Transcription

Connor
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris
You know, for those people watching that that The is so old that we’re wearing headphones.

Jeff
I was just thinking the exact same thing I was going to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s so funny. I wish we did wear headphones. I could hear you better.

Chris
Yeah, that’s. Well, you know, nobody’s really said that to me before. Yeah. I want to hear you better.

Jeff
I want to hear you better. I want.

Chris
To hear you more.

Jeff
Chris. That’s right. I just want to hang on every word. What you have to say.

Chris
Well, hey, good morning everyone. Indeed. If it is morning and we are going to start off with a segment called good day, good, good day, sir.

Jeff
Day or.

Chris
Evening? Good afternoon or.

Jeff
Night.

Chris
Good night. We are going to start off with a segment called where are our listeners from.

Jeff
Yeah this is a fun one.

Chris
Yeah. And so what we’re.

Jeff
Doing is we did we’ve done Holland Michigan.

Chris
Yeah yeah yeah.

Jeff
Where else did we do.

Chris
We did. Come on Minnesota.

Jeff
Vikings. Yeah yeah yeah Minneapolis Minneapolis okay. And this is another good one.

Chris
Yeah. And this is just because the Google stats came in. And it tells us that we have several listeners from a concentrated from this area. And I don’t know anybody who lives in this area currently.

Jeff
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Chris
So all right so here it is. So we’re going to give you clues and you’re going to see if you could sort of guess the city that we’re describing.

Jeff
Such weird clues.

Chris
Number one, it was nearly named Possum Trot and Rabbit Ville in 1853 after two animals that were popular barbecue delicacies at the time. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Yeah, people eat possum.

Chris
And rabbit.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris
Barbecue possum.

Jeff
Barbecue possum, baby.

Chris
By the way, possums are really gentle creatures. They’re ugly.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, they’re very sweet.

Chris
Very sweet.

Jeff
Yeah. All right. So I had a I had a pastor friend when I was growing up. So he was kind of one of my heroes. And he was big hunter. Yeah. And I had possum at his house. He’s from he’s from West Virginia. Mm hmm. All right. Okay. Secondly, it’s the birthplace of Mickey Mouse and bomb pops.

Chris
Well, those are random things. Yes, I know, but birthplace of Mickey Mouse is pretty.

Jeff
That’s a big deal. Bomb pops a pretty big deal, too. But.

Chris
Yeah, but Mickey Mouse is known all over the world.

Jeff
Okay.

Chris
Number three, it is said to have more fountains than any other city besides Rome. Holy cow! Leading to its nickname, City of Fountains.

Jeff
Very creative nickname, by the way.

Chris
Hey, by the way. Wow.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah.

Chris
Rome. Rome is fountains.

Jeff
That’s pretty cool. Yeah. Did you get to see any fountains when you were in Rome?

Chris
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. That’s fun. Did you throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain? Of course. Over your shoulder, of course. Yeah. So Chad and I were standing there together, our executive pastor, and it was like 1130 at night, and I said, hey, you’re supposed to throw a coin over your shoulder. He goes, oh, okay. So he turned around. We throw coins, and then some guy goes, oh, isn’t that wonderful? You guys will come back, you know, together someday. I’m like, I don’t want to come back to Rome with Chad, right?

Chris
Right. He thought you were together.

Jeff
Together maybe. Right. Exactly. Okay. Uh, and it’s the home to a to a football team that the Detroit Lions beat this year.

Chris
Oh, that’s a good clue.

Jeff
And current Super Bowl champs.

Chris
Yeah. So if that doesn’t give you a clue, it is. It is Kansas City, Missouri. There you go. My my future son in law, who’s been dating my daughter for five years, just accepted a job in Kansas City, Missouri. Wow. So who knows if they do get married. My daughter actually may be living in Kansas City, Missouri. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Wow. There you go. Kansas City right there. So is there a Kansas City Kansas, too? Yes. So it sits on the border.

Chris
It sits on the border.

Jeff
Yeah. It splits. It splits right down the middle. But this is we’re ignoring the Kansas City Kansas. Right. And we are celebrating Kansas City, Missouri.

Chris
Well, I got to tell you.

Jeff
So way to go, people.

Chris
I got to tell you, I almost wonder when when he was down there, I almost wonder if maybe he was one of the ones listening to the podcast. That’s how that’s how he came up.

Jeff
Well, I think it’s supposed to be like a groups. I don’t know how she picked it, but cool. I doubt it. He doesn’t listen to us, you know that.

Chris
Yeah, probably. Probably not. Yeah. Okay.

Jeff
So hey, do this comment and let us know where you’re where you’re listening or watching from. And if you’re if you’re listening on like a podcast platform, send it to us info at biblegateway.com. Yeah, right. So isn’t.

Chris
It the Bible guys.

Jeff
The Bible guys.com info at the Bible guys.com. So cool.

Chris
All right. Well today we’re jumping into actually this is sort of a transitional type passage isn’t it.

Jeff
Yeah. Well we had mentioned that he was transitioning as soon as he leaves Caesarea Philippi. Yeah his ministry changes, but now he’s getting ready to leave Galilee and head towards Jerusalem. So really big, really big transitional moment. We’re talking.

Chris
About Jesus.

Jeff
Of course. That’s correct. Yes. Big fan, by the way.

Chris
Big fan. Big fan. Okay. Jesus. Big fan. Yeah. It reminds me of Kung Fu Panda. Did you see Kung Fu Panda?

Jeff
Kung fu panda? Yeah. When he.

Chris
When he peeks in, he goes, big fan. Big fan.

Jeff
Okay, here we go. We’re going to read from Matthew chapter 19, verses one and two, then mark chapter ten, Luke chapter nine, and then we’ll just keep going in Luke chapter nine. Here we go. It says, when Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went down to the region of Judea, east of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed him there, and he healed their sick. Then it says in Mark ten. Then Jesus left Capernaum and went down to the region. Of Judea and into the area east of the Jordan River. Once again, crowds gathered around him, and as usual, he was teaching them. Luke nine says, as the time drew near for him to ascend to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Right. And then in verse 52, it says, he sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival. But the people of the village did not come or welcome Jesus, because he was on his way to Jerusalem. When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up? But Jesus turned to rebuke them. So they went on to another village.

Chris
So unbelievably random.

Jeff
So funny.

Chris
So unbelievably random. Guys couldn’t.

Jeff
Nine of them couldn’t cast out one demon. But man, bless God, they’re going to call down fire from heaven.

Chris
Yeah, well, you know, Jesus had said Jesus had already said that when when a town doesn’t welcome you. He gave them instructions to. To do what? Yeah.

Jeff
To shake off the dust. Off their feet. Yeah.

Chris
Symbolically saying, like shaking the dust off your feet, saying, hey, you know, I’ve done what I can do. I’m shaking off the, you know, this, this, this attitude of not being welcoming. Well, apparently they were so angry that they were not being welcomed and that they wanted to they weren’t content with shaking off the dust out of their feet. And so, just in case our listeners are wondering, for those who don’t know, they’re really sort of call it they’re referring to Elijah, aren’t they? So, yeah, Elijah from the Old Testament is a famous prophet who called down fire from heaven and, you know, burned up a sacrifice. And so I think what they were doing was they were sort of saying. Who are they to not welcome Jesus? Don’t they know who he is? Right, right. So don’t you think it’s attached to some sort of a not just a punishment kind of attitude? Right.

Jeff
But I think it’s just total road rage. I feel I, I feel that way sometimes when I’m driving down road cut me off. I’m like, I call down fire from heaven. That’s so funny.

Chris
Well, there’s a part of me that thinks that’s attached to punishment because they’re mad. Oh yeah. But then there’s a part of me that thinks we’ll show them. We’ll get revenge on them in a supernatural way. Display the wrath of God like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When the angels, you know, when those little glowy things change faces. And all of a sudden they become the glowy things of death.

Jeff
So. So they did grow up. You know, Galilee isn’t very far away from Mount Carmel, where Elijah did call down fire from heaven.

Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
That’s right. So you’ve been there. Have you been in Mount Carmel? No, never been there. So I.

Chris
Think we drove past.

Jeff
It. There’s a statue on the top of the mountain. There’s a there’s a monastery, this really beautiful monastery. There’s a statue of Elijah, and he stands there with a sword over his head, and he’s got his foot on a guy’s head. So, yeah, it’s pretty, pretty crazy. So Elijah won this great victory against the the priests and prophets of Baal and on Mount Carmel and called down fire from heaven. Right. So that’s the that’s the thing. But it’s just hysterical to me because these guys, these guys, so they could not figure out how to cast out nine of them could not cast out one demon.

Chris
Right.

Jeff
But they’re going to call down fire. Right. So there is something about that. You’ve Paul warns at one point that knowledge puffs us up, right, that we get really prideful. So there’s there’s kind of an adolescence in our Christian life. Yeah. You know, so you’re a baby at first. You’re drinking milk and and, you know, your spiritual parents are caring for you and loving on you and all those things. And it’s just so wonderful. But then you’ve seen this. I know you have. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Somebody starts really leaning into the word, they start studying. They get a hold of some systematic theology book. They heard some theologian that blows their minds, and next thing you know, they know everything. Everything. Right. Yeah. And now they want to argue about every little detail. And your theology is wrong and they’ve got it right, and everybody around them is a heretic. And that’s exactly what I feel like is happening here, is they’ve been with Jesus just long enough. And they just left Caesarea Philippi and he said, the gates of hell will not prevail against us. Bless God, bless God, right? Right. That’s it. And it just seems like they’re so cocky. And there is this moment, I think, in most. Big Bible students lives where you get just a little too cocky. You think a little too much of yourself. And. And so I wonder if that’s just not what’s happening here because Jesus response. So it’s interesting here. It just says he turned and rebuked them. Some of the ancient manuscripts have this phrase on verses 55 and 56. It says, and he said, you don’t realize what your hearts are like, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy people’s lives, but to save them. Jeff
Yeah, right. So they’re so convinced Jesus is the Son of God that if somebody has a bad attitude about Jesus, we’re going to wipe them out. And Jesus goes, you still don’t understand the mission, right? Right.

Chris
You know, you were talking about how knowledge puffs up and giving those examples of people who, you know, feel a little superior when they have Bible knowledge. Yeah. So I think we have a series coming up at our church that’s coming up in the fall, where it’s just one week that we’re focusing on this, but we’re actually focusing on the idea that that knowledge isn’t the goal of the Christian faith. Right, right, right. Although more knowledge is always good, more knowledge is important. It’s very.

Jeff
Important. Yeah, but it’s not the goal. That’s not.

Chris
The goal. The goal of of the Christian faith is application. So you know the idea that like and I’ve and I’ve, I’ve heard this my entire life where people will come and then they’ll say like, hey, I’ve been going to your church a while, but there’s always another church down the street that’s giving more knowledge, right? Right. I mean, there just always is, right? Right. Because it depends on what kind of weekend you want to be a part of, you know? You know, I’ve been a part of pretty in-depth Bible studies. You know, where you meet together. And man, it’s a deep dive into some books, right? And it’s just straight up information. It’s like you feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose. Well, there are actually churches who do that on Sunday mornings.

Jeff
Sure. Oh yeah.

Chris
Yeah. And it’s like, and there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way, there’s all different kinds of churches for all different kinds of people. Our friend Nick boring drilled that into my head. Right. So it’s not it’s not better. It’s just different. Right. But when people come to me and my whole life and they’ve said, hey, you know, I just want more meat and potatoes and I want this or that. I always just sort of laugh and think to myself, I will bet you out of the 52 weeks, your past 52 weeks at our church, I bet you that you probably struggled with 45 of the messages in terms of application in your life.

Jeff
Yeah, you didn’t actually do all 50 messages. No, no.

Chris
Right, right, right. It’s like it’s like.

Jeff
I want to hear more. What they mean is I want bigger words. Would you please use more four syllable words? That’s that’s what they’re saying. I want more meat and potatoes and I want to be deeper.

Chris
I want to learn something. Yeah, right. I want to learn something new. And they think. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that. Because again.

Jeff
Nothing wrong with wanting.

Chris
To learn. Yeah, learning is a great thing. But as long as we understand that the goal of every message, the goal of every time we sit down and read the Bible, the goal of every time we pray, the goal of every time we fellowship with other Christians. I use the word fellowship.

Jeff
Yeah, I love that.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. Do you the goal that every time we, we do that is the goal is application and transformation. So if if we’re not applying and growing and exercising our faith, then more knowledge is, is is pretty fleeting.

Jeff
When when heritage was younger and I had just come to heritage, we were still meeting in high school and I had a guy that was I really liked him a lot, and he kind of came after me one day going, you know, I’ve heard your stories, I’ve heard you preach. I get what you’re about. I just feel like I need more. I’m like more what he said deeper Bible teaching. And I said, okay, I’ll give it to you. It’s a great. And I said we can start meeting at 6:00 on Monday mornings. He goes, no, no, that doesn’t work for me. I said, all right, I could do 6:00 on Wednesday. That doesn’t that doesn’t work for me either. Uh, I think I’m available in the evenings. On Thursdays. Oh, that’s not available for me either. I offered him four time slots in the week. Yeah, he says not available. What he wanted was for the 35 minutes. He’s available on Sunday mornings. Right. He wants me to customize messages for him, right? Right. Right, right. So he wasn’t that hungry, right? It was just the one day a week he was going to eat spiritually. He wanted me to feed him a gourmet meal. Right. For that one meal. Yeah, right. And I asked him, I said, can I ask you a question? I said, would you say that you spend seven hours a week in the word? And he went, oh no, no, that’s what I’m saying is I need to spend more time in the word I said. Would you say you spent five hours a week in the word? He goes, oh no, no, not not even close. I was like, okay, so he wants me to set him on my lap, bounce him like a baby, right? Jeff
Right.

Chris
Put him in a high chair.

Jeff
Here comes a great big word. We’re going to.

Jeff
Talk about sanctification this week. Here come the carrots. Here come the carrots. Right, right. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Jeff
And so sometimes we can get a little selfish when we’re talking about that. Now I think it’s incredibly important to be studying and learning. We should be students of the word. And five years from now, you should not even hardly recognize the person you used to be. And the level of lack of knowledge you had back then versus now, right? Five years later. Sure, sure, sure, you should always be growing. But the goal in a Christian’s life is not just to become a super student. You know, God has multiple purposes, he said. We’re supposed to love other people. We’re supposed to love God. That’s ministry and worship. We’re supposed to go tell everybody that’s evangelism fellowship. We talked about that, right? Bringing people into the family of God and discipleship. We should be discipling others, not just, he says, teach them to obey. So we’re supposed to be discipling others, those big five purposes. It’s not just discipleship. It’s all these things together. Make a disciple. And so the goal is not just to learn more. The goal is to have balance in your life and balance. Things are healthy and healthy. Things grow. Right, right, right. So you need you need to have balance in all of those areas. So you should have a hunger. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, right? You should have a hunger for God’s words. And, you know, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. There’s just a million of these phrases like that that we should be seeking God. We should be seeking God’s ways, and we discover him through His Word. But then we need to be balanced in all the other areas. So anyways, I just I think it’s funny, they get puffed up and they’re going to call down fire from heaven. Jeff
So far, the only thing we’ve seen is that they went around preaching a little bit and they did. They did some miracles, but now you know they’re ready to cast out or call down fire.

Chris
So, so these, these few verses from from each gospel here, there’s one from Matthew, Luke, Mark, actually those three. I forgot to turn that off. Your phone’s.

Jeff
Ringing.

Chris
Chris I can’t believe that even happened. Sorry about that, listeners. But so we have three of the four gospels here. But but again, that’s why I called it a transitional type passage, because really, what it’s really saying is, you know, he he didn’t want to go to Judea. His brothers ridiculed him. Remember last week we talked about that. Yeah, yeah. And he knew that once he entered into Judea that there was no turning back. Right. And he was entering toward Jerusalem. He was entering toward the cross and the crucifixion. And he knew what was coming in Passover week. Right. And so eventually he gets done and he starts heading that way. So can you even imagine, first of all, yeah. Side note that Jesus, Jesus is marching down from northern Israel, and he’s going all the way down to Jerusalem. Now, it does say that he goes on the east side of the Jordan River. Yeah. Which means that we have a little map here in our life application Study Bible that talks about leaving Capernaum. And then he and he sort of goes down on the west side. He goes through.

Jeff
Samaria, goes.

Chris
Through Samaria, and then he crosses over and and visits a city over on the east side.

Jeff
Which would be on modern day Jordan.

Chris
Modern day Jordan. Yeah. And then he crosses back over and we’re about to see later on that he goes to Jericho. Jericho. Right. And then and then eventually ends up in Jerusalem. Yeah, but can you even imagine Jesus, you know, making that final March, having the, you know, being the only one with the perspective of like, do you have any idea what I’m doing for you? Yeah. Right. And you know what? I feel like there’s a lesson in there. There’s a sermon in there. And I think that there are a lot of times in our lives where we take for granted what Jesus has done for us, right, right. So every time that we sin, every time that we, you know, make selfish choices or, you know, just decide to exercise our own will and, and, you know, we make a really sort of a big and a bad choice, you know, in our lives, you know, we often don’t stop and reflect because Jesus would be thinking, do you have any idea? Do you have any appreciation of what’s of what’s about to happen is what he’s thinking, right. You know, and we would look back at the cross and say, do you have any idea what he paid for? You know.

Jeff
It said that he Luke chapter 951 says Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Yeah, what a phrase, right?

Chris
I didn’t even see that.

Jeff
Where is that at? So 51, verse 51. Luke 951.

Chris
Oh, yeah. Resolutely. There it is. Yeah.

Jeff
So? So, you know, his brothers are trying to get him to go for the Feast of Tabernacles, right? And he goes, no, if I go down there now, there’s going to be trouble. Right? But that’s about six months out from Passover. So he’s going to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He is the Passover lamb, right? And so he couldn’t go during festival, during this big festival, it was going to cost too much trouble. It’s too many people, too much. Jerusalem is going to be too politically and religiously charged. So no, I’m not going to go well now we’re past that. So now he’s moseying down, he’s resolutely going. But there’s a lot of things that happen between here and Jerusalem. Right. And so now he’s he’s going down through there. He cuts through Samaria, which, by the way, we’ve talked about this before, that the Jews hated the Samaritans because they were half breeds. And the the Samaritans hated the Jews because of prejudice. And so there’s this prejudice back and forth, both of them unreasonable. But that’s the way that they felt about each other. And so oftentimes Jews would walk around, good purebred Jews would walk around Samaria. Yeah.

Chris
And they would add sometimes like an entire day’s journey.

Jeff
Yeah. Because they didn’t even want the dirt to be on their sandals from Samaria.

Chris
They considered them unclean. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff
So it was just gross. Oh, gross. Right. But Jesus didn’t have that same prejudice. And so there’s multiple times he just cuts right through. It’s the most practical. I love that about Jesus. Right. And so he’s just cutting through Samaria.

Chris
And the people are valuable. Yeah.

Jeff
And the. He stops in a town. And it’s interesting. You know, prejudice goes both ways. So here they’re like, we don’t want anything to do with you. You know, you’re a Jewish rabbi. Whatever. We don’t want you now. Matthew and Mark said. Matthew says that large crowds followed Jesus and he’s healing their sick. That’s pretty impressive. What village doesn’t need some sick people healed, but they didn’t want anything to do with Jesus. And then it says crowd. Mark says once again, crowds gathered around him and is usually he was teaching them well. We know that several of the Samaritans were really amazed by his teaching. So this this village didn’t want anything to do with Jesus. So even though he was currently healing and teaching, now get on out of here.

Chris
Well, it gives the the reason why it said. It said they did not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. Yeah. And so what’s the implication of that, you think?

Jeff
Uh, I think that. So they had their own. They had their own temple. Right, right. So they had their own worship system, and he they were feeling rejected culturally by him, I think. And so they were rejecting him.

Chris
Hence the conversation with the woman at the. Well. That’s right. Right. Because they talked about, you know, you jus worship at your temple and, you know, in Jerusalem, where do we worship. Right? And that whole conversation took place. So yeah, that was a really big thing in culture. So yeah, I mean just thinking about, you know, here’s the, here’s the, the word about Jesus from all of the good Jews, I’m sure. Well, not all, but many believed that he probably was the Messiah, even though that they wanted a military person, you know, to deliver them. Right. They interpret it deliverance, not spiritual deliverance. But, you know, they were in occupied territory and they wanted military deliverance. But either way, they’re thinking Jesus is the answer. And then Jesus is on his way to the big worship, you know, festival in the the Passover, Passover feast in Jerusalem. And yeah, there was an absolute attitude toward him about that. So I think.

Jeff
Sometimes we can wrap up with this, I think, but sometimes I think we guess that other people aren’t going to like us. And so we preemptively strike. Right. And this, this might have been it is that, hey, if you’re on your way to Jerusalem for some kind of worship thing, you’re not going to like us anyways. So get out. Right? So I think sometimes we push away people we don’t really know. We don’t take the time to really know why they’re here or what their intent is. We just reject them because we we guess that they’re going to reject us. Yeah. And I think there’s a lot of woundedness in that, you know, the woundedness is in the culture long term. But that’s probably a big part of that. So yeah.

Chris
Well that’s great. That’s a that’s a great place to end. And we will see you next time hopefully on The Bible Guys.