Bible Guys Classics: Acts 15 & 16

Well, in this episode, Paul and Barnabas split up and they say bye bye. And they're going to double their impact in ministry. Bye bye bye, bye bye bye. We're about ready to split up. He's Chris, I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. So, Chris, we had a little bit of a controversy last week, was it last week of the last one? Yeah? Yeah, you made the horrific disclosure, which which quite honestly, we're still shocked by that. You actually like candy corn. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, that is I mean. Anyways, Steve, one of our listeners, he left a message on Facebook and said, candy corn with a bunch of exclamation points. Chris, please just know my inner child just died. So Steve, I agree with you, this is a horrific disclosure. Yes, but Cheryl, in all fairness, Cheryl said I always have candy corn during the month of October, so it's kind of split a little bit. Yeah, a little bit between Steve and Cherylett is Yeah. Well, I mean we only got two messages on this. I had a lot of people talk about it in the hallway and stuff. Just shocked by your candy corn disclosure. But so let's do this. Let's remember when we did kind of the draft and we drafted our favorite fast food or yes, we talked about cities we want to travel through. Whatever. So let's do a draft on our top how many? How many do you want to draft? Five top five candies for this season? So we have to do rock paper scissors? Okay, okay, we're gonna do rock paper serisors. Ready, one, two, three? Shoot. So for those of you who want to know, he went paper, I went scissors, got him, So I get the draft first. Yes, the single greatest common candy, so we're doing common candy. Is that we're doing like normal kind of candy. You said candy. Single greatest candy is receas receas peanut butter cups. Wow, okay, that's your first draft. Snicker bars. Oh that's my really close second. Okay, so I'm receis your snickers, uh kit cat, it would be number three. Yeah, I'm gonna draft. I'm gonna go a little off chart here because my my very favorite besides Snickers is pay. Day pay Day. Oh yeah yeah, pay day yep. I think I think you should be required to have candy corn on there because you're already on the record. No, no, I said I liked it. I didn't say it was my top five. I know, but that's what caused us. Okay, so I have I have receas, you have Snickers, I have kit Cats, you have pay Days. Okay. Number three for me would be I love jelly Belly jelly beans. Wow, love them. Okay, Yes, I'm gonna draft nerd ropes. Nerd ropes, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Have you had those little nerd byte ones. They're kind of like nerd ropes only yeah. Okay, Okay, that's good. I'm going to go back to the chocolate thing, because you know, Jesus loves chocolate. I love Hershey's with almonds. It's on the Bible. Hers She's with almends. I'm pretty sure it is. I'll find it. Hers Shey's with amens. Okay, Hershey's with almons. It's so good. Oh I could never eat a Hershey. Burrow with almost good. They're all for me. Couldn't do it. I'm gonna go with twigs. Oh man, So I should have done twigs. I love twigs. I dig through the bag, you know when you have like the big Halloween candy bag, I dig through and look for twigs. Why wouldn't I have picked twigs? Yeah? Now which one do you like? Do you like the left or the right twigs? I like both of them? Question mark? Yeah, well, because you know in the packaging they have packages. You can just buy whole package of right sized right side of twixes or a whole package left side TwixT. You know you're not very committed to twigs, then let me just tell you. Okay, And so here's my last one. This is my last draft. Yep. Okay. So in Europe Cadbury has so here in the US it would called be called dairy milk, and I love the dairy milk candy bars with macadamia nuts in them. Oh well, yeah, okay, and I'm gonna go with Twizzlers. Twizzlers. Okay, No, you can't have Twizzlers. Yeah? Well, I love twitters during movies. For years and years and years, I would actually get Twizzlers going to a movie. Yeah yeah, I like to get Uh Oh, can I get a bonus one? Nope? What were you going to say? What did you miss out on? Jeff Peanut M and M's. Yeah yeah, I had that on my list. Oh man, I totally blew it. Yeah, yeah, but I chose I chose Twizzers instead of that. All right, well, hey that was good. If you have the monchies, now, we don't blame you. They stop on the way to work con grab some. Hey, I bet you somebody will. Somebody'll be like, I have to have a Snickers. Right, and then they'll be like, oh, those guys, if it weren't for those kids. Okay. So if you remember yesterday we were having this conversation, there was a Pharisee guy who he was a legalist. Then there's the other side, and you made this comment, we don't want to be, you know, legalists because legalism kills right and so does liberalism. Liberalism kills So we don't want to be legalists. We don't want to be liberals. We want to be Biblicists. What does the Bible say and what is the experience that we have in the Holy Spirit? That is the proof of the fact that the Bible is true? Right, change lives really is what that is. That's what we're all about. We're Biblicists and this is what they really established. So James, if you remember yesterday, James kind of buttoned it up. Paul and Barnabas and Peter and all these apostles, they're having this debate. But then James, he was the leader of the church in Jerusalem, he says, okay, here's my decision, and they write this really great letter and they send it to the churches in Galatia, which are up in the modern day Turkey today, which by the way, we had a couple of different people say I wish you put maps up, So we'll have it edited and we'll put in a little map from the back of the Discover or the Life Application Study Bible that shows the different tours of Paul and Barnabas. But if you have a paper Bible right now, we're gonna do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they'll put it up in the thing right now. Oh right, are we to talk about it right there? Ah? Right, so the people can see it. But if you ever get a hold of a Life Application Study Bible, in the back, there's maps. They show the journeys of Jesus, they show the journeys of Paul, They show how you know, the journey around Jerusalem in the week that Jesus died. They show all of the stuff of the movements of Abraham and David. They're really cool if you're a map kind of person. They're in the back of those kind of study bibles. So anyways, they send this letter back to Galicia, and then Paul and Barnabas they split up. But Paul decides he's going to go back to that same region now, and that's what's happening here. So we're going to pick up in verse fifteen or chapter fifteen, verse thirty six, it says after some time, Paul said to Barnabas, let's go back and visit each city where we previously preached the word of the Lord, to see how the new believers are doing. And Barnabas agreed. He wanted to take along john Mark, but Paul disagreed strongly, since john Mark had deserted them in Pamphilia and had not continued with them in their work. Their disagreement was so sharp that they separated. Barnabas took john Mark with him sailed for Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas, and as he left, the believers entrusted him to the Lord's gracious care. Then he traveled throughout Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches there. Paul went first to Derby and then the Lystra, where there was a young disciple named Timothy. At Timothy becomes a very important player here Shortly his mother was a Jewish believer, but his father was a Greek. Timothy was well thought of by the believers in Lystra and Iconium, so Paul wanted him to join them on their journey. In deference to the Jews of the area, he arranged for Timothy to be circumcised before they left, for everyone knew that his father was a Greek. Then they went from town to town, instructing the believers to follow the decisions made by the apostles in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in their faith and grew larger every day. Next, Paul and Silas traveled through the area of Phrygia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit had prevented them from preaching the Word in the province of Asia at that time. Then, coming to the borders of Misia, they headed north for the province of Bithynia. All of this is in Turkey basically, right, So you're talking county after county after county, really is what they're doing. So instead they went through Masia to the seaport of Troas. That night, Paul had a vision a man from Macedonia in northern Greece was standing there, pleading with him come over to Macedonia and help us. So we decided to leave from Macedonia at once, having concluded that God was calling us to preach the good news there. We boarded a boat at Troaz and sailed straight across to the island of Samothrace, and the next day we landed in Mineapolis. From there we reached Philippi, a major city of that district of Macedonia and a Roman colony, and we stayed there several days. On the Sabbath, we went a little way outside city to a river bank where we thought people would be meeting for prayer, and we sat down to speak with some women who had gathered there. One of them was Lydia from Thaia Tyra, a merchant of expensive purple cloth who worshiped God. As she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart and she accepted what Paul was saying. She was baptized along with other members of her household, and she asked us to be her guests. If you agree that I'm a true believer in the Lord. She said, come and stay at my home, and she urged us until we all agreed. So this is interesting. This is the first time, you know, leaving, because have you ever been in what's now Istanbul? No, okay, so Constantinople. Istanbul is there's a river that goes from the Black Sea and cuts through the city of Istanbul. Sits on both sides of the river, but when you cross that river, one side is Asia, the other side is Europe. So Chad Asman, he's our executive pastor, a heriitchurch. He and I had a like a twelve hour thirteen hour layover in Istanbul. So we took an uber and we ran downtown. We went and saw the Hajjia Sophia and the blue moss and all those things. But we walked across the bridge and so at one point there's a line there, so you have one foot in Asia and one foot in Europe, and so there's two there's a lower portion of the bridge, upper portion of bridge, and all these guys are fishing off the top of the bridge. Of goofy story. There's all these restaurants in the lower part. So we're walking along there, but I see all these fishing lines, so Catfriie's not just grabbing the fishing line like that. Then these guys got you hear all the yelling up above, and they get all excited thinking, you know, there was a fish on the line and it was just me walking all the way down the thing pulling thing. So that's the line. That's the line between Asia and Europe. So up to this point, all of the Gospel had been held on the Asia side. Can I just pause and say how terrible that is? I don't know, man, I'm not a good person. So so, but this is the beginning. Now when they leave and they go over to you know, he talks about Troas, and then from Troas up into Samuel Thrace, and then they go into Macedonia. Once they make it into Macedonia, that's the first time the Gospel gets into Europe. Right there what would we consider modern day Europe or in the continent of Europe. And Lydia looks like she's maybe one of the very first converts in Europe. So it's kind of cool. Yeah, it is very cool. And one of the things that I'm noticing here just there's a pattern, and just in that small portion that we read. So they go to one place, and then there's a young man who stands out that's really well accepted among the believers, and his name is Timothy. And then they go to another place, and then there's a woman who stands out. Her name is Lydia. And it's so interesting how you know, God brings people in your life and you just said a moment ago that Timothy is going to become a major player. Well obviously at this point they don't know that. But because they encourage him to get circumcised, that means that. Which is kind of surprising. What's Paul doing. So we can have a mental assent and still kind of cave in a little bit to you know, public opinion and everyone. But but you know what, the reasons aren't listed, so it could be that maybe. Well the least the reason is he said it's just to avoid conflict. That's what he said. He said, So they went ahead and did it just to avoid any conflict. Yeah, yeah, so. He made a choice too, He made a choice to submit to popular culture for the purpose of effectiveness. Okay, if this is the reason why you're not going to hear us talk all right, we'll just do it right, And there's some there's a little bit of nobility in that that he has already said it means nothing anymore, but we'll do it so we can avoid having any other reason why you won't listen to the gospel. Right. It's like it's like it's you know that I have a good friend who is the chaplain of the Detroit Lions for thirty five years. You know who this is? Yes, right, and so I believe I believe by his own testimony, he's the losingest chaplain in the history of the NFL. Yeah, so anyway, what ends up patching? But when John Kitten is on the Lions, you know, because it's a non paying position, people don't know that it's a non paying position. And there's there's dozens of hours per week that are required to even be a part of this anyway, So one time John Kitten is like, so you don't get paid. You've been doing this for thirty years. So he went around the locker room and he literally took his baseball cap. Did every tall you this, yeah, And he actually said, hey, we're going to pass the hat. You guys throwing some money. We're going to get this chaplain a gift. So they did. They all threw in some money, and they ended up buying him a Yukon Denale, a brand new Yukon Denale. So it was just you know, this fifty thousand dollars gift from by the way, just from passing the hat. Right, if you passed the happy to me and you get four. Days, you're barely going to pay for lass, right. So anyway, so they end up giving him this. We anyway, here's what Dave did. Oh, I said his name, Dave, Dave Wilson. So here's what Dave did. You said his first name, then you just went and offered his last name. Well everybody knows, okay, everybody. Knows he's happy. He's happy that everybody knows. Yes. So so anyway, here's what he did. So it's exactly what you just. So Timothy says, hey, I'm going to do this just to avoid controversy. He get a license plate and he made sure that on this license plate it says gift to us, right, because he wanted everybody to know. He didn't wanted to be a stumbling block, right, because you know, a lot of pastors. They drive fancy cars, you know, and and you know they get accused of like taking money here and besley money, get paid too much, or abusing money. But Dave's like this is too nice. He's like, this is literally too nice, and so he goes out of his way to get this license plate. I said, dude, why do you have this license plate? Because I want everybody to know, right, I don't want to be a stumbling buck to anybody. And really that's what it reminded me of. It reminded me of you know, Timothy. Well, how many times have we done this? Working with a tribe out in Kenya. They have a very strong opinion about shorts on men. Boys wear shorts. Men don't wear shorts. Wow. So you know, if you're going to go into a village and share the gospel and you're wearing you know, it's hot. We're out in the middle of it. It's basically the Riff Valley, the Northern Rift Valley is like a desert one hundred and five hundred and fifteen degrees every day. I remember the first time they told me you have to wear pants, I said, I'm sorry, excuse me? Yeah, right, So for us you know, there's no law in the Bible as long as we're modest, there's no law in the Bible about you know, wearing shorts or whatever. But for them, their culture, they can't see past the shorts. Okay, Well, then we get there and find out these guys wear skirts. Remember remember they just were They wrap a robe around themselves. So for some reason shorts weren't allowed. Yeah, no shorts, but the boys wear shorts but not the men. So we're staying there wearing long pants, which was totally acceptable. That's okay. So this is kind of that deal now, you know, for Timothy it was kind of a permanent decision. That's a pretty big deal. And you know, it was a surgical procedure versus just changing your pants. But the idea being, I don't want anything to get between me and my effectiveness and ministry. So this was this was not a concession for the purpose of changing his doctrine in order to be able to go to Heaven. This was a concession so that he could be more effective in sharing the Gospel. Right, so he was willing to put away his freedoms for the benefit of others instead of what the Judaizers were trying to do was get people to convert theologically to their opinion and then you could become a Christian. And that is not what Timothy was doing here. Timothy was just making a strategic decision that was purely for effectiveness in ministry. Yeah. Right, Yeah, It's just like you know, you're going to get your master's degree, not necessarily because it's going to teach anything if you know a lot. Not necessarily because you can get paid more at the church, right. Right, right, It's just because some people won't listen to you unless you have a doctorate or a master's whatever. So there's a lot of things happening like that in culture. But the bottom line is is I believe that Timothy's motives here were just like what you said, that he wants to be effective and nothing is a stumbling block. But isn't it a surprise here that before the Timothy moment, Paul and Barnabas get in such a disagreement that they lit up. Yeah, listen, let. Me finish my thought. Let me finish my thought about Lydia and Timothy real quick, and then let's talk about this. I thought you were done with that. You just talk we just we just we went off about Timothy circumcisi. I was just going to say that God brings people in our lives and so God will raise up And even though that Paul didn't know that Timothy was going to be a major player, obviously he saw something in him because he was. He went on the journey with him to set him up for effective ministry. And so I just think that whenever God places people in your lives, uh, you know, just just know that this here is a reminder that you never know how important they may end up being. And you never know who's going to stick with you. You never know who's going to be really important in your life. And so God will bring people in your lives all the time. Just recognize them as potential people that God actually brought in. Yeah. So, and I think it's kind of cool here because Barnabas takes John Mark, who's still a young leader, and Paul immediately picks up Timothy, who's a young leader. Both these guys now they're doubling their potential impacts. Well, he picks up Silas, but then he picks up Timothy. In chapter sixteen, he says, we want you to come with us, right, So I think that that's really interesting. There's also another thing, just a subtle thing. You'll notice now the writer is talking about us and we. Prior to this, none of that has happened. But from here on, so the writer is Luke, and apparently in this season Luke joins the team. So he has been writing about what has happened historically. Now he's writing about us and we from this point on, which is kind of neat, right. So, and from this point on all the way till the end, for Paul, Luke stays with Paul almost the whole time. There's a time when Paul says, you know, everybody else has left me, only Luke is with me, right. So Luke, now you'll notice the rest of the writing is us and we rather than they. Yeah, it's kind of I don't think I ever caught that before. That's really interesting. So you have John Mark thing. Yeah, yeah, So you have John Mark, who apparently, you know, when they were in pimply the first time, on the first trip several years ago, he leaves them for whatever reason, doesn't say why, but Paul feels like he was abandoned by him, like he was a quitter and I think this was Paul's issue. Paul was stoned almost to death as Paul was beat and he was arrested. Paul is a pretty rugged guy, and I think he's looking at John Mark going he's two weak. I don't want him with me, And Barnabas is like, but there's so much potential, and so they split and that's okay, right. Sometimes differences actually can magnify the impact of the kingdom as long as both people are choosing or both, you know, sides of the differences are choosing to move forward and push forward for God's Kingdom rather than letting it ruin them in ministry. Neither one of these guys quit ministry. Later on we find out, you know, John Mark winds up becoming the author of the Book of Mark. He winds up eventually he's the founder of the church in Egypt, which the Coptic Church today still traces there two thousand years back to Mark. Right. So the impact that Mark had later in his life, probably because of this impact of Barnaby in his life, was huge, and so we can't minimize it. But hey, that's what happens. Sometimes good guys have different opinions, and God can make good things happen out of bad. Yeah. And by the way, it's also not wrong of Paul to say I don't want to with me too, because it just could be that was God's plan all along. But more importantly, sometimes it's okay for people just not to get along. Yeah, Like, there's nothing wrong with saying like, hey, he seems like a good guy or a good person or a good girl. We're just probably not meant to be together or hang around. And Barnabas's nickname, Barnabas's name meant son of encouragement. So Barnabas's ministry seems to be grabbing these young men, developing them. Well, that's what he did for Paul. That's what he did for Paul. That's where it's going. And then Paul goes and changes the Northern Mediterranean world, and Mark eventually goes down and changes North Africa. Yeah, so Barnabas's ministry is different from Paul's ministry. Paul was looking at, going this punk has the potential slowing me down again, and I don't have time to slow down. In fact, he has this Macedonian vision. He's got to go. He's going to go further and take a greater risk, and Barnabas is like, yeah, but there's a lot of potential in this Mark guy, and so I think that that's why. Also John Mark was Barnabas's nephew, so it's there's kind of the same thing. It's it's like it's like Michael Scott and his nephew with nepotism episode. You know, there's another great lesson there too, because even today, what we say is, you know, Ephesian says to some he gave apostles, to some, he gave the gift of prophecy, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. So Barnabas is a typical pastor gifted person where he is a pastor meaning the gift that cares, the gift that nurtures, the gift of councils, the gift. Right, So that's that's that's Barnabas. And Paul is rightfully called an apostle because. What is the apostle missionary? He's a missionary, he's a leader, he blazes through, which is exactly what you're talking So you know, there is a reason why he's like, hey, I don't have time for this. I'm I'm getting you know, an attempted murderer, and I'm getting shipped, acting abandoned and kicked out and imprisoned, you know. And so Paul is just you know, his whole job, assignment is to go from city to city bringing the good news to the gentiles facing opposition, you know, risking his life. And Barnabas's ministry is needed also, isn't it. Barnabas's ministry is obviously very effective. Right. So in other words, just because you're not like somebody else in the church, it doesn't mean that your gift is not important. So there's a great lesson there. Yeah, and then Silas is pretty rugged. We see this over the next couple chapters. Timothy had a great reputation, right, so as opposed to John Mark had a poor reputation. Timothy had a great repetition. Paul didn't have time to take a chance on potential. He was pushing forward, blazing a trail. And that's okay. So just to understand that different ministries exist for different reasons, and there's it's not that there's a right ministry and a wrong ministry. Sometimes they have different functions and that's okay, Right, So maybe you're a Barnabas where you're supposed to be encouraging the next generation. That's fine. You should do that. Leverage that gift in you, and God will honor it and make great things happen because of it. Maybe you're that trailblazer that evangelist out there. Use that. The point is they didn't get discouraged in this disagreement and start trash talking each other and typing in all caps online and trying to ruin each other's reputation. They just amicably split and God magnified their ministries because of it. Well, there's a lot of lessons in that passage that we read, and that's a great place to end because we're out of time. But we will see you next time on the Bible, guys,