BibleProject - Acts E4: Saul & Subversive Christianity

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

In part 1 (0- 14:00), Paul was a zealous Pharisee before he converted to following Jesus. Tim says this “zeal” that Paul showed as a Pharisee is a hyperlink to an Old Testament story in Numbers 25 where the priest Phineas exercised “zeal” to preserve the Jewish law. Jon comments that zeal is an interesting emotion that is complicated to understand in religious movements. Tim comments that Paul never lost his zeal; he just redirected it upon his conversion to Jesus. In part 2 (14:00-25:30), the guys discuss Acts 13 and the missionary journeys. Tim explains that there were more missionary journeys going on than just those recounted in the book of Acts. He references a book called “The Lost History of Christianity” by Philip Jenkins. Regarding Paul’s missionary journeys, Tim recounts that Paul bridged the gap between Jews and Gentiles, and Luke recounts this with all these short stories about converts like Lydia the Gentile purple merchant, Timothy the child of a Jewish mother and Greek father, the Philippian jailer, a rough and tough character, and Dionysius the Areopagite an ancient intellectual aristocrat. Luke desires to portray Paul as a person who reaches a diverse group of people with the message of Jesus. In part 3 (25:30-36:00), the guys discuss the circumcision controversy portrayed in Acts 15. Should Gentile converts to Christianity be required to observe traditional Jewish customs? This is one of the fundamental questions underpinning the whole New Testament, but it’s largely missed today because Christianity is now majorly non Jewish. Tim says the disciples determined what to do by using a passage from the Old Testament prophet Amos found in Amos 9:11-15. In part 4 (36:00-48:45), the guys discuss what ancient Rome was like and why Christianity was viewed as a threat to the Roman empire. The Roman economy was made up largely of indentured servants and slaves. Roman religion was polytheistic. Tim cites quotes by scholars Kavin Rowe and Larry Hurtado saying that Christians posed both an economic and religious threat to the Roman society. Why? Because they refused to participate in communal worship of the Roman gods or in the economy built on violent nationalism. Tim says this is evident in the stories Luke shares, like the one about the silversmith Demetrius in Acts 19. He views Christianity as a threat to the entire religious and economic system of the world and incites a riot in Ephesus against Paul. In part 6 (48:45-53:05), Tim shares a few quotes from NT Wright. The guys discuss how modern Americans’ lives look very similar to Roman lives. We tend to worship sex and money as a culture, but without the mythology wrapped around it. Are Americans or modern westerners that much different from our historical Roman predecessors? Perhaps we’re more alike than we care to believe. In part 7 (53:05-59:50), the guys cover Acts 17. Wherever Christianity spread, there tended to be riots as the local communities felt the Christians were disrupting their way of life. Tim says that Luke was purposefully portraying the Jesus movement on a collision course with the Roman world. Paul and other Christians would create disruption wherever they went, yet they were preaching a gospel of peace. In part 8 (59:50-end), the guys make an interesting historical observation that the foundation for religious liberty and the separation of church and state comes from the ancient church fathers like Tertullian arguing for their right to worship the Jewish God, but serve a Roman emperor. Thank you to all our supporters! Produced By: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins, Matthew Halbert-Howen Resources: Philip Jenkins, Lost Christianity Kavin Rowe, World Upside-Down: Reading Acts in a Graeco-Roman Age Larry Hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods Larry Hurtado, Why on Earth Did Anyone Become Christian? N.T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God Music: Beautiful Eulogy, The Fear of God Beautiful Eulogy, Come Alive (Hidden) Beautiful Eulogy, Come Alive Moby, Shot in the Back of the Head Shipwrecked, Noah Dixon KV, Wild Rosasharn Music, Defender Instrumental

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. Imagine you're an ancient peasant living in a row.

Life for you is pretty tough. Death and disease are common. People are crammed into slums of cities that smell disgusting and are ruled by violent men. You're just trying to survive. Today you're at the local temple making sacrifices because you know that if you're going to survive you need the God's protection. Problem is the gods are temperamental and you're not sure if they like you or not. So you spend time and money sacrificing, hoping the gods will be on your side. It's a cold and unpredictable world, just like the gods who rule it.

But then, imagine, you walk out of the temple and see a crowd gathered around a guy on the street. It's a guy you have heard of before. He's a Jewish fanatic. Those people who worship the one true god, they say. But now he's talking about something different, something they call the way. You stop and listen and you realize he's talking about a different world altogether. The kind of different world that Jews and Christians invited Greeks and Romans to live in. It's not a world governed by all at all unpredictable gods,

but it's a world that's stable and safe, and the one creator God has shared with us. Totally different views of the universe. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background I'm John Collins and today we're going to wrap up our series of conversations on the book of Acts. Acts has chronicle the beginning of Christianity. And when it began, Christians were viewed as threats. They were disrupting the world order. Why? So refusal to participate in worship and acknowledgement of the gods would have been taken as acts of disloyalty against one's family and city and disregarding the welfare of your neighbors. And when you're disloyal to your culture,

drama is going to ensue. People are killed, riots happen, but the Christians stay banded together. They took care of each other and they took care of the people that the empire overlooked, the poor, the orphan, the widow. And so the social capital that people found in these communities was worth all the other ostracism. And so, ancient world became split. Were the Christians a threat? They pay taxes, they take care of the poor, but they keep insisting that this man Jesus is the true king, not seasoned. It's the dynamic, but the whole New Testament is trying to invite people into a way of

existing in any culture, in any nation, and participating in it, but also calling it to become its best version of itself, which you think is really only possible if people acknowledge Jesus. So today on the show, mobs, riots, and the subversive nature of Christianity. Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

So we're talking about the Book of Acts. Yep. And in the last episode, we talked a lot about 8 through 12, and setting us up to talk about the next section and 8 through 12 is all about going to Samarro and Judea. Yep, the region right around Jerusalem. Yeah, so the key character that's introduced is the guy named Saul of Tarsus who's gonna become Paul the Apostle. Saul is Hebrew name, Sha'ul. Sha'ul. And then Paul is his Greek name.

Okay. That's very common. Many, many Jewish people had. It's like your home, your home team name. Yeah. And then your public name when you're talking with people who aren't of your people. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'd be one down in Mexico. Yeah. But I was always told, is this his conversion name? It's not the case. He was known by both. Luke, however, does use... Use it as a device. As a device for his transition.

Got it. From being... Well, he never stopped being a Pharisee, necessarily. Or who cared about the story of Israel, the covenants, but he uses it to transition him from his pre-Jesus to post-Jesus face. And becomes an international missionary. So he's an international name.

Yeah, yeah, got it. In the narrative. So he's a key character. He's introduced in this transition section in the book of Acts. So we're going to have to develop him, son. Talk about him. He describes himself in one of his letters where he talks about his pre-Jesus self in the letter to the Philippians. And he talks about how, with regard to the laws of the Torah, he was blameless, you know, he was super devout,

and uses this line where he says, I was a Pharisee, so we identified with this religious political pressure movement. What do you mean pressure movement? Well, pressure, like a pressure group, they weren't an official institution, the Pharisees. They're the equivalent to, in any culture where there is a hyper conservative, religious political movement that's trying to get the whole populist to adopt the really passionate, rigorous piety that normally is just a few people. They were trying to take the holiness rituals of the temple, priests, and create equivalents

in people's everyday lives. So the priests washed their hands before doing things in the temple. So every Jew should wash their hands before doing things in the temple. So every Jew should wash their hands Before meal times before prayer. The priests say these kind of blessings over the sacrifices Every Jew should say these kind of prayers before meal time. Yeah, there's ellets. There. Yeah, there's ellets Which is how he describes himself. Yeah, and Philippians this is important. He says really regarding the Torah I was a Pharisee as for zeal,

I persecuted the church. So he connects his zeal, the passion, with a violent suppression of anybody who will threaten Israel's faithfulness to its God. Right. Zeal. And this is hyperlink, phrases. He's recalling the story of the first zealous Israelite in the Hebrew Bible. This is a good Bible trivia. The first zealous. First zealous. And the whole Bible? The first person who's called zealous.

Oh, I'm going to go with judges. Oh, I can see this. Is there a judge who's called a zealous? No. It's a priest, and it's in the book of Numbers. Okay. In the Torah of Numbers. Okay. In the Torah, Numbers chapter 25. So Israelites are in the wilderness,

and the whole bunch were told start sleeping with Moabite women, and then adopting the worship of Moabite gods. Not good. It's not good to coven it faithful Israelites. And so there's a story about one particular is relight who takes a mo by a woman and goes in with his tent to sleep with her and the grandson of the high priest,

Aaron, who's this grandson's name is Phineas, or Phinehas. And he's so disturbed, he takes a spear and follows them into the tent and spears both of them. And he is called full of zeal for Yahweh. So what's important is that this narrative is about someone who has violent passion to preserve the purity and faithfulness of Israel's commitment to Yahweh, their God. That's what this term is loaded with. That's what the term zeal means.

So for Paul to say, as for zeal, I was willing. I'll throw down the spear. He'll be killed. And so it tells you about his view of Jesus. What it tells you is that pre-Paul's view of Jesus and how in average is relight or Jewish person might have viewed Jesus in this movement as a distortion, as misleading people. So that's the zeal driving Paul when we first meet him in the book of Acts. And so then the next chapter is the story of his knockdown conversion, in the next chapter is the story of his knockdown conversion, where he meets the risen Jesus personally. And what he realizes is that this one who followers on persecuting is actually

the one that the whole story of Israel is finding its fulfillment. So he goes into isolation for a season, there's a lot of debate on where and what exactly in collations he mentions going to Arabia for a season of time. I assume it's to just go reread his Bible about 500 times. Make some new connections. Yeah, just like my whole life and worldview just got robbed and everything I thought I knew, I need to rethink. And then he comes out on the scene in the next chapter of Acts, and he is announcing Jesus is the king of the world,

and it's the best news you could ever hear as far as he's concerned. And then ironically, he's going to, for the rest of the book, face the same kind of persecutions that he was dishing out when we first met him. So he's a rich character. One of the richest characters in the New Testament.

So we have a great opportunity to, I think, sympathetically present him. Right. Present his Pharisee identity. I'm just trying to think about it. Well, it's not a great thing to do is go and kill people. I completely agree. I'm just making a sociological observation

that when religious violence is portrayed in the news, or through, it's never a sympathetic character. We never make an attempt to see the world through. Why would somebody be motivated to do that? And the trick is that Paul, throughout this story, never drops his Jewish identity. For him, what he's rediscovering is, oh Jesus, his deep conviction is the Jesus movement

and this multicultural new covenant family. This is what the God of Israel is up to all along. He's gonna say near the end of the book, I'm in chains because of my hope and the promises God made to Abraham. He redirects a zeal. That's right. Both into what he is jealous for, also in how he is jealous.

Yeah. That's right. Violence to nonviolence. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the moment that Paul was presented as, oh, there was the Jewish Paul, then he became a Christian. We're completely distorting the nature of the Jesus movement. It's a Jewish messianic movement. It's never stopped being that. It's just mostly full of

non-Jews who have forgotten that. So were you saying then that story of Phineas? It's a good scroll moment. We saw Saul. Let's show you why Saul was this way. Yes. And how for him, this was a part of a deep tradition of protecting the way of God. Yeah. And that will create a little bit of sympathy, a little bit of like, oh, okay.

He's not just some vengeful guy. He cares about something. That's right. Bigger than himself. Bigger than himself bigger than himself just about personal Yeah, hatred. He is trying to be faithful to the God of Israel Mm-hmm, and then what he's so you so he's really just one step away from Redirecting that art that desire for faithfulness. Yeah to encountering Jesus to encountering Jesus And then what he realizes is that he's been a part of a movement whose passion for God

has actually murdered the very one that their God has sent to fulfill the whole story line. And you can see that. I can just wreck your whole view of the world. Your ability to even think how you discern truth. Yeah, and that's really, yeah. That's big. I've been fundamentally wrong about everything I believe.

But not only was I wrong, but by being wrong, I actually opposed. Yeah, very work of the God I say. I missed and opposed the thing I was for. Yeah. Yeah. Because you could be wrong and then you can just be like, oh, shoot, well, that's the thing I was supposed to be right about. Yeah, that's right.

Versus being wrong and actually opposing and being a threat to the thing that you actually care about. Correct. And you only come to see that after you've done a lot of damage. I think parents can relate to that a lot. Oh. Especially when their kids are older and you realize like my love for my kids was strong, but it was coming out in a way that was really pushing them away,

you know. Oh sure. And it was creating. Yes. Later, there's reconciliation where you realize, my motives were good. But I was actually, I was creating the problem that I didn't want, namely like ruining our relationship and making you hate me. Yeah, that's a decent analogy. Paul's one of the most complex characters in the whole New Testament, aside from Jesus. He's certainly gets as much page length dedicated to him. Second only to Jesus. Yeah.

In terms of the narratives and the letters. In Acts 13 is a major hinge in the storyline where now you have a fully transformed Paul, the base of operations for this Jesus movement is now fully working out of Antioch. And the apostles have agreed. The apostles are thumbs up. They're in. Go for it you guys. Yeah. Take the same. They're not going to start eating pork but they're going to. Yeah, that's right. But they're they're down with other Jesus followers doing it correct. There's that and so then the narrative just Focuses in Luke wants to present the missionary journeys of Paul and his co-workers as like an emblem Emblematic of the whole movement. It's not the only thing that was going on The thing was spreading in all directions

But he focuses in on this particular part likely because he was a coworker of Paul's. He's had a lot of source material, but he sees in the story of Paul. I mean, there's other people traveling around as well. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's not preserved in the record of the apostles, but oh, yeah, there were missionaries going east, out to Persia, and whole cities getting converted, so on. Yeah, remarkable stories. What do you read these stories? Well, they're mostly preserved in the early church fathers and early church traditions

that come from. So you know, two centuries later you have important churches in like Edessa, ancient Edessa, which was the Eastern Syrian kingdom. They have their own traditions and writings of the origins of what apostles came there, what missionaries sent by the apostles came there, and their early traditions. So there's a scholar named Philip Jenkins, who's wrote this wonderful book called Lost Christianity. It's like our lost brothers and sisters of the Middle Eastern Church.

So this is pre-Islam. So Islam is starting to really become a cultural forest, not into like the 600s. Yeah, so what is the predominant? We're talking about half a millennium. The predominant religions in in these Eastern countries were just, whatever, mostly local or regional gods. Yeah.

And the early Christian movement was incredibly effective. We're talking about half millennium of Christian history and culture and really important stuff. Yeah. And it's mostly unknown to Christians who have mostly been a part of the Western tradition. Yeah, the Catholic and Protestant tradition. And this is even a tradition apart from Eastern Orthodox tradition then. Yeah, many of them are connected to the Orthodox, so like Syrian Orthodox or us Syrian Orthodox.

And their language is Aramaic, which became a little hybrid into another cousin of Aramaic called Syriac, basically just Aramaic. There's an important translation of Aramaic called Syriac, basically just Aramaic. There's an important translation of the Hebrew Bible into Syriac, and like the 200s A.D. And there's just all this literature, theology, poetry, narratives, all these brilliant, awesome, really... It's all written in Syriac. ...solveric Jesus, all written in Syriac. And they have their own church fathers and traditions. Yeah, totally. I actually had to take a year of Syriac. And they have their own church fathers and traditions. Yeah, totally.

I actually had to take a year of Syriac. Oh, you did? Uh-huh. In my graduate program. It was just like, I don't know anything about these traditions at all. Yeah, it's remarkable. Yeah, there's all these really church fathers,

Jacob of Nisa, and brilliant theologians, Bible commentaries. That's why Philip Jenkins started writing about it because he called it lost Christianity. Yeah. It's why Philip Jenkins started writing about it because he called it lost Christianity. It's not because they were suppressed. They're just unknown to most modern Christians. It's like a big part of our Persian Christians, Assyrian Christians. Yeah. Because when we think of those parts of the world, we just think of Islam. We associate those Persian or Arab ethnicities with Islam. There was five, six hundred years before that took root.

Correct. And it was, there was a big Christian revival. Yeah, and what's interesting, Luke doesn't tell us that part of, he just doesn't tell us those stories. He apparently, he wasn't a part of those circles. It's clear, he was a part of the circles that were on the mission west. But there was a whole other part of the movement

going east. So cool. So, sorry, that whole riff came from King of the Map, Paul's missionary journeys. Yeah. Because they are all, they're all head and west. They're all heading into west, which is in what we call modern day Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

So this section is packed with narratives, just episode after episode. There's three large circles that Luke follows tracing Paul's movements. The first one, he does a tour of the interior of modern day Turkey, it's called Asia Minor. Then goes into western Turkey, then up into what we call modern degrees. Then his third journey takes him over the same territory again. And each time he's going through, he's revisiting church communities that he's planted. His basic method, he goes to a city. He has a trade.

He's a tradesman, a craftsman. He makes tents out of animal skin. So he can go into any city and start generating income. Yeah, that's the term tent maker. Tent maker, Christian, that's right. Tent maker. You know, he has a skill that he can generate income and that puts him right in the hub of any city.

The marketplace. And so he can go into any city and just start meeting people and making connections instantly. Luke tells us he always goes to the synagogue, Jewish synagogue first. And of course, he's Jewish. And there are usually Jewish synagogue in any of these cities? Yep. I mean, the Babylonian exile was half a millennium ago.

So they're everywhere. Yeah, Jewish communities are all over. The longest story is the first one. He goes into a synagogue and they're like, ah, Jewish communities are all over. The longest story is the first one. He goes in to a synagogue and they're like, ah, you know, one of our brothers, they invite him to give a short homily. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was a mistake.

It's an accident. Listen, Acts 13, it's awesome. It's one of these long speeches and Acts. And he just does this walk through, this like super hyper theme walk through the Hebrew Bible and all leading up to the seat of David who's died and was resurrected like the prophet said and it's great news He's the king of the world, you know, yeah, and Everybody's stoked come back next week, but there were some and then those some end up running him out of town.

And then they keep, it just goes like that. It's like with open mic nights. Totally. Yeah, totally. So then he goes to the next city and the next one, outside a city of Lystra, they haul him off in handcuffs and they stoned him to death. I mean, he writes, it's devanced death all over again.

And then the narrative just says, the disciples stood around, Paul's body, and then Paul just gets up. He gets up and he walks back into the city. Isn't that exact? It's like, this guy's crazy. But so Paul's interaction with Jewish people and synagogues, it doesn't always go this poorly, right?

He's going all different types of cities and teaching. He's mostly going to big cities, and then he makes connections. And what Luke tells us is lots of Jews, believe, are so excited to hear about Jesus. So again, it isn't about Christianity becoming non-Jewish. That's not what this story is about. It's about the Jewish hope spreading to include non-Jewish. That's not what this story is about. It's about the Jewish hope spreading to include non-Jews. And so here's just a short hit list

of just little vignettes of cool people. So we have Timothy, who's gonna have letters, addressed to him, find their way into the New Testament. So he's the son of a Jewish mother, but he has a Greek father. So he represents a whole... He's bridging the gap. Yeah, he represents a whole layer of people

in the early Jesus movement, right? He grew roots, but also cosmopolitan Greek roots. When they go to Philippi, this is one of my favorites, it's a Lidia. So upper class, she's a mover and shaker, a purple fabric merchant. She's the expensive fabrics. Yeah, like the most expensive, royal.

She's selling fabrics to the upper crust, kind of thing. And we're told she fears God, and then she invites Paul and Barnabas, and she's the connection maker. She Jewish, then? She's called a God fear rare, which means she's not Jewish, but she's attracted to the Jewish way of life

and the Jewish God. But she hasn attracted to the Jewish way of life. The Jewish God. That's what she means. But she hasn't adopted the full package deal. And as a female, it was a different level because males could at least be circumcised. If you wanted to, even if you were Greek, it could become circumcised for women, it would mean just taking on Torah observants and Sabbath and the food lots. So it doesn't seem like she's done that. But she's down for the Jewish God. And then she's like, oh, the Jewish God became human

and died for me and was raised for me, wants to make me into a new human. I'm down. Lydia. Yeah, she's in. I actually love the line Luke uses to talk about her. Acts chapter 16 verse 14. A woman named Lydia from the city of Thaira, was a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, and she was listening when Paul gone on the Sabbath to a public place and started meeting people and got a little Bible study grouped together and it says she was listening and it says the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken of by Paul. Luke also offers different kinds of conversion portraits. So you have a Paul,

who got like bunks him on the head. Yeah. But here, Lydia, she hardly needed anything. Just to look. She over here is a little. Yeah, she's Bible-stead. Over here, and she's like ready. And so her heart is just the moment she hears the story.

She's just like, Jesus, I the story. She's just like Jesus. I love it. She's just down and her whole house are holder baptized. Notice that she's not she's she's the head of our house. Her husband's nowhere named Yeah, and then she invites Paul and Barnabas to stay at her house and then it's her hospitality that launches the church community in that city Hmm. So cool. Yeah. It's great. So you get Lydia. There's Paul Barnum's to get thrown into a jail in the jailer in

Philippi. He becomes a follower of Jesus. He in his household. So there's like gruff. Jails were not good places. Yeah. When he goes to Athens and gives the famous speech, he was in the Mars Hill.

Yep, totally in the marketplace and so on. Yeah, the Mars famous speech. He was in the Marseille. Yep, totally in the marketplace and so on. Yeah, the Marseille speech. And Luke tells us Dionysius, the Ariopagite, and the Ariopagus is the name of this famous gathering place of philosophers. So he's like a significant figure. If you're called the Arab,

the apagogist. It's like being called John, the Harvardite. The Harvardite. We're John. I could have gone to Harvard. Correct. And not only that, but like I was known for having gone to Harvard. Yeah, John the Yaleite. This is Dianisius theoreopogite.

And a woman named Demaris. And a number of Greeks, speaking men and women, became followers. Then in chapter 18, he tells us, again, he's a CRISpsist. He's a leader of a synagogue. So Luke's given us the whole of Taylor. A whole list, yeah.

You know, a half Jewish. These Greek philosophers. Totally. It's wonderful. Yeah. So that's a cool element in Paul's mission without there to the synagogue first, but then to the marketplace, all kinds of people coming out of the woodwork. So all sorts of people are coming out of the woodwork to follow Jesus, including Gentiles,

non-Jewish people. And this is going to create a conflict. And this conflict comes to a head in chapter 15. So Acts 15 opens. I'll let you read it. I have the text right there in the notes. Okay. Acts 15. Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren. Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. So some men meeting some Jesus followers? Sorry, yeah. The context is this is happening Bapunantiyah. Okay. So this is Jewish Christians from Jerusalem who've come up to the major church center in Antioch. Got it. And they represent the conservative... Right, culturally conservative line.

Yeah, got it. So, hey guys, snip it. Let's get on the program. And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and elders concerning this issue.

Yeah. Cool, bring it to the head. Some team. the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Cool. Yeah. Bring it to the head. Home team. Yeah. Let's figure this out. Yeah. So you can see Antioch and Jerusalem become these symbolic centers.

Yeah. For both all about Jesus, but the Jerusalem church. So Paul and Barnumus are back at home base. Is this after the third journey then? Yeah. After the first missionary journey. Is after the first journey. Yep.

They've done the first missionary journey. All these non-Jews. Yeah, after the first missionary journey. Is after the first journey. Yep, they've done the first missionary journey, all these non-Jews. Yeah, and you got these, you got these Jesus followers from Judea's come up and they're like talking about, guys, come on. You're not doing it completely correct yet. There's some other customs. Yeah, and it represents a logic.

This is a Jewish messianic movement. Yeah. Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. It's not that weird. It is real. Right. And this is how you show your legions to... Yeah.

Read the Bible, Paul. It's the regathered tribes of Israel who inherit the New Jerusalem. Yeah. And if you want to get inside Paul's heart and mind on this issue from the same time period, the letter to the Galatians is situated right in the context of this very debate. There's some disagreement among scholars about chronology, if Galatians is coincides with this very period or post-economic period. Yeah, Paul gets fired up about this issue. But yeah, Galatians, Paul's very angry at people saying

that you have to adopt ethnic Jewish identity. Totally. Cut it off. Cut off the deal. It's vulgar. He's intense. He's mad. He's been a little snourier. That's right. He's not just being a jerk. I mean, it's that he has such a strong conviction about the overwhelming generosity of his love. Right. And he sees this as going backwards. Yeah. He says, Zellat. This is his Zellat. He told it's the same. That's the same guy. It's the same guy just redirected to you. Yeah. So instead of killing people, he just verbally destroyed people.

He just verbally destroys people. With clever turns of phrases. That's right. So act 15 is a key moment. It's a groundbreaking decision where the Jewish leaders, Peter and James and John begin on board. They're with Jesus, they represent it, and they settle the matter through prayer, debate, and opening up the Bible. The biblical text that Luke represents being the deal clincher is from the end of the

book of Amos, the famous scroll, where it's this poem about how God is going to restore the kingdom of David over the nations. And in the Hebrew text it says over Edom, which is one of the smaller, small nation states to the southeast of Israel. But the word, the letters for Edom, Hall of Dollet Mem, are the same letters as the word for Adam, humanity. And so, even in pre-Christian interpretation, in the religious interpretation, Edom became this icon. The King of David over Adam became an icon of the Kingdom of God restored over humanity. And so that's the text that they use.

To say, listen, God always wanted to bring non-Israelites into the tent of David. And it's happened through Jesus. And so we shouldn't make circumcision food laws a barrier. Yeah. And so it's momentous. I mean, have that not happened or have that counts on today? There would have been a total rift in really Christianity.

Yeah. So they give Paul and Barnabas the blessing. Like they do give some basic guidelines. Like, but you should tell people, like totally don't participate in the sacrificial thing Happening in Roman temples. Yeah, that's the thing is like this isn't just about what you're eating and you're not eating It's it becomes this whole cultural thing about like how it protects you from certain ways of life Yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's so fascinating

So for them to kind of relent on it, is to open up the possibilities. And I'm sure there's so many are freaked out like, oh, now they're all gonna go to Zeus's temple and figure out and like. Yeah, so they say, listen, don't go to idle temples and don't adopt the sexual ethic. So it's maintain the classic is real life, covenantal, monogamous, male female, sexual ethic,

and don't worship other gods. And that's, it sounds still like the 10 commandments, but Jesus style. So from there, then it's like, this thing has gone fully multi-ethnic, international. It's about Jews and non-Jews, discovering their new humanity through the truly human one, Jesus.

And it becomes Paul's heartbeat. He develops his theology of the story of the Bible culminating in Jesus as the new human one. This is all Paul's language, the new human, the new humanity, the new image of God, the life of the spirit, the life of Jesus being lived through his body, his... It's scriptural language, but he freshly minted all this new vocabulary around Jesus. Yeah, for these multi-ethnic Jesus communities, and it's Jewish language universalized to embrace

any human anywhere. It's really cool. Yeah. Would he teach them how to like be Christians together? Yeah. Give them like, give them like some ground rules. Yeah, yeah. I know that there's a verse where I think he says, and remember everything I taught you. So it seemed like they probably had some sort of discipleship school situation. Yeah, totally. Yeah, we don't have the core thing in Ephesians. He talks about writing mostly to non-Jews. And so he talks a lot. There was clearly a core like, here's the message of the good news about the we get it short form in Colossians and Ephesians,

in Romans chapter 12 and Paul's letters, the densest statements of it. And it's really beautiful. He usually will contrast and say, you used to be Gentiles. He's mostly writing to Gentiles, and he says, you used to be Gentiles. So you're new humans.

You're identity. So he'll talk, you'll almost always talk about sex, money, and language, verbal abuse. And all of that's completely remade. So instead of lying, you tell the truth. Instead of using vulgar language, we use language. This is beautiful. Builds people up. And that makes people think higher and better thoughts instead of stealing, we are the generosity people.

Like that kind of stuff. And he talks about you were taught the way of Jesus is language that he'll use. But yeah, you go into a church, announce the story of Jesus, meet people in the marketplace. A church meets synagogue. Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, you go to a synagogue or you'd be in the marketplace. By church means synagogue. Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, he'd go to a synagogue

or he'd be in the marketplace, start a Bible study. People hear the story, they're on board for Jesus. He teaches them the Lord's Prayer, for sure. They're doing the Lord's Supper, right? And there's a letter to Corinthians. He's like, remember the Lord's Supper and he just recounts verbatim, the story of the Lord's Supper.

He's teaching them how to sing the book of Psalms, Psalms hymns and spiritual songs, so they're developing a whole new poetry, language, to talk about God and Jesus and themselves. And then for sure, you're learning the 10 commandments, he appeals to them a handful of times. It's just like the core. Yeah, it's so cool to think about starting these new communities.

Yeah, how long will he stay? I think he's down for. Sometimes it seems like he breezes through within months, but a couple places he hangs out in Corinth. He's there a year and a half, Ephesus. I think it's almost two years in Ephesus. Some places he stayed longer, wrote some letters. It's also like weather dependent.

If you're a tenor in it, and the ancient world, you gotta wait out or wait there or something. Yeah, yeah, he'll wait for a few months somewhere. You know, he mentions to Timothy, he carried around some scrolls. He's got some stuff. Probably mostly he has the Bible in his mind. He's not carrying around a whole thing.

All the scrolls, I think. All the scrolls, and Bible in one volume didn't exist. Yeah. He's mostly crazy to think about. Mostly got it in his head. Yeah. Howelley's Christians run to think. Mostly got it in his head. Yeah. Yeah. How will these Christians run around without a Bible? Come on. Totally. Yeah, and they would beat us. You mean, you're dependent on like a written version of it? What's with you people?

You don't memorize the thing? That's what Paul would say to us. Oh, yeah. He's memorized the Psalms to have it on my phone. Yes, it's on my phone. There you go. The culture conflict with some Jews builds up to X-15, hits a boiling point, and then boom, new part of the movement. Then there's the culture clash building on the Greek and Roman front, and Luke's dedicated many stories to this. And you can always spot them, because they're the stories

that end up with riots. Just riot after riot that follows Paul everywhere he goes. Yeah Luke really wants to help us understand the subversive appearance of the early Jesus communities to your average Greek aromen. Tell me about the average Greek aromen. Oh, well, the vast majority are poor. Over half of the population is in slavery, some form of slavery, over half, over half. Well, the majority. Which means they work for some other family?

Yeah, which means they are the property of a landowner or a state owner. And do they live on that state then, or do they? Oh, it depends on their job. Yeah, so slavery works in some different ways in the Roman world. I'm not an expert on this, but you can hold fairly high

social positions, but still be the property of another person. So some slaves are out on the road if they work for like a merchant or something. It's like a sales team. It's like a right a landowner, you own a bunch of vineyards, and you also own your sales team. Lots of travel, lots of... Yeah, a lot of people hitting the road. I had a great mailed, every system. The thing is that what we conceive of as a the middle class, the history of the middle class, at least like American culture, and some modern Western cultures, there's the middle class, and much of the infrastructure is benefiting the economy in which the middle class lives. So roads, Mail systems, all that. So the Roman system had all of that, but the

socio-economic scales were way different. So it's a small minority that owns land. It's a small minority that's free and owns other people and that lives well. Life spans are really short. Cities smell horrible. Oh man. Oh man, I remember reading these descriptions. There's all these descriptions just Roman cities, how they smelled horrible.

Horrible. Yeah, that was sad. I mean, they had sewer systems, but some of them were above ground sewer systems. Yeah. This was the case into a much of them were above ground sewer systems. Yeah. You know. This was the case into a much of human history. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. I think I read a description of London and like, you know, probably like 1700s. Right. This is just, yeah. It sounded, no, it sounded horrible. Yeah, that's right. And of course, famously, if you wanted about the sewers in France of Paris, you read Lea Miserables. Anyway, so what do we...

Support, I'm just trying to get them in my head. Yeah, so the peasant lower class is about urbanites. But they're urbanites in these packed cities. So there you go. You're polytheist, so you've grown up, you've got the Greek and Roman pantheon, many of which have been transferred into the Roman pantheon, they're added to the mix. The National God is Dia Roma, it's the Roman Empire deified, it's a goddess. I know that. The emperors are lower level deities. They have temples built to them. So you've got a Zeus temple down the corner,

Aphrodite, Mars, Mamon, Money, Sex, Power, and the state are all regular deities that you worship. There's smaller level deities, Sorcerers, right? Fortune tellers. You don't know if the gods like you or not. If you have money, you can provide lots of offerings for them. Things will go better for you. It's just, there you go.

Yeah. It's life. You're granted it out. Yeah. And it's stinky. Yeah. Yeah. So into this world comes these communities who look Jewish.

You know what Jewish, you know what Jewish communities look like? They're synagogues in every city. You have a category for them. They're really ancient. They don't work on a certain day. They work on Saturdays. And I never see them around. They're pretty moral, at least they.

Yeah, really upstanding people. I never see them in any temples. Never around temples. And they don't celebrate any of the holidays, right? But they're really great neighbors. I'm happy to have them as my neighbors. They're quiet and I can trust my kids around them. That kind of thing. I like to trust them around my kids. So then comes another group and it's multi-ethnic and they talk like they're

Jews and characteristics. Yeah and they also don't go to the temples. But many of them don't eat kosher. They just like shoes and characteristics. Yeah, and they also don't go to the temples, but many of them don't eat kosher. They just eat normal food. In fact, some of them, I'll see them walking home with packages of meat from the Zeus temple. They won't worship there, but they'll eat meat from there. And right?

And they keep talking about this crucified king of the world, who's actually the creator of all things. I mean, just there's no catwalk. And they're living very generously. Yep, that's right. And they're taking care of each other. That's right. All the poor people in our neighborhood know that they have a place to sleep in the

heart situation now, but they refuse to acknowledge any of the gods and all that kind of stuff. So they're like Jews, but they're also not. And then you have the Marjus. And it's not in any way wrong or illegal to not acknowledge these gods, right? Ah, okay. So here we go. So here we go. Here we go. One of my favorite ex-golars I mentioned earlier, Kavanaugh Row. He wrote one of my favorite books on the Acts, because he's trying to help modern readers get into how Greeks and Romans would see the early Christians. There's another work I'll refer to,

but there's two books that just are so hopeful if this is something you're interested in. So here's what Kevin Rowe says in kind of a summary statement. He says, Luke portrays the Christian mission to the nations as an apocalypse, a revelation from God of a whole new way of human life.

Like that. The apocalypse of acts. I remember apocalypse means not into the world, but revealing. A revealing. A revelation of a whole new way of human life. This revelation is carried in the formation of a people, that is, the church, who don't simply hold to a list of ideas or beliefs, their very way of life poses a challenge to the constitutive patterns of pagan life in the early Roman world.

Embracing the Christian gospel meant creating a new cultural reality and inherently destabilized the assumptions and practices of any and every culture. Luke highlights his theme and emerges particularly in the stories in Listera, Philippi, Athens, and Ephesus, and all of them end up in riots. There's the story of the where it's the slave girl who can channel other powers. Yeah. Crazy story. And the emphasis is on these guys who own this little girl. Yeah. Who were making bank. So it's an economic threat. Yes. Well, it's religious and economic. Like they wouldn't perceive them because of that. They're losing money. That's their main grief. Yeah.

But the point is that there's a whole layer of their economy where people can use, they can capitalize on people's fear of the gods. And so here's a way, if people give us money, or girl will give the mumbo jumbo, and we can make them think that they're safe now. Mm, but if this girl is no longer being crazy then. Yeah, this story is patterned after stories in earlier in Luke's gospel,

where the demons recognize Jesus. And so here, the spirit that this girl is able to channel recognizes that these guys work for the most high god. So Paul gets really annoyed. It says this happened for many days that she's constantly yelling at Paul in the marketplace when he walks by. He's trying trying to make his tent make his tent for that day and tell people about Jesus And she this crazy girl keeps yelling at him. So he says he got greatly annoyed

And turned and said I command you in the name of Jesus come out of her And this what happened and when the master saw that we can't make any more money They grab Paul and Silas And when the masters saw that we can't make any more money, they grabbed Paul and Silas, dragged them into marketplace, and then look at their accusation. These men are throwing our city into confusion. They're Jews. That's what they say. That's the only category they have.

And they're proclaiming customs that it's not lawful for us, Romans, to accept or observe. So this is my other favorite book on the early Christian movement and how it would be perceived by Greeks and Romans. But it's a legitimate book title by Gainem Leire Hurtado. It's called Destroyer of the Gods. Early Christian distinctiveness in the Roman world. So he says, early Christianity lacked any of the things that typically comprised religion in the Roman world.

No shrines or temples, therefore no statues of deity, no altar, no sacrifices, and no priesthood. This was totally bizarre in a culture saturated with temples and gods. And to deny the gods of worship was effectively to deny their reality. And again, think of what Paul is how he's presented in those stories. The withdrawal of newly converted Christians from the ubiquitous veneration of the gods in public and in family environments would have been seen as abrupt, arbitrary, unjustified, and deeply worrying. Think of the family dynamics. unjustified and deeply worrying. Think of the family dynamics.

All of these gods governed arenas of human life and one's family. You have your ancestral gods. These are gods of the city, national gods, where the guardians against plague, fire and disaster. So refusal to participate in worship and acknowledgement of the gods would have been taken as acts of disloyalty against one's family and city and disregarding the welfare of your neighbors. Yeah, it would look like you don't care about your people and your heritage and your

a threat now to the way of life. It's not, yeah, you're not just withdrawing. You've been praised. What, yeah, you're saying what our family, parents and grandparents believe in practice is all sham. Yeah. You know? And this is your daughter who met this guy Paul in the marketplace. Right.

It's like, and you're not even fully going Jewish. You're just something else, a crucified criminal, who you think is alive from the dead, and you're gonna say this everything about our way of life. But there's still pain taxes. Totally, yeah, but the gods. But they're disrupting the economy and they're disrupting. Yeah, the economy and the worship of the gods

is completely interwoven. Yeah, that's what Kirtado is trying to help us imagine that culture. Right. By not participating in the worship of the gods, you're not participating in the economy. And I don't care about the social order that we've created around how this whole thing works. I think there's a better social order

and a better economy that we can create a different way. And that's threatening. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I like that it brings up the family dynamic too. So if you have a patron god of your city and so you're gonna have an annual holiday where everybody does this festival procession down to the city square you offer, but to Rams. And it's asking whatever God it is to protect you from plague and disease and so on. And so what Hurtado is saying is by saying that you don't think that God actually exists, or worse, you think that we're actually worshiping an evil being and you're actually endangering our city. That's the God that protects us and you're gonna put our city in danger by living here but not acknowledging that his power over you.

That's that kind of thing. So yeah, this is just would be a deeply disturbing type of new people group in your city. Yeah. So that's one front. So when Paul goes to Athens, similar thing, they're like, what? He goes in and he's trying to talk about Jesus in the resurrection and they're like, what does this babble are saying? He's promoting strange gods. That's what they say.

And that's a dangerous thing to do. Yeah. Like, we've got our pantheon. Yeah, don't mess with it. Yep, they protect us. Like Zeus doesn't need a new neighbor, just because this guy walked in to Athens and thinks that Jesus is God.

So it's not just religion, religion, politics, economics, the riot and Ephesus in chapter 19. It's a long story. And it's again all about the idol economy. Yeah. So we're introduced to a silversmith to Mietrius. He made money making little silver statues. The Artemis.

The Artemis. The Way he Hines. So he gets together all these other craftsmen who make idol statues and he gives the speech. He recognizes. Yeah, totally. So he says, listen, Paul has persuaded and turned away all these people saying the gods that we make with our hands aren't even real. Not only is there a danger that our trade will fall into dishonor, but also that the temple of the goddess Arnevis will be considered worthless and that the one whom all of Asia and the world worships will be considered worthless, and that the one whom all of Asia and the world worships

will be de-thruoned. You can see the threat there. And all Demetrius has to do is just give that speech. And all of a sudden there's that taps and nerve. Totally. Thousands of people who want Paul on the end of a rope. And they fill a field with their way of life. For hours, they're down there marching, yelling, and Paul wants to go there and give a field. The best with their way of life. For hours, they're down there marching yelling

and Paul wants to go there and give a speech. The next paragraph and his friends had to hold him back. Paul's crazy. Totally. It makes me wonder, you know, if that's what you're getting into by converting your allegiance to Jesus.

Mm. Like that's, mm, that's intense. Why would you do that? Yes. Why would you do that? Yes. Why would you create all that conflict? What was so compelling about what Paul was saying? Yes. That's right.

Actually, Hurtado, Larry Hurtado has another book. It's called Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the early centuries? That's the title of the book. That's the title of the book. That was my question. Yeah, it's a small, it's a set of lectures he gave. His argument is this, in the early Christian communities, it's funny, even though Paul's letters now bother most modern people when you talk about marriage. Oh, right. In that culture, it's very progressive. Super progressive and liberating, where men would be held accountable along with women for sexual integrity.

Like the double standard was women, right? They're caught in adultery. Yeah, they're in trouble. Yeah, they're in trouble, but men do whatever you want. It's encouraged. And so these early Christian communities are shaping up guys to become really like responsible mature, awesome dads and husbands. There's no other community promoting that as a public virtue, but the Christians are doing that.

Women have a status in these communities that's much higher than they have in most other public spaces. Slaves and their masters both are part of these communities and they eat at the same table. This weird thing called the love feast. Right? Yeah. The poor and the rich sit in the same room and these sing songs together and these people take care of their widows and the orphan. You know, there's nothing like this.

It's never seen anything like these communities. So, Hurtado's point is it was actually the social security web in these cities of highly mobile people, lots of disconnected people, and they found, they discovered families, new families. and so the social capital that people found in these communities was worth all of the other ostracism that's his argument it makes perfect sense to me yeah it's powerful to think about Here's another awesome scholar of early Christianity and T. Wright, Nicholas Thomas Wright. This is from his book on Paul, but it really helps us get into this understand what he's

doing in the book of Acts. This is about Paul's view of the idols and Roman, Greek and Roman gods. So Wright says, one of the strongest convictions of early Judaism is that there was only one true and good creator God. And it's a mistake of the first order to suppose that this God can be contained within or identified with anything in this present world, namely, making idols. With one exception, written into the charter of Jewish monotheism, what we call the opening chapters of Genesis, there is one creature who was designed not to contain the Creator God, but to reflect in as an image of the divine.

And of course that's humanity. Paul's radical rejection of idolatry was based on the conviction that not only does it diminish God, it also diminishes those who actually do bear the divine image. It's such a good insight. Yeah. Yeah, by promoting these statues of Artemis, I am not acknowledging that the thing I'm looking for is already reflected in who I got made me. Yeah, we are the divine image, not something that we make.

Point is that it dishonors God and it dishonors humans. To give or ascribe exalted honor to something that we make. So this is what he fleshes out in the rest of the quote. He says, it diminishes the divine image in humans. It steals humanity's privilege and bestows it elsewhere. Humans were supposed to image God by running his world. Page 1, Genesis. Reflecting into the world the glory and the wisdom of its maker. And Paul's Jewish reaction against the dehumanization that results from idolatry was heightened by his belief that this one true God has

come at last among us as the truly human being, whose aim it was to precisely rehumanize other humans and rescue them from corruption that comes when sex, money, war, and power are worshiped in human total allegiance. Again, we're getting inside. It wasn't just, I worshiped that God because I think it's what I'm worshiping is the embodiment of war. Yeah. Or mamon. So he goes on, instead of invoking Bacus, the God of wine, or Aphrodite, the goddess of sex

by getting high on liquor or sex, that's how you worship them. Let's go down to the corner temple and have an orgy in your worshiping. And you is a form of worship of Aphrodite. Or instead of invoking Mars or mamon by exalting, war-making, or making money, it's now possible to invoke the spirit of the living God and be remade in His likeness to become a renewed, freshly-image-bearing human being. Hmm.

It's so interesting that to worship Aphrodite is to get high on sex. It's like, what's the difference then? Someone who's still seeking that today, we don't call it Aphrodite. But it's the same form of worship. That's right. That's why I think this is so helpful for why authors of Timothy Keller.

There's been a big theme of his writing and teaching is helping Westerners, modern, secular-wise-nurs. Idol worship. That's right. Our lives look identical in ancient Romans, secular-Americans. Yeah, we just don't have the same mythology wrapped around it. Correct.

And if anything, you could argue, especially sex, because of the nature of the digital image and the way that images find themselves into every part of our lives now, sexualized images that we have deified sexual fulfillment in a way, probably like no other culture in the history of the human race. The economy. Yeah, I mean, national security. Yeah, national security, exalting war making, or making money. Well, that's exactly what we do.

Toilet. Yeah, I mean, and we call it national security and, that's right. And we call it like an obok. And basically all we're missing is a ritual of animal sacrifice, but. And that, because that would just make it weird. That makes it weird.

Yeah, totally. But in terms of giving your whole life to taking on huge amounts of student loan, sacrificing your marriage for overworking to make money. In many layers of our economy, that's just assumed. You'll give up the rest of your life to come live in New York. And, well, what did we, we were together when somebody called it careerism. Careerism?

Yeah. You ruin your life. Yeah. But you have a great career. And it's exactly what NT Wright is saying. Paul's rejection of idolatry is dethroning those human-made constructs as being able to give us our true identity and true meaning and purpose.

And that it's when we recognize the life of Jesus given to me in his kingdom announcement and his death, his resurrection, and his spirit that that's a way of being human that is true life. So that's why the Gospels and the messes of the Apostles sounds as striking as it does in the 21st century as it did in the first.

And if it doesn't have a political bite, culture, cutting, economic edge to it, probably aren't. We've teamed it down too much. We've probably domesticated it. Yeah. 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 Speaking of politics, that's the other front. There's like the religious economic, and then there's the political. In terms of the Greek world. The Greek and Roman world. The Greek and Roman world.

Yeah. They're tied together. The politics is really... Totally tied together. But another theme Luke's gonna highlight is that the early Christians embodied by Paul could be heard as promoting treason, secession from Rome, or revolution,

against the empire. Which were things people would have been going around doing, other people. Yes, yeah, that's right. So for sure, the story where it's perfectly expressed is then when Paul goes to Thessalonica, and he goes to the synagogue, this is in chapter 17. So he goes to the synagogue, and for three Sabbath 17. So he goes to the synagogue, and for three sabbaths. So he was there for nearly a month. And he's just doing Bible study, trying to show how the Hebrew Bible is about the Messiah suffering right being vindicated. And saying that the Messiah in the Hebrew Bible is Jesus of Nazareth.

Many were persuaded, along with a large number of God-fearing Greeks, and a number of leading women. So now you've got really important city leaders who are giving their allegiance to Jesus. And with drawing, think of what they're withdrawing from. You have really public people withdrawing from all kinds of... From these systems. Yeah, systems.

And so, Jewish leaders being full of passion, it's translated becoming jealous, but it's becoming zealous. They take along some bad guys from the marketplace, formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and they attacked the house of Jason, who was hosting these Bible studies, and they were seeking to bring everybody out to the mob,

but they couldn't find Paul in silence. So they dragged Jason out before the city authorities. This would be like the mayor slash police chief. Okay. And here's what they shout. These men have turned the world upside down, elsewhere, and now they come to our town. So what a description. You wouldn't say that about somebody who's just offering like here's a new philosophy of life you could try on. Right. Yeah.

You would never say that to somebody who's turning the world order upside down. Right. So they go on. Jason has welcomed them. They all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there's another king that they call Jesus. They stirred up the crowd, the city authorities, they heard all these things, but then they received a pledge from Jason and the others and they released them. In other words, they investigate, they're like, there's nothing illegal. These groups aren't doing anything. Yeah, that's a thing. It's not, they, what are they doing contrary to the decrees of Caesar? Yeah, they're not. That's a thing. What are they doing contrary to the decrease of Caesar? They're not. That's just rhetoric. That's just rhetoric.

They are saying there's another king, which can be perceived. But yeah. Militiously. Right. And they're not going to go buy stuff or worship the temple. Yeah, that's right. Or buy idols. Yeah.

But that's not illegal either. Yeah. It's just kind of a, like, assume that you would. Yeah. It's just baked into. Yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of a like assume that you would yeah, yeah, it's just baked into Yeah, and to the whole things work the Roman cultural orders built on very clear hierarchies of power There's the one right mm-hmm. There's the the demigod emperor. There's the Senate, right? him there's I Have all these names the equestrian class Hmm well Roman something and then landowners and then and that's like Right? Under him, there's, I forget all these names, the equestrian class.

Roman, something, and then landowners, and then, and that's like 0.3% of the population. And then everyone else. But even there were laws, there were laws. There was no legal punishment if a dad beats his children. There's no legal recourse if somebody abuses their slave. There's nothing. But in the early Christian communities, you're publicly shamed if a man does those things. You know, like you'll be kicked out of the community.

And it's like, what? They upset the power structures and all the way up to the top saying there's a different king. It's like saying there's a different president. It's like saying there's the different president. Right. Well that's a thing. And if you went around saying that, you would worry some people. Yeah. But if you were running around saying like, hey, there's a new chief police in town. You make a call then and they'd be like, hey, you know there isn't another one. You're like, well, there is, but he's this dead guy who's alive.

Totally. They'd be like, all right, just go home. That's right. But this is what Kevin Rowe was saying. It's not just that they had new beliefs, different beliefs, they actually would form these big communities, gathering in all these homes, with a way of life that bodies this different culture. Yeah, bunch of hippies. That's all I do.

Yeah. So that's it. That's the full orbed portrait that Luke's trying to give us in all these stories. Well, actually, here's one other quote, this is also a quote from Kevin Row. And I just, I like the way he writes, then he, it really stirred my imagination to come back to the book of Acts and read it in a new way. He says, the culturally destabilizing character of the Christian mission creates the potential

for outsiders to view Christianity as a form of treason or sedition. Luke anticipates this charge, this part of Luke's strategy, as he's portraying Christian movement. He anticipates this charge, and he narrates events that portray Jesus' followers in the mold of Jesus himself. Remember Jesus' innocence was a huge theme in Luke. In Luke. They're found innocent of criminal activity. Hmm. So the key figure in Acts corresponding to Jesus here is Paul, the representative Christians who stands before the Roman state and its agents. So these two themes, Christianity is upsetting the social order, and also as innocent of any

criminal charge, creates the profound tension that lies at the heart of Luke's literary program that we call acts. Luke portrays the Jesus movement as on a collusion course with the Roman world. Christianity and pagan culture are competing realities. The basic patterns of Greco-Roman life are dissolved in these Jesus communities. How else does one explain the anger of the pagans in Listera, Philippine Ephesus. Yet Luke also wants to narrate the Christian mission in such a way as to eliminate the possibility of it being

in direct or dangerous competition with Roman State. Paul creates a pevel wherever he goes, but he's always innocent, and every Roman ruler who he meets can see it. So the Christians and Acts are not out to build Christendom. A new culture? Yes. A political coup?

No. The tension is set. They're not out to build Christendom. They're not actually trying to build. What does he mean by that? By building a Christian nation that is a right. They're not actually going to- They're not actually going to elect a new like, or try to put someone else on the throne.

Yeah, what they believe is that the emperor will become the best version of himself if he recognizes he's a servant of King Jesus. So we'll pray for the emperor. I won't offer sacrifices on his bath, but we'll pray for him to Jesus. And we've talked about this before when talking about justice, about how, what that means politically, and I think you made a really good case about how, about this tension, which is, on one hand, we're not going to say that it's political structures that are gonna fix all of this. Yeah, but the other hand

You don't just go and pretend those don't exist. Yeah, you'll serve them and pray for them and work towards making them healthy Yeah Yeah, Luke keeps highlighting all these prominent city leaders who are giving their allegiance to Jesus. Yeah, it's just sometimes it's going to come into conflict with the way that they think you ought to be doing it. Yeah, it's always going to be a little bit of suspicion when they realize, wait, so are you on my team or not? Yeah, totally. Because you keep talking about this guy named Jesus, right?

And I care about the empire and the emperor. Right? And you're like, yeah, I care about him too. I pray for him to follow Jesus. It's this weird tension. Yeah. I mean, really, here's the irony of history for you. It's this dynamic right here, this theology,

belief and practice of the early Christians, that gives birth to the idea of religious liberty. The first expressions of religious liberty distinct from the state and state religion is found in the pre-consentene church fathers. Because they are trying to make a case, hey listen. Let us, let us be, let us do this. Yeah, we're not going to worship Rome as a God. We can worship our God. Yeah. Let us be free to do that. And not going to worship Rome as a God. We can worship our God.

Let us be free to do that. And we don't have to be a threat. And listen, we'll pay taxes. We'll honor the emperor because we believe he's under God's authority. So there's people who nerd out on the whole studies of this. But the origins of our modern concept of separation of church and state, which liberty was articulated by Christians. Before it was the state religious. Yes, in the first and first through third centuries.

Yeah, from the bit of reading I've done, I know that a church father, Tritolian, was a really important first articulator of this. And it's just one of these funny things where that idea has become so decrystionized from its original context, it can now be invoked in our context against Christians, trying to just be who they are in public. It's just one of these funny ironies. That's interesting. It is interesting, but yeah, so that's the dynamic that Luke, that the whole New Testament, all right, it's trying to invite people into a way of existing in any culture, any nation, and participating in it, but also calling it

to become its best version of itself, which you think is really only possible if people acknowledge Jesus. You seek the good of your city and you seek it to know Jesus. Which will make everybody angry and weird out by you at the same time. Right. And may end like you in some cases.

Right, depending on the situation. Depending on the situation. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Bible Project Podcast. Today's episode was produced by Dan Gummel, the opening track of all of our podcast episodes, is from a band called Tense. Tense has a new album out. You can find it on Spotify or wherever you listen to music.

The album is called Backyards by Tense. The Bible Project is a crowd-funded, non-profit. We're located in Portland, Oregon, and we make videos, this podcast, and other free resources, and you can find it all on thebipeproject.com. Thanks for being a part of this with us. My name is Jessie Pitman, and I'm from Corvallis, Oregon. One of my favorite videos is the video on holiness. It's probably my favorite video because it just shows

the awesomeness of God and how holy and wonderful he is. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a crowd-funded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, and more at thebibletproject.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ you