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:
Well, traditionally we talk to one another.

Jeff:
Oh, that’s right.

Chris:
Yeah. And to the audience directly at times. Hi audience. And by the way, thank you for tuning in to The Bible Guys.

Jeff:
Oh, it’s amazing. We were just talking about, it’s like 50 countries around the world. Hey, everybody in New Zealand, right? It’s just, it’s unbelievable. We’re coming up on a quarter million downloads so far.

Chris:
Or streams, right? It’s really incredible. It’s actually pretty humbling. Yeah. When you showed me people are listening in Africa and India and Europe and Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and all these different things that are listed. Yeah. I was just like, that is crazy. Yeah. So it’s very humbling. Thank you guys for listening.

Jeff:
Yep. We don’t know why you keep coming back, but if you keep coming back and bringing friends, we’ll keep showing up.

Chris:
Right. Yeah. Well, today we’re doing a quick segment called Guess the Word. It’s just like Taboo. I’m going to give you some clues, Jeff, and it’s most difficult for me because I’m not allowed to say certain words. Yeah, that’s right. So the listeners can listen and we will go ahead and put the words for the viewers on the screen of the words that I cannot say just for fun if you’re watching online or on YouTube. So here is the first one. You ready?

Jeff:
I’m ready.

Chris:
Okay. I’m ready. It’s a me. Mario. Yes, and then, not sisters, but?

Jeff:
Brothers.

Chris:
Yeah, put those two words together.

Jeff:
Mario Brothers.

Chris:
Yes, there it is. All right, very good. Okay, here we go. Second word. Ready? Not antonym, but? Synonym. A book for that.

Jeff:
Dictionary.

Chris:
Thesaurus. Yes! There you go. Awesome. There it is, number two. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention. On the Mario Brothers, I wasn’t allowed to say Luigi, Yoshi, Mushroom, Nintendo, or video game. Ooh, wow. So that was pretty tough. Yeah, yeah. And then on the Thesaurus, I wasn’t allowed to say dictionary, words, alphabet, or synonym. Okay. Actually, I just realized something. You said synonym. No, no, no. You said synonym.

Jeff:
I said synonym.

Chris:
Right. Oh, yeah. But guess what? I did blow it. What’d you say? I said a book for that. Oh. And you said thesaurus. I just realized I blew it. I said book. Oh. Oh, goodness gracious. Okay.

Jeff:
You’re just bringing me down, Chris. You’re dragging me down.

Chris:
It’s hard for me. It is. Here we go. I got a good one for this one. Ready? We hope Jared Goff takes us all the way to the Super Bowl.

Jeff:
Boom.

Chris:
I wasn’t allowed to say football game, Las Vegas, Sunday, or Lombardi.

Jeff:
I think by the time this plays, we’ll know.

Chris:
Yeah, we will know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff:
Don’t tell us. Hey, if you guys know, don’t tell us because we want to watch it.

Chris:
For the future. If somebody appears in this room.

Jeff:
Hey, that’s what we should do. What? I wonder if we could get them to send us a message, like click the lights or something to let us know whether or not the Lions are going to the Superbowl.

Chris:
See, that’s why you’re on this podcast because of your awesome brain.

Jeff:
I don’t know. How do we get the people that are listening?

Chris:
Because they know.

Jeff:
The people listening, they know whether or not the Lions are going to make it this evening.

Chris:
We are fascinated, Jeff, by your brain. That’s exactly why you’re the main guy. It is the Bible guy and his companion, Chris.

Jeff:
No, it’s the other way. All right.

Chris:
All right. Here we go. Oh, goodness gracious. I didn’t think about this one. Okay. An old-fashioned paper thing to organize your appointments is called?

Jeff:
Calendar.

Chris:
No, a really old, weird name.

Jeff:
Oh, appointment book? Yeah.

Chris:
It’s like, it has the word in it where when you call, when you dial, it goes, What’s that called? What kind of machine is that a modem where you send a yeah. Yeah facts Yeah, so it’s it’s it’s that kind of it’s it’s that it’s it’s I can’t it has that word in it fax. Yeah facsimile Okay, so the first part of the word is is it where you put the manila envelopes in and you pull them out in drawers?

Jeff:
What’s that called? Cabinet storage cabinet kind of cabinet. Yeah filing cabinet.

Chris:
Yes. So take that first word file Yeah, and then take the last word X. Yes, put them put them together file facts You really don’t know this word, then? I don’t know it. There’s only one vowel in between. I’m allowed to say it since you’ve said it. File and fax. There’s a vowel in between those two words.

Jeff:
Files, fax, filer, fax.

Chris:
Pick every vowel. Say it with every vowel.

Jeff:
File, max, file. I don’t know. File. File, file, fax. There’s a vowel. Filofax.

Chris:
That’s correct. That’s correct. Filofax.

Jeff:
I’ve never heard that word before.

Chris:
How about if you’ve never heard the word before, I got you to say it.

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That’s pretty good.

Chris:
I’ve never heard that word. For all of our listeners who knew the word, that was extremely painful.

Jeff:
Yes. I’d imagine. I’ve never heard that word in my life.

Chris:
Filofax. You’ve never heard of Filofax?

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah. You’ve said it now 10 times. I have no idea what it is.

Chris:
Final facts, Jeff! Don’t you know a final fact? Hey, by the way, thanks Desiree for choosing such an obscure word. Yes, yeah, thank you. Because she wanted to make it hard.

Jeff:
Yeah, we need to talk to her.

Chris:
Okay. Okay, ready? How about this? Stupid is what stupid does.

Jeff:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Forrest Gump. Yes. There you go.

Chris:
I was not allowed to say Tom Hanks, IQ, Jenny, or chocolates, or running. I wasn’t allowed to say any of those things. And by the way, on file effects, I wasn’t allowed to say notebook, diary, joy, plan or calendar. I don’t wonder why she put joy, joy, joy, no joy.

Jeff:
Maybe she enjoys her file effects. Every time she thinks of her file of facts she goes, oh it just brings me so much joy.

Chris:
You can’t say that. Is that it? Hey, we basically got a 5 out of 5.

Jeff:
Yeah, yeah, except you messed up on the book thing otherwise.

Chris:
Oh, that’s right. We got a 4 out of 5. I blew it. I blew it. You got a 5 out of 5. I got a 5 out of 5. Terrible. Sorry. Pulling me down. Sorry to disappoint our listeners.

Jeff:
I know. We failed. You can just turn it off now. There’s nothing else to listen to.

Chris:
Except for Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 20, which all tell the same story about Jesus, religious leaders, challenging Jesus’ authority.

Jeff:
So Matthew 21, verse 23 says, when Jesus returned to the temple and began teaching the leading priests, began teaching the leading priests, I was reading it, began teaching the leading priests. There you go. But it was when Jesus returned to the temple and began teaching, the leading priests and elders came up to him. They demanded, by what authority are you doing all these things? Who gave you the right? I tell you by what authority I do these things if you answer one question. Jesus replied, did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human? They talked it over among themselves. If we say it was from heaven, he’ll ask us why we didn’t believe John. But if we say it was merely human, we’ll be mobbed because the people believed John was a prophet. So they finally replied, we don’t know. Jesus responded, then I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things. Isn’t that great?

Chris:
I love this so much. When Jesus is clever, which by the way, he has no choice but to be clever, right? It is wonderful. Like when he out thinks them, which is always.

Jeff:
So then in Mark 11, 27, it says, again, they entered Jerusalem. And as Jesus walking through the temple area, the leading priests, the teachers of religious law and the elders came up to him. They demanded, by what authority are you doing all these things? Who gave you the right to do them? Jesus said, I’ll tell you by what authority I do these things if you answer one question, Jesus replied. Did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven or was it merely human? Answer me.

Chris:
Well, I like the answer.

Jeff:
Yeah, that’s different. They talked it over among themselves. If we say it was from heaven, he’ll ask why we didn’t believe John. But do we dare say it was merely human? For they were afraid of what the people would do because everyone believed that John was a prophet. So they finally replied, we don’t know. Jesus responded, then I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things. And then lastly, Luke chapter 20 says, one day as Jesus was teaching the people and preaching the good news in the temple, the leading priests, the teachers of religious law and the elders came up to him. They demanded, by what authority are you doing all these things? Who gave you the right? Let me ask you a question first, he replied. Did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven or was it merely human? They talked it over among themselves. If we say it was from heaven, He’ll ask why we didn’t believe John. But if we say it was merely human, the people will stone us because they’re convinced John was a prophet. So they finally replied that they didn’t know. And Jesus responded that I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things.

Chris:
Yeah. And so what a great story. There’s a lot of lessons in this. I love it. I love it. Well, give us the first one that sticks out in your mind.

Jeff:
If you’re not honest with God and not forthright, you’re not going to get the answers you’re looking for.

Chris:
Hmm. That’s a pretty deep one. Yeah. That’s a deep application.

Jeff:
That was the first thing that came to my mind. I bet I can find some deep ones if you want me to.

Chris:
Oh, it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge. It’s really good because, because God, uh, definitely would have answered them had they given the answer, right? Yeah.

Jeff:
He absolutely would have. I think that a lot of times we lie to ourselves and we begin to believe our lies, and then we don’t want to be honest with God. We just want things to work out, right? To our favor. That’s what we want. And I think that God, for the most part, he’s looking for intimate, meaningful relationship with us. And in order to have that, it requires a certain amount of transparency with God and honesty. So, you know, they could have come back and said, Jesus, you’re putting us in a tough spot. We want to answer. They could have come back and said, there’s two answers. They could have come back and with their reasoning come back to say, ah, you’re putting us in a bad spot. And I think Jesus would have had compassion on them at that point. I really do. Right? If they had just come back and been honest, but because they refused, because at least that would have been an answer. The answer would have been, well, if we say yes, then you’re going to challenge us. If we say no, the people are going to kill us. Right? If they had said that, I think he probably would have leaned in a little bit more.

Chris:
But instead they’re like, we don’t know. Their answers weren’t based on honesty. Their answers were based on making themselves look better, their own safety, right? Just trying to get, you know, yeah.

Jeff:
Yeah, so they weren’t being honest with themselves. Have you, um, how many times, I know you’ve done this a bunch because you’re a counselor too. So many times I’m sitting there counseling somebody and I know the answer, but I’ll ask them, I’ll say, what do you think is the answer? Right. And you know, when they contact me, they’ll be like, Oh, Jeff, you know, my life is falling apart. I don’t know what to do about this thing. I desperately need your help. And then it takes all the scheduling and we have to rearrange, you know, schedules and make all this thing happen. And they take the time to drive from wherever they are all the way to the office, right? Usually they’ll get fixed up a little bit or something. They’ll come into the office. It takes a big chunk of their day. They start telling the thing and you can tell they know. They just need to be told that what they’re thinking is the right thing, right? A lot of times. I think most of these kinds of things, they know the answer. They knew the answer there. And Jesus is like, you tell me and then I’ll confirm it. And sometimes I think we know, we don’t want to know the answer sometimes, but we know, we know what the right answer is. And that’s the wisdom then of going to God or going to other counselors is to either confirm or deny what we feel like is being spoken to us internally. But they rejected it. They didn’t do it.

Chris:
We don’t know. Another thing that stands out to me in this passage are the words that are put there on purpose, which is, it says, the elders came up to him and then it says, they demanded. Yeah. So it doesn’t say they asked. They were really, truly wondering in their hearts. They wondered, and then- I think they’re mad.

Jeff:
He’s drawing a crowd in the temple and this is their turf.

Chris:
That’s right. It’s absolute. It is very safe to assume that because it says, who gave you the right? And what they’re really saying is we have the right, right? Because this is our place. We have the title. We’ve earned it, right? This is the system. We’re the ones that are qualified. And so who gave you the right means you’re infringing on our turf. you know, it also reminds me of another passage of scripture, which sort of alludes to yesterday’s message. Remember in the book of James, where it says, Hey, you don’t get what you pray for because you ask for the wrong motives. Right. And so it’s, it’s sort of the same thing. We talked about, you know, praying and moving mountains yesterday. It’s sort of the same thing, going to God with the wrong motives and, and Hey, they didn’t get what they asked for because they weren’t even beginning with the right motives.

Jeff:
Right. Right. And then I think another, just interesting, what was the thing that we said, oh that was different?

Chris:
Oh, in the second one in the book of Mark, he says, answer me. Oh yeah. And by the way, there’s a second thing that stands out in Mark. I love how it reads, but do we dare say? That’s what they say.

Jeff:
Do we dare say? They’re afraid.

Chris:
That was merely human because it, Oh my goodness. Like that, that is a, that’s a big thing.

Jeff:
They know the answer.

Chris:
Yes. Yes.

Jeff:
They know the answer, but they don’t want to say yes.

Chris:
Well, they, they, I think that they, well, there’s a part of me that wonders, uh, the reason why they’re saying, do we dare say is because they thought it was human. Right.

Jeff:
Well, so they’re saying, do we dare say, because everyone believed that John was a prophet. That’s why they were saying, do we dare say, because the other two passages say they’re afraid of getting mobbed.

Chris:
Yeah, for sure. But that doesn’t mean they have to align with the mob and their belief.

Jeff:
No, no, no. What they’re saying is if we say that he’s, do we dare say he’s not.

Chris:
Right.

Jeff:
that didn’t come from God, what they’re afraid of is the mob mobbing them. Because the other two say that’s what they were afraid of.

Chris:
No, no, no, no, I get that. But what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to assess why did they say, do we dare say, because did they really believe, did they lean toward it was merely human? And then they’re saying like, because if you believed it was human, you would say, wait a minute, we believe it’s human, but do we dare even say that? Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see what you’re saying. But the truth of the matter is we really don’t know.

Jeff:
So it’s probably… No, I think you’re right. No, I think you’re right on that because the other way they said, if we say it was from heaven, which means they’re not implying they believe it. Right. So do we dare tell everybody what we really think? Yeah.

Chris:
That really is the underlying… Yeah, but it really doesn’t matter. Those are fun things to debate, but that’s the reason why I’m always a stickler on this, by the way. Hey, if you’re a preacher, if you’re a teacher of God’s word, can I harp on something like a soapbox for just a second?

Jeff:
Yeah, I know that this is the passage to do that on. So I know what you’re going to say, and go ahead and say it. But then I’ll show you why I think it’s okay to make that assumption here.

Chris:
Okay, well that’s fine. That’s fine. Even if you can use this to… Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I always get upset, what makes Chris mad this week, when a preacher definitively says, this is why something happened in the scripture, when there’s not absolute concrete evidence of it. It’s always better to say things like, for instance, I’ll give you an example. I remember one time at my old church that I used to work at, the one I worked at right before I came to work with you at Heritage, there was a speaker who was a pastor of another campus. And at one time he said, well, let me tell you why the woman touched his robe. It wasn’t to be healed. She touched it because it was custom in that day to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s why. And I was like, wait a minute. I’m like, are you literally trying to insert her motives in your concrete, definitively dogmatically saying this was her motives when there’s no indication whatsoever? Right. So you can take care of all of that by simply saying one thing, right. You can say, I believe this is perhaps. or perhaps, or even this, you could even say, most theologians would think, or it is safe to conclude, you know, because that leaves a 1% chance that you’re wrong. But, you know, remember when the Bible says, don’t add a jot or a tittle, right? Don’t add anything to God’s word that isn’t there. I believe that’s a violation of adding something that isn’t there. That’s what I believe. And so I believe that like, when you do that, you’re violating, you’re not a good teacher. Honestly, that’s what I really believe in my heart. I’m like, you are not a good teacher because you’re saying something that is based on your brain, but it may not be true. So therefore take care of all of it, guys. Let’s just take care of all of it just by saying, you know, it’s, there’s a good chance this is true.

Jeff:
Sure. Right. So, one of the benefits, the counter to that on this passage is, one of the benefits of reading in parallel is you get to see all three combined.

Chris:
Which, by the way, is why we’re doing this.

Jeff:
So in this passage, in Luke, and so this is a great learning for why we’re doing this. In Matthew, it says, they talked it over. If we say it was from heaven, he’ll ask why we didn’t believe. But if we say it was merely human, we will be mobbed. Right? Then in Luke, it says the same thing. But if we say it was merely human, the people will stone us. Right? So if you’re reading this passage, you go, I wonder if they really believed that it was human or not. Then the kicker is in Mark when it says, but do we dare say it was merely human? The do we dare say is because it doesn’t go on and say, because they’re going to kill us. So Matthew and Luke tell us their fear was they’d be killed for saying what they really believed. That’s what they’re saying. We’re afraid we’re going to get mobbed, we’re afraid we’re going to get stoned. So do we dare tell people is a different phrase from but if we do say. Right? And so then I think it does point very strongly in that direction. So I think you could say, I believe their motivation was that, right?

Chris:
Yeah. As long as you don’t dogmatically say it.

Jeff:
I think you could say their motivation was they didn’t want to get killed. So that’s why they said it.

Chris:
I do not think that that’s true.

Jeff:
Well, no, no, no. You can say, you can emphatically say, I believe that their motivation was that they didn’t want to get killed.

Chris:
Oh, they didn’t want to get killed.

Jeff:
Well, yeah, because that’s there. You’ve got to listen, Chris. You can’t argue words and not listen to words.

Chris:
I’m on my soapbox. Do not rob me of my soapbox.

Jeff:
If you can argue words, you gotta listen to the words.

Chris:
Right, right, right. Okay, fine. I’ll allow it. You remember Tony Stark?

Jeff:
I will allow that. But when it comes to an emphatic state, so we can say that their motivation for not saying it came from heaven was they didn’t want to get killed. Right, right, right. Then we can infer that when they say, but do we dare say that they didn’t believe it was from heaven.

Chris:
You know something funny? Remember how just a few minutes ago, we talked about how many people listen around the world, right? And by the way, crazy. But I actually, I actually really feel like there may be somebody halfway across the world that’s listening right now, that maybe that’s a brand new thought for them. Yeah. Because honestly, I didn’t learn that the first 10 years of my ministry. You know, I didn’t learn not to, you know, when I said earlier, don’t add a jot or a tittle, in the Old Testament, those were the smallest markings that you can make.

Jeff:
Yeah, we’re talking about periods and commas.

Chris:
Yeah, right. That’s exactly what that means. And what it’s saying is, there’s a warning that says, don’t add anything to God’s Word that’s not there. That’s what that’s meaning. And so he’s saying, like, don’t add a single thing. And I don’t think that I really took that to heart. And I think that I was, I think I was proud of how clever I was when I was younger. You know, and I would say, well, that’s what this means, you know, because that’s what we can do sometimes. Well, did you know that this custom was here? And you probably didn’t know that, but I researched it. So that’s what this means. And I’m so clever. And so I’m drawing conclusions and I’m going to tell you something you’ve never heard before. I think that’s the temptation sometimes. And I think that there could be a little bit of, weirdly enough, a little bit of pride, a little bit of arrogance inserted in there. And it’s not on the surface. It’s a shadow thing. And we had to look hard on it. But I think somewhere around the 10th year of my teaching, which would have been 20 years ago, where I probably realized the importance of not adding something, including our own opinions. And so I just, I’m just emphatic about it. And I just would say, if somebody listening around the world, hears this for the very first time and they go, wow, I’m going to adjust that. I’m going to get to heaven one day, and we’re going to have this conversation, right? And I’m going to be so happy that God used this podcast for that reason. Because that’s how much I care about pastors and preachers and teachers, and even Christians sharing the words, not adding to it.

Jeff:
Yeah, I think it’s really good. And then I think that the other thing that we see here today along those lines is the Bible is its own commentary. So I think a lot of times the other mistake that Bible teachers make is they grab the one passage. They don’t check the other passages. Yeah, for sure. And they just make an emphatic statement because they know for sure. And either you’re going to leave out details or you’re going to leave out, like if I only read Matthew, I wouldn’t know that Mark said, do we dare say. Right? So it seems like we’re talking about little things. This is not an obscure passage. There’s not a ton to talk about.

Chris:
Jesus said, if you tell me, then I’ll tell you.

Jeff:
Sometimes it’s big things. Yeah. But it’s in the idea of why do you do these things and why do you study all the passages? Because everything has just a little bit different take on it, and it helps build out or flesh out the whole. And so it’s important to let the Bible speak for itself. It’s important to take the Bible as the words on the page, but then compare them to the other words on the page, instead of guessing or just taking tradition to fill in. Because when you use tradition to override the meaning of Scripture, then what now we have is tradition is man’s opinion, Scripture is God’s words.

Chris:
Those are two different things, right? Two very different things. Yeah. Well, hey, that is a great place to end, and that’s our time. So we will see you next time, hopefully, on The Bible Guys.