Bible Guys Classics: Acts 11 Part 2

Hey, everybody, we're the Bible guys, and if you're just tuning in recently, just know that we are showing a little bit of reruns for a few months, and then we'll be back bigger and better than ever on August thirty first, because behind the scenes, we're taking a hiatus to do some very important things. Yeah, we're building building out a new studio and we've got some new structure. Super excited about it. So August thirty first, brand new content. But in the meantime, enjoy some of our greatest hits. So today, poor Peter gets left out into the dark. Yes, so it's going to be very exciting. There's also persecution. James winds up losing his head. So okay, I thought you were like stop, no, no, no, I was meaning, you know, losing head. Yeah yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah, okay. Well, hey, you remember when we did the whole stump the pastor thing and we solicited people to send us questions. Well, so many people send in really really hard questions, and today might be one of the tougher ones. Yeah, so we were picking five more controversial, Well. For sure, we're picking five this week, so the whole week and by the way, if you want to send in questions to stump the pastor you can just send it to right here. It is info at dot com. And just just email question in and then we'll use it on future episodes. Yeah, yeah, it'd be fun or maybe possibly maybe So how about And I'm very glad by the way that you looked up and did some homework on this and you get some verses to read. Well, this this topic has been something that even as a kid, I loved, Like, I read everything I could find about this this topic. I just thought it was one of the coolest things. Yes, and so I'm glad that you did all that. So let me read what Skyle wrote. Skiy says in Isaiah job and other parts of the Bible, dragons and Leviathans are mentioned, and some versions these words were replaced with jackline other such creatures. What is actually being referred to and why is there such a massive difference in the creatures being mentioned? Ooh, so there's really two questions here. Yes, The bigger question I think that she's asking is is the Bible really talking about dinosaurs. And stuff like that and dragons? Yes? And the other question is why do some translations change some of the words. Yeah, right, right, So those there's two questions. Let's address the second one first, Yes, why do some translations change? So there's several passages that talk about dragons, Leviathan, behemoth, and sea monsters and giant creatures. Right, So those would be like the Five Things Psalm chapter seventy seventy four, Psalm, Isaiah thirteen, Job forty, Job forty one, Isaiah twenty seven, Ezekiel twenty four, Ezekiel thirty two. So this isn't just like a yeah, look at you. It just gets mentioned one time in your little research. It's mentioned a bunch of times, right that these creatures, And the two where the name gets changed would be in Psal in Isaiah thirteen. And I would say probably those words get changed because the word in the original language in Hebrew is more vague, it's not super clear. So then translators are are trying to choose best on the the other cues that are within the passage. For instance, in Isaiah, it's talking about all these desert animals and mentions hyenas, and then this other word that they wind up translating is jackal. But in another place it talks about in some of the older translations, maybe it would reference something like dragon, So either it's a giant lizard out in the desert or in the same context with the hyenas as their jackals. So whatever it is, it's fierce and eat stuff. So that's the that's the thing. But it's too it's so vague of a word that I think the translators had a lot of leeway as to what it meant. The other ones, though, there's not much doubt about these things as far as not. Only are they called something, but there's descriptors. Yes, So you know, Leviathan talks about how whenever passages talked about Leviathan talks about how huge its neck is, how powerful his tail is, how fierce its teeth are, how impenetrable its scales are, you know, all. These kinds of things. How it breathes fire. Yeah, yeah, well that's in Job. That one is crazy. It literally says when it sneezes, it flashes light. Its eyes are like the red of dawn, Lightning leaps from its mouth, flames of fire flash out. It's a job. Yeah. So Job is the oldest book of the Bible. It's the first one written and By the way, people think Genesis is yeah, right, because it speaks of creation. Right, And yet actually Job was written before all of those. Job very likely was alive about the same time Abraham was, so they would be contemporaries. Yeah, so Job clearly describes. And by the way, it's a whole chapter, it's a whole chapter on this dragon type creature. Yeah, on Leviathan. And he says, can you catch Leviathan with a hook or put a noose around his jaw? Can you tie it with a rope through the nose or pierces shall with a spike. He goes on, and he says, I want to emphasize Leviathan's limbs and its enormous strength and graceful form. Who can strip it of its hide? Who can penetrate its double layer of armor? Who could probably open his jaws? His teeth are terrible. Its scales are like rows of shields, tightly sealed together. They're so close together that nowhere can get between them. Each scale sticks tight to the next, and the interlocked cannot be penetrated. Talks about fire. Smoke streams from his nostrils like steam from a potted heat heated over burning rushes. I mean, you just go on and on so cool, the ground shakes when it walks. So to make sure that we address other things. So here here's my question. And see if you take a stabb at this. So that brings up the question. So there's sort of two big things. There's dinosaurs, right, so the word dinosaur means terrible lizard. Sure, and then you. Have dragons, which are two different things, and so do you believe both existed? And do you believe that mankind existed with them? Second question? First, yes, I believe that mankind probably existed with well did exist with them, because I believe that humanity and all the creatures that God made were all at the same time, right in the six days of creation. So the idea of a dinosaur dinosaur just means terrible lizard. That's what it means. Clearly, this is a terrible lizard. Is clearly what he's describing here in the Book of Job. There's other times, like in Ezekiel when it mentions this Leviathan in the river Nile referring is referring specifically to Pharaoh there, that's like an analogy. It's talking about a nile, crocodile, so it's talking about so when you look at which are huge, Oh they're giant, they maybe eighteen twenty feet long, they're massive, so and weigh a thousand pounds. I showed you the video when one as in Costa Rica and we had those crocodiles come up and they weigh a thousand pounds and it's just crazy. So you know, if you watch a modern show about wild animals, they will describe a crocodile as a living fossil or a living dinosaur. Same thing with what are those komodo dragons. If you ever watch a show about komodo dragons, those things will be ten fifteen twenty feet long, fifteen feet long, and they'll describe them as living dinosaurs. So we tend to separate dinosaurs from giant reptiles we currently have, and it's because of the narrative of evolution. But if we just say there are some extinct reptiles that don't exist anymore, that we're pretty big, very big, and now we've still have some pretty big ones, just not as big as those forty footers, right, well, then it's not that big of a leap. There's all kinds of creatures that used to exist that don't exist now, but it doesn't require you know, billions of years to separate us. And so I do believe that humanity in what we would consider dinosaurs, these huge reptiles, lived together at the same time. Yeah, you too. And obviously Job is speaking of such a creature. And to your point earlier before we started the podcast, he's not writing it to introduce the idea. No, it's not like I saw a mythical creature like I saw a big foot in the woods, right right, right. He's describing it, and he's sort of saying, like, hey, what man can actually put you know, a bit on him or put a ring through his nose. He's making a point like that. Everybody would say, yeah, that's correct. Right, He's saying, everybody knows this, everybody the way he's describing it, he's describing it like you know this, you know, arrows can't penetrate it, you know, you know, and and he's just trying to define for people how powerful this creature is. But God can subdue it. That's what he's talking about in that passage, even though we can't. And so everybody understands his reader would have understood what he was righting. So the last thing I want to say is you referenced earlier that there's a beetle that it could actually produce fire. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's cool. There's several there's a couple of animals that we know could. But there's a beetle that mixes two chemicals and it'll blow out fire out its rear end, and it'll burn any kind of attacker on it. It's really kind of cool. Yeah, so we know it is possible even today. Yeah, oh absolutely, yeah, sure. So I don't have any reason to dismiss this as being mythical or fake. He's not writing it that way. There are references that are maybe talking mythically about Pharaoh or about the enemies of Israel. But when Job's writing or when David is writing, they both seem to be talking about something that they're aware of, which, by the way, I mean, there's cave drawings here in the US and in Europe of what appeared to be oh and in South America of what appeared to be very long necked water creatures of you know, in the caves of people that you know from thousands years ago who were drawing these things having not seen the flintstones, right right, they're drawing pictures of things that they believe that they saw. So yeah, that's great. Sure, all right, so I think that's a really cool one. I'm glad Skylie asked that question. And once again we can't know for sure what those are, right, But the Bible doesn't even seem to apologize for the fact that it references these great, big giant lizards, I agree, or beasts. Okay, so we're going to continue pivot. I don't even know how to pivot off of that one. Let's just do it. We're going to move into Acts chapter twelve, and this is I'm sorry, Acts chapter eleven is where we're at. Yeah, verse nineteen. Yeah, so we actually introduced the wrong passage today. Oh sure, said Barnabas. Yeah yeah, well we didn't say, Barnabas. We said Peter is left out in Nicole and James loses his head. Okay, neither one of those things happening. People will forgive us. They'll forgive thank you for forgiving us an advance. So we are actually reading in Acts chapter eleven, verse nineteen, and this is going to be even more exciting. So here we go. Meanwhile, the believers who had been scattered during the persecution. After Stephen's death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch of Syria. They preached the word of God, but only to Jews. However, some of the believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and syreen began preaching to the Gentiles about the Lord Jesus. The power of the Lord was with them, and a large number of these gentiles believed and turned to the Lord. When the Church at Jerusalem heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw this evidence of God's blessing, he was filled with joy, and he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord. Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith, and many people were brought to the Lord. Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians. During this time, some prophets travel from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus, stood up in one of the meetings and predicted by the spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius. So the believers in Antioch decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters in Judea, anyone, giving as much as they could. This they did, and trusting their gifts to Barnabas and Saul to take to the elders of the church in Jerusalem. There it is wow. So this is a pretty significant thing. This is another one of those moments when Barnabas takes a significant lead. He keeps coming up over and over again. I remember Barnabas's name means son of encouragement, right, which is such a great name. And you see him always serving in that fashion. So what do you have to say? No, no, I was just reading the notes here. So in Acts chapter eleven twenty one, it says in Antioch, Christianity was launched on its worldwide mission, and they're the believers aggressively preach to the gentiles, non Jews. And then this skips all the way down believers who were scattered after the outbreak of persecution in Jerusalem, spread the good news to other Jews into the lands, and they fled. The seeds of the missionary work had been sown after Stephen's death. That's the part I was looking at at this time. The believers begin actively sharing the good news with the Gentiles, you know. So you know, in Act chapter seven, that's when Peter or that's when Stephen was killed. And then and then sort of we fast forward and we can just see the connecting of the dots where Barnabas goes and grabs Saul at Tarsus, which is where he was from. He's still called Saul, he hasn't changed his name to Paul yet. And we're seeing that the gospel is being spread and you know it mentions in these notes because of partly and because of Stephen's martyrdom, right, you know, because when people are willing to die for their faith, it just propels, you know, the word of God. And we've seen this throughout all of history. You know, in China, the church has never spread as quickly in China that when it was persecuted. And so when there is persecution and when there's oppression and when people are against what God is. That's when the word of God shines brightest, that's when people are most bold. And I just think it's great how the dots are connecting. We know what those who know Christianity know what Paul is going to do, right, and we just we see the dots connecting, and I think it's a great thing. So this Antioch is Some archaeologists and historians would say that this Antioch. There were sixteen Antiochs, by the way, and Paul actually visits another Antioch in what is now modern day Turkey, but this Antioch is in Syria. It was probably the third most influential city in the entire Roman Empire. It was incredibly affluent, it was very very powerful. The whole world kind of came through Antioch to do business. The colonnades that the main road that went through Anioch was a couple of miles long, was colinnaded on both sides and would have been one of the only cities in the world, maybe one of the first cities in the world to have their streets lighted at night. So they lit up torches up and down this giant colonnade. They did business day and night. They were famous for that. They were also famous for their for their worship. They worshiped all of the Roman gods, but they particularly were dedicated to Daphne, had this big temple there, all these things. So this was a very strategic city to go to. It would have been natural to go there because it would have been like, you know, hey, let's go to New York City, or let's go to London or something. It's just it was a natural hub. But you could also blend in with this massive crowd one hundreds of thousands of people, kind of stay underground a lot easier than being the only Christian in your village of you know, one hundred people. And so it was a natural place, but it was incredibly strategic for the spread of the Gospel. And so when they're reaching you know, some of them they go and they only share the Gospel with the Jews, okay, But then others start sharing the Gospel with the Gentiles, which is way more of them, and they become Christians. Then the Christians down in Drusalem go, we should go check this out. This is kind of confirmation from what they had affirmed with Peter. Let's see if it's kind of working out the same way with all of these new Christians in Antioch, and that's why they sent Barnabas, because you're such a trusted leader. I love how it says in Antioch, this is where the believers were first called Christians. So before that time there wasn't so think about this. Yeah, So last podcast yesterday we talked about how Pentecost had taken place, and between Pentecost and this timeline is almost a decade. Yeah, so for a decade of the beginning of the movement of Christianity, it wasn't called Christianity, right, so it's movements of the Way. Yeah. They were the followers of the Way of the Way. Yeah, and so you know, assuming that came from you know, when Jesus said I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man gets to the Father except for me John fourteen six. And so so here now they're called Christians, which means little Christ, right, that's right, So it means little christ. I think that's interesting too, because we throw around the word Christianity. We've we've been raised with our whole lives. We just it's just a thing, you know, we just know, right, But the word christ, the word Christian is it means little Christ. So there are so many people in this world but say, oh, I'm a Christian, but there's no direct you know, they don't look like Christ at all, right, And what they're really saying is, yeah, I sort of believe that there's a God and I believe that. You know that all that stuff's true, it's just not for me. Or what they mean is I'm not a pagan and I'm not a Muslim, and I'm not an atheist. Yeah, there you go, So I must be a Christian right now. Remember this was a derogatory term. They weren't complimenting and going, you look a lot like Jesus. You remind me. They're mocking them, saying you're little Jesus is aha, right, right, And so it was a mocking term. It was a derogatory term. We've had a season in our nation where it was a beneficial thing to be called a Christian, right, it was a respectable thing to be called a Christian. But that good moniker is going away and it's going back to being a negative in a lot of environments. So these people proudly wore the name Christian, These followers of the Way proudly wore the name Christian, even though it was a mocking title. I wonder how many of us are willing to wear this mocking, negative title today proudly. A lot of us try to hide the fact that we're Christians. I had one a friend of mine tell me he was an undercover Christian. Es, that's what he's at work. I don't tell people I'm Christian. I'm an undercover Christian. I'm like, there's no such thing as an undercovered Christian, right. And I'm pretty sure you're supposed to not be exactly. But they proudly wore this mocking name, and I think it's important for us to be willing to do the same. Yeah. I always tell people I'm a Christian before I tell them of a pastor. Oh me too. Yeah. I first of all, I never tell people I'm a pastor because people act differently around me. Or they won't believe it. Right, you're not a prastor, man, Come on, you're not even in shade, right. But no, but you know. And then finally, when people sort of do corner me in this in the conversation becomes spiritual. If they don't know me at all, I'll just say, oh yeah, because I'm a Christian because they carried it should carry more weight, yes, right, as opposed to him, I'm a pastor, you know. So that's doctor Chris Zarball to you. So so then they start to see, they start to see while God is doing great things among the gentiles, this is good news. And Barnabas says, you know what I need. I need, I need some help. And so. Barnabas goes on to Tarsus to find Saul. Remember Saul, we just saw several chapters ago. Saul has this encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was a Pharisee of pharisees. He was at least if not a member of the Sanhedron, he would have been a clerk to the Sanhedron. Right. He was at Stephen's first at the first martyrdom of Stephen, the deacon in the church. And did you mention he's a Roman citizen. Oh yeah, he's a Roman citizen, Roman citizen. That's a big deal. And he's a Jew and a Roman citizen. Right, and he's living in But remember he had to escape out of the window in a basket to get away because the Christians were not the Christians. The people in Damascus were so angry that Saul had become a Christian they were going to kill him. And so because of his preaching, and so he has to escape, and the Bible says he went back to Tarsus. Now we know he also spent three years in the deserts of Arabia. Galatians tells us that where Jesus had taught him all things, and then he's here. It looks like this is somewhere between three and six years after his conversion, before his first big ministry opportunity, and Barnabas says, hey, I need a helper. So it wasn't like I need somebody to lead this ministry. I need somebody to serve alongside and help me out in this ministry to these people. So Acts chapter nine and Act chapter eleven, it could have been up to six years from thirty five a d. Which is where Paul received Christ and he met Christ, to this time that we're taking up here sometime. A d. So that's a great lesson because for those of us who who think that we're ready for leadership right away, you know that we're we just want to, you know, take take the reins even. Though that we don't pay the dues, right, you know. And then here's Paul, you know, who's not even Paul yet, right, you know, and he's several years into it, and he's starting off as a helper. He's working in the mail room right with Barnabas. And there's something to be said about that. You pay your dues, you do the work. So you ask what was Paul doing. Paul was preparing, right, he says, Jesus was teaching him. Clearly, he would have kept on with his responsibilities and his duties of studying the word and sharing the gospel. But it was in a localized context, not a world famous context at this point. And that's where greatness. Uh, that's where greatness is cultivated. It's not cultivated on the stage in front of people. It's cultivated in those private moments when nobody's looking. Right, that the measure of your character is who you are when nobody's looking. That's right. And I think that's what we see in Paul. So Barnabas goes, the son of his couragement goes, I need this guy kind help me. Paul, Saul, you know, not only is that a lesson for for young leaders to say, hey, you have to pay your dues. You have to you know, you have to work your way up. But it's also a lesson for uh, season leaders that you should not place anybody who's who's not ready into a big position. That's right. I mean, you know, I've seen. People take over entire huge church organizations without even a Bible degree, right, and uh, and that didn't go very well. Right, So it's like I've so I've seen it, I've witnessed it. And and when that happens for season leaders, it's like, hey, this this is a great example. God did this on purpose. God got you know, because Paul, you know, was as Saul, a fantastic leader. Yeah, and incredibly talented. Yes right, it was incredibly talented. But sometimes we can seize talent when they're when they're not seasoned yet, right, when their character hasn't caught up to their talent. That's exactly right, that's exactly what that is. Their character, their faith, their maturity, their life lessons through faith has to catch up with with the talent that they have. So then the first thing that they do is they find out that there's going to be this famine in Jerusalem, and that's the main purpose of prophecy is not for own benefit to know what's coming in the future, but rather to inspire us to do the works of God. And so Agabus says, there's going to be this famine, and Paul and Barnabas move in and begin to collect these resources from the people and prosperous people in Ania to help out the people in Jerusalem. That's that whole joke we made yesterday about you know, helping a brother out. That's what Barnabas did, This son of encouragement decided he wasn't going to leverage this for his own benefit, but he was going to take every opportunity to be able to provide for the people who were going to be in need. And I think that it's incredibly important our first acts of leadership should always be service. Right, Servant leadership is where where it's really at in the Christian perspective, and we see that in Paul and Barnabas. That's great. Well, hey, I think that's a really good place to wrap up, and we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys. H