebuchadnezzar in a fit of rage demanded that they bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego before him. So they brought them before the king. Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don't serve my gods and that you don't pay homage to the golden statue that I erected? Now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must bow down and pay homage to the statue that I had made. If you don't pay homage to it, you will immediately be thrown into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. Now, who is that god who can rescue you from my power?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to King Nebuchadnezzar, “We do not need to give you a reply concerning this. If our God whom we are serving exists, he is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will rescue us, O king, from your power as well. But if he does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we don't serve your gods, and we will not pay homage to the golden statue that you have erected.” Daniel 3:13-18A more prescient example that was probably in the minds of apostles and the authorities was the Maccabean revolt. In the 2nd century BC, when Antiochus ruled over Israel, he encouraged the Semitic peoples of the Mediterranean coast to regard him as the ancient god Baal of the Canaanites. Consider how Britannica explains the lead up to revolution:This conception of revealed religion and of loyalty to the Word of God, rather than to a human king, Antiochus could not appreciate, particularly since he himself delighted in the name God Manifest. In order to extirpate the faith of Israel, therefore, he attacked Israel's religious practices. He thus forbade the observance of the Sabbath and of the traditional feasts, for these had been ordained by a “jealous,” or intolerant, God. All sacrifices were to come to an end. He forbade the reading of the Law of Moses and gave orders to search out and burn any copies that could be found. He forbade the practice of circumcision, for it was this that set the Jews off from other peoples as the one “people of God.” In place of these practices, Antiochus encouraged the development of cultural clubs called gymnasia, in which people gathered to study, to learn, and to enjoy each other's company. After competing in various forms of athletics, men and women used to soak themselves in hot baths. But because the pursuit of the “good” included a delight in the body beautiful, such activities were performed naked. A circumcised Jew taking part in the games in a gymnasium could not therefore hide where his loyalty lay. Finally, in 168 BCE, Antiochus invaded Jerusalem and desacralized the Holy of Holies in the Temple. This was the one place on earth about which Yahweh said “My name” (the expression of his Person) “shall be there” (I Kings).A number of Jews, under their leader Jason, the high priest, took the easy way of conformity with the new universal trends. But with Antiochus's impious act, a strong general reaction set in. Thus, when, later in the same year, Antiochus again entered Jerusalem, this time plundering and burning and setting up his citadel, the Acra, on the hill overlooking the Temple courts, he went too far, for his final act of spite, on December 25, 167 BCE, was to rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem to the Olympian god Zeus.I provide the long quotation above because the Maccabean Revolt was brutal and bloody. (It is from its success in rededicating the temple that the holiday of Hanukkah finds its origin.) This is exactly the kind of revolution the authorities sought to prevent. But, we should notice by now, this is not quite the kind of revolution the apostles sought to start. Should We Be Like Peter?Is the boldness and disobedience of Peter an example for all Christians—an example for us today? Answering this question could take an entire Bible study session, but perhaps we can discern some general principles from Luke's writing.In Luke 20, Jesus is asked about paying taxes to the Romans (Caesar in particular). Jesus responds,“Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?” They said, “Caesar's.” So he said to them, “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” Luke 20-24-25We must keep in mind that the context of Luke 20 is people attempting to deceive Jesus into saying something treacherous and worthy of arrest and death. So we should expect his answer to be less than straightforward. However, it is still clear from his answer that government has a proper sphere in which it deserves obedience.At the same time, we must keep in mind Peter's attitude in chapter 4. “Is it “right before God to obey the [authorities] rather than God”? Peter answer, in word and deed, is no.Put broadly, Luke's writings seem to suggest that we should obey the government unless doing so is directly contrary to obeying God. In practice, however, this principle can be hard to apply.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston,or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we pray that You make us a people that love Your Word and love every part of Your Word and people that love Your law even. As the psalmist in Psalm 119 says, "O, how I love Your law. It's my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies for it is ever with me." Lord, I pray that You give us a love for Your law, and I pray that You give us a desire to meditate on it all the day. And I pray that You make us a people who grow in wisdom and knowledge and discernment. Lord, as we continue our sermon series in the Gospel of Mark, I pray that You focus our attention on not just how Jesus taught or how He lived, but how He did everything He did according to Your will, to fulfill Your commandments. And Lord, I pray that You extend grace to us, that if we and where we break commandments that You forgive us and then You give us grace to live according to the law. Lord, I pray that You bless our time in the holy Scriptures. Send us the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, regenerate anyone who's not yet a believer, speak to their hearts, and draw them to Yourself. And Lord, fill them with the power of the Holy Spirit. And continue to refine Your church, Lord, to continue to build up Your body and with the washing of water, with the Word continue to cleanse Your bride. We pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen. We're continuing our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark. We call it Kingdom Come: The Gospel of Mark and the Secret of God's kingdom. And the title of the sermon is Yes, God Really Said. There are two ways offered to people, two ways of life. One way promises God likeness and one promises godliness. Both offer a way of becoming like God. The first one is offered by Satan, God's adversary. He tempts each person with the following: "Reject God's law and you'll become like God, God likeness, defining what is good and evil for yourself. The second way is offered by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who says, "Follow me in keeping the law of God from the heart." Satan is too crafty to just come out and say, "Reject God's law" or "Follow me." No, the way Satan builds his kingdom is by veiling, God's law, by obfuscating, distorting it. And he does it by undermining it with the question, did God really say? Did God actually say? Those are his very first words spoken in Scripture when he tempts Eve, "Did God really say that on the day that you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you will die." Jesus Christ comes declaring with divine authority, "Yes, God really did say. God really said it." God really did give us a law, a perfect law, an everlasting law written by the very fingers of God. It was initially just called the Word, the Word of God, written with His finger, the Ten Commandments. Trivia question: who was the very first person to break all Ten Commandments in one day? It was Moses when he broke the Ten Commandments as he's coming down from the mountain. I asked two people this week and within two seconds of asking, I asked my third daughter and she nailed it. I was like, "How did you know?" She's like, "It's obvious." But that happened because it's a symbol, it's a symbol of the fact that God has given us His law. And the very first thing that the person entrusted with the law, the very first thing he does is break it. Why does he break it? Because he sees the people of God not worshiping God. His heart was broken by the fact that their hearts were so far from God that they wanted nothing to do with worshiping God. And therefore, God does send us the law and the prophets. God gave the Ten Commandments through Moses to all of humanity in all places for all time. God also provided a sacrificial system for atonement when the people of God broke commandments. Then God sends Jesus Christ as the king to establish God's kingdom on earth. What are the laws of the kingdom? It's the Ten Commandments. Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven." So when Jesus says, "I've come to fulfill the law," what does He mean? To fulfill the law means that Jesus kept the law, He followed the law. He kept every one of the Ten Commandments from the heart, and then He offers Himself as a sacrifice to provide atonement for our law-breaking. Then He says, "Repent of your breaking of God's law. Receive forgiveness. Receive a new heart. And in that new heart, the wineskins, new wineskins and filled with new wine of the Holy Spirit and with the indwelling power of the spirit in the new heart. We want to follow God from the heart. We want to obey His laws as they're written on our heart. The righteous law of God, which condemns our sin, is as permanent as the good news from God, which promises salvation from sin's judgment. It's an inside-out kingdom because God regenerates our hearts, writes His law on our hearts. We want to obey the letter of the law and also the spirit of the law, which is love. It all starts in the heart, but it doesn't stay in the heart. And that's really the issue with Jesus and the Pharisees. We keep coming up on Him going toe to toe with them in debate on the Sabbath. Why? What's the fight over? It's what is God's law? They ended up adding traditions and regulations, their own law on top of God's law to obfuscate the law. So today we're in Mark 3:1-19. Would you look at the text with me? "Again He," Jesus, "entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether He would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. And He said to the man with the withered hand, 'Come here.' And He said to them, 'Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?' But they were silent. And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him. "Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galileo and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that He was doing, they came to Him. And He told His disciples to have a boat ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they crush Him, for He had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around Him to touch Him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, 'You are the Son of God.' But He strictly ordered them not to make Him known. "And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him. And He appointed 12, whom He also named apostles, so they might be with Him and He might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. He appointed to the 12: Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder, Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. This is the reading of God's holy and infallible, authoritative Word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First, King Jesus defends the law of God. Second, King Jesus endures the crush of service. And third, King Jesus appoints the 12 apostles. First, King Jesus defends the law of God. Here in verse one it says, "Again He entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand." The emphasis here is on the word again. This was the pattern of Jesus' life, on the Sabbath day, He would go to the synagogue, which was the place of the gathering of the people of God. He did this on a weekly basis. He enters this synagogue, this was his way of going to church. And the way of Jesus is the way of God's law. He fulfilled God's law. When He says, 'Follow me,' He say follow me in obeying God's commandments. And thus the emphasis on the fourth commandment, thus the emphasis on the gathering to worship God on the Sabbath. He's keeping the fourth commandment, and He's doing it from the heart. He gathers on the Lord's day to give God His due glory because He loves the Lord His God with all His heart, soul, strength, and mind. And in the synagogue are the Pharisees, the representatives of big religion, the religious establishment. They were pitted as the enemies of Christ here because Christ's popularity is growing His authority, it's self-authenticating. They're losing authority, and they recognize that Jesus is a threat to their dominion, so to speak. In verse two, "They watched Him to see whether He would heal Him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him." It's a gentleman with a withered hand and most likely it's an image of paralysis, most likely he couldn't work. The Pharisees are watching Jesus closely because they're concerned with Sabbath observance. The word for watch here is used in the Septuagint and other places in the salter of sinners who are lying in wait for a righteous person to slay him, lying in wait. So the Pharisees who objected to Jesus eating with sinners, well, they are revealing themselves to be sinners here. So that they might accuse Him, they want to bring charges against Him because they're breathing murderous plots in their hearts. So this is the second run in with big religion over the Sabbath between the Pharisees and Jesus. In the previous text, they accused Jesus' followers of not following the Sabbath law. Here they're accusing Jesus Himself. Why? Because the deliberate transgression of the Sabbath law carried the death penalty. If they can find Jesus breaking the Sabbath, they can bring charges against Him in order to execute Him. Exodus 31:12, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, "Above all you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among the people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."'"And He gave to Moses, when He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. And then in Numbers 15:32, "While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. And those who found him gathering sticks brought them to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had been made clear what should be done to him. And the Lord said to Moses, 'The man shall be put to death, all the congregations shall stone him with stones outside the camp.' And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones as the Lord commanded Moses." So Jesus is here to fulfill the law. He's fulfilling it. Now the question is, is He transgressing the law by healing on the Sabbath? Well, Jesus is going to heal the man on the Sabbath. He has an opportunity to do a good work. And no, He's not transgressing the law, as He's going to explain, because the law was given for the people of God as a day that is designated in holiness. This day is different. This day is devoted to the Lord, and it's devoted to good works. So no, doing good works on the Sabbath does not transgress the fourth commandment. Verse three, He tells the man, "Come here." Jesus calls him to stand up publicly. Jesus knows that the man wants to be healed, and if the man truly desires healing, he must confess his need and show his faith in the power of Jesus Christ by standing up in the face of the whole congregation and displaying his need. It's a moment of public confession, of faith, and potentially costly confession. He understands by standing up and doing what Jesus says, he is going against the religious establishment which might come at a cost. This is one of the reasons why baptism is what it is. Jesus Christ commanded us to be baptized, and baptism is a public profession of faith. When we do baptism here at Mosaic, we ask that whoever's being baptized to come on up and to answer one question, why do you love Jesus Christ? We do that because that's the pattern of Holy Scripture and that's commanded to us. The person gets up, and they're confessing their need for Christ. "I've broken the commandments. I need Christ. I need His sacrifice. I need His grace. And I commit to follow Jesus Christ all of my days." So that's what He's doing here. And then Jesus, before He heals the man, He has a theological debate with the Pharisees by asking them a question that leaves them silent. He said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. And here Jesus is getting at the intent of the law, and He's saying, "What is the point of the law?" The point of the law is that God is a God who loves life. He's the creator. God is love, so whatever he does command, the point of what He commands is love. He's given us the law because He loves us, He wants us to flourish. This is the pattern of the less life, the life of shalom, the life of universal flourishing. So on the Sabbath He's saying, "What's lawful? What's lawful? Is it lawful to do good or to do harm?" The point of the Sabbath is to designate one whole day where we do good, where one-seventh of our waking hours are devoted to God, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love people, to do good. The reason why they fall silent is because they understand that in their hearts they are intending to destroy Christ. What are they doing in the Sabbath? Are they doing good, or they doing harm? They're doing harm. So Jesus reads their minds, He asks a question that answers the doubts of their heart, and He's like, "Obviously the point of the Sabbath is to do good, is to promote life, is to promote rest in the Lord." And also, He is showing them their inconsistency. On the Sabbath they allowed for people to rescue animals. Obviously if it's true for animals that they could be saved on the Sabbath, it's an order of magnitude more true for humans as image bearers of God. This is more explicit in Matthew 12 where it says, "He went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand. They asked Him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" so that they might accuse Him. He said to them, "Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep. So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." According to most of the rabbis, they would argue that what Jesus here is doing transgresses the Sabbath law because the man is not in imminent danger. According to most of the rabbis, and certainly those the Pharisees followed, unless the person's life is at stake, it's work to help the person. But there's nothing remotely even close to that in the Old Testament. Why are they judging Him according to a standard that's not in Scripture? Well, by the time that Christ has come, they have created an elaborate set of rules regarding what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. And their rules, their own regulations, their own traditions were presented as inert, infallible, and more authoritative than the Word of God itself. Jesus here is saying, "No, I'm not going to be ruled by human tradition. I'm not going to be ruled by human rules and laws. I'm going to be ruled only by the law of God." Jesus was, and that's why He's the righteous king. We always have to be careful of that. Whenever we look at the faith, we have to ask, "Is this in Scripture? Is this from the Holy Scriptures, or is whatever we're doing, whatever we're teaching, whatever we're following, is it based in tradition and human tradition?" So Jesus as the holy one of God, He knows exactly what God's law says, and He knows the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and He's saying that, "No, on the Sabbath we should be doing kindness. It is permitted. We should be doing good works. There's no better day of the week to do good works than on the Sabbath." The Pharisaic attitude, on the other hand, not only misses the point of the day but smacks of indifference to this human being who's suffering. So they were silent. Their silence is hostile. They understand that they have been publicly humiliated because how do you answer that question? There's only one answer, and they know that Jesus is right. They understand that they've lost face in front of the people, in front of the crowd, which makes them for dangerous enemies. To what extent was it lawful to watch for the life of another as they were doing? They're looking to destroy Christ. Verse five, "And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, and his hand was restored." There's anger in Christ's heart because He understands that they don't have love for God and they don't have love for neighbors. So they are law-breakers and they present themselves as the guardians of the law. So he's angry at that. He's angry and grieved at their hardness of heart. Hardness of heart is willful refusal. When you see a miracle in front of you, when you see the power of God in front of you, when the truth is evident and you just choose to refuse it, choose to not believe. Some of the commentators are saying that this appeal of hardness, it's actually an illusion to in the Old Testament where Pharaoh exhibited hardness of heart. He saw miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle, and he chooses to harden his own heart, and then God hardens Pharaoh's heart as well. Some of the commentaries say that that's why the Pharisees, it's a play of words, Pharisees and Pharaoh perhaps. But the hardness of heart is the Son of God is in front of them, the Son of God who knows the Word of God better than them, who reads their thoughts and actually does miracles right in front of them to authenticate that what He's saying is true, in the face of all the evidence, they still choose to disobey. Jesus heals the man, and He does so by telling the man, "Stretch out your hand." Here you see the cleverness of Jesus. Can they accuse Him of doing works by healing the man? Well, what was Jesus' work? Jesus told the man, "Stretch out your hand." The man stretches out the hand, the man does the work, and as he does, the man is healed. Verse six, "The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him." The Herodians were the Jewish supporters of Herod. And so you have the religious Jews, that's the Pharisees, and the political Jews, the Herodians, teaming up, uniting in wanting to kill Jesus Christ. How to destroy Him, that's a phrase that was used by the demons when they said, "Are you the Son of God come to destroy us?" And here the Pharisees are seeking to destroy Christ. Big religion's response to Jesus stands in stark contrast to the other response, which is the crowds. They flock to Jesus Christ to experience healing and to experience exorcisms. And this is point two, King Jesus endures the crush of service. Verse seven, "Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from a round Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that He was doing, they came to Him." He withdraws, and the emphasis here is that He's leaving the danger from the Pharisees. Withdrawal from danger fits in this context. And it shows us that as He goes outside He's entering Gentile territory. He shows that He's not just the savior of Israel but the savior of the nations. As He told the shocked Pharisees in Matthew 8:11, He says, "I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So the people flock to Jesus Christ. In verse nine, He told His disciples to have a boat ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they crush Him. The crowd is growing and they're exerting pressure on Him. It's a phrase that's used metaphorically, to oppress or afflict. These are people that know that Jesus can meet their physical needs. They're attracted to Jesus primarily for that. They're pressing in to just touch Him and get just a taste of His power to be healed. Jesus backs away from them onto the boat that's probably owned by Peter, James, and John. And He heals them. In verse 10, "He healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around Him to touch Him." The word for press here and crush, those are two implications that when Jesus comes as the Messiah, as prophesied in Isaiah 53, our diseases will be placed upon Him, our chastisement and sins will crush Him. This is Isaiah 53:4-6, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteem Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Along with healing, Jesus exorcizes demons. Verse 11, "Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, 'You are the Son of God.' And He strictly ordered them not to make Him known." The human and demonic reactions to Jesus here are similar. The human sufferers fell upon Him, the unclean spirits fall before Him, and they confess that, "You are the Son of God." This is the second time in Mark that Jesus is called the Son of God, the first time by God the Father. He said, "This is my Son, my beloved Bon whom I'm well pleased and whom I've taken delight." The demons say similar thing, "You are the Son of God," but there's no love for Christ in their hearts, that's why they're demons, and they do not delight in Him. But Jesus doesn't want their confessions. He tells them, "Don't say this out loud." Because it's not their job to proclaim the good news. It's not their job to proclaim who He is. That's the job of His followers. Speaking of His followers, this is point three, that King Jesus appoints the 12 apostles. Verse 13, "And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him." And here Jesus as sent on the mountain, recalls Moses as sent to Sinai. Throughout the Pentateuch in Exodus 19, God prophesies and He said, "Israel is my treasured possession." And here Jesus in calling the disciples calls them to intimacy, that they are His treasured possession. Another important mosaic ascent of Moses occurs in Exodus 24 when Moses ascends Sinai in the company of the priests and the elders and sets up 12 pillars to symbolize the 12 tribes. The emphasis here is on Jesus' call. He called the disciples to Himself. He initiates the call. Those whom He desired, it's to emphasize His power of choice, that He chooses whom to follow Him. When Jesus calls, it's a prophetic call, and it's a call that's effectual, with a desired effect because God's Word does not return to Him void. Isaiah 55:11, "So shall My Word be that goes out from My mouth, it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." So they come up the mountain with Him, they follow Jesus. They leave behind whatever their vocational calls were in order to devote themselves to Christ. In verse 14, "He appointed 12, whom He also named apostles, so that they might be with Him and He might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons." He appoints the 12, and this reawakens the Jewish hope that the Messiah will come, renew the nation, and these 12 are to symbolize that. What does He call them to? He calls them to be with Him. He calls them to be with the presence of God. In the Garden of Eden, the greatest blessing that Adam and Eve experienced in that garden, the greatest blessing was the fact that they had unfettered access to God. They walked with God in the cool of the day. Whatever questions they had, they could ask God face to face. He knew them, they knew Him. When we listen to Satan's lies of, "Did God really say?" and we rebelled against God, they lost that access to the presence of God. They lost the ability to walk with God in the garden. Jesus Christ comes and He offers His presence. He offers the presence of God. He offers that same ability for them to walk with God. So He called them to be with Him, that's the first step. Before they preach, they got to spend time with the Lord. But if you spend time with the Lord, if you truly experience the presence of God, your heart gets filled, it brims with truth about God, and you have a desire to speak about the Lord. So He calls them to be with Him, and then He calls them to preach, to preach the good news. A lot of Christians, they just want to be with Jesus. That's all they want to do. Jesus, me, Jesus. It's all privatized. It's all very self-focused. No, Jesus says, "If you spend time with Me, go and make disciples of all nations. If you follow me, I'm welcoming you into the mission of God." And what is the mission of God? To seek and to save that which is lost. He gives them power to preach the word and also authority to cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ. He gives them power over even the demonic realm. In Mark 3:16, "He appointed the 12. The first one was Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter." Simon was His Hebrew name. He's renamed by Jesus to Peter. In the Greek that's Petros. So he's got a Hebrew name, Simon, he's got a Greek name Petros. And then the Apostle Paul affectionately calls Peter Petros. He calls them Syphus. If anyone that knows multiple languages, you know affectionately you do that with people, you call them their name, but you do it in the language that only the two of you know. Syphus is the Aramaic version of Petros, which is the new name, and Simon was his Hebrew name. I say that because a lot of people think the disciples were morons. They're like, "Oh, He picked fishermen. They don't know anything." These guys were very well-educated. They grew up most likely trilingual in an area that was trilingual. They knew Aramaic, they knew Hebrew, and they knew Greek. That's why Jesus chose them, because they knew the scriptures of Hebrew and Aramaic, and they understood how to communicate it to the Greek world and the Greco-Roman Empire. So Simon Peter is the first one. And then verse 17, "James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is Sons of Thunder." Then Peter, James, and John, they formed the inner circle of the three disciples of Jesus Christ. He changes the name of Peter. He gives the others, James and John, He gives them a nickname, but Peter is the one that gets the name changed. And this is significant because of the patriarchs in the Old Testament, whenever God chose the spiritual leader of the people, He would change His name, Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel. Abraham is called the rock in the Old Testament, which is why Jesus, who gives primacy to the leadership of Peter, calls him the rock. Isaiah 51:1-2, "Listen to me, you'll pursue righteousness you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you, for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him." So Peter is presented as the man in charge. That's why in all the lists of the disciples he's the first one. This is why Jesus resurrected Christ, revealed Himself to Peter first. James and John are called Sons of Thunder. Why? Because they had a hot temper. They were very zealous for the Lord, and sometimes the zeal overcame their wisdom. For example, in Luke 9:51, "When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem. And He sent messages ahead of Him, and he went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for Him. But the people did not receive him, because His face was set toward Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw it, they said, 'Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?' But He turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village." I always find that text funny or interesting. "Jesus, You want us to call fire from heaven? No one believes here, let's just smoke the whole place." What if Jesus said yes, "Yes, I want fire from heaven."? They'd be like, "Jesus, could You send the fire?" Everything they did was in the power of Jesus. What Jesus is there saying is, "They didn't receive me, yes, but hold on, the power of the Spirit isn't here yet. That'll come on the day of Pentecost." And that changed their hearts as well. The other disciples in Mark 3:18, "Andrew, and Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him." I'm not going to get into what the names is, but the titles here are important. Simon the Zealot is pointed out. Who were the Zealots? They were nationalist party willing to fight to free Israel from Roman rule. So on the one hand, you got Simon the Zealot. They hated the Romans, and they hated anyone that collaborated with the Romans. And then you got Levi, who then became Matthew, was a tax collector. Who's he collecting taxes for? The Romans. So God brings these two people, diametrically opposed, completely different political ideologies, perspectives in the world, brings them together and saying, "Now I'm going to show you what it means to love one another as I have loved you." Iscariot, Judas Iscariot, it's from the Greek sikarioi. Commentators say there were also a group of Jewish revolutionaries who practiced assassinations. Perhaps that's why Judas did ultimately end up betraying Jesus Christ, because he assumed Jesus was going to be primarily a political king. And the first time that Christ came, He came to build His kingdom from the inside out by saving people. Although the text ends on a somber note, foreshadowing of violent crucifixion, the main theme of this text is joyful of being called by God, being called by God's grace, being chosen by Jesus Christ, personally enlisted in the war where battles are won by proclaiming good news and thereby shattering demonic structures of evil. God gave the Ten Commandments through Moses, and Jesus Christ lived according to the Ten Commandments. He summarized them by saying, "This is the point: it's love God and love people." He was asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" and He said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. The second one is love your neighbor as yourself." But in summarizing the Ten Commandments, He does not obliterate or abrogate the Ten Commandments. The summary does not abrogate the expansion of which is a summary. A lot of people think that in the old covenant the law was in force, then Jesus Christ comes and gets rid of the law. A lot of Christians think in the new covenant there is no law and the new covenant is just grace. I would push back and say, "No, that's not true." Because in Hebrews 8 it says that in the new covenant, when God gives us new hearts, He writes His law on our hearts. Which law? It's God's law, the Ten Commandments. This is Hebrews 8:8, "For He finds fault with them when He says: 'Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," and they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and will remember their sins no more.'" I do, I pray for a day when the Spirit descends upon our town, upon our city where people's hearts are regenerated, and then they turn to Jesus Christ as king. And then what? Then I pray that they join the Body of Christ, join the church. Recently school restarted, and I have a high schooler now, so I was driving to the high school. I have a high schooler now, Christ. I was driving to the high school and there was traffic everywhere. I've never seen that many people on the street just crossing left and right. And when it's that chaotic, we've got crossing guards. Just families going to school. I was like, "That's awesome that that happens Monday through Friday. Imagine if that happened on Sunday. That's where people just come and they're drawn by the Spirit and they want to worship God and they want to obey the fourth commandment, which is worshiping God on the Sabbath day." We practice Sabbath on a Sunday because Jesus Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday. The church was birthed on a Sunday. Have you broken any commandments? Jesus Christ calls us to repent, believe, and follow the king. I do want to mention that obeying the commandments and loving God's law, the approach with God's law is very different than the approach of man-made laws. I've been pulled over one time by the Brookline Police. On Route 9 going east, there's a speed trap, it goes from 55 to 35. I realized I try to obey man-made law basically to keep the cops away, to keep the authorities away. I don't keep the law to get to know them or to have a relationship with police. No, no, no, just leave me alone. But it's the opposite with God's law. That's why Psalm 119, meditate on Psalm 119, says, "I love your law, O, Lord." Because the law is an extension of God. God is holy, His Word is holy, His law is holy. By walking in the commandments of God, you grow in holiness and you grow in the presence of God. You grow closer to the Lord. Have we broken the commandments? Of course we have. What are we ought to do? We are to repent and believe that Jesus Christ fulfilled the law perfectly in our behalf. And then He goes to the cross and He bears the penalty for our law-breaking. The wrath of God comes down upon Him. Why does Jesus do that? So that after He is resurrected and ascends, when we repent and believe, our sin is counted to Him on the cross and His righteousness counted to us. And He gives us grace to do what? To then follow Him. And following Him means following Him in the obedience of the law of God from the heart. Following King Jesus and keeping God's law and to live lovingly is to live lawfully, and to live lawfully is to live lovingly. Hebrews 5:9, "And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." Does that verse contradict salvation by grace through faith? No. It's the inevitable outworking. We're saved not by our works, not by fulfilling a law, but by Christ's work in fulfilling the law and Christ's work on the cross. And then we're saved by grace through faith for works, which is walking in the commandments of the Lord. 1 John 3:24, "Whoever keeps His commandment abides in Him, and God in Him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us." If you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, today, the Lord commands you, King Jesus commands you, God commands you, follow Christ by repenting of sin, turning to Him, receiving grace, and then following Him the rest of your days. And then if you are a believer, is the law of God, is it on your mind, is it the meditation of your heart? This is what every single one of us should be doing, every day going through the commandments, "Lord, where have I not kept the law from my heart? In those places, Lord, forgive me, give me grace, and give me the power of the spirit to live in obedience to you. Amen. Would you please pray with me in conclusion? Lord Jesus, we thank You for being a great God, and we thank You for being a great king, a righteous king. We thank You, Jesus, that you don't call us to do anything that You have not done yourself. When You call us to live in obedience and obedience of faith, it's because You've already done that. You are the champion of our faith, and You lived perfectly according to the law. And Lord, we thank You for saving us. We thank You for giving us, and we pray for the power of the Spirit to empower us to continue to walk in Your ways and continue preaching the good news to those who are far from You, so that people meet You, so that people are transformed by You, so that Your church is built up and so that You are glorified. We pray for a revival. We pray for Your Spirit to fall on this church, to fall upon our neighborhood, on our community, on our town, on our city, and we pray, Lord, that You do that for the glory of Your name and for our joy. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Introduction      Previously, Saul had been persecuting Christians. But his efforts to crush them were frustrated, and the gospel spread further and further. In this pericope, Luke recorded Paul's conversion (Acts 9:1-19). Paul gave personal accounts of his conversion in Acts 22:4-21 and 26:12-18. It was at Paul's conversion that he personally saw the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 9:1).   Text      Luke opens this section, saying, “Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1-2). Saul, contrary to his tremendous education, was spiritually blind and was serving as an instrument of Satan to attack the church. The believers here are called disciples of the Lord (Acts 9:1) and belonging to the Way (Acts 9:2; cf., Acts 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22). In this pericope Luke will also use the terms saints (Acts 9:13), and brother (Acts 9:17). Later they will also be called Christians (Acts 11:26).      Saul thought he was doing God's will in chasing down Christians and arresting them and bringing them back to Jerusalem. According to Warren Wiersbe, “Like many others of his countrymen, he stumbled over the Cross (1 Cor 1:23) because he depended on his own righteousness and not on the righteousness of God (Rom 9:30–10:13; Phil 3:1–10). Many self-righteous religious people today do not see their need for a Savior and resent it if you tell them they are sinners.”[1] Damascus was 135 miles north of Jerusalem and a seven-day journey. It's thought that there were as many as forty Jewish synagogues in Damascus at this time. That there were Christians in Damascus shows how quickly the gospel message was spreading. The Christian gospel was proving effective.      It was during the time when Saul was persecuting Christians that the Lord interrupted his life for the better. Luke states, “As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?'” (Acts 9:3-4). Later, Paul described the light as occurring at noontime (Acts 22:6), and being brighter than the sun (Acts 26:13). Paul also said that when the Lord spoke to him, it was in Hebrew (Acts 26:14). The flash of light startled Saul and he lost his balance and fell to the ground. It's true that God sometimes knocks us down so that we'll look up. Saul then heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4b). This statement is theologically rich, for it shows that an attack upon a Christian is an attack upon the Lord Jesus Himself. This adds significance to the understanding that when we are spiritually baptized into Christ, we become part of His spiritual body, the church, and are one with Him. How we treat other Christians is how we treat the Son of God.      Saul did not understand who he was talking with, “And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?' And He said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). Saul called Jesus Lord (κύριος kurios), which was more than a show of respect (i.e., sir), and meant he understood he was talking with God. What a shock it must have been for Saul to hear the words, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5a). This second reference to Saul's persecution against Jesus reinforced His identity with Christians as part of His body. But rather than destroy Saul, Jesus treated him in grace and sent him on a mission, saying, “get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do” (Acts 9:6). Wiersbe states, “Some thirty years later, Paul wrote that Christ had ‘apprehended him' on the Damascus road (Phil 3:12). Saul was out to arrest others when the Lord arrested him. He had to lose his religion before he could gain the righteousness of Christ.”[2]      Luke follows on, saying, “The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one” (Acts 9:7). Saul's traveling companions were dumbfounded and speechless. They'd heard the voice, but saw no one. Later, when recounting his conversion, Paul said, “those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me” (Acts 22:9). I take it to mean Saul's companions heard the words of Jesus but did not grasp the significance of what was being said. Next, we're told, “Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus” (Acts 9:8). The aggressive and hostile Saul appears here as a docile lamb who had to be led by the hand like a little child. His physical eyes had been closed, though his spiritual eyes were opened. And once in the city, we're informed, “And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:9). No doubt Saul's Pharisaic theology was rocked to the core. All he thought he knew about God was shaken to the foundation. His theological presuppositions were smashed and now he had to rework his entire theological framework from the ground up. The three days Saul spent in Damascus waiting on the Lord were probably filled with many theological reasonings.      Luke shifts his account and introduces us to a man named Ananias whom the Lord would use as a conduit of His truth and grace. Luke states, “Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.' And he said, ‘Here I am, Lord'” (Acts 9:10). Here, Ananias is presented as a willing servant of the Lord who responded positively when called. Luke recounts, “And the Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight'” (Acts 9:11-12). In this situation, the Lord told Ananias that Saul was praying and that he'd already received a vision from the Lord that Ananias was coming to him. Ananias' going to Saul was so certain to happen, that God told him it would come to pass, even before he called upon Ananias to go. Ananias had positive volition and the Lord selected him because He knew he would do as he'd been directed. Luke's account reveals God working at both ends of these events and orchestrating the outcome that He desired.      But there was hesitation by Ananias, as Luke tells us, “But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name'” (Acts 9:13-14). Ananias spoke honestly with the Lord about his concern. Ananias had heard about Saul and the harm he'd done to the Lord's saints, and that he also operated with the authority of the Sanhedrin to arrest God's people. Luke informs us, “But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake'” (Acts 9:15-16). Here, to be chosen (ἐκλογή ekloge) denotes divine selection. Saul did not choose God. God chose Saul; and He chose him to salvation, service, and suffering. And Saul displayed positive volition and obeyed the Lord; not only in the moment for salvation, but also for a lifetime of service. Saul was one of those people who trusted Christ as Savior and at the same time submitted to Him for a lifetime of service. Concerning election, God is sovereign and people have volition. The Lord calls His people to Himself, and they respond positively in faith.      Saul's calling was to a lifetime of suffering for Christ, as the persecutor would become the persecuted (2 Cor 11:23-29). Upon hearing this, Ananias did as the Lord directed. Luke states, “So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit'” (Acts 9:17). Laying on of hands was a form of identification. In this way, Paul was personally identified with the Christians he'd been persecuting. The touch would have brought comfort to Saul, as a human touch does. And, Ananias called Saul his brother, which was an expression of faith by Ananias, as well as a word of relief to Saul. Here was grace in both the touch and the word. The Lord who had met Saul on the road to Damascus was the very one who had sent Ananias to him that he might regain his sight. Sometimes the Lord works directly in the lives of people, and other times works through secondary agents to accomplish His will. Jesus could have spoken directly to Saul (as He'd already done), but instead, chose to speak through Ananias, His divinely appointed representative. And by God's power, Saul's sight was restored. Saul was also “filled with the Holy Spirit”, which meant God Himself had welcomed Paul into His family and empowered him for his new mission. After Ananias had spoken with Saul and laid his hands on him, Luke tells us, “And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized; 19 and he took food and was strengthened” (Acts 9:18-19a). God worked through Ananias to touch the life of Saul, who, in turn, has touched the lives of millions of people. The godly actions of one person can change the course of world history for the better and bring many people to faith in Jesus. After Saul regained his vision, his first act was to be obedient by way of water baptism. Saul's water baptism preceded his caring for himself, as we are told that after he had been baptized, he then “took food and was strengthened” (Acts 9:19a). Thomas Constable wrote: "Saul later wrote that immediately following his conversion he did not consult with others about the Scriptures but went into Arabia—and later returned to Damascus (Gal 1:15–17). “Arabia” describes the kingdom of the Nabateans that stretched south and east from Damascus beyond Petra. Damascus was in the northwest sector of Arabia. After Saul's conversion and baptism, he needed some time and space for quiet reflection and communion with God. He had to rethink the Scriptures, receive new understanding from the Lord, and revise his Pharisaic theology."[3] Conclusion      The Central Idea of the Text is that Saul set out to destroy the church at Damascus, but the Lord stopped him, humbled him, saved him, and called him into Christian service by means of an obedient disciple named Ananias. Personal Application Though people may violently rage against God's church and His children, it is the Lord who sovereignly determines whether they are permitted to have their way or not. Stephen was allowed to face a martyr's death with honor, but the Lord overruled the intentions of Saul and put a stop to his madness. Rather than kill Saul for his violence against the church, the Lord of grace called him to salvation, Christian service, and a lifetime of suffering for the name of Christ. Though saved by grace and effective in Christian ministry, Paul never fully overcame his sense of shame for having persecuted the church of God and four times mentioned his lifestyle prior to his conversion (Acts 22:4-5; 26:9-11; 1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13). When attacked for our faith, the Christian is “never to pay back evil for evil to anyone” (Rom 12:17), and is commanded “never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay' says the Lord” (Rom 12:19; cf., 2 Th 1:6). There is no place for violent retaliation in the Christian life, as the Lord Himself will execute vengeance in His time and way. The Gospel      If you are here this morning without Christ, without hope, and without eternal life, I want you to know that when Jesus was on the cross, He had you personally in mind as He bore your sin and paid the price for it. He died and paid the penalty for your sins so that you would not have to. Scripture reveals, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8), and “Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18). The good news for us is that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-4), and if we place our faith in Him as the only Savior (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), we are promised forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7), eternal life (John 10:28), and place in heaven forever (John 14:1-3). I “beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). Dr. Steven R. Cook     [1] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 438. [2] Ibid., 439. [3] Tom Constable, Tom Constable's Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Ac 9:18.

How do you deal with conflict? I may have an unpopular approach, but I tend to address conflict head on, right away. I don't like using the silent treatment or leaving passive aggressive notes. But I think my approach can be a little intense sometimes, so I'm learning to give others time to process disagreement and conflict. .When I'm practicing better conflict management, I try to remember how Jesus dealt with conflict. He stepped into conflict, but His purpose was to bring shalom. "Shalom" is a Hebrew word that can sometimes be translated as "peace," but a more comprehensive translation would be closer to reconciliation, making all things as they should be, or making broken things whole. Jesus is a maker of this kind of peace—not just the absence of conflict, but the presence of wholeness without fear or anxiety. And when Jesus returns, He will bring all things into shalom, making everything whole so all things work together the way they were designed to. .To make things whole again, sometimes we do need to step into conflict. Jesus often did this with the Pharisees (a group of Jewish religious leaders), rebuking them for their hypocrisy and for caring more about rules than about people. For example, one time Jesus's disciples were hungry on the Sabbath (a Jewish day of rest) so they picked a few heads of grain from a field. This went against a Pharisaic law that stated a person shouldn't pick heads of grain on the Sabbath. When the Pharisees confronted Jesus about this, He rebuked them. He told them He is Lord over the Sabbath, and it wasn't right for them to condemn people for breaking human-made rules. Those rules brought division and self-righteousness, not shalom. They blinded the Pharisees to the bigger picture—that Jesus was God in human flesh, and He had come in love to bring about shalom. Soon after this, when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus into breaking the Sabbath, Jesus healed a man's hand—He restored what was broken and made his hand whole. In this way, Jesus stepped into conflict to reconcile what was wrong and bring about shalom. .So when we see division and brokenness, we can look to Jesus, the One who brought wholeness to our broken relationship with God, and seek to follow in His footsteps. We can step into conflict with Jesus right beside us, aiming to bring wholeness to broken places. • Naomi Zylstra .• How do you tend to deal with conflict? Learning when and how to step into conflict is difficult. Consider spending some time talking to God about this, asking for His guidance and direction. .“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9 (WEB) 

Once again, remember that in Pharisaic and Second Temple times, two different festival calendars were operationally running side by side. The Pharisaic and Sadducean traditional sighted moon calendar. One day always advances to the next day, beginning with sunset. The House of Tzadok priestly calculated sevens' solar calendar. One day always advances to the next day, beginning with sunrise. Typically, Matthew 28:1 is interpreted and read precisely as the NKJV presents it: "Now, after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn...she (Miriam) came to see the tomb." This said, let's look at what I think is likely being expressed, at least according to the redactor of the Greek text: "But now, at a late hour of the Sabbaths…she (Miriam) was coming to see the tomb."  This is speaking about the arrival time of the women at a late hour while it was still Sabbath, which can only mean one thing; their arrival was according to the Tzadok sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning. Then, we read: "...the dawning (of the morning light) was toward the First of the Sabbaths." Writing the narrative this way strongly mirrors how the Pharisees understood Leviticus 23:15. "And you shall count to yourselves, from the morrow of the sabbath, from the gathering in of your harvest - an Omer, seven sabbaths, complete!" This is about when to start the count of the Omer AND ALSO when to start the count of the seven sabbaths leading up to the Feast of Weeks, called Shavuot or Pentecost. Ultimately, Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1-2, Luke 24;1, and John 20:1 all embrace a kind of dual timestamp from two different points of view: Pharisaic AND House of Tzadok chronology. But why? I will show you and speak of much more related to Yeshua's last Passover Week timeline of events on today's Real Israel Talk Radio episode, Episode 134, and Part 21.

Once again, remember that in Pharisaic and Second Temple times, two different festival calendars were operationally running side by side. 1)     The Pharisaic and Sadducean traditional sighted moon calendar. One day always advances to the next day, beginning with sunset. 2)     The House of Tzadok priestly calculated sevens' solar calendar. One day always advances to the next day, beginning with sunrise. Typically, Matthew 28:1 is interpreted and read precisely as the NKJV presents it: "Now, after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn...she (Miriam) came to see the tomb."  This said, let's look at what I think is likely being expressed, at least according to the redactor of the Greek text: "But now, at a late hour of the Sabbaths…she (Miriam) was coming to see the tomb."  This is speaking about the arrival time of the women at a late hour while it was still Sabbath, which can only mean one thing; their arrival was according to the Tzadok sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning. Then, we read: "...the dawning (of the morning light) was toward the First of the Sabbaths."Writing the narrative this way strongly mirrors how the Pharisees understood Leviticus 23:15. "And you shall count to yourselves, from the morrow of the sabbath, from the gathering in of your harvest - an Omer, seven sabbaths, complete!" This is about when to start the count of the Omer AND ALSO when to start the count of the seven sabbaths leading up to the Feast of Weeks, called Shavuot or Pentecost. Ultimately, Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1-2, Luke 24;1, and John 20:1 all embrace a kind of dual timestamp from two different points of view: Pharisaic AND House of Tzadok chronology. But why? I will show you and speak of much more related to Yeshua's last Passover Week timeline of events on today's Real Israel Talk Radio episode, Episode 134, and Part 21. Support the show

4/30/23. Five Minutes in the Word scriptures for today: Acts 15:5. The Christians who were Pharisees, like Paul, continue to believe Gentile Christians had to be circumcised. Resources: enduringword.com; biblehub.com; logos.com; Matthew Henry Commentary; and Life Application Study Bible. Check out my new blog! https://minutesword.blogspot.com/?m=1 #Podchaser list of "60 Best Podcasts to Discover for November 2021" Listen, like, follow, share! #MinutesWord; @MinutesWord; #dailydevotional #christianpodcast #MinutesWord #christianpodcaster Available on Spotify and most podcast apps! #prayforukraine #voiceofthemartyrs #prayforTurkey #prayforSyria

In this passage in Mark's Gospel, we have two warnings. First, Jesus told His disciples to watch out for the Pharisees. Sadly, they are found even in the church. They are deeply religious and they are deeply engrained in what they believe. But the essence of their teaching is promoting a system of self-righteousness - an -I have done it all perfectly- attitude. The question is, when will you ever be certain that you have become holy enough to get into heaven-- And if -make yourself holy- is your theology, why do you even need a Savior-- --Jesus' second warning to His disciples was to watch out for Herod. He was not an atheist. In fact, he even worshiped at the Jewish temple. He mixed religion into the rest of his wicked life. Unfortunately, the Church is filled with these people, too - people who think that mixing Christianity into their life will enrich them and make everything great. --Neither the Pharisees nor the Herodians have any room in their life for Jesus. They are like two ditches on opposite sides of the strait and narrow way, and we need to watch out so that we don't slide into either. We must keep our eyes focused on Christ. The disciples missed the point and thought that He was talking to them about physical bread. But their focus should have been on the One giving them the bread. Jesus is the Bread of life from heaven. It is He, and not we ourselves, who are righteous- and He has clothed us in the spotless robe of His perfect righteousness. Our eyes must be on Him as both Savior and Lord, and then we will be prevented from sliding into the ditches of Pharisaic legalism and pseudo-spirituality without Christ.

With today's program, let's begin with the arresting officers of the Judean High Court recorded in John 18:12 - Then the detachment [of troops] and the captain and the officers of the Judeans arrested Yeshua and bound him. Those who were sent to apprehend Yeshua in the Garden of the Mount of Olives were officers dispatched by the Temple priests and the religious Judeans, sent to arrest Yeshua and deliver him to the religious authorities for breaching Jewish religious laws. These officers of the religious court are referred to in Greek as hyperetes (literally an “under-rower”) – assistants, attendants, helpers, servants to the priestly class – the possible equivalent of what was called a chazzan in the synagogue of Judaism. In Yeshua's time, some among them were also members of a society of religious separatists, scholars, and enforcers of Judean Oral tradition. They pursued a centuries-long struggle against the high priestly sons of Tzadok, who were charged with judging and teaching in the Land based on Ezekiel 44:15-16 and 23-24. But their religious authority was removed by Pharisaic interests among those seeking to democratize the Judean religion. After bringing an answer to this, we will then ask the question, why did Yehudah or Judas identify Yeshua to the Temple priesthood attendants using a kiss? Why does the man John Mark give us this particular story detail? We'll look at this within the context of Psalm 2. We'll also look into the testimony of John Mark, who is mentioned in Acts 15:37, among other places. He was a wealthy young man, scholar, priestly ruler, and scribe. But more so, it appears that he was sympathetic to the cause of the Qumran sons of Tzadok but also worked as an officer of the high court under Annas and Caiaphas. However, at the same time, he was also a secret believer in Yeshua. Join us for the lesson today in Episode 128, Part 15, and Events 12-14 in the chronology of Yeshua's last week and Passover event.  Support the show

Jesus had authoritative teaching concerning the Sabbath and he challenged the Pharisaic rituals to focus more on mercy and compassion. WE continue our look at the meaning of rest as it concerns the Sabbath from a NT perspective. 

Scripture Reading: John 18:1-27 [originally the post read “John 18:1-40,” but we could not cover all the material] When he had said these things, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley. There was an orchard there, and he and his disciples went into it. 2 (Now Judas, the one who betrayed him, knew the place too, because Jesus had met there many times with his disciples.) 3 So Judas obtained a squad of soldiers and some officers of the chief priests and Pharisees. They came to the orchard with lanterns and torches and weapons.4 Then Jesus, because he knew everything that was going to happen to him, came and asked them, “Who are you looking for?” 5 They replied, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He told them, “I am he.” (Now Judas, the one who betrayed him, was standing there with them.) 6 So when Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they retreated and fell to the ground. 7 Then Jesus asked them again, “Who are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” 8 Jesus replied, “I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, let these men go.” 9 He said this to fulfill the word he had spoken, “I have not lost a single one of those whom you gave me.”10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, pulled it out and struck the high priest's slave, cutting off his right ear. (Now the slave's name was Malchus.) 11 But Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath! Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”12 Then the squad of soldiers with their commanding officer and the officers of the Jewish leaders arrested Jesus and tied him up. 13 They brought him first to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. 14 (Now it was Caiaphas who had advised the Jewish leaders that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people.)15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed them as they brought Jesus to Annas. (Now the other disciple was acquainted with the high priest, and he went with Jesus into the high priest's courtyard.) 16 But Peter was left standing outside by the door. So the other disciple who was acquainted with the high priest came out and spoke to the slave girl who watched the door, and brought Peter inside. 17 The girl who was the doorkeeper said to Peter, “You're not one of this man's disciples too, are you?” He replied, “I am not.” 18 (Now the slaves and the guards were standing around a charcoal fire they had made, warming themselves because it was cold. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself.)19 While this was happening, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. 20 Jesus replied, “I have spoken publicly to the world. I always taught in the synagogues and in the temple courts, where all the Jewish people assemble together. I have said nothing in secret. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said. They know what I said.” 22 When Jesus had said this, one of the high priest's officers who stood nearby struck him on the face and said, “Is that the way you answer the high priest?” 23 Jesus replied, “If I have said something wrong, confirm what is wrong. But if I spoke correctly, why strike me?” 24 Then Annas sent him, still tied up, to Caiaphas the high priest.25 Meanwhile Simon Peter was standing in the courtyard warming himself. They said to him, “You aren't one of his disciples too, are you?” Peter denied it: “I am not!” 26 One of the high priest's slaves, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Did I not see you in the orchard with him?” 27 Then Peter denied it again, and immediately a rooster crowed.28 Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas to the Roman governor's residence. (Now it was very early morning.) They did not go into the governor's residence so they would not be ceremonially defiled, but could eat the Passover meal. 29 So Pilate came outside to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They replied, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”31 Pilate told them, “Take him yourselves and pass judgment on him according to your own law!” The Jewish leaders replied, “We cannot legally put anyone to death.” 32 (This happened to fulfill the word Jesus had spoken when he indicated what kind of death he was going to die.)33 So Pilate went back into the governor's residence, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” 34 Jesus replied, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or have others told you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own people and your chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”36 Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Then Pilate said, “So you are a king!” Jesus replied, “You say that I am a king. For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world—to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate asked, “What is truth?”When he had said this he went back outside to the Jewish leaders and announced, “I find no basis for an accusation against him. 39 But it is your custom that I release one prisoner for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?” 40 Then they shouted back, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” (Now Barabbas was a revolutionary.)Main ThemesThe Passion NarrativeChapter18 puts us squarely within the “passion narrative.” As one website summarizes:The term “passion narrative” is used primarily to refer to the accounts given in the canonical gospels of the suffering and death of Jesus. Generally, scholars treat the passion narratives as beginning with Jesus' agony and arrest in Gethsemane and concluding with his burial. The sections to which these narratives are typically assigned consist therefore of Matthew 26:30–27:66, Mark 14:26–15:47, Luke 22:39–23:56, and John 18:1–19:42.The passion narratives (plural, to refer to the different passion narratives in each gospel) are quite unique in their literary genre. The Gospels resemble the genre of ancient biographies. Ancient biographies ending with the subjects' deaths were not unusual, but they rarely ended with the subjects' martyrdom. If considered on their own (not within the larger context of each gospel), the passion narratives resemble martyr stories but even this comparison is not perfect. The shared elements with ancient martyrdom narratives include a righteous person's unjust death, betrayal, refusal to compromise, and sentencing. However, the passion narratives do not include other distinctive elements of martyr narratives, such as sensationalistic details, interpretive speeches, and vengeful threats. The passion narratives are also different from the typical Greek apotheosis stories. Jesus is not promoted into divinity (e.g., like when Hercules turns “shiny” in the animated Disney movie); Jesus returns to his preexistent glory with the Father. All this has led at least one scholar (Theissen) to claim that, “There is no analogy to the Passion narrative in all of ancient literature.” To whatever extent this is an overstatement, it is not far off the mark.The High Priest and the SanhedrinThe High PriestThe High Priesthood was a religious office instituted in the Old Testament by God (see, e.g., Exodus 28). By Jesus' day, the office was quite different. According to the Old Testament, the office was held for life and was hereditary. In the first century, the office was appointed and held at the pleasure of the emperor and his political delegates. Thus, Quirinius appointed Annas, Gratus appointed Caiaphas, and Vitellius retired Caiaphas. In the Old Testament, only one person was referred to as the High Priest. In the first century, the High Priest and his sons were commonly referred to as high priests. Finally, the High Priest was meant to hold an incredibly important religious role, which was a linchpin of the Israelite's religion. As such, we might expect the high priests in Jesus' day to be Pharisees, given their religious fanaticism. Surprisingly, however, the office was dominated by Sadducees.The SadduceesWho were the Sadducees? As one Christian website explains:The Sadducees were an aristocratic class connected with everything going on in the temple in Jerusalem. They tended to be wealthy and held powerful positions, including that of chief priests and high priest, and they held the majority of the 70 seats of the ruling council called the Sanhedrin.The Sadducees worked hard to keep the peace by agreeing with the decisions of Rome (Israel at the time was under Roman control), and they seemed to be more concerned with politics than religion. Because they were accommodating to Rome and were the wealthy upper class, they did not relate well to the common man, nor did the common man hold them in high opinion. The commoners related better to those who belonged to the party of the Pharisees. Though the Sadducees held the majority of seats in the Sanhedrin, history indicates that much of the time they had to go along with the ideas of the Pharisaic minority, because the Pharisees were more popular with the masses.Not all priests were Sadducees, but many of them were. The Sadducees preserved the authority of the written Word of God, especially the books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). While they could be commended for this, they definitely were not perfect in their doctrinal views. The following is a brief list of Sadducean beliefs that contradict Scripture:1. The Sadducees were extremely self-sufficient to the point of denying God's involvement in everyday life.2. They denied any resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23; Mark 12:18–27; Acts 23:8). Due to this belief, the Sadducees strongly resisted the apostles' preaching that Jesus had risen from the dead.3. They denied the afterlife, holding that the soul perished at death and therefore denying any penalty or reward after the earthly life.4. They denied the existence of a spiritual world, i.e., angels and demons (Acts 23:8).Notice what an odd bunch the Sadducees were. They used the biblical tradition as a set of societal rules but denied the underlying spiritual realities. Without an after life, the resurrection of the dead, or even a spiritual world, the Old Testament is rendered nearly meaningless. Judgment, atonement, and the eschaton become, at most, symbolic. God, if real at all, ought to be followed to avoid his wrath, have a pleasant life, and a prosperous nation. When I think about it, the Sadducees don't sound that odd. In fact, they sound oddly familiar.Sadducees were rarely concerned with purity rules, particularly the extrabiblical ones followed by the Pharisees. They were much more concerned with politics. And these were the people that dominated the priesthood, the high priesthood, and Jerusalem's ruling council—the Sanhedrin.The SanhedrinThe Sanhedrin was a municipal aristocracy. Large cities in the ancient world often had their own senates or ruling councils. They would be comprised of the wealthy elite. In the case of the Sanhedrin, although a municipal group, its power influenced national affairs. Because the group was dominated by Sadducees, it was more of a political council with a religious veneer than a religious council with political power. Tradition indicates the group had 71 members, although this may have been more of an average rather than an exact number. Some or most of the members may have been appointed by the local rulers, such as Herod. Also according to tradition, the group met in the Chamber of Hewn Stone on the Temple Mount.The Romans were glad to interact with and delegate to local councils. The Roman justice system worked with a system of delatores instead of prosecutors. A local individual or group would accuse and then testify against an alleged criminal. Local councils could also issue sentences and administer punishments themselves, without involving the Romans. The Romans, however, reserved the power of capital punishment. Part of the reason for this limitation on local councils was to prevent them from executing fellow provincials for being pro-Roman.Betrayal and ArrestAfter Jesus concludes his speech (recall chapters 13 through 17), he goes out with his disciples to the Kidron Valley. This valley is east of Jerusalem and separates the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. A creek is found at the bottom of the valley, but it is dry much of the year. The valley runs all the way to the Dead Sea. The Old Testament refers to part of this valley as the "Valley of Josaphat." The location is relevant to some eschatological prophecies.Jesus reaches an orchard or garden, depending on the translation. At the time, gardens were often enclosed by walls, but that may not be in view here. The word orchard may be a better translation considering that the Gospel of Mark calls the place Gethsemane, which means “olive press.” So, Jesus probably reaches an olive orchard with an olive press as part of the agricultural unit.Judas knew this place because Jesus often met there with his disciples. Judas guides a “squad of soldiers” and some officers of the chief priests and Pharisees. The term translated as “squad of soldiers” is literally “cohort.” As translators' note 6 in the NET explains:Grk “a cohort.” The word σπεῖραν (speiran) is a technical term for a Roman cohort, normally a force of 600 men (one-tenth of a legion). It was under the command of a χιλίαρχος (chiliarchos, v. 12). Because of the improbability of an entire cohort being sent to arrest a single man, some have suggested that σπεῖραν here refers only to a maniple, a force of 200. But the use of the word here does not necessarily mean the entire cohort was present on this mission, but only that it was the cohort which performed the task (for example, saying the fire department put out the fire does not mean that every fireman belonging to the department was on the scene at the time). These Roman soldiers must have been ordered to accompany the servants of the chief priests and Pharisees by Pilate, since they would have been under the direct command of the Roman prefect or procurator. It is not difficult to understand why Pilate would have been willing to assist the Jewish authorities in such a way. With a huge crowd of pilgrims in Jerusalem for the Passover, the Romans would have been especially nervous about an uprising of some sort. No doubt the chief priests and Pharisees had informed Pilate that this man Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah, or in the terms Pilate would understand, king of Israel.However, the matter is not quite as straightforward as the translators' note may lead us to believe. Although the term cohort is certainly a Roman one, such military terms had long been transferred to Jewish soldiers. It is more historically probable that the arrest did not involve Roman authorities, which have not been alerted yet in the story. Neither the Synoptics nor John's Gospel seem to involve the Romans at this point in the story.Notice that the soldiers come with lanterns and torches. Although this could simply imply it was dark, it may also suggest that the authorities expected Jesus to run and a chase to ensue. That did not occur. Jesus turns himself in since “he knew everything that was going to happen to him.”In the Synoptics, Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss. In the Gospel of John, the author omits that detail and jumps straight to the dialogue.I Am HeThe dialogue between Jesus and the arresting authorities has a seemingly strange moment. Jesus asks, “Who are you looking for?” They reply, “Jesus the Nazarene.” Jesus responds, “I am he.” Upon saying this, “they retreated and fell to the ground.” Why? As translators' note 16 to the NET explains (quoted only in part):When Jesus said to those who came to arrest him “I am,” they retreated and fell to the ground. L. Morris says that “it is possible that those in front recoiled from Jesus' unexpected advance, so that they bumped those behind them, causing them to stumble and fall” (John [NICNT], 743-44). Perhaps this is what in fact happened on the scene, but the theological significance given to this event by the author implies that more is involved. The reaction on the part of those who came to arrest Jesus comes in response to his affirmation that he is indeed the one they are seeking, Jesus the Nazarene. But Jesus makes this affirmation of his identity using a formula which the reader has encountered before in the Fourth Gospel, e.g., 8:24, 28, 58. Jesus has applied to himself the divine Name of Exod 3:14, “I AM.”Jesus identifies himself with a formula that sounds like he is calling himself God. Everyone present certainly takes it as such and reacts to the deadly blasphemy. They drop to the ground almost as if to avoid the lightning that was sure to strike from the sky—so grievous was the offense.Peter's ResistanceThe Synoptics do not tell us who reacts violently during Jesus' arrest. The Gospel of John does: Peter. It even tells us the name of the victim, Malchus. Perhaps the earlier gospels omitted this information to protect Peter from arrest and prosecution. John, writing years later, can provide people's identities without problem.Peter's brave attack creates a striking backdrop against his impending abandonment of Jesus. As Craig Keener points out, “Loyalty with a weapon in one's hand and hope of messianic help is not the same as loyalty when self-defense is impossible . . . .”Why Peter harmed only Malchus' ear is unclear. The chances that Peter was confident and dexterous enough with a blade to do so on purpose are slim to none. Peter may have meant a much more serious wound to the face or neck, and Malchus may have partially moved out of the way.Jesus rebukes Peter and insist Jesus must “drink the cup” that the Father has given him. What is this “the cup?” The cup is a symbol of judgment often employed in the Old Testament. For example:May he rain down burning coals and brimstone on the wicked! A whirlwind is what they deserve. (In Hebrew, the literal text says, “[may] a wind of rage [be] the portion of their cup.”) Psalm 11:6You have made your people experience hard times; you have made us drink intoxicating wine. Psalm 60:3You will be shocked and amazed! You are totally blind! They are drunk, but not because of wine; they stagger, but not because of beer. For the Lord has poured out on you a strong urge to sleep deeply. He has shut your eyes (you prophets), and covered your heads (you seers). Isaiah 29:9-10Wake up! Wake up! Get up, O Jerusalem! You drank from the cup the Lord passed to you, which was full of his anger. You drained dry the goblet full of intoxicating wine. Isaiah 51:17Annas and CaiaphasAnnas and the Corrupt TrialUpon arrest, Jesus is first taken to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas “who was high priest that year.” Please recall the discussion of the high priesthood above. According to Jewish law, the high priest was to serve for life. Now that the Romans had conquered the Jews, the high priest could be changed at the whim of the Roman authorities. That was the case with Annas. He had been appointed high priest by the Romans and was later deposed by them. However, there are strong indications that Annas held on to the powerful office albeit unofficially. After Annas left office, all five of his sons followed in office. In all likelihood, Annas remained the powerful figure pulling the strings of his children. Also, Annas was probably still viewed by the people of Israel as the true high priest. John outright refers to him as the high priest while also acknowledging that technically Caiaphas was the high priest that year. All this explains why Jesus was first brought to him although officially Annas held no office.Beginning with Annas, the Jewish trial of Jesus shows evidence of corruption. For example, Pharisaic tradition prohibited a single individual from acting as judge. Perhaps Annas, who was a Sadducee and not a Pharisee, could be excused from such a requirement. There were other irregularities, however. To the extent that later rabbinic sources give us insight into Jewish first century practices, judges were meant to conduct capital trials during daylight (this may explain the brief meeting with Caiaphas early in the morning), trials should not occur on the eve of or during a Sabbath or festival (although emergency situations could justify doing so), Pharisaic tradition required a day to pass before issuing a verdict of condemnation (Sadducees may not have felt bound to this tradition), and the Sanhedrin was supposed to meet in the Chamber of Hewn Stone. Most importantly, Jewish law forbade false witnesses. The penalty for a false witness in a capital case was death. Although not found in John, the other gospels mention such false witnesses (e.g., Matthew 26:59).The original audience of John's Gospel would have picked up on the irregularities. Yet, they also would have never expected otherwise. The law in the first century unabashedly favored the wealthy and powerful. There was no expectation of fairness.Annas Questions JesusAnnas questions Jesus regarding his disciples and his teachings. Although the text does not say, we can make an educated guess that Annas probably focused on statements like Jesus' threat against the temple (“Jesus replied, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.' Then the Jewish leaders said to him, ‘This temple has been under construction for 46 years, and are you going to raise it up in three days?'” John 2:19-20); Jesus' blasphemous claims (“‘The Father and I are one.' The Jewish leaders picked up rocks again to stone him to death. Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many good deeds from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?' The Jewish leaders replied, ‘We are not going to stone you for a good deed but for blasphemy because you, a man, are claiming to be God.'” John 10:30-33); and the violent or sacrilegious behavior of Jesus' disciples (“Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, pulled it out and struck the high priest's slave, cutting off his right ear.” John 18:10).Jesus does not directly address the accusations. There might be a legal strategy at work. There is some indication (although from later sources), that a Jewish tribunal could not condemn a prisoner based solely on his own testimony in a capital case. Another possibility is that since Jesus had been confronted by the authorities in public and been vindicated in public (e.g., “The officers replied, ‘No one ever spoke like this man!'” John 7:46), this trial was inappropriate, in a similar way that we prohibit double jeopardy. Regardless of whether the author intends us to pick up on such legal tactics, Jesus certainly does not display the submissive behavior expected of him. Most prisoners brought before an aristocratic tribunal would have known to act self-effacingly and highly adulatory of the authorities.Jesus' response to Annas' questioning makes perfect sense. (“I have spoken publicly to the world. I always taught in the synagogues and in the temple courts, where all the Jewish people assemble together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said. They know what I said.” John 18:20-21) Whatever the accusations may be of him, why is an investigation required (i.e., a trial with testimony and evidence)? Jesus taught publicly. There is nothing to discover. Surely if Jesus said anything worthy of death in public, there would have been public opposition. Both Jews and Romans were highly suspicious of secret religious groups—a prejudice on which Annas' questioning is predicated. Jesus makes clear he is not part of a secret sect. Moreover, Jesus' response has an implied accusation. He taught in public. The religious elite, however, arrested him in secret.Annas strikes Jesus because of his disrespect. In Annas' mind, Jesus ought to beg not challenge. Striking the prisoner during questioning would have violated Jewish law, but as I discussed above, no ancient listener would be surprised by a member of the elite taking certain liberties. Jesus' response to the strike is another challenge. (“If I have said something wrong, confirm what is wrong. But if I spoke correctly, why strike me? John 18:23) If Annas has struck Jesus without reason, then the one who has broken the law is Annas while Jesus remains blameless.Caiaphas Takes Jesus to the RomansAnnas sends Jesus to Caiaphas. Caiaphas is the one to turn Jesus in to the Romans. There are a few reasons this was the case. Primarily, we must remember that Caiaphas was technically holding the office of high priest that year. Annas could pull the strings in the background, but Caiaphas' rubber stamp was still required. Also, and this is much more speculative, Jewish law may have required a daytime trial in a capital case. A brief, early morning hearing with Caiaphas may have technically fulfilled this requirement.Peter's DenialsPeter denies Jesus three times. The first denial is found in verses 15 through 18. An anonymous disciple introduces Peter into the high priest's household. The level of acquaintance between the unknown disciple and the high priest is not described. It could range from a person who regularly supplied the high priest's household (for example, of fish) and had therefore met his servants, to a person who was a true friend of someone in the high priest's household. One could speculate regarding the identity of this disciple, but there is no indication that he was even one of the twelve. The options are too many.In verse 17, the slave girl at the door asks, or perhaps the better word is accuses, “You're not one of this man's disciples too, are you?” Perhaps she remembered having seen Peter with Jesus. Maybe Peter's Galilean accent gave him away. Peter, now surrounded by the high priest's slaves and guards, responds, “I am not.” Given the value of honor towards one's teacher, Peter's behavior would have been seen as bringing shame not only upon himself but upon Jesus as well. Peter fails to do what Jesus requires, “The one who loves his life destroys it, and the one who hates his life in this world guards it for eternal life. If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow me, and where I am, my servant will be too. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” John 12:25-26Peter's second and third denials are described in verses 25 through 27. In verse 25, “they” recognize him—probably servants of the high priest. Again we are not told how he is recognized. Peter emphatically denies being one of Jesus disciples, “I am not!” Finally, a relative of Malchus—the man Peter attacked and cut off his ear—recognizes Peter. Then the most damning accusation is made, “Did I not see you in the orchard with him?” Peter had attacked (with probable lethal intent) a servant of the arresting officials. If Peter were identified, he could have been properly sentenced. Peter denies Jesus one more time and the rooster crows.The rooster crowing marks the climax, though not the end, to Peter's story. The words of Jesus are fulfilled. Recall John 13:31-38:31 When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him right away. 33 Children, I am still with you for a little while. You will look for me, and just as I said to the Jewish religious leaders, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,' now I tell you the same.34 “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”36 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.” 37 Peter said to him, “Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you!” 38 Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? I tell you the solemn truth, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times!Notice that Peter's denials are interspersed with Jesus' fearless responses to the high priest. This literary device creates a stark comparison between he who is willing to lay down his life and he who is not. Notice as well that Peter's later restoration (John 21:7-ff) provides hope for all those who have faltered.[The blog post section that follows was not covered during the session and was copied to the following session.]PilateThe Jewish authorities sentence Jesus. Jesus' apostles—most notably Peter—desert him. Then the time comes for the Romans to get involved.The first question we ought to ask is: why? Why must the Romans be involved at all? I have discussed this already, so I will be brief. The Romans depended on delatores—accusers—to bring criminals to justice. These accusers could be individuals or councils, such as the Sanhedrin. In particular, the Sanhedrin was composed of the aristocratic elite of the most important city in Israel. The Roman governor would certainly cooperate with such a group.The Jews deliver Jesus to Pilate “very early in the morning,” probably around 6 am. For Romans, “late morning” in the summer months was before 8 or 9 am. A Roman governor would probably end his public transactions around noon, leaving some time for leisure. In fact, Romans rarely slept in; doing so could carry the implication of drinking or partying the night before.When the Jews deliver Jesus, they avoid entering into the “governor's residence”—the praetorium. There is some debate whether the praetorium was Fortress Antonia, adjoining the temple courts, or the old palace of Herod the Great. The lavishness of Herod's old palace, which would have been preferred by a Roman governor, along with confirmation from other ancient writings seem to support the latter alternative. Either way, why did the Jews not enter the praetorium? Because houses of non-Jews were ritually impure and entering them would render a Jew impure as well, keeping him from fully participating in the Passover festivities. This concern for ritual purity serves as evidence of the aristocrats' hypocrisy: they spent the night ignoring the weightier matters of the law, such as justice and fairness, to then show concern for more superficial rituals. Recall Matthew 23:23-24:“Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you neglect what is more important in the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness! You should have done these things without neglecting the others. Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel!Notice Pilate's attitude. From Josephus' writings (an ancient Jewish historian) we know that originally Pilate was quite unsympathetic towards the Jewish customs. In John, we find a Pilate much more willing to avoid unnecessary friction. He comes out to meet the Jewish elite, accommodating of the fact that they could not enter the home. However, Pilate also shows some annoyance with the situation. He asks, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” The response is, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” If we read between the lines, Pilate's question does not seem like an honest request for information. He seems to be aware of the accusation but remains unconvinced that this is a matter worthy of his involvement. The Jews insist they would not seek audience before Pilate if Jesus was not really a criminal.The Jewish elite finally speak truly when they say, “We cannot legally put anyone to death.” As I explained above, only the Roman governor could order a person killed—particularly by crucifixion. Notice, therefore, that the only way in which Jesus' words could be fulfilled (e.g., “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32) was if the Jews involved the Romans. This was expected, indeed planned, by Jesus.Roman citizens could not be legally crucified, but slaves and provincials could be, generally for rebellion against Rome.Pilate was known for his brutality. He had sometimes executed Jews without trial. The Jewish elite knew that if they wanted Jesus dead, they were asking the right guy. They may have expected no hearing at all, even if Roman law technically required one. But there were politics at play. An overly cruel governor could give rise to revolts by the provincials. In fact, later in his life, Pilate's excessive use of capital punishment cost him his office. We also have other reasons to believe that Pilate may have been trying to be more careful than usual. His patron, Sejanus, was executed in the year 31 AD. If the crucifixion happened in the year 33 AD, then Pilate found himself in a precarious situation with little political support. Even if the crucifixion happened in the year 30 AD (the other widely argued for date), Pilate may have already been feeling the mounting opposition to his patron. Pilate himself was only an equestrian, a class lower than senators. Finally, there is likely some personal animosity at work as well. Pilate had gained some political savvy by this point, but he probably strongly disliked the Jews. Pilate may have been fair to Jesus simply to spite the Jews.Pilate Questions JesusAccording to normal judicial procedure, the accuser spoke first. So, Pilate had to already be aware of the charge of treason when he begins Jesus' interrogation. The question Pilate asks is, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Ain't that the million dollar question! In classic Johannine fashion, this moment drips with irony. Pilate is probably employing sarcasm, perhaps even mockery. But the gospel audience understands that the question is serious—the most important question ever, in fact. Is Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the High Priest, the King, God himself?Notice that Pilate's question is strange in one regard: so far no one has used his exact terminology. Jesus' detractors do not calling him king of the Jews. Jesus himself does not make the claim with those exact words. The title is not even a traditional Christian confession. Christians will call Jesus Messiah, Christ, Lord, or perhaps even King of Israel or King of Kings, but generally not King of the Jews. There is irony in the fact that a Gentile is one to speak with such insight, even if he spoke more than he knew.Jesus' reply plays on the irony of Pilate's question. Jesus retorts, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or have others told you about me?” Allow me to rephrase it as, “Oh, so you can tell? You figured it out on your own or someone told you?” Pilate's response makes perfect sense, “I am not a Jew, am I?” In other words, “How would I know? I am not a Jew.”If up to this point the conversation had a mocking tone, it becomes serious as Pilate asks, “Your own people and your chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” This is a hefty question. Paraphrased, Pilate says, “Your people wish me to have you killed. Why?” There is also some legalese at play here. If a defendant failed to offer a defense, the judge would ask about the charge three times before convicting the defendant by default.Jesus explains that his kingdom is not of this world. He offers a simple proof. If his kingdom were of this world, his followers would be fighting to free Jesus; they would probably be fighting against Jews to establish Jesus as King and fighting against the Romans to liberate Israel. They are not. “As it is,” meaning, “look around, there is no fighting,” Jesus' kingdom is certainly not political. But Jesus does not deny the charge against him. Jesus affirms he has a kingdom: “my kingdom is not from here.” If Jesus were trying to win his trial, this was not a wise move.Pilate picks up on Jesus confession. “So you are a king!” To whatever extent Pilate is following standard trial procedure, notice that this is the third time the charge is brought up to the defendant. The defendant's lack of defense will result in a conviction by default. (Although, perhaps the conversation simply developed this way and the governor is not thinking in terms of legal procedure.) For the last time, Jesus fails to defend himself. “You say that I am a king.” This statement can be taken in a few different ways. Jesus may mean it as, “You say I am king because I am.” As an older commentary puts it, “Thou sayest; for I am a king.” Another alternative is that Jesus bypasses the title and instead affirms the substance of the accusation. Then we could rephrase Jesus response as follows: “Is King the proper title for someone like me? I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to me. Does that make me king?” However we interpret Jesus' response, it is not a denial of the charge against him. Jesus may have sealed his fate.Pilate ends the conversation with another million dollar question, “What is truth?” The true tone and intent behind his questions is hard to discern. Maybe Pilate is mocking Jesus' and his commitment to truth. After all, Pilate lived a life of Roman politics and military prowess. Truth? Who cares. Power—that's what really matters. We can almost hear his argument: “Do you think a man is convicted because he is guilty? He is convicted because he is weak. Do you think the powerful escape justice because they are righteous? Don't be naïve! Do you think only the wicked are conquered and enslaved? We conquer devils and saints alike. Do you think the righteous rule the world? The strong rule over all. Do you think that kings speak only truth? If not, go ahead and disagree with them and see what happens. Do you think truth matters at all? Don't be a child.”Maybe Pilate means his question earnestly. The other gospels tell us that Pilate knew Jesus to be innocent. Moreover, Pilate's wife had received a vision confirming Jesus was blameless and should not be convicted.So after they had assembled, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Christ?” (For he knew that they had handed him over because of envy.) As he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent a message to him: “Have nothing to do with that innocent man; I have suffered greatly as a result of a dream about him today.” Matthew 27:17-19We can imagine a corrupt ruler of a corrupt nation being asked by a corrupt ruling council to brutally crucify a man he knows to be innocent and asking himself: “What is truth? Is there anything worth fighting for? Anything worth sacrificing for? If so, what is that truth? Where does it come from?” These could be the questions of a wicked man who is beginning to see that what is right and wrong is not simply a matter of power.Pilate Attempts to Release JesusPilate finds no (legal) fault in Jesus and attempts to release him. Pilate follows a custom of releasing one prisoner during Passover (as scholars call it, the “paschal amnesty custom”). A Roman governor was free to issue amnesties. We have record of Romans sometimes releasing prisoner en masse on local feasts. During their own festivities, Romans usually delayed punishments. So, the custom described in John would not have seemed odd in the ancient world.Pilate gives the Jewish people a choice: Jesus or Barabbas? To Pilate's surprise, the people exclaim: “Barabbas!” There is irony upon irony here. Jesus was accused of being a revolutionary but found to be innocent. Barabbas was an actual revolutionary! Technically, the word used in verse 40 is “robber,” but that was a euphemism for revolutionary. As the NET's translators' note 118 explains:Or “robber.” It is possible that Barabbas was merely a robber or highwayman, but more likely, given the use of the term ληστής (lēstēs) in Josephus and other early sources, that he was a guerrilla warrior or revolutionary leader. Moreover, the Jewish leaders allegedly acted against Jesus to prevent a revolution that could destroy Israel. John 11:49-50:Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is more to your advantage to have one man die for the people than for the whole nation to perish.”Yet, they requested the release of the very type of person who would bring demise to the nation just 40 years later.

Greg Stump | Galatians: Keeping In Step With The Spirit | September 25, 2022

This podcast goes through encounters with Jesus and the Pharisaic false leaders of Jerusalem. Some were political and some religious. Their goal was to trap Jesus so they could have Him silenced and removed whether it be by prison or death so in essence, they were plotting to kill.

Paul is launching identity markers for the Galatian church. He's calling them to put their identity in the Bible storyAbraham, Isaac, Christrather than in a religiosity, Pharisaic, legalistic identity. Do you identify yourself with God's grace-filled people?

Saturday, 24 September 2022   Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Acts 10:28   Peter has now fully entered the house of Cornelius and is before all those gathered together. With that context remembered, it next says, “Then he said to them.”   It is Peter who speaks, thus setting the tone for what must be conveyed. A change from the normal way things were within society has taken place that must be explained. This will then set the tone for the rest of what is conveyed. Peter now explains that change, saying, “You know how unlawful it is.”   What he will convey is not actually a point of Mosaic law but rather of Pharisaic law. However, because of their traditions and standards, the thought permeated society to a wide degree. Those who diverged from such implicit laws were considered lowly and contemptible. The unlawful matter that Peter is referring to is “for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation.”   The word translated as “keep company” signifies to join to. Both it and the word translated as “go to” are in the verse where Philip was told to come near and join with the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch –   “Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go near and overtake this chariot.'” Acts 8:39   Hence, the Spirit had already shown that what Peter is saying is incorrect. It is a misapplication or even a twisting of what God allows. Further, the word translated as “another nation,” allophulos, is found only here in the New Testament. It speaks of one who belongs to another tribe or race, a foreigner. The utterly ridiculous nature of this is seen time and again in Scripture. Innumerable examples can be found where exactly that occurred.   David had men of other nations as his chief men, such as Uriah the Hittite. He also spent time among the Philistines while Saul was king. Solomon entertained the Queen of Sheba, inviting her into his palace and associating with her.   The prohibitions found in the Law of Moses were to separate Israel from the nations of Canaan and their idolatrous and immoral practices. But the very same passages that speak of those things, such as Leviticus 18 actually include the thought of associating with foreign people –   “Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. 25 For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. 26 You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you 27 (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), 28 lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. 29 For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people.” Leviticus 18:24-29   Further, the pilgrim feasts of Israel clearly invited foreigners to be enjoined to the people of Israel in their times of celebration –   “You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are among you, at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. 12 And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.” Deuteronomy 16:11, 12   In those words, the ger, or stranger, means an alien or foreigner. The law Peter is now conveying is one that is not Scriptural but cultural. Despite that, it permeated the thinking of Jewish society. This will be seen in chapter 11 –   “Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. 2 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, 3 saying, ‘You went in to uncircumcised men and ate with them!'” Acts 11:1-3   One can see that the congregation of believers was astonished at what Peter had done and was clearly upset by his actions. As for Peter and why he has done this, he explains it to those in Cornelius' house, saying, “But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”   The word “me” is emphatic and is given as a complete contrast to the words “You know.” In other words –   You know how unlawful it is ... To me, however, God has shown.   This takes the reader back to the trance Peter was in and the words, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” Peter came to understand that the foods that were deemed acceptable to the nations to eat were not something that defiled those people. God had pronounced to Noah in Genesis 9:3 that every moving thing that lives was acceptable as food.   Israel was given a dietary law that did not void that pronouncement by God to Noah (meaning the people of the world). Rather, the law added restrictions to Israel, but it did not end the freedoms of the people of the world. Hence, the people of the world could not be considered common or unclean by eating those things even if Israel could. Therefore, it was the law – a law that had been fulfilled and ended by Christ – that made them unclean for Israel.   Therefore, the addition of the laws of the Pharisees twisted what God had said but it was not something that God ever intended, as is evidenced in His word.   Life application: The Pharisees added to the law of God. This is one of the main things Jesus rebuked them for. And he did it time and again. The same is true with denominations, churches, pastors, preachers, and teachers – and even lay people – to this day. We add our own pet peeves to what we find acceptable or unacceptable when we teach others about supposed Christian morality. This is legalism and it is as harmful as ignoring precepts found in the word.   Churches set their own arbitrary standards of morality. No dancing. No skirts on women above the knees. Men must wear ties in church. No soft drinks. No pork (heaven forbid!). Such teachings are damaging because they stem from man, not from God. We cannot go unscathed when this occurs. Churches will become legalistic and increasingly demanding. Eventually, a standard of conformity exists that demands allegiance to the leader and not to God.   Be careful to evaluate all things. If a church has cultural standards, respect them. In other words, if you go to an Arab church in Nazareth, you want to be sensitive to the cultural mores of the congregation. If you attend a Korean church in Sarasota, Florida, the same is true. Those cultural mores are not the same as church doctrines. If the church sets forth unbiblical doctrines, then head for the door. Be wise in understanding the differences and be respectful to the congregants if their practices are cultural but not unbiblical. Of this thinking, Vincent's Word Studies says –   “It is interesting, in this connection, to note the ‘Honour all men' of 1 Peter 2:17. It is obvious that the pride of class, resting on mere differences of culture, and showing itself in acts and words of contempt, is, from one point of view, even less excusable than that which at least imagined that it rested on a religious basis, while from another, it is less inveterate, and therefore more easily curable.”   Lord God, may we never add to Your word that which You have set forth for Your people. If Your word says something is acceptable, then we are not to condemn it. If Your word prohibits something, then we are not to tolerate it. If Your word does not address the issue, then give us the wisdom to determine what is proper based on a right understanding of the rest of Your precious word. To Your glory, we pray. Amen.

Everyone wants to go to heaven when they die. But that's not the end of the story. Reading the New Testament through Jewish eyes paints a far more detailed picture of our final destiny. After a short sojourn in Paradise, we will experience resurrection from the dead, the Messianic Kingdom, and an even greater epoch to follow: the World to Come. – Episode Timecode – 0:00 – Welcome to Messiah Podcast with your hosts, Damian Eisner and Jacob Fronczak. 3:50 – Article reading: Afterlife, Kingdom, and the World to Come 18:43 – Tattoos and a bodily resurrection with deficiencies. 21:00 – The bodily resurrection is not commonly understood in Christian homes and not talked about in Jewish homes. 26:06 –The body: good or bad? Rabbis, Gnostics, and Greek Philosophers. 32:56 – The resurrection is a Pharisaic idea. 34:27 – Why is the afterlife not explicitly spelled out in the Torah or the Hebrew Scriptures? 39:46 – The significance of the Messiah's resurrection. – Related Resources – What About Heaven and Hell ffoz.com/what-about-heaven-and-hell-mp3.html Woe to Some of the Pharisees torahportions.ffoz.org/disciples/matthew/woe-to-some-of-the-pharisees.html Jen Rosner on Messiah Podcast soundcloud.com/messiahpodcast/13-finding-messiah-dr-jen-rosner Messiah Magazine: messiahmagazine.org First Fruits of Zion: ffoz.org Messiah Podcast is a production of First Fruits of Zion (ffoz.org) in conjunction with Messiah Magazine (messiahmagazine.org). This publication is designed to provide rich substance, meaningful Jewish contexts, cultural understanding of the teaching of Jesus, and the background of modern faith from a Messianic Jewish perspective. Messiah Podcast theme music provided with permission by Joshua Aaron Music (JoshuaAaron.tv). “Cover the Sea” Copyright WorshipinIsrael.com songs 2020. All rights reserved.

What does it mean to be legalistic and how is legalism (or being Pharisaic) a bad thing? A dangerous liaison is associating yourself with philosophies that are contrary to God's truth. This is part three of the Dangerous Liaisons series with Dr. Rocky Ramsey—and today's message is part one on legalism. Watch Corryton Live every Sunday at: https://bit.ly/3b3Igjh MORE: https://bit.ly/corryton

In the first of three episodes looking at Christ Figures in film, Kenny and Mike look at the multiple Academy Award winning film based on Ken Kesey's 1962 novel.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was the second film (It Happened One Night 1934) to sweep the major Academy Awards by winning Best Picture, Best Director for Milos Forman, Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher winning Best Acting Oscars and Best Adapted Screenplay for Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman.  Christ Figure Elements:  Long a literary and film technique, Christ Figures are characters that exhibit several attributes and or teaching of Jesus and have impact on other character and narrative arcs. While the attributes of Christ are seen in the Christ Figure characters, their attributes and characteristics are not to be projected onto Jesus.    In both the novel and film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, presents the main character, Randall P. McMurphy as a Christ Figure. As Jesus was an outsider to the Temple establishment and leaders, McMurphy is an outsider to the hospital and the ward he is assigned to. The incarnational aspect of McMurphy is lifted up in the comparison between his dwelling among the ward, with the men, and nurse Rachet who is typically separated from the men, either through the glass window to the nurse's station, her gazing down on the men when they are in the yard, and her coming and going to and from the hospital. Nurse Rachet is threatened by McMurphy's arrival and impact in the ward. and serves as a Pharisaic character in her opposition to the unconventional yet productive therapeutic relationship McMurphy establishes with the men in the ward. When forced to choose between her power or the health and welfare of the patients, she chooses to maintain the status quo and her position. McMurphy sees the other patients as persons who have the potential to be greater than they are seen, judged, treated in the hospital. Most of the men in the therapy group serve as disciple figures and are transformed and given a new voice through their encounter with McMurphy. McMurphy's attack of Nurse Rachet at the end of the film is obviously not of Christ, but his decision to remain when he could have escaped reflects the decision Christ made to remain in the Garden of Gethsemane and be arrested on Thursday night of Holy Week.  As Jesus was buried in a tomb following his death, McMurphy provides new life to Chief who reflects the resurrection when he breaks free the tomb that was the hospital and the death that was his anxiety and fear of life. There is nod to Judas' betrayal of Jesus by Billy who names McMurphy as the one who made him sleep with one of the women they snuck into the dorm.   The depiction of Nurse Rachet following the attack offers a hint that she experienced a transformation in her care for the patients. 

In John 11:9-10, Yeshua speaks of walking in the Light and walking in the darkness. Walking in the darkness means the Light is not in him. The same message is echoed in John 12:36, "While you have the Light, believe in the Light, that you may become Sons of Light."  Sha'ul (Paul) speaks in a similar way when writing 1 Thessalonians 5. Verse 1 - But concerning THE TIMES (of the disputed calendars of that era vs. THE SEASONS (the moedim of the biblical festivals) brethren, you have no need that I should write to you…Verse 5 - But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You are all Sons of Light and Sons of the Day. We are not of the Night nor of Darkness. For the believers in Yeshua's day, the metaphor was well understood. According to the full context, Yeshua addresses absolute Pharisaic insistence on holding on to a calendrical doctrine of Second Temple Period festivals. Yeshua addresses those who absolutely SHOULD KNOW BETTER but instead echo Jeremiah 6:16, "We will not walk in Him." So, he declares the divine Word saying to all festival calendar truthseekers, "You are Sons of Light." The "Sons of Darkness" are, within the context, those who do not want to walk as Yeshua walked. The Tzadok Sevens Solar Calendar (also the Tzadok Base Seven Calendar) shows the biblical calendar that Yeshua walked by. It identifies the year of Yeshua's crucifixion and third-day redemptive resurrection - Year 27 C.E. Join me today and learn about the Calendar of the Sons of Light. Learn how it confirms Year 27 as the work of Yeshua's Redemption.  Real Israel Talk Radio Episode 118 and PART 5: my Analysis of Yeshua's Last Passover Week Timeline of Events.

To follow along with this study, access the calendar handouts on my website at http://www.cominghome.co.il. Navigate to Free Resources and then click on the dropdown menu Podcast Extras. Many are not aware of the numerous time and date calendar issues that were predominant in the days of Yeshua. At the time of Yeshua's ministry, there were at least three different calendars that were simultaneously functional – One was the Roman secular calendar and two were Jewish religious calendars. Consequently, when reading through the narratives of Yeshua's last Passover week, it is easy to miss what's going on behind the scenes because of the workings of those calendars within the context of Second Temple Jewish religious culture and law. Today, in this program Episode 117 and Part 4 in my series on the last Passover week of Yeshua, we will examine the five different day parts of a biblically Hebraic day. This will lead us to learn that Yeshua was observing a sunrise to sunrise calendar paradigm and rejecting the Pharisaic sunset to sunset calendar paradigm.