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This is Undaunted Life A Man's Podcast.
0:54
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:56
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.
1:05
At the forging table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
1:08
by digging into God's word and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey
1:10
with us.
1:11
That's Adam.
1:12
That's Derek.
1:13
That's Russ.
1:14
Guys, we just got through eating.
1:15
We had a bunch of delicious meat for lunch.
1:16
We might be bourbon into the mics a little bit.
1:18
But as we get into Acts 15, there's a pretty cool thing that happens in Acts 15 where there's
1:23
like an unbelievable lineup of speakers where I literally was like, holy cow, if you could
1:28
like go back in time and like visit different places, they're about to be talking at the
1:33
Jerusalem Council.
1:34
It's literally going to be the Apostle Peter.
1:37
And then coming on after them is Paul and Barnabas and then coming in and closing the
1:42
show is James, the brother of Jesus.
1:44
And so I was trying to think like, what are some of like the best lineups that you guys
1:48
have ever experienced?
1:49
Now, you've had to be the one to experience them.
1:51
So you can't just say, Oh, the 1927 Yankees or something like that.
1:54
But like, what is the best lineup that you have ever seen?
1:57
And so since I kind of just sprung that on you as a Cardinals fan, it would be horrible
2:01
if I did not mention the time period where Albert Pujol, Scott Rowland and Jim Edmonds
2:05
were all on the exact same team and all getting MVP votes at the exact same time.
2:09
That was a crazy lineup.
2:10
Again, we're all Oklahoma city people.
2:12
And so the thunder back in the day when they had Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James
2:16
Harden, that was cool there for about five minutes till Sam Presti broke up the entire
2:19
team.
2:20
But then my first concert that I ever went to, I went and saw three bands that at least
2:26
initially were three of my favorite bands I'd ever seen.
2:28
So not everyone's going to know these bands, but dead poetic was first and then under oath
2:33
came after them.
2:34
The original lineup and then my favorite band, even to this day, Zayo.
2:37
And so those are some of my favorite lineups that I have actually physically experienced
2:41
live.
2:42
And so in these don't have to be sports related or music or anything necessarily.
2:45
And you're already grinning over there, Mr. Smith.
2:47
What is this lineup?
2:48
Okay.
2:49
I can already feel it.
2:50
It's a caveat that it has to be one that we have to experience because if it wasn't
2:54
one that we had to experience, I would have to go with the 1992 dream team.
2:58
Okay.
2:59
Well, okay.
3:00
Yeah.
3:01
That might be the best sports team that's ever been a civil.
3:02
Forget that.
3:03
Let's follow your stupid rules.
3:04
Okay.
3:05
Fine.
3:06
Go follow.
3:07
I think it was probably maybe 1990 or 1991.
3:09
My dad and I were huge WWF fans like big.
3:12
Okay.
3:13
So I think we all were at that time, WWF comes to Oklahoma City and I saw Hulk Hogan ultimate
3:18
warrior hacksaw, Jim Duggan, Jake the snake and the heartbreak kids all there at the same
3:26
on the same thing.
3:27
It was freaking awesome.
3:29
Put all those guys together.
3:30
Yeah.
3:31
There's some Mount Rushmore guys right there.
3:33
It was a good show.
3:34
Okay.
3:35
Very good.
3:36
Of course.
3:37
Hulk one beat the ultimate warrior.
3:38
Of course.
3:39
It was great.
3:40
Yeah.
3:41
Oh, man.
3:42
Did anybody like the ultimate warrior?
3:43
He was the worst.
3:44
That's apparently the thing like literally Vince McMahon hated this guy because the way
3:47
he was aggro all the time, that's how he was at all times.
3:52
And he was such a terrible actual rest.
3:54
He was like Goldberg in that like he's a terrible in ring talent.
3:59
Like no one likes to work with him because it's all just super, super rough.
4:03
But then they just demanded to be top of bill no matter what.
4:06
And they would always complain.
4:07
But yeah, apparently he is one of the least liked him and Goldberg or two of the least
4:11
liked people by people in the industry ever one of my best friends loved him.
4:16
So him and I always had this battle of who's better at Hulk or the ultimate warrior like
4:19
you are wrong.
4:20
Right.
4:21
Well, I had those wrestling buddies, you know, where it's like a pillow that had like so
4:24
I had the macho man Jake Snake.
4:26
And I think I definitely had the whole coke and I don't think I had the ultimate warrior
4:29
one though.
4:30
But I remember being excited when the ultimate warrior was the intercontinental champion
4:33
and Hulk was the heavyweight champion and they met together.
4:37
I think it's summer slam or something like that.
4:39
And then ultimate warrior got over on Hulk and all that kind of stuff.
4:41
And so yeah, that was like the golden air.
4:43
What were the stretch deals that they were.
4:46
Yeah.
4:47
I remember those.
4:48
Was it stretch arm?
4:49
Like the wrestling.
4:50
The Hulk.
4:51
I had the Hulk and they were awesome, but everybody had one, but nobody had one that wasn't broken.
4:55
Well, you know, everybody had one that had a foot off a hand off or something.
5:01
Nobody had a whole one after about a week of that thing.
5:03
All right.
5:04
Yeah.
5:05
We all snapped it.
5:06
All right.
5:07
So we're all wrestling nerds and says, that's a good lineup.
5:08
Okay.
5:09
What about you guys?
5:10
Lineups best lineups.
5:11
A little different course, I don't have to go aviation, but I went to an air show and
5:17
the Blue Angels, which are probably the best demonstration team.
5:21
And then a heritage flight with the P-51, an F-16 and the, I'm blinking now, F-4 course
5:32
air.
5:33
So kind of cool fly by and then later on the show, they had a B-2 fly by.
5:38
So it was a pretty cool, kind of cool lineup to go see.
5:41
What's the coolest plane you've been able to fly or be in?
5:43
I was literally going to ask the same thing.
5:46
Don't try to be cool.
5:47
Stop it.
5:48
Stop it.
5:49
Go.
5:50
I got to fly the T-38, which is like the jet trainer in pilot training.
5:55
That's pretty fun.
5:56
It's cool.
5:57
What is the coolest plane you've ever seen, whether you were in it or not, like, but
6:00
you saw it flying with your own eyes?
6:02
Oh, man.
6:04
I'm going to go with the F-22, just a pretty plane and it's pretty awesome.
6:10
All the stuff I can do.
6:11
I was in a stadium where a stealth bomber did a fly over and I was not ready for it.
6:16
And I literally, it like almost like knocked me down.
6:19
It was so loud and when you're not expecting something like that to hit, I just couldn't
6:23
believe like the whoosh that came off of, off of a stealth bomber.
6:28
So in Oklahoma, we have Altis Air Force Base and at Altis Air Force Base, I might get this
6:32
wrong, but they have, I think it's a C-38.
6:34
It's the giant, the largest planes in the Air Force, whatever those are.
6:39
They carry tanks.
6:40
C-5 or C-17.
6:41
Okay.
6:42
Maybe it was one of those two.
6:43
So the runway at the Altis Air Force Base, the highway is running directly perpendicular
6:50
to the runway.
6:51
So when these planes land, they land right over the hand, runway, I mean, my grandpa
6:54
were going turkey hunting and we stopped right at the end of the runway and they were doing
6:59
touching goes and whatever those planes were.
7:01
And it was at night.
7:02
Yeah.
7:03
So we stopped and they do touching goes.
7:04
And as they come over, you can't believe how quiet they are because the engines are
7:08
not going, flaps down, coming in to slow down, they get to the bottom, and then they open
7:12
it up, go full speed, the sound is deafening how wild those engines are.
7:17
Do you guys do touching goes in your planes?
7:19
Yeah.
7:20
It's not nearly as loud.
7:21
Okay.
7:22
So touching goes literally where you just, you land power down and then immediately power
7:25
back up.
7:26
Yeah.
7:27
Just to get practice landing.
7:28
That's the quickest way.
7:29
You know, you land safe.
7:30
All right.
7:31
Let's go again.
7:32
So is there like a military use for potentially something like that to where you would have
7:37
a plane that would land, but immediately take off, aside from, oh crap, we're taking
7:42
fire.
7:43
Got to go.
7:44
I'm sure there is, but I don't, we don't do it.
7:45
Okay.
7:46
We'll try it next time.
7:47
Don't tell anyone else in the plane.
7:48
Just freaking go for it.
7:49
All right.
7:50
Have you ever, have you ever buzzed the tower?
7:52
Please tell me you've both the tower at least once.
7:53
I can't say.
7:54
Come on.
7:55
Derek.
7:56
Come on.
7:57
That's what you want from your pilot is right, right?
7:59
Whenever you're taking on, he's like, Hey, you guys, I'm gonna try something new this
8:02
trip.
8:03
It's like, no, I don't want new.
8:05
I want predictable.
8:06
All right.
8:07
Line up.
8:08
Close us out here.
8:09
All right.
8:10
I would say mine was a gentleman in the road concert up in Guthrie was major.
8:15
Good lineup for me.
8:16
Um, it was Alabama shakes, Lumineers and then, uh, Mumford was it Mumford and son was, uh,
8:23
was the big one there.
8:24
And so like it wasn't just back to back, but that whole weekend there were two, two nights
8:29
or two full days of music and it was all in the genre that I was just really into at
8:34
the time.
8:35
And like, what, how lucky am I that they're doing this in Guthrie, Oklahoma of all places.
8:42
And we took a bunch of friends up there.
8:44
We had a great time and that was, that was a big one.
8:46
Well, and that was before Mumford went electric and basically became one of the worst bands
8:50
of all time because it's like, you're so unique and fun.
8:53
It's like, how about we just try to be a worst version of Coldplay now?
8:56
So congratulations.
8:57
They had a lot of stuff go on like right after that tour, um, some things fell apart.
9:02
I think there was one member that had a tumor, a brain tumor.
9:06
They kind of, I don't know what they all did, but they kind of went apart, tried to come
9:10
back together with a different sound and I don't know.
9:13
Yeah.
9:14
Not really my favorite.
9:15
I'd still go see them.
9:16
Well now there was something that you mentioned also off air about like, I don't know if it
9:19
was on your birthday, but you have like a, a lineup of things that if you can pull off
9:23
on your birthday, it's like the ultimate lineup.
9:26
Right.
9:27
So my birthday is November 21st that just coincides with deer season, duck season.
9:31
And so I have set it up to where I try to do the trifecta on my birthday.
9:36
So I try to set it up to where duck hunt in the morning.
9:39
That's a, that's a pretty, you know, given on my birthday.
9:42
And then fish in the afternoon at some point, whether either leaving the duck hole or going
9:48
back early before the deer stand and then trying to sit in a stand and deer hunt that
9:52
evening.
9:53
So if you get all three, that's the trifecta.
9:55
I have never, never actually hit all three.
9:58
The first two, they happen that, that third one, you just either have to be ready on that
10:04
day to take a dough, tag that day, or you just get lucky, but I've never gotten that
10:10
lucky on my birthday.
10:11
I think you're on to something.
10:12
Maybe we should do that like every day until we can pull off and trifecta.
10:17
Yeah.
10:18
Yeah.
10:19
Just keep trying.
10:20
Let's just remove all margin from our lives.
10:21
Just make our lives live through their worst day every day.
10:23
Yeah.
10:24
Literally both of you guys during lunch, you're like, huh, you need to get a compound bow.
10:27
You need to do a compound.
10:28
And then Adam's like, yeah, then you'll be able to hunt three and a half months out of
10:32
the year doing white towels.
10:33
Like guys, my wife was literally just here and you said none of those things in front
10:36
of her.
10:37
You cowards.
10:38
Cause that's the last thing I need is to be gone that much more.
10:40
But guys, we're going to dig into acts 15 again, this tremendous lineup.
10:44
This is where we get into the Jerusalem council.
10:47
And what we see at the beginning of acts 15, this is what Paul, this is what Paul's referring
10:53
to in Galatians two.
10:54
This is happening after what Paul talks about in Galatians two.
10:57
That is when Paul basically called Peter out to his face in the Jerusalem council.
11:03
Guys in a lot of ways, this was a similar moment for not only the gospel, but just Christianity
11:09
in general.
11:10
And so this is a very, very important thing that we're going to be going over in scripture.
11:13
So Russell, how about you start us off here with your new microphone, a Bible set up.
11:18
Let's see if it all works.
11:19
Let's read versus one through 11.
11:21
Okay.
11:22
But some, some of the men came down from Judea and we're teaching the brothers.
11:26
Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
11:30
And after Paul and Barnabas had no small, small dissension and debate with them, Paul and
11:35
Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the
11:39
elders about this question.
11:41
So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Venetia and Samaria describing
11:47
in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the believers.
11:52
When they had come to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and
11:55
the elders and they declared all that God had done with them, but some of the believers
11:59
who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, it is necessary for us to
12:04
circumcised them to order them to keep the law of Moses.
12:08
How far do you want me to go?
12:11
Go through 11.
12:13
The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.
12:16
And after that, there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, brothers,
12:23
you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles
12:27
should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
12:30
And God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as
12:35
he did to us and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts
12:39
by faith.
12:41
Now therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the
12:45
disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
12:49
But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as
12:54
they will.
12:55
So right there in verse 11, that's a gospel, but we believe that we will be saved through
13:00
the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will.
13:02
So man, there's even in this first part here, there's so much to discuss.
13:07
But I'm just struck by how very different Peter is than what he was in Galatians 2.
13:13
And so this is actually this section of scripture.
13:17
This is the last that we hear of Peter in scripture, at least chronologically, you know, Paul
13:22
takes over as the main character of Acts, basically from here, basically, you know, Jerusalem's
13:26
being left behind and Paul's pushing the gospel, you know, beyond Asia into Europe.
13:31
And you know, you can see Rome coming in on the horizon.
13:34
But if you go to Galatians 2 and this guys, this goes all the way back to the beginning
13:37
of the forging table.
13:38
That was the second forging table episode was Galatians 2.
13:40
And this is where Paul opposed Peter to his face because Peter had basically sided with
13:45
the Judaizers.
13:46
He was treating the Gentiles differently.
13:48
It was basically a very racist thing that he was doing.
13:51
And so we can see chronologically this council happens after that.
13:55
So Paul's rebuke worked.
13:57
And if we know anything about Peter, we know Peter can kind of be a knucklehead.
14:01
That's why I like Peter so much is because I understand him.
14:03
It's like you put the cart before the horse, you put your foot in your mouth constantly.
14:07
But it seems like he accepted the rebuke here, which I think is a great lesson for all of
14:12
us that you can make an enormous mistake and it doesn't an enormous mistake like this.
14:17
You can be wrong about something and you're not like disqualified from ministry and you
14:20
certainly don't have to dig your heels in and say that everyone else is wrong.
14:25
That's one thing that struck me here with the beginning here.
14:27
What about you guys?
14:28
It's similar to what we talked about.
14:31
What we talked about last week when we were talking about the pedophilia issue where you
14:33
and I had a disagreement and I thought I was wrong or I thought I was right.
14:37
I proved I was wrong.
14:40
When I think when you have a situation like that, it will goes back to what we talked
14:43
about last week with me and Joby where it's like I happened to be in the right mood that
14:46
day where I accepted his rebuke about how I was talking flippantly about large churches.
14:53
And I've been more precise in my language, right?
14:56
So I thought I was being precise.
14:57
I always think I'm being precise, but I was being imprecise.
15:00
And so it was good to have that pointed out.
15:02
And for anyone that's got a healthy ego or a healthy amount of ego or a cocky or is very
15:07
confident in their abilities, like you need guys in your life that are willing to put
15:11
those relational chips in the middle of the table because it could have tremendous impacts.
15:17
I mean, what happens at the Jerusalem Council of Peter's not there?
15:19
We don't know, right?
15:20
Because that's a parallel universe thing.
15:22
But what if Peter was their opposing Paul, like because we're about to see that James
15:27
brother, Jesus come on board, the Judaizers think James brother, Jesus is their guy is their
15:32
champion.
15:33
But what if it was Paul and Barnavus versus Peter and James, like how different is Christianity?
15:39
And again, we're not saying that this was all happening outside of God's purview or anything
15:42
like that.
15:43
But yeah, that's important thing to keep in mind for sure.
15:45
Yeah, you definitely see this, this motion towards unity between the two of them that
15:49
you, you see the underlining, he understands what side of Paul is on this.
15:54
He's just shared what had happened, he encouraged all these people about what happened to the
15:58
Gentiles.
15:59
And instead of waiting for Paul to give this robust argument, he steps up and, you know,
16:05
the assumption is under contemplation of prayer and like, this is something that they've probably
16:10
been talking about and trying to figure out, he steps up and says, I'm with him on this.
16:14
I believe this is where the Lord is directing us to go, which probably took a lot because
16:19
I mean, with any of us, these aren't guys, these are alpha type guys, like these are
16:22
guys that are the leaders and they put a bunch of them in a room, just like what Jesus did
16:28
with the disciples, put them all together and he was like, all right, y'all are going
16:31
to make this work, not for your own glory, but for my glory.
16:34
And so you see right here them saying, this is worth, this is worth our unity here and
16:39
it's worth us to be clear that we are together on this.
16:43
I think as well in verse nine, it's important to point out where Peter says, and he made
16:47
no distinction between us and then having cleanse their hearts by faith, we have to go back.
16:52
So the Judaizers, the circumcision party were like, yeah, yeah, Jesus, we're with you,
16:56
but you also need to become Jewish, right?
16:58
You need to become circumcised and you need to follow the laws and different things like
17:01
that.
17:02
And so Peter at this time in Galatia had started to distance or he would, they were an Antioch,
17:07
I believe, he started to distance himself from the Gentiles because they were not circumcised
17:12
and they didn't observe the Jewish laws and traditions.
17:16
And so the fact that he's gone from that to solidifying his position as no, there is
17:22
no distinction here.
17:24
And I, to be honest with you, I had missed that the, I had missed the timeline the first
17:29
time I read Acts 15 and I was like, Oh crap.
17:31
Like, cause then I was like, wait, when did Galatians to happen?
17:34
Did this happen after did Peter change his mind?
17:36
No, this is post changing of the mind.
17:38
And so like the no distinction part, I think is very important, especially for, for us
17:42
that have grown up in Oklahoma, or when you grow up in these places that are Christian
17:46
ease and there's just Christian sounding stuff everywhere, it can be easy to look at other
17:50
people that have grown up and, you know, less godly places, I guess you could say and be
17:54
like, Oh, well, there's a distinction between us or even within the church, we distinguish
17:58
between people who were kind of depraved when they got saved and people that were like really
18:02
depraved because it's like, well, this girl got saved, you know, at VBS when she was seven
18:08
and that girl was a whore and a prostitute and got saved when she was in her forties.
18:12
And we, we, we try to make a distinction between all this, but it's like, I'm pretty sure the
18:17
gospel applied the same.
18:19
And we think it's not fair, right?
18:21
Certainly not.
18:22
Right.
18:23
I had to live my life like this and then we do the same thing now.
18:25
That's not fair.
18:26
Yeah.
18:27
I mean, I don't know how I really struggle with that, actually, Derek, because, you know,
18:31
you hear about these people that leave these, lead these horrible lives and they get saved
18:35
on their death bed.
18:36
It's just like, and if it's, especially if they got to do your favorite flavor of sin,
18:41
and so maybe, maybe you just love alcohol, like alcohol just speaks to you where you have
18:44
to really kind of control it.
18:46
And then you hear about like someone that was just a crazy alcoholic, got to drink all
18:49
this, you know, crazy amounts of good booze over their life, and then they get saved
18:52
at the end.
18:53
It's like you got to party and you got the prize at the end of the rainbow.
18:56
Like, so yeah, it certainly affects me deeply.
18:59
I don't like it, but it does.
19:01
You said mentioning the, mentioning the timeline, missing the timeline the first time you read
19:05
through it.
19:06
When I read through this about the third or fourth time, I kept rereading verse five, and
19:10
I felt like I picked up on something.
19:11
It says, but some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed, I assume what that means
19:16
is they had believed in Jesus as their savior, right, their Pharisees.
19:20
And I'm also going out of limb and assuming they haven't believed for very long, right?
19:25
So they've, so Pharisees, they've believed, they haven't believed for very long.
19:29
They're the ones that get up and say it is necessary to circumcise them and direct them
19:33
to observe the law of Moses.
19:34
So what was interesting to me was that it's easy to fall back into what you knew, into
19:40
what you thought was right.
19:43
Even if you know that that shouldn't be the case.
19:46
My point being the Pharisees believed that the law was necessary for salvation.
19:51
The law is what they should do.
19:53
And now they've heard the truth.
19:55
They've heard Paul's preaching and they're newbie Christians.
19:59
And quickly it seems is seeming to me they're immediately going back to what they were wrong
20:04
about.
20:05
Right.
20:06
Does that make sense?
20:07
Well, it seems like they're running back to comfort and control.
20:08
Exactly.
20:09
And that's easy for us to do.
20:11
Right.
20:12
And so, but I think also, because I think we joke on the show and I've joked before about
20:15
the gospel plus.
20:16
So it's the gospel, but $7.99 and you get extra stuff and it's like we can't, it's like we
20:23
can't fathom the gospel being free.
20:26
Now, and this, this, I'm stopping this discussion short of election and short of, you know,
20:31
predestination, all that kind of stuff.
20:32
I'm stopping it short of there, but it's like, but surely we got to do something.
20:36
And I don't mean something being like, you need to accept it because I'm in, you know,
20:39
acceptance camp.
20:40
Like I don't, I don't think God is going to take me kicking and screaming to heaven.
20:43
I think he would certainly let me go to hell if I made that decision.
20:46
But like that's, that's the issue that I find there is like, we love to create structures
20:51
and rules and all these things, especially rules that are easy for us to follow.
20:55
Oh, yeah.
20:56
And so you'll, you'll have these pastors that like don't have problems with drink.
20:58
They don't have problems with horn around and how problems with that.
21:00
And so they love to talk about that, or they're not, you know, they don't have a, a bend towards
21:03
same sex attraction.
21:04
And so they love to put up the varsity sins, but they're also like 150 pounds overweight.
21:09
And so they've never ever preached about gluttony or self control or any of those types of things.
21:14
I think that all plays into this as well.
21:16
I think one thing to remember on this is like the reason for circumcision, this gets a little
21:21
bit gross, but it was literally the physical removal of flesh.
21:25
So the flesh being in all the Bible, the flesh is what we have that is our human nature.
21:31
And they were saying like, physically, you have to overcome this.
21:34
You have to overcome this.
21:36
You literally take and you cut flesh off.
21:39
And then the new, the new testament is basically saying, our, our cleansing doesn't come from
21:44
us doing the thing.
21:46
It comes from our faith in Christ alone.
21:48
And so you see the earlier church come right to that decision and say, well, this is a
21:52
very much we do this or we don't versus our faith in Christ has already made us clean.
21:59
And then back to your point about the unfair side of things.
22:02
And just what you said reminded me of Christ parable of the, the, the own or the head guy
22:10
that had everybody owe him some money and he took, let's say 20, you owe me 20 bucks,
22:15
you owe me 2000 bucks.
22:16
I come to you and I say, Hey, don't worry about having to pay me back.
22:19
I've got it covered.
22:20
You say, thanks.
22:21
I come to you.
22:22
And I say the same thing.
22:23
And he says, who is more grateful?
22:26
And they say, well, the guy that more debt was, was paid for.
22:29
And so like, that's the weird dichotomy that we always have to consider is when I feel
22:34
like that's not fair, that's probably because I'm living in something that is kingdom based
22:40
because the dichotomy of the, that's not fair is exactly where God takes us with our own
22:46
sin and our own salvation is that it's not fair.
22:48
It's not fair that I should get a partake in it either.
22:51
So exactly not worry about somebody else, but it is tough.
22:54
Well, there's also the parable of the people that were working in the vineyard and they
22:57
were paid the same amount, the people that came at the 11th hour versus the people that
23:01
started at the beginning.
23:02
And I hate that story so much because I can feel it.
23:05
I can feel me being there early and I'm one of the first people picked and then this jack
23:09
wagon gets in there like an hour before the end and gets the same amount.
23:12
There is a level of injustice that that we feel that is so unrighteous.
23:17
And so that's, that's the problem with us is like we're thinking of this and it was
23:20
in Isaiah where it's like, you know, my ways are not your ways.
23:23
It's where it's like, no, I should be paid more because I did more work.
23:26
It's like you're thinking in the economy of the world and I'm thinking of the economy
23:30
of the cosmos.
23:31
That by the way, I created and so it makes it a little different.
23:34
And Jesus set it up because all those stories he said, this is the kingdom of God.
23:40
Like he was trying to tell him like, hey, you're going to experience some of this because when
23:43
I'm gone, you're going to be living.
23:44
This is the kingdom of God.
23:45
This is going to be the kingdom work that you're going to be living in now.
23:48
So just be ready.
23:49
It's going to look a little different.
23:50
Yeah.
23:51
We should be rejoicing that the last minute that guy, right, you know, came in, you know,
23:55
you're exactly right because I remember so Oklahoma boy Mickey Manel, one of the great
24:01
baseball players of all time, probably great to switch it or ever.
24:03
I remember hearing about Mickey Manel being like, apparently wasn't a very good dude for
24:08
most of his life.
24:09
And I heard I don't know this to be the case, but I remember hearing this that he got saved
24:12
on his deathbed.
24:14
And I remember thinking this would have been, I probably heard this when I had only been
24:17
a Christian for a little while.
24:19
And I remember just feeling the inequity of that, but also feeling the loss of being like,
24:25
what if while he was Mickey Manel, the guy, one of the greatest, you know, baseball players
24:29
of all time, certainly one of the greatest Yankees of all time, what if he had been a
24:33
Christian this entire way, like how, how many people could he have reached and like he could
24:37
have become a preacher after.
24:38
And I kept putting it through my matrix of understanding of what I would have done.
24:43
If I was in control of Mickey Manel's life and it's like, okay, now I can look back, pause,
24:48
be a little bit more mature about it and be like, I'm pretty sure God got done.
24:51
He wanted to get done through Mickey Manel and in the timing that was appropriate according
24:55
to him.
24:56
So let's keep this going in Acts 15.
24:59
So Derek, if you will hit versus 12 through 21, so we're leaving Peter and we're getting
25:04
the next person up in the lineup.
25:07
And all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related
25:11
the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles after they finished
25:16
speaking.
25:17
They replied, brothers, listen to me, Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles
25:23
to take from them a people for his name.
25:27
And with this, the words of the prophets agree just as it is written, after this, I will
25:32
return and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen.
25:36
I will rebuild the ruins and I will restore it.
25:39
The remnant of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name
25:43
says the Lord who makes these things known from, known from a bold therefore my judgment
25:50
is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write
25:55
to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols and from sexual immorality and from
26:00
what has been strangled and from blood.
26:04
For from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him for
26:08
he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.
26:11
Okay, y'all may not have dug into this, but basically James is like, let's not complicate
26:16
this.
26:17
Let's kind of set up these four things.
26:19
And what he's not communicating is, Hey, forget about 10 commandments.
26:22
Forget about all this other stuff.
26:23
Just do these four things.
26:24
I don't get the sense that that is there.
26:25
But did y'all see any consternation from the word use of blood here?
26:31
Because whenever I was digging in, there were several different interpretations because
26:35
there's like, there's ethical morality, ritualistic morality, you see, you know, food that was
26:42
given to idols, sexual immorality.
26:45
That's Pornea.
26:46
That's the word we get for, you know, all kinds of sexual deviance to include homosexuality,
26:49
Carl Lance.
26:50
And then from what has been strangled, so that's, you know, animal worship, but I did
26:55
see other people talk about blood as in man shedding of another man's blood.
27:00
Whereas other places said, no, no, no, that's like the blood.
27:03
That's a dietary thing, like you don't eat anything with blood in it, like it needs to
27:05
be kosher or whatever.
27:06
Did y'all see anything there with the use of blood?
27:10
Online had seen with the dietary stuff.
27:12
Okay.
27:13
So you saw dietary.
27:14
Adam, did you see anything on that?
27:15
Russ?
27:16
No.
27:17
Okay.
27:18
I'll dig into that a little bit more later.
27:19
But I do find it interesting that what James is attempting to do again, this is James
27:24
who's considered to be the champion of the Judaizers, right?
27:26
So James is running the church in Jerusalem and they were not expecting this.
27:31
So this was a swerve, like this is, you know, your favorite politician getting up and basically
27:35
supporting the other side and, you know, giving a rally in support of the other ideologies
27:40
that the other party is espousing.
27:42
But he's like, we're making this, we're making this too difficult.
27:46
We need to just encourage them to do these things right here.
27:49
And that should be fine.
27:50
And again, I think it is important to point out that the sexual immorality that is described
27:54
here, when people say that, you know, homosexuality is not really discussing the biology.
27:57
Jesus never talked about the exact same word as described as what Jesus used as the same
28:02
word used here, which is described any sex outside of the covenantal sex inside of a
28:06
marriage between one man and one woman for life.
28:08
So lots of important things here.
28:10
But go ahead Adam.
28:11
I think I think maybe what Peter was saying to this particular audience wasn't landing.
28:15
And I think it wasn't landing because it says all the people kept silent and they were listening.
28:20
So it's like, okay, I don't really know what to, how to respond to what Peter said, Barnabas
28:24
and Paul, they start piping in, they doesn't tell us what Barnabas and Paul said.
28:29
But then here it tells us about James.
28:31
And I think God spoke through James to give the Jews in this setting exactly what they
28:36
needed to hear.
28:37
And of course, he quotes the Old Testament scripture, which they would have liked to have
28:41
heard.
28:42
And that kind of brought it all back together in their mind.
28:45
And that's what they needed in order to get there.
28:48
So one thing I saw is that they felt silent out of respect and reverent.
28:52
So perhaps it was out of confusion, perhaps it was out of respect, but again, going back
28:55
to thinking about this lineup and in the order, again, we think that there's an order in God
29:01
uses order.
29:02
Yeah.
29:03
Peter, who is the rock, who Jesus Dean would be the rock, you know, upon which they would
29:08
build the church.
29:09
Yeah.
29:10
Paul and Barnabas that are, you know, spreading, spreading the news of the gospel.
29:13
Yeah.
29:14
Paul, who was a anti-Christian terrorist who became, you know, the greatest Christian advocate,
29:18
maybe of all time.
29:19
And then you have James, the brother of Jesus, and as a bunch of people pointed out, what
29:23
would your brother have to do to prove to you that he were the savior of the world?
29:27
And for you, not only to, and the thing about James is this is what, you know, non-Christians
29:31
have to explain is why would James, the brother of Jesus, not worship Jesus while he was alive
29:38
and then worship him after he had died?
29:41
Because there are a lot of different explanations, but there are very few that are more satisfactory
29:45
than he saw his brother resurrected.
29:48
He saw him dead, put into a tomb, and then resurrected.
29:51
Right.
29:52
And so those are things that you have to think about as well as it pertains to this lineup.
29:57
Anything else on these first initial chats from the Jerusalem council?
30:01
All right, Adam, let's keep this momentum going.
30:04
I have no question.
30:05
Go on the, so whenever it talks about here as far as the blood and the animals strangled,
30:11
is that not so in the notes in 1 Corinthians, is that when Paul, they kind of go back on
30:18
some of this stuff to say, "Everything is permissible to eat, is that going to happen
30:21
later on?"
30:22
Because that's all one of the commentaries talked about how that there was some, people
30:25
tried to grab the sexual immorality and to say that that was also just an application
30:31
for that time to basically grow the church into the form that it needed to be later,
30:37
but that these were dropped off.
30:39
Now they weren't making that argument.
30:40
They were saying that other people make that argument because later on we see that things
30:45
are more open to be eaten, specifically the stuff that is dedicated to idols, that becomes
30:52
a conversation later on.
30:53
So what are your thoughts on how that plays out?
30:58
These things ended up being a couple of these things that they later on kind of corrected
31:02
versus a sexual immorality that they said like that, that one is definitely not situational.
31:08
So your point being that here they seem to be saying, don't eat meat with blood in it
31:14
and then later on they correct that.
31:16
And so if they're willing to do that, maybe they meant to correct sexual immorality and
31:20
so now it's okay for two men to be married, that kind of thing.
31:22
Yeah, that's not what the commentary was saying, that argument has been made.
31:27
And they were saying that these were very much those other two were specific towards
31:33
this thing.
31:34
And then like we talked about last week in the church, making some moves and saying,
31:39
"Okay, we're a little bit off on that, a little bit off on that.
31:41
Do we feel like that's one of these situations?"
31:43
I don't know, just something I was thinking through.
31:45
I think, are they in the vein of things being descriptive versus prescriptive?
31:50
Right.
31:51
Because there will be people that are like, "No, no, no.
31:52
This is being described in the Bible, but you have to look at the context of who is this
31:54
being said to?
31:56
Is this a message to human beings in perpetuity or is this a message to a specific group at
32:02
a specific time in history for a specific purpose?"
32:04
Well, and later on Paul specifically addresses all of these.
32:08
He specifically addresses that this food thing, that that is no more, that these people can
32:14
eat this stuff.
32:15
And he also specifically addresses that sexual immorality is still sexual immorality and
32:18
has no place in the church.
32:20
So I don't know, both of those things, it's almost like this to me, little moments like
32:26
this, where things are not just perfect at the early church.
32:30
There's not a rehearsal before this where they polished all this up and then put it in the
32:34
book and were like, "There's nothing they ever went on here.
32:37
These little things, again, with Paul and Barnabas having their dispute on bringing
32:44
and marking stuff, these little things to me almost show more of the truthfulness of
32:49
the Word.
32:50
That it lets you walk through how that early church dealt with this stuff and that there
32:53
were some complications and they had to work through what the Lord was having them do,
32:57
what the Spirit was having them do at that time."
32:59
Well, I think, and we'll get into this later on in the chapter, but it's like God can
33:03
multiply by dividing.
33:05
We can't really.
33:06
We're not really good at that, but there's division that leads to positives.
33:12
As I look at it in a modern context, because Catholics love Orthodox people, love to rail
33:15
and Protestants, it's like, there's 74,000 different types of Protestants, and so we're
33:21
telling you to follow this one church, the church, right?
33:24
So you're doing it in a bunch of different ways, but there are certain people that will
33:27
be reached in a church that has music that sounds a certain way, and then other people
33:32
that will be reaching a church that has a particular type of sermon quality that attracts
33:35
them to the word and different things, and so I think there are certainly different ways
33:38
to do that.
33:39
I'm not really sure to get back to the next answer to your question as to the timeline
33:43
and how that's applicable across the board, but let's go and keep this going here.
33:48
So Adam, if you will do 22 through 34, this is where we get into the letter that comes
33:53
on the back end of the Jerusalem Council.
33:55
"Then it seemed good to the apostles and to the elders with the whole church to choose
33:59
men from among them to send Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
34:03
Judas called Barsabas and Silas, leading men among the brethren, and they sent this letter
34:08
to them.
34:09
The apostles and the brethren who are elders to the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cecilia
34:14
who are from the Gentiles, greetings.
34:17
Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave, no instruction have disturbed
34:21
you with their words, unsettling your souls.
34:24
It seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our
34:30
beloved Barnabas and Paul.
34:33
Men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
34:36
Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things
34:41
by word of mouth.
34:43
For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than
34:47
these essentials, that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from
34:52
things strangled and from fornication.
34:55
If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well, farewell."
35:00
So when they were sent away, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation
35:04
together, they delivered the letter.
35:06
When they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.
35:10
Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brethren with
35:15
a lengthy message.
35:17
After they had spent some time there, they were sent away from the brethren in peace to
35:22
those who had sent them out.
35:24
But it seemed good to Silas to remain there.
35:26
Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and preaching with many others also the word
35:31
of the Lord.
35:32
So there's a few things here.
35:34
So we have in this letter that the Jerusalem church was basically making three points that
35:38
they are dissociating from the Judaizers, from the circumcision party.
35:41
So that's a big deal.
35:43
That the men they chose the sin, this is Judas and Silas that these men were not just being
35:46
sent to give the message they were being sent with authority.
35:49
These men had authority.
35:50
And then there was basically a unanimous decision to not burden the Gentiles with anything beyond
35:56
the four specifications, which were food offered idols, which is idolatry, sexual immorality,
36:01
which is Pornea.
36:02
Bloods, that's a dietary eating restriction.
36:04
And then the strangled animals, which is killing of animals and dietary restrictions as well.
36:08
One interesting thing about this section, and I'm like, I got to answer my pants for
36:11
us all to get to that last section that you just brought up with the separation that we
36:14
see a little bit of a schism.
36:16
But in 31, it says that when they had read it, this is the letter that we're talking about,
36:20
they rejoiced and they were rejoiced because of its encouragement.
36:24
You would think because of how contentious this council had to be, that the letter that
36:28
came on the back end, once it was delivered in red, that it would be met with some level
36:33
of consternation, some level of surprise, some level of like, okay, where did this come
36:37
from?
36:38
There's got to be a fight there to where it's like, no, we see from scripture that they
36:41
were rejoiced.
36:42
They were encouraged by the revelations that were delivered.
36:46
And I don't know why were they were they encouraged because, okay, go, I know, yeah, I mean, they
36:52
sent them there to find out if they were going to have to come back and get circumcised.
36:56
Okay.
36:57
They didn't care.
36:58
They don't care.
36:59
What was on that letter?
37:00
That's right.
37:01
As long as then Big Bold and said, no circumcision, they were like, we'll take it.
37:05
We'll take it.
37:06
We'll take it.
37:07
Oh, God.
37:08
I missed that entirely.
37:09
Okay.
37:10
They were so eager.
37:11
They didn't even read everything else.
37:12
They were just looking for the words.
37:13
Yeah.
37:14
Yeah.
37:15
Yeah.
37:16
Sure.
37:17
Okay.
37:18
Yeah.
37:19
That makes a whole lot more sense.
37:20
I thought I was making a very point that we were really going to dig into.
37:21
I know that it really needs to be digging or dug into much.
37:23
Probably more than all that circumcision was one thing.
37:26
These people also understood the Jewish people.
37:28
They realized how they lived.
37:29
I'm not sure, you know, I got the opportunity to go to Israel.
37:33
The devout Jews, they are so many things that they are doing so faithfully that there is
37:39
it would be overwhelming to think about trying to assimilate into that custom with so much
37:46
to learn, so much that you can mess up.
37:48
You know, just again, the word overwhelming was probably at the front of their mind thinking
37:54
we'll never live up to this.
37:56
Which again, is the whole reason why Christ was here for us is to not make us have to
38:01
live up to that.
38:02
We can actually be cleansed by His grace.
38:05
It's easy to focus on circumcision, but back to verse five, it just says, not only says
38:08
it is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses.
38:14
And then what is Peter said, Peter says a few verses later, now, this is Peter talking,
38:20
now therefore, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples
38:25
a yoke which neither of our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
38:30
He's not just talking about circumcision there, because every man in that room was circumcised.
38:35
Check, you know, they were able to do that.
38:38
They couldn't do everything else.
38:40
So that's what a lot of it was.
38:41
I think that's what obviously they're glad that they're not going to have flesh cut off
38:44
of their, you know, man parts.
38:47
You can say penis on this show, it is something like a man's podcast.
38:50
Penis is allowed.
38:51
Penis penis penis.
38:52
Everyone's penis.
38:53
To be fair to those early Christian converts from the Gentiles is that we assume that they
38:59
wouldn't have been faithful if that would have been the command, which has really like,
39:04
there's nothing in the scripture that tells us that there were those that were breaking
39:07
away and, and basically saying, if I got to do that, I'm not going to believe in Jesus
39:11
and not going to submit to his lordship of my life, because he died on the cross from
39:15
my sins.
39:16
Whereas in our days, it's the opposite.
39:18
You try to put something in, in a barrier and it's not so much being a barrier, but you,
39:23
you allow something to be taught to somebody that says, this is a part of it.
39:26
And they say, Oh, no, no, no, that's a, that's a barrier.
39:29
If that's a part of it, I'm not in this, whereas these people, there's nothing in the text that
39:33
says that there were, you know, 200 people that were ready to be Christians, if they
39:37
came back with this decision.
39:40
It was, they were, they were fully, it sounds like they were fully submitted to whatever
39:44
this decision was going to be, they were going to be on board because they, they had committed
39:48
to Jesus.
39:49
I think that's a good point because we see so many people now where I think we talked
39:54
about this last week, where it's like, okay, we're going to change the gospel message.
39:58
Maybe it was earlier, earlier this week, but we're going to change the gospel message
40:01
to make it more amenable to the current cultural climate.
40:05
All right.
40:06
So I have it on good authority, I know I take a lot of shots at Craig Rochelle on the show,
40:11
but he used to actually say things that were biblical about homosexuality.
40:15
But he has some, you know, some tech bros that are pretty good at this.
40:19
He's basically scrubbed the internet of all of his mentions, basically saying that homosexuality
40:24
is a sin.
40:25
He basically, like they're gone, go out there and try to find Craig Rochelle mentioning that
40:29
homosexuality is a sin, it's gone.
40:31
And I remember years ago, this was a new version was trying to get me to write another devotional
40:34
for their app, I remember asking them like, hey, what's the deal?
40:37
Like why does, why does Rochelle never talk about like these cultural issues, like homosexuality
40:41
and all that?
40:42
They were like, well, he sees a lot of the social issues as being needlessly divisive.
40:46
And so he doesn't want to do that because he doesn't want to provide, you know, a roadblock
40:50
or a stumbling block to someone that's accepting the gospel.
40:52
And I'm like, so what you're saying is is the Bible, though, the word of God is going
40:58
to be a stumbling block to somebody coming to the gospel.
41:02
And the other reason we know that the gospel is a thing is because of the, the Bible is
41:06
that I'm at the Bible app offices and this is the argument as to why he doesn't mention
41:11
it anymore.
41:12
And so to all these pastors that are trying to soften the message and they don't want
41:16
to talk about anything LGBTQ, they don't want to talk about anything about race and we'll
41:19
talk about anything and all these things, because it could be divisive or could be like
41:22
incendiary.
41:23
It's like, guys, what are you doing?
41:25
You're ignoring the very word that you're pretending to be espousing.
41:29
And like, supposedly that you would give your life for to defend.
41:33
It's just like it just seems to be pretty vapid and empty at the end of the day.
41:37
Well guys, let's get into this last section here.
41:40
So we'll back up one verse.
41:41
We'll start in 35.
41:43
So Russell, if you'll close us out here, we'll do 35 through the end of the chapter.
41:48
But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch teaching and preaching the word, the Lord, the word
41:54
of the Lord with many others also.
41:56
And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every
42:00
city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are.
42:03
Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought best not to
42:08
take with with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them
42:15
to the work.
42:17
And there arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other.
42:20
Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed.
42:26
Having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
42:30
And when he went through Syria and Cecilia strengthening the churches.
42:34
So I remember a while back, our pastor, Mark Hitchcock, he did a very involved sermon just
42:40
on these, these set of verses here.
42:41
And so there's, there's really a lot here.
42:43
I mean, Barnabas and Mark, their cousins.
42:44
And so there's that familial connection, but gosh, you can just see it.
42:48
And we saw this a couple of weeks back, like Mark bounced for whatever reason, and we don't
42:52
know why homesick hurts.
42:54
Like when we, we have no idea, but now for whatever reason, Mark is, he's ready to go
42:59
again.
43:00
And Paul's like, no, and, and I got to be honest, so, so this is a bit of a struggle
43:03
for me.
43:04
And then I want to toss it over to you guys.
43:05
Cause I think this is an important thing to, to describe.
43:08
I'm pretty cut and dry and I'm pretty black and white with people.
43:11
And so like, I don't give people a bunch of chances to hurt me.
43:14
I give them one.
43:15
And so when they do that in my head, I'm like, okay, there are eight billion people on this
43:19
planet.
43:20
Not all of them are going to be at my funeral and I don't have to be best friends with all
43:22
of them.
43:23
So when you deeply violate me or our trust that we had, it's like, that doesn't mean
43:28
that I'm going to kill you.
43:29
That doesn't mean that you're dead to me, but it doesn't mean that you're in a different
43:32
category for me now.
43:33
So it seems like Paul has a little bit of that to where it's like, Oh, I'm sorry.
43:38
We depended on you and you quit.
43:40
And now here we are.
43:41
Cause the, since we get from the scripture here and pastor Mark Hitchcock did a breakdown
43:45
of this, this was a persistent argument.
43:47
Like this wasn't like an afternoon.
43:49
This was a protracted argument that went down over a long period of time between these guys
43:54
being like, no, this quitter is not coming along with us.
43:57
Like, why can I, how can I rely on him now?
44:00
I've already seen the guy quit.
44:01
So I don't know how, how it is for you guys.
44:03
But for me, I'm like, yeah, I'm team Paul.
44:05
Like screw that guy.
44:06
He's a quitter.
44:07
I equated you to Paul.
44:08
I think I literally even wrote that down.
44:09
I was like, Paul is Kyle in this situation.
44:11
You've, uh, most of your listeners have probably heard your take on the three AM friend.
44:17
Same thing.
44:18
You're not that three AM friend.
44:19
You're not there.
44:20
You're not there when I needed you.
44:22
You know, not that you're, you're not dead to me, but I know I can't rely on you.
44:25
And I think that's what Paul's saying is like this guy was not here when I needed him and
44:30
he abandoned us for whatever reason it was, I can't rely on him anymore.
44:34
Yeah.
44:35
I think, uh, I think John Mark is, I think he left the first time right before they were
44:40
crossing the mountains where that was a big, long, hard journey.
44:43
Yeah.
44:44
And Paul probably sees ahead of like, I've got another long, hard journey coming forward.
44:48
I don't want to lose John halfway through again.
44:50
Yeah.
44:51
And it's, it's because of how important what they're, the work is.
44:55
And so you brought up the three AM friend thing.
44:57
So if I don't know if I was a moving a few appliances or something like that, I was moving
45:03
a fridge and a washer dryer or something like that.
45:06
And I invited all three of you guys to come over and only Derek and Russell show up and
45:10
you don't show up.
45:11
Adam, you're not dead to me because you didn't help me move a washer dryer.
45:14
Like you're, you're not dead to me.
45:15
But if it's that three AM friend situation and the guy just can't be bothered to inconvenience
45:20
himself to try to help you when you're walking through the valley of shadow of death.
45:24
Yeah.
45:25
Sorry.
45:26
Like you, you have been permanently recategorized and it's going to take heaven and earth being
45:31
moved for you to be put back in that category because it's like washer and dryer is one
45:36
scenario.
45:37
The three AM scenario is completely different and the level of importance of the task in
45:42
that moment is such that there are consequences if the task is not done.
45:46
And so in this moment, the spreading of the gospel, getting over that mountain to get
45:49
to that people group to tell them about Jesus, you can't have a guy that gets a little homesick
45:54
and then bounces.
45:55
It is amazing.
45:56
We don't have more information on this because this is, this is a big deal.
45:59
This is a big deal that all of a sudden we, we leave everything's good, flashing, great.
46:03
Hey, let's go check on everybody.
46:05
And now we have this huge disagreement and when you go back to what they're arguing about,
46:10
there's one verse and it just says, yeah, he left, you know, now we, we've got to figure
46:15
out what was that about.
46:16
And we have to remember who are we talking about.
46:17
Right.
46:18
March one has in the gospel of Mark.
46:20
This guy's not unimportant to us, but he doesn't address it in his own gospel and it's
46:24
not addressing any of Paul's letters, which is interesting.
46:27
I think, I think Mark Hitchcock and I might be putting words in his mouth.
46:30
I don't mean to, but I think when he was preaching on this, I think one of the things that he
46:34
said was a possibility is that I think it was presumed that Mark might have been wealthy
46:39
and maybe he hadn't gone through hard things and difficult things in his life.
46:44
He didn't have calluses on his hands and he didn't want to go do something that was difficult
46:47
and hard.
46:48
And that, that would sort of fit and make sense.
46:51
I'm not saying that that's exactly what it was, but that seems to fit that if Paul's like,
46:55
this guy, I can't rely on him.
46:57
I can't rely on him because he's not willing to do, to do the hard work.
47:00
Well, because I have heard people describe the section of scripture as like, Oh, this
47:04
was just a personnel disagreement.
47:05
Okay.
47:06
Well, when a head coach and owner and a GM all have a different idea who the point guard
47:11
for the team should be, that's a personnel disagreement.
47:14
Okay.
47:15
And they all, you know, the head coach can threaten, okay, if you don't put, give me my
47:18
point guard, I'm quitting.
47:20
The GM can be like, Hey, if you don't put the right guy in there, I'm going to trade
47:23
him Billy Beanstile.
47:25
Or in the owner can be like, Hey, I'm the one that's writing the checks that we'll do what
47:28
I want to do.
47:29
This is so much more than that.
47:31
This is so unbelievably more than that.
47:32
Go ahead.
47:33
I take it a little bit, I'll take it a little bit different in that if you, if you look
47:37
at what this is doing, like the idea that believers don't always agree on everything.
47:44
So for one, if we see what Paul didn't do, he didn't discredit the ministry that Barnabas
47:49
and Mark were going to go do, it just says that they were sent out and you got to think
47:52
Luke is writing this.
47:53
So like, if he wanted to add some verbiage in there and be like, Hey, Luke, make sure
47:57
and put that we said that like they're no longer a part of team, team Jesus, you know, their
48:02
sub Jesus or whatever, like he didn't do that.
48:05
He just said that they separated.
48:06
So the idea that there can be disagreements and you can, you can both decide to go your
48:11
separate ways with your ministries and say, Hey, I'm going to go this route.
48:15
You're going to go that route.
48:16
And we don't have to tell everybody about the nitty gritty of it.
48:20
We can just tell people there was a, there, there was some dissension and we decided to
48:24
go a different way is I do think it is interesting.
48:27
So I read some stuff later on, whenever he's talking to Timothy and I believe this is the
48:32
name Mark.
48:33
At one point, Paul says to Timothy, he says, and brain Mark with you.
48:37
He is of use to me.
48:39
And so that scholars have basically said like through their ministry, whatever had happened
48:44
between him and Mark, maybe Paul didn't want him there because he felt like he wanted
48:48
to keep, keep kind of the championship team together.
48:51
The ones that had been through it, not have to like reestablish rapport.
48:55
Maybe that was it.
48:56
Maybe there was a disagreement about why Mark left, but the idea that later on he was able
49:00
to restore Mark and to kind of give him a little bit of a bump and be like, Hey, that
49:05
Mark guy bringing him along to, I found out he's pretty useful to me.
49:10
Go ahead and bring him kind of brings this back together to show they had a disagreement
49:14
that there was a high level of unity and a high level of respect.
49:18
And they didn't discourage or discredit each other's ministry.
49:21
He just let them go and said, we don't need to over explain this.
49:24
Have you guys seen the HBO series, Band of Brothers obviously, I see one of the episodes
49:29
is called the replacements.
49:31
And one of the things in that was there's all of these two Coemmen who trained together,
49:36
worked together, been through all of these horrible things together.
49:39
And the whole episode is about these replacements coming in who haven't had any of those experiences.
49:43
They haven't done any of those things.
49:44
They haven't been in the mud, haven't carried the bodies, haven't done any of those difficult
49:48
things.
49:49
And it's all about how those guys just die and get killed.
49:52
And they're not part of the team and they're not there.
49:54
What you just said just a second ago kind of resonated of like, Mark, you weren't there
49:58
when we almost got stoned, you weren't there when I did get stoned, you weren't there when
50:02
they ran me out of town, you're not, you can't, we can't take you back to these places because
50:07
you didn't experience all of those things.
50:08
It could have been just like a nothing against you, but I don't have time to teach you all
50:12
the stuff that I don't have a pamphlet for to teach you that you had to be there to know.
50:16
He might have said some really dumb stuff that would have screwed everything up.
50:20
Right.
50:21
Because they've already made those mistakes.
50:22
They've already been through all that.
50:23
And he's like, I just don't have time to teach newbie.
50:25
Hey, even goes back to the greatest documentary of all time bar none, the last dance about
50:30
Michael Jordan, the in the Bulls and different things like that.
50:33
This was, you know, after Jordan's come back and he's about to get another three Pete,
50:37
but he was talking about some guys that came on the team.
50:40
So I think this would have been Kook coach and Steve Kerr and things like that.
50:43
And how these guys were coming into play for the Bulls and these guys didn't have playoff
50:48
experience.
50:49
They had never been in big games.
50:50
They never done all that.
50:51
And it led to a lot of issues and, you know, very famously, Michael Jordan punched Steve
50:55
Kerr in a practice and things like that.
50:57
And, you know, that kind of led to really coalescing the team together.
51:00
But it's kind of one of those things that's like you didn't go through the crap with us.
51:04
Like, and so you have to, you almost have to be hazed a little bit.
51:11
Another example, I'm just trying to give enough examples for guys that are maybe kind of struggling
51:13
with this overall concept.
51:14
So, you know, Metallica is a band that, you know, Cliff Burton, their original basis.
51:19
They were, there was a big bus accident and Cliff was killed.
51:22
And so this was like the basis, like of the original lineup, everyone's favorite lineup
51:26
of Metallica, blah, blah.
51:27
So they bring in a new basis named James Neustad and they almost killed this guy.
51:31
Like the other three members of the band, James Curtain and Lars, they literally almost
51:35
killed this guy.
51:36
The very next album that they recorded was a Justice for All.
51:39
The base on that album, I defy you to find the base lines on that album because every
51:44
time they would go into the studio, they would turn his base down a little more and turn it
51:48
down a little more and turn it down a little bit a little more because he wasn't Cliff.
51:51
Like he was just a guy that they had to tour with.
51:54
And so there's, there's, that's a natural thing.
51:57
I feel like with a lot of guys, especially if you've done things together, this could
52:00
be high school football or this could be warfare to where it's like, you have not done what
52:04
we've done.
52:05
You don't deserve to do this because I can't trust that you're going to be here when the
52:08
time comes.
52:09
It's what Jordan Peterson talks about with guys on construction crews, how they immediately
52:13
start razzing each other because if you razz a guy and he gives it back a little bit and
52:17
all that, you know, okay, I can kind of rely on that guy.
52:20
But if you razz a guy, give him a nickname and he gets all offended and goes and tells
52:23
the foreman and does all those types of things, it's like, you know something about guy in
52:27
that, in that moment to where he's in a crack under pressure, I can't rely on this fool.
52:31
Yeah.
52:32
And Paul didn't beat around the bush.
52:33
So I mean, like this obviously wasn't a salvation type thing.
52:36
Like if anybody would have called anything out that was like discrediting and it would
52:40
have been Paul.
52:42
You would think so for sure.
52:43
But I mean, this is what I mentioned earlier.
52:45
This is God multiplying through dividing.
52:46
Right.
52:47
And one thing that Mark Hitchcock did point out whenever he did a sermon on this, you have
52:51
verse 40, but Paul chose Silas and departed having been commended by the brothers to the
52:56
grace of the Lord.
52:58
So the church's commendation of Paul implies that Paul was right and not Barnabas here.
53:05
And also that, you know, Paul chose the importance of the work while Barnabas chose the importance
53:10
of the relationship, like, you know, keeping his relationship with, with Mark his cousin.
53:16
And you know, that that's an important dynamic to this as well, to where doesn't it make
53:20
sense that before these men were ever born, that God would put inside Paul, this tremendous
53:26
drive for doing the work correctly.
53:29
And then put in Barnabas, this tremendous drive to do relationships correctly.
53:33
This would lead to them separating off.
53:35
And then you're doubling efforts now in different parts of the world in communities that might
53:39
need the opposite person's personality, right?
53:43
Like this community needed Paul and his crew and this community needed Barnabas and his
53:47
crew.
53:48
Again, I'm, I'm kind of, you know, being a little bit poetic or providing some poetic
53:52
license here.
53:53
But I think that that's important.
53:54
I think that's right.
53:55
Yeah.
53:56
Anything else on acts 15 before we put a bow on it and get out of here without objection,
54:02
objection, consent has been heard.
54:04
All right, guys, come back here next week, having read all the way through the end of
54:07
acts 16 because we're going to be discussing acts 16 next week.
54:11
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
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