THE FORGING TABLE | Acts 14 (Ep. 656)

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0:50 This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.

0:54 I'm your host Kyle Thompson, and let's get into it.

0:57 Welcome back to the forging table, the mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push

1:00 back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.

1:03 At the forging table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience

1:06 by digging into God's word, and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with

1:09 us.

1:10 That's Russell, that's Derek.

1:11 That's Adam now, guys.

1:12 Last time we did the smelling salts, and I got to say, when I was setting up the salts

1:16 before you knew what I was going to do to you, the level of anticipation on your faces

1:20 about what in the world we were about to do, like all of you guys were grinning ear to

1:23 ear.

1:24 I'm not seeing that same excitement.

1:25 Is it because you all are scared of what I'm going to do?

1:26 I'm just glad we're not doing that again.

1:28 Are you sure?

1:29 Are you sure we're not doing it?

1:30 Are we going to eat anchovies or something terrible?

1:32 So I brought it.

1:33 Has anyone had anchovies?

1:34 I brought a taser.

1:35 Is that?

1:36 No, I'm kidding.

1:37 Why would you want to do that?

1:38 We've done that.

1:39 I got really excited.

1:40 Wait, who's we?

1:41 We did that at Fight Night.

1:43 Weren't you there?

1:44 No?

1:45 I didn't get tased.

1:46 Gosh, you didn't get tased.

1:47 I wasn't there.

1:48 You're there.

1:49 I know.

1:50 Are we talking about the, like, the cop one where you can have the things that come out or

1:52 just touching somebody?

1:53 Just touching somebody.

1:54 It's the purse.

1:55 It's the purse taser.

1:56 Yes.

1:57 Now, I have been hit with one of those before in the arm and I, oh gosh, it was so bad.

2:01 And he literally just barely zapped me.

2:03 I was always afraid if someone did it to me and made my heart stop.

2:05 So I was like, I don't know about that.

2:07 We have different concerns because I'm afraid of, like, crapping myself.

2:10 Like, if somebody hits me with that, then all of a sudden, like, you had just had a barbecue

2:13 or something like that.

2:14 But, yeah, I should probably be concerned about my heart stopping, too.

2:16 Have you ever choked yourself out unconscious with the, you know, hold yourself up not school?

2:20 Not myself.

2:21 But I, you know, we did use to do the passout game, which guys do not do that at home.

2:25 That's bad news.

2:26 But, yeah.

2:27 Yeah.

2:28 Everyone's done that.

2:29 I think at some point, that's like a rite of passage for boys at some point.

2:31 You have to pass get passed out cold by your friends.

2:32 You'll ever have a friend that had a cattle prod.

2:34 You'd play cattle prod tag.

2:36 No.

2:37 Yeah.

2:38 I had a friend that brought one up.

2:39 Oh, probably.

2:40 Yeah.

2:41 It was wild.

2:42 You ran really fast.

2:43 Where did you grow up?

2:44 In meeker.

2:45 Okay.

2:46 So I'm pretty sure.

2:47 Yeah.

2:48 My buddy George England brought it to Aaron Palmer's house and yeah, it was a good time.

2:51 Okay.

2:52 So how bad does a cattle prod hurt?

2:54 Well, I mean, you just have to be, this is sad that you just have to be able to run

2:59 faster than somebody else and you don't find out.

3:02 So I mean, yeah, I don't think I ever got hit by the thing.

3:07 So see, now my wheels are turning about what other things that we could do to torture each

3:12 other on, on this, like on the introductions.

3:14 So like, does anyone own a cattle prod or is that like a thing?

3:18 Can you just go to add one?

3:19 Get one.

3:20 We get electric fence, for sure.

3:22 I have got, you know, electric fence grab ahold of it.

3:24 All right.

3:25 That's what we're going to do.

3:26 And if we're going to wrap an electric fence around, around the table and like, if any

3:30 of us, you know, leans outside.

3:32 Yeah.

3:33 Yeah.

3:34 It's a great idea.

3:35 I think these are good ideas.

3:36 If you're not talking directly into the mite.

3:37 Yeah.

3:38 He's got a little black.

3:39 Dude, Ryan Horn would not make it out of this room.

3:40 I swear to God, like that guy would just get zapped the entire time.

3:43 But I guess we should get into the scripture because that is what we were here to do guys.

3:47 We were digging into Acts 14 today.

3:49 And so Adam, how about you start us off, you know, Paul and Barners, they're at Iconium.

3:53 So let's do the first seven verses of Acts 14 in Iconium.

3:58 They entered the synagogue of the Jews together and spoken such a manner that a large number

4:02 of people believed both Jews and of the Greeks, but the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the

4:07 minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren.

4:10 Therefore, they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who is

4:15 testifying to the word of his grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands.

4:20 But the people of the city were divided.

4:22 Some sided with the Jews and some sided with the apostles and when an attempt was made by

4:27 both the Gentiles and the Jews with the rulers to mistreat and stone them, they became aware

4:31 of it and fled to the cities of La Lisonia, Lystra and Deborah and the surrounding region.

4:38 And there they continued to preach the gospel.

4:41 So in this short section, there are three things that I really want to talk about because

4:46 in verse three, it says they remain there for a long time.

4:48 So they didn't just hear the propaganda and keep moving.

4:51 They stayed there in order to correct the propaganda.

4:53 Verse four, it says that the people of the city were divided, which is exactly what we're

4:56 guaranteed to see, which is that the gospel is a divider.

4:59 And then these guys didn't just hide.

5:02 We see at the end there, they continued to preach the gospel.

5:04 And so you guys take that wherever you want to go because those are three things that just

5:07 struck me to where it's like, those are three tremendous lessons.

5:11 Just for me is like, Hey, if someone's giving propaganda, it's, you know, you should oppose

5:15 that and stay there as long as possible.

5:17 The gospel is a divider.

5:18 So present it divisively because that's what it's supposed to do.

5:21 And even if you get some hate, like you're supposed to do your job, which is preach the

5:24 gospel.

5:25 Something I picked up on is don't we all want to think that we're tough and that we can

5:29 manage this ourselves and we don't need any help and there's nothing that you can say

5:33 that's going to hurt me or cause me to stop.

5:35 But what happens in verse three, therefore they spend a long time there speaking boldly

5:40 with what?

5:41 With reliance upon the Lord.

5:43 The reliance upon the Lord is the part that I want to talk about.

5:45 I think that means, yeah, Paul's done all of these amazing things.

5:50 He's a tough dude.

5:52 But at the end of the day, he's catching all of his heat.

5:55 How does he able to tolerate that heat?

5:57 It's with the reliance upon the Lord, you know, if he'd been left to his own, he might have

6:01 backed off.

6:02 You know what, this is ridiculous.

6:06 I can't take this amount.

6:07 Okay.

6:08 Let's actually dig into that a little bit, guys.

6:09 Cause as you were talking about that, Adam, I'm a very self-reliant person, like I'm very

6:13 much so like when someone says, you know, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, it's like,

6:16 I guess whatever I need to do to do that, like, you know, I'm very responsible.

6:20 You mentioned, you know, the big five personalities, you know, on the last podcast, I'm like 98th

6:26 percentile and conscientiousness.

6:27 That's like, Hey, you said a task and you get it done.

6:30 So because I'm wired that way, a lot of times I don't, I feel like I don't need to rely

6:35 on you, Lord, you built a good soldier.

6:37 Just let me go out and do the soldering, right?

6:39 And so for people who are maybe a naturally a little bit, a little bit weaker in their

6:44 disposition or are just wired in a different way, you know, still good, but just wired

6:48 differently than me.

6:49 I feel like it's easier for them to rely on the Lord.

6:53 So I don't know how it is for you guys, but that's the thing for me, like I've even said

6:55 before and I look back like, God, you idiot, but it's just like, I don't need to pray as

6:59 much as other people because, you know, God gave me a spirit of discernment and wisdom

7:04 because we see from scripture that wisdom is a gift.

7:06 God gave me that.

7:07 So I'm good to go.

7:08 And it's like, Oh, you moron.

7:09 Like how can you be so dumb?

7:10 And not to pick on you, but the things that you're particularly really strong at that's

7:13 better than others, you're weak in other areas, no different than me than all of us, right?

7:18 And so still, whether, whether you are overtly strong and conscientious, just like you are,

7:26 you still have to rely on the Lord and the things that you are weak on.

7:29 Well, and even it's almost like because you have a natural or because I have a natural

7:34 disposition to just take care of business, um, it's, it's a clearing on call for me to

7:39 be like, all right, slow down, like, okay, you're, you're good to go.

7:42 Yes, you're built for speed, like that's all good to go.

7:45 But maybe don't throw it into six gear, like, uh, from neutral, like maybe like, let's progress

7:50 a little bit slowly.

7:51 It's the same thing that I said last week about as you're reading scripture, like for

7:54 me, I have to slow down because for me, I just got to get to the intersection.

7:57 Okay, I got to get to the end of the book and it's like how much are you going to miss

8:01 just by not like, look at the little things we pulled out of Acts 13 just by slowing down

8:06 just half like half a second.

8:08 You like to talk about it all the time about reading it like a robot and you're right.

8:11 If you said to read it like a robot, you are going to get next to nothing out of it.

8:15 But if you slow down and you try to visualize what was really happening, who was he speaking

8:20 to, who was listening to this, what kind of reactions were these people probably having?

8:24 It just makes it more real.

8:26 It goes back to that idea of, uh, that book, Ruthless Elimination of Harry talks about

8:31 keeping some margin in your life and that really to participate in what in the kingdom

8:35 of God and living in the kingdom of God requires you to have some margin to be able to take

8:40 those times to not rush through your Bible study to try to plan out time to sit with

8:45 your thoughts to sit and prayer about certain things.

8:48 And then too, like that kind of points to what we see here is kind of your point.

8:53 How many times does one thing happen and kind of our Western idea is, man, God is against

8:59 this.

9:00 So something negative has happened.

9:01 And I'm just going to read into that that I need to go take this other road, whereas

9:04 you see here, the disciples, they had restraint where when they felt like the Lord was speaking

9:10 to them to go somewhere, they did not hesitate one bit.

9:13 But just because something didn't go their way, that was not their sign to move on there.

9:18 That was, that was their sign to just do more of what they were doing until the Lord had

9:22 them move on, or if they were physically, you know, later on, removed, beaten, stoned,

9:27 then they would, they would go someplace else, but they didn't over exaggerate what was happening

9:32 in their circumstances to decide what they should be doing spiritually.

9:35 I think that's such a great point because that's, that's the point of resilience.

9:38 That's a point of, of courage, of toughness because again, I was glad when, when Joby

9:43 sent me the levels of persecution, I'll see if I can find that, but he sent me like there's

9:46 like 17 levels of persecution.

9:49 And so somebody will post a scripture on Instagram and someone will post like a snarky comment

9:54 and they're like, Oh, maybe I wasn't supposed to put that out there today because I didn't

9:58 get the exact response that I wanted.

10:00 There's your sign that there's your sign and people just kind of take the exit ramp right

10:04 there and like, Oh, no, I shouldn't have been doing that.

10:06 Thank you, Lord, for that sign.

10:07 We're sometimes God saying, no, no, no, that wasn't, that wasn't your sign.

10:10 That was your sign that you're going to be doing something right because I said you will

10:14 have many trials.

10:15 So yeah, and that, hey, that's me giving you a heads up that this is not going to be fun

10:19 for you.

10:20 And so just because I just, you know, signed it here was the degrees of persecution.

10:24 This is from from a recent article from faith works, okay, degrees of persecution.

10:31 So one disapproval to ridicule, three pressure to conform for loss of educational opportunities,

10:38 five economic sanctions, six shunning, seven alienation from community, eight loss of employment,

10:45 nine loss of property, 10 physical abuse, 11 mob violence, 12 harassment by officials,

10:52 13 kidnapping, 14 forced labor, 15 imprisonment, 16 physical torture, 17 murder execution.

10:59 So as I'm reading through this list, I'm curious about where people would fall off, people

11:06 that are doing gospel work or sharing the gospel or evangelizing or something like that.

11:11 Where does the pressure become too much?

11:13 Because the example I just used Russell was disapproval and they're like, I'm out, I'm

11:17 out like this.

11:18 But they will Christian ease it whether they'll say like, this is just clearly not the path

11:22 that the Lord had for me because it was going to be mildly difficult.

11:25 So I think I'm just going drop out.

11:26 I think I've been guilty.

11:28 So like hear me say too, I'm looking in the mirror at times that I have probably taken

11:33 that road out and said, Oh, this, this must not have been the right thing.

11:37 You know, this is not an open door.

11:39 So I just don't need to watch that.

11:41 So I'm guilty of it too, but definitely in our society, that disapproval and that that's

11:45 really the weapon of our society too.

11:48 They don't, they know that they don't have to do much more than that right now for 90%

11:52 of Christians.

11:53 Well, to go back to the point where we were just talking about Derek, I'm curious for

11:55 you because obviously my personality is like as fast as possible.

11:59 Let's go like I've got 80% of the information.

12:02 Let's do 110% of the effort like that type of thing, whereas you're a lot more crockpot

12:05 like the opposite.

12:06 Yeah.

12:07 Which, you know, to, you know, when you've got a microphone in front of your face and you

12:11 need to say something interesting now, like it, it makes sense to have a personality like

12:15 mine.

12:16 But for you, part of the reason why I value your opinion and the way that you approach

12:19 a Bible reading is because you're not trying to be the first person to say something out

12:22 of their face hole.

12:23 Right.

12:24 You.

12:25 So for you, how do you feel when you see stuff like this to where it's like, look, you know,

12:30 you can kind of more naturally calm yourself and as you wait into these situations.

12:34 So what I got out of this anyway, the first thing I can't even finish a sentence, right?

12:38 So they're speaking in such a way that many are saved or many come to believe.

12:43 I'm like, what are they saying?

12:44 How are they saying that?

12:45 Because I'm not a good talker.

12:47 I can't speak, right, you know?

12:49 So that stuck out to me.

12:50 And then also as it I wrote down, you had mentioned they stayed a long time, but then

12:56 they did, they fled eventually and I just kind of was thinking the Holy Spirit's there

13:00 with them again, guiding them through this decision, they learned, well, I've got more

13:05 to do still.

13:06 God's got more plans for this missionary journey.

13:08 So we're going to, we're going to move now, but we're going to come back and as we'll

13:11 see that, you know, later on, those are the two things that really stuck to me.

13:15 And then yeah, our personalities, you know, very different, um, you're 100 miles an hour

13:19 down the highway.

13:20 I'm like, yeah, we'll just me and her this way and I'll think about that.

13:23 Even the word me and her just makes me feel bad.

13:25 I'm like, no, you wonder if there wasn't some of that going on between, you know, obviously

13:29 any study of the disciples shows a difference of personalities that was in that group, but

13:33 you've also got, obviously, Paul and Barnabas have different personalities.

13:36 They take different stances on stuff.

13:38 We'll see that in the future as well.

13:40 And so, I mean, it just goes to show how that when we're called to do something, we're

13:45 called to do that along with other people that are called to do the same thing.

13:48 We don't have to do it exactly the same way that that other person is called to do it.

13:52 Like this forging table, you know, having, having different perspectives, still doing

13:56 the same thing, still having the same heart, just doing it a different way is okay.

13:59 Well, again, let's go ahead Adam.

14:01 Let's keep some perspective here.

14:03 Last week we talked about the first missionary journey and what happened.

14:05 They got run out of town.

14:06 Yeah.

14:07 They're in town number two and they just almost got stoned.

14:10 Yeah.

14:11 Talk about needing to not worry about agreeableness right now and being resilient.

14:15 You know, I know my mind, if I've got run out of town and nearly got stoned, I'm thinking,

14:19 pull the rip cord.

14:20 I'm out.

14:21 Yeah.

14:22 And I think that's, that's an interesting thing for people to really consider on those levels

14:25 of persecution.

14:26 And you might disagree and you know, quibble a little bit with the order and things like

14:30 that.

14:31 But the reality is, and I've said this a lot, go back to the German church and the confessing

14:41 church in Germany in the 1930s.

14:44 When Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich was rising, the German church went basically full

14:50 third Reich in the confessing church was opposing them basically like, Hey, we're not, we're

14:54 not putting anybody above God, like this, this is problematic.

14:57 Like you're wanting to add to the 10 commandments.

15:00 You're wanting to, you know, replace the Bible with mine conflict.

15:02 This is, this is deeply problematic.

15:04 And as Eric Metax is pointed out in his great book, Letters to the American church, or Letter

15:07 to the American church, like if just a few thousand more pastors in Germany had gone the

15:13 way of the confessing church, not the German church, there is no Third Reich.

15:18 There is, there is no, you know, rise of the Nazi party.

15:21 There's no World War II.

15:22 There's no Holocaust.

15:23 None of these things.

15:25 And you have so many people that are just willing to go along to get along because they

15:30 don't want any of the things that are going to happen on that list.

15:33 Even if the things on that list happen to you, most of these people have lost the threat

15:37 at some point to say like, well, if any of these things happen to me, then I'm somehow

15:40 nodding God's good graces.

15:42 It's like, you know, when people think that their life just needs to be peaches and cream

15:45 all the time, it's like, have you read the New Testament like at all, like, do you know

15:49 how each one of these apostles were killed?

15:52 Like John had it best where they tried to, you know, boil them alive and it didn't work.

15:57 And so he would just, you know, was exiled to the isle of Patmos.

16:00 It's like, he had the best case scenario.

16:02 The rest of these guys suffered horribly.

16:04 And so I just don't really understand how people are thinking that it's just going to

16:07 be nice and easy as they weighed into these types of environments.

16:10 You know, it's interesting.

16:11 You and I, we've had this discussion here before about the rise of pedophilia in that

16:15 you and I have had a difference, a difference of opinion originally on how prevalent that

16:19 was going to become.

16:20 So if you're not going to take a stand on that, what, when are you going to freaking

16:23 take a stand?

16:24 And it seems easy now and maybe it is easy now, but is it going to be easy in 10 or 15

16:29 or 20 years?

16:30 No.

16:31 If we don't get on the, on the top of the mountaintops and scream, this is freaking wrong.

16:36 We cannot have this in our society.

16:38 This must stop 10 to 20 years from now.

16:40 Who knows what it'll be.

16:41 Right.

16:42 That's the thing.

16:43 That's what I tell pastors.

16:44 That's why the pastors that listen to our show, it's like you have to be bold on these

16:47 issues, don't, you know, succumb to these ideas like, well, I don't want to fight the

16:51 culture war.

16:52 It's like, this was, we're seeing culture war all throughout this book.

16:56 Like what exactly are you talking about?

16:57 Like you don't want to speak into the culture war.

16:59 Don't you think there was a war going on in the Jewish society between like the, the

17:03 Jews and the Gentiles or the Sadducees and the Pharisees and all the people that like

17:07 differed on these different things.

17:08 That's all culture war stuff.

17:10 And so when you say stuff like that, pastors, are you comfortable with only atheists running

17:14 your culture?

17:15 Are you comfortable with only atheists running your government running your kids' schools,

17:19 running all of the different parts of the government?

17:21 Like are you fine with, with only atheists doing that?

17:24 And you're exactly right.

17:25 Like these, if you, if you kind of like, seed to the middle on the abortion issue or seed

17:32 to the middle on the transing of the kids issue or this, you see to the middle, the minor

17:35 attracted persons issue, it's like at some point it's going to be exactly like what happened

17:40 in Ireland whenever, you know, the Catholic church basically lost all standing because

17:43 of the fact that they were shipping around boy so that they can systematically rape them.

17:47 The Irish populace is going to say, yeah, I don't believe you.

17:50 Like I don't believe in your moral stance.

17:52 You have no moral authority over my life.

17:54 And I certainly don't believe in your silly book that was written thousands of years ago.

17:57 And it's like at some point you got to step up.

18:00 And so if you feel a little bit of disapproval, if you feel those sanctions, you know, 2020

18:05 was a drive run.

18:06 And so how many pastors are just going to fold like lawn chairs by the time, you know, the

18:10 next pandemic or the next black lives matter thing or something like that, how many of

18:14 those people are just going to fold because they're cowards and just to set the record

18:17 straight.

18:18 That was the one and only time I can remember that you were right and I was wrong.

18:21 Yeah.

18:22 I mean, for the rest of time, so and so everybody knows exactly what we're talking about.

18:25 I released an episode.

18:26 This was like four years ago now or something.

18:29 It was called normalizing pedophilia.

18:31 And I looked at two different TED talks that had happened where it was talking about minor

18:36 attracted persons and how we need to have space and culture for people that are sexually

18:39 attracted to children and all this type of stuff.

18:42 And so I, of course, lose my mind.

18:44 And so I do breakdowns of these videos and I talk about guys.

18:48 It was, it was gay marriage or like, first it was, you know, you know, divorce.

18:53 And then it was like, okay, interracial marriage.

18:55 And then it was gay marriage.

18:56 And of course, there's nothing wrong with interracial marriage.

18:57 Don't hear what I'm not saying.

18:58 And then it was like, okay, we would not just, Hey, we need to have civil unions.

19:03 It was like, we need to be able to get married.

19:04 And then it's like, no, now we need to have weddings in your churches.

19:07 And oh, and if you disagree with that, we're going to take away your tax exempt status

19:10 and all that.

19:11 But I told everyone on that show, the next shoot a drop, the next hill that's going to

19:15 be attacked is a normalization of pedophilia.

19:17 And my, my argument was, if you can be a child and choose your gender, then why can't you

19:23 be a human of any age and choose your choose your age?

19:26 So if you can be transgender, why can't you be trans racial, right?

19:30 Why can't you identify as black so you can get a scholarship to a particular school?

19:33 Why can't you identify as a Native American woman of color so that you can get a job at

19:38 a world company?

19:39 Like why can't you do those things?

19:40 And also, why can't I be a 40 year old man that identifies as an 11 year old so that I

19:45 can have sex with a 12 year old girl?

19:47 And I remember like, I think you called me like, dude, too far, too far, like all that.

19:52 You're crazy and all that.

19:53 And what was my response?

19:54 You're just wait, just wait, just wait.

19:56 And it didn't take long until your credit.

19:58 The first time you saw something like in the news, you were like, you sent it to me and

20:02 you're like, okay, well, looks like I screwed the pooch on this one.

20:05 No pun intended, but it was like, this is this is like a major issue.

20:08 Yeah, BC out.

20:09 He's the next one coming right after that.

20:10 Russell, I don't know if you know that right after we normalize having sex with children,

20:13 it's going to be like, yeah, let's have polyamory polyamorous relationships.

20:17 Hey, if you love a dog, why not love a dog?

20:19 Love is love?

20:20 Well, yeah.

20:21 And I mean, really to where things are right now, there's some people that identify as

20:25 a dog and identify as a bear, a furry cat, whatever it is.

20:29 So if you're a furry and you have sex with someone identifies as a human, what would

20:32 you call that?

20:33 I feel like we skipped bestiality.

20:35 Who cares about bestiality?

20:36 We're talking about pedophilia, if we're going to normalize pedophilia, bestiality is meaningless

20:40 to me.

20:41 Yeah.

20:42 Who cares?

20:43 Yeah, we have, we have so many issues.

20:44 And again, really, I mean, we've still only gone over the first chunk of Acts 14 here.

20:49 That's why there's so many lessons here.

20:50 The gospel is a divider.

20:53 So I tell people that are not like, I'm naturally okay being divisive.

20:57 So when someone does not like my opinion, I naturally have a low amount of give a crap.

21:03 But if you have a higher amount of give a crap, you have to understand that divisiveness

21:07 is the issue because God divides the gospel divides people.

21:13 And so when we're so overwhelmed with being nice and with catering to people's needs and

21:18 pretending to be loving by ignoring someone's sin, it's like you're not getting that ethic

21:23 from scripture.

21:24 You're getting that ethic from culture and you're sprinkling in Christian ease over the

21:27 top of it.

21:28 So guys, let's keep going with Acts 14.

21:30 Let's do eight through 13.

21:31 So Russell, how about you hit eight through 13?

21:34 Sounds good.

21:36 All right.

21:37 Now at Lister, there was a man sitting who, who could not use his feet.

21:41 He was a cripple from birth and had never walked.

21:44 He listened to Paul speaking and Paul looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith

21:49 to be made whole said in a loud voice, stand upright on your feet and he sprang up and

21:55 began walking.

21:56 And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted their voices saying in the Laconian,

22:01 the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men, Barnumus.

22:05 They called Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker and the priests of

22:10 Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance of the city brought oxen and garlands to the

22:13 gates and wanted to offer sacrifices with the crowds.

22:18 All right.

22:19 Let's hop there.

22:20 Let's pause real quick right there.

22:21 So one thing that I wanted to point out here.

22:22 So obviously this healing here, it mirrors the healing that Peter did in Jerusalem in

22:26 Acts three, but I wanted to read this note because this was another example of me just

22:30 kind of skipping through.

22:31 I don't really know what they're saying.

22:32 Let me just kind of get through so I can get to stuff that I do know what they're saying.

22:35 In Stott's commentary on verses 11 through 15, I want to read this.

22:40 It's an interesting setup.

22:41 So Zeus and Hermes, so Hermes is Zeus's son.

22:44 They were worshiped in Leistra or Leistra or whatever as patron deities around 50 years

22:49 prior to this entire situation, the Latin poet Ovid narrated a local legend in his work

22:55 Metamorphosis in it, Jupiter, which is Zeus and Mercury, who is Hermes, went to Pergia.

23:02 Yeah.

23:03 Pergia disguised as mortals.

23:05 They were rejected hospitality 1000 times until an elderly peasant couple named Philemon

23:10 and Bacchus took them in despite their own poverty.

23:14 The gods rewarded this couple and destroyed by flood, the homes that rejected them.

23:19 This was a lesson to be hospitable, hence the reaction to Paul and Barnabas.

23:23 And so I would have missed that entirely.

23:26 Like wait a minute.

23:27 Right.

23:28 So they're, so these guys come in, they're saying some things and these guys are like,

23:31 it's Zeus and Hermes and we're, we're ready to sacrifice animals to these people.

23:35 But it's like, no, no, no.

23:36 This was such a strong cultural story that they were like, Oh crap.

23:41 We can't do this to zer, Zeus and Hermes again, like our forefathers, like we've heard this

23:45 story over and over and they warned us.

23:48 If anyone comes through, you do not reject their hospitality.

23:51 Otherwise this entire area is going to be destroyed and it wasn't just their homes were

23:54 destroyed.

23:55 These people were killed.

23:56 Right.

23:57 According to this legend.

23:58 And so I didn't know if you guys had heard that before.

23:59 I had never heard it.

24:00 So if I hadn't had the stock commentary, I would just missed it completely.

24:03 Yeah.

24:04 I had heard.

24:05 I had a couple of books that kind of pointed towards some Greek mythology stuff and just

24:11 this story actually too, not only, not only were the people there in this area, but the

24:16 temple is actually to be said that it was their shack.

24:20 Right.

24:21 At first, there's two different stories that this goes on in Greek mythology and one of

24:24 them, it actually outlines that the places they went.

24:28 So I can't remember the first place, but it was a really fancy home.

24:30 The second place was a banquet.

24:32 Both places, they got kind of kicked out.

24:35 They looked like vagabonds.

24:36 So like whenever you got to think about how Paul and Barnabas are looking too, they've

24:40 kind of been beat up.

24:41 Like by this time, Paul is pretty ugly dude.

24:44 Right.

24:45 Yeah.

24:46 I mean, like he's already gotten some some weapons, been beaten up, been left for dead.

24:48 And so that was part of this is that they're like these rugged guys, they're speaking some

24:53 truth.

24:54 Then the other part here was, so whenever in Greek mythology, when they went to that

24:58 shack and those people took them in, then they took them to the mountain and then flooded

25:01 everything, part of that was that after the flood, the temple was actually raised up from

25:07 their shack.

25:09 So the temple that this guy was at was actually a big part of that story and that the two

25:13 people actually became trees because they didn't want to live without each other.

25:18 So that was part of their their wish granted by Zeus that they would that they would be

25:22 able to die within an hour of each other.

25:24 So you have the people, it doesn't really say it, but you wonder if there weren't these

25:29 two really big trees in that area, the temple right there at the entrance.

25:33 And so whenever he goes on later and says, like these things, you need to get away from

25:38 these things, it's very specific to things they're looking at and seeing right there,

25:43 that it's not just a story.

25:44 They actually had buildings that were kind of like, this is a part of this story.

25:48 And it's kind of what the whole area was known for.

25:50 Yeah.

25:51 And yeah, I mean, it's just really insightful to be able to get something like that and be

25:55 like, oh, okay, tell me digging into the Bible isn't fun.

25:58 Like just that, that alone is awesome.

26:00 A lot of good stuff here.

26:01 Let's kind of finish this section.

26:02 Derek, if you'll read 14 through 18 and when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it,

26:08 they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd crying out, men, why are you doing

26:12 these things?

26:14 We also are men of like nature with you and we bring you good news that you should turn

26:19 from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and

26:23 all of that, all that is in it.

26:26 In past generations, he allowed all the nations to walk their own ways, yet he did not leave

26:33 himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful

26:38 seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

26:43 Even these words, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.

26:48 So their immediate reaction was not to lean into this.

26:52 So this happened recently.

26:54 So recently, a guy reached out to me and I can't remember the context, but he said,

26:58 "Hey, I was just wondering," he's essentially like, "Hey, I was wondering when you finished

27:02 buds, what, what seal team class you were, blah, blah, blah, those types of things,"

27:06 because you're listed on Navy Seal.com as a Navy Seal.

27:10 And I was like, "To be 100% clear, I have never been in the military.

27:16 I never raised my right hand and said I would protect this country from enemies, foreign

27:22 and domestic.

27:23 I have never done that.

27:24 He was never in the Navy, certainly, and was never in Navy Seal."

27:27 And so, so please, on this website, wherever it says that, you have to correct the record.

27:32 And I've said this before.

27:33 I've been introduced on podcasts and at speeches as an MMA fighter, I've been introduced as

27:37 a Navy Seal.

27:38 I've been introduced as things that I am not.

27:39 And so I try to address that immediately without embarrassing the host and being like,

27:44 "Okay, yeah.

27:45 Tom doesn't know what he's talking about.

27:46 No, I'm not a Navy Seal.

27:47 No, I've never been locked in a cage with a referee and another man trying to kill me."

27:50 Like, I don't say those things.

27:51 I'll try to just say something in Jess to kind of get everybody giggling from the beginning,

27:55 but it's so important to me to set the record straight.

27:58 However, there is another guy in the Christian men's space who is in this exact same area

28:04 that has run a ministry for a certain amount of time that was in the military, but never

28:10 special operations.

28:11 He certainly was never in Navy Seal, but he would be introduced places as a Navy Seal.

28:17 And in these articles and different things like that, he never corrected the record.

28:22 And so that's like a version of stolen valor that always made me uncomfortable and it made

28:27 me look a scant at this guy for a couple of reasons.

28:29 One, I reached out to him because, "Hey, we're in the same area, like let's not [inaudible]

28:32 any each other's pools, like let's work together, let's all kind of go in the same direction,"

28:35 and he just ghosted me.

28:37 And then this thing where he was like allowing people to call him a Navy Seal is like, "Ah,

28:41 I don't really like this at all."

28:43 And so in that same vein, you have these two that are like, "No, no, no, no, like we're

28:48 not Zeus and Hermes, like we are Barnabas and Paul, like please don't look at us.

28:53 Look through us to the Father."

28:55 And so that's one thing that I wanted to point out from the beginning is that it's so important

28:59 whenever you have an identity that you are very upfront about it and don't try to puff

29:05 yourself up to make you seem like you're better than you are to a degree.

29:09 I was going to talk about the same thing.

29:10 I think the stolen valor thing, that would hopefully be an easy thing to correct the

29:13 record quickly.

29:14 But in this moment, these guys have been kicked out of town, nearly stoned, and now all of

29:19 a sudden they're Zeus and they're being sacrificed too.

29:22 For human nature, it would be pretty hard to not be like, "Man, this is going great.

29:26 This is a lot better."

29:27 We're going to go with this.

29:29 I'm going to eat some grapes, drink some wine, and enjoy it.

29:31 I'll tell them next week.

29:32 Right.

29:33 Self manipulation too.

29:34 We'll tell them the truth in a week.

29:35 Maybe just one night, one night of fun, and then we'll figure it out tomorrow, right?

29:39 And I think also what we see here is throughout acts, we see that Paul's evangelistic approach

29:48 is flexible.

29:49 We see that he's able to kind of change it depending on his audience, okay, of Jewish

29:52 audience, okay, we're going to do this, okay, pagan audience, we're going to do it this

29:55 way.

29:56 But what he always does is he presents a clear and full gospel.

30:01 So the big difference that I see is there, like to the Jews and the synagogues, he would

30:05 focus a lot on the Pentateuch and the law and the prophets, and with pagans, he would

30:08 focus on the natural world and, you know, some things that would be more, more their

30:12 area.

30:13 The problem that we see, especially you can see this with modern day pastors is they try

30:18 to seem relevant by watering down the gospel.

30:22 It's like you can do things to seem relevant.

30:24 You can wear stylish shirts, you can play music that is from the century, like you can do

30:28 all those things to seem relevant.

30:30 But the gospel is the gospel.

30:31 You don't get to add to it.

30:32 You don't get to take away from it.

30:34 And so that's what I'm, I'm encouraged by in this section of scripture versus 14 through

30:38 18 to where it's like, we're just going to present the gospel.

30:40 The gospel is what it is.

30:42 We'll change our tactics depending on our audience, but we're not changing the gospel

30:45 message.

30:46 Yeah.

30:47 I think it's, I think it's important to see here too that, you know, I think it's in chapter

30:51 12 where Herod is accused of being a God and he doesn't correct him and right away, he

30:57 falls down dead.

30:58 And so there was one important difference here that like you could say, well, like they

31:03 got all the way to the point that this, they sent people out.

31:06 They were saying it, they started bringing back stuff to have a sacrifice.

31:09 And I didn't, I didn't realize this until I was reading some of the commentary is that

31:13 they were saying that it mentions that they set it in their own language.

31:17 So in Lysonian, so whenever like Paul and Barnabas are having this talk and they're saying

31:22 all this stuff, they know there's commotion going on.

31:24 They're not like some people could look at this and be like, well, they let that go on

31:29 for a while.

31:30 They weren't letting it go on.

31:31 They didn't understand the language that they were saying.

31:33 Like as soon as they found out that, that there was a confusion there, they went beyond

31:39 just saying, no, no, not us.

31:41 They went and showed them like, tore their, tore their robes, actually showed signs of,

31:45 you know, back in that day for Jewish people to tear your robe was a sign of grieve of

31:50 grieving.

31:51 You know, like they actually, like, yeah, something that they very, very much were against.

31:57 And so like their reaction to it, I think even to your point about like, well, can you clear

32:02 that up and stuff like that?

32:03 Once they realized they had gone this far, they were so grieved by this that they were

32:08 just showing everything they had because at this point, animals were being brought to

32:11 the gates that they were ready to sacrifice to this, you know, manifestation of Hermes

32:16 and Zeus.

32:17 Right.

32:18 Yeah.

32:19 It's like, this isn't, we're beyond polite suggestion.

32:20 Like please put those animals back like they had to freak out real quick on it.

32:24 Yeah, please.

32:25 Kind of just hit me fairly, uh, today, anyway, um, I've been listening to Joby's, uh, series

32:33 is going through an now stand firm talking about spiritual warfare.

32:36 I'm like, the devil's got to be freaking out right now.

32:39 All is taking the message, you know, everywhere.

32:42 So he's like, I tried to get him stoned in this last city.

32:45 Let's, let's make him a God in the next one.

32:47 Maybe that'll slow him down.

32:48 Yeah.

32:49 You know, yeah.

32:50 Yeah.

32:51 Yeah.

32:52 I didn't even think about that.

32:53 You know, where we're weak is human, you know, like first, and that's what happens

32:57 with the same thing whenever you go through struggles as well.

33:00 You know, you'll a lot of times have, have an attack that's straight on and if you are

33:04 able to withstand that attack, be ready for where the attack is going to try to pull you

33:09 in.

33:10 So there's one that pushes you away and then there's another one that tries to pull you

33:13 in.

33:14 Right.

33:15 Like to your point, this was a, can I pull them into this?

33:17 Wow.

33:18 And that's what you're saying earlier, Adam.

33:19 This is like the ultimate character stick approach because, you know, for, for me and

33:24 my family and my extended family, we've experienced some pretty rough things this year, some things

33:27 that were, were not for scene and some things that, you know, have, have been really hard

33:32 to get through.

33:33 And it makes sense.

33:35 So there was one point where there was a bunch, this was recently where I was talking

33:38 to Joby where I was explaining all these intersecting things that had happened in a short period

33:43 of time.

33:44 And he goes, man, you must be over the X.

33:48 And I'm like, what, what, like, what exactly do you mean?

33:50 He's like, you were pushing back some darkness that is making Satan really uncomfortable.

33:56 And so it seems like you're on the right path because I was kind of complaining, to be honest,

34:00 I was like, why are all these bad things happening?

34:02 What's the next shoe to drop?

34:03 And that was his way of encouraging me because he understands my personality.

34:06 And he's just like, yeah, it means you mean you're pushing in the right places.

34:10 But also to the point that, you know, you were all kind of stumbling upon and I like

34:13 the way that you put it, Derek, I, I'm way more stick approach in my approach.

34:18 Like I, I respond better to the avoidance of pain than the pursuit of pleasure.

34:24 And one way that I can see that is I'll use the example of Vodie Bockam.

34:27 I tried to get Vodie on the show for about four years.

34:30 I tried different tactics and went through different people, different publishers, publicists,

34:34 a whole bunch of different things.

34:35 And then it all kind of came together all at the right perfect moment.

34:39 And it just sent the right email.

34:41 I was responded to immediately and then boom, a couple of days later, he's on my show.

34:44 He's on my Mount Rushmore people that I want to have on the show, right?

34:47 But as soon as the interview is over, I was, I was over it because the interview is done.

34:53 And you know what's next?

34:54 Well, now I got to edit the thing.

34:55 Okay.

34:56 Now I got to schedule it.

34:57 And then I got to create those social media posts.

34:58 And then I got to get ready for the next interview and oh, you know, it's something stupid

35:01 happened in politics and I got to get ready for that for my own personal show.

35:04 And so I don't sit in the winds very often, but I will wait around for years and the losses

35:11 I remember balls that I dropped in the intramural football at the University of Central Oklahoma

35:16 in 2005 because I should have been able to like skate into the end zone, right?

35:20 I just sit in those, but I don't think about all the touchdown passes I've thrown or caught.

35:24 I don't think about all the successes.

35:26 I don't think about the good things I focus on the bad.

35:28 And so it's like it would make sense that Satan's changing up the game a little bit be

35:33 like, all right, well, the whole trying to beat him to death thing didn't quite work

35:35 out.

35:36 Like let's give him the grapes.

35:37 Let's give him the wine.

35:38 Let's see if that works.

35:39 Not a lot.

35:40 You never threw a touchdown pass.

35:41 There's no way that really happened.

35:42 All right.

35:43 I heard him say that he threw the same touchdown pass he caught to himself.

35:46 I just understand how fast the human being has to be because I've definitely done that

35:50 where I just chuck it up in the air and I just moss everybody else.

35:53 Just jump right over top.

35:55 Yeah, Adam.

35:56 Okay.

35:57 Yes.

35:58 I 100% have thrown a lot of touchdown passes.

35:59 Was this was this in the tech mobile like the little like the little magnet?

36:02 Does it matter?

36:03 It doesn't matter.

36:04 Can you pass in tech mobile?

36:05 I don't think the ball actually leaves the guys hands.

36:07 No, it was on that one game where Bo Jackson basically scored on every play on forget what

36:11 the name of that was.

36:12 But no, you know, back in the day, I was able to throw football over them their mountains.

36:15 I have thrown a 75 yard field goal before.

36:18 That is something that legitimately happened a hand to God that you said field goal through

36:23 it.

36:24 I threw you through it.

36:25 75 yard, 75 yard field goal had 100% happen senior year high school.

36:29 Wow.

36:30 That's impressive.

36:31 But I couldn't kick an extra point.

36:33 So was it?

36:34 Yeah, it was a foot.

36:35 No, it was one of our high school football.

36:36 It was one of those nerf balls that screams as you throw it that everybody threw it 100

36:41 yard.

36:42 No, no, it wasn't one of those.

36:43 This was this was like a legit football.

36:44 It was the X button.

36:45 Yeah.

36:46 Well, you have to hold it down and do a couple of yes, super zipped it.

36:50 Guys, come on man.

36:51 Just right at the right time when the bar.

36:52 Can we get back to the scripture, please?

36:54 I feel like I'm being like persecuted at this exact moment.

36:56 I'm actually going to read these next two because it's only two.

36:59 I know.

37:00 I know.

37:01 I'm sorry.

37:02 I'm lowering myself to become a reader.

37:03 How about that?

37:04 All right.

37:05 Let's get into versus 19 and 20.

37:06 The Jews came to Antioch and Iconium and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and

37:11 dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead, but when the disciples gathered

37:15 about him, he rose up and entered the city.

37:17 And on the next day, he went on with the Barnabas to Derby, a lot of things and a couple of

37:24 different verses.

37:25 Okay.

37:26 So he stoned.

37:27 And so again, think about a mob of people all with stones of varying sizes, throwing

37:31 it at your head, trying to crush your school.

37:34 They dragged him out of town because they thought they were successful.

37:37 They thought they had killed him.

37:39 So let's think about what Paul looked like.

37:42 I don't know how often you've been around dead people that have been crushed to death

37:45 by stones, but they probably have a certain look to them.

37:48 They're probably not conscious.

37:49 They're probably not, you know, chitty chatting or not doing any of those types of things.

37:52 They take him outside the city.

37:54 Okay.

37:56 But this gangster rose up, went back into town.

37:59 Okay.

38:00 So he goes through lot in Oklahoma and the gangs there in law in my hometown, they decide

38:04 to beat him up and set him on the outskirts of town and he just grabs his crap and he

38:07 goes back into town.

38:08 You want to talk about resilience and we want to talk about courage.

38:11 But here's the other thing that we missed.

38:13 Derby was 60 miles away from where, where this happened.

38:18 The next day after being stone so bad that they thought they had killed him, this dude

38:23 gets up and walks 60 miles to the next town.

38:26 I can't think of a, of a thing in my life that I've done that even compares roughly to

38:32 the level of toughness and resilience shown here.

38:35 This is two verses.

38:36 Yeah.

38:37 Again, if you just fly through this, cause you want to read the entire section, like you

38:40 miss all of that, like I was completely struck by this section.

38:43 Not to mention the peaks and valleys that he's seen from what we saw last week where

38:48 the Jews love him one week later, the Jews hate him and he gets run out of town.

38:52 Then he comes in, he almost gets stoned and then now he's Zeus and then he does get stoned.

38:58 Right.

38:59 It's what we talked about.

39:00 These, these people quickly went from making sacrifices to them, to stoning them.

39:04 How quickly did the people of Jerusalem go from celebrating Jesus's triumphal entry into

39:08 the city to calling for him to be executed via crucifixion?

39:12 Like all that was super fast.

39:15 Anything else on 19 and 20 that hit you guys before we read the rest of the section?

39:19 How crazy to be there when he stands up, dude, because they, they probably were probably

39:24 caring for him, probably starting to prepare like, Hey, we got to get everything together

39:28 to get, get, get together for his like funeral or whatever.

39:30 He just pops up like, All right, guys, let's go back and he was out for a long time.

39:34 I mean, you think he got stoned and then they drug him outside of the city.

39:38 So even just the thought of like, they didn't pick him up, put him, wrap him up like his

39:43 friends didn't carry him outside of the city in this time.

39:46 They literally just, I don't know, maybe a garment, you know, was hanging off of him.

39:50 They grabbed him by that.

39:51 Maybe a rope around the ankle and just, yeah, just drag this guy out.

39:55 You three guys go for it.

39:57 I mean, it's not a, he would have had injuries just from the drag itself.

40:01 Yeah.

40:02 This dude was definitely scuffed up by this point.

40:04 Let's go ahead and read the rest of the section here.

40:06 So Adam, how about you go 21 and just go ahead and finish up acts 14?

40:11 So 21 through 28.

40:13 After they had preached the gospel to the city and had made many disciples, they returned

40:17 to Lystra into Iconium into Antioch, strengthening souls of the disciples, encouraging them to

40:22 continue in the faith and saying through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of

40:27 God.

40:28 When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting,

40:31 they commanded them to the Lord, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

40:37 They passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia.

40:41 When they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Atalia.

40:45 From there, they sailed to Antioch, from which they had been commended to the grace of God

40:49 for the work they had accomplished.

40:51 When they had arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report all things

40:55 that God had done with them and how they had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

40:59 And they spent a long time with the disciples.

41:02 And so it seems like they've been gone at least two years.

41:06 That's whatever I saw in a lot of the commentary.

41:08 So this was a long journey.

41:09 So again, it takes you a few minutes to read.

41:11 This was years and years of their life, a lot of interactions.

41:14 But I want to have, it doesn't have to be a debate because I don't know where you guys

41:17 land on this.

41:18 But when I go back to verse 23, and when they had appointed elders for them in the church,

41:23 with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

41:28 So as they're going back through this area, which again, they're going back through Lystra

41:32 and Iconium and Antioch, like that's pretty frickin thug life that they're going right

41:36 back through all these areas where they experienced these holy things.

41:39 That's not something small, but they established elders to give pastoral oversight.

41:46 And these weren't elders from outside of these communities.

41:49 These were elders from inside of these communities.

41:52 And so there's a couple of different things and we can approach them both separately that

41:55 I want to talk about.

41:56 The first is where we see modern day churches that don't have elders.

42:00 So so basically no pastoral oversight.

42:02 And the second thing is local churches versus multi site of the same church.

42:09 So the first thing I want to talk about is I know a lot of prominent pastors and I know

42:13 some non prominent pastors that no one would know their name that do not have elders.

42:19 So they are in complete control, a lot has been made about Mark Driscoll.

42:24 Since you know, getting kicked out of Mars Hill and all those different things and he

42:26 started his new church in Arizona that he does not have anyone that can that can remove

42:31 him from his post.

42:33 Like he has advisors and he has all that, but these are these are non voting advisors.

42:37 They can't like there's not a board that can kick him out.

42:40 There are prominent pastors even in our community that they have boards of directors, but they

42:46 are the chairman of the board or they are the president of the board.

42:49 And so they're basically insulated, not from advice, but they're insulated from any pastoral

42:54 oversight, any corrective pastoral oversight.

42:58 And I just got to say that makes me very uncomfortable.

43:02 Now I'm kind of a, you know, mixed bag there because I listened to Mark Driscoll's sermons

43:06 because even people that hate Mark Driscoll are like, this guy is a tremendous Bible teacher.

43:11 But if I lived in his city in Arizona, I don't think I could go to his church.

43:15 And be in a flock led by someone who has no oversight.

43:20 So that really bothers me.

43:21 I don't know how it lands with you guys, but that's something that I saw here because

43:25 they weren't leaving behind, you know, churches with their, their minions that they kind of

43:29 insulated there.

43:30 They were leaving behind fully intact churches that were, you know, local to that community

43:35 with pastoral oversight.

43:36 What do y'all think?

43:38 I didn't approach it from that perspective, but I did try to think of who were the types

43:41 of men that they were appointing as elders because think of what these men had witnessed.

43:46 These men had witnessed Paul getting stoned.

43:49 They had witnessed, maybe they had been part of running Paul out of town.

43:53 You know, I don't know.

43:54 And then all of a sudden this man comes back.

43:56 The people that are going to be appointed elders, they're going to have to be cowboys

43:59 themselves.

44:00 They're going to have to be ready to go ready for persecution and no persecutions coming.

44:04 These aren't going to be soft jiggly little men.

44:06 These are going to have to be hard battle ready men that are going to be willing to take

44:10 it when they need to.

44:12 Right.

44:13 I look at this and so I have some complexity to growing up as a pastor's kid to realizing

44:20 you hear the phrase church hurt a lot and things like that.

44:23 And so like I do give a little bit of grace to some circumstances where pastors go and

44:29 they've seen something play out the wrong way on either side of this.

44:33 And just like we all do with any type of rules we set up in our families, whatever, has to

44:38 do with trying to make corrective steps in one way or the other.

44:41 And I see a lot of times like people get it wrong.

44:44 They over correct one way or the other had a bad situation at one point.

44:48 Maybe there's an elder board that had a bad situation.

44:50 And so then they correct the other way as well to where they gained too much power.

44:55 Also whenever we're looking at this, it's tough to say how this fits with a pastoral

45:00 role as we see it right now because these churches, they had the apostles who were those

45:05 who have been sent, so they were away.

45:08 And these elder jobs were more in line with a pastoral position.

45:13 They were actually in charge of caring for the church.

45:16 And so sometimes I do think it's also good to remind ourselves that as we're in congregations,

45:22 we have a tendency to pass off so much onto our pastors as their job.

45:27 And whenever really you look at the early church, it was our job.

45:31 It was the guys that had committed themselves to step up to take those roles that the elders

45:36 were in charge of shepherding that church for a time.

45:41 And so it's just really important.

45:42 We hear that with gospel messages and people that are expecting pastors say, "Well, they

45:48 didn't share the gospel.

45:49 They didn't do this."

45:50 And a lot of those things we need to reflect back to and be like, "Well, what is my role

45:53 in this?"

45:54 Because if I was in the early church, I wouldn't have them.

45:56 My dudes that led me to Christ, they led me to Christ and then they moved on.

46:00 I would have had to take up that mantle and say, "Okay, this is on me.

46:03 This is on my brothers.

46:05 The guys I'm sitting on this table with would have looked at each other and said, "All right,

46:08 we've got to take this while Paul and Barnabas are out.

46:10 We're going to hold on to this."

46:12 Whereas we're defaulting in modernity to professional Christians where it's like, "Well, if you

46:16 have the role of a pastor and so you need to take care of this."

46:19 And that's my encouragement to a lot of guys, they'll come and they'll complain to me about

46:23 their church.

46:24 And I'll be like, "Why are you complaining to me?

46:26 I don't go to your church.

46:28 I can't help you solve that issue."

46:30 It's like, "Okay, first of all, start with you.

46:32 If there's a ministry you want the church to do, go do it.

46:35 Like start it.

46:36 Like you don't need the church's permission.

46:38 Like if you need their money, you're going to need their permission.

46:40 But like, yeah, this isn't on them because they have the role of pastor in their title

46:45 or because they're one of the chosen elders.

46:48 They are set apart.

46:49 They do have different roles.

46:50 But you're exactly right, Russell, to where it's like back in that day, there wasn't a

46:53 professional class that handled all of the dirty work that the church had been given

46:57 to do.

46:58 It was just the church in and of itself.

47:02 I guess the other thing I wanted to talk about there is they set up local elders, not outsiders.

47:09 So you would think if it's local elders, they are adapted for local needs.

47:13 So even if we think about our city, on the east side of town, there is essentially no

47:18 poverty, right?

47:20 So it's a lot of old money.

47:22 It's a lot of people that have a lot of assets or at least they're pretending to have a lot

47:28 of assets.

47:29 Adam, you know the actual thing because you see everyone's tax returns, whether or not

47:31 they're actually balling.

47:33 But then there are other parts of town, maybe northwest part of the city or central part

47:37 of the city where you do see people that are in poverty.

47:41 And so if we have a church on the east side of Edmond, Oklahoma and a church in the center

47:45 part of Edmond, Oklahoma, there are different needs that are five minutes drive away from

47:50 one another.

47:51 And so I guess I do have a little bit of heartburn over multi-site churches that are super spread

47:57 out in a myriad of different contexts.

48:00 And Matt Chandler, back in the day, the village church had multiple locations all throughout

48:05 the Dallas Metroplex and then all of a sudden, like he got, you know, a word from God and

48:11 the elders all agreed unanimously that they needed to roll off each one of these churches

48:15 to be autonomous churches with their own names, own pastors, own elderboards for the main

48:20 reason to where it's like Plano does not have the same needs as downtown Dallas, right?

48:27 Or you know, right in the middle of wherever'sville, Texas, where everybody has a lot of money.

48:32 And so I remember at the time thinking, this is shocking.

48:36 This has to be so incredibly complicated.

48:38 And oh my gosh, this is the exact right point.

48:41 And so I guess I do have issues kind of with the multi-site thing to where it's like, okay,

48:46 there can't be one figurehead or one elderboard that's controlling all these different areas.

48:52 It seems like something's going to get lost in translation.

48:54 Now, I'm not like sticking my, you know, flag in the ground, like multi-site churches

48:58 are the devil.

48:59 Obviously there are tremendous examples of multi-site churches that are incredibly healthy

49:03 that take discipleship and the spreading of the gospel incredibly seriously.

49:06 Church of 1122 down in Jacksonville being the most prominent example that I know of internally

49:11 and the inner workings.

49:12 But just generically as a category, I struggle with that.

49:16 So I'm open to hearing y'all's opinions.

49:18 I just, that's something that came to me whenever I was going through this section.

49:21 Again, like speaking from, speaking from my history, being a pastor son and seeing again

49:27 how those things, they, they lean one way or the other and then they kind of try to

49:32 correct themselves.

49:33 If you're at a good church, it should always be looking at what's going on there.

49:36 And I think it's, it's back to the idea of because something worked at one place or that

49:42 the calling was to do something very unique at one place, doesn't always mean that that

49:49 same calling or that same system should be implemented everywhere.

49:53 And so that can be on both sides of it where a church that shouldn't be doing multi campuses,

49:58 sees another church in their local community doing it and they're saying, we want to be

50:00 a part of that or a church that is doing them, sees another church, get rid of them.

50:07 And they say, well, that's the new trend.

50:09 You wouldn't want your church to ever just follow the trends.

50:11 And so like either way on that side, I think it's important to just be talking to your

50:17 pastors, be talking to the people that are under church and find out like, what is our

50:21 reasoning for this?

50:22 What is, what are we thinking here?

50:24 What is the, what is the goal in the game plan of why we have it set up this way?

50:28 Right.

50:29 What do you guys think?

50:30 I think the way you put it where you said, you're not going to put your flag down here.

50:34 I feel the same, but I do think at the end of the day, when I'm going to judge, what's

50:38 the litmus test for our churches, what are they saying from the pulpit?

50:42 What is coming out of the pastor's mouth?

50:43 That's going to be the most important thing for me.

50:46 I think there's some things that certain churches that might be multi, multi position churches

50:50 are really, really good at and better than some other churches.

50:54 And if they're able to take that really good idea and spread it around to more places than

50:59 what maybe my church can do, because my church doesn't have the ability to spread or have

51:04 the reach that this particular church does, I could get on board with that as again, as

51:08 long as what's being preached on Sunday is verifiable and true with Scripture.

51:13 So it does not bother me as much as I think of all those youth.

51:16 Yeah.

51:17 What do you think, Derek?

51:18 Yeah, I'm definitely more hesitant having them multi sites.

51:22 But again, like if with Joby is an example, like they've had an explosion of people coming

51:28 to know Christ and coming to 1122.

51:32 And not just that, but being discipled there.

51:34 And being discipled there.

51:35 It's like, how do you manage that maybe it is to, at least for a time, having multi site,

51:40 maybe down the road, like Matt Chandler did, we're going to break off and we're going

51:44 to be individual churches.

51:45 I don't know.

51:46 But seems like the Lord is working through those churches now, so you don't want to put

51:51 your flag.

51:52 It's all, it's all bad, like you're saying.

51:54 Well, and even I've talked to our pastor, Mark Hitchcock of Faith Bible in Edmond, Oklahoma,

51:59 where three of us go and during COVID, that was around the same time we were doing a

52:04 building initiative.

52:05 Because this would, this had just been a small church for 30 years.

52:08 I grew a little bit, you know, year by year, just, it was very, very small.

52:13 But then it turned into field of dreams where if you build it, they will come.

52:15 We build this, you know, new sanctuary, whole new kids area.

52:19 And during COVID, you know, a lot of people were leaving life church in Oklahoma, in,

52:24 you know, the Oklahoma City Metro and leaving Henderson Hills, which is Baptist church for

52:28 some things that were happening around some of the cultural stuff, the BLM stuff, you

52:32 know, the masking and different things like that.

52:34 And so those people were so desperate because apparently they had been in churches that

52:38 weren't really expository preaching, weren't really focusing on scripture.

52:41 There was a lot of life lessons, a lot of how to be a good person type stuff.

52:44 And they were desperate for expository preaching, verse by verse, like Bible.

52:50 And that was our church.

52:51 And so the church filled to the brim immediately, like at one point they were adding five, six,

52:57 seven new families every single week.

53:00 And so that's however many, that's dozens of children being added to the newly, the new

53:06 kids area that they're just still trying to figure out volunteers and all that.

53:09 And so immediately the question in the church became, are we going to build on?

53:14 And the answer was in our location, there's nowhere else really to build on or up.

53:20 Like we can't really do that and we just finished this capital campaign.

53:23 So the very next question was, when are you going to open up another campus?

53:27 Because we live in the backyard of the multi campus where that was born with, with life

53:31 church, really being the first church to prominently do that, doing the multi campus thing and

53:35 basically setting up franchises of life church, you know, all over Oklahoma and then spreading

53:39 out outside the state.

53:40 And the answer from the church and from the elders was very, very clear.

53:45 We might eventually do another church in our city, but it won't be our church.

53:50 It'll be their own church.

53:52 And the pastor even said this kind of tongue and cheeky's like all these liberal denominations,

53:56 these Episcopalians and the Lutherans and all these different things.

53:59 These people are, they're going to, they're going to have to close their doors soon.

54:02 And so these buildings won't really be able to be used as a pizza hut or a grocery store,

54:06 like they'll have to be churches.

54:08 And when one of these churches goes this way and gets down to four members and they have

54:12 to close up shop, like we'll be able to come in, purchase this building and then set up

54:17 a new campus.

54:18 Now what they're not going to do is it's not going to be faith Bible West, right?

54:22 They're not going to set up something like that, but what they will do is set up a church

54:25 where there is expository preaching with similar, you know, worship, you know, Psalms, hymns

54:32 and spiritual songs.

54:33 And it's going to be the same philosophy, but they will be autonomous.

54:37 They will have their own senior pastor.

54:39 They will have their own elder board.

54:41 But if you were to go attend there, so don't go to faith Bible this weekend, but you go

54:45 to XYZ church this weekend, it will have the same feel.

54:49 And so that's something that I feel like is very healthy because wherever that other

54:52 church is, we'll be able to serve the needs of the people that are geographically in that

54:57 area.

54:58 So I know that took a while to elucidate, but that's an example of something that I've

55:01 heard and seen that I feel like is healthy.

55:03 I think someone mentioned discipleship and I do agree the multi campus model for discipleship

55:10 is none.

55:11 It doesn't work.

55:12 You can't, you can't have both of those two things.

55:13 You know, I feel like the model where it's separated.

55:16 That's where you're going to see discipleship.

55:17 That's where you're going to be a part of the community and you're going to have a group

55:19 of people that you're going to be able to do life with.

55:21 The one example that I would say is, is the exception and it is church of 11 22.

55:25 And this is why I would say that because we have to go all the way back to the first

55:29 time I met Joby.

55:30 I was pitched by his publisher, his first book, if the tomb is empty.

55:34 And for whatever reason, I was like, fine, I'll interview some mega church pastor that

55:39 wrote a book.

55:40 Oh, super unique.

55:41 Mega church pastor writes a book.

55:42 I expected it to just be dog water.

55:44 And then it was really good.

55:45 I was like, Oh, well, this is cool.

55:48 And then we get on the interview and he and I, he's got dead animals behind him in his

55:51 office and all that.

55:52 And he's talking in a certain kind of way that, you know, agrees with my Southern hospitality

55:56 spirit and like we just hit it off and had a good interview.

55:58 But as with most interviews where I hit it off with people, I just move on with my life.

56:02 And then somehow or another, he got my, he started, he had been listening to the show

56:05 because he admittedly said that he was trying to find a Joe Rogan equivalent or alternative

56:11 that was in kind of the Christian space, but everything he found was either way to aggro

56:14 or, you know, like way too soft.

56:16 And so he had found my show.

56:17 So he and his son are listening to my show together and all that.

56:20 And at the time I was being very unconscious with how I was describing the health status

56:24 of churches that were larger.

56:26 And so I was basically basing whether or not a church was effective for the gospel and discipleship

56:30 on the size of their parking lot.

56:31 Joby calls me out of the blue and he didn't scream at me and reprimand me and all that.

56:36 This is how the phone conversation started.

56:38 What's your problem with big churches?

56:40 And I was like, Oh, this is going to be fun.

56:42 But I was in a fun mood that day.

56:44 I was, I was fun.

56:45 I was ready to spar a little bit, but I'm like, whatever do you mean, sir?

56:49 And he was basically like, the way you describe big churches is that if a church is big, if

56:53 a church has multiple sites, if a church does all these types of things, that it's all about,

56:58 you know, Ted talk, it's all about the head pastor having a big Instagram and selling a

57:01 bunch of books.

57:02 It's all about these different things.

57:03 And I think that you're wrong about that.

57:05 There are big churches all over the place that take discipleship seriously and you can't

57:08 base your judgment off of what you're, you know, the size of the building or whatever.

57:13 And in that exact moment, I had a, you know, Robert Frost, you know, road diversion and

57:19 yellow wood moment to where it's like, I can go one way and just defend and say, shut up

57:23 mega church pastor guy.

57:24 You know what you're talking about?

57:25 Like let me go back and stop listening to my show.

57:26 But I went the exact opposite way, which is dude, you're right.

57:30 I didn't realize that's what people were hearing because I didn't believe that at the time.

57:34 I expressed extreme concerns over these multi site churches where you see people that are

57:37 just trying to be the next Stephen Firdic or be the next Andy Stanley or be the next bill

57:42 highples or something like that.

57:44 And they were all about making it look as good as possible without making it be as good

57:48 as possible.

57:49 They weren't about the gospel.

57:50 They were about growth.

57:51 They weren't about discipleship.

57:52 They were about butts and seats.

57:55 And it was in that moment that Joe B and I's relationship really started.

57:59 And so with that, with Joe B and I's relationship, I've gotten to see behind the scenes about

58:03 a lot of the stuff that church of 11 22 does.

58:06 And because I have, I've seen how they've been able to pull off multiple campuses in,

58:11 in a single state with multiple different needs and yet the, the, the sheep are being

58:16 discipled.

58:17 They're not being entertained the entire time.

58:20 They're being discipled to a degree that is hard for me to understand because I don't understand

58:24 the logistics of how in the hell you pull something like that off.

58:28 And so, but I do think the eye of that needle is small.

58:32 And I think that there are a lot of churches like, I remember, you know, live church, it

58:36 was life dot church.

58:37 That was their website.

58:38 They're at www.life.church and then a bunch of churches started doing, you know, we are

58:42 blah, blah, blah dot church.

58:44 And they didn't realize the only reason that Craig Rochelle and Bobby Grunwald and even

58:48 chose that was because that was the only URL that was available.

58:51 Lifechurch.com was taken.

58:53 Lifechurch.net was taken.

58:54 So they're like, Hey, we can do life dot church, but then you have all these people that are

58:58 just trying to rejigger the model so that they can be famous making their church dot

59:02 church or something like that.

59:03 And so you can very easily see the people that are at the top of the heap, what exactly

59:07 they're focused on.

59:08 But Adam, your sentiment is still correct, which is being able to pull that off and still

59:14 be about the gospel and discipleship.

59:16 It's very, very hard.

59:17 And you better work at it or else it's just flat out, I'm not going to work.

59:20 If you're going to try it, I would say like, if you're part of a church that is trying,

59:23 I'm part of a church crossings now has, you know, the crossing to Oklahoma City, the crossing

59:27 is Edmund.

59:28 And one thing that I have admired about about how they're doing it is if you're trying,

59:32 like you said, it's a very small target to do it, right?

59:37 They will probably be times where they have to say, oh, we got that a little bit wrong.

59:40 Let's tweak this.

59:41 And so like one thing I'm proud of our church is on the Edmund campus, one of the first

59:46 things whenever it opened up, it didn't have Sunday school rooms.

59:49 And that's a really big part of our church and the discipleship process of our church

59:53 is actual Sunday school being taught in the word on Sunday mornings.

59:57 And so that was one thing that I don't know if you've seen, but they have construction

1:00:01 right now adding on a major factor.

1:00:03 He lives right down the street.

1:00:04 Yeah.

1:00:05 A major factor from that.

1:00:06 I don't know all the ins and outs, but I believe a major factor of that is to provide that

1:00:10 church with more Sunday school classrooms because they were realizing that that is how

1:00:14 they were having to work discipleship around what they lacked there.

1:00:17 Right.

1:00:18 And they were trying to say, no, no, no, this was a bigger part of our DNA than what we

1:00:21 realized when we built this.

1:00:23 And we have not only people requesting the Sunday school, we realize we need that for

1:00:27 our discipleship program.

1:00:28 So, you know, there are those things that you see those slight adjustments and that again,

1:00:33 you know, you want people in those roles that are able to be humble enough to be like, man,

1:00:37 if we did this over, we would do it this way and we need to make these adjustments.

1:00:40 So for sure, guys, anything else on acts 14, before we wrap, I mean, like actually wrap

1:00:46 someone's got to beat box and we're just going to like stuff.

1:00:48 No, we're not wrap Adeline here, but guys, make sure you are read through acts 15 because

1:00:52 that is what we were going to be dealing with next week.

1:00:54 So come back here when we were going to dig into acts 15, but before I let you guys go,

1:00:57 we are going to do a quick resilience boost.

1:00:59 As you know, by now, the mission of undaunted life is equipping men to push back darkness

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1:02:25 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson, remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,

1:02:32 mental and physical resilience, keep seeking the lion of Judah.

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