Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 882 | Phil Goes from Barber to Baptizer & What the Bible Says About Tattoos

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Phil fulfills an unusual request to cut a man’s long hair before baptizing him to mark the change in his life, and the guys explain their personal opinions on tattooing while exploring what the Bible says about it. A medical emergency during Al’s latest sermon might be construed as spiritual warfare, which leads the guys to discuss God’s communication style with us in modern times versus how it was done in the days of the early church. In this episode: Acts 16 -- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. It's a day of days. Today is a day of days. A day of day. It's a day of days. I'm not sure where you're headed with this. So we're recording on Mrs. Birthday. Oh, yep. And Willie's birthday. And my granddaughter is getting married today because she picked this day because it's the anniversary of when she and

Joey started dating. So after tonight, Dad, the Jersey Joe will officially, he's been in our forever family. He's been taking care of you for about two months with Mom Down, but he will now be in our earthly family as well, the merging of our legacy. What do you think about that? I think it's showing that the kingdom is moving forward and it has its ups and downs, but the bottom line is everyone sins and everyone's going to die and there's one way out that's a good marriage a wedding into a gospel message i like it i like we're married to jesus

we are well look so they just raked on by mine you know April 24th is when i was born you're two days away you'll be 78 we haven't raked by it in midst of all the this back and forth, you know. Jersey Joe, his mother, obeyed the gospel. Yesterday. It was amazing. She was baptized. He looked at me when she was walking in and he had no idea. It's a really cool moment. I was talking to some guests that they were visiting our church yesterday. And I look up and there's dad and Joe and Jersey Joe in the baptistery. Joe and they're baptizing people that have come here. and then I looked up and Joe, I could tell the look on his face

he wasn't expecting his mom who's down for the wedding walks into the water and it was a really special moment and he baptized her. It was really cool. Really, it was. So you're right, that is an expansion

of kingdom, you know, mindset into families, which is great. Yeah, I told Mrs. Moore's like, well, happy birthday. How do you feel? And she's like, you know, it's just another day. So then we got into this conversation about, you know, when you're two, everybody goes crazy.

And you'll never remember that. But everybody goes crazy when you're two years old. When you're 20 years old, you go crazy. You know, I'm 20. I'm 21, you know. Oh, you're like almost because somebody will say, how to you? I'm almost. And I mean, I quit almost in a long time ago.

It's all, you know. Yeah. So my lovely daughter said, well, you know, she told my wife when she turned 21, that'll probably be the best birthday up until that moment because it'll never, it'll never get any better. Yeah. And once you're a fully recognized adult. And Missy tried to disagree with her saying, well, I've had special birthdays since I was 21.

And my daughter's point was kind of like, not really. Yeah. So, but to Missy's point, I think is when you get over 50, you really are like, yeah, yeah, I'm a year older. You know, I don't know what it is. It's something the, you don't really, you're not happy that it's another year. Well, they did a surprise birthday party for me on my 40th and a lot of my old friends and it was a big, you know, hoopla. And somebody recently said, well, you're about to have another milestone. Maybe it's time for another surprises at this point.

I don't like surprises. I'd just rather know what's coming. You're out of the surprises. I'm out of surprises. I think what we should do, we should change the culture, which is once you get about, pick the age, I'm open, maybe 40. I said 50. I think you should start a transition where then every year after that,

you only celebrate your spiritual birth birthday. Because you're getting closer to the resurrection. Well, yeah, because then you're happy about that. It's an excellent point. point. It's a great point. So we should just pick a number. I have no idea when mine was, though. I should have to arbitrarily pick one around the time. Oh, I could pick, yeah, I could figure out the year, because I remember how old I was. That would be a fun investigation. Yeah. If you've got to be careful with it. I mean, there's a girl. Oh, my goodness. If this is theoretically wrong,

I'm not going to, I'm not going to challenge you on that because you get really sensitive about about that so i'm gonna i'm gonna well zach i have an idea that i thought about in the four minutes here in the last minute you're like you got to be careful about changing a picking your spiritual birthday not so i go ahead i wanted to make this more dramatic this is a true story i have my button ready yeah this this is nothing theological this is just this is something to be aware of when you're when you memorialize your your baptism birthday the cautionary tales of that Cautionary tale. We, because we baptized a lot of college students when I was in college ministry.

And one of the girls, I will not say her name because she may listen to the podcast, she would be embarrassed, got a tattoo of her of the day she was baptized. And then after she got the tattoo, she was showing it to the whole group. And they were like, you're like six days off. They had remembered the date. Oh, boy. had got the date wrong. So she got the tattoo to memorialize. Now, you do need to be careful if you're going to get a tattoo because that's kind of a...

Well, Zach, I didn't need to be careful because I'm not, I wasn't talking about tattoos. I'm just saying if you, when you memorialize it, if you do it in permanent ink on your body, you want to make sure... Which is very common with this current generation. Very common. Make sure the date is correct. I think the application... I think there's a verse in there somewhere. Oh, boy.

In the Old Testament. It does not speak highly of tattoos. That would be in the book of Leviticus. It's in Leviticus. However, that was under the old system and the old law, and I would feel like that would go into the category of no longer applying. That's right, because we couldn't take the anti-tattoo anymore, the anti-pork or all the other stuff.

That's what's amazing. If it still holds, then your church is in trouble. We have a massive neither. repentance at WFR. But that is what's amazing about people. I don't know whether to hug these people or read them. People do in the church, they'll take a verse about tattoos in Leviticus and apply it. Then when you challenge them on it, they're like, well, that's what it says.

And then they're like, well, when are we going to start killing bulls and goats? And they're like, well, no, that one don't apply. So which part of the? We want to take a piece. 606 are we going to apply? Yeah, 616. So speaking of CR this last Friday. I spoke at our Celebrate Recovery.

We now have either the first or second largest Celebrate Recovery in the nation, which would probably be in the world. And right there on Friday nights at WFR, it's amazing. And Jace was just there maybe a month before me. And, man, it's a live, it's a live action group, isn't it, Jays?

I mean, they are fired up to be there. I really enjoy it. I had a lot of fun doing it. And I did just what you did. I took your cue and came with just, I just taught a text. I taught Philippians 3, 10 through 21. Their step they were on was inventory.

So I kind of just did a little twist off of that or what kind of eternal inventory do you need to have. But I just, I just taught a text. And I mean, they loved it. It was just like, you know, just straight Bible. Because sometimes in the recovery programs, you get so hung up on the things you're working through, you've got to remember Jesus is the one that does the save

and the Bible is the one that does the change. And so. That's what I was going to say. I recommend it to the guy. that runs it. Oh, Rucker. We had him here.

Oh, yeah. That, you know, at some point, look, I'm all for programs that bring people to Jesus, and the type of people

that are there have had horrific past, a lot of them, very dramatic. And these people tend to be emotional, for whatever reason. It's the most raucous crowd

that you'll have, I believe. I mean, they're hollering and, you know, they're talking. If that bothers you when you speak, you don't want to speak there.

There's people hollering out. You're going to get some back, some back action. Good and bad. Shout back. It's a shoutback church. It's a shout back, yeah. But what you, you know, I was telling you, I was like, I recommend, give them some Bible. I mean, you know, when you want to, you don't want to criticize a program that's, that's

stringent and they have rules and it's a little more rule. They're providing structure in people's lives who have no structure. Exactly. So that's why they have a lot of success. But the structure, this is when we get back to the Old Testament, the law, all of it, the structure is not your Savior. Jesus is still the Savior. Exactly. And the Word of God is still the life changer.

And so I will say the people that started this out in California 34 years ago, they had the right mindset with celebrate recovery. It was kind of a response to AA because what they did is they just went ahead and embraced Christ and made biblical. you know, text in with the steps. So they got the right idea. But what happens is people come in. It's just sometimes it's easy to lose your focus on who saves you. So you've got to be a reminder. If you're going to have a CR and I say this because a lot of churches, I'm sure,

are listening pastors that have CR. Make sure your CR is Jesus centered and biblically led. This is my point. And so you have to do that because there's a lot of enthusiasm there. But, you know, enthusiasm that's not trained to be godly can run in the wrong direction. Well, and you have to have the Bible as a basis because, you know, in a world where God's telling everybody to do a lot of things, especially in churches, you know, a lot of times people come up to you. And these are the type of people have a lot of these stories. Yeah.

God told me to do this. Right. God told me to do that. And so then you realize they need some Bible because some of the things, you know, I had one yesterday. I'll want to go into detail because it was kind of a tough situation. but in a woman, you know, God was telling her this and that. And I'm like, this is why we have this Bible, because God is telling you something that's not in this Bible,

nor does it support it. So it's very difficult to talk to people who have these experiences and they think it's from God. And that would be dangerous. So that's why I think that people who are in Jesus, they need to get to know this book, like the back of their hand. I mean, not only does it reveal Jesus,

but it gives you confidence. It gives you the ability to make good decisions and things come up and you're like, you're confident that you're doing the will of God because he's written you a book that. Well, it's like when you read about the books in the letters that were in the New Testament, John clearly says you've got to test these spirits.

What you're hearing, what you think you're hearing. And look, the word, the biblical, the written word, it's just a tool to help you do that because the same Holy Spirit that lives in you wrote these words through people over the course of time. So you've got a tool that even the first century church didn't have. I mean, we're reading about in the book of Acts, all the study we're doing about these people trying to figure stuff out. That's why I think you saw much more of the visions than the direct, you know, link

because they didn't have this guide to be able to help make sure that those voices and spirits are the right thing. So I preached Sunday, Sad. You did a fantastic job. In Hebrews 2, which was kind of, I got to do a 1-2 because I was a rare back-to-back sermon. And so I was one of what you thought about my opening joke. Your jokes were better than mine. They were funny.

I all went to the redneck world, which is low-hanging fruit. It is. You know, because we're in Louisiana. About spinning your wheels. Spending your wheels. When I first started out, here's what I said. Because this text was so amazing. And so I thought this is a Jim Moran, who's an old guy that used to be one of our elders.

And he told me this, and I've never forgotten it, but I've never said it in a sermon, but it was pretty funny. I said, have you ever felt like a mosquito in a nudist colony? Oh, that was like that joke. How would, did they laugh in the room you were in? They laugh a lot. Yeah, mine room. But half the people were awkwardly laughing. I didn't laugh because you're my brother.

And when you said it, I thought, let me make sure that was appropriate. It's edgy. So I said, if you ever felt like a mosquito and news call, and I waited, you know, because you time and you got to wait. And so the laughter built, you know, because everybody's trying to figure out exactly what Jay said. Then I said, there's so much to do, I just don't know where to start. So that was my opening salvos. So you did get a good laugh out of it.

I got a huge laugh. People laugh. And I could get away with it. Some people probably couldn't. Even in the midst of all that, it's surprising to me that, because I just saw this happen to me. With a guy then the baptism of poo. Paul stayed at the Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers in sail for Syria and accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila, converts.

Before he sailed, check this out. he had his hair cut off at Sincrea because of a vow he had taken. But I actually had a guy. He had a guy cut his hair. He said, take the hair off. And I said, say what? He said, take my hair off. You wanted a haircut before he was baptized?

He had a long ponytail. And he associated it to his lifestyle. A big knot about this long. And it went all the way down. And he said, I want to get all this that I've been doing. I thought it was a noble thing. I think he said, in other words, I'd start all over. I said, you could start all over.

So I took, I'd say anybody got a pair of scissors. So you cut his hair? Dad did it. Well, yeah. I told Dad, now we have to add a hairstylist to Dad's team. I saw our arm come out there and a knife, a knife. and the guy that protects us in their law enforcement, I had that thing in.

I started sawing on that hair. Who says being a member of the kingdom is not an adventure? I mean, just think if we were writing that down as a story. I'm thinking to myself, you know, because I'm a producer. I'm thinking what new reality show?

I think we need to have a reality show. All we do is film Phil baptizing people. Just the new births. Because I'm thinking. I was thinking about another story where someone had a trache and then you wrapped the trache and saran wrap. He understood that he had a past and he was looking in the future. And I told him, I said, you know, when you die to sin and are buried and raised, well, he took that very seriously.

Yeah, he did. He said, well, just take that hair off because that's, I'm leaving what I've been doing. and I'm leaving it and I don't want to mess with it anymore. So I said, that's what you want. It's fine with us. We don't care. Whether you got the hair or not? How did it look when you were done with the haircuts?

It looked like a lot of hair and braided. It's about two and a half feet long. So he had been doing that for a while. It looked like it was done by non-professionals. And he looked like one of those. But he was telling everybody about it. He still had his, like, leather jacket on, but he was telling everybody. He was like, I'm a new man.

I'm imagining looking like the either Jim Carrey look off a dumb and dumber where it's like We didn't have the bangs. He didn't cut the front, just the back. Let's take our first. I was impressed at his, his look at what's fixing to happen. A new person, you know, born again, spirit field. that's, you know, repent and be baptized. Everyone in the name of Jesus for the mission of his sins,

God he gave you the Holy Spirit. So it was a starting point, and he got it. He said, I need to make a drastic change. But I'm saying maybe he did it because it was a conversation piece. When people say, there's something different about you. They're talking about his hair. He could say, no, let me tell you what's really different. Well, it's back to Samson, I guess.

Remember, he had the hair that couldn't cut his hair because they had the Nazarite down. But it was exactly what I just read. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off. It's in Korea. That's the apostle Paul. They arrived at Ephesus where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. No, I like you making that connection.

No, that's a good connection. Never would have thought about it. Because, yeah, that's funny. I just got to take it. I mean, I got a request to deal with this. This happened 2,000 years ago. I don't know why I'm laughing. So you actually did it.

I feel like was the segue of the joke? I was trying to get the segue. Was it just something to you? Is it awkward? But anyway, I wasn't referring to that joke in your sermon. I was referring to the wheel spinning. I forgot your analysis. Why were you telling that joke?

I was talking about that you had, I called it spiritual ADHD, a spiritual attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. which is ADHD is the thing. It's okay to have a vow. Yeah, vows are good. So I was doing the, you know, that people forget. Remember when he said, do not forget this, do not fall away? That's what it was.

And so I was like, you keep going back to this thing. You keep spinning your wheels. And then I just went off into a little rip about why rednecks like to get in a car and have it where they're going around and around in circles. And they leave all those black rubber marks. Have ever seen them in a parking lot? They're all out here. on the way out here.

But have you done the same thing? I did. And my point was, my point was, when did that stop being a cool thing to do? Because at some point, now it's just annoying. I mean, if you hear a big loud truck. Well, we're back to the birthdays. I think when you get about 40, you're like, you know, I'm going to have to go buy some new tires. I think it gets into that.

But that was my point. At some point, you have to, like, be focused enough to pay attention. and you're like, okay, I'm not spending my wheels anymore. I said, besides, tires are expensive. I mean, good night. I just, you buy a set of tires. It's like $1,200. That's $300.

You're just burning up on the road. Well, I'm not meaning this as a joke, but I've, once in my life contemplated building a muffler shop of which I would own. Because I thought, I'll invest. Well, I just thought, you know, no, I'm not kidding. I was serious. Because I thought, if this ever dies, everybody wanting to rack their pipes. Be loud.

In our hometown, it seems more severe than any other places. It's a at all time. I said, if this dies, you could be a multimillionaire. People just say, you know what, I like peace and quiet. I mean, yeah, I was like, I would have been a part of this. And so good luck finding a muffler shop around here. I actually talked to two young rednecks yesterday after our service because we were laughing about it. I said, well, no, you got you.

I've heard your truck is loud. He said, yeah, but not when you're inside and the windows are rolled up. It sounds perfect. I said, that's what it is. They're in there and their little cow with the window rolled up and it sounds perfect. I said to the rest of us outside your truck, it's not perfect. It's way too loud. Yeah, there's a spiritual sermon in there somewhere.

That's what I said. I said, you've just given me a new sermon idea. Something about being self-absorbed. I'm only hearing what I want to hear. It's awesome. To everyone else, it's annoying. Someone. You down it.

Someone during all this, some woman, I saw people running over toward one area. Inside the building, and then some little woman had just passed out. Well, what I was thinking, Dad, I was sitting, yeah, she had had, like, a passed-out spell. And it wasn't in their main room, but it was outside. And so Gergy Joe's down there where he's an ex-fire chief. His daughter's an EMT. And then there was a police officer there where they all take off running. And I'm sitting there, I looked over there at it, and I'm about to preach a sermon that involves spiritual warfare and the description of our enemy.

And so I'm thinking of myself as a, you know, because one, you tend to want to go try to see, make sure people are good. But I'm thinking, the evil one is trying to hijack what I'm about to say. say right here in this setting and I just thought because you know you never know it turns out the lady was fine she was maybe we shouldn't be surprised at what we see things we see oh man I just described my did you ever hear what happened yeah she uh she had some kind of spell but she's fine she was good yeah but it was all okay but you know in the moment you're just you're never sure saying I'm yeah so I sent a text to to missy and Willie I said happy birthday now happy Carly and Joey anniversary. This day is getting very crowded. So I sent that to Willie and Missy. Missy says the more

the merrier. Nice text. You know, she's like, she's excited. Willie says, yep, I could think of a lot more fun things to do on my birthday than go to a wedding. So that's how you need to know about the difference, Missy and Willie. I think we ought to get into some Bible. All right. Y'all ready to get to some text. Dad kind of already headed us there with that picture of the guy and the, to your point, though, Dad, we've seen this in the last podcast about Timothy, remember when he had him circumcised, so that he would have access to the synagogues and all that. So it is interesting that Paul, who makes really strong cases about not adding things to the gospel, but he does to get the gospel priest, you know, do a lot of things that he would tell somebody else it's your

choice to do. Yep. You didn't circumcise Titus. He did circumcise Timothy. The hair, he cut his hair so he could have more of an impact. Yep. And where he was going. So that is interesting.

And that's actually right where we left off. The last time that we were in Acts was when Timothy joined the team. And then also, apparently, Jay, I think we read 16, 6 through 10, which was where Paul was trying to figure out where to go. he wanted to go into Asia, but the Holy Spirit, two different times says the Holy Spirit kept us from going, whatever that means. We didn't. Yeah, those are difficult things to address.

You don't know if he's just saying, kind of like what I just said about the spiritual warfare. I mean, maybe just a woman who had a fellow out in the kitchen. I had nothing to do with that. So you just have to kind of assess what has stuff happens. Well, there's a danger, I think, when you read those verses. and it depends on kind of the denomination of Christianity that you're with. There's a lot of people. More sensitive to that.

Yeah, like I said, are going around saying, God told me this, God told me that, and you're like, well, wait a minute. Because we have the Holy Spirit of God in us. So a lot of times,

spirit-filled people tell someone who claims to be a spirit-filled people, a person. Okay, you're wrong here or whatever, you know, and rebukes out of love. Right. And so they're like, well, God told me I could do this. I mean, I've had a lot of conversations just in the past year where this came up. Right in the middle of all this, Christpice, the synagogue ruler and his entire household believed in the Lord.

Many of the Corinthians who heard him, believed and were baptized. One night, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision. Now this is in the middle of all these preaching the gospel, you know, and bringing the truth to people, you know. Don't be afraid. Paul heard this voice. Don't be afraid. Keep on speaking.

Don't be silent. Or I'm with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you because I have many people in this city. So Paul stayed there for about a year and a half teaching him the word of God. Yes, when he was in. Well, that was in the world. It's pretty amazing that that would just be dropped in the middle of all this. Y'all calmed down now. You know, I got this thing.

So God was just spurring them on with these vows like this. It's pretty amazing because we kind of just rule it out sometime when the Lord was speaking to you. Yeah, I mean, there was definitely more of the visions and things like that. Let's take another. What I was going to say about that is that this was all about sharing the gospel and where they were going to go. Because you notice when he sees the vision, and I mean, not sure exactly,

just like Phil talked about the vision that's going to happen in Acts 18, which I liked what he said. I have people here. Yeah. But here, he sees this vision, and it's... It's basically redirecting him where to go. He was trying to get into Asia,

now he's going to redirect because of this, what he saw. But I'm saying nine times out of ten here, it's all about where you're... you're going to go share Jesus. Yeah. Nine times out of ten, in our current culture, it has nothing to do with sharing Jesus. Yeah, that's a good point. And that's what I was going to say.

I was also going to say this. 10 out of ten times, it's always what the Spirit tells you to do in our modern culture. In this case, it was, he was keeping them from something. Yeah. I've never heard somebody say, well, the, you know, the Spirit told me, you know, not to go over there. Maybe we do. Don't go down there. So look, I'm not, I get it.

We have different emphasis on where we meet, and some people emphasize more of a supernatural activity, not maybe miracles as in the sense of laws of nature defying miracles. But I'm getting back to this, we have a Bible here. And the thrust of what they're doing is declaring Jesus. And it was difficult, especially with the Jews, because they were hanging on to the principles of Judaism, believing in the same God. And that's why when you get to Lydia, it's incredible that she was a believer in God. But she was open enough to something different. And, of course, they, what did they do? They shared Jesus.

And she responded. And they baptized her, which is incredible, I think. So I think you have to keep that in mind. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what that meant when it said the Holy Spirit kept them from that. I think it was the first use of GPS in human history. God-powered GPS. God's positioning spirit, GPS. I like God's.

New shirt. God's powered schedule. Well, that's another good. God's positioning spirit was like it. The GPS means global positioning system, by the way, if you're wondering. But he basically changed their schedule. He did. He did.

Either one, Marks for me. Okay, that's clever, Al. I just would say, the Book of Acts, I'm reading it, it's remarkable on how closely we are following that. No, no doubt. I mean, these verses are just that, there, it's full of, full of messages. It's the same thing we do for a focus. By the way, Al, from the 2,000 years ago, when this was going on, first century, they've come a long way. You know what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah. Worldwide. Yep. No doubt about it. They all know who, but I say they all, I think they've all at least heard about Jesus. It's where there's about 2B now that claim him. What were you going to say, is that? I was going to say that it is a good to make a distinction that the spirit does work in this way,

and that he does guide our paths. And we're going to get to a little bit in Acts 17. It says that God's determined the exact times and places. So it's very particular. He's determined the exact times and places that all men should live for the purpose of seeking him out and perhaps finding him, though he's not far from each one of us. And so that's the language. So you kind of see this God's sovereignty playing out and how he's orchestrated events,

how he's orchestrated the places that we inhabit, the times that we inhabit, and all of that. And the spirit was certainly moving in the establishment of the church. He was directing the footsteps of Paul and Barnabas and everybody else, for that matter. He was sending them where he wanted them to go and certain times, preventing them to go where they thought they wanted to go. But I think where we miss this in modern church culture is then we try to take those leanings of the spirit and then make them authoritative. You know, it's the – so when you say God told me this, you know, I'm just very careful about that language because if he – I can say, I think God's telling me this. I think God's leading me in this direction. I think this.

but I don't know for sure unless it's written in the scriptures. And so when we test these spirits, it's one thing to say the spirit obviously inspired the scriptures. All scripture is God breathed. No prophecy ever came from the will of man, but from the mind of God. And so God reveals it to us his plan in scripture. Now, that's authoritative. That has authority that we can take our lives and sit under what the scripture teaches. but anyone that would come to you and tell you that they have an authority outside of the scriptures to impose on your life.

I don't think the scripture teaches us that. I don't think that. Well, I know the scripture. Little sections are back and forth. Now the Bereans in chapter 8, 17, we fixed to look at. Now the Bereans were of more noble character is the way it's versed than the Thessalonians. for they received the message with great eagerness. But check this out.

And I just wonder how much of it they had because I don't know where all these scriptures came from. Because they said, for they received the message with great eagerness, the Bereans, and examine the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Yeah. Many, what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed they did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. So you read these texts like that and you're like, what? Well, it was the Old Testament, but they were reading Isaiah and texts like that.

But here's what's amazing about them. They didn't, everybody just didn't have access to your own copy of the text. I mean, most of them got the readings in the synagogues once a week. Yeah. It says they did it every day. So they were going the extra amount. They did have a way to search that. Usually there would be some priest, some person that would have a copy,

but they all had to read it. So it wasn't like everybody that's out of Bible. The scriptures that they're reading. That's pretty impressive, you know, that they had enough scriptures in this time frame that they could rely on because it plainly says they examined the scriptures. Well, but his point was they were about Jesus. They had missed Jesus. in the scriptures, which we take that and try to apply it to the Bible.

You know, today, the New Testament, which is not exactly was the point here. No. They had missed Jesus in the scriptures, but still, I would say the principle, you know, applies. Wouldn't you say they still miss Jesus all the time? Hang on that. Let's take another. Going back to Acts 15, I mean, we're, you know, we're right on the cuffs of that. So it's, it's when he says the Acts 15, the whole assembly, this is verse 20. well, became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders that God had done among the Gentiles through them. So the claim here is that there's an eschatological kingdom that includes Gentiles.

When they had finished, James spoke up. Brothers, he said, listen to me. Simon has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people. for his name from the Gentiles. So this is a bulk, this is like new, this is like breaking news. The words of the prophets, now we're talking about the Old Testament, and these are the words that the Bereans would have opened up their Bibles and went back and studied to see if what they were saying was true.

The words of the prophets are in agreement with this. Think about that claim. The words of the prophets are in agreement with what we're saying about the inclusion of the Gentiles. So then they flip back. And he quotes, I think it's Amos 9, after this, I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins, I will rebuild. I will restore it.

The rest of mankind may seek the Lord. Even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things, things known from long ago. So that reference to an Old Testament passage, you can imagine it's like, the Bereans and whoever else would receive this, they would have probably at the first mentioning of the inclusion of the Gentiles probably would be like, wait, that's not true. But then when they say, no, we're in agreement with what's always been taught. This is what the prophets talked about.

And then they quote the prophets. And then the Bereans are like, you know what? Is that what this meant? And so you see it start to unfold. And so that's the spirit is moving in the apostles for this, for this inclusion, for this building. of the kingdom and he's got a very specific plan and how he's doing it. But they didn't have the compilation of the New Testament yet. So when they were relying on the spirit in a way that I would argue is a little,

that's why they had apostolic authority. They didn't have scripture yet. They were writing scriptures. I mean, he mentions in chapter, it's my judgment therefore that we should not make it. And I think this was the point of the whole thing. We shouldn't make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. God. He said, you don't skirt them. They're there to be, there to be trained. Yeah, that was the problem.

That was the issue they kept struggling with was that. It kept coming back to that. Well, because it was for Israel. You got to remember the new covenant. We should write to them. The new covenant is for Israel. We just. They didn't understand who is. They said, don't make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, you say, well, what are you do you should write to them telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols sexual immorality from the meat of strangle animals and from blood from moses i had to have priest in every city from the earliest times that is read in the synagogue on every sabbath so it was a it was a mass preaching of the gospel but well they were trying to bring you know things in in their culture

that he was saying they don't have to be circumcised to get in, but now they are doing some things that are clearly wrong, not within the character of God, and using it as justification. But you're right. What made them noble character was being able to be humble enough to search for Jesus in the Messiah in the Old Testament, which is interesting.

We faced the same things that was going on here in modern times. Right. We deal with the same thing. But here's kind of an interesting thing to think about it. Paul, his mission did not change. He was going to bring the gospel to the Greeks, to the Gentiles. And so when he has this encounter in Acts chapter 16, I mean, you already see like this is what he's doing, right? He's including the Gentiles into this promise, into this covenant.

And so Paul does some campaigns. they traveled through this different region, and they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the Word in the province of Asia. When they came to the, it says here during the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonian standing and begging him. Come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them, which they were, I believe they were Greeks.

And so it's interesting that as Paul is moving into his missionary journeys, I mean, wherever he ends up, it doesn't really matter. I mean, he's going, he's going to go, if he can't get into one place, the spirit prevents him. That's fine with the world. He has a vision. We'll go over here. We'll go to this place. We'll just conclude that God called us over here. But guess what he preached, the same gospel.

whether he ends up in the province of Asia or whether he ends up in Macedonia, it doesn't really matter. He's going to preach the same gospel, and that gospel is the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus talked about in Mark chapter 1. It is the gospel of the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus, the inclusion of the kingdom, the invitation into God's kingdom, Greek, Jew, no difference between the two, male, female, slave, free. Everybody is invited into this kingdom. And Paul's going to preach that wherever he goes. It was a new way going across there at that period. So here's a, let's take our last point. Here's a couple of interesting things that happen in our transition,

which we've already talked about Lydia quite a bit, but she's the first convert in Philippi. One little subtle thing that happens here, and just in case you missed it, in Acts 1610, Luke obviously joins the team because from this point forward, the rest of the book of Acts, you notice the word we comes in. after Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once.

So now of a sudden, Luke goes from just telling the story from the way Paul's told him, so now he's a part of the story, which is really interesting, which tells us that Luke had to have been from this region, and he's joined the team. Well, he obviously becomes the one of the MVPs of the whole deal, because he wrote Luke and Axe, which arguably to me is probably one of the greatest things they've written for us now looking down the road. I find it interesting, too, that this is Philippa.

And I had this thought. This is, this was named after, you know, Philip, who was the father of Alexander the Great. That's right. And think about how many movies, because, you know, what a bizarre character here. You know, he's, was it his mom or his wife that she would sleep in the bed with snakes? And it just had an eerie, you know, you, and you can't even watch a movie about Alexander the Great because of the, of sexual stuff. Yeah, it's just ridiculous.

And so then you fast forward, and this is the same Philippa, where the story of Cleopatra and Mark Antony and Brutus. And it was so, to your point, Jay, it was so Greek that there's no synagogue there, which is very unusual. I mean, you know, there are not many, for a synagogue to be in a city, at this time, the rule was you had to have 10 Jewish men of, age to start a synagogue. So there's not even 10 Jewish men of age to lead a synagogue.

That's how, that's how Greek this city is. Well, that's what I was going to say. This is a Roman colony. And there's been so much written about those two instances. I mean, William Shakespeare, you know, had the play. And even the Cleopatra was going to bring this up. She, you know, acted like she was dying. and so, I mean, my history is a little fuzzy on this.

So her husband. I'm mesmerized here that Jay's is going into this. Because I think it's, I'm going to make a point that I think is very profound. And you're like, whoa. Is this Mark Antony, whatever, he kills himself because his wife has died, she lied. And so then she's like in this moment of love, she takes one of her snakes that's poisonous and has it bite her. and then she dies, you know. But it's like this, whatever that spirit is of evil with the snakes going back to the

garden. This happened in this town. Yeah. Well, the third significant thing in history that happened, which has way more evidence, because when you look at those two stories and things about Alexander the Great, and I mean, Alexander the Great, and you look up all the what William Shakespeare, most of this, they'll all say, Well, now, scholars say this isn't accurately, this is not a historical, accurate account.

They have embellished for drama reasons, and they come up with all these tales. You read these stories, they're crazy about things that happen. But then you have this where Lydia's converted. You have this woman who, what we'll get to in the next paragraph, who has this some kind of spirit that is, She can predict the future. Yeah, fortune teller. Orchintel.

Whatever you call these people. Like a medium. Yeah, medium or whatever. And she really never says anything noteworthy that. Actually, whatever she had was just telling the truth. Like whatever it was, had an attunement to Paul and Silas being there. And the thing just kept, through her kept saying, there they go right there that's the one you need to listen to there they're the real deal i mean so my point

it was a barker a carnival barker they were going around and they were trying to do things to show like like we said about being circumcised so they're saying you don't do that for salvation you don't have to do that jesus is enough but then he's like circumcises timothy to he cuts his hair does this but when it's involving another power other than god Even though she was saying the right things, he cast her out. He cast the spirit out. It's like, no, you don't come to declaring Jesus using any power other than God, which I think is very significant point here.

It is. But what I want to say is, so with them by doing that, well, people were making money. These are investors. I made a really bad joke to my former financial advisor the other day. we were together on this charity thing. We were talking. And I was like, look, I thought about you the other day. I said, I was reading that 16.

I said, and there was a fortune teller. You know, and I thought, no, what was she doing? There were people making money because she was predicting the future. And I thought, I thought of you. Y'all are modern day fortune tellers. You know what he said? He said, I don't think I like that analogy. It's funny.

Because it didn't turn out too good for these guys. I digress. But anyway, What I wanted to say is this happened in Philippi where then Paul and Silas are put in jail because of the riot that ensued because them taking away these guys' ways of making money from this girl. And then what happened? An earthquake, a prison break, they convert the jailer and his family. Incredible story. But when you put that in the context, this all happened in the same.

town as the Alexander the Great, that's where it was named, the, you know, the famous William Shakespeare play, and you have this. Well, when you look at how our culture, which ones they highlight, it's the ones with the snakes, the drama, the gods, all, because they're, you're going to see this in the next chapter. There are gods everywhere. They got a God for everything. It's all about the gods and all about finding your pleasure in life. So what I found significant, is when you get to Philippians, which the reason I'm making a big deal of this is because after I read all that history and then I read the book of Philippians, I don't know, it just had a, it had more meaning to me. I thought, this is what you need to do a movie about,

this prison break, and this woman with the fortune teller and Lydia down on the riverbank, and I don't think there's ever been a movie about this. But we have a ton of Shakespeare plays and Alexander the Great movies, which are terrible. But I wanted to read something that I found really interesting. Y'all probably noticed this before, but I never had.

In Philippians 4 and 21 at the final greetings, it says, greet all the saints in Christ Jesus, the brothers who are with me and greetings. All the saints send you greetings. What's this last statement here? especially those who belong to Caesar's household. And you say, what? Paul and Silas, whether it was through the prison break, through the jail or whatever, somewhere in all this, it wasn't just Lydia that was converted.

It was members of Caesar's household, which I think is a powerful statement for the gospel of Christ and for us as Spirit-filled. people to challenge the authorities, the powers, and the spirits, whatever is contrary, the gods, besides God, we are to speak out to these people. And when you know it, they did it. And guess what? They actually brought members of Caesar's household to Jesus. Yep. You ever thought about that? Pretty amazing. Well, yeah, and Paul being in Rome, and under Lock and Key had the same impact on, you know, the power structure of Rome as well, so it worked both ways. Jay, this is interesting because I pre, but I told you my lesson I did out of, to our Celebrity Recovery Group was right before that.

And it was a lot of what you were describing because of that text in 318. He said, for I have often told you before and now say again with tears, many live as enemies of the cross. Their destiny is destruction. Their God is their stomach. Their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. Those four things are what I thought.

That's exactly what you're seeing that he's doing. I thought the same thing. That's why when you get to Acts 17, the next chapter in verse in the B part of verse six, the accusation that they're having against Paul and the other disciples, listen to what it is. They are all defying Caesar's decrees saying that there is another king, one called Jesus. when they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. And so I think the theme of this is spirit-filled men taking on any power, any spirit, or any God, or anybody in government. They're taking them on saying, no, our king's better.

Yeah, that's good. In verse 9, Jace, just remember, then they made them. Jason and the others postponed and let them go. We're right there in the middle. That's the first Jason. Zach, hold you thought. We're out of time. Well, let me just say it.

Just real quick, it's short. But that's the distinction of why they persecuted the Christians. It wasn't that they worship Jesus, is that they worship Jesus as the exclusive king and the exclusive God. That's a great point. And that this kingdom idea still goes forward to this day. All right. So we're going to pick up here.

We kind of gave you a little projection forward, but we want to go back and break down that story, the prison story, because it's pretty amazing how that went down. So we'll do that in the next Unashame. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by rating us on iTunes. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube

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