Ep. 4 - Paul's Apostleship & Where to Start Reading the Bible

In other words, here's what he does. He says, first of all, this gospel on preaching to you. It's not mine. He appeared to James He appeared to Peter that he appeared to the 12 then he appeared to 500 other people that could verify this and then he appeared to the the other apostles and to James and all of them are Teaching the thing that I'm teaching and at the end he says so if it's either that taught this or the apostles We taught it you believe it say message Ladies and gentlemen. Hello. Welcome back to the search in C podcast. Welcome to episode four. I'm here with my good friend Sean You and uh, we are here tackling your questions from a biblical world view. That's our goal. That's our agenda See in what scripture has to say about things. That's what we're all about. Yeah boy. Um, I do However, have a crazy story of that. I need to tell you about Um, I don't know. I'm a little bit of a collector for crazy stories. I love a little bit Okay, Sean's known me over a decade and he knows that that was an understatement. I love Crazy wild out there stories One day maybe on the on the podcast. I'll have to I'll tell I'll have to tell the pancake story The onion pancake story. You don't know this one. Don't say I can just only imagine a lot of my students if you're listening You know the story. A lot of your students know before me. It was that point. That's point. Sorry already. Uh, let me tell you a quick crazy story. Oh crazy story. Um, okay There was a guy in I think this came out of Chicago a few years ago. Um, he was a blue collar worker I don't remember what his occupation was, but he he like got hurt on the job He got a cut. It was right above his right knee That's important. It was the right knee. Okay Being the blue collar mainly man that he was he didn't really do much of it He was just a scratch didn't go to the doctor What he didn't realize was the cut was maybe a little deeper at one part than he thought it was It ended up getting an infection Under the skin um, and it got pretty bad. It like started going to chronic And he was like on the verge of sepsis Which if you don't know Those are terrible like those will those will kill you if left unchecked he eventually went to the ER Okay, and they when they unvaluated him they realized like they ended up um Um, what's the word I'm looking for admitting him and all this stuff did all these tests and they realized they had to amputate the leg Okay, crazy So they went in to amputate before You know things got really bad and it got into his bloodstream and killed him Um, and there's this thing in the medical. Yeah, it's crazy. Ready. Okay. There's a thing in the medical field to call a timeout I guess that they do I don't know my wife could probably explain it better than I could where they before like major Yes, into the corner you sit and stay where Before they did gang like corner Before they do any major procedures they will um They'll like everybody stops you go over everything and make sure you know what you're doing where you're doing it Who's involved all the sense makes the liability thing right you don't want to get sued correct Well, they didn't do a timeout uh Uh, they amputated his left leg And the infection was on the right leg oh No, by the time they realized it They still had to amputate his right leg And he died anyways, no, he lived wait, but I thought you said he died. No, no, no, no, he was on the verge of it Oh, yeah, okay, now my amputate it would have killed it. Got it. Okay, so now my put the dead guy in the corner joke doesn't yeah I was I just let it go. Um the Both legs going He wakes up loses his mind. I mean, I would do right. Yep. He goes to court. He sues the daylights out of them Um his lawyers were not very good Their lawyers were very good. Oh no, they love and he ended up losing the case because legally speaking the dude did not have a leg to stand on Oh my god, I hate you. You're the you're the worst. Oh, you're the worst. It was a joke. Oh, oh my god You're the worst. You're welcome. I kind of hate you. I think I think we're gonna stop this like this It's been a great three and a half episodes man It's 9.56 p.m. here at nine o' nine south buffalo street if it's morning Midday afternoon evening for you you're welcome for a chuckle and no one no one said thank you I begged to differ the comment section will say differently I'm turning off all the comments No one agrees with you Anyway, you're so good at jokes. Thank you. Thank you. I like laughing at your jokes. Yeah better than laughing at me I must say that I also do that though. That's that's true Yeah, listen to episode three and I laugh at you for a good time With the pes dispenser anyway So speaking of pes you know who likes pes your daughter Sadie my daughter Sadie. Yeah, Sadie. Hello Sadie. Hope you're listening She will I'll make her listen to this part I have a proud dad moment. So this will be like almost a week or two later when this comes out, but tonight she had a choir concert Which is also why we're recording at 9.56 at night. Yes, I Terrible keep my schedule. Anyway, she had a choir concert. So she's part of the community arts program here, which is a which is a great program It's grown Sadie's conferences or third year At the start of the year it starts in the fall every year they do a pie and coffee sale And the first year she did it. She won a gift card to Amazon Oh, yeah, because she sold the most well now she wanted then the last year last year she Um was kind of relaxed on it and then two kids won it uh brothers won one one of the brothers won it and um and her words they cheated Um and they bragged about that they cheated it upside or whatever so this year she's like I'm gonna do it well um We got the fundraiser and then a week later we went on our vacation and so we got back there was a week left To sell this girl sold almost $500 worth $500 in a week. Yeah worth of pie and coffee she hit everybody up Uh, she hit us up. We did you did. Thank you um So we're at the we're at this choir. It's like a half-hour thing where they're just introducing the year And they're giving out the gift cards and and it's in a church sanctuary and I'm close enough that I can see Sadie's face you can see me or make an eye contact because we've been talking through like you know Hey, even if they cheat like you do things honorably Um and hold your head high that you did things right all this stuff And choir director gets up there and she is announcing and she says in two brothers outsold everyone and immediately No, immediately Sadie just crosses her arms and glares at me and so I do the dad thing where I'm like no No, no, no, she puts her arms down and like then she's just like trying to look But like like trying to look like okay fine. I'm gonna be okay with it And she says but we also Had someone that was just as cool and I don't know how close it was but also sold over five hundred dollars And so we're giving both of them and immediately like she's nervously look she has said Sadie Mason yet And she is looking like nervously now her gaze went from me to her quiet She's like almost like ready to jump off the choir state like Ready to jump because she's like he's like so Sadie Mason and then you get a threat and it meant She almost cried. Yeah, because she won a $40 Amazon gift price. I was so proud of her Here's a question so cool. Yeah, did the brothers and did they count as one unit? That's what they did they gave him one gift card That they have to split Okay, yeah, let's be honest right sold two hundred and fifty dollars. Well, let's let's be honest from a according to Sadie Okay, now and I believe her I believe her because Honestly, as a boy, I would do the same thing if my mom wasn't a good mom and made me so the their mom takes it to work And leaves it on the day. I know what people fill it out my wife and I have a policy So for all of you teenagers listening, uh listen, here it is. I know policy when it comes to fundraising For uh people in general, but a lot of times this comes in the form of kids or or young people in our church or school or whatever Um, we will not Give money to a fundraiser If the person doesn't ask us themselves. Let me be more specific If you send your mom after me for money. I'm not giving your mom any money Okay, I don't know that keeps looking at me I um Oh, no So if you're a young person and you want to sell me, you know flowers or dish soap or cookies or whatever Because yeah, we why are you laughing you have a you're the one who runs the flower fundraiser Because it war I don't know. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Okay. So it's your youth girl I'm thinking of like the flower bouquet like you know like send it to like yes I'm gonna do tomorrow. I'm gonna you're gonna eat flowers in your office from No, if you want to sell me fundraiser stuff come ask me yourself right that shows confidence and you know what I'm not I'm not knocking uh, you know, so if you're that I'm not I'm sorry I'm yeah, I'm not trying to cause any issues don't actually have an opinion But it's like yeah, I was just proud of her because she works so hard. Yeah, and hard work pays off It does it does and yeah, so yeah, you know what hey speaking of hard work that may or may not pay off We have a really good question really good goal today good Melissa Peters are dear friend from church has asked us quite a few questions as some of which we will likely circle back to in the near future. But here's the question that we're tackling today from her. This is what this is what she says lately on social media. I see the topic of the Apostle Paul and his authentic Apostleship being attacked. I never realized that this was a thing until a year or two ago. But there is a movement which seems to be growing of people who believe the Apostle Paul was a quote unquote false apostle and that they and that he taught a false gospel. I literally see, I'm sorry, I literally in this whole discussion can see Satan trying to undermine the authenticity of scriptures, which would make sense, right? Because he wrote most of the new testament, making it all the more easy to lead people astray. But I thought it might be good to have one more one more person or people confronting this topic with truth, like Melissa Peters. Melissa Peters, man. This is good. Oh, that's a good question. I love it. If you know me, I'm a I'm a research guy. I love I love diving deep into things, asking hard questions. One of the reasons I love this podcast so much. He loves to research. I love to research. I love to dig into things. I like looking at controversial stuff. And this yeah, you know, this is true. I've noticed this maybe not in the past two years, but in the past few months, for me specifically, a lot of this has been coming across my feed. I didn't realize it was such a big thing. And then suddenly it was everywhere. Like what? I've heard some crazy things about Paul that he was that he created a pagan religion that was anti what Jesus taught that he did so for fame and for a large following and all of these things that he stole from the Greeks. And a lot of his theology. Really interesting stuff. So right. But it but it isn't new though. But it's because Paul had to defend his apostles. Yes, in scripture. Yes, like he said the same exact thing. Right. I think social media and like the way things spread, you know, and fake news and all that. Yeah. So in our day and age, I haven't seen it be this big. No, yeah. And that's an important question. Right. So the questioning of his apostleship is there's been nothing new. I love. So I will often ask like I'll Google or whatever John MacArthur's one of my go to and I love it. Just this this headline. I'm not going to get into what MacArthur believes. But I love this headline of how it says it. And this is how John MacArthur said it in a sermon about this. Rejecting Paul means rejecting Christ's appointed messenger. Yeah. I was like, so I mean, that's broad right now. And we'll dissect that as we unpack this question. But yeah. Yeah. You know what? Why don't we start? Why don't we start there? Why do we think why do Christians think that Paul is actually in a pot? Well, let's define a possible real quick. Apostle seems to be from scripture. A person seems to be there isn't there. I'm sorry, I just I wasn't planning on defining a possible. And now that I'm here, I'm like, wait, hold a second. There's a there's somewhere in the New Testament where that spells Paul mentions kind of gives the criteria. The big one is a follower of Jesus who was a witness to the resurrected Jesus that God is using to it was using to build the church, the early church, who had a unique authority. Yeah, I don't remember where that is. Okay, so got questions. Good. Good. Got got questions or great resource. Personally chosen commission by Jesus. Yeah, biblical qualifications personally commissioned witness of the resurrected Christ. Yeah, witness. Acts one 21 to 22 first Corinthians nine one. The word is confirmed confirmed by apostle apostolic apostolic signs. Apostolic apostolic. Thank you. You're welcome. Oh, fan teachers. They're great. Second Corinthians 12 12 faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Relations one eight. The Apostle served as the foundation of the church Ephesians 2 19 to 20 Ephesians 3 4 to 5 are the big ones that they used to define a possible. Yeah, where the ones you were looking for. That all of those great. Cool. So why do we why do we why would Christians say Paul is an apostle? It was probably a start by defending our position. And then we'll look at why people say he's not right? Right. I think a good place to start is Acts chapter nine. Great. Where Paul is commissioned by Jesus. Now let me let me mention this is not a writing of Paul. No, this is what somebody else is saying about Paul. So this isn't like well Paul says so so take his word for it. What you will get there with what Paul actually says. But right. This isn't even from Paul acts was written by Luke. Yep. Who was not an eyewitness to Jesus. He was seemingly commissioned by a by the office. A lot of people think was a some sort of Roman official. Right. To write a Luke was a medical doctor. He wrote a very detailed historical account of Jesus's life and the early history of the early church. Yep. Acts chapter nine. Where we see we receive Paul who is on the road to Damascus to a city. And he's going there to gather a bunch of Jewish Christians. Right. To put them in prison and to persecute them. Right. Now why would he do that? Because what we know about Paul's life before he gave his life to Jesus. He was a very pious, very influential, very he was a very important Jew. He was a Pharisee. Yep. And he led the early persecution of the church in Jerusalem in the surrounding areas. Now come in misconception real quick. God did not change his name from Saul to Paul. Everybody's always you know. He had a moment where God changed his name like Abraham. No. No. Saul is the Hebrew name. Paul is the Roman name. Yes. He was both a a Jew and a Roman citizen. Yep. But most of his writings are to Gentiles. So he goes by Paul for most of it. It's an important to know the audience. Important to know the audience. Shout out episode one of the search and see podcast. Whoop. Where we talked about interpreting the Bible. So Luke mentions this this account where Paul is on his way to go persecute some Christians. Go snatch him up. And Jesus appears to him. Jesus himself appears to him on a road in a bright light. Sorry Sean's laughing because I said, no, I'm not laughing. He said snap his hand most and he did like that. Like the hand like you do it like a pluck. And he's grabbing. And he's literally like forcefully went towards me and it I love me that. Give me that. Following Jesus straight to you. Paul's on the road. Jesus shows up and he says Paul, why are you persecuting me? And Paul has this encounter with Jesus. He ends up Jesus gives him a commissioning calls him to go here and do this and that. But basically that is the moment where his life has changed and transformed and he goes from being. And again, this is recorded by Luke, not Paul himself. This is the third party source. That his life goes from being extremely zealous for the law and persecuting Christians and killing Christians and putting them in prison to preaching the very gospel that he was he was persecuting people for. So the again, one of the criteria is commissioned by Jesus. According to Luke, he was right. By the way, it's not Luke doesn't even say Paul was on he was doing this thing by himself. There was other people present. He goes on to have an encounter with another guy shortly after that confirms the message that God gave Paul. Correct. So Luke is pulling from multiple sources on this. Yep, and they extend him the right hand of the fellowship. Right. Welcome him in, confirm the ministry. Yeah, well, we can, yeah, we can talk about that as well. So that's just a tag. Yeah, you're fine. And here's another thing that's worth mentioning. Luke is one of, sorry, acts is one of the most historically accurate books of the New Testament. Right. Right. It is so full of historical details that for the sake of time, I won't explain it, but here's the idea. Most of the details, there are a ton of details in the book of Acts about the time period and about the places and about the people. Right. That you could have not have learned unless you were there or talked to eyewitnesses. Right. They didn't record some of these things in textbooks or science books. Right. In Frank Turek's book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Frank Turek, we love him. He, you do. He has a list of 84 details in the last 16 chapters of the Gospel of Acts or of the book of Acts. Sorry. Okay. That are all, like historically solid that you would not have known that Luke would not have known unless he was there or talked to eyewitnesses. Why does that matter? Because Luke is notorious for being historically accurate and giving accurate accounts of what happened. And if you can't trust that account of specific of Paul being commissioned by Jesus. - Right. - One, you got to, you got to call him to question the whole book of Acts. - And the book of Acts, by the way, is actually a part two. - Right. - Part one is his gospel account. - Right. - And then now you got to start questioning his accuracy in his gospel account. - Right, and you're, and you're hitting on him because there could be some listeners that, okay, you know, you're listening to the first three and they're very practical to us now. And it's like, okay, Wireshaw and Tyler taking the time to talk about Paul's apostles will be you're hitting on it because of the authority that Paul wrote with. - Yes. - If we don't confirm it, if we don't think he's an apostle, that takes out everything that he wrote. - Right. - And the people that he influenced who also wrote New Testament. - Oh, yeah. - Timothy, from, you know, - Well, the letters and Timothy are from Paul too. - No, yeah. - But Timothy was a, it was a pastor of the early church. - Right. - Same with Titus. - Right. - You know. The influential, influential pastors in the early church. Not only that, not, so not only do we have this account from Luke who Luke is, is not considered an apostle. - Right. - But not only do we have that account from Luke, we actually have record in other places of the other apostles confirming Paul's gospel message - Right. - His apostleship. - We do. - Yup. - Acts and firming apostles. - Yeah, right. And Acts nine, like Sean had mentioned, verse 26 to 28, when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples to talk about Paul. So Paul had left Jerusalem. He was going to Damascus to get some Christians, snatch him up, take him back to Jerusalem. So when he ended up getting back to Jerusalem, he did not, or sorry, he attempted to join the disciples. - Right. - And they were afraid of him, but they did not believe he was a disciple, pause. By the way, that's one of the verses people used to say, Paul was not accepted as an apostle. - Right. - Reading context people, verse 27. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, spoke to him and how at Damascus, he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. So he has this interaction with the other apostles. Acts 15 describes Paul speaking authoritatively at the Jerusalem Council, where Peter was present and James was present. - Right on there. - John, Jerusalem Council. I don't remember. - I can't remember. - Second Peter three. So this is a writing of Peters. This is fascinating, ready? First, sorry, second Peter three, 15 and 16. He says, "And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother, Paul also wrote to you, according to the wisdom given him." He's the beloved brother. Where did he get this wisdom from, right? From God. As he does in all of his letters, and he speaks in them of these matters. These, sorry, let me try that again. There are some things in them in Paul's letters that are hard to understand. If you've read Romans, you know that's true. They're hard to understand which the ignorant and the unstable twist to their own destruction as they do with the other scriptures. - Right. - What does Peter consider Paul's writings to be? Scripture. He's equating Paul's writings with the other scriptures. - Right. Paul also confirms in his own accounts that he spoke to the apostles that they confirmed him as an apostle. Galatians two, for example, we won't read it just for the sake of time. You would check out verses six through 10. And he, part of what he says, he says, those, I say, who seemed influential being influential leaders in the church in Jerusalem added nothing to me, to my message, right? Rather, on the contrary, when they, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel, to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, he goes on to say, well, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and to me that we should go to the Gentiles and they, to the circumcised. In other words, the other apostles, if you're gonna doubt anybody, take a look at Peter. If you're gonna try to doubt what the apostles say, Peter was like the head honcho of the apostles. - Right. - And Peter confirms in his own letter that Paul was preaching a true gospel and considered his writings scriptures. - Yep. - So, one of the rules you gotta look at is, well, the other apostles seem to think he was an apostle. - Right. - Or at the very least, he was preaching a true gospel. They didn't add to it. They gave him his blessing and said, go keep doing what you're doing, buddy. - Yep. - Yeah. - Absolutely. I commanded this to the different. I, my research, I did, I'm coming at it a little bit differently. I looked more from a practical, from the lens of someone who would be rejecting, from the stance of who would be rejecting it. Right. One of the things that I can point is like, you have to remember that you cannot separate following Jesus from receiving his teaching through the apostles. Like, you can't do it. You have to surrender to Jesus's Lord, not simply embrace the parts of Christianity or the scripture that you think is true. Now, why do I say that? Because one of the main reasons that I found that people want to reject Paul's apostles who was 'cause then they can throw out what he wrote. And they don't like what he wrote because it's uncomfortable. We wrestle with, I mean, the things that Paul calls to his attention to, it is uncomfortable. It's convicting, you know, and no one likes, I don't know anybody that likes to be convicted. You know, I don't, I welcome it. I want it because it, in conviction that I can repent and I can allow the Holy Spirit to work in me, right? I want, but it's like, when I feel the Holy Spirit convicting me, it's not like, yeah, here it comes. I love this feeling, like this is great. No way, it hurts. Like, it's chipping off the things that didn't belong. And so, you know, you can't, but you can't separate the two. You can't do it. The other side of it is for a person who is rejecting or calling into Paul's apostleship, but what authority are you doing that under? Like that, I am a, for what right do you have to do it? Because you are accepting the biblical accounts of Jesus but then rejecting Paul's apostleship. So you have to, you were, you were hitting on this, you have to be able to then explain why you trust portions of the New Testament while dismissing other parts. Okay, 'cause that's what you're gonna do. Right. So then if you're dismissing Paul's apostleship, are you also rejecting Christ or Jesus as the Messiah and what he did, are you? So, yeah, yeah, and that's, come down to biblical authority, really, too, that you have to call into question. Or honestly, interpretation. Or, right, you're not gonna reject Paul's writings without authority, without an authority issue. However, a lot of the debate comes down to people saying, Paul and Jesus preach to different message. They'll look at the New Testament, look at the gospel, look at the Jesus taught one thing, Paul taught something else. And it usually goes like this, that I heard someone recently even quote me saying, Jesus's brother led James, James was leading the early church. And even his message was different from Paul's. Paul came along and he changed everything. Which is not true. I know that's what they would do with first Corinthians 15, 3 to 4. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. Wow, we'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah, 'cause that's crucial, right? But just for the sake of discussion, here are some of the things that people say different, or different between Jesus's message and Paul's message. They would say Jesus taught salvation by works because you have to, because Jesus equates, in their words, obedience with being part of the kingdom of God, inviting him, all this stuff. Not right, but I understand what you're saying. Yep, we're as Paul taught salvation by faith. On the back of that, they would say being part of the kingdom of God costs us something, according to Jesus' teaching. And Paul's teaching is that it's free. We don't have to do anything for it. Yeah, right. They would say Jesus of hell the law, Paul rejected the law. They would say Jesus demands obedience. Paul, I already said that, Paul taught grace. Right. Jesus teaches forgiveness, Paul teaches God's wrath. Jesus taught his death with tragic, Paul taught that it was an atoning sacrifice and a good thing. Jesus emphasized love. Paul emphasized doctrine. Jesus welcomed women. Paul restricted them. Jesus taught the Sabbath mattered. Paul rejected the Jewish practices. Jesus preached Israel. Paul invented a Gentile religion, a pagan religion. Still from the Greeks. Right. About the afterlife and stuff like that. We can get into that later. But Jesus taught about resurrection in a, in a, they would say in a strictly Jewish sense. But we can get into what that means. little bit if you want. And Paul borrowed it from paganism. Um, here's the big one. Jesus taught that there's one God in that, and that he is not God. Paul says that Jesus is divine. I hate that. Yeah. Um, that Jesus said he wasn't. I hate I am. Yeah. Jesus taught, uh, a coming judgment, Paul taught assurance of salvation. Jesus taught, right. It's a false economy. Jesus taught that the greatest would serve Paul taught apostolic authority. Um, here's the issue with a lot of these, these things. You got a couple, a couple of options. A, they're correct. B, um, Jesus and Paul don't contradict each other. They compliment each other on some of these issues. Uh, in other words, the, the, what you're posing as, as being conflicting are not actually conflicting. There's two sides of the same coin, right? Or it's a complete misunderstanding of either Jesus or Paul in his teachings. And, and, and all of those, and we can look at a few of those if, you know, if we want to, but, um, but all of those make some really big, crucial error when it comes to understanding the text or the cultural context, um, and stuff like that. Right. Here's a big one. Did Jesus claim to be God? People who typically tend to reject Paul say, no, no, Jesus claim to be a human prophet or the human Messiah. Right. Um, we had to spend a whole episode on whether or not Jesus claimed to be God here. In my opinion, here's my favorite claim from Jesus through the, the gospel authors, um, to being God. Jesus, often in the gospel of Mark refers to himself as the son of man. Now, a lot of people can be confused by that. Why does he say that son of man is neither son of God? Well, in the Old Testament, a lot of people are called son of God. Adam's called a son of God. Solomon's called a son of God. Right. Son of man is, is weird to our ears. To Jewish ears, they perk right up. Why? Jesus refers to himself. He claims this title multiple times. And when he does, the Pharisees are like human. They want to kill him. That's true. That's true. Because in Daniel chapter 7, Daniel has a vision. He says, uh, you know, at, I, in one of my night visions, I looked and I saw the ancient of days who, you know, we know his God. I saw God. I saw Yahweh, the ancient of day sitting on his throne and he describes how he saw God and all this stuff. Clearly God, right. And he says, and then I looked and I saw one like a son of man. In other words, it looked like a human. He was a person. He looked like a descendant of a man. Right. I saw a son of man and he was riding on the clouds and he approached the ancient of days and the ancient of days gave him all glory, authority, sovereign power and the nations of the world bowed down and worshipped him and his kingdom never ended. In Jesus says, "That's me." Right. Now, why is that a divine claim? Well, according to the Old Testament, only Yahweh rides on the clouds of heaven. Right. Exactly. Yep. Uh, only Yahweh has all glory, all authority and all sovereign power. And only Yahweh receives the worship of all nations and all nations bowed down and worship him. And only Yahweh has a kingdom that never ends. Right. So you have clearly Yahweh, God, giving these things to God. And Jesus says, I'm the one who receives it all. That's me. Right. Right. So if you're going to say, Paul over Jesus is God and Jesus never did, you just don't understand the content of what Jesus is actually saying about himself. Right. So there's one example which goes back to hermeneutics. Yeah. Right. We're looking at it in context. Right. Yeah. Uh, man. And I would, you know, so I brought up first Corinthians 15, 3 to 4 that were Paul specifically says, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried. That he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Like, and that's saying everything that Paul says, he, he doesn't say in accordance with the scriptures and everything that he says that, that points back to Jesus or even Old Testament, but his language does. Yeah. And he's always, so he's never saying it in a way like, I look at, you know, if we get ever get into like false religions, you know, Mormonism and Joseph Smith and all that, like they would say God told me as me the authority. And Paul doesn't do that. Paul says, but you know, of, of sinners, I am the greatest. Yeah. You know, like he, he pushes everything away where what the claim that he invented, if, if Paul truly created a second religion or a different Christianity or, you know, all those arguments, then where's the language of I, Paul speak these words unto you and you will listen to me. Yeah. He doesn't do it. He points everything. Yeah. Even in the, even in the, the, the verses that are, are used as fuel for that, that argument. Yeah. He never, he doesn't say, he doesn't say lit like it's me. He's still pointing back to Jesus, even though they can be controversial. Yeah. He's still pointed back to Jesus because there's times where he'll say, like he'll call it my gospel, but that's not him saying he invented it. It's him claiming it personally as alike to him. Right. There's times where he, in a way, you know, flexes his authority. You look at Philemon where he says, you know, Philemon, I could tell you you have to obey me if I wanted to. Right. But, but it's not because I'm Paul and I can do whatever I want. It's, it's, he says, because you owe me your salvation in paraphrasing. What he means by that is, don't forget, dude, I led you to the Lord, right? I'm asking you to do so. But he even says, if I'm remembering correctly, he says, but that authority is because of what God has done. Right. It comes back to the authority and comes back to God, right? We've, we've, we've been on a couple of spills in different episodes about authority. It's important. It is important because I'm okay as a pastor to claim authority to speak over people, but I'm not to say this is my authority from me, right? Right. Right. Jesus says, all authority, and this is the great commission, Matthew 28, 19 and 20, all authority and heaven on earth has been given to me. Right. Therefore, you go and make disciples of all nations, right? So, right. Yeah. And Paul, remember, Paul was a Pharisee, which was a, which was a sect within Judaism that were really, really, really deep in their knowledge of the Old Testament and of the law and they did all the right things and all of this stuff. Paul knew the Old Testament better than any of the Gentiles that he's, he's talking to. Right. So, it's not that Paul is going to, now, you can make the argument, yeah, well, a lot of Jews in the first century misunderstood a lot about the Old Testament. Because honestly, Judaism, the way it looked when Jesus showed up is not what we think of as Old Testament, like Judaism. It had shifted in the, in the 400 years between Malachi and when Jesus showed up, a lot had changed. Right. There's, we could get into that in another episode why that is, but you can make the argument, yeah, well, a lot of Jews misunderstood. And I say, well, like, that's exactly my point, right? Because they misunderstood it. And you can't say, well, the Jews of the first century disagreed with Paul. That's because they were wrong. They were wrong. Exactly. Right. And it's not that Paul didn't understand the Old Testament. Right. It's that he was correcting theology. Right. It's that he was revealing more, more truth to them as time went on. Because God does this throughout scripture, throughout scripture. We call it progressive revelation. For example, Genesis 3, 15, when he says to the, to the snake, God says to the snake, I'm going to send a seat of woman. I'm going to put emnity between you, your offspring, her offspring, and he's going to bruise your head, your going to bruise you. Right. That's what we call the first gospel. First time that God ever mentions the gospel. Right. From Genesis 3, 15, do you know that Jesus came to dying the cross? No. No. Because that's not idealed until later on. Right. So when Paul, when people say, oh, well, Paul talked about things the Old Testament didn't teach about. First of all, he knew the Old Testament. He's not stupid. Right. Second of all, no Pharisee was for that man. Right. He's clarifying things that people were getting wrong about it. So yeah, he appealed to the scriptures. He used the authority that God gave him. And you, yeah, you mentioned 1 Corinthians 15. Would you have a person for? No, I'd forget. Yeah, that he, you know, you're saying this is the gospel that I'm teaching. Right. Right. Yeah. According to the scriptures, he was buried according to the scriptures, race on the third day, according to the scriptures. But if you keep reading that passage, he says, and that he appeared to see fish, who is Peter. That's right. That's the, that's the, um, rec name for you, Peter. Um, then to the 12th, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep or some have died. Dude, this is the verse that I was trying to reference in like the first episode. Yeah. What the, and then it was Paul. So I was wrong. It wasn't James or it wasn't James or Jude. I was like, is that Jude? No, and I didn't know it. It's right here. Wow. Hello. And then he appeared to James and then all the apostles, last of all, as to one, uh, untimely born, he appeared also to me. Uh, for I am the least of the apostles and the worthy to be called in the possible because I was, I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. Right. And his grace toward me was not in vain on the contrary. I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I. Right. but it was the grace of God in me, verse 11. Whether it was I or they, the other apostles, so we preach and so you have believed. He says, first of all, this gospel on preaching to you, it's not mine. He appeared to James, he appeared to Peter, then he appeared to the 12, then he appeared to 500 other people that could verify this, and then he appeared to the other apostles into James, and all of them are teaching the thing that I'm teaching. At the end, he says, so if it's either that taught this or the apostles, - Right. - We taught it, you believed it. - Yep. - That's a message. - Right, same message. Well, I just looked up the Flemon to get the wording right, and I love this. I love this because he says, accordingly, though this is verse 8, I am bold enough in Christ. - Yes. - Again, he's easy to say, like I can tell you what to do in Christ. That's why you have to read the verse. Like he tells where his authority comes from, and that's so important. That's important. Outside of even Paul being a apostle in this argument, is for pastors and for church leaders, and anybody that's claiming scripture, where is their authority coming from? Where are they pointing the glory, the authority? Like why are they able to do what they do? Is it because they are awesome, and they have this following, or is it because of Christ? Is it because of the Lord? Like what are they pointing it back to, is always what you need to look at. And the same with Paul, he never does it. He really does it. - And add on to that, you can't. It's a really weak argument to say, Paul invented a new religion to grow a following and it would become famous or become wealthy. Why? Because he went from being a very prestigious, I mean, in Acts, look, again, this isn't Paul speaking. This is Luke. He says, when they stoned Stephen, and he was the first martyr of the church in Jerusalem, Paul was there, calls them Saul at the time, because of the context of the Jews. Saul was there, and all the Pharisees came, and they laid their cloaks down at his feet. Dude was important. - He was very important, yep. - He was important, and he drastically changed when he was preaching, realized he was wrong, and lost his prestige. Do you know how many times he was beaten, thrown in prison, to the point of near death? - Right. - Like, man, I bet Paul by the end of his life, dude probably walked with a limp. - Oh. - He was covered in scars, and when you read Paul, it's not just like, oh, he did that for a couple of years, realized this wasn't gonna be beneficial for him, and then he gave up. - Right. - He died, he went to his death, proclaiming the gospel that he had been preaching the whole time, that the other apostles were also preaching. - Right. - There's no reason for him to do that for something that he invented, or that he knew was untrue. - Right. - I know it's untrue, I'm denying it when I'm faced with death, like, I will, yep. - Yeah. - Yeah, and there's accounts, and this is kind of a broader section of this, right? But there's even accounts from the first and second century, from Roman officials riding to each other, saying, I don't know what we're gonna do. All of these Christians, we keep telling them to reject the, all we want them to do is say, Jesus is not God. He never rose from the dead. - Right, and they won't do it. - And they won't do it. - And they won't just keep killing it. What are we gonna do, right? Paul was, I mean, Paul was in that. He was beheaded in Rome for this message, and again, it's not a different message than the other apostles taught. - Right. - And it's not even a different message than what Jesus taught. - Right. - You know, for example, let's just say, yeah, Paul taught a lot about salvation by grace and loan through faith and loan to Ephesians 2, and mentions it in other places, that adherence to the law will not save you. Jesus in John 3:16, when he's talking to a Pharisee, Nicodemus, he says, for whoever believes in me, will not perish, but have eternal life. He then goes on to say, you know, many will say in my name, Lord, Lord, I did all these amazing works in your name, and he'll say, well, apart from me, I never knew you. - Right. - Jesus is clear. It's not salvation by, or entering the kingdom of God, and you know, and people say he even disagrees with Paul and what that kingdom of God is, he doesn't. - Right. - But it's not entering God's kingdom by adherence to the law or being good enough. Jesus himself preaches the opposite. And if you're gonna say, in order to say otherwise, then you have to doubt the gospel accounts. And at that point, time out, you don't know what Jesus taught, if you're gonna say the gospel accounts are inaccurate. - Right. - So if the gospel accounts are true, and you're gonna use those words of Jesus, you gotta say, him and Paul taught the same message because you have to properly understand what Jesus is really saying, and he spells it out pretty clearly if you're looking for it. - Absolutely he does. - Yeah, I mean, I think we pretty well rounded this. - Yeah. - Let me question out. - Let me make one more mention. Another thing that people-- - We've got Tyler talking to me. He's on, you guys just see him right now. He is like in his own, he's feeling it. Sean, we talked about BB and a teacher. By the way, I used to hate school when I was in school. - It is. - Sean, well Sean knows firsthand. I-- - We should have a podcast episode where I just talk about your life, man, that would be fun. - I came in today with nine pages of notes, by the way. - That's why you're doing more talking in this episode. I'm not gonna lie, not in a contentious point, but I'm like, I wish I could see the balance on this question of how much Tyler's talked compared to me. - Somebody time it. - Yeah, so somebody time it and then put it in the comments 'cause I would love the note. - Not in a contentious point, I have no issue with the way this podcast is-- - Ethan, Ethan, I'll leave that up to you. You would do that. - There we go. - One more thing I'll talk about with the Paul thing, because this is the thing that a lot of people bring up is that Paul stole the idea of a resurrection or the afterlife from Greek paganism. - Yeah, for this one. - It's called Bunk, okay. It doesn't work out. Let me tell you why. Paul taught that there would be a future resurrection of the dead, of the righteous. He taught eternal life. He taught, sorry, the words are escaping me. He taught eternal punishment. Like all of those things. And they're gonna say, well, Jesus never taught that. First of all, if I'm remembering correctly, I think Jesus talked more about hell than any other topic. - Yes, he did. - In the gospel. - Yes, he did. And in fact, Jesus uses the Greek word, Gehenna, which is a, which people say, well, Paul stole the Greek understanding of hell. Paul never uses that word in those phrases. Jesus does. - Right. - And so I could actually say that I stayed in hell in Ohio, 'cause we stayed in Gehenno, Ohio. - Maybe. - I probably just said it wrong too. And somebody from Ohio around the Columbus area is gonna destroy me for that. - Look at what he's saying. - I owe Ohio people. - Oh, wait. - Oh, no. - Sorry, are you leaving that state? - Okay, keep going. - No, we love Ohio, I just camped in Ohio. - No, I hate Ohio, but I love people from Ohio. - Oh, that's fair. Have you ever been to the Proof of Hall of Fame? Can't know Ohio? - Nope. - I went there, it was awesome. - Yeah, football fan. - But we're not talking sports, Sean. - We're not, that was you, how dare you. - Oh, wow. - Well, no, I can talk sports, but we just, you can talk sports. - Who are you? - I'm a stealer's fan, that's fine. - I don't know. - I'll talk sports. - Okay, you are braged baiting me right now. I'm about to java on this mic stand. - So the other day, Sean made a comment in the group chat with him and his wife and me and my wife. Said something about the Patriots or something. And then you're seeing the trophy that the Patriots are gonna hold you. - Oh, yeah, so I was at the Proof of Hall of Fame and I saw, they have the actual Super Bowl, the Barney trophy, that the next team is gonna have. So I went and I looked at it. I was like, guys, look at this, this is so cool. And Sean was like, yeah, the trophy, the Patriots are gonna hoist up. And I was like, dude, I'm not gonna lie. Totally forgot they were a football team. (laughing) Anyway, what was I talking about? - Paul. - Yeah, people would say, well, the Jews in Paul's day didn't see hell and the afterlife that way. And to that, I would say, yeah, you're right. Jesus knew that. You know how much of Jesus' ministry was correcting in incorrect Jewish understandings in the right testament? - So many times. - And it's not inconsistent with with the Old Testament teachers. Daniel 12, one, two through three, Ezekiel 7, one through 14, talk about the same kind of resurrection that Paul talks about in Jesus' references. Jesus talks about it in John 11, 23 through 27. Luke 20, 27 through 38. Additionally, Paul didn't steal anything from any pagan religion. Like he didn't copy paste anything. - Right, he didn't copy. - No, he would say, oh, well, look at, for example, you know, like the Egyptians had gods that resurrected from the dead. So Paul stole that from them, but Jesus never taught that. Well, not in the same way, right? You don't have any gods that live a sinless, perfect life, die and are bodily resurrected. - Right. - And given all glory, authority, sovereign power. Like they have, oh, this guy died and they cut him into pieces and sent him off into different places and those pieces of him continued to live on. Or this god was kind of like made god of the underworld after he died, right? Additionally, even outside of Paul, the other apostles, all of them, affirmed the resurrection of Jesus, you know? So this isn't something unique to Paul. Again, we gotta look at the broader context. Look at what Jesus actually taught. He foretold his resurrection throughout the Gospels. - He did? - If you're gonna say he never taught that, okay, then just throw out the Gospels and don't use them to argue against Paul, right? Yep. The Bible will not be in the end. never contradict itself. God, no cannot, cannot lie, cannot contradict themselves. It's impossible. Right. So it was Paul and Apostle. Yeah. Yeah. According to the New Testament, Paul was an Apostle. Jesus commissioned Paul, and that's not even from Paul's lips at first. Luke writes about that. Yep. From other eyewitness sources as well. The other Apostles, the big one being Peter. Peter. Peter, who Jesus said he would use to build his church. Right. Peter explicitly says Paul is writing scripture. Right. You know. Yep. Yeah. He teaches the same gospel that Jesus teaches. Does he give information that we didn't know before? Yes. Because that's what God does as he continues to reveal things. Right. But it's not a contrast or a conflict. Also remember, Jesus is writing his, Jesus is primary ministry on earth as to Jews. He says that I came to, yep. He can say the law sheep of his room. Yep. Paul's most of Paul's ministry is to Gentiles. Right. There's even a cultural difference, but they're not in conflict. It's connected to the two. It's complementary. Yeah, complemented. Yeah. That's what I was talking about. Yep. Connective tissue like tendons and ligaments. Just not like my left hand street. Anyway, yeah. Never mind. Yeah. Any other thoughts on Paul? Oh, I don't think so. I mean, honestly, I don't know that I joke that you've talked most of this episode. But honestly, everything you said I agree with. Great. You know, and this come, I'll say this. This is a biblical worldview issue. And meaning that this is why it's important that the Bible be taught and understood as one unified revelation. Not, not piece together. You can't, you can't take a, you know, well, I really like the book of Psalms and I really like the book of Matthew. And I'm going to take those. But I don't like Philippians or I don't like Daniel. And so I'm going to remove those. And so that my, I thought, no, you, you get all 66 or none, right? It stays together. And which is interesting. Fun fact, you know, that Martin Luther thought revelation should be removed from the Bible. I did know that. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Not for this episode. But for this episode. Sorry. I did. Yeah. I don't agree with Luther by the way. No, I don't either. I don't either. He avoided it like he almost didn't make the canon either. Yeah. But that's a, again, topic for a topic for another day. You can submit it to the Google form because we know how it works. Yeah. Oh, man, I'm moving on. Are we? Yeah, let's move on. We have another question. Maybe a little lighter of a question. Definitely lighter. A little more personal of a question today. Yeah, personal. Take it, take it away. Cool. It's been anonymous or do we know who? Where did this question come from? Does someone ask it? Maybe. Let me, let me look through. We are prepared, guys. We're so prepared. Was this a, this might have been a Zach, another Zach question. Well, hopefully it wasn't supposed to be anonymous. No, it wasn't supposed to be anonymous. Okay. How and where in the Bible? But a new or a young Christian start studying the Bible. I love this. How and where for the how? A good place to start. I won't, we won't repeat this one. I'm starting this one for a good place to start. It wouldn't be a, a repeat of everything we talked about in the first episode. We will, we're not going to dive super deep into, I like that you just correct Bible interpretation stuff. But, you know, whatever. I don't even know what let's add on to it. Look, John, take it away. Why don't you start? Straight up, John. I was going to say straight up, John. Were you really? Yes. Oh, man. So we're going to think, it's funny. We said that we're going to disagree on this podcast. I don't think we've disagreed yet. Yeah. That's okay. Uh, eventually it'll happen. Yeah. We'll get there. I'm sure our reasons might be different. I don't know. Why I love John and why I would start with John. If you want to understand the weight of what Jesus went through for the crucifixion, which, okay, let's be honest, the life of Jesus, very important to understand. Gospel of Luke gives incredible detail because, because Luke was a doctor, so he's given physician notes on the life of Jesus. Incredibly important, not underestimating that. But with John, it starts with salvation when Jesus accomplished, and John gives so much detail to understand what Jesus went through that it makes the gospel makes it. So then when you understand the crucifixion and the lashings and how the crucifixion went down, then when you read Matthew, Mark and Luke, and you're, you're seeing and hearing all of these things that Jesus is pointing to, it puts it incredible detail. Like honestly, like we talked about emotions and the, in episode three, and I'm not an emotional guy. Like, you know, I am, I have emotions, I have emotions, but like in order for them, in order for them to be shown, I have to be connected with whatever's going on. I don't just, I'm not like my wife. You know, you don't cry when the dog commercial, the dog commercial. Right. Yes. Like, oh, the puppy just wants his bone. I'm like, I don't care. Stupid dog. You know, it's like, or a cat commercial shout out down on, you know, cats are stupid. But anyways, I love animals, by the way. There's one area we disagree. Hey, cats. But you know, I almost weep when I'm when I'm reading the gospels, and when Jesus points through his crucifixion and talks about it, it is like understanding the weight. Well, and that goes back to understanding the weight of my sin, right? I, what Jesus got, because it's not just some hard story to read. Like, wow, this guy was unjustly crucified. Wow, that's hard. You know, it's because of me. Like, indeed, did that for me so that I wouldn't have to pay that price. I mean, it just, oh, my goodness. It just tears it open and you understand the gravity, the weight of it when you understand, and, and John doesn't beat around the bush. I think statistically, Mark is the fastest gospel, but John's right up there. Like he just, he, he gives you the, the details. And he says that this is it. And, and he's with authority and the firmness that I believe the, the gospels, and that just, and then that pieces together, everything that we even just talk about Paul. Yeah, putting all that together in all, man, John is great. John is beautiful. All of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John are, are beautiful. Mark is part, sorry, John is particularly, let me put it this way, the focus of John's gospel, the primary focus is to show the deity of Christ. Why he begins with, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, right? Talks about all the stuff with John, the Baptist. And then eventually he says, the word became flesh. He dwelt among us. Right. Jesus is God with us. Right. That's the primary focus it seems of his, of his gospel, if not one of the big ones. Um, and so it, yeah, it's, it's rich with theology. It's, um, it, it is beautiful. It's not the gospel of Luke that is a historical account. Very detailed. The purpose of Luke is to provide a detailed historical account. John is a theological account. Yeah. Why he came who Jesus was. Yeah. I heard a story one time of somebody who there was a friend told me the story of a speaker that they had heard. The speaker was a, you know, used to live a crazy life of sin came to know Jesus in the way that they came to know Jesus is, uh, they, they said, you know, those, the Bibles, the thin pages of the Bible are, um, make really good joint paper for rolling joints, the smoking weed. And so they're, yeah, hear me out, right. Um, and, and the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You made it this far. You might as well finish the episode. So a friend gave them a, a new testament and said, here, I got you some, some paper. Um, but here's my rule. You got to read the page before he smoked it. Okay. And so he said, interesting guy said, I smoked through Matthew. I smoked through Mark. I smoked through Luke. And then John smoked me and John is beautiful. I love especially looking at John's gospel. And that what exactly we're talking, I've done this before. Um, where I've sat and I have read the crucifixion account and John and it has brought me to tears. And then I stopped there. And then I go to Revelation written by John. And he describes where this, the scene where he's in the throne room of heaven. And there's a scroll that nobody can open. And if you look at in context and in the cultural context, it likely is representing like ownership of the earth. Whoever opens it, they get to take it back from, from the whole net sin and the same half on it. And he says, nobody can open the scroll. And, and I was just weeping bitterly. Right. And he says, but then I looked and I saw a lamb that was slaying the same lamb that was slaying that he describes in his gospel account. And he walks up and he takes a scroll and he opens the scroll and all of heaven comes crashing down to the ground. And they, you know, and they sing praise as word is the land. You know, let's go. And so, yeah. And again, looking at the connection between John and Revelation and his beautiful, um, John is a really good book to to read for a young or new believer about who Jesus is. Yeah. That Jesus is God. Why it matters that Jesus is God. Right. Then I go to Mark. Do you? I do. Yeah. Go to Mark because Mark is good on how to follow. how to follow Jesus, and this is why I wrote it. Oh yeah. Short action oriented account of Jesus' ministry, that emphasis, because I love this about Mark, it emphasizes discipleship, right, and this is, and I think this is personal, so we said, you know, this is definitely a more personal question. I think the reason why I go in this is because I understood Jesus when I gave my life to him when I was in sixth grade, but I didn't understand how to follow Jesus, 'cause then I heard that in church, right? I was like, and then I'm following Jesus. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm following Jesus in here. I don't know. So you had the list of things that happened to you at salvation in the other episode. - Yeah. - You know, I had no idea any of that. So I'm like, well, then you get to Mark and it's, it, okay, there's a cost to following Jesus. There's all of this, you know, so those two gospels right together, for me, kind of blend it, and then I'm going like, you know, there's identity and fusions and then the fruits and James. - Yeah. - Ephesians, what does it mean to, what does it mean, identity-wise? To be identified as a follower of Jesus. - Right. - A Philippians. - I love Philippians. - Philippians once in one life, first. - Oh, really, yep. - I've been Philippians two guy, man. - Two, yeah, whoo. - Yeah, so Philippians two covers, he's talking about being unified. The Egyptian Philippians have an issue with that. And he says, "Hey, be unified and be humble." In your examples, Jesus, and he walks through what we, what I call the swoop. - Wait, was he allowed to, was that like, he had the authority to Jesus. - Yeah. - Like he was claiming to be Jesus. - No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. - No, no, no, that's not what he's doing. So he, he does what I call the swoop. I don't think I came up with that. I think I heard that from somebody else. - Nike. - Yeah, swoosh. - Oh, shoot. - Yeah, the swoop. Where Jesus, if you like plot on a graph, he's a quality with God. He swoops down to the lowest point of humanity, death on a cross, and then it's highly exalted. And he walks through the, all of that. But Philippians is great. It, Philippians is encouraging. - It really is. - It's challenging. It, it, it talks about joy. That's kind of the theme of the book is how to have joy. As a follower of Jesus, as a young and new follower of Jesus, there's probably a lot of joy. And there's coming a time, probably, where you're gonna be like, where's my joy? - That is true. - So Philippians is really good. - Down on my heart, where? - Yeah, what? The Psalms are great. The Psalms are rich. There's so many of them. - They're beautiful. - Old Testament, where, you know, you, the Psalms are kind of like a window into the heart of the, of the ancient Israelites. They're written by the Israelites in certain periods of history that you read about in the Old Testament. - You learn to worship through the Psalms too. Like, you know, they're written as songs. - Right, and because, and then it, I've learned this in my worship and growing and how I express my worship. Like, is that, you know, yeah, they're singing, but then you also hear, you know, the way that David expresses himself. And not just in singing. Now, granted, is, you know, a song of the choir masters. So like, they're singing. But like, he's talking about the Moses, like, I'm laying down and I've cast my stone and you say me and you are my rock and like, the declarations and how you're worshiping God through, like, oh, oh. - Yeah, and you see in the Psalms, how to navigate all sorts of different seasons of life joy, singing songs of praise to God, having doubts, questions, having hurt. You also see a lot in the Psalms. You see a lot of, I mean, the whole Bible is about Jesus. He's the main character. Everything's about a spoiler alert. - Thanks, Tyler. - Wow. - Yeah. I see a lot of pointing to Christ and a lot of us in the Psalms. One of my favorites, if you're looking for a Psalm to check out, read Psalm 22. It's gonna blow your mind, ready? Psalm 22, he's written by David, while he's on the run from Saul, and he's describing what he's going through. But as you're reading this, you're like, hold on a second. - Right. - This sounds a little familiar, right? Because while David is describing what he's going through using metaphorical language, he happens to also be, let me just put it this way. You know how Psalm 22 starts? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because let me, let me, let's go to the other side of the Bible real quick, and I'll come back to Psalm 22. When Jesus on the cross says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He's not confused. He actually knows exactly what he's doing. Because in that day, in those days, the Jews who knew their Old Testament, they had things memorized. And typically a teacher would call a passage to memory by saying the first line. And so the student would then start walking through it in their mind. So Jesus says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And they think Psalm 22, and here's what you see in Psalm 22. You see the crucifixion described in detail. You see people casting lots, casting lots for his clothes, mocking him, Gentiles, encircling him, mocking him. I'm saying, you know, if you're the son of God, God, God deliver you, right? All of these things, the crucifixion is described in detail. Keep in mind, 700 years before crucifixion was invented. Yeah, exactly. His hands and his feet are pierced, his heart is melting like wax, which is a description of a medical thing that happens with Jesus, all of this stuff. You see the crucifixion described, but then Psalm 22 shifts. And you, you see the message of the gospel, proclaimed to the Jews, then to the Gentiles, then to a generation that has not yet been born. And all of that is in Psalm 22. It's like what? So the Psalms are crazy. That's my favorite Psalm, check it out. They're so rich, God has so many cool things in the Psalms. What else? Yeah, for specific, like Bible study tactics or methods, refer back to our first episode if you haven't seen that yet. True. Axis, can we talk a lot about Axis? I mean, obviously, it's, but you understand where the church came from. You know, church, yeah, the new believer, if you want to know like where church age came from, you know, the history of the early church. Right, yep. And they're, and honestly, you can see some, if you really look at it, it'll take some study, but you can see some parallels to why we do church the way that we do, 'cause you know, you'll be hearing about, well, they did this in the Old Testament. Why do we do it this way? You see a little bit of the parallels in the New Testament with Axe of why we do it the way that we do it now and then things like that. So Axe is good. Let me give you, let me give just a good overview if you're asking, how do I read the Bible? Let me, let's start at the beginning. - Let's start at the very beginning. - I'm gonna read the entire Bible starting now, out loud on this podcast. - I'm about to go to sleep. (laughs) - They would be. - Serenade me, Tyler. - It's 11 o'clock almost at night while we're recording. So hey, if you're gonna late night, listen there. And you're also, if you're up late with this right now. - Late night with Sean and Tyler, probably not a great title for a podcast. - Well, let's not do that. (laughs) The Old Testament, the Old Testament is, is all about where we came from as humanity. - Yeah. - Why God created us? The problem with humanity. All of that you find in the beginning of Genesis. And then the rest of the Old Testament is God preparing the way for him to fix the problem. - Right. - And you see people fail, and people fail, and people fail, and people fail. - Oh my God. - And people fail. - Yeah, and people fail. - And everybody's failing, and God gives this law. But the point is, none of it's good enough. Like the point of the Old Testament is, God has a really high standard, and nobody can meet it, and everyone's gonna fail. - Right. - But throughout the Old Testament, God's giving like these little blinking arrows, pointing forward, saying, "I've got this, I've got this, "I've got this, trust me, I've got this." And then you get to the New Testament, and there's like a break that happens, where God steps into the picture of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, and he says, "Hey, I've got this." - Right. - He draws a lot of connections from the Old Testament to himself, saying, "It's been about me the whole time." - Right. - He lives the perfect life we could never live, and he actually goes and he dies on the cross as the solution for the problem of human sin. He pays the price everyone deserves to pay, that the whole Old Testament was sitting up. - Right. - So the midpoint of human history, the climax of human history is the cross, and then he raises from the dead three days later. That's all what you find in the gospel. But the resurrection shows us. So the crucifixion, Jesus dying on the cross, shows us that God is doing something about the problem of sin and death, that he's solving the problem. He's paying the price. - Right. - The resurrection shows us he's not done, and he has a future plan to get rid of all sin and all death. That's the hope the gospels leave us with, the first four books of the New Testament. The rest of the New Testament is, how are we supposed to live in a light of the gospel, in a light of Jesus's divinity, his death, his resurrection, and that he's alive today? So the rest of the New Testament are letters written by people that witness Jesus, that Jesus commissioned to say, hey, go tell my church, how to love me while they wait for me to come back, how to love each other. - Yep. - It's important how to love each other. - Right. - Amphus, this man, how to love each other. And then Revelation gives kind of ends the story for us and tells us how it's all gonna end. - We have hope 'cause we know how the story ends because God told us we don't have to guess. - Billy Graham, are you an optimist, pessimist? He says I'm an optimist 'cause I read the last page and we win. - Right. - Exactly. - Yeah. So if you're a new or a young follower of Jesus, those are some of our tips. That's how to look at the Bible. You can get lost sometimes if you don't understand the whole story of the Bible is kind of carrying that arc. Use resources, ask questions, that's the, you know. hence why we're here. Do it all in prayer, knowing that the Lord will lead you and we'll speak to you through his scripture. - Man, this is fun, this is fun. I have loved this. I'm sitting here thinking as Tyler's, there's some preview of some of the questions that we got. We're not gonna dive into these, obviously, we're at the end of this episode. I think we're at the end of this. - Yeah, we're getting there. - Yeah, yeah. Things like, should people use AI? If God is perfectly just, perfectly loving, omniscient and sovereign, overall creation, how can a Christian distinguish between a world God permits? What does it mean to truly believe? Why is, why ministry to the next generation maybe one of the most important things for the church to keep in mind and emphasizes more and more people seem to be criticizing or ignoring it? I mean, these are just questions that aren't like, how can we address the concept of church hurt? Young people leaving the faith that science doesn't support the Bible, already have questions from episode one, referencing things that we talked about, which is important if you have questions about things that we've said and want us to clarify it, like, you know, submit those things to you, like, you know, what a question of like, where does a new believer start? And that's the kind of things that we want from this, right? Is that you have a space to ask those questions. And again, asking, again, I think I'm back to the one video of Charlie Kirk that I saw when somebody asked him, one of his antagonists asked, why are you even here? And he said, because when we don't, when we stop having the conversation, that's what it ends. And it's like, we don't need this to end. We don't want this then. We want to be able to understand and have conversations about things that are important, right? And how to understand it. And our hope is that we have appreciated all of the feedback of like, oh man, you got great podcasts, great first two episodes. We love the encouragement. Don't get it wrong and we need that. But also on the other side of that, what would be truly like rewarding for me is to hear a story of, hey, I used one of the references from your podcast, like, you helped me understand that. I was able to have a conversation with someone. Take it further. Don't just be like, oh man, it was great listening to your podcast. In the mornings, I'm taking a shower, you know, you're my breakfast, breakfast voices, you know, and, you know, using this, that's what we really, we don't want to just talk just so that we can talk about. Well, we believe it's to equip you. Yeah, we don't want, we don't want to do this just so you can gain information. Right. We want to do this so that you can see life transformation. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. 100%. Man. It's been fun. It's been fun. Man, great. This has been a good one. Episode four, episode four, right a banger, if you ask me. I think so. Well, I mean, of course you did most of the talking. I don't know about you, but whoever talking. This was a great one, man. No, yeah. But honestly, I don't want to say this because I don't want people to actually think that, like, I've said about, I love it. One, I was talking to Sarah Overstreet. She's our lead pastor's wife today. And I said, this has been cool for me because Tyler's referenced it a lot. Tyler's one of my students, one of my first students that when I came here to community grace. And definitely one of the students that I've poured the most into was my intern for seven years. And now is a Bible teacher. And it's cool to be in this position with you as a friend. Yeah. You know, no longer like teacher or student, like funny because you're a teacher. But when you give me pushback, I can ignore you and just keep rankings. We're not going to have a one-on-one later about this. No, we might, no. But it's fun. It's cool. And I am not threatened at all when someone knows, and that's your job too. So there's absolutely no, I love it. It's rewarding for me. And I just love doing this. I love, and I love you. Yeah. Yeah, I hope our listeners are having as much fun as we are. I hope so. 'Cause this is fun. There's a lot of fun. I don't stay up. I don't stay at the church until 11 p.m. For no reason. For no reason. This has been fun. But I also am craving ice cream right now. Yeah, I'm so hungry. Man, ice cream, even though I'm diabetic, I probably shouldn't. Sorry, if my doctor's listening to this. Yeah. I promise I'll go take a walk tomorrow. But I don't know. I don't even know what happened. I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home and eat a bagel. A bagel. A bagel, a bagel. Up, just kidding. Sorry. I say things correctly. Yeah, you do. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you for a search and see. Thank you for joining us on this journey. Absolutely. Absolutely. Got anything else, Sean? I don't got anything else. All right. We'll continue the conversation, man. That's right. Okay, next time. Keep joining us as we search the scriptures together. Let's do it. Okay. Bye.