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, good morning to our listeners out there. Because today is another day and His mercies are made new every morning.

Jeff:
Every morning. That’s right. Every morning. Or every afternoon, whatever time you’re watching this. That’s right. Or every evening. Every day, Jeff. His mercies are made new. It’s all in a day. That’s correct. That is correct.

Chris:
The morning, the evening, were called the day.

Jeff:
That’s right. There’s the evening and the morning.

Chris:
Oh, you got me.

Jeff:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got me. Okay. You did.

Chris:
There you go. Okay. All right. Hey, so today we’re starting off with a segment called Mailbags. Mailbags! I’ll let you do it this time.

Jeff:
Okay, yay! Well, we should have done it in harmonies, but we should have… Oh, I don’t think we can practice that.

Chris:
Oh, okay. I don’t know if we can… Can we do it? You think we can pull it off?

Jeff:
I don’t know.

Chris:
I don’t know. All right, next time, that’s our goal. Yeah, maybe. So this one is for you, specifically… Actually, we’re likely to get sued by Blue’s Clues, and we’re going to get like a cease and desist.

Jeff:
That’s funny. I’m sorry, next time you do it, you’re going to be paying royalties.

Chris:
That’s funny. This question is specifically for Jeff. Here it is. Okay. Knowing how well read you are, I would love to know what you consider your top five books of all time, excluding the Bible. We all know that that’s number one.

Jeff:
Thank you, says Tiffany G. Well, Tiffany, thank you for the compliment. I would say there’s a difference between reading a lot and being well read. So I was a little presumptuous on your part, Tiffany. Right, right. But here’s what I’m going to say. I think she’s asking what are our favorite books, right? Yeah, yeah. I think you should chime in on this one too, Chris. You’re well read. My favorite book. I think the book that had the biggest impact on me. This is a hard question because what are we talking about? Are we talking about spiritual books? Are we talking about classics? Are we talking about entertainment books or biographies?

Chris:
Books of importance. Historical books? Non-fiction versus fiction versus leadership books, right? Versus all the books that your friends hand you?

Jeff:
Yes, that’s right. Okay, so I would say the book that had the biggest impact on me spiritually was probably my utmost for his highest by J. Oswald Chambers. Oh wow. Yeah, as a daily devotional. Okay. So Chambers was a ministry worker in the Middle East and he wrote to his students and really challenging. Kind of hardcore. It’s tough, but it’s a good devotional. So that was a big one. As far as ministry goes, I think Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Church, which is different from The Purpose Driven Life, he wrote The Purpose Driven Church earlier, that had a big impact and we’ve built a lot of the ministry around some of the strategy there. Yeah, that was a big one. Yeah, let me see. Along those same lines would be maybe Bill Heibel’s book, Rediscovering Church. I read those two. I read Purpose Driven Church. Well, first I read Rediscovering Church by Bill Heibel in one night. And I had never thought about church being different than the traditional way that I grew up in before that night. And it just destroyed me. And I was like, God, I want to do that. But it didn’t offer a plan, it just offered an idea, right? And then one week later, I read from start to finish in one night, Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Church book, what I felt like was I came away with a roadmap. And so those two fundamentally changed my ministry.

Chris:
Yeah, my brain could not… I would have to slow down for my brain to catch up. Right. To assimilate all the information. It’s like drinking from a fire hose. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It’s like, it’s like, okay, I need to time to process chapter one. So it’s not like I can’t read that, you know, that, that, that length of time. Sure. Right. Like I remember sitting down and reading, uh, I think I read in just a few days, remember the old left behind books? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff:
I mean, those were pretty thick.

Chris:
They were, they were big, yeah. And I read the entire… 400 pages?

Jeff:
500 pages?

Chris:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I read the whole series in like a few days. Oh, wow. And so, and I just, you know, couldn’t stop. I’m like, I have to know what happens next, you know?

Jeff:
Well, it’s because he wrote it like a movie. Yes. He really did.

Chris:
Yeah, he really did. Yeah, which is good for me. Yeah. I’m going to let this be your question, but I’m going to chime in. I’ll give you two. A lot of books I read, I’m not a avid reader, but I, but I read a lot of leadership books. So I don’t read a lot of desserts. Right. Yeah. I do meat and potato stuff.

Jeff:
Right.

Chris:
So I would say the two books leadership wise that have probably changed fundamentally who I am. The top one would be communication for a change by Andy Stanley.

Jeff:
Yeah. Really good.

Chris:
Yep, which completely fundamentally changed what I do for a living.

Jeff:
Yeah, that’s a top-shelf book for me, too.

Chris:
And how I do it. And then I would say the second one, honestly, is Volunteer Revolution by Bill Hybels, which is an ancient book.

Jeff:
Oh, that’s a great book.

Chris:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say the reason why is because Those two things that I mentioned are the top two things that I do in my life or my career that Are number one probably the most important outside of the given the gospel and number two This is probably the most challenging Wow, right

Jeff:
I would say you’ve internalized both of those books very deeply too, right? Yeah, you embody them. Yeah, that’s great. I would say, let me throw out there, so those are ministry books that I mentioned, right? Other than Oswald Chambers’ book. Practical books, I think The Power of Pentecost by John R. Rice. You want to talk about an old book? I think it was written back in like 1973 or something. That was a huge book for me. The idea that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to us every day was a big one. Warren Wiersbe’s commentaries have always spoken to me. I pass them out all the time. There are two volumes. There’s an Old Testament commentary and a New Testament commentary. Very devotional in the way that he talks, but he has writings on just about every chapter in the Bible. I love that one. Leadership books, 21-Year Feudal Laws of Leadership, you read that one, right? That was the first leadership book I ever read, was that book. And all of a sudden it dawned on me, oh, hey, wait a minute, I should be working on leadership, right? I was like 20 when I read that book.

Chris:
John Maxwell did us all a favor, didn’t he?

Jeff:
He sure did. Sure did. And then Simon Sinek’s book, Start With Why, was a fundamental changer for me. And then goofy books, let’s just, entertainment books. I love biographies, anything by Martin Duggard I love. Probably my favorite book by him is called The Explorers and it’s just tracking all of the great explorers of the world and why, the character traits that it takes to be these people who just go to the edge. I love that one. And then I read everything by Robert Louis Stevenson, just about everything by Jules Verne, everything by HG Wells, all that stuff back in the day. And then I read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you know the Sherlock Holmes stuff, loved it, read everything on that. And then Louis L’Amour, I was obsessed with the cowboy books by Louis L’Amour. So he wrote like 120 books, I read them all. So if you want to know, that’s just the weird stuff.

Chris:
Uh, one of the, uh, books that I loved, absolutely loved reading for like a dessert book, but it wasn’t really a dessert book, was, uh, Lion, Witch, Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. C.S. Lewis. Yep. Chronicles of Narnia was, was a phenomenon.

Jeff:
I read through the Chronicles of Narnia five times. I read through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion five times when I was in high school. Those were like back-to-back-to-back books. So hey, there you go. Boy, that was a long answer, but we kind of gave you some. There it is. Some from each of the categories. A few different categories.

Chris:
Somebody’s out there taking notes.

Jeff:
Yeah, going, wow, you guys wasted a lot of time.

Chris:
Hey, there’s three passages today. All of them are not necessarily lengthy, but they’re all covering the same thing. Matthew 26, Mark 14, and John 12. And today it is the anointing with perfume.

Jeff:
Yeah. So Matthew 26, 6 says, Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over his head. The disciples were indignant when they saw this. What a waste, they said. It could have been sold for a high price on the money given to the poor. But Jesus, aware of this, replied, why criticize this woman for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. She’s poured this perfume on me to prepare my body for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the good news is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed. Mark 14, verse 3, it says, Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head. Some of those at the table were indignant. Why waste such expensive perfume, they asked. It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor. So they scolded her harshly. But Jesus replied, leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you and you can help them whenever you want to, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. I tell you the truth, wherever the good news is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed. And then in John chapter 12, he tells the same story six days before Passover celebration began. So now we know exactly when this happened, right? Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus, the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance, but Judas Iscariot, The disciple who would soon betray him said that perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor. Not that he cared for the poor. He was a thief and since he was in charge of the disciple’s money, he often stole some for himself. Jesus replied, leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.” Wow. So you kind of blend two events or two stories here into one event. Right? So there’s Simon and Lazarus, Mary and Martha are all in the room. One guy healed from leprosy, the other one healed from, you know, death. So this is kind of a club, I think, in Bethany now. There’s a club. If you’ve been healed from a fatal disease by Jesus, we’re all going to have dinner together. That’s what happened. They’re just sitting around, you know.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s pretty amazing. And I love how John, by the way, included the fact that Judas Iscariot often stole some money for himself. I mean, I don’t love that fact. I just love the fact that it’s included, right?

Jeff:
Oh, yeah. It made me nervous. You say you love that idea. I love that idea.

Chris:
Nope. No, I love the idea that Mark included it. Because oftentimes when we hear about Judas Iscariot and we wonder about him, you know, this is just a little bit of insight. In fact, perhaps it could be one of the only places, right? I mean, unless you can think of another one. where it sort of lets us in on a little bit of where his heart is.

Jeff:
Yeah. Right. This is it.

Chris:
Because this is the one. Yeah. Because, you know, remember we’re about to see in the upper room, you know, when, when he gets named and when he gets named and I won’t go too much into that because we’re about to read it in a few days. Right. But, but, you know, there’s a part of me that like wonders, Like, how bad does he feel when he gets named beforehand, even before doing the deed? Like, I’ve always wrestled with that. And yet, this gives us a little insight that like, you know, it actually says they didn’t even care for the poor. Like, not only was he tempted to steal and did, but he actually didn’t even care for the poor. Right? So there’s a heart condition that’s revealed here too. So he was obviously a person who, you know, was, you know, a part of a lot of good deeds with the disciples, right? And witnessed all the miracles. And yet he was a person who, his heart wasn’t changed. So, by the way, can we, since I’ve already brought it up, obviously, let’s talk about that for a minute. How could you be a person who’s been around the greatest things ever seen in the world and not be touched or moved or changed by them. And yet there’s people like that, right, today?

Jeff:
Well, Judas never allowed his priorities to align with God’s priorities. So to Judas, Jesus was a tool to achieve what he wanted, right? I want to overthrow the Romans. I want that kind of power. I want Israel reestablished and Jesus, he can get it done. He has all these powers. So he sees the powers, but he never allowed his will to align with God’s will. What he did was he’s expecting God to deliver on what he wanted. I think a lot of us approach our faith that way. Yeah, a little bit, right? That we enter into faith based on what we need from God rather than, you know, eventually allowing our will to shift over to his and allowing us to become a tool for him rather than expecting God to be our tool, right? So I think that’s at the core of his deal. Now, hey, let’s talk about this just a minute, and it’s a side note, but this perfume, obviously Mary, we’ve seen her before, right? Several times. She’s the one who sat at Jesus’ feet while Martha was serving. She’s the one who came and said, Lord, you could have healed him if you wanted to, about Lazarus after he died, right? These are dear friends of Jesus. You see Jesus coming back to Bethany many times. It’s only about six miles outside of, not even six, but just outside of Jerusalem. They’re there all the time. And here, she pours out just perfume. 300 denarii is in the Greek, right? That language. And a denarius was one day’s wage for a laborer. So let’s say that’s minimum wage. A day’s wage, minimum wage.

Chris:
Well, it’s a fair wage according to the law of Moses. Yeah, yeah, right. So it’s a wage that nobody really would argue with as being too low.

Jeff:
Everybody goes, that’s fair.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s fair, yeah.

Jeff:
Right, right. So you’re not feeling like you’re getting ripped off. That’s a fair laborer’s wage. Right. So she has a box of perfume. that is equal to a year’s wage. So think through your house. What do you have that is a luxury worth a year’s worth of fair labor? Right? This is incredibly expensive luxury. So Nard, it keeps mentioning Nard. Nard came from mountains in India, is a very fragrant, beautiful smell. And she pours it out on Jesus from this alabaster jar she had. And, um, uh, A lot of people always think of Jesus as being poor, because Jesus said to that one man who said, Jesus, I want to come and follow you, where do you sleep? And he said, you know, I don’t have anywhere to lay my head. So sure, Jesus didn’t own a lot of possessions, but his friends sure were well off. Peter owned a bunch of boats, had some workers. You had Mary Magdalene and Cleophas’ wife funded most of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. You got Mary who pours out a year’s worth of luxury On jesus this this isn’t like all of her savings and her wealth. This is a luxury. It’s just perfume squirt squirt

Chris:
Right. Right. Right.

Jeff:
And she pours that out. I’m not saying that it’s not a significant gift. What I’m saying is Jesus had some wealthy friends that took care of him to the point that when a few days later, they’re going to, they’re going to gamble over Jesus’ clothes. I’m telling you, if somebody decided to kill me today, nobody’s gambling over my clothes.

Chris:
No, no, no, no, not me either. Right. Put it in a little bag and hand it over to the Salvation Army.

Jeff:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it takes people, it takes all kinds of people to move the kingdom forward. And for Jesus, he was not producing a lot of wealth, but his friends who had resources said, you know what? I’m going to leverage my resources for the kingdom. And so which was more important? Well, they’re both equally important, right? That the people who are willing to fund it set Jesus up to be able to do the ministry he was supposed to do. And then Jesus did the ministry, right? And they’re partners in this. I think that’s very significant. So this is a huge sacrifice from her.

Chris:
So, we probably have a lot of listeners who fall into this category. When you were over in Israel, I had a friend who’s got some money, who said that one of the most meaningful parts of the trip in Israel that you went on with him, you made a last minute call to stop somewhere, which was significant. In Magdala. And I bet you that there are people who probably feel a certain way, just like this. So could you maybe explain this?

Jeff:
Yeah, we spoke briefly about it when we read it a few weeks ago, but Magdala, there’s a synagogue that is from the first century. So very likely Jesus walked on those stones there. Yeah. And so that was really cool. I want to go see that. And that’s where Mary Magdalene is from, right? Magdalene means from Magdala. That’s what it means, right? So, and So there’s a verse, and I read the verse, and it just talks about how Mary and Cleophas’ wife and a couple of other women were the ones who funded Jesus’ ministry. And I just was talking about, so here’s Mary that has, you know, she was, when Jesus found her, she had seven demons and Jesus cast them out. And there’s all these things that she was probably a marked woman in the community. People would have been you know, afraid of her or reject her or whatever, her reputation would have been horrible. And Jesus saw in her what the others didn’t see. And she probably would have felt like, I don’t deserve to be used by Jesus. I don’t deserve, you know, Jesus is the big dog and I don’t really deserve this. And none of us really deserve access to Jesus, but he chooses to love us and to use us. And so when she offered what she had, she made the ministry happen all throughout Galilee, her and her friends. And so it’s kind of along these same lines. When you look at the wealth that Mary and Martha and Lazarus have, that’s very significant, right? And they use their wealth to make sure that the ministry happened and combined together, they were able to, they changed the world. Here we are 2000 years later, talking about Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Simon is the one who’s hosting this. So you’ve got Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Simon, their lives are changed. These are people who are making things happen. So because you went there on that trip of Israel, so I went to, uh,

Chris:
excuse me, lunch with my friend afterwards. And I’d asked him, I said, okay, so you were in Israel for like a week. And what was the most significant part for you? And that’s what he said. He said that your decision to make a last minute pivot on your agenda and stop there reminded him because he had gone to Bible college when he was younger, wanted to go into ministry, but then felt sort of guilty his entire life because he decided that ministry just wasn’t quite for him. So he went and took over his father’s business and made a bunch of money and retired and, uh, and, and, and sort of, you know, never quite dove in and became that pivotal key person that he, uh, always wanted to be, you know, uh, but now he’s a guy who can write a check. Right. And he can do other things, of course, too. But like, but writing a check is his superpower. Right. And and so he but he kind of felt like that was insignificant. And he said that that was insignificant until you pointed this out, brought him there and made him understand that everybody has a role in the kingdom. Yeah. This was his one of his roles.

Jeff:
And it’s incredibly important, incredibly important. What if Matthew and Peter weren’t with Jesus? What if Mary Magdalene and Cleophas’ wife weren’t with Jesus? What if Mary and Martha and Lazarus weren’t helping Jesus’ ministry go forward? So on one end, we all know about Jesus, but on the other end, Jesus made sure that they were all known about too. We’re still talking about them. Right? So I think we minimize what God has gifted us when we realize that we should never be ashamed or embarrassed about the blessings God’s given us. We just have to realize that those blessings aren’t only for us. We’re blessed by them. We get to enjoy them, but they’re not just for us. We’re blessed to be a blessing. And that is either meeting the needs of people that are, you know, struggling or whatever, and or resourcing God’s kingdom for greater ministry impact generation after generation. And it’s been 2000 years of that kind of partnership. People who understand that, Hey, God bless me. And I’m going to, that is like you said, my superpower. That’s the thing, because most people don’t have that kind of margin. Right. So then you have to ask, why did God let you have that kind of margin? Right. Right. And Mary says, I believe, right now, God wants me to use this to prepare Jesus for his funeral.

Chris:
Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, do you think she knew that when she was dumping it on his head?

Jeff:
Jesus said that’s what it was.

Chris:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Well, I mean, I often wonder… So he was speaking pretty bluntly in the previous days that we’ve read. He’s being really open about, I’m going to die. I’m going to die. That’s interesting. And the disciples, the guys are like, oh no, we’re not going to allow that to happen. And she’s like, oh really? Well then, I want you to know, you’re my king.

Chris:
That’s interesting. I never viewed it that way. I never viewed it, because I always view almost everything in the Bible where nobody got anything, right? Like Jesus would say it, and then they’re like, oh yeah, that’s right. He did literally say that he was going to rise again on the third day, right? Right. But yet nobody got it. And so I always just viewed it as she was doing it because she loved him so much, And then what he was saying was, this is fitting because it’s preparing me for my burial. But you’re saying it could have been that she’s actually preparing him for his burial. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Jeff:
So, well, he says it essentially, right? He says, leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. So he doesn’t say she didn’t know this, but this is preparing me for my burial. That’s a good point. And then there is a difference here. Two of the passages say it’s Simon’s home. One of the passage, John says that it’s the home of Lazarus. So apparently they lived together. That’s not a problem. And then, you know, so it might have been Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and their leper brother, Simon. It could have been. Right? And he finally gets to come home.

Chris:
Well, I mean, think about how many people lived together in clusters back then.

Jeff:
That’s right. And then two of them say that she poured it on his head. And John says she wipes his feet. His feet. Well, probably both. And again, right, right. So you pour it on your head and it runs down. And I mean, it’s a whole jar. So, you know, she’s wiping it up off of the floor. She made a mess on the floor because she poured it on his head. Right. That’s how that would happen. So again, you know, I think that the differences in the telling of the story highlight the truth of the story.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s interesting. And then, oh, wow, that’s our time.

Jeff:
There’s so much to talk about in this passage, isn’t there?

Chris:
Well, hey, listen, we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.