Bible Guys Classics: Acts 23

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. So Jeff, Yes, the subtitle in My Bible says they're making plans to kill Paul. Yes. So the thing that comes to my mind is these things must be done delicately. I don't know movie that is. That's the Wizard of Oz. Wizard of Oz. Yeah, when she said, he said, she says how to do It's not my concerned. These things must be done delicates. Okay, I was trying to figure out how I've seen The Wizard of Oz. Yeah, oh it is an old movie. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good movie. I like it. So he's Chris and I'm Jason with the Bible guys, get off with it. Mh, you forgot forgot? I forgot that. We get buddy, that's so great. So hey, uh, we just want to remind everybody to like us or subscribe comment in the in the section uh you know, and and if you're on YouTube, there's a section of comment. We love feedback. Or by the way, we haven't said this in a while. Uh, email us at any time at info at the Bible guys dot com, uh to ask us questions like that we can use for a segment called mail bags or stump the pastor. Right'll be fun. We love all that stuff. So hey, we are going to do a little segment called Who's most Likely? So these are the instructions. That's the fun one. Uh oh, it says you'll use the Jeff and Chris faces. We don't have those though. Okay, well we'll just raise it. Bring you know what, We'll raise hands dead gummet oh. Josh has them. Oh, this is fun. This has never been done before. If you're watching the video, assistant, yeah, come on, buddy, if. You're watching this, uh, as opposed to listening to the podcast, we're actually gonna hold up signs. Okay. That one says Jeff, and one says Chris. Yeah, okay, okay, So here's here, here's the question. Number one, who's most we're gonna put him down like this ready? Who's most likely to end up on Broadway? You answer, Chris, that'd be me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whether or not it'd be good or not, that's all a different story. Just more likely than us. You're the showman though, yeah. Number two. Who's most likely to spill a secret? Oh? Gee? Uh? One? Two? Three goat, I'll fall on it. I'll fall on it, I'll follow the sword. I don't know. I think we're both storytellers, so we. To truth be told. I just didn't want to put I didn't want to put you up, but I should I should I should have I should have done it? Okay. Number three? Who is most likely to sleep through their alarm clock? Oh? This is definitely These. Are definitely Yeah, there's no question there all right. Number four, who's most likely to forget to text back? Oh? That's me, that's definitely yeah, that's me. Yeah. Just so you'll know, I am an excellent. Texture, you're an excellent texter. I text with the best of them. Gill. That should be on your resume. Yes, well I don't mean I don't mean with my thumbs like efficiency, I mean just respond y. Yeah. And then finally, who's most likely to break a world record? I think that can go either way. Yeah, I'm gonna pick it. I'm gonna give you the credit that I'm gonna give you the credit. Yeah, only because I think that people who are uh interested in that are well read and they're fascinated by things, and I think that you could find yourself in a position where, you know what it reminds me of. I went to Catalyst one time in Atlanta and there's like sixteen thousand people in this arena and they wanted to they wanted to do something with sixteen thousand people. They said, the records, they said, yeah. So they said, we looked and we realized that we only need fourteen thousand people to break the world record of the largest pillow fight. Oh. So they bought little pillows for everybody and they said, ready go, and every stood up and just started whacking each other on these on the head with these pillows. And they're like, they're like, that's it. We beach broke a world record. Well, then you were part of breaking a world record. Yes, so then why did you vote for me? You broke a world record already. Well it it wasn't for me. It wasn't me. Well you did though, one of sixteen thousand people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's funny. Okay, they're fun. Yeah, those are very fun. Okay. So anyway, I just want to say my Broadway thing, the Showman piece. I love going to see Broadway. But you do too, Yeah yeah, yeah, you go to a lot more Broadway than I do. But my wife and I enjoyed. And and I quote and sing Broadway. Yes you do. He just sings and dances all through the office all the time. That'd be you. You'd be the greatest showman. So, by the way, one of my favorite movies ever, it. Was because zach Efron's in it. This again you were waiting for that, you were throwing a little bit. Yeah, if you miss the zach Efron thing, you need to go back digging in. That's that's a call back there, that's for our loyal followers written listeners right there. Daily back and like it would have been like almost a. Year ago, more than a year ago. Yeah, So anyways, we should pick up and go that was a fun one to see, for sure. So this plan to kill Paul where in Acts chapter twenty three, he's been arrested, he's getting handed off from the Roman guys. They're going to beat him, and then they find out he's a citizen and they send him to the High Council, the Jewish High Council. Jewics High Council can't solve this thing, So then it says here the next morning, a group of Jews got together and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul, which is just. What an opening statement. Wow, Hey, listen, nobody's even going to have their next meal until this dead. That's right, that's right. There were more than forty of them in the conspiracy. They went to the leading priests and elders and told them, we've bound ourselves with an oath eat nothing until we have killed Paul. So you and the High Council should ask the commander to bring Paul back to the Council again, pretend you want to examine his case more fully. We'll kill him on the way. But Paul's nephew, his sister son heard of their plan and went to the fortress and told Paul. Paul called for one of the Roman officers and said, take this young man to the commander. He has something important to tell him. So the officer did did, explaining Paul. The prisoner called me over and asked me to bring this young man to you because he has something to tell you. Commander took his hand, let him aside, and ask what is it you want to tell me? Paul's nephew told him some Jews are going to ask you to bring Paul before the High Council tomorrow, pretending they want to get some information, but don't do it. They're more than forty men hiding along the way, ready to ambush him. They have vowed not to eat or drink anything until they've killed him. They are ready now, just waiting for your consent. Don't let anyone know you who told this, the commander warned the young man. Don't let anyone know you told me this. How about that? Yep, the commander warned the young man. Then the commander called two of his officers in order to get two hundred soldiers ready to leave for cessarea by nine o'clock to night. Also take two hundred spearmen and seventy mounted troops provide horses for Paul to ride and get him safely to Governor Felix. Then he wrote this letter to the Governor from Claudius Lysius to his excellency, Governor Felix, Greetings, This man was seized by some Jews, and they were about to kill him when I arrived with the troops. When I learned that he was a Roman citizen, I removed him to safety, and then I took him to their high council to try to learn the basis of the accusations against him. I soon discovered the charge was something regarding their religious law, certainly nothing worthy of imprisonment or death. But when I was informed of a lot to kill him, I immediately sent him on to you. I've told you his accusers. I've told his accusers to bring their charges before you. So that night, as ordered, the soldiers took Paul as far as an anti patris. I never heard never either. They returned to the fortress the next morning, while the mounted troops took him on to Cesarea. When they arrived in Cesarea, they presented Paul in a letter to Governor Felix, and he read it and then asked Paul what province he was from. Celicia. Paul answered, I'll hear your case myself. When your accusers arrived, the governor told him. Then the governor ordered him kept in the prison at Herod's headquarters. There it goes. So it's really interesting because I believe this is the only place where Paul's family is actually mentioned, and because it's so out of the blue, and because Paul, you know, is responsible for writing most of the New Testament, right, just throwing it out of the blue. Paul and his sister, what h and his sister's son was not only like he was there, he was within close proximity, right, hear this? Yeah, Like that's amazing. Well, just think of how many times in our podcast we've incidentally mentioned your three kids, my three kids, our wives. Yeah, You've told stories about your brothers, You've told stories about your mom, about your uncles. We've told so many stories about our family, just in you know, in twenty minute chunks over the last year. But this is the only time Paul's family's mentioned in the whole Bible. That's crazy. The note in the Life Application Bible says this is the only Biblical reference to remember to a member of Paul's family. Some scholars believe that Paul's family had disowned him when he became a Christian, and Paul had written of suffering the loss of everything for Christ and Phippians three and so that might have been what he's referencing there. But his nephew was able to see him because he was a Roman citizen. Roman citizens that were imprisoned were treated very differently, you know, when they were under the authority of the court, they were treated very differently than non Roman citizens, and so they had access to family members at one point through Paul's arrest. Here in this cycle, he spends years just living in his own apartment, but he's got Roman soldiers you know, that are assigned to him all day every day. But he has his own home and he's doing all these things. So it was a very different experience to be arrested as a Roman citizen that it would have been as a non Roman citizen, right, Yeah. And I think it's interesting to theorize that his family would have disowned him because I think Adnew Murray we had him as a guest and one of our you know, Sunday Morning experiences, and he actually talked about the cost that Paul would have had to pay and just you know, sort of brings to mind would have cost Paul to say, oh, just kidding, I'm now a Christian or a follower of the Way, and you're talking about pretty high price. Well, that happens all around the world today, you know, and not just within you know, not just people who become new believers in Christ, but in so many different areas. You know, people that leave Islam, or leave Hinduism, or leave Buddhism oftentimes are rejected by the families, people who leave families that are centered around humanism and atheism, same things. Sometimes you become a Christian and your family sometimes will abandon you. And Paul said, hey, you know what, if I suffer total loss for Christ, it's still worth it. And we also know from other sections in Paul's writings that Paul was single, because he talks about, you know, it's better like me to serve Christ, but if you must go ahead and. Marry yeah, First Corinthians seven. Oh, there it is. So we do know that Paul is single. So it's very safe to assume he doesn't have any children, you know, no spouse at this point, there's no indication that he ever got one, really, but we do know that his nephew cares about him enough to look out for him. So if he was dis owned by his faamily, it could have been he might have been disowned by his sister, but the nephew didn't understand or didn't care. Yeah, and loved Uncle Paul. And this is years, Like, this is decades saw slash Paul. Yeah, this is decades. This is close to fifty seven AD at this point. Yeah, yeah, this is decades after he trusted Christ. So you know, sometimes it's a lot of heat at the beginning, and then over time the family will soften a little bit. Now he's in prison, he's in Jerusalem, and they maybe the families have compassion on him. Whatever. Yeah. Oftentimes, you know, if you were going to be fed in the prison, it's going to be gruel, you know what I mean, It's going to just be bread and water kind of thing. But the families were allowed to bring food for the Roman citizens, and so there's all kinds of reasons maybe, but it does. This is the only time ever mentions this family, which is kind of cool. You know, we often mentioned the Life Application Study Bible. And there's a little chart here in mind that talk about the unsung heroes in the book of Acts. Yeah, and he says when we think of this, says of the early church, we often think of the work by the apostles, but the church. But the Church couldn't have done it, have not been not been for the unsung heroes, the men and women who through some small committed act moved the church forward. So it mentions at Act chapter three, the crippled man after his healing, he praised God and the crowds gathered the five deacons in Act chapter six, Annonius and Act chapter nine who brought sight to Saul and Cornelius, Rhoda, James, Lydia, Julius, and Jason. And then it says Paul's nephew, right, so he doesn't have a name. This is Paul and nephew. He saved Paul's life by telling the officials about the murder plot. So think about the contribution that this young man had, assuming he's a young man to the church that you and I pastor today. So the connected, the connect the dots syndrome, the ripple effect of Paul spreading the gospel to the ends, of the world, including the tells, which are you and me and and you know, the church just you know, blossoming across Europe and in Asia and then eventually coming across the seas you know, of the Pond or whatever and making it over here. So think about that. So, so we're gonna get to Heaven one day be like, hey, you're the nephew kid. Yeah. Yeah, then nobody else gets to say Hi, I'm Jason, I'm Lydia and he's like, I'm Paul's nephew. So he's gonna have to tell us his name and we get to Heaven. I think this would be funny. We're sharing I was. I was in Atlanta, Georgia for eleven years, and you know, they're pretty southern in Atlanta in some parts of it. And I had a really Southern speaking friend named Mark, and mark'sluck. He's like, dude, you got to go downtown Atlanta of this church that I grew up in and they do this play and it's the same play like every year, and I'm telling you it is dynamite. I'm like, okay, and it's supposed to be It's supposed to be this like end of the end of life kind of thing. And so every year, you know, they made up this play, like the person in the congregation wrote it, and they perform it. And then at the end he's he's like at the end, they walk up to you and they hand you these crosses, you know, like will you accept the cross today? You know, all these kind of things. Well, anyway, in the script it said, uh, blind boy, a blind boy. They say this before. Okay, So first of all, Jesus was a silhouette of somebody wearing a burger king crown, okay, behind a bed sheet. It was absolutely laughable, right, hysterical, hysterical in this poor little church. Right, So the light was shining behind him, and so then you had the shadow. And you see the crowd, right, and so anyway, so what ends up happening is this boy, you know, this sweet little character that they had written in. Well, he dies and he goes in front of the bed sheet, right with the big silhouette, and and and then God's voice and the microphone says, ah, my friend, blind. Boy instead of a name, because God wouldn't have known his name, knew his circumstances. Apparently you're only known by your defects, right, but I've telling you what. Nobody even caught it around me. Nobody even caught it. But he said, my friend, blind boy, I almost fell out of the pew. I could not recover. And I'm telling you and Marcus like, what's the matter with you? They called a blind boy. This is Paul's nephew. But you know, he's not given any credit here, but he's the guy, he's the man. Yeah, and I think it's neat how God uses apparently, you know, it's it's assumed believe that he would have been a kid, right, so maybe you know, a young teenager or whatever. He had the ability to navigate on his own. His mom's not there, so yeah, probably a young teenager. And I think sometimes we underestimate even young teenagers, underestimate what they can do for God. And in this instance, he winds up getting a bit of knowledge that's important. He cares about his uncle, and he has the guts to go and tell his uncle, but of course his uncle's in jail. So then Paul says, well, why don't you go tell that commander, And he had the guts to continue to follow through, and God use this kid to save Paul's life, and by the way, A whole bunch of books of the Bible are written after this moment. Right, had they killed him in this moment, had he been assassinated on this road, we would have missed out on Ephesians, on Galatians, we would have missed out on First and Tewod Timothy Titus fi Lehman. Right, there's so many books that Paul has not yet written that still needed. There was still a lot of mission left for Paul, and God use his nephew to rescue him. Yeah. And so here's the great thing about any time that you come across an unsung hero, as the Life of Christian Bible describes, is that you know some of the greatest contributions to any worthwhile organizations, nonprofits. You know things that people have given their lives to and sacrificed for that they've moved the Kingdom of God forward. There are so many unsung heroes along the way, and so you could be an unsung hero behind a great movement. I remember a friend of mine who actually, uh did this exercise, and long story short, they identified that that they're like who lift up the arms of Moses. It was Aaron and Joshua. Aaron Joshua. So then so there's a scripture where it says, you know, as as long as Moses held his arms up there winning the war, you know, his arms got tired. So they so they actually you know, stood on either side of. Them, and they held about his arm. And and this guy was trying to say that he identified with being the unsung hero like he's he said, I'm not a Moses. I'm not an outfront kind of leader. He said, you know what I am, He goes, I'm an Aaron who Uh, I'm going to do my very very best to lift up the hands, uh, you know, or the position or the voice, or the or the desires or whatever of the leaders. You know, these are the unsung heroes of the world, right, And so just just know that nobody may know your name, and you may have a phenomenal contribution to wherever God has placed you, you know, in your sphere of influence, in your relationships, or in your church, in the mission of your church. Yeah that was her, Aaron and her oh her, Yeah, that's because Joshua is out leading the army there. So yeah, yeah, sorry, my brain didn't come along quick enough. You know, we have a guy like that in our life. Chad Asman is our executive pastor at Ariedis Church. Yeah yeah, and nobody really knows. Unless we're telling funny stories about him, right right, because he's not an on stage guy. But you know, he'll tell you in his life growing up, he always he never wanted to be like in a TV show or a movie. He didn't want to be the president. He wanted to be the chief of staff guy. He wanted to be the guy behind the guy. And so if you ask him his favorite movie characters, his favorite TV characters tend to be the guy behind the guy. And it's always been that way for him, that that's what he wants to be. Is the is the one making it happen, not the one just out saying stuff, right, And he's just brilliant. God's given him that gift. And so you know, if you and I were responsible for just doing all the work that's at Heritage Church that we have, nothing would get done hardly, right. We'd have a lot of fun, but not a lot to happen, you know. But Chad's one of the guys who as soon as we start talking, he's over at the whiteboard starting to break it into pieces of figuring out how to make it happen. He's a make it happen kind of guy, and a lot of people feel like I just don't have you know, I'm not a famous ministry person. I'm a I don't have a lot of power influence, and I think we underestimate the super gifts that God's given every every person, and so you know, the unsung heroes are. Every bit is important to the story as Paul right, If Paul's story ended there, that was it? Right? One thing, as we're finishing up here, I think it's humorous that, you know, this soldier decides this commander says, all right, there, forty bad guy assassins, let's go ahead and send four hundred and seventy elite Roman soldiers to as court Paul up. I mean, it was just a massive show of force at that point. And Paul's riding on a horse instead of walking normally. I mean, it'd be rare for a prisoner ride it, but he's riding on a horse, so he's got an escape vehicle already, and they just come walking by, and I wonder what it was like to be those forty guys hiding in the bushes, they come, they ground shaking as they come rolling in, and the assassination didn't happen. And I think it's cool to see how God decides that his mission is going to be done no matter what. These Roman soldiers aren't aren't living their life to honor God. But God's purposes will be fulfilled. And sometimes he does it in funny ways or extravagant ways, and in this situation, that's exactly what he does. So God is going to fulfill his purpose in your life. You just have to keep following him and going on this journey with him. Which, by the way, there are so many examples in the scriptures that actually where God uses sometimes even like bad or corrupt leaders, which accomplishes his purpose. That's right, right, God used Herod, right Augustus who issued a decree that a sensus should be taken. Right if not for him? That you know that you know. But so God is going to use leaders that even that we don't believe in. Uh. And maybe it's because one of my spiritual gifts is faith. It's actually one of the strongest gifts. But like I, I honestly believe regardless of who's in office. And you know. And again I'm not making a statement about not fighting for what's right, sure, because we should always stand up and fight for which right's right. But however, what I'm saying is I always have faith that God is going to use leaders in spite of themselves just as much as he will because of themselves, because God will always have his way. So let's wrap up with this. It says God's ways are not our ways. Ours are limited his or not. Don't limit God by asking him to respond to your way. When God intervenes, things will work out much better than you could have ever imagined. Right. That's a good word, and that's a great way to end this because that's exactly what happens for Paul here. That's great, all right, Well, we will see you next time on the Bible guys. M.