Transcription

Chris
So, Jeff, today we’re talking about Jesus raising people from the dead. And so I have a question. If somebody had that ability today, wouldn’t the world just continue to stay overpopulated even more?

Jeff
So because death is how we weed out the gene pool, is that what you’re saying? Chris
Well everybody would pay this guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Right.

Chris
Girl who ever had the power? Yeah, yeah yeah. Right. And the whole like nobody would really die. Well, you.

Jeff
Know, so this was a rare occurrence even in Jesus ministry. He didn’t raise everybody from the right.

Chris
He did raise himself. That’s true. Well, actually, was it God who raised Jesus?

Jeff
Well, he’s.

Chris
The above God. All the above. Yeah, but.

Jeff
He said his father did, so. Yeah, yeah. Cool. So, hey, really good question. And he’s Chris and I’m Jeff and we’re the Bible guys. Okay, Chris. So we have a new segment today. Yeah. And this is I can’t tell you how excited I am about this, this segment. It’s going to make me feel so loved when we do this. Chris
Wait a minute. What if I get them all wrong? Well, because the segment, by the way.

Jeff
Is how well do you know.

Chris
That? How well do I know you and you on the spot? You’ve not even thought of these questions. No, no. You literally found out two seconds ago. Yes. You have to come up with five things. But now I’m.

Jeff
Super excited about it.

Chris
That I may or may not know about you.

Jeff
This gives you an opportunity to prove that you love me.

Chris
Oh, that’s that’s it. I have to know things in order to love you.

Jeff
Okay, fine. Okay. Uh, what’s the, uh. Let me see. I’ll ask an easy one first. Uh, how old am I?

Chris
Oh, you know what? That’s so funny. So? So people who don’t know how old you are don’t love you.

Jeff
No, no they don’t.

Chris
You are.

Jeff
Just just. If you don’t, you are.

Chris
You are 52.

Jeff
I am 52. Yes, but substantially younger than you.

Chris
At least by six weeks.

Jeff
Six weeks. That is true. You’re six weeks to me. Yeah, it is true. Okay. Uh, respect your elders. Let me see where. Where? Yeah. Where was I born?

Chris
Alba, Michigan.

Jeff
Lapeer, Michigan. But that’s Elba is in Lapeer. Yeah, yeah.

Chris
Okay. Well, wait a minute.

Jeff
I was born in the city of Lapeer.

Chris
Oh, but I.

Jeff
Grew up in Elba.

Chris
Okay, so Elba is what?

Jeff
Explain that. Elba is like a little. It’s a crossroad in the middle. It’s a township. Okay. But it it has like a barely a town. There’s a bank, a gas station and a liquor store, and now a Dollar General.

Chris
Wow.

Chris
That’s it. Okay. All right.

Jeff
Remember when we got our blinking light and our stop sign? It was a big deal. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh. Very good. But, hey, uh, Elba is in Lapeer, so we’re going to give you that one. Yes. Uh, let me see. I have another one. Uh, what’s my favorite kind of food?

Chris
Uh, protein?

Jeff
Yes.

Jeff
Prepared. How?

Chris
By the grill.

Jeff
On the grill?

Chris
That’s right on the grill.

Jeff
See? You love me.

Chris
I do love you so much. Love happening.

Jeff
Uh uh, let me see. What’s what’s another one? Um uh uh. Man, these are hard. What’s. What’s my favorite color? You know.

Chris
Oh, geez. Uh, I don’t know, but but I’m going to say.

Jeff
Blue. There you go. Yes, well, as evidenced by the fact that I have, like, 95 blue shirts, right?

Chris
Yeah. Well, that’s why I guessed it.

Jeff
Okay. And then, uh, last one, um. Uh. What’s my least favorite state in the world?

Chris
Oh, that’s pretty good. Yeah, in the world.

Jeff
In the in the world. My least favorite place on the planet.

Chris
Oh my word.

Jeff
It’s the same Chris. It’s it’s the same.

Chris
India.

Jeff
No.

Jeff
Now you’re projecting, I think.

Chris
Oh, wait a minute. You said. You said you mean Ohio.

Jeff
I do mean Ohio.

Chris
Okay. All right. Speaker D
I’m a Michigan fan, so we hate Ohio.

Chris
Right? Right? Right. Okay. I was literally saying I was trying to say, like, where don’t you like to travel to? No, no. And India is a hard is a hard trip.

Jeff
India is. India can be a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris
So that’s why I just by the way, if anybody’s listening from India, I love India. I’m so sorry.

Jeff
Absolutely.

Chris
I now I feel really bad.

Jeff
We have we have listeners from Ohio too, but we’re not sorry.

Chris
That’s so funny.

Chris
By the way, I’m from Ohio. Yeah. That’s right for those who don’t know.

Jeff
But you got to Michigan as soon as you could.

Chris
Uh. Mhm.

Jeff
Right. Yeah. Well yeah.

Chris
It took me a little while. Jeff
Yes it did. Well not everybody comes to the light quickly. Right. So the Lord has to do special work.

Jeff
Well there you go.

Chris
Did you you.

Jeff
Were I’m going to give.

Jeff
You a half a point there because you started going to Ohio until I said my favorite state in the world. Yes. And then you, because I could see you went, oh that’s easy right? Yeah. And then you changed.

Chris
Yeah. That’s true. I was going to say Ohio and you said the world. And I thought, well, there’s has to be a reason why. He said.

Jeff
Yeah, but Ohio is my least favorite place in the world.

Jeff
So I’ve been all over the planet in Ohio. No, actually, you know what? Ohio is a beautiful place. My wife and I, we’ve done a couple of vacations there, and it’s a pretty place there. It has pretty places. Let me say that.

Chris
Yeah. It does.

Jeff
Hocking Hills along Lake Erie. As long as the lake’s not burning. Youngstown. Youngstown? Yeah. Okay, well, there you go, man. See how much I just feel so loved. Chris, thank you so much.

Chris
That’s great.

Jeff
Well, uh, we should probably get on with this. Hey, guys, before we get to the Bible reading part of the conversation today, would you do us a favor? If you’re watching on YouTube, would you subscribe on YouTube? Follow us on YouTube. It helps us so much when you do it and then give us a thumbs up. If you have a thumbs down, then I’m not talking to you. Forget about it, but give us a thumbs up if you like it. Leave a comment and all those things help the algorithms get the message out further. Thanks so much! We’re going to read Matthew eight verses five through 13, and then again Luke chapter seven one through 17.

Chris
And if you’re just joining us, it’s because a lot of times in the four Gospels in the Bible, they record the same incident, but with different details in a slightly different angle at times. That’s right. So this is the same story, same instance as recorded in two of the four Gospels.

Jeff
So in Matthew chapter five it says, When Jesus returned to Capernaum, member he left Capernaum. He said, I need to go, even though everybody wanted him to stay. He said, I got to go. Well, now he returns back to Capernaum. A Roman officer came and pleaded with him, Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain. Jesus said, I’ll come and heal him. But the officer said, Lord, I’m not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. I know this because I’m under authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say go, and they go, or come and they come. And if I say to my slaves, do this, they do it. When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel. And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world, from east and West, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven. But many Israelites, those from whom the kingdom was prepared. Will be thrown into outer darkness, where they’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And then Jesus said to the Roman officer, go back home because you believed it has happened. And the young servant was healed that same hour. Pretty neat.

Chris
Yeah, for sure.

Jeff
So Luke tells a similar story, Luke chapter seven, verse one. He says, when Jesus had finished saying all this to the people, he returned to Capernaum. At that time, the highly valued slave of a Roman officer was sick and near death. When the officer heard about Jesus, he sent some respected Jewish elders to ask him to come and heal his slave. And so they earnestly begged Jesus to help the man. If anyone deserves your help, he does, they said, for he loves the Jewish people and even built a synagogue for us. So Jesus went with them. But just before they arrived at the house, the officer sent some friends and said, Lord, don’t trouble yourself by coming to my home, for I’m not worthy of such an honor. I’m not even worthy to come and meet you. Just say the word from where you are in my servant will be healed. I know this because I’m under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say go, and they go or come and they come. And if I say to my slaves, do this, they do it. When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. And turning to the crowd that was following him, he said, I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel. And when the officer’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed. And then we’ll add another story on to that. Verses 11 through 17 in Luke chapter seven says. Soon afterward, Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate, and the young man, the young man who had died, was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. Jeff
When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. Don’t cry, he said. And then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. Young man, he said, I tell you, get up. And then the young dead boy sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. Great fear swept the crowd, and they praised God, saying, A mighty prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his people today. And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and through the surrounding countryside. Woo what.

Chris
Right. You know hat I love that stands out about this story? This, uh, raising of the dead is that it says that Jesus had overwhelming compassion. His heart overflowed with compassion. Yeah, yeah, that is just amazing. I mean, obviously, God knows his children and God knows all of us, and he has omnipotence, right? Right. So so he knows all things. Uh, but, you know, Jesus was also 100% human. So my mind always goes to, you know, did he walk around, uh, just knowing everything, or did he? Because we know at times he, he chose to, uh, not embrace a lot of his, uh, well.

Jeff
There were several things he said. Only my father in heaven knows.

Chris
Right? That’s right.

Jeff
Even though he was God in perfect fellowship with him. Right?

Chris
Yeah. So. So my mind always goes to trying to understand that, which, of course, I don’t think we ever will. Right. But but you know, did he did he meet her for the first time, being human and not embracing that part of himself or, you know, either way, it says that he met her and he’s, you know, it’s overflowed with compassion. And I thought, man, that is just amazing, because it could have been that he met her for the very first time, found out her situation, and immediately had this overwhelming compassion. Yeah.

Jeff
You know, this is one of those I think that that compassion. It’s funny, we’re jumping to that first because that’s the thing that jumped off the the thing to me, we want to get back to this authority Jesus has. Right, which is for sure. But with her, this is one of those things, I think, that really highlights his humanity, quite honestly, even though he’s raising a person from the dead. Um, so Jesus, the Bible says without Jesus nothing was created, that he is the word that created everything. Yeah, right. It’s mentioned in John. It’s mentioned in Colossians.

Chris
Yeah, Jeff
he is the creator. Nothing exists without him, which means life. He created life, and all of humanity was made to live forever. We were not made to die. Death was a curse and death is is horrific. I believe death is horrific even to God, right? So he leaves the perfections of heaven and comes into this place of death. And we have as humans, we have this function in our brain. Uh, it’s called the reticular activating system. And what it does is it shuts down all of the extra things because there’s millions of inputs, the temperature of the room, the fact that little breeze blew through what color is, is in all of your peripheral vision, all those things the, the, all the, the dozens and dozens of sounds, all the the things. And our brains block out most of it. Otherwise you’d go crazy, right? You’d go crazy trying to process it. And so your brain blocks out most of the stressors. And then your design. This reticular activating activator system is designed to look for surprising things, pleasing things, dangerous things and attractive things. Right. Uh, things for procreation. Those are the four and the things that. Keep you alive. So these five things that were designed to look for and all the rest we have to block out. So can you imagine being a creator of the universe, able to process everything all the time? Who comes down to this planet and everything he engages with is dying. While the author of life.

Chris
I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of that before.

Jeff
The author of Life is Walking Among the Dead. Right. That’s what he’s doing all the time. And so as a human that reticular activating system have had to been working, otherwise it would be nonstop perpetual grief. But then he comes up to this widow woman, which, by the way, his mom’s a widow probably by this point. And he sees this coffin with this dead boy in it. And at that point, he has great compassion. Yeah. Right. And so he was just overwhelmed by this death. And he’s like, and this is the first time he goes, nope, I’m not going to tolerate that. Yeah. And he heals that little boy. Yeah. And that beautiful.

Chris
Oh it’s amazing. Yeah. And then the.

Jeff
Author of Life Walking Among the dead all the time.

Jeff
Yeah. It’s so hard.

Chris
I’m not sure I’ve ever had that thought. Yeah. Uh, now I have had the thought of thinking about, uh, you know, how God thinks about death. But Jesus walking around with that, uh, perspective all the time because.

Jeff
He wasn’t under the curse.

Jeff
Yeah, but he lived in it, which is unbelievable.

Chris
So my mind always goes to the movies. Yeah. Remember at the end of The Matrix one, when when everything became, uh, green numbers? Yeah, yeah. And he walks around just, uh, you know, seeing the world completely, radically different than anybody. Yeah. Right. Right, right. In the entire film at that point. Right. Uh, you know, that’s that’s, uh, that’s amazing. That’s a that’s a.

Jeff
Wow. So, so for him at this, this moment, I think he probably projected his mom to this lady. And then the consequence of this woman losing her young son, you know, she’s a widow. The difficulty of a woman without a husband is in our culture today in the West, almost incomprehensible. But a widow without a son, she was she was destined to be destitute, and it was going to radically shorten her life.

Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
That’s right. Right.

Chris
That’s right. Because. Because the son’s responsibility is to step up and right and take care of her. And yeah, whereas today there’s no written, you know, or accepted social code that happens that way. Although most, you know, most kids take care of their mom. But but back then it was it was just accepted that that is exactly what you would do, right? Yeah.

Jeff
Yeah. So I love that. Anyways, that that was the thing that just jumps out. I do love let’s let’s jump back to this centurion guy, this Roman officer. Yeah, he totally understands how authority works. And he recognized it in Jesus, which is super cool. Um, I love the parallels. You know, whenever you’re reading the same story in two different passages, I always look for what’s different.

Chris
Right?

Jeff
And the thing that was different is in Luke, Luke says that the officer sent some people to go tell Jesus and then sent more to say, you know what? I’m not even worthy to have you come to my house. Just just speak the word and he’ll be healed. And Jesus said, dude, talking about faith, right? So this guy wasn’t a guy looking for a lucky charm. Some people, they looked at Jesus like a, you know, like we would look at a lucky rabbit’s foot or, you know, the lady reach out and just touch the hem of his garment like he was a magic item. Right? And this guy wasn’t looking at Jesus as a magic item or a lucky charm.

Chris
Well, you already totem.

Chris
You already know he’s a good man because he cares about a slave. Yeah, yeah, right. And and by the way, a slave doesn’t have to mean, uh, you know what? We can.

Jeff
Be an indentured servant. Mostly. That’s Roman empire.

Chris
That’s right.

Chris
So. So our minds go to chains and. Yeah, yeah, you know, the horrific, uh, atrocities. But but, yeah, it could be somebody who just working to pay off debt. Yeah. Uh, that’s that’s what that’s most of the time, what it really refers to.

Jeff
Yeah. So the Romans had a lot of just what? So, you know, the American slavery system. And we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but the American Chantel slavery system, humans owning other humans, uh, that existed in the Roman Empire but was out on the edges and not really the mainstream as much. It was more that instead of going to debtors prison, you would be sold to pay off the debt you didn’t pay. So there was no such thing as bankruptcy, right? So you’d be or or they would sell your children. And while, you know, we would say, wow, that’s a very dehumanizing thing. It’s just the system they had at the time. But this, this servant may or may not have been a lifetime slave. It more than likely was. He had a period of time that he was sold to this Roman centurion. Yeah.

Chris
And and obviously the Roman centurion, uh, uh, risked much by traveling far and and having massive concern and, you know, just going out of his way to make sure that his, you know, companion, I would look at it look more like a companion, right? Yeah. Uh, was was, uh, healed. And by the way, uh, I love this, uh, note in the New Living Translation, um, life application Bible, it says this. This passage marks a turning point in Luke’s account of Jesus’s ministry. Up to this point, he had dealt almost exclusively with the Jews, where he began to, uh. But here he began to include the Gentiles. Notice the main characters are in this short drama the Jewish elders, a Roman officer, uh, an officer, slave people of different racial and religious backgrounds, and vastly different standings on on the social ladder. Jesus broke through all those barriers straight through to the issue of faith. The gospel travels well across ethnic, racial, national, and religious barriers. Are you willing to work through them yourself? Jesus was no respecter of social divisions, and we should follow his example. Reach out to those and then it just gives us this little charge. And yeah, it’s very cool. Yeah.

Jeff
Yeah. Uh, so it was great because the centurion has a good reputation among the Jews in an area where the Jews felt like the the Romans were oppressive. Right, right. But they liked him, and he’d actually even built them a synagogue. So they liked this guy. That’s interesting. There’s a cross-cultural thing. And then the fact that a powerful man, a man who was in charge of over 100 Roman soldiers, had concern for a servant. Right. And then Jesus, not being impressed by any of it, just heals people out of compassion. He goes and heals this servant kid. He heals. He heals. Uh, or this guy, he heals this little boy. Um, you know, no respecter of persons. We should be like that, right?

Chris
So it has to be mentioned that you got to believe that there are, you know, religious leaders like elders or Pharisees or people who are, you know, in the crowd because it says a diverse, you know, group. And Jesus says, I have not seen such faith. In all of Israel, right? He’s saying this pagan Gentile who does not go to the temple, he has he’s not followed the laws of Moses. He has grown up. And they would call him lawless. Yeah.

Jeff
Right. Right.

Chris
Lawless, completely lawless. And he says he has more faith, uh, than anybody else. So there’s a lot, you know, there’s a lot here. Because number one, you know, it just shows you that God’s, uh, system doesn’t go by age, right? It doesn’t go by rank, right? It goes by faith, right. Which, by the way, is a reminder of remember when, um, uh, God in the Old Testament when God called Samuel. And here’s this young boy who’s hearing God and and it was actually spoken against Eli, who’s the old high priest. And, uh, which just goes to show you it’s not by age or rank. It’s by faith. Right. Which is what Samuel had at the time. Uh, and, uh, but anyway, the bottom line is, is, uh, so that’s a statement about God’s ranking system by faith. But then also it’s a statement about faith itself. Right? Right. So Jesus isn’t talking about religiosity, right? Jesus is talking about the faith that this Roman centurion had in him as a messiah, as a Christ, as a as one who had authority to do such things. And, uh, you know, Hebrews 11 tells us, right. Faith is the evidence of things unseen, right? Yeah.

Jeff
I don’t think I finished that statement or the concept earlier when I was talking about, um, you know, the lady touching his garment or so many people looked at Jesus like a good luck charm.

Chris
Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
And he didn’t. He. And this is why his faith was so great. Mm. Was a lot of times. Humans naturally look for a thing that represents some kind of magical or spiritual power.

Chris
Sure. Which is why we have statues.

Jeff
Yeah, I’ve been I’ve been in cabs before where they had Shivas or they had Krishnas or they had. Yeah, Madonnas or they had Christophers or they had you can just go down the line all these things. And when every time I’m in a car like, oh, what is that? They say, oh, it’s for good luck. Whether it’s a Christian symbol or a or a pagan symbol, it’s always it’s good luck. I just was in Togo and Benin. That’s the the capital. Those two countries are the capital of voodoo.

Chris
Literally a couple of days ago.

Jeff
And yeah. And I just got back yesterday and the, uh, every village we would go into and have idols and they had these fetishes that represent demonic power. And they believed that those things that they owned were the lucky thing, or the evil thing or the powerful thing that the power resided in, that that a demon would come in and, and project power. Um, so whether you’re using, whether you’re praying to a statue in a church or you’re praying to an idol on your dashboard, or you’re using some fetish to generate demonic power, people naturally gravitate towards things. And this guy went to the person just to understand how much more powerful the person of Jesus is. I don’t need a thing to provide. I don’t need some kind of special oil. I don’t need some kind of prayer hankie. I don’t need some little idol on my dashboard. What I need is Jesus. And this guy recognized that beyond anybody else in Israel at the time. And that’s why Jesus said, nobody has greater faith than this dude.

Chris
Yeah, and by the way, that translates for us in a lot of ways. I’m sure that you’ve had people come up and say, hey, I bought a necklace for my loved one. Would you bless it?

Jeff
Right, right, right, right.

Chris
And really, their all of their intentions are really well placed, right?

Jeff
Would you put more good luck into it.

Chris
Yes, yes. Bring.

Jeff
Or would you bring God’s power into this thing.

Chris
Or you know, or just just God’s blessings with it or whatever. Sure. Uh, you know, because because that’s going to be around their neck or whatever it is a ring or a necklace or something, uh, or, you know, something to keep in their pocket or in their Bible, whatever it is. And we want God’s blessings to be with our loved one. So the intentions are radically good. That’s right. Uh, however, uh, you know, we and by the way, we grew up with that, too. Sure, sure. So so the religion that I grew up in that system did bless things. Right? Right. And what I’m saying is, is that when Jesus came along that went away.

Jeff
Yes.

Jeff
So and the idea so this comes from misunderstanding the priesthood of the believer. Yeah. Thinking that we need a priest to put God’s power in a thing that then protects us as opposed to having understanding, we have God’s power in us. I don’t need a thing to protect me now. I do have God’s power in me, and I believe that’s what the centurion recognized.

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
So I know that we’re at our time. So I’ll just say this, uh, when people come up and they ask me to bless a thing, uh, I honor the request by saying, uh, sort of explaining what I just said in so many words, but then I’ll say I’d be happy to pray over this thing. And then what I do is I say, may it be a reminder of God’s promises. That’s right. Maybe may it be, maybe may it always, uh, you know, remind this person or whatever it is, just because, again, the power doesn’t lie in the thing, right?

Jeff
We point him to Jesus, not to the things.

Chris
That’s right.

Chris
Yeah. Well, that is a fantastic little snippet that came out of that, right? That’s good. So, uh, we’ll see you next time on The Bible Guys.