Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 861 | Phil Has Been Secretly Working Out & Jase’s Dream-Come-True ‘Duck Dynasty’ Episode

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Phil’s secret workout routine impresses his grandson-in-law Christian Huff, and Jase’s childhood dreams came true on a special episode of “Duck Dynasty.” Christian describes his mission to help young men learn to focus on their spiritual and physical health as well as the ability to protect their families. The guys skip ahead to study Saul’s transition into Paul over the course of more than a decade and how his heritage as both a Jew and a born Roman citizen helped him out of a tight spot. In this episode: Acts 13, verse 9, Acts 21 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashame. We have a special guest. I would dare say that we have on today one of my favorite nephews. Because you're a nephew now, officially Christian, because you have married our niece for Jason and I. Are you a nephew-in-law? Well, technically, but I just say nephew. How many are in your top? You said one of your favorites. How many are in the... category. Well, there's only like a few, and, you know, Jacob, come on. John Reed. John Reed. I mean, I love him, but God bless him, you know, that's what we say about it. Y'all should get John Reed on the

podcast. That would be John Reed, I love John Reed, but he is the quirkiest individual. One of the quirks as individuals I've ever met in my life. He's a duck hunter. He's a musician. He's a mover of things. I mean, he's got a lot going on in his head. But, but, You know, I don't know. Yeah, we should get him on the podcast. It would either be fantastic or terrible. It would be, it would either be, it could go either way. I think we'd use the cricket button a lot.

And John Luke, we get John Luke on here, and he's been on a couple of times. But you never know with John Luke. He may be talking to or he may just be. Yeah, that's true. Cricket City. He might be cricket. You might not have to use the button. That's exactly right.

Because Christian, I'm sure everybody knows Christian, but if you don't, He's been on before he's married to Sadie. Amazing ministry that you guys are doing. I was thinking about actually last night, Christian, because you were coming on today. So I'm at the Jiu-Jitsu. I don't know if there's a name for it, but it was where they roll last night because Jay, my son-in-law, owns part of a jiu-jitsu place. And so Sage, who is my nine-year-old granddaughter, was having a belt test.

because I don't normally go down there a lot. It makes me, it makes me nervous. Everybody's got robes and sandals on and I don't know. I'm very uncomfortable. It's just not my culture. So I go in there and I feel very, I don't know, something. And so, but I'm watching it because I'm really proud of my granddaughter because she's now going for her gray belt, which is the next step up.

And so it's a big deal in their world. And so we go in. And so she has to get up in front of the whole class. Of course, I'm nervous. Anytime your kids or grandkids have to do something in front of other people. people, you're nervous because you want them to succeed and, you know, they could fail. And as a parent or grandparent, that makes you nervous. But man, she nailed it.

She aced it. She went like 20 minutes. But she's rolling with all these big boys. And the last one was a big old boy, you know, but that was the whole deal. But I'm getting more and more nervous as I'm watching it because I'm thinking, I know she's tired. I mean, you can watch her. And physically she's going down.

But that's, then I find out later from Jay. That's the whole point is the more tired. are the more difficult this is, this is the whole point. It's about surviving, especially in this discipline. So have you ever grappled? No, I don't, I don't grapple. I grapple when I was young when I could, when I could win. When, when Jace and Willie were smaller. So they call it grappling. We grappled when we were kids, but we didn't call it grappling. You wrestled? No, we just called it. Fighting. Don't mess with me. I called it. I called it abuse the way that you guys. cousins would come from Florida like Zach, Christian.

And then we would abuse them because we had all practiced on each other. So we knew all the, they didn't know our moves. And so we would bring them in. We were victims of our environment because our parents thought, okay, let's go give our lives to the Lord, live out in the middle of nowhere. So we don't have to watch our kids because there's nothing, there's nothing out here.

The problem of that is when they're, they think, well, what could they do? what could possibly happen. We're rolling around grappling on the riverbank with each other, which was a daily occurrence. Which led, of course, to one of my favorite episodes on Dynasty, which was the wrestling episode, which was also featured Mia because she was, I think, going to a surgery maybe or something, and she had written a letter. Anyway, it's a really funny and yet also super touching episode.

You don't get a lot of those in the same one in that Dynasty world. But they set up that wrestling ring in our front yard. And we had wresters wrestling. We had hacksawed Jim Doug. And then hacksaw Jim Doug. It comes out of a truck. None of us knew he was. Yeah, we did not know.

Contra. They wanted to reveal on camera. Yeah. And we went nuts because, like, our whole childhood was, like, watching that man and others beat each other with two by fours and chairs. And so that was our childhood and life. And so, like, you know, that was our version. We were into wrestling.

We actually went to the Civic Center, pay money to watch wrestling. And then at some point in there, I thought, this is not real. I don't think they're actually, I think this is a performance, and I lost interest. Yeah, it's not quite as much as it used to be.

But I tell you what, Dad, we learned we saw that old reporter one time, asked one of the wrestlers, remember you and I were watching on the news, and he asked him if it was fake, and he will come right up aside one side. And then the other and ruptured both ear drums and he said, was that fake? So I learned a long time ago, don't say anything about that in front of arrest. Was he sued for that?

I'm sure he was. I mean, John Stossel was the reporter was for ABC. I mean, he literally lost hearing of both ears because he asked the guy. So I was like, don't ask them if is it real. I just watched the movie Iron Claw about the, I forgot the name of the guys now, but it was kind of that whole pre-mid-south wrestling days. It was, that was a different breed. Christian, did you ever grapple with the boys at the gym?

Have you ever done? I've been. Well, I called the grappling because I know that if I said wrestling, Jay would have gotten offended. But I went one time probably three years ago, and you haven't been back. I did enjoy it, but I just haven't made the trip back. You got a lot of stuff going on.

Yeah, I got you. How did you? How did you stack up with those guys? I mean, you're already a beast, but did the moves out do the muscles? Well, it was a, so I don't, Jay wasn't really into it yet, so it was with David. Yeah, it was, it was one of those things where, like, David wasn't wanting me to, like, exercise all my strength, kind of, so he was wanting to kind of show me techniques and stuff. But I always just feel like if push comes to shove, I just feel like, to some extent,

strength kind of plays a factor, but they still disagree with it, but I don't really know. But I haven't been back, because it was like, I twisted, you know, I was like, I'm going to jam my fingers and twist. I was like, it's just not really worth it for especially for other workout stuff I want to do. I was like, I don't want to come here and like break my toes or fingers. And I will say, as being one who I'm in observation, I do not

participate, but I'm in observation mode. Now, not so much with the younger ones with Sage and all them, but Jay especially, he has hurt all the time because of what he does. And he loves it. And Joey, too. Joey blew out a knee and had to have surgery, my grandson-in-law to be. So it's, it's, they get hurt because, you know, you're rolling around. I mean, when you watch them, you're like, whew.

I mean, there's a lot of flipping going on and people, you know, burly's into it as well. So now our old friend Chad Robes Show, who's been on the podcast, he's like a black belt in this. And so is his son. And you get guys like that, and with everything else they possess, you know, they're wide or rare knowledge. They're very dangerous people. And so, which is not a bad thing. So I want to tell folks, Christians, I want you to talk about it because you've got a new

devotional. And just if you haven't checked out this podcast, we have a lot of, especially young men that listen to our podcast. And I know you guys are into working out, keeping your body where it should be. And that's very important. and that's a lot kind of you combine. The 4-8 podcast is the combination, which is, was it in Timothy? What is it?

Yeah, 1 Timothy 4-8. First Timothy 4-8, which talks about physical training is of some value, and then, of course, the spiritual and godly training. So you combine those two into your podcast, and also you've got a new devotional. Tell us a little bit about that. Yes, I started a, so, yeah, so the podcast, it's all about training young men specifically, or not necessarily specifically, but generally, yeah, physically and spiritually, just because I feel like we live in a culture that's so, you can be so disciplined with your health and with wellness and, you know,

all these different physical routines. And I think that sometimes, you know, biblical disciplines can kind of, you can kind of be less disciplined from a spiritual standpoint. You know, I always tell people if you, you know, just work out one day a week, you're probably not going to be in great shape. And it's the same spiritually. If you, you know, only attend church on Sunday and you don't cultivate that the other six days of the week, then you're probably not going to be, you know, as strong in your faith as you would like to be. So even just all the parallels with that. So, yeah, it's early a 30-day challenge. You can check it out on my website. It's 4.8.men. But it's a 30-day challenge of, yeah, spiritual training and physical training is what it looks like is each day, there's a verse

the day, and then I wrote like a divo that pairs with the verse, and then there's a workout at the end attached to it, and the workout of the day pairs numerically with what the verse the day is. So, for example, the first day is John 2115, where Jesus is telling Peter to go feed a sheep. So I wrote a divo about, you know, are you actually doing, you know, the will of God and what he's called you to do? And then the workout is a 21-minute exercise with 15 reps attached to it. So the goal is to while you're working out instead of thinking about, you know, what you look like or all these other things, you're kind of pondering the kind of that thought of the day. So each day really ends with like a challenge. So the hope is that while you're working out, you're thinking about your faith. It's not just, you know, what you look like or all these other things that, you know,

that the world wants to kind of push. But it's, you're thinking about these spiritual things while you're training yourself physically. because, you know, I think it's something in our culture that you kind of can separate the two, but I've tried to just, you know, while you're working out, you can listen to this podcast, or you can listen to a sermon, or you can listen to worship music. There's so many other things that you can do to help you spiritually while you're exercising, whether that's lifting weights or running or whatever that could look like. So, yeah, so it's just kind of combining the two. So it's a 30-day challenge of, it's devotionals and workouts attached to it. And I always tell people, even if you don't like working out, you can still go check it out because I really believe in the devotionals

and kind of just the content that they have. No, it's really interesting. Does anybody like to work out? There are actually people who, I love to work out. Well, because you found the proper motivation. That's my point. What came first, the chicken of the A? Do you want to do this or do you figure out a way to actually like doing it, which is, I've been working, look, I've been working out, breaking news. Oh, wait a minute. I don't hit the button. Wait a minute. Let me hit the button. Hit it twice because somebody made a button.

Very good news. I started a little workout regime. Kind of just. Also, Jay, it's just because you started. You say, well, why? Because I just realized that when I got over 50, if there's some things that I would like to be successful at, and these are small, small, small things,

like playing golf or just cutting brush or getting out of bed. Walking two miles to go scout a duck hole. What I notice is that when I got over 50, if I didn't do something in preparation for that, let's say walking the two miles to scout the duck hole, I mean, I would wind up getting to the place where I was going to scout, having to throw up because I wasn't in good shape, you see? I was like, at some point in your life,

if you want to maintain those things, then you have to do some kind of workout program, or you just can't. I mean, especially like playing golf. I mean, it's a flexibility game. So when you try to turn back, well, before you're 50, everything turns back. But once you get 50, there's weight,

whoop, popping starts to happen. So basically my regime is keeping everything moving and flexible. Yeah. More than I'm trying to work out for any other reason besides just to be healthy. Or a hypothetical could be if you're, you know, metal detecting and you find a piece of something that's really cool, but you're not strong enough to lift it. You'd be kind of embarrassed. Even a metal detector. Or even the process of metal detector.

Well, the waving, the wand that you see, you think, well, how easy of that? A metal detector does it, does it way much. But I noticed that after about seven hours of it, your arm quits working. You literally cannot move it backwards and forwards unless you do, you build that arm up where you can at least. So I'm at a point now where I can wave the wand from daylight to dark. And then it no longer works. And I don't care because now it's dark. Yeah.

But I had to do that. So it's very hard to do, but I had to create motivation to do that. And I think your idea is fantastic because why not? Why not do it for the Lord? I mean, you have me at 21 minutes. I like the 21 minutes. Jill wants to work out for about an hour, and I think that's excessive. Yeah, because she's very tiny.

Let's take a break. So, yeah, the perspective on this is really good because Chris, that's why I love having you all, because Jace is having the perspective, the same with me, as older men who immerse ourselves in the word, but need to force ourselves on the physical side. definitely for me. I'll do all the time. Yeah, I think that's a compartment that's untacted. So that's why the devotional is great because it also, it's tapping us a different way

than a young man. Your point is, look, hey, you guys love working out and you love looking good, but if you don't get some spiritual value in your life, you're going to miss out in a life. And we're just the opposite. I mean, look, obviously, I don't care what I look like. That's, I don't even have to tell you why. So it's not that. That's 20 years.

But I like stepping up on the first tea where there's 25 people. you know, watching, and you swing and hit it, and they're like, oh, wow. Yeah. You know, and so I'm saying. That homeless guy plays golf. This is out of necessity. You need to tap into this market because, look, I will never like to work out. I make fun of people who work out just for the heck of it.

Don't make fun of Christian. He's their guess. Well, I'm explaining this. But if you can have a reason, if you can have a motivation that's noteworthy, now I'm in on that because I realize people like, my age, we need this. So I need the motivation. Because I struggle, what am I going to do during this time?

So a lot of times I'll listen to sermons or Christian music, you know, and I'm thinking about spiritual things because I'm like, this is something I don't want to do. And once I got past that fact, it's okay. I don't want to do it. So I create a good motivation to go in there and do it. Because you can say, well, you're going to feel better after it. Yeah, that's true. But for the next time, guess what?

I don't want to do it. I don't want to do this. This seems like a waste of time to me. But I got to a stage of my life where I realize I need to do this. It's a good thing to do. Well, me, I feel like it's multifaceted. You know, if you look at the Old Testament, you know, David's talking about you, you train my hands for war.

And then throughout the New Testament, there's all these verses about endurance and suffering. And you can take that, you know, from a standpoint of spiritually suffering or you can look at, you know, the physicality of it, and especially people my age and younger for, like, working out in gym culture is such a, such a prevalent thing. And by and large, it's just very toxic, because especially with social media, it's all about you're idolizing what you look like. And with that, you know, you see somebody else who looks better than you, then you're always going to, you're never going to be content with what you look like. So you're going to be striving after somebody else and you're going to be, you know, comparison is the thief of joy. But, but. You're never going to be, you're

But if you, so my hope with it is that somebody, you know, my age or whatever, would walk into a gym. And while they're stretching, they're reading this devotional. And they're actually, like one of the days I talk about, so each day it's like titled something. So one day it's called silver coins. And I kind of go through the verse where, you know, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. And you might not necessarily be able to relate to that because it's, you know, 2,000 years ago. And it's, you know, we don't deal with things like that now. but kind of broadening it to the standpoint of

if back in the time, that's what a common slave was soul for with 30 pieces of silver. So it's kind of this thought of what are you prioritizing over Jesus that might not seem like a lot. So it might not be 30 pieces of silver,

but for you it might be, you know, a new house or a TV show or music. So it's these deeper things and then there's a workout. So my hope is that while you're exercising saying instead of listening to, you know, secular rap music or you're staring at this girl in short shorts or you're flexing in the mirror, you're actually thinking, hmm, like what, like, what am I trading Jesus for? Because at that time, it was 30 pieces of silver, but today it might not look like

that, but for you, it's, you know, pornography or if it's alcohol, it's true. So there's, there's these things like that that I kind of talk about. So my hope is just that while you're running or lifting weights or whatever, you know, at that time, you can be thinking about these deeper spiritual things because by and large, it's all about, you know, just aesthetics and what you look like, and it's just super worldly. So trying to pull people out of that to actually. But even, last thing I'll say, even too, you know, we just talked about judithu and wrestling and all this things. And, you know, as a husband, and especially for younger men, I do feel like, you know, especially being married to Sadie, like, if I'm not physically capable, like, if,

If something bad happened, I don't want to be, you know, the one running away because I'm super scrawny and I'm not strong. So there's some level also just of being a man and a guy. You want to have some kind of physicality to where if, you know, things did hit the fan, I'm capable of step in the situation. Versus if I'm just, you know, not strong and I'm not capable of protecting my family. That's funny because if you go back, I don't know how many years ago it is. it's probably 75 years ago there was a picture it was the old jack lillane era of working out and he's a strong guy if this is way back down in your era and the little ad was someone kicks sand a big strong guy kicked sand on his wife or girlfriend and it's like do you want to be this guy and he was a little puny guy or do you want to be this guy you know and it showed the jack lillane was the idea we are fierce protectors of our wives and children's i like that people don't know this but i got a little routine I walk out there in that building next to us. And I got, they got one of them lay down.

Like a rowing machine? Rowing machine. Okay. So I get up on that thing. Well, look at that. I don't know that. Oh, yeah. Well, it's good thinking.

Because when you get over 70s. It's amazing that if you got a few little aches and pains, you know, when you start crowding 80, you begin to, your body kind of. It wants to shut out. Well, you got to keep it moving. So I do that, you know, but. Yeah. And I found out a good way to do that, you know.

But I do about 75 or 80 of them, you know, and you tell. Just do your little rowing. But just that little bit right there, a lot of difference. That's, well, and it's more breaking news. No pains, none. More breaking news. We did not know that Phil was working out. And if you get out in the water.

I don't advertise it, you know. You know, I'm sitting there having a workout and I have a weapons right there. So I'm comfortable. And my Bible's on one side. There's a weapon on the other. And the byproduct is if you get stranded in a boat and a river, we'd see you. Man, I'll tell you, for a 75-year-old man, that Joker's moving. By the way, when Jace was with me, we was running nets, I mean, Jason would tell you, for 60, around 60, I was pretty stout from, I mean.

You've always been produced down. Well, running hoopinets is, you're talking about a workout. That's what I did. That was the workout back in the other. It was a workout. It wasn't a jays. We worked outside, and it was a work out. And it was a workout.

Rain, shine, sleet, snow. But, you know, it affects whether you ate or not, which is like, so tell them one more time, so how do we get to the workout? How do we get to the depose? Yeah, so it's on, I mean, you can check out. It's on the link in my Instagram, but you can visit. Yeah, it's 480. dot men and I was telling you so you can use the code unashamed for 25% off.

Look there, saving money on a shame nation. So if that interests you, yeah, you visit 48.mend and download the PDF and use the code Unashamed to get 25% off. So Christian, we've been hanging out in the book of Acts and we didn't really plan on hanging out in the book of Acts, but we got so engrossed in the book of Luke since Luke was the author of Luke and Acts, we just had to follow the narrative. We followed the story, you know, Jesus' story and Luke into Acts, just because, you know, we spent so much time talking about these apostles. And so we're currently in Acts chapter 9, and this is, I would say,

I guess we've been talking for a couple of podcasts. Arguably, this is a watershed moment for Christianity as a whole in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, the, in the, the, in the, to Damascus conversion of Saul because everything has been going pretty well for the church, and then all of a sudden we get this great persecution, which is a bad thing for those enduring it, talking about suffering, but at the same time, it's also pushing the gospel out, because usually growth comes from pain, comes from difficulty. Well, and it's actually been all about the Jews primarily up until this point. Right.

And so Saul was God's chosen instrument. And we read in Galatians 1 last podcast, kind of how this all came about. It's a tough sale, what those guys had in front of them. Apostle and all that, it was a ball. Culturally, I hope we did a good job, culturally, socially, religiously, what other leaves can you think of? Philosophically. philosophically,

go and Zach. Exogetically, epistemologically. No, here we go. Zach's just Googling words at this point. Yeah, no, he, then he went too far. Well, what's interesting is because we made a point last time that when you just kind of step away

and realize, Saul was a believer in the same guy we are, and when he thought he was doing a righteous thing, it was, in his mind, sacred. violence. He was protecting the ways of Judaism from impostors and people claiming erroneous things, which the movement of Jesus was not appealing to him. In fact, it infuriated him. And he was going house to house killing them. We had a discussion before we got started because we're like, well, when did none of us can off the top of our head remember where Saul became Paul, which I think, Zach, did you look it up, be honest?

I did. In Acts 13, because in other places in the Bible with other names, there seems to be this aha moment. Like remember when Jesus changed Peters to Peter from Simon to Peter, that was like an aha moment because he had made this statement about Jesus is the son of. God and he was going to build his church on that. And so, but in this, it just, it just says in Acts 13.9. Yeah, 13.9. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight, you know,

and then the story goes in. But it made me think that I think everything we've read that people were terrified of Saul because he was killing Christians. And so now, and we read that in Galatians, the very grief that he persecuted, he was now the leader, one of the leaders of. That's brought up several times. I mean, what you just said has been brought up several times in the book of Acts, that there was an inherent fear amongst the people that he was going into to minister with. So maybe that's why they changed his name. Well, I also remember, because we've talked about this in the timeline, we read Galatians, this, he was Saul, when Luke tells the story of

Saul that's at the very beginning. But remember now, 14 years go by before we pick up where we go in 13, because we got all these stories about Peter we're going to get to in the interim. So what happens is over the course of that 14 years, he literally undergoes such a change that now he's even going by a different name. So in the Bible, it just says, you know, snap your fingers. Saul was also Coppaul, but in real time, it was 14 years. Gentiles come together as one.

Yeah. It was a tough sale. That's right. It was a very tough sale. That was a big part of the new wine that they were bringing and they couldn't put it in the old wine skins. But I think it's worthy of note to, and you brought this up several times, I'm glad you did, that the nature of the time period here, because so often what we want to believe, because we want this in our own lives, we want to believe that Saul is hostile to the church. He's on the road to Damascus, has an encounter with Jesus, and then everything has changed forever for him. In five minutes.

Yeah. I don't think that's what happened here. I don't think he, and I don't think he became Paul as known in the church as Paul overnight. I mean. Years. Yeah, this too. I mean, he had to prove his repentance, I'm sure. And people were like, okay, okay, God, I trust you.

But, you know, kind of like one eye opened, just checking to make sure. And over time, obviously, you know, the apostle Paul definitely proved his. credentialing in terms of his devotion to Christ. But we want, we leave out the spiritual formation part. We want the experience, the one-time deal, I'm good and done, but what we don't often want, and it kind of goes to what Christian is doing in his ministry, it's the day in and the day out of exercising in the faith so that we are formed into a particular type of person that over the span of a 14-year period would look back and you're like, whoa, I forgot who

you used to be. Yeah, that's crazy, man. That was your story. Wow. Well, that's not you anymore. Well, yeah, because I've been walking with Christ for 14 years and doing his exercises and I smell a lot like him and I look a like, like, just like him now, or not just like, but I look a lot like him now. No, that's a great point. And Christian, I mean, like you, when did you, you started working out, what is a teenager probably when you were in sports? Yeah, but then really when COVID hit, and I kind of started. So you've been doing it heavy. So that's four years. So you'll see this and when you look at the video because, I mean, look at the devotional. I look at the devotional. There's pictures of Christian working out. And it's an impressive specimen. And you think, man, did you just do that

in two days? No, it's been, yeah, five years. Exactly. So the point is, back to exactly what we're talking about here, this happened to Paul. He went, remember when it said he went into Arabia, that's the desert. I mean, if you look at the, look at the country layout back in that day, or even today, you get up in where he's above Lebanon into Syria. You know, know what's there? The desert. And he spent three years there, at least. And what was he doing there? He wasn't communicating with a lot of people. I can tell you that because there were a lot of people living in the desert. So he had a lot of time to reflect and have this. And I don't even know what was happening with him and Jesus. Jesus may have appeared to him more. We don't read about it. But they may have been having a personal Bible study for three years. I don't know. But he came out of it differently. But it was over years. It wasn't a snap your finger. And I think that's a great point. for all of us to look at and see. This is how Saul became Paul.

Well, it is interesting. I wonder why, because he always addresses his old self throughout his letters, but I wonder why he never, I mean, he might, I don't know, but he never addresses his name change.

Yeah, I don't know. That was, we were all like crickets. I thought, we should have talked about this before. But it may be just because even, you know, people were terrified of him.

And if it hadn't been for Barnum, He's like, well, come go with me. I'll go with you and tell everybody how you've changed. I wanted to read this story in 21. Can we read this? Let's do it. We've been trying to get to this for three podcasts. But in Acts 21, there's an issue with he, the crowd gets stirred up.

If you pick up in a verse 27, the second part, it says, they started up the whole crowd and seized him. I hate starting in the middle of story, but you'll keep going back and we'll be back in Acts 9. But so it says this. Is this that ADD part that does that? Well, I mean, I just, I tried to keep going back and I'm like, well, where do you should you start this?

But I was just going to get the idea. Hang on before you read that. Let's take another. So it says in the second part, this is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law in this place. So the Jews, they're stirred up about what he's teaching, even though he used to be. the champion of them. He was their leader.

And besides, and look, look what this accusation is. He has brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place, which when you just think about it in our culture, it's terrible. Just because they're not from your nation, you're not allowed to go in the temple. And it says they had previously seen trophimus, which I looked this guy up, which his name means foster child, which makes sense. if you're part of the kingdom, you would look for opportunities to help all people. Acts chapter 10, I think it's worthy of note that the eating of food laws,

food laws were weeded out. Well, in the previous paragraph, that's a big deal. There's a lot of arguments over that very thing, but I was going to read that, but I just, for time's sake, I did, but feels right. And so he brought this in. He brought him in. And then verse 30 says, The whole city was aroused and the people came running from all directions,

seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple. And immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him, News reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. You just kind of stop here and think, he brought a Gentile into a temple. And this is what happened. he at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd when the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers they stopped beating paul

the commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains then he asked who he was and what he had done some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar he ordered that Paul be taken to the barracks when Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. Which is crazy. It made me think of a football game

when you're carrying somebody out of the field. They're carrying him. The man invited a friend who was not from their country into the temple. The crowd that followed kept shouting away with him. As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander,

may I say something to you. Do you speak Greek? He replied, aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led 4,000 terrorists out into the desert some time ago? The Bible has its humor.

Humorous moments. Paul answered, I'm a Jew from Tarsus in Sicilia. I can't say that word. Silica. Salicia. Salicia. A citizen of no ordinary city,

please let me speak to the people. Which is funny, he didn't even address the, no, I'm not the Egyptian guy. I'm not the Egyptian terrorist, but I'd like to say a few words. Having received the commander's permission, Paul stood on the steps in motion to the crowd. And so you think, well, what is he going to talk about? That's why I think this is fascinating. When they were all silent, he said to them in Aramaic, brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense. when they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet.

They didn't expect that. They're like, man, this guy, he's one of us. What is this problem? Is he gone crazy? Is it a midlife crisis? It's all the things we talked about in the last podcast. So under Gamalil, which we had mentioned before, I was thoroughly trained in the law of our father and was just as zealous for God.

We talked about that last podcast. I persecuted the followers of this way. Remember, that was the same thing in nine. You know, because Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. So it's interesting, he's still using that phrase. Still using the phrase. Because I think he likes it, which I do too. And he gets that from Jesus in John 14, 6.

John 14. I persecuted the fathers of the way to their death, arresting both men and women, throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. So then he repeats his story. About noon, I came near Damascus. Suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say,

Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I asked. I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you're persecuting. He replied, My companion saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. Now, this, his version here adds another question. You don't see this in Acts 9 because he says, what shall I do, Lord?

Which is really these two questions is something every human being. Who are you? What shall I do? Is going to have to be forced to recognize at some point in their life. Who are you, Lord? Who is Jesus? And what do you want me to do? Get up.

go into Damascus, there you'll be told, and you remember what happened with Anonis, he goes into that again. My companions led me by the hand because of the brilliance of the light. It had blinded me, a man named Anonis, not to be confused with the Acts 5, Anonis, or the high priest that will be introduced in the next chapter. How you should do a sermon on the three Anonis. Three Ananases, yeah. So I just wanted to make clarification on that.

He was a devout observer, so I'm in 2212 of the law. I would call it two out of three or bad. Yeah, exactly. Highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very moment, I was able to see him. Then he said, the God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will

and to see the righteous one and to hear words from his mind. mouth. So there's a nice little three-point sermon on what God's plan was for him that he didn't discuss in Acts 9. You'll be witnesses to all men of what you have seen and heard. Which is what he's doing right now. Yeah, he's the eyewitness like the other apostles that we did a whole study on that a few podcasts ago about they went around making a big deal about we were eyewitnesses of the resurrected the Lord. This is not our witness, in quotation, as we use it in the church today, which I don't know where we got that from. Their point was, no, we were actually witnesses of the resurrected Lord.

We saw Jesus come back from the dead and leave bodily, which is incredible. So, verse 16, Phil, you've been waiting for months to get here and we're here. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on his name. And in your honor, Phil, I looked at that word wash because I was curious. Because there's different Greek words for washing in the Bible. Well, this one is only used twice in the entire Bible. It's used here.

And it's used in 1st Corinthians 6 where he said, and that is what some of you were. Remember when he listed all the sinful things you can get into? That's famous verse. Yep. And it said, and that is what some of you were, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were made holy.

That's in 1st, Corinthians 6, just going to know. The cleanse factor. Let's take our last point. So we're getting to the end. And this is my point, though. We're all familiar this, but watch what happens. And the reason we read this whole thing, you'll be stunned on how this is responded to. Because you think, now, he has figured out a way to write all the wrongs and all the racism and the disunity and all the cultural differences.

He's going to figure out just by the proclamation of Jesus in his story and make this right. But watch what happens. In verse 17, when I returned to Jerusalem and I was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. Quick, he said, leave Jerusalem immediately because they will not accept your testimony about me. Lord, I replied, these men know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. So he gets back to the same point. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him,

which is why we made a big deal, because we knew this was in here, about Paul thinking about what happened to Stephen and probably thinking about the Old Testament passages of Jesus being exalted at the right hand of God, thinking, is this possible? And then about that time, Jesus himself says, hey, why are you persecuting me? I think it makes sense because that bothered him, even though he was approving of it, he had to be thinking, what is up with this guy? Right.

He's willing to give his life and he's looking up to heaven like he's doing, right? You know that had to have an impact. It's almost like he had the same train of thought that his mentor, Gamal, did, when he said, don't, don't. do anything to these people. Let's make sure, I mean, maybe God, you know, there was a maybe. There was a, I could be wrong. Exactly. So then in verse 21, he relays this new revelation. Then the Lord said to me, go, I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Isn't this wonderful that God has used Jesus through Israel's history to not only save them,

but to save the whole world? Now, everybody can do this. So you see what? he's doing. He's saying, this is why I had this guy in the temple. That's right. I got this from the Lord. I was an eyewitness. Well, watch their response. Verse 22. This is for me your response. The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, rid the earth of him. He's not fit to live. You would think, what about all this Jesus? If you're having a conversation with a being that's the right hand of God, And they're like, if that means that we have to accept the Gentiles, you're gone. Red the earth.

That's what happened. Which just shows you how compartmentalized we are as people. It really does. And how devout and will justify it in the name of God. But even in our world, you see that problem. So verse 23, as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, I thought this would be a good chosen scene. they could use.

They were just having a big old hissy fit. It was a hissie fit. I mean, they're throwing stuff, they're flinging dirt. Adults acting like children. Like children. They're grappling. They're grappling for wrong reasons.

Verse 24, he directed that he be flogged and questioned order to find out why the people are shouting at him like this. You got to remember, the leaders are looking around like, what is their problem? Those Roman guys are listening to Paul Species and they're thinking,

What? Why? Why this reaction? Can we just all get along? I mean, the man went to the temple. As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul, I just think this is interesting. Because last podcast we misspoke, I said there was a moment where Paul was claiming Roman citizenship. We thought it was Act 16, but it's actually here, Act 22.

He is described as a Roman citizen. Yeah, but this is what I was thinking about. Paul says, is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen? citizen who hasn't even been found guilty. Well, when the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported, what are you going to do? He asked, this man is a Roman citizen. So then it's like, wait a minute, I thought he was a Jew from Tarsus.

What is this Roman citizen? Which I said, this is a little confusing. But verse 27 says, the commander went to Paul and asked, tell me, are you a Roman citizen? Yes, I am, he answered. Then the commander said, I had to pay a big price for my citizenship. but I was born a citizen, Paul replied. Those who were about to question him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul a Roman citizen in chains.

And I won't keep reading, but it gets kind of humorous because eventually they let him go because they're like, guy, that guy's a Roman citizen. We're not, he's free. They were bound under strict laws about how they treated fellow Roman citizens. You didn't exact this out without trial. It was much what we based our American defense system on. Yeah. There were certain rights.

It's very interesting. And what's funny is eventually they're going to let him out. And then he's like, no, I'll leave, but I want an apology first. Seriously. And they give him one. So it just shows you his boldness had no end. And you see that he's speaking Aramaic. He was a Pharisee.

of Pharisees, he's also a Roman citizen, which you realize why God chose him to be an instrument, to bring all people together. And poor Paul had to navigate all these cultural differences and these things that they were so passionate about that they would kill you. Yeah. Yeah. And it is interesting that this idea of Jew and Gentile coming together into one people group is I mean, it's all throughout Ephesians, by the way, which Paul wrote, you see it here. I just wonder that, you know, good brothers and sisters that we love, but disagree with probably on biblically. I wonder what they say to that when you think about, when we want to draw a distinction between the people groups. You see this, and Paul seems to be going to extraordinary links to say that there's not a distinction that we're one under Christ.

You know what I mean? that God doesn't show favorite. Just think how many times he said that in all his letters where God doesn't show favoritism. And I think it's something we all got to realize that in Christ, he is the ultimate wall destroyer of our social and cultural differences. If you're ever going to get the world together, it's only going to be done in Jesus. There's no other hope for us because we love, even in our... cultural world today.

Everybody's pushing toward everybody being segmented, and you're this group. One Lord, one faith. Exactly. The Ephesians 4 was a great lead-in to what this. But navigating that practically, look what happened to him. By human construct, what you're seeing in our culture is an attempt to now re-segregate people and put them back apart. I mean, we're seeing that across the political spectrum in all ways.

And this is just the opposite. It's still a clash. But the reason we've made such a big deal about it and spent three podcasts is if this didn't happen, none of us would even be here. This was our beginning roots of being accepted by God. And look, when we get to heaven, we can get all the details about why he chose a specific nation of Israel to bring all this about so that this could be created a movement and bring all people together. But the bottom line is it worked because it's 2,000 years later and this church is still

flourishing when you think about it's been 2,000 years since this happened and there are still people on this earth and I'm one of them who would rather give their life rather than deny that Jesus is Lord. I mean, I'm just as passionate about that as they were. I'm never going to to give up my faith in Jesus, no matter what opposition arises. But it also sees why he said, you know, that you know, love when Jesus said, I've came to fulfill the law, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, I love your neighbor as yourself. And you think, well, who is my neighbor? Everyone. So this, just to give you a tease, because we're out of time. So we read this in Acts 22. This is the second now telling of this story. We're going to read the third one next time in Acts 26,

which is actually going to be a Roman audience, a Gentile audience, which is really interesting. And that will set us up for when Peter goes into the Gentile. So a lot of good stuff coming. Christian's always a blessing having another podcast, brother. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, we'll bring you back for future discussions. You bring a good perspective, which is good for all of us. So we'll see you next time on Unashamed.

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