Bible Guys Classics: Acts 13 Part 2

Hey, everybody, we're the Bibble 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. Well, today we're going to be looking at the Apostle Paul's version of the Sermon on the Mount. This is where he really lays it all out, and this is the foundation of the way that he does ministry. So he's Chris, I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. So Chris Man, these have been great questions. Yeah, all week long, we've been actually looking at the questions that people have submitted. We did a thing called Stump the pastor where we ask people to email in any question is that you want us to discuss, whether hard or not so hard, and people have sent them in to Info at the Bible guys dot com. Yea. And so if you have questions today and you think of something that you want us to send in maybe a couple weeks from now, we'll do this again. Good questions are a signal that people are good thinkers. Yeah, right, If you can think of a good question, you're a good thinker. You're pondering the right things in the right way. So I think it's these have been great. Yeah. So this comes from Kelly r. Oh and this one's special to you especially. Yes, it says do animals have souls? Especially dogs? Especially especially dogs? My sister and I go rounds on this because I feel dogs are God's angels. Besides, how can a living creature that feels pain not have a soul? So, and I think that really the sentiment behind this is are our pet's going to be in heaven? Right? Yeah? Because you know that's really I mean, she's asking about souls and there's a technical answer to that, you know, body, soul, spirit, that kind of thing. But I think that the reason why we're focusing on souls is because we talk about God saving our soul and our soul being in heaven, you know that kind of thing. Yeah, but let's talk about that technically. Yeah, So as a human, you're a body, right, your physical body, Yep, You're a soul, that's what's alive in you, and you're a spirit. That's what makes it possible for you to connect with God. The Bible says that humanity was made in the image of God. The image of God is that spirit. The Bible Jesus says, God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So the uniqueness of humanity, of all the rest of creation is that we're not just a body and a soul. We also have a spirit. The spirit has the ability to connect with God. Now, because of sin, our spirit is dead and in Jesus, Jesus makes our spirit alive when we were repent of our sins and turned to him in faith. Right. So that is the thing that makes humanity different. But it seems like, let me give you this. In Genesis chapter one, verse thirty, God references all of the created beings. He references animals and birds and all those things, and he says everything that has life, and that word that has life is talking about the breath of life. In Genesis chapter two, verse seven. The Bible says that God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and man became a living soul. So this living soul, this life, whatever that is that is there's light in the eyes, and then when the body dies, there's no the light goes out, you know what I mean. That's the soul, that is the life thing. Certainly there animals have the breath of life like we do. So yeah, I think the animals do have souls, yes, I agree, yeah, yeah. And then there's also verses that you looked up for this question. Yeah, talk about asking about heaven, right, right. And so there's a bunch of animals specifically evidence in eternity. Yeah. So so let's let's talk about heaven just generically for a moment. So we tend to think of heaven as being a place that's different in like so many different ways. Most people have a really you know, vague understanding of heaven. You know, it's clouds and apparently a gait and naked babies bouncing from cloud to cloud, playing harps and you know all that kind of stuff. What are you going to do in heaven? You know, And it's different, it's super different from here, and that's just not what the Bible describes. So the Bible describes and the idea of heaven is a little bit difficult. So heaven right now is where God is. Eventually, when all this is done, the book Revelation says that God destroys our heavens and our earth that means our atmosphere, our space, our planet, and then he makes a new heaven and a new Earth, and then the Holy City comes down, So the city God lives in will come down and meld with this earth. Similar to remember in the podcast we talked about how Jesus was living both in the spiritual realm and the physical realm at the same time. You could touch him, but he could walk through walls, he could eat fish, but he could also just suddenly appear those two things. So basically that's what happens, is this Holy City, the new Jerusalem, will come and meld with the new Earth that God makes. But all the signals are that there's commerce, there's comings and goings, there's rulers, there's gates, there's trees, there's rivers, there's animals, there's horses. We know that Jesus comes back on a white horse and so do his followers. If there's horses, that means people have to take care of horses, sweep out the stalls. Right, all that stuff, everything heaven eternity. Let's go beyond heaven eternity. When it's all done and God blends it all together, it's the perfect It's everything that you and I have now only perfect. It's the perfect way. There'll be no more death, there'll be no more sin, there'll be no more jealousy, there'll be no more cheating, no more violence, no more disease. It'll be perfect. But it's going to be a society of humans interacting with God. Right, that's it. Total society. So in that context, whether you're talking about in the millennium or in the Kingdom of Jesus after the New Earth, the new Heaven and New Earth. It mentions in Isaiah chapter eleven wolves. So there's your dog by the way, lady, right, So there's wolves, lambs, leopards, goats, calves, lions, cows, bears, cobras, horses. You just go on and on. God mentions all kinds of animals that are in eternity. So, yes, I believe that animals have souls. Yes, there will be animals in eternity, right. Right, Yeah, So yeah, I was just telling jeff Ry for the podcast started, I said, I've got a bunch of cats and dogs that I'm looking forward to see. See. Yeah, I hope to see to see ye. Yeah. I don't know about a resurrection for the animals. I don't know. The Bible doesn't say anything about that, but it's okay to to extrapolate and go. Animals are living their living beings, they have the breath of life in them, and there are animals and eternity, so yep, And that's really. What we know, right right, So most of the answers to stump the pastor questions are nobody really knows for sure because it's not crystal clear. But with everything that you just laid out, there's a lot of really fair conclusions. That's right, that can tell us eternity in Christ will be perfect. Yep. So if you need a patent in heaven or any eternity, gott a hook. Yep. I'm sure that's great, which makes my wife very happy because she's a dog person. Yes, for sure. Our two dogs are named Gucci and Chanel, and I'm ashamed by them. I love them, but I'm ashamed by their names, right, Gucci and Chanel. I lost my man carved when we got those two. That's funny. Well we name our dogs after things we can't afford. Well, you know, my famous line is that when we get married, my wife like argued like like hard argued, I've always had dogs grown up, she always had cats. And I said, so I wanted dogs, she wanted cats, and we compromised and we got four cats. Yeah, yeah, so there you go. It's the same thing I didn't want anymore. And Bonnie wound up getting Gucci, and he was so cute. He's really sweet, he's very emotional and very dialed into, you know, very engaging. But then Bonnie was so upset that he's lonely all the time that he so Gucci has his own puppy, and that's who Chanel is. Chanelle's is Gucci's puppy, And yeah, I so Gucci and Chanel things we can't afford. So I suggested Bonnie, if we get a third dog, we should just name it Retirement. Right, I can't afford retirement either. So hey, okay, I. Want to go on record and just say, like I had this cat named Champ twenty one years I've I'm going to look at God and say, I want to see Champ again. You want to see Champ. I want to see Champ. Yeah, and I gotta believe I'm gonna see him again. So your animals are named better than mine. Yeah, let me say, Champ is so cool. And then I got a cat named Maximus. Maximus, Oh, that's cool. That's the opposite of Gucciel. Maximus carries Gucci channel around like a bag, right right, yeah, over your shoulder. So okay, Well, we are continuing in this line of Paul and Barnabas. So it's Barnabas and Paul still right, but they are on this mission of spreading the Gospel in communities that had never ever heard about salvation through Christ. Right, and so they begin to move and they move into Antiocha Pasidia, which is now on the on the Turkish mainland what is now modern day Turkey. So we're going to start up in chapter thirteen of the Book of Acts, and we're going to read verse thirteen. It says Paul and his companions then left Paphos by ship for Pamphilia, landing at the port of port Town of Perga. There, John Mark left them in return to Jerusalem, but Paul and barnab Has traveled inland to Antioch of Pisidia. On the Sabbath, they went to the synagogue for the services, and after the usual readings from the books of Moses and the Prophets, those in charge of the service sent them this message, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, come and give it. So Paul stood and lifted his hand to quiet them and started speaking. Men of Israel, he said, and you, God fearing gentiles, listened to me. The God of this nation of Israel chose our ancestors and made them multiply and grow strong during their stay in Egypt. And then with a powerful arm, he led them out of their slavery. Up he put up with them through forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Then he destroyed seven nations in Canaan and gave their land to Israel as an inheritance. All this took about four hundred and fifty years. After that, God gave them judges to rule until the time of Samuel the Prophet. Then the people begged for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man from the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years. But God removed Saul and replaced him with David, a man about whom God said, I have found David's son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do. And it is one of King David's descendants, Jesus, who is God's promised savior of Israel. Before he came, John the Baptist preached that all the people of Israel needed to repent of their sins and turned to God and be baptized. As John was finishing his ministry, he asked, do you think I'm the Messiah? No, I'm not, but he is coming soon, and I'm not even worthy to be his slave. And untie the sandals on his feet. Brothers, you sons of Abraham, and also you God fearing gentiles. This message of salvation has been sent to us. The people in Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize Jesus as the one the prophets had spoken about. Instead, they condemned him, and in doing this they fulfilled the prophet's words that are read every Sabbath. They found no legal reason to execute him, but they asked Pilot to have him killed anyway. When they had done all that the prophecies said about him, they took him down from the cross and placed him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and over a period of many days he appeared to those who had gone with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now witnesses to the people of Israel, and now we are here to bring you this good news. The promise was made to our ancestors, and God has now fulfilled it for us their descendants, by raising Jesus. This is what the second Psalm says about Jesus. You are my son today. I have become your father. For God had promised to raise him from the dead, not leaving him to rotten the grave. He said, I'll give you the sacred blessings I promised to David. Another psalm explains it more fully, you will not allow your holy one to rotten the grave. This is not a reference to David, for after David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died, was buried with his ancestors, and his body decayed. No, it was a reference to someone else, someone whom God had raised and whose body did not decay. Brothers, listen, we are here to proclaim that through this man, Jesus, there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in him is declared right with God, something that the law Moses could never do. Be careful, don't let the prophet's words apply to you, for they said, look, you mockers, be amazed and die, for I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn't believe even if someone told you about it. As Paul and Barnabas left the synagogue that day, that people beg them to speak about these things again. The next week. Many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, and the two men urged them to continue to rely on the grace of God. The following week, almost the entire city turned out to hear them preach the word of the Lord. But when some of the Jews saw the crowds, they were jealous, so they slandered Paul and argued against whatever he said. Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly declared, it was necessary that we first preached the word of God to you Jews, but since you've rejected it and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we will offer it to the gentiles. For the Lord gave us this command when he said, I have made you a light to the gentiles, to bring salvation to the first corners of the earth. That's I think that was it. Yep, I read one extra verse. You did, but it's okay, that's okay, good. It was a good one. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. So so you know, it's it's so great. How Paul is he's capturing all the Old Testament. Yeah, and you know he's number one. Let's keep in mind he's trying to he's trying to use their education, and he's trying to give them a greater understanding and connect the Old Testament dots to Jesus. And he connects it by prophecy. He can exit by lineage, right, he can exit by by promises and current events. I mean he puts he puts all of it together and and and tries to help them understand and h And keep in mind that Paul was a Pharisee himself, and so he knew the Bible, he knew the Old Testament, he knew everything that they're you know, that they knew and understood. And then at the end he actually talked about certain Jews had rejected the Word of God and how Gentiles are more open to it. It seems that's the implication, right, and so he's given given the Gospels to the Gentiles. I just think it's very interesting how Paul is qualified for both. You know, he's perfectly qualified. Perfectly qualified, you know he is he is the right man for the job. And every time I read things like this, I try to imagine how people receive Paul, because, you know, they first had to get over the fact that he was once a persecutor of Christians. They had to get over that. They but once you believe his story, you believe that he's a converted person, that he's now playing for the other team, and so much so to where now he's starting to be referred to as Paul, right, So that part's gone, and then you realized, Wow, this guy is perfectly qualified. And you know, the thing that stands out when I read this passage is this is that God perfectly has qualified you for the mission that he sends you on. He has perfectly placed you where you are to make a difference. And I'm sorry, I'm sort of rambling, but let me tell you real quick story. So I transferred high schools from my middle of my sophomore year, I went to from Cheney High School to Woodrow Wilson High School. And it was from the west side to the to the south side. And it was a very very bad high school. We had like metal detectors walking in. It was really bad, right, It was just a really really bad part of town. But we only went there because I challenged my mom to stop lying. Does it ever take that? So at the time we were stealing cable. We only got into low income housing developments because my aunt Carol was worked there and she and she put our resume on the top, even though the people were waiting for government assistance for years, so they were paying us two hundred and twelve dollars a month to live there. The government was so we had free rent. We quite literally stole cable from our neighbors. We were on food stamps and my mom was working three jobs under the table so illegally. So everything we were doing in our lives financially was wrong. So I became a Christian right at that time, and I went to my mom and said, hey, mom, m don't just trust God and do things right and not do things wrong. And she's like, I can't afford to do things right. And I said, yeah, but just trust God and just see what he does. So then she came to me and she's like, Okay, I trusted God. I bought a house for twelve thousand dollars in the south side of Youngstown. The whole house was twelve thousand dollars. Wow, that'll show you, okay. And I was like, you may have to change schools. And then she looked at me and she goes, oh, I thought you told me that you need to trust God. And I was like what. And so my plan was I'm gonna lie, and I'm going to use my father's address, who lived in Austin Town, which was really nice. That's where my wife's from, Austin Town, right, So I was going to lie. So I had it all figured out. And then my pastor, who is my good friend, found out that I was going to lie. So he catches me. I'm walking out of church. He goes, hey, I hear you're going to Woodrow Wilson High School. That's super exciting. Because we have like little missionaries all over the place, and nobody really goes to Wilson. That's really exciting. And I was like, well, actually I was thinking about putting my dad's address down. And he goes, wouldn't that be a lie? And I said yeah, and he goes, you want to do that? Didn't you? Just trust God? Just trust God? I was like, son of a gun. So I ended up fine. And so I went to Wilson and all of that to say, here's where I discovered. And my two and a half years at Wilson. Even though I was mad at God for that and I really hated it, what I discovered was the smallest light shines the brightest in the darkest room. Right. So you're like, well, I'm just one person, right, I'm just one tiny person. Well guess what if the room is completely dark black, then even the smallest light will give light its brightest, right. And so a match is not going to do well in a lit room, right, The match doesn't really do much in a lit right. Okay, So all I have to say, that's what I think of I think of all of that. When I hear Paul, I think of man God sent him specifically, and he qualified it was he was perfect, and I still view it that way in my life. I was perfect for God to send me to that school at that time. Yeah, well, you read in other passages where Paul kind of regrets this past. He talks about himself as being the chief of sinners, that he's not worthy of God's grace, all these things. He's probably referencing. Hey, back when I was eager to kill Christians and right, you know, I was a. Legalistic jerk and regretting his atrocities. Yeah, but God's not gonna waste when when you surrender your life to him. God's not going to waste your hurts. He's not going to waste your your your past. He's not going to waste your past experiences. God's going to use those things. And there are going to be people that only you can reach. That's right, And that's why God sent the elite Pharisee. I mean, he's Harvard graduate level guy right in his day. I mean he has started under Gamalio and he goes all throughout all the synagogues in Asia Minor and presenting the Gospel, and he starts right where they are. He doesn't expect them to start where he's at. He goes, hey, remember how we have this common father, Abraham and David, and Jesus is an heir of David. Jesus should have been the king all this thing. And then he leads them through the teachings of David. He leads them through the teachings of the prophets to Jesus. So he starts where they are. He was uniquely positioned to do that, probably better than anybody else he would have been. He was accustomed to teaching in the synagogues, right, So I got this one, Barnabas, Right. He steps up when they say, hey, do you have anything to say? Yeah, I got it, and then he leads them to the Gospel. This is what I love about this. This is the general message that Paul would have given in the synagogues. In a little while, we're going to read when he's in Athens and he's not talking to the Jews, We're going to read a whole message that he gives to people who have no concept of who Jesus is. And he starts where they are too. So I just love it that God isn't going to waste your life. He's not going to waste your past. He's not going to waste your experiences. God wants to use those to reach people only you can reach. Well, it reminds me that verse what you just said in Corinthians, where it says that God comforts us and then he turns around and helps us comfort others with the same comfort by which we've been comforted by God, which is a lot of comfort words. But but the con sing it's very comforting. But it's but it's so true. God comforts us and then he has us comfort others with the same comfort we received from God, because that's that's what ends up happening. Is it reminds me of my wife. And I had two miscarriages between Sarah and Stephen, and so whenever somebody has a miscarriage, my wife just reaches out. And it's almost as if those people find my wife miraculously, you know, they run in, you know, and. She's they do they do. Yeah, God sends on, Hey, I know somebody who knows how to comfort you, right and so and so my way. If you haven't gone through it, it's hard to encourage. Oh, it's hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine. And so you know, it's the same thing, and that's the verse that she quotes to me when she says, you know, God never wastes your hurt, He never wastes your past. No, he won't. Yeah, so that's it. And then what happens is many Jews, devout converts follow Paul and Barnabas, and then many gentiles do. And then it says that John Mark bails on them right there, right, and this is pivotal and Paul and Barnabas's relationship later. So that's just a little hint that's what's coming next. Right, Okay. So that's a great place to end, and we will see you next time on the Daily Bible, guys,