Transcript: Episode 0034

“Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews”

This transcript:
  1. Was machine generated.
  2. Has not been checked for errors.
  3. May not be entirely accurate.
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00:00:00 – 00:00:06:	music

00:00:30 – 00:00:45:	Welcome to the Stone Choir podcast. I am Corey J. Mahler, and I'm still woe. On today's Stone

00:00:45 – 00:00:51:	Choir we're going to begin the first of what will be at least a three-part series on the

00:00:51 – 00:00:56:	Jews. As I said last week towards the end of the episode, in the next few weeks we're

00:00:56 – 00:01:00:	going to be getting into some stuff that will probably cross some red lines for some people,

00:01:00 – 00:01:06:	probably make some of you uncomfortable. The reason that we're tackling it is that that's a

00:01:06 – 00:01:12:	problem. The fact that someone simply saying the Jews may have made you squirm, maybe you turned

00:01:12 – 00:01:18:	down the volume a little bit, that's a big deal because that came from somewhere. And as Christians,

00:01:18 – 00:01:24:	we can't talk about our own religion without talking about the Jews. There's no way to talk

00:01:24 – 00:01:31:	about the history of the faith without talking about these people. The ethnicity, the religious

00:01:31 – 00:01:39:	beliefs, the history are all relevant to us today, both in time and in the current year. And so the

00:01:39 – 00:01:46:	fact that there's this sort of inherent recoiling that I think has been put in many of our hearts to

00:01:46 – 00:01:50:	even hear the word, you sort of flinch and think something bad is going to happen. I don't want

00:01:50 – 00:01:56:	to be here anymore. That's not an adult response, that that's not something that should be the case.

00:01:56 – 00:02:01:	And so today and over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be going through the history of

00:02:01 – 00:02:07:	the Jews in terms of scripture, in terms of post-scriptural history and then modern history,

00:02:07 – 00:02:12:	things that some of the things have happened in living memory. This first episode is going to be

00:02:12 – 00:02:17:	entirely focused around scripture. So we're going to begin in the garden and we're going to take it

00:02:17 – 00:02:22:	all the way through the end. And then, obviously, the Bible basically ends with some prophecies and

00:02:22 – 00:02:27:	the destruction of the temple. We're going to be talking about a few post-temple destruction

00:02:27 – 00:02:32:	events that are relevant to some of the points we're going to make today. But for the most part,

00:02:32 – 00:02:38:	this will be ending right around the second century. The episode is going to be in three

00:02:38 – 00:02:42:	distinct parts. They'll sort of flow into each other because we're going to do this in chronological

00:02:42 – 00:02:49:	order. The first part, the first third, will be basically the timeline of, you know, from Adam

00:02:49 – 00:02:57:	through Noah to Abraham through Moses to Jesus. When did the Jews appear? What did they do?

00:02:57 – 00:03:02:	How did they act? What was promised to them? What was commanded to them? How did they respond to all

00:03:02 – 00:03:08:	those things? That basically takes us to roughly the end of the Old Testament, which is also called

00:03:08 – 00:03:14:	the inter-testamental period. There are some things that happened in that timeframe from the

00:03:14 – 00:03:21:	conquering of the Northern Kingdom through the birth of Christ that I think some Christians who

00:03:21 – 00:03:26:	know a little bit know some bits and pieces. But I think we're going to put some of those details

00:03:26 – 00:03:31:	together in a way that will actually make sense for why we talk about things like, for example,

00:03:31 – 00:03:37:	the Septuagint. Why is there a Greek Old Testament? That's relevant. So the second part is going to

00:03:37 – 00:03:42:	be the fact that many of you would probably recognize the Hebrew language. If you saw it written,

00:03:42 – 00:03:49:	you see a picture, you know, yes, Hebrew. What you don't know is that that's not Hebrew. That is,

00:03:49 – 00:03:55:	it's an Aramaic script, and it's a language that is disconnected from the original language

00:03:55 – 00:04:00:	of the Israelites. And so we're going to talk about what happened in that time period and why

00:04:00 – 00:04:06:	it's relevant today that we have these confusions about what happened in the past.

00:04:06 – 00:04:10:	Because some of the claims that we're trying to disabuse in this episode are that

00:04:11 – 00:04:15:	when someone today says, I am a Jew and I speak Hebrew and I live in Israel,

00:04:16 – 00:04:23:	those are all words from the Bible. And those are therefore borrowing whatever affections we

00:04:23 – 00:04:28:	have as Christians for our connection to those words in the Bible. And the reason for going

00:04:28 – 00:04:34:	over some of the history is that there is a not only a profound discontinuity between

00:04:35 – 00:04:40:	what we have and what we see and what we hear today and what was happening thousands of years ago,

00:04:40 – 00:04:46:	but the discontinuity is the result of God's judgment against those people. And that's

00:04:46 – 00:04:53:	what makes it a profoundly important religious matter. This is a matter of the faith when God

00:04:53 – 00:04:59:	pronounces judgment upon people and they're scattered and destroyed. Every nation is to

00:04:59 – 00:05:03:	take that as a warning whenever there's any sort of calamity that befalls someone that should be

00:05:03 – 00:05:09:	taken as a warning that this is God's judgment, they did something bad, whatever it was, I should

00:05:09 – 00:05:14:	pay attention, I should not do the bad thing that they did. So it's important to learn from everything

00:05:14 – 00:05:21:	in scripture when God visits his wrath, let's make sure that doesn't happen to us too. And that

00:05:21 – 00:05:26:	might involve not listening to the people to whom God's wrath was poured out by the bucket load.

00:05:28 – 00:05:32:	So the second part will be the Interpretational Period in the fiction of the Hebrew language.

00:05:32 – 00:05:37:	And third part is going to specifically deal with the time of Christ in the New Testament

00:05:37 – 00:05:45:	as he was preaching, as he was going around in Judea and Samaria. What did he encounter and

00:05:45 – 00:05:52:	how did the Jews treat him? One of the overarching themes of all three of these sections is that

00:05:52 – 00:05:57:	we're going to be saying many things that your pastors probably are afraid to say. And in some

00:05:57 – 00:06:02:	cases your pastors don't know. I've had pastors who literally didn't know that Jesus wasn't speaking

00:06:02 – 00:06:07:	Hebrew every day. Nobody spoke Hebrew every day. It was a dead language. It was like Latin is dead

00:06:07 – 00:06:14:	today. It still existed in tiny corners, but it wasn't a going concern at all. That's relevant.

00:06:14 – 00:06:19:	And in fact, the pastors don't know is a big deal. And in particular, pastors are terrified of

00:06:19 – 00:06:26:	telling people the Jews killed God. Scripture makes that so clear that no one could possibly

00:06:26 – 00:06:30:	reach any other conclusion other than by listening to voices that do not come from Scripture.

00:06:30 – 00:06:36:	So last third of this is going to go through many verses that make it abundantly clear that

00:06:36 – 00:06:42:	the Pharisees were the leaders. The Jews were the people. The angry crowd that was continuously

00:06:42 – 00:06:47:	chasing Jesus around hundreds of miles are running in sandals, continuously trying to kill him.

00:06:47 – 00:06:53:	It wasn't the Pharisees. It was the Jews. Not all of them. There were some Jews who were faithful.

00:06:53 – 00:06:59:	His followers were Jews. The disciples were Jews. So again, the nax all things comes into play.

00:06:59 – 00:07:06:	Not all acts are like that. There were Jews in that day who believed the promise. Mary believed

00:07:06 – 00:07:10:	the promise of the Christ. And so when the angel came to her and said that she would be the vessel

00:07:10 – 00:07:14:	for that promise, she wasn't confused. She knew exactly what the angel was talking about. She

00:07:14 – 00:07:20:	couldn't believe it was going to be her, but she received it in faith because she was a faithful

00:07:20 – 00:07:27:	Christian. She was a Christian who was a Jew. And we've talked about that in the past that the

00:07:27 – 00:07:31:	belief in the promise from the garden is what makes one a Christian. And so we're going to end

00:07:31 – 00:07:37:	as we're talking about, particularly from acts and from Romans where Scripture discusses who are

00:07:37 – 00:07:43:	the true children of Abraham. Because that's one of the fundamental questions. Unfortunately today

00:07:43 – 00:07:48:	it's a political question somehow. That'll be a few trips. Are we talking about how children of

00:07:48 – 00:07:54:	Abraham, how could that possibly be a political live issue in the 21st century? That's why saying

00:07:54 – 00:08:00:	the Jews makes people nervous. Because something that should be a scriptural historical term and

00:08:00 – 00:08:06:	concept has political ramifications today. So today's episode is Scripture. Future episodes will

00:08:06 – 00:08:12:	deal with history and some politics. But we have to lay the foundation first for the subject in

00:08:12 – 00:08:17:	what God reveals in Scripture. So I think we'll begin at the very beginning just with

00:08:18 – 00:08:25:	who is a Jew in the Old Testament? I think one of the lazy things that we do is to just kind of

00:08:25 – 00:08:29:	assume that everybody in the Old Testament is a Jew. That's the Jewish book. And then the New

00:08:29 – 00:08:32:	Testament book is a Christian book. And there were some Jews who became Christians, but that was

00:08:32 – 00:08:37:	that transition period. And then post-New Testament, everybody's Christian. Or you're a Jew, but you

00:08:37 – 00:08:42:	went off in the other direction. But the key element is that the misconception that everyone

00:08:42 – 00:08:48:	in the Old Testament is a Jew opens the door to all sorts of errors downstream. We're not going

00:08:48 – 00:08:54:	to get to those errors today. We're just going to make the case that Jews came into the timeline

00:08:54 – 00:09:00:	by God's design at a certain time for a certain purpose. And prior to that, there were no Jews.

00:09:00 – 00:09:06:	Adam was not a Jew. I think one of the tricky things about that is that Adam is a Hebrew word.

00:09:06 – 00:09:12:	And so we're just sort of intellectually lazy. And we think, well, if the name was Hebrew,

00:09:12 – 00:09:17:	that must make him a Jew, right? They're Adam's today who are Jews. Many are not because it's

00:09:19 – 00:09:26:	the oldest name we have. When you start making these small errors, they don't seem to have any

00:09:26 – 00:09:31:	consequence at the moment, but they will accumulate over time. And that's the recurring theme on

00:09:31 – 00:09:38:	Stone Choir. These small errors are doors that are being opened to make big errors later.

00:09:38 – 00:09:42:	So as we go through this, we're going to pick seemingly small things, but they're all going

00:09:42 – 00:09:47:	to point in the same direction to say, this man was a Jew. This man was not a Jew. Here's what the

00:09:47 – 00:09:53:	Jews were doing and why all those things matter. When you mention that the name is in Hebrew,

00:09:53 – 00:10:00:	it brings to mind a favorite argument that I've seen primarily from leftists, Marxists,

00:10:00 – 00:10:04:	and others like that. But you'll see it on posters and things that rally sometimes for them,

00:10:06 – 00:10:09:	because they like to appeal to Scripture, even though they don't believe in it. That should

00:10:09 – 00:10:15:	bring a certain meme to mind for certain people. But they'll argue there are no white people in

00:10:15 – 00:10:23:	Scripture, which of course just betrays a staggering ignorance of Scripture, because Japheth is the

00:10:23 – 00:10:28:	father of all of Europe. Obviously, then he was white. There were Romans in Scripture,

00:10:28 – 00:10:33:	there are Greeks in Scripture. It's a complete nonsense argument. It just betrays

00:10:33 – 00:10:38:	stunning ignorance of Scripture. And that's what we're dealing with when it comes to pastors and

00:10:38 – 00:10:45:	many others who will say, well, no, all these people, they were Jews. Adam was not a Jew.

00:10:46 – 00:10:55:	Noah was not a Jew. Abraham was not a Jew. You don't have any Jews in Scripture

00:10:55 – 00:11:04:	until you get to Judah, because that is how you derive the term Jew is from the tribe of Judah.

00:11:05 – 00:11:10:	That's where that comes from and from Judean. So the modern term in English anyway,

00:11:10 – 00:11:15:	enters basically through Latin, the term for the people living in Palestine,

00:11:16 – 00:11:23:	as the Romans renamed it, who were living in Palestine at the time that Rome controlled the area.

00:11:23 – 00:11:28:	And it wasn't even a term that they used for themselves. They didn't call themselves Jews.

00:11:28 – 00:11:34:	It was just shorthand because the Northern Kingdom had been destroyed. You had these people in the

00:11:34 – 00:11:41:	South in Judah, so they got called Jews by their conquerors. It wasn't half, it was a slur, but

00:11:41 – 00:11:46:	it was just, it was a term applied to a group of people that was alien to the people naming them.

00:11:46 – 00:11:50:	They didn't care, like, oh, yeah, those are the Jews down there in Judea.

00:11:51 – 00:11:59:	Exactly. And there are some who will argue that the etymology for Hebrew, which is the

00:11:59 – 00:12:04:	term they would have used before that, and still, of course, do use for themselves and for their

00:12:04 – 00:12:12:	language, which will get into the language more. That's derived either from Eber, which can have,

00:12:12 – 00:12:21:	of course, that initial H sound in the Greek, Hebrew, or it is derived from an older term from,

00:12:22 – 00:12:26:	I can't remember which language it was now. I think it was related to a handful of languages

00:12:26 – 00:12:32:	in the area, so it's not necessarily just one, but it means across the river, or one who lives

00:12:32 – 00:12:39:	across the river. And so it was just a term of place, essentially, also a person's name,

00:12:39 – 00:12:47:	obviously, Eber being the son of Shullah, son of Arpakshad, son of Shem, Shem being the ultimate

00:12:47 – 00:12:54:	father after Noah, of course, after Adam, after Noah, of the line from which Christ came.

00:12:55 – 00:13:00:	And so the people who would become known as Jews, at least a part of them would become

00:13:00 – 00:13:06:	known as Jews, because as was said, the northern kingdom was destroyed. The Assyrian captivity

00:13:06 – 00:13:13:	of the northern kingdom took those 10 tribes, and yes, there's some fuzz there, some gray area when

00:13:13 – 00:13:16:	it comes to the numbering of the tribes, how many tribes exactly were in the south, how many were

00:13:16 – 00:13:23:	in the north, because you have 10 in the north, but then you have Judah, Benjamin, and Levi in the

00:13:23 – 00:13:31:	south. That aside, the Assyrian captivity is what took the northern kingdom and destroyed it.

00:13:31 – 00:13:37:	The people of the northern kingdom were destroyed, because how the Assyrians destroyed a conquered

00:13:37 – 00:13:42:	people was they would take some of those out of the conquered territory, move them elsewhere in their

00:13:42 – 00:13:47:	empire, and then take people from elsewhere in the empire and move them into the conquered territory.

00:13:48 – 00:13:55:	So in other words, what they did was they used interbreeding, interracial relationships as a

00:13:56 – 00:14:01:	means of destruction of a nation. And that's exactly what they did to the northern kingdom.

00:14:02 – 00:14:06:	So the northern kingdom was completely and utterly destroyed, which of course,

00:14:07 – 00:14:11:	is the beginning of an argument against so-called Christian Zionism,

00:14:12 – 00:14:19:	and many other, well, heretical theologies that have sprung up more recently. You can't have a

00:14:19 – 00:14:25:	restoration of the 12 tribes, because 10 of them no longer exist.

00:14:26 – 00:14:32:	They were destroyed by the Assyrians, as opposed to the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah,

00:14:32 – 00:14:37:	which was taken into partial captivity by the Babylonians, but the Babylonians did not

00:14:37 – 00:14:41:	destroy their conquered peoples in the same way the Assyrians did. So the southern kingdom was

00:14:41 – 00:14:48:	not destroyed. That would become the Judeans. That would be the people who were living in the area

00:14:48 – 00:14:52:	when the Romans came and conquered them. Those are the people who would come to be called Jews.

00:14:53 – 00:15:01:	And so early on in Scripture, all of these men are not Jews. Jews don't exist in the earliest

00:15:01 – 00:15:08:	parts of Scripture. There are no Jews in Genesis, unless you're talking just about names, in which

00:15:08 – 00:15:16:	case, yes, you have obviously the genealogies. But if your pastor is telling you that Abraham was a

00:15:16 – 00:15:20:	Jew, your pastor is just wrong. He needs to go back and read Scripture.

00:15:21 – 00:15:29:	The first occurrence in both the Septuagint and the Masoretic text for the Old Testament

00:15:29 – 00:15:36:	of the word Hebrew is in Genesis 39, when Potiphar's wife describes Joseph as the Hebrew slave.

00:15:37 – 00:15:43:	So that was several generations removed from Abraham. That's not Jew, but it's the first

00:15:43 – 00:15:50:	instance of Hebrew. There is one instance it's worth noting in Genesis 13, where when Abram

00:15:50 – 00:15:56:	has not yet received the name Abraham from God, the text, the Masoretic text, that is the Hebrew

00:15:56 – 00:16:02:	text, that is much newer, incidentally, than the Septuagint, even though it's technically written

00:16:02 – 00:16:08:	to Hebrew, and we'll get to that later. In Genesis 13, the Masoretic text does refer to,

00:16:08 – 00:16:15:	maybe it's Genesis 14, I think it's 1413, refers to Abram as the Hebrew. Interestingly,

00:16:15 – 00:16:22:	in the Septuagint, the word Hebrew does not appear. That word was added in the Hebrew text,

00:16:22 – 00:16:27:	which is notable, I think, because while we're not going to get into the disputation between

00:16:27 – 00:16:32:	the Masoretic text and the Septuagint, it is important to acknowledge that there are a few

00:16:32 – 00:16:40:	places where the Masoretic text is demonstrably corrupted. The most prominent example is

00:16:40 – 00:16:46:	the prophecy in Isaiah of the Virgin giving birth. That has changed in what we call the

00:16:46 – 00:16:53:	Hebrew Bible today to a young girl. Septuagint doesn't have that error, and if you remember

00:16:53 – 00:17:00:	from our genealogy episode, that's a particularly interesting one because we actually have evidence

00:17:00 – 00:17:09:	from post-Babel expansion of humanity in all different directions. People who were never

00:17:10 – 00:17:16:	part of any of this story had the story of a virgin birth of a God. That is something that is

00:17:16 – 00:17:22:	a widespread story, a myth, a legend that exists in far-flung places like Vietnam,

00:17:22 – 00:17:28:	well separated from any contact with anyone who would have known what was going on in the

00:17:28 – 00:17:33:	days of Abraham, or Isaiah for that matter, because Isaiah was fairly late. It's crucially

00:17:33 – 00:17:41:	important to note that we know from outside of Scripture that some notion of a virgin-born God

00:17:42 – 00:17:46:	was a prophecy that was given prior to Isaiah, and it was shared among believers,

00:17:46 – 00:17:52:	and then corrupted among unbelievers. We can know with absolute certainty as Christians that

00:17:52 – 00:17:57:	when the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic text, that we are told to believe is older,

00:17:58 – 00:18:05:	says young girl instead of virgin, it's not correct. I think it's worth acknowledging that the word

00:18:05 – 00:18:12:	Hebrew does occur one time in Abrams day, but I just found this a couple hours ago. I haven't

00:18:12 – 00:18:17:	had a chance to really dig into it too much. Based on what I know of a couple of the other heirs,

00:18:18 – 00:18:24:	it's my assumption as I go digging into that, that that was probably added in the 2nd, 3rd,

00:18:24 – 00:18:31:	4th, 5th, 6th century AD. It was added well after by Jews who had been expelled from Jerusalem,

00:18:31 – 00:18:37:	who hated the Christians, and were beginning to concoct this story that Hebrews are eternal.

00:18:38 – 00:18:44:	Noah was Hebrew. Noah was a Jew. No, Abraham wasn't a Jew. It was his grandson who was named Israel

00:18:44 – 00:18:49:	by God. That's the other term that comes up that's very important. Basically, you have

00:18:49 – 00:18:55:	Jew, you have Hebrew, and you have Israel, or Israelite, all more or less used interchangeably at

00:18:55 – 00:19:00:	different places and different times. Sometimes they mean the same thing. Sometimes they don't.

00:19:00 – 00:19:06:	Sometimes they mean different things. When God wrestles with Jacob and then names him Israel,

00:19:08 – 00:19:12:	that's the very first time that that word was used. It was given to him by God as a new name,

00:19:12 – 00:19:18:	and that name was carried by his descendants. That's very important. It's from God. No Christian

00:19:18 – 00:19:22:	would ever besmirch that in the slightest, but as we'll get to it in the last part,

00:19:23 – 00:19:28:	what does that mean? What does it mean to be a child of Abraham, to be a child of the covenant?

00:19:29 – 00:19:33:	When we get into some of the later texts in the New Testament, pointing back to the Old Testament,

00:19:33 – 00:19:38:	it makes it very clear, it means those who have faith, that it is not a genetic lineage,

00:19:38 – 00:19:43:	it is a lineage of faith. As we discussed in the election episode, which is very much

00:19:43 – 00:19:47:	a part of this episode, please go back and listen to that. If you haven't listened to it in the

00:19:47 – 00:19:52:	last couple of months, it is key to understanding this episode, because one of the other terms

00:19:52 – 00:19:57:	that gets thrown around a lot is chosen. You hear of the Jews called God's chosen people.

00:19:57 – 00:20:03:	It's a word that God uses. God says, I chose these people. Many times that's how it's referred to,

00:20:04 – 00:20:11:	the Israelites are referred to. Chosen and elect are synonyms. This is something that we've

00:20:11 – 00:20:18:	completely lost sight of today. When God says, I chose you, that's literally saying, I elected you.

00:20:19 – 00:20:24:	In the election episode, we explain in detail that election is not a new doctrine that Calvin

00:20:24 – 00:20:30:	came up with. Most people think that election or predestination, that's that Calvinist stuff.

00:20:30 – 00:20:38:	In Lutherans, we call what Calvinists hold double predestination, where God elected some to be saved

00:20:38 – 00:20:43:	and God elected others to be damned. We believe that Scripture doesn't say that. Scripture says

00:20:43 – 00:20:48:	that God elected some to be saved, and that God desires that all men be saved, and that God

00:20:48 – 00:20:54:	sacrificed on the cross was for all men. Those men who are damned are damned of their own volition.

00:20:54 – 00:21:00:	They choose to remain evil. They reject God. Those who are elect do not reject God.

00:21:01 – 00:21:05:	We spent a couple hours dealing with, how does that make sense? Because it sounds irrational.

00:21:05 – 00:21:11:	Frankly, it is irrational. You can't make a reasonable case for predestination that doesn't

00:21:11 – 00:21:17:	sound crazy. We do it there as best we can. It makes sense if you believe Scripture. What you

00:21:17 – 00:21:21:	can't believe is your own reason. The important thing to carry away is that whenever you hear

00:21:21 – 00:21:26:	someone saying, particularly in the Old Testament, these people were the chosen people of God,

00:21:27 – 00:21:34:	they were elect. That applied not only to the lineal descendants of Abraham, because remember

00:21:34 – 00:21:40:	Jonah, who was a Jewish prophet, was sent by God to go to Nineveh, which was one of the greatest of

00:21:40 – 00:21:45:	the Gentile cities. It was one of the largest cities on the planet at the time. Jonah wouldn't go

00:21:45 – 00:21:49:	because he knew they would believe and they would repent and they would become children of God.

00:21:50 – 00:21:55:	God said, the people of Nineveh are elect. Go to them and proclaim my word. Jonah was like,

00:21:55 – 00:21:59:	no, if I go, they'll believe me and they'll repent. I don't want that because they're not Jews.

00:22:00 – 00:22:05:	The whole story of Jonah is about him refusing to go to people who weren't Jews because

00:22:05 – 00:22:11:	he didn't want to give them the gospel. God elected them. Jonah disobeyed. God won because

00:22:11 – 00:22:17:	that's how election works. God doesn't lose. He doesn't lose any of us. These terms like

00:22:17 – 00:22:24:	Jew, chosen, Israelite, Hebrew, it's important to understand which term you're using and why

00:22:24 – 00:22:29:	and where it's coming from etymologically because sometimes they do serve different purposes.

00:22:30 – 00:22:37:	And for those who are maybe not particularly familiar with these source texts, the Masoretic

00:22:37 – 00:22:45:	text is from roughly the earliest, would be the 6th century, and that's AD, not BC, notably.

00:22:46 – 00:22:54:	It wasn't completed until the 9th or the 10th century. That is, say, as opposed to the Septuagint,

00:22:54 – 00:23:00:	which is from, I think the earliest copies we have are the 3rd century BC.

00:23:01 – 00:23:09:	So there's a significant difference in age between these two manuscript sources.

00:23:10 – 00:23:17:	Notably, of course, the Masoretic text also has the so-called Star of David all over it.

00:23:17 – 00:23:24:	We see that in many of the copies of things that we have related to that line of sources.

00:23:25 – 00:23:29:	We'll get into that perhaps, perhaps not in this episode, but soon enough.

00:23:31 – 00:23:32:	That'll be for the next episode.

00:23:32 – 00:23:38:	That's what I figured. That symbol does date back before that. I think the earliest

00:23:39 – 00:23:46:	instance of that in a religious context is the 3rd or the 4th century, again AD, not BC, but at any

00:23:46 – 00:23:56:	rate. So it is arguably the more reliable text is the Greek text, and that is the text the church

00:23:56 – 00:24:01:	has used for a very long time until modern translation started using the Masoretic.

00:24:02 – 00:24:08:	I think it's important. We're not going to get into textual criticism or anything today, but

00:24:10 – 00:24:16:	when people are hearing these things, one of the most common responses internally in someone's

00:24:16 – 00:24:21:	mind will probably be to have their confidence undermined and, well, is my Bible really the

00:24:21 – 00:24:30:	word of God? I think that the more manuscripts we get access to, the more clear it is how much

00:24:30 – 00:24:37:	God has preserved his word through the millennia. There's very few differences between the Masoretic

00:24:37 – 00:24:42:	text and the Septuagint in Greek. There's very little difference between all the various manuscripts

00:24:42 – 00:24:49:	in Greek. They're overwhelmingly almost identical. The changes are typically small and

00:24:49 – 00:24:55:	incidental. Oftentimes, it's clear that they're just copyist errors. Occasionally, you will have

00:24:55 – 00:25:01:	things that were in the margin that then got migrated where someone had made a note to himself,

00:25:01 – 00:25:04:	and someone said, well, that sounds good, and ended up inserting it into the text.

00:25:04 – 00:25:10:	So the reason it's important, I don't want anyone who's hearing us talk about these two

00:25:10 – 00:25:15:	different textual sources to think, oh no, my Bible is wrong. You're reading your Bible in

00:25:15 – 00:25:20:	English. It's far removed from these languages. It's translated by men, for the most part. We're

00:25:20 – 00:25:27:	doing the best they could. Every translation today has some problems. That's okay. It's not going to

00:25:27 – 00:25:33:	destroy your faith. God has preserved his word for thousands of years. He will continue to do so.

00:25:33 – 00:25:38:	Yes, we should seek to have the most reliable books of the Bible that we can get our hands on.

00:25:38 – 00:25:42:	We should seek to have faithful translations. When errors are discovered,

00:25:42 – 00:25:47:	we should figure out why and how, and we should get rid of them. But none of these conversations

00:25:47 – 00:25:52:	should ever be an excuse for you to think, oh man, I just, I can't trust any of this now. I don't

00:25:52 – 00:25:57:	know what's going on. I don't have confidence. God has preserved his word. He preserved it in

00:25:57 – 00:26:05:	the Maseritic text, even in spite of the interference of the post-Christian Jews who

00:26:05 – 00:26:12:	were rabidly against the Christians. They still preserved almost all the text completely intact.

00:26:12 – 00:26:18:	So when there are variations, that should not be a source to think, oh no, something terrible has

00:26:18 – 00:26:24:	gone wrong. In a few cases, like yeah, it's clear why this change was made. It's almost never the

00:26:24 – 00:26:29:	case otherwise. So please don't conclude from listening to this episode. I need to get rid of

00:26:29 – 00:26:32:	my Bible and get a different one. I have to learn about this or I'm not going to have confidence.

00:26:32 – 00:26:36:	That's not the case. Whatever Bible you have, God is going to use for your edification.

00:26:37 – 00:26:42:	If you want to learn more about this stuff, there's plenty to learn and study and dig into it.

00:26:42 – 00:26:47:	And to be enriched, I think that's the important part, is that learning about these variations

00:26:47 – 00:26:51:	is enriching. It doesn't undermine faith because the more you look at the different copies,

00:26:51 – 00:26:56:	the more you realize how much they're on the same page, which is miraculous. The only way that this

00:26:56 – 00:27:02:	stuff could have been preserved across thousands of examples, across millennia, is if God was

00:27:02 – 00:27:10:	intervening in time and space with the copies, with the manuscripts, with the papyri. Only God

00:27:10 – 00:27:14:	could have done this. So even when we find things like, that doesn't seem quite right. Doesn't mean

00:27:14 – 00:27:19:	God didn't do this stuff. It just means that when humans are involved, we have to pay attention.

00:27:19 – 00:27:24:	That's why this podcast exists because humans are involved. We have to pay attention to stuff. So

00:27:24 – 00:27:30:	please do not lose confidence in whatever Bible you have, because that is God's word given to you

00:27:30 – 00:27:36:	for your edification. I personally primarily make use of the ESV. That's, I have, most of my

00:27:36 – 00:27:42:	Bibles are ESV. I have, I don't even know how many Bibles at this point, but that is in the

00:27:42 – 00:27:48:	Old Testament primarily relying on the Masoretic. I have no problem trusting the text of the ESV.

00:27:48 – 00:27:52:	Yes, there are some little problems here and there. They play some games with a couple words,

00:27:53 – 00:27:57:	but I'm not worried about it. It is still God's word. It is still reliable.

00:27:58 – 00:28:07:	And to give listeners an idea of the sort of differences between the Greek source documents

00:28:07 – 00:28:14:	we use for translating the Scriptures, one of the more famous examples is the announcement of the

00:28:14 – 00:28:21:	angels to the shepherds. In some of the manuscripts, there's an iota missing, literally the smallest

00:28:21 – 00:28:28:	letter in Greek. It's just a scribal error. It was dropped. It changes the meaning in terms of nuance,

00:28:28 – 00:28:35:	but it does not change the meaning in terms of content. It basically shifts from the angels

00:28:35 – 00:28:42:	announcing peace on earth and goodwill toward men to peace on earth and goodwill toward men on whom

00:28:42 – 00:28:49:	God's favor rests. It's a minor thing and obviously again, smallest letter in Greek, scribal error.

00:28:50 – 00:28:55:	That's the sort of thing you're seeing when you see disagreements between the manuscripts. These are

00:28:55 – 00:29:03:	not big disagreements. They're usually relatively minor things. So again, yes, your Bible in English

00:29:03 – 00:29:09:	or whatever language you're reading it in is reliable. You can rely on that. Yes, it's helpful to

00:29:09 – 00:29:14:	have some resort to the underlying languages, but you don't even actually have to know them in this

00:29:14 – 00:29:21:	day and age because you can go and find websites online where you can click on a word in a verse

00:29:21 – 00:29:25:	and it will tell you exactly what it means in the underlying language so you can verify for yourself.

00:29:26 – 00:29:33:	If something you read, you have questions, talk to your pastor, talk to someone who understands it,

00:29:33 – 00:29:38:	or find one of these sites and do the study on your own. There is a wealth of information and

00:29:38 – 00:29:44:	tools at our disposal today that would have made scholars in the past incredibly envious.

00:29:45 – 00:29:52:	So on the subject of language, as we mentioned, as I'm sure you all know, the Northern Kingdom

00:29:52 – 00:29:58:	of Israel was conquered in 722 BC by the Assyrians. As Corey mentioned, when the Assyrians conquered

00:29:58 – 00:30:05:	them, they used the importation of foreigners to basically impose race mixing to wipe out

00:30:05 – 00:30:12:	those tribes, and the result was the Samaritans, which is why in scripture we are all familiar with

00:30:12 – 00:30:20:	the notions that the Samaritans were treated as filthy, as less than, as half-breeds,

00:30:20 – 00:30:25:	because they had been Israelites, they had been Hebrews at one point, but then when the Assyrians

00:30:25 – 00:30:33:	forcibly mixed them with other races, they ceased to have the Israelite bloodline and the Jews of

00:30:33 – 00:30:38:	the first century found that disgusting. They had always been disgusted by them. The Samaritans

00:30:38 – 00:30:43:	and the Jews had disliked each other for many centuries to that point. The Samaritans were

00:30:43 – 00:30:48:	created by having been conquered. What's important about the conquering is that

00:30:49 – 00:30:55:	the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and then the Greeks and then the Romans

00:30:55 – 00:31:01:	intern each conquering them, by the way, all judgment from God. When you get conquered five

00:31:01 – 00:31:07:	times in almost as many centuries by disparate people who are crushing you, that's a bad sign.

00:31:07 – 00:31:13:	God has turned his back on you. Scripture makes that clear. There was a sea of

00:31:14 – 00:31:19:	prophets coming to them, calling them to repent for their wickedness, that had led

00:31:19 – 00:31:25:	to the destruction of the two kingdoms in the first place. One of the things that occurred under

00:31:25 – 00:31:31:	the Syrian and then Persian rule is that the original Hebrew language in which

00:31:32 – 00:31:40:	Moses had written the Torah, when God transcribed the Torah for Moses and he wrote it down,

00:31:40 – 00:31:49:	he used what is today called Proto-Hebrew. The Proto-Hebrew alphabet is similar to hieroglyphs.

00:31:49 – 00:31:56:	They think it's probably derived. It's downstream. It's not pictograms, but it's similar in that vein

00:31:56 – 00:32:03:	of simple geometric shapes and some symbols, but it's a fairly primitive language. Today,

00:32:03 – 00:32:08:	it's called Proto-Hebrew because what replaced it just gets called Hebrew. That's one of the first

00:32:08 – 00:32:13:	big things that's really important to learn in this episode is that, as I said earlier,

00:32:13 – 00:32:21:	what you see today when you think, oh yeah, that's Hebrew, it isn't. It is an alphabet that was

00:32:21 – 00:32:27:	imposed. It's the Aramaic alphabet. They're related, but it's related through the Persian

00:32:27 – 00:32:35:	conquest. It has no relation whatsoever to the language of Moses. I think that's important

00:32:36 – 00:32:42:	just as a fact. You don't need to derive any particular theological inclusion from it,

00:32:42 – 00:32:47:	but simply as a fact, when Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on the stone tablets,

00:32:47 – 00:32:51:	it was not in what we call Hebrew today. In fact, I think if it's not the Shoah,

00:32:51 – 00:32:56:	it will definitely include the image. Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments movie,

00:32:57 – 00:33:03:	the poster with him holding the Ten Commandments, actually has Proto-Hebrew on it. It has the

00:33:03 – 00:33:08:	Proto-Hebrew alphabet. They got that detail right. If they were to remake that today,

00:33:09 – 00:33:14:	they would never do that. They would use the fake Hebrew script that's actually Aramaic today.

00:33:14 – 00:33:21:	They came from Persia. Why? Because we think that there's a direct continuity between

00:33:22 – 00:33:29:	Abraham and Moses and Jesus and us. Languages go through those evolutions. I was just looking

00:33:29 – 00:33:34:	earlier today at Middle English and Old English just to see, for example, could I comprehend

00:33:34 – 00:33:41:	something that was 1,000, 1,200 years old Middle English? I can read most of it. Some of the

00:33:41 – 00:33:47:	vocabulary is strange. There are a few symbols, a few letters that have been transposed into

00:33:47 – 00:33:52:	other letters today, but it's intelligible for the most part. That's still English,

00:33:52 – 00:33:58:	and that's something that's from 7, 800 years ago. You go back to Old English that's over 1,000 years

00:33:58 – 00:34:04:	old. I can't read it. I can pick out a few words if I know how to phonetically describe them.

00:34:04 – 00:34:08:	I can maybe guess at what some of them are, but although it's called Old English,

00:34:08 – 00:34:13:	as an English speaker, it's not accessible to me. This happens all the time in language. It's not

00:34:13 – 00:34:20:	inherently that something is up, something is sneaky for the Hebrew of today, what is called

00:34:20 – 00:34:26:	modern Hebrew, to not match what existed in the first century or what existed 500 years before

00:34:26 – 00:34:31:	Christ. It is important because I think almost everyone thinks that's not the case. We think

00:34:31 – 00:34:38:	that we have this ancient stuff and that the scripted, square, almost calligraphic letters

00:34:38 – 00:34:43:	that you know is the Hebrew language, you think that that's what Moses was reading and writing,

00:34:43 – 00:34:50:	and probably what Adam was reading. Obviously, Adam was a Jew, too. Well, no. The first Jew was

00:34:50 – 00:34:55:	Jacob, maybe. If you want to say all the Israelites are Jews, I don't care. We'll talk about some of

00:34:55 – 00:34:59:	the history of the terminology in the next episode, but the important part is that there's a fundamental

00:34:59 – 00:35:05:	discontinuity. When they were conquered and they had their alphabet replaced, they had their language

00:35:05 – 00:35:11:	replaced, the Hebrew language was lost. It was completely lost in the Northern Kingdom.

00:35:15 – 00:35:22:	Interestingly, the Samaritan alphabet is basically the proto-Hebraic alphabet. It preserves many of

00:35:22 – 00:35:28:	those same symbols. It looks very similar. It's completely disconnected from what is modern Hebrew

00:35:28 – 00:35:34:	or Aramaic. If you look at Old Hebrew or Proto-Hebrew or whichever term you want to use for it,

00:35:35 – 00:35:41:	it looks very similar to Phoenician. If you have seen Phoenician lettering before somewhere,

00:35:41 – 00:35:47:	museum or whatnot, you know exactly what Old Hebrew looked like. They are both derived from

00:35:47 – 00:35:54:	Proto-Sanaitic, which was even older than that. That looks very similar. It's missing some letters,

00:35:54 – 00:36:03:	but as was mentioned, modern Hebrew is not what scripture, it's not the language in which

00:36:03 – 00:36:08:	scripture was written. It's not the text, the alphabet in which scripture was written, because

00:36:08 – 00:36:14:	this is actually an alphabet that was written in Old Hebrew, which actually, another thing to which

00:36:14 – 00:36:21:	you could compare it if you know Runic, it looks much more similar to Runic than say modern Hebrew

00:36:21 – 00:36:31:	slash Aramaic or modern English Latin lettering. But Hebrew itself, the language,

00:36:32 – 00:36:41:	was basically dead by the time of Christ. It was still used to some degree in what would be

00:36:41 – 00:36:47:	considered today perhaps academic circles. So you would have had some handful of priests in

00:36:47 – 00:36:52:	Jerusalem who could still read this language. They didn't use the language, they didn't speak the

00:36:52 – 00:36:59:	language. Maybe they read the language aloud at certain services on a high holy days. They would

00:36:59 – 00:37:03:	have had someone there to translate it into Aramaic for the common people, because the common people

00:37:03 – 00:37:08:	did not know any Hebrew. So at least they had more decency than the medieval Roman church,

00:37:08 – 00:37:14:	which didn't even bother to translate from Latin. But you can think of it in that same sort of light.

00:37:14 – 00:37:22:	In the medieval era, you had church services being conducted in Latin. The common people

00:37:22 – 00:37:28:	did not know Latin anymore. Some of the educated class knew Latin, so it's not directly comparable,

00:37:29 – 00:37:33:	because you did have Europeans who still knew Latin, who still learned Latin, the sons of

00:37:33 – 00:37:38:	noble houses and such. But the common people did not know what was going on in the church service,

00:37:38 – 00:37:42:	because it was conducted in Latin, and they did not translate it into the vernacular.

00:37:43 – 00:37:50:	You had a similar thing happening around the the switchover, as it were, from BC to AD,

00:37:51 – 00:37:58:	where Hebrew was no longer understood by the common people. They spoke Aramaic because they

00:37:58 – 00:38:05:	had been conquered a number of times by Aramaic speaking peoples, and so they had used Aramaic

00:38:05 – 00:38:11:	in order to deal with their new neighbors, as it were, to handle trade. All of these various

00:38:11 – 00:38:17:	things were conducted in Aramaic, and so they lost their language over time. That's what happens

00:38:17 – 00:38:23:	if you stop using your language, you lose your language. And when they were conquered by Alexander

00:38:23 – 00:38:28:	around 330 BC, they began to speak Greek. They're probably speaking of some before that. But

00:38:29 – 00:38:33:	if you look at the original languages of the Apocrypha, the books that were written in the

00:38:33 – 00:38:38:	inter-testamental period after Malachi and before Matthew, none of them are written Hebrew,

00:38:38 – 00:38:44:	none of them are written Aramaic. They're written in Greek. The Septuagint was translated around

00:38:44 – 00:38:51:	250 BC. Now, this was in part because I believe it was Tommy II had requested that the laws of the

00:38:51 – 00:38:57:	Hebrews be translated so that they were accessible, but it was also because the people needed it.

00:38:57 – 00:39:02:	There were certainly some Aramaic texts of scripture that were available to them,

00:39:02 – 00:39:09:	but increasingly, there were people who were Jews ethnically who in some cases may not have

00:39:09 – 00:39:16:	spoken Aramaic either. The translation of scripture in the Septuagint into Greek was also for

00:39:16 – 00:39:23:	accessibility. And so by the first century, when Jesus was born and the disciples were alive and

00:39:23 – 00:39:30:	were writing and speaking, they were, as Cory said, virtually none of them would have been

00:39:30 – 00:39:36:	conversant in Hebrew at all because it would have been no point for someone to be speaking Hebrew

00:39:36 – 00:39:44:	would be identical to someone today speaking maybe Latin or Old English. It's a dead language

00:39:44 – 00:39:50:	that isn't used at all. So it's a party trick. Maybe you can have an interesting conversation

00:39:50 – 00:39:54:	where you teach someone something, but you can't converse. It's not a language of commerce.

00:39:55 – 00:40:00:	The languages that were used were Greek, Latin, and Aramaic, and that's reflected at Christ's

00:40:00 – 00:40:08:	crucifixion. In John 19, Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. He read Jesus

00:40:08 – 00:40:13:	of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Maybe the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus

00:40:13 – 00:40:19:	was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic and Latin and in Greek. It was not

00:40:19 – 00:40:23:	written incidentally in Hebrew because there would have been no point. It wasn't that they ran out of

00:40:24 – 00:40:28:	room. It was if they put Hebrew above Christ's head, no one would have been able to read it.

00:40:29 – 00:40:34:	That's a big deal. It's a small detail. I don't think it's some huge profound insight,

00:40:35 – 00:40:40:	but oh, by the way, did you know that no one who is speaking Hebrew in Jesus' day? Most people

00:40:40 – 00:40:45:	probably don't know that. Please go look this stuff up. I can tell you, you can spend hours

00:40:45 – 00:40:52:	just on Wikipedia going through the various articles about the language of Jesus on Aramaic,

00:40:52 – 00:40:58:	on proto-Hebrew. Go do some reading and go do some wiki-holing where you dig down and dig through.

00:40:59 – 00:41:04:	You will find some places where some of the articles disagree, usually around some of these

00:41:04 – 00:41:11:	sensitive areas that we're talking about directly. Where they disagree, I would give the benefit

00:41:11 – 00:41:17:	of the doubt to the version that's less friendly to the modern narrative. To the idea, everyone from

00:41:17 – 00:41:22:	Adam to Jesus just spoke Hebrew and wrote in Hebrew because that was the universal language?

00:41:22 – 00:41:28:	No. These Semitic languages were basically a dead end. They're pretty primitive languages. They're

00:41:28 – 00:41:35:	not remotely sophisticated. It's something like Greek or Latin. Almost nothing is really downstream

00:41:35 – 00:41:42:	from them. They ran their course and then the civilizations went away and the languages went

00:41:42 – 00:41:47:	away. There was nothing that they contributed to later. That's not the case with the languages

00:41:47 – 00:41:50:	we're speaking today. English has had tributaries from many other languages.

00:41:52 – 00:41:57:	Their language is the winners. Hebrew is not a language of the winners. It's a language of

00:41:57 – 00:42:03:	the conquered and of the losers. It's worth putting special emphasis on the term that was

00:42:03 – 00:42:10:	actually on the cross, what Pilate actually put on the cross, and that was Jesus Nazareno

00:42:10 – 00:42:18:	Yudaiorum. That last word, Yudaiorum, is Judeans. That's the word from which we get

00:42:18 – 00:42:24:	Jews, as previously mentioned, in English. We ultimately derive it from the Latin.

00:42:25 – 00:42:30:	It's a demon name, basically. It is a term related to the people of a particular place.

00:42:30 – 00:42:34:	That's how the Romans named. That's how the Romans named everyone they encountered,

00:42:34 – 00:42:40:	was according to the land where they found them. That's where we get this term.

00:42:42 – 00:42:46:	The word Jew isn't even in Scripture in the original languages. That's the term that we use

00:42:46 – 00:42:55:	in English because in Scripture, it's Judean. As we mentioned the history, these are some of the

00:42:55 – 00:43:02:	tribes descended from Israel. On the subject of terms, I think it's important to note that

00:43:02 – 00:43:06:	this is one of the key places, particularly in Scripture and in conversation, where

00:43:07 – 00:43:15:	Hebrew ceases to mean the same thing. The key example for this is John 19-17.

00:43:16 – 00:43:21:	In the ESV, it says, and he went out, bearing his own cross to the place called the place of the

00:43:21 – 00:43:28:	skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. Now, if you're a King James reader, you know that is,

00:43:29 – 00:43:33:	he bearing his cross went forth into the place called the place of the skull, which is called

00:43:33 – 00:43:40:	in Hebrew Golgotha. Now, one of those is wrong because Hebrew and Aramaic are two different

00:43:40 – 00:43:46:	languages. I think it's notable that in many of the cases in Scripture in the New Testament,

00:43:46 – 00:43:52:	when Jesus is quoted, when he says things like Abba Father or Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabaqfani,

00:43:52 – 00:43:59:	he's speaking Aramaic. Growing up, no one ever taught me why. I thought, wow, why did he slip

00:43:59 – 00:44:04:	into some other language? Jesus, he's a Jew. Why is this Hebrew guy talking Aramaic all of a

00:44:04 – 00:44:10:	sudden? Did he speak Aramaic when he got excited? No, he was always speaking Aramaic to those around

00:44:10 – 00:44:18:	him. These things were recorded, and God through the Holy Spirit recorded these in the actual words

00:44:18 – 00:44:24:	that Jesus spoke because there were the words he was speaking all the time, but they weren't

00:44:24 – 00:44:30:	translated even today. So we hear Abba, and we hear Eloi instead of the translated word from the

00:44:30 – 00:44:36:	Aramaic. The reason that the King James gets this wrong, and yes, sorry guys, if you're a King James

00:44:36 – 00:44:42:	only, unless it gets a lot of things wrong, they're not hugely impactful. They did the best they could.

00:44:42 – 00:44:46:	If they had had more manuscripts, they would have translated a different Bible than the one they

00:44:46 – 00:44:52:	translated. It's useful. I think it's out of disuse. That's a conversation for another day.

00:44:53 – 00:45:01:	The important thing is, if you look in Greek in John 1917, the word that King James translates

00:45:01 – 00:45:10:	in Hebrew is hebreist. The problem here is that Hebrew means one of two things. Either Hebrew

00:45:10 – 00:45:15:	language means the Hebrew language, as you would say, the English language. When I say English

00:45:15 – 00:45:21:	language, you know that I don't mean an Englishman. See, that's the distinction. It could be the

00:45:21 – 00:45:29:	language of the Hebrew people, isn't the language of the English people, or it could be the specific

00:45:29 – 00:45:37:	language. Now, the distinction is that in Judah, in Judea, they were the Hebrew people, and so

00:45:37 – 00:45:43:	whatever language they were speaking in Judea was the Hebrew language because they were the Hebrew

00:45:43 – 00:45:50:	people. I hope I'm making this clear, but the Hebrew language of the Judean people was Aramaic.

00:45:51 – 00:45:55:	When it says the Hebrew language, it doesn't mean they were speaking Hebrew. It means the Hebrews

00:45:55 – 00:46:02:	were speaking their language, which was Aramaic. This is something that Josephus, who was the famous

00:46:02 – 00:46:08:	historian from the 1st century AD, he said himself, he was a Jew. He was well connected. He was well

00:46:08 – 00:46:15:	favored. He is viewed by Jews today as a traitor. For 1900 years, they wouldn't translate anything he

00:46:15 – 00:46:23:	had said because they were so angry at him for siding with the Romans. Josephus differentiated

00:46:23 – 00:46:28:	Hebrew from his language in that of the 1st century Israel. He refers to Hebrew words as belonging to

00:46:28 – 00:46:35:	the Hebrew tongue, but refers to Aramaic words as belonging to our tongue, or our language, or the

00:46:35 – 00:46:42:	language of our country. In Josephus, the Hebrew, the Jew of the 1st century, refers to his language

00:46:43 – 00:46:50:	in the possessive. He always refers to Aramaic. He never refers to Hebrew as in the Hebrew that

00:46:50 – 00:46:56:	was spoken by Moses, or the Hebrew that was spoken in 800 BC because nobody spoke it anymore.

00:46:56 – 00:47:00:	He was very well educated. He may have known it, perhaps, because he was so well educated,

00:47:00 – 00:47:03:	but again, it would have been an academic exercise and not a social one.

00:47:06 – 00:47:12:	This is also borne out as we find texts, for example, from the Kumran Caves and other places.

00:47:12 – 00:47:21:	When we find texts, if it's using what we see today as what we call the Hebrew alphabet,

00:47:21 – 00:47:27:	it's always written in Aramaic. There's nothing written in Hebrew in what we call the Hebrew

00:47:27 – 00:47:31:	language or the Hebrew alphabet today. I realize some of this is probably getting confusing because

00:47:31 – 00:47:36:	that's the point of discussing it. The same word is used in different contexts, I mean different

00:47:36 – 00:47:43:	things. While that's not necessarily duplicitous, it's very easy to get lazy or to get sloppy and

00:47:43 – 00:47:48:	then to make errors. The downstream have serious problems because when you look in a place like

00:47:48 – 00:47:53:	the Kumran Cave and you don't find much, if any, Hebrew, there's a little bit in there,

00:47:53 – 00:47:58:	but I think it's some of the newer stuff. It's important because this was an archive.

00:47:59 – 00:48:03:	I think today when we think, oh, well, you found something in one language and something in another

00:48:03 – 00:48:08:	language, you probably have hundreds of books in your homes. Most people listening easily have

00:48:08 – 00:48:13:	many dozens, probably hundreds of books in your home. The threshold for writing something down

00:48:13 – 00:48:19:	today for putting something on paper is basically zero. I have probably 800 books in my house.

00:48:20 – 00:48:23:	A lot of them are crap. They were things that didn't need to be put down on paper.

00:48:23 – 00:48:29:	That wasn't the case 2000 years ago. It was so incredibly expensive to record anything

00:48:29 – 00:48:34:	that for something to be written down, whether on parchment or on papyrus,

00:48:34 – 00:48:39:	meant that it was profoundly important. The preponderance of the evidence when you're looking

00:48:39 – 00:48:44:	at whatever is written tells you about the languages that they spoke. If no one was speaking

00:48:44 – 00:48:48:	what we call Hebrew, then you're not going to find much, if any of it. That's what we find.

00:48:48 – 00:48:53:	We find Aramaic in some of the other languages. We do not find what is called Hebrew today.

00:48:53 – 00:48:59:	And it seems like this is somewhat confusing, perhaps, but we really have the same thing in

00:48:59 – 00:49:07:	English. Typically, a German will speak German. Exact same noun used in two very different ways.

00:49:08 – 00:49:17:	The English speak English. However, Americans speak English. And perhaps one of the best examples

00:49:18 – 00:49:24:	Belgians who live in Belgium don't speak Belgian. They speak Dutch, French, and German.

00:49:26 – 00:49:33:	So just because a term has multiple different meanings doesn't mean that the meanings are

00:49:33 – 00:49:37:	identical. It doesn't mean the term is always used in the same way. And Scripture also doesn't

00:49:37 – 00:49:44:	always record the language of the original interactions. So it is worth noting Christ's

00:49:44 – 00:49:51:	new Greek. He probably used Greek a lot in his ministry, because do remember he was ministering

00:49:52 – 00:50:00:	at times in the vicinity of Greek-speaking cities. He would probably have used Greek

00:50:00 – 00:50:05:	to speak to those people because many of them probably were not particularly good at Aramaic.

00:50:06 – 00:50:11:	They were, in some cases, Greeks who had moved from Greece to these Greek colonies,

00:50:11 – 00:50:17:	or had moved to Roman colonies. Perhaps they were from somewhere else in the Roman Empire,

00:50:17 – 00:50:22:	but the language of everyday life in the Roman Empire at that time was Greek.

00:50:23 – 00:50:30:	Yes, that seems confusing as well, but the Romans used Greek because some of the peoples they had

00:50:30 – 00:50:36:	conquered, in particular the Greeks, spoke Greek. It was an easy language to use for everyday

00:50:36 – 00:50:41:	interactions, for commerce, and all the things you need to run everyday life in an empire.

00:50:42 – 00:50:46:	Latin was still the language of the empire at the higher level, so in the Senate, the laws,

00:50:46 – 00:50:53:	and things like that. But they spoke Greek, and so Christ, again, would also have used Greek.

00:50:56 – 00:50:59:	And this is something that's made very clear in the New Testament itself,

00:50:59 – 00:51:04:	as we all know New Testament quotes the Old Testament over and over and over again.

00:51:04 – 00:51:09:	You can find numerous web pages that show all the connections of direct quotes of the New

00:51:09 – 00:51:15:	Testament quoting the Old Testament. The reason that's important is that many, I think perhaps

00:51:15 – 00:51:18:	the majority, you can correct me if I'm wrong, if you know off the top of your head, but I think the

00:51:18 – 00:51:23:	majority of the quotes of the Old Testament and the New Testament quote the Septuagint,

00:51:23 – 00:51:27:	they quote the Greek. Now, it's not that it's two different Bibles, it's just that there are

00:51:27 – 00:51:31:	different ways of phrasing things and perhaps different word order that would be preserved

00:51:31 – 00:51:39:	differently in Aramaic or Hebrew versus Greek. And so we know that the writers of the New Testament,

00:51:39 – 00:51:45:	that the men who are recorded as speaking spoke Greek because they quote scripture in Greek.

00:51:45 – 00:51:51:	They frequently quote the Septuagint, not exclusively, which is important. As we said earlier,

00:51:51 – 00:51:57:	I don't reject one over the other because scripture doesn't, so I'm not going to do something that

00:51:57 – 00:52:03:	God didn't do. But it's important to know that Greek is frequently used as the reference of the

00:52:03 – 00:52:08:	Old Testament in the New. That is substantial, that's important. And it's something that you don't

00:52:08 – 00:52:13:	hear very much unless you actually get into these fiddly arguments about which one is better.

00:52:13 – 00:52:18:	We're not trying to make the argument for which one is better. Personally, I wish that Hebrew no

00:52:18 – 00:52:23:	longer existed. I think it's doing more harm than good. It's not an argument I'm going to make here.

00:52:23 – 00:52:29:	It's simply important to note that Greek is what Jesus spoke. It's what Paul spoke. They all spoke

00:52:29 – 00:52:33:	it. They spoke other languages too. They're not like the average American. They could hold more

00:52:33 – 00:52:39:	than one language in their head. And they did so on a daily basis. And so when scripture quotes

00:52:39 – 00:52:44:	scripture from the New to the Old, it frequently quotes scripture, God, in Greek.

00:52:47 – 00:52:52:	For the percentage of quotes that come from the Septuagint versus other translations,

00:52:52 – 00:52:57:	it would depend on whether you're counting direct or also indirect. And indirect starts to get

00:52:57 – 00:53:03:	difficult because there are a lot of those. I believe the standard number as it were for

00:53:03 – 00:53:12:	direct quotations from the Old Testament is 283. And 170 of those are essentially from the

00:53:12 – 00:53:19:	Septuagint. So 60%. So yes, the majority of the quotations that are direct quotations

00:53:19 – 00:53:23:	from the Old Testament in the New Testament are from the Greek.

00:53:25 – 00:53:32:	But just to emphasize what I said about scripture not always recording the original language in

00:53:32 – 00:53:38:	which something took place, in what language did Moses interact with Pharaoh? Scripture doesn't

00:53:38 – 00:53:45:	tell us. It was probably Egyptian because he was educated in Pharaoh's household. He spoke Egyptian.

00:53:45 – 00:53:51:	It would have made sense for him to deal in the language of the Egyptian court when he was dealing

00:53:51 – 00:53:58:	with the Egyptian court. Scripture doesn't tell us that. But from context, we can of course infer

00:53:58 – 00:54:04:	that as a reasonable conclusion. Another thing that we can infer as a reasonable conclusion

00:54:06 – 00:54:10:	from the New Testament, from what it actually tells us when it does tell us the language of

00:54:10 – 00:54:17:	the original, when Christ is speaking Aramaic in the cases where he is in Scripture, we are told

00:54:17 – 00:54:24:	specifically that this was an Aramaic. Well, that implies he was not always using Aramaic. He may

00:54:24 – 00:54:30:	have been using Greek more than Aramaic, in fact, because it is specifically noted when he used Aramaic.

00:54:31 – 00:54:35:	Now, you don't have to necessarily draw that conclusion. I'm not saying this is a tenet of

00:54:35 – 00:54:40:	the faith and you absolutely have to believe Christ spent most of his time speaking Coina

00:54:40 – 00:54:47:	Greek. I'm not saying that. But it is a reasonable inference to draw from what Scripture does tell

00:54:47 – 00:54:54:	us. We know that he would have used Greek. He lived in an area that spoke Greek. He lived around

00:54:54 – 00:55:00:	people who spoke Greek. He dealt with people who spoke Greek. He undoubtedly used Greek.

00:55:00 – 00:55:04:	In the last point to hammer home is that the reason that was happening is that nobody spoke Hebrew.

00:55:05 – 00:55:11:	Nobody spoke Hebrew. It may have been done ceremonially in the temple, that's likely. It

00:55:11 – 00:55:15:	may be that a few of the educated men, including probably Christ himself because he was educated

00:55:15 – 00:55:24:	in the temple, would have been able to read the original Hebrew language, actual Hebrew alphabet

00:55:24 – 00:55:31:	scrolls. But they had to be translated because apart from the few experts, nobody else knew it.

00:55:32 – 00:55:40:	And yes, this is a small point. This isn't earth shattering. But it's really interesting that most

00:55:40 – 00:55:46:	people don't know this. Because again, you see what's called the Hebrew language smacked on

00:55:46 – 00:55:50:	everything today. And it's like, oh, that's the Bible language. That's the language of Jesus.

00:55:50 – 00:55:54:	That's what we automatically think. I thought that until a couple of years ago when I learned

00:55:54 – 00:55:59:	about this, what's going on? Why didn't someone just tell me the truth? What's the difference

00:55:59 – 00:56:05:	between the true version and the made up version? Well, there are things downstream from the made

00:56:05 – 00:56:11:	up version that turned out not to be very good for Christians. I'll be in future episodes. But

00:56:11 – 00:56:16:	we're just making the case today that just know for a fact that Jesus was not running around

00:56:16 – 00:56:22:	talking Hebrew because no one would have understood it. The Hebrews didn't speak Hebrew.

00:56:22 – 00:56:28:	They were still Hebrew. They were still descended from Abraham, which is one of the last things that

00:56:28 – 00:56:34:	we're going to get into here today. We're going to conclude this just by reading a number of passages

00:56:34 – 00:56:41:	from the New Testament that specifically refute the claim that's very often made. It usually flares

00:56:41 – 00:56:47:	up around Easter during Holy Week. Usually by Good Friday, there have been think pieces and people

00:56:47 – 00:56:54:	fretting, saying it's so anti-Semitic for people to say that the Jews killed Christ. The Romans

00:56:54 – 00:57:01:	killed Christ. Our sins killed Christ. Anything killed Christ except for the Jews. It is true.

00:57:02 – 00:57:07:	Your sins killed Christ. My sins killed Christ. Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

00:57:08 – 00:57:15:	Saying how that happened does not diminish the soteriological aspect of it. There's no point

00:57:15 – 00:57:21:	in making any argument about the facts that try to defend soteriology against men who don't dispute

00:57:21 – 00:57:26:	the soteriology. We know how we are saved, and we know why we need to be saved. We need to be

00:57:26 – 00:57:32:	saved from our own sin. God did that on the cross. God's sacrifice on the cross was for us,

00:57:32 – 00:57:39:	and it was our sins that caused it. Our sins are the ultimate cause. The penultimate cause

00:57:40 – 00:57:46:	was the Jews. The Jews who had been trying to kill Christ for three and a half years

00:57:46 – 00:57:53:	finally succeeded, and then the proximate cause was the Romans. Of course, it was Pilate. Jesus

00:57:53 – 00:57:59:	suffered under Pontius Pilate. That's his epitaph for eternity in the creeds. Talk about the legacy.

00:58:00 – 00:58:05:	The guy shows up briefly in history, and he's known as the man who scourges the Son of God,

00:58:06 – 00:58:13:	and yet his actions are less egregious than what the Jews did. I can say that because that's

00:58:13 – 00:58:19:	literally what Jesus says. He says that those who turn me over to you have the greater sin.

00:58:21 – 00:58:27:	When God says that, we don't get to disagree. When there are the hysterics around who killed

00:58:27 – 00:58:32:	Jesus, it is not lying. It's not lying to say that the Romans killed Christ. They crucified him. Why?

00:58:32 – 00:58:36:	Because they were the only ones with the legal authority to do so. The Jews had been trying to

00:58:36 – 00:58:40:	murder Christ for years. They had been trying to stone him anything they could do to kill him.

00:58:40 – 00:58:46:	They finally got their ducks in a row politically and coerced Herod and Pontius Pilate into doing

00:58:46 – 00:58:50:	it for them, not because they wouldn't have done it themselves, but because they didn't have the

00:58:50 – 00:58:57:	legal authority to do it. Obviously, Jesus was incarnate for her sins. It's not dismissing or

00:58:57 – 00:59:02:	minimizing or taking anything away from the fact that we are the reason that Christ had to die on

00:59:02 – 00:59:08:	the cross for us. It still matters who did it. The reason we're doing these episodes is that

00:59:09 – 00:59:18:	Christians have been put in this box where we're not allowed to speak as God speaks. Why? Because

00:59:18 – 00:59:23:	the Jews. To say the Jews, again, as I said at the very beginning, makes people frightened,

00:59:23 – 00:59:27:	makes them nervous and scared. They don't know what's going to happen next, but they know it's

00:59:27 – 00:59:33:	not going to be good. That is not the Christian response to anything. We should be fearless and

00:59:33 – 00:59:39:	we should be confident in our God and in the truth, especially the truth as it's found in Scripture.

00:59:40 – 00:59:45:	These next passages we're going to look at are specifically all the cases. They were just cherry

00:59:45 – 00:59:50:	picking some of the myriad passages in the New Testament where it explicitly says that it was

00:59:50 – 00:59:55:	the Jews who were trying to kill Christ because when they ultimately succeeded in killing Christ,

59:56 – 01:00:01
mission accomplished. You cannot possibly look at all these passages and then get to the crucifixion

01:00:01 – 01:00:06:	and think, wow, I can't believe the Romans did that just out of nowhere. It would be laughable.

01:00:06 – 01:00:11:	No Christian reading the Bible would ever reach that conclusion, and yet so many Christians and

01:00:11 – 01:00:17:	pastors reached that conclusion today. I've heard things that we're going to read here refuted from

01:00:17 – 01:00:24:	pulpits where pastors are afraid to attribute to the Jews, to the crowd, to the masses,

01:00:24 – 01:00:31:	to the group that which Scripture attributes to them. One of the first ones is the very

01:00:31 – 01:00:37:	beginning of Matthew at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Interestingly, this is actually started,

01:00:37 – 01:00:42:	this is prior to his ministry. The very first time the Jew tried to kill him was Herod the Great.

01:00:43 – 01:00:48:	As soon as he was born and the news came, Herod the Great, who was a ruler, but he was also a Jew,

01:00:49 – 01:00:53:	said, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take this child and his

01:00:53 – 01:00:57:	mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you. For Herod the Great is about to search

01:00:57 – 01:01:04:	for the child to destroy him. So literally Jesus' entire life on earth was bookended by Jews trying

01:01:04 – 01:01:10:	to kill him. I think that's important because one of the conversations that frequently comes up

01:01:10 – 01:01:15:	is to try to shift the emphasis to the political. In Herod's case, he was undoubtedly political.

01:01:15 – 01:01:20:	All he knew was that someone was saying maybe some prophecy had been fulfilled and maybe some

01:01:20 – 01:01:26:	Messiah or something is happening. He knew the prophecies. He just didn't want any competition.

01:01:26 – 01:01:31:	He didn't want uprisings. He'd had enough of that. And so easy thing was to go kill a few babies.

01:01:32 – 01:01:37:	Later on, when the Jews are chasing Jesus around trying to stone him repeatedly,

01:01:38 – 01:01:44:	it's not for political reasons. It's for blasphemy. It's for when he says he's the Son of God.

01:01:44 – 01:01:49:	That's when they try to kill him. And so when we finally get to the crucifixion on Good Friday,

01:01:49 – 01:01:55:	and everyone wants to line up and say it was the Pharisees who were entirely responsible

01:01:55 – 01:01:59:	and it was because they were jealous of the power, it doesn't bear out when you actually

01:01:59 – 01:02:03:	look at the verses that lead up to that for three and a half years that say the complete opposite.

01:02:04 – 01:02:09:	Now, of course, that is not to deny that the Pharisees did in fact seek to destroy him.

01:02:09 – 01:02:15:	The point is that when pastors and others try to minimize the participation of the people,

01:02:15 – 01:02:21:	they are perverting scripture. And so this next one does say that the Pharisees were seeking to

01:02:21 – 01:02:27:	destroy him, Matthew 12 14, but the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him.

01:02:29 – 01:02:33:	We should note the context of this because this is what often happens in the pages of scripture.

01:02:34 – 01:02:39:	Christ performs a miracle and then the Jews seek to kill him because of the miracle,

01:02:40 – 01:02:47:	or some extraneous matter related to the miracle. In this case, it is when Christ healed the man

01:02:47 – 01:02:53:	with the withered hand, well, he healed him on the Sabbath. And so the Pharisees decided that that was

01:02:53 – 01:03:00:	prohibited by scripture related to the keeping of the Sabbath, the third commandment,

01:03:01 – 01:03:05:	and so they conspired to kill him. Of course, they had other reasons as well,

01:03:06 – 01:03:13:	but Christ very clearly explained it is permissible to do good on the Sabbath. The point of the Sabbath

01:03:13 – 01:03:19:	is not to sit on your couch and stare at the ceiling. That's not what it means to keep the Sabbath,

01:03:19 – 01:03:25:	but that is a discussion for another time. The same thing played out when Jesus healed the blind man

01:03:25 – 01:03:31:	and told him to go and wash his eyes. And when the people saw that he was healed,

01:03:31 – 01:03:35:	they became very upset. And there was a long scene there where they interrogate his parents,

01:03:35 – 01:03:43:	they interrogate all the witnesses, and they're angry that Jesus had healed a blind man on the Sabbath.

01:03:43 – 01:03:49:	It infuriated them. And that's a particularly interesting one because in, I think it's Isaiah

01:03:49 – 01:03:58:	37 and Isaiah 42, healing the blind is one of the prophecies of God, one of the prophecies pointing

01:03:58 – 01:04:08:	to the Messiah. And when the scene erupts where Jesus healed the blind man and people are exclaiming,

01:04:08 – 01:04:12:	one of them says, this has never happened in the history of the world. So it wasn't that there had

01:04:12 – 01:04:16:	been other prophets in the past who had healed the blind. There had been other healings, but

01:04:17 – 01:04:23:	Jesus was the first to ever heal the blind. And that's profoundly important because it's a fulfillment

01:04:23 – 01:04:31:	of a messianic prophecy. And yet, what was the concern of the Jews? Not that the messianic

01:04:31 – 01:04:38:	prophecy had been fulfilled before their eyes. Not that a miracle had occurred, but that some guy

01:04:38 – 01:04:44:	broke the rules, broke their rules as they interpreted them, which is crucial because

01:04:44 – 01:04:48:	their interpretations of the Sabbath, as Jesus makes clear in those passages,

01:04:48 – 01:04:54:	is not scriptural, is not a godly interpretation. Jesus says, if your ox falls in a ditch on the

01:04:54 – 01:04:58:	Sabbath, or you're not going to get it out, someone falls in a well, you're not going to get

01:04:58 – 01:05:04:	him out. Of course you are. Their definition of work was nonsense. And so Jesus demonstrates

01:05:05 – 01:05:12:	through acting justly and in a godly fashion, the hypocrisy and the evil of the Jews who became

01:05:12 – 01:05:17:	incensed at this miracle, at this blessing for a man who had been blind from birth.

01:05:17 – 01:05:22:	That was one of the questions they, who sinned, this man or his parents? And when the man was healed,

01:05:23 – 01:05:28:	suddenly they don't care about the trick question, now they care about the gotcha question.

01:05:28 – 01:05:32:	Because all that they ever wanted to do was to trip him up to destroy him.

01:05:34 – 01:05:37:	I don't think that any other people on the planet would have acted this way.

01:05:38 – 01:05:43:	If Jesus had come to the Japanese, or to the Germans, or to the Ugandans,

01:05:43 – 01:05:47:	and started performing miracles and healing them, I don't think anyone else had murdered him.

01:05:47 – 01:05:51:	I think part of the reason that Jesus was born a Jew among Jews

01:05:51 – 01:05:55:	was that no one else would behave in this way. That's speculative. Maybe I'm being unfair,

01:05:55 – 01:06:00:	but I sincerely believe it. I don't think anyone else who shows up and can heal the blind and the

01:06:00 – 01:06:07:	deaf and the lame is going to be murdered by people. For what? For fulfilling prophecy.

01:06:07 – 01:06:11:	Like they were told that these things would happen, and when they did, they became enraged.

01:06:11 – 01:06:16:	And in fact, they frequently said, you have a demon. One of the common refrains,

01:06:16 – 01:06:21:	I think it was in John, of the crowds of Jews to scream at Jesus as you have a demon. How could

01:06:21 – 01:06:28:	you say this? I think it's very profound in exemplifying the spiritual nature of the people

01:06:28 – 01:06:32:	to whom he was going. Now, obviously, it wasn't all of them. There were followers, there were

01:06:32 – 01:06:38:	disciples who were Jews, just like the others. The difference was that they believed. They believed

01:06:38 – 01:06:42:	in the promise of the Messiah, and when they saw the promises fulfilled, they rejoiced.

01:06:43 – 01:06:48:	That's the difference. It's not that all Jews are bad, or that all Jews are saved,

01:06:48 – 01:06:53:	is that when the promise of Scripture is fulfilled in Christ, those with faith,

01:06:53 – 01:06:57:	those who are elect, will receive it with gladness, and the rest will shout,

01:06:57 – 01:07:01:	he has a demon and try to kill him. And we see that sort of energy to this day.

01:07:01 – 01:07:05:	And yes, that is the same sort of accusation we see today.

01:07:06 – 01:07:13:	Freud did not get the idea of projection from nowhere. This is something that the Jews and

01:07:13 – 01:07:21:	Satan have been doing for a very long time. It is to accuse the enemy of exactly what you

01:07:21 – 01:07:27:	yourself are doing. This is Alinsky again as well, because all of this has the same father.

01:07:28 – 01:07:35:	And so that is why the Jews are flinging the accusation of you have a demon at Christ. Well,

01:07:35 – 01:07:41:	no, because the demon is on the other side, Satan's on the other side. Look at how many times

01:07:42 – 01:07:49:	Christ had to cast out demons during his ministry. There was a very real and active and

01:07:49 – 01:07:56:	widespread problem with possession and demon oppression in this part of the world at this time.

01:07:57 – 01:08:01:	And that's why they fling the accusation at Christ. Of course, it's also an insult they

01:08:01 – 01:08:06:	like to fling at the Samaritans, which is why at one point they accuse him of being a Samaritan

01:08:06 – 01:08:10:	and having a demon. Now, there are other overtones there as well. They're trying to

01:08:10 – 01:08:14:	gin up an excuse to murder him, because a Samaritan was not allowed to be where he was

01:08:14 – 01:08:19:	located in the temple at the time. But that accusation of having a demon,

01:08:21 – 01:08:24:	we see that all down through history. We see it here in the pages of scripture,

01:08:24 – 01:08:30:	and we see it today on social media and elsewhere. But the next reading we have

01:08:31 – 01:08:38:	is one of the most famous or infamous, of course. And that's the crowd in Pilate's courtyard.

01:08:38 – 01:08:40:	I'll just read the whole section.

01:09:09 – 01:09:16:	Now, the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.

01:09:17 – 01:09:21:	The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release for you?

01:09:21 – 01:09:27:	And they said, Barabbas, Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called

01:09:27 – 01:09:33:	Christ? They all said, Let him be crucified. And he said, Why, what evil has he done?

01:09:34 – 01:09:37:	But they shouted all the more. Let him be crucified.

01:09:40 – 01:09:44:	It is not just the Pharisees. It is not just the leaders of the Jews

01:09:44 – 01:09:49:	who scream for Christ to be crucified. And we'll read another section

01:09:49 – 01:09:55:	that adds more to this as well. It is the Jews themselves. It is the crowd that screams for

01:09:55 – 01:09:58:	Barabbas for the murderer over Christ.

01:10:02 – 01:10:07:	That cannot be avoided. And we are not permitted to minimize that. That is what Scripture says.

01:10:07 – 01:10:12:	That is what we are required to believe. You don't subtract from Scripture. You don't add

01:10:12 – 01:10:17:	to Scripture. Revelation is very clear about the warning for those who would do either of those

01:10:17 – 01:10:26:	things. And it is worth especially noting Pilate tries repeatedly to free Christ.

01:10:27 – 01:10:33:	Pilate asked multiple times why they want to kill Christ. He picks Barabbas as the option.

01:10:34 – 01:10:39:	Because do note that Pilate is the one who selects Barabbas. Pilate doesn't just select a prisoner

01:10:39 – 01:10:44:	at random. He doesn't say, Would you like me to free any prisoner? He says, Would you like this

01:10:44 – 01:10:49:	murderous rebel who is probably going to go out and murder someone the same day he's released?

01:10:50 – 01:10:56:	Or do you want Christ? He stacks the deck as much as he possibly can to try to free Christ.

01:10:58 – 01:11:01:	The crowd will have none of it. The crowd wants his blood.

01:11:03 – 01:11:08:	And I think that's the chief reason that we focus so much on pastors and teachers because

01:11:08 – 01:11:12:	the crowd was doing what they had been taught. But the crowd did it.

01:11:13 – 01:11:19:	The Pharisees and the high priests absolutely ginned up hatred against Christ. Just as we see

01:11:19 – 01:11:26:	today, we see church leaders on our own J ginning up hatred against men, seeking their murder.

01:11:27 – 01:11:31:	And people go along with it. People will happily go along with it. Because you know what? When your

01:11:31 – 01:11:36:	church leader stands up and said, This man is a Nazi. He needs to be thrown out and destroyed.

01:11:36 – 01:11:42:	He needs to be killed. Who's going to argue? Nobody likes that. And so it's very easy for the

01:11:42 – 01:11:48:	crowd to go along. God doesn't care what your station is. Whether you are the leader or you are

01:11:48 – 01:11:55:	someone at the very bottom in the crowd, just a nameless face. If your voice speaks in opposition

01:11:55 – 01:11:59:	to that, which is godly, you are guilty of the same murder as everyone else.

01:11:59 – 01:12:04:	In John 5, it's written,

01:12:04 – 01:12:08:	The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

01:12:08 – 01:12:13:	And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

01:12:13 – 01:12:17:	But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now and I am working.

01:12:17 – 01:12:21:	This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only

01:12:21 – 01:12:27:	breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

01:12:27 – 01:12:30:	And at the beginning of John 7, it says,

01:12:30 – 01:12:35:	After this, Jesus went about to Galilee. He would not go into Judea because the Jews were

01:12:35 – 01:12:38:	seeking to kill him. And then later in John 7, he says,

01:12:39 – 01:12:43:	Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?

01:12:44 – 01:12:48:	The crowd answered, You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill you? The Pharisees heard the

01:12:48 – 01:12:53:	crowd muttering these things about him. And the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to

01:12:53 – 01:13:00:	arrest him. I think that's an interesting passage, because it was the crowd that wanted Jesus dead.

01:13:00 – 01:13:04:	And it was the Pharisees and the chief priests who responded to the demand.

01:13:05 – 01:13:09:	See, we're always told that, Oh, it was a chief priest that were the gang leaders.

01:13:10 – 01:13:14:	It was a team effort, because the chief priests and the Pharisees, they had their own agenda.

01:13:15 – 01:13:22:	And it was a wicked one, but they often followed the lead of the crowd. The crowd of what? The

01:13:22 – 01:13:29:	crowd of Jews. Not every Jew, because obviously when Jesus went around in Galilee, he was with

01:13:29 – 01:13:34:	Jews. He was with his disciples. They were Jews. It wasn't all of them, but it was a small minority

01:13:34 – 01:13:40:	who were faithful. The rest were either confused or they were murderous. And the confused he'd

01:13:40 – 01:13:45:	preached to and the murderous he typically fled. He would go to a place and speak for a little while,

01:13:45 – 01:13:49:	and then he would disappear because they were trying to murder him continuously for three years.

01:13:50 – 01:13:54:	I mean, it's like a Benny Hill skit where you have like three times speed, and somebody just

01:13:54 – 01:13:59:	running back and forth across the screen, and you have the crowd chasing and waving pitchforks

01:13:59 – 01:14:03:	and torches. That was basically Jesus' ministry. You would go and do something miraculous and

01:14:03 – 01:14:08:	preach something wonderful, and then everyone tried to murder him. And he had to flee with

01:14:08 – 01:14:13:	a few followers he had that you could trust not to try to murder him. That was his entire life

01:14:14 – 01:14:21:	as Jesus, the minister to his people. And for three and a half years, he did that. And finally,

01:14:21 – 01:14:28:	God permitted them to fulfill their murderous goal, because it was also God's goal, their evil,

01:14:28 – 01:14:35:	what they meant for evil. God intended for good. God used the evil of the Jews. He used the cowardice

01:14:35 – 01:14:40:	of Pilate, who knew that he was doing something wrong, but he didn't want to take the political

01:14:40 – 01:14:46:	risk. So he stacked the deck and then let the chips fall where they may. God used all of those

01:14:46 – 01:14:52:	failings to pour out the punishment for our sins on Jesus on the cross. All this was done for our

01:14:52 – 01:14:56:	benefit. And that doesn't change the fact that all of it was evil when it was happening.

01:14:57 – 01:15:06:	To add to the narrative of the Jews in Pilate's courtyard, Pilate at least twice in this narrative

01:15:06 – 01:15:13:	says that he will punish Christ and then release him. He is attempting to appease the Jews by

01:15:13 – 01:15:19:	punishing Christ, but attempting not to have this innocent man's blood on his hands. And yes,

01:15:19 – 01:15:25:	he does wash his hands of the matter by releasing Christ, and so from Luke 23.

01:15:26 – 01:15:30:	When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean, and when he learned that he belonged

01:15:30 – 01:15:34:	to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time.

01:15:35 – 01:15:40:	When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard

01:15:40 – 01:15:46:	about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. So he questioned him at some length,

01:15:46 – 01:15:51:	but he made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by vehemently accusing him,

01:15:51 – 01:15:55:	and Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then,

01:15:55 – 01:16:00:	arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends

01:16:00 – 01:16:04:	with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other.

01:16:05 – 01:16:09:	Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers of the people,

01:16:09 – 01:16:14:	and said to them, You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people,

01:16:14 – 01:16:18:	and after examining him before you, behold, I do not find this man guilty of any of your

01:16:18 – 01:16:25:	charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death

01:16:25 – 01:16:32:	has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him. So again, you see in this narrative,

01:16:32 – 01:16:38:	Pilate is attempting to do anything he can. To not kill Christ, to not have to deal with this issue,

01:16:38 – 01:16:41:	he sends him over to Herod, hoping that Herod will be able to deal with it.

01:16:42 – 01:16:48:	And so Christ stands before a Jewish ruler, accused by the Jews standing by. And so they treat

01:16:48 – 01:16:54:	him shamefully and send him back, after mocking him, send him back to Pilate. Pilate again tries to

01:16:55 – 01:16:59:	not have to crucify Christ. He says, I will punish the man and then release him.

01:17:01 – 01:17:05:	And then to continue reading, but they all cried out together, away with this man,

01:17:05 – 01:17:09:	and released to us Barabbas, a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection

01:17:09 – 01:17:15:	started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release

01:17:15 – 01:17:21:	Jesus. But they kept shouting, crucify, crucify him. A third time he said to them,

01:17:21 – 01:17:27:	why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish

01:17:27 – 01:17:33:	and release him. But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified,

01:17:33 – 01:17:38:	and their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the

01:17:38 – 01:17:43:	man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered

01:17:43 – 01:17:52:	Jesus over to their will. Scripture is very clear again. It says that Pilate desires to release

01:17:52 – 01:18:01:	Jesus. But the crowd, the Jews, want him crucified. And more than that, because of course we have,

01:18:01 – 01:18:08:	from Matthew in Matthew 27, and all the people answered, his blood be on us and on our children.

01:18:10 – 01:18:15:	That is in response to Pilate saying, I am innocent of this man's blood, see to it yourselves.

01:18:17 – 01:18:24:	The Jews call down a generational curse for Christ's blood on themselves, on themselves and on their

01:18:24 – 01:18:32:	children. That is what Scripture says. So Christians are not, again, Christians are not permitted

01:18:33 – 01:18:40:	to minimize what Scripture says about the guilt and the evil of the Jews. That does not mean they

01:18:40 – 01:18:46:	can't be Christian, because of course they can repent. Even crucifying Christ isn't the unforgivable

01:18:46 – 01:18:55:	sin. However, being impenitent is unforgivable. And the Jews, by and large, are impenitent.

01:18:56 – 01:19:00:	Ask them today. You will see, even just go on social media and search for it.

01:19:02 – 01:19:05:	There are many of them who will say, if Christ came back, we'd crucify Him again.

01:19:08 – 01:19:11:	To this day, they are proud of what they did in Pilate's courtyard.

01:19:11 – 01:19:15:	Now, again, that does not apply to those who have repented, who have converted, who have

01:19:15 – 01:19:21:	ceased to be Jews and become Christians, because that in this case is what it takes. You have

01:19:21 – 01:19:29:	to cease to be a Jew, to be a Christian. But many of them are proud of what their ancestors did.

01:19:29 – 01:19:35:	That's the generational curse, his blood on those in that courtyard and on their children.

01:19:35 – 01:19:42:	That is the word of God. That is what Scripture says. That is what Christians are required to

01:19:42 – 01:19:50:	believe. And it's, of course, the most ironic blasphemy imaginable, because we too pray for

01:19:50 – 01:19:55:	Christ's blood to be upon us, upon our children. But from the complete opposite direction,

01:19:55 – 01:20:02:	we wish to receive the forgiveness of sins found in that blood. They had nothing but contempt for

01:20:03 – 01:20:08:	it, and they have nothing but contempt for it to this day. So the blood of Christ is upon everyone,

01:20:09 – 01:20:13:	but it doesn't mean the same thing. When the blood of Christ is upon the elect,

01:20:13 – 01:20:18:	it is for their salvation. When the blood of Christ is upon those who despise Him,

01:20:18 – 01:20:25:	it is for their eternal damnation, which is tragic. And I think that we'll get into it in

01:20:25 – 01:20:30:	a future episode, but I think it's worth noting that today you have the Zionists and you have the

01:20:30 – 01:20:36:	John Haggis and even the Pope himself in the 60s effectively saying, we don't need to evangelize the

01:20:36 – 01:20:43:	Jews or just find the way they are. Not only is that blasphemy, not only is it absolutely false

01:20:43 – 01:20:50:	doctrine, but it's the worst possible thing for the Jews. If you hate Jews, then yeah,

01:20:50 – 01:20:55:	leave them alone. Don't tell them about God. If you hate Jews and want to seem burning in

01:20:55 – 01:21:01:	eternity, then just let them be because that's the track that they're on. The only loving thing that

01:21:01 – 01:21:07:	can be possibly done for this group of people is to bring the gospel to them, something incidentally

01:21:07 – 01:21:15:	is illegal in Israel. You'll be deported if you try to do that. And that spirit is exemplified

01:21:15 – 01:21:20:	after Christ's crucifixion. I think it's important. Like we said, part of the reason we're talking about

01:21:20 – 01:21:24:	this particular thing is that there are many pastors who are afraid to say this stuff from the

01:21:24 – 01:21:31:	pulpit or in Bible study. They want to hem and haw and try to deflect blame from the crowd of Jews

01:21:31 – 01:21:36:	to the small group of people. Listen to the preaching of Peter in Acts 3. While he clung

01:21:36 – 01:21:40:	to Peter and John and all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico

01:21:40 – 01:21:46:	called Solomon's. And when Peter saw he addressed the people, men of Israel, why do you wonder at

01:21:46 – 01:21:51:	this? Or why do you stare at us? As though by our own power or piety, we have made him walk,

01:21:51 – 01:21:56:	the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified

01:21:56 – 01:22:02:	his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had

01:22:02 – 01:22:08:	decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murder to be

01:22:08 – 01:22:14:	granted to you. And you killed the author of life whom God raised from the dead. To this we are

01:22:14 – 01:22:19:	witnesses. And his name by faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know.

01:22:19 – 01:22:24:	And the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you

01:22:24 – 01:22:30:	all. And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers. But what

01:22:30 – 01:22:35:	God foretold by the bough of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled,

01:22:35 – 01:22:40:	repent therefore and turn back. This is everything that Cori and I just said.

01:22:42 – 01:22:47:	Peter, as soon as he gets us some preaches, he doesn't say it was the Pharisees that did it. He

01:22:47 – 01:22:52:	doesn't say your rulers are bad that you're all right. He says, men of Israel, you murdered God.

01:22:54 – 01:23:02:	And he also offers forgiveness. He says, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers.

01:23:02 – 01:23:06:	As Cori just said, it wasn't the unforgivable sin. Even murdering God on the cross was not

01:23:06 – 01:23:13:	unforgivable. And yet they continue to by and large to persist in their evil. That is what

01:23:13 – 01:23:18:	the law and the gospel are for. You must deliver to a lot of those who are impenitent in their sins.

01:23:20 – 01:23:25:	Peter was looking at this crowd of Jews and saying, you murdered Christ. You must repent of this.

01:23:26 – 01:23:33:	He wasn't begging them, but that was it. You murdered Christ. What possibly could be more

01:23:33 – 01:23:38:	horrific to a believer than to hear that. And that's precisely why he told them. When we have

01:23:38 – 01:23:43:	pastors today and we have leaders and we have teachers who are afraid to say that, what happens

01:23:43 – 01:23:48:	to the Christian faith when we become so ashamed of it that we have to hide it in a corner and we

01:23:48 – 01:23:54:	can't proclaim it in its fullness as scripture itself proclaims it. We don't get a vote on this

01:23:54 – 01:23:59:	stuff. We don't get to say it was the Pharisees. It wasn't the crowds. We don't get to just blame

01:23:59 – 01:24:03:	the crowds either because there are numerous passages to say that the Pharisees, the rulers,

01:24:03 – 01:24:10:	the high priests conspired off on their own. Everyone was guilty and everyone had the opportunity

01:24:10 – 01:24:17:	to be forgiven. God says it. We have to say it. We have to say it about the Jews and we have to

01:24:17 – 01:24:22:	say it about the Jews today. And the fact that today when you say the Jews, people get really

01:24:22 – 01:24:27:	nervous and suddenly pastors have to get up in the pulpit. I've actually heard pastors change the

01:24:27 – 01:24:33:	text to avoid saying the Jews. They will say the Pharisees or some other thing to deflect blame

01:24:33 – 01:24:38:	to that one little outgroup, to blame the leaders, to blame the president of the Senate.

01:24:38 – 01:24:44:	It's not that guy. It's everyone who's listening. It's everyone who's following evil that is equally

01:24:44 – 01:24:49:	evil. You don't get an out because you're not senior. The only out is forgiveness through

01:24:49 – 01:24:56:	repentance. In case anyone thinks that we are going beyond the bounds of the evidence as it were,

01:24:57 – 01:25:03:	in our comments about what the Jews believe today, I will read for you in English translation.

01:25:04 – 01:25:08:	A prayer from the Talmud, this one is from the Jerusalem version instead of the Babylonian,

01:25:08 – 01:25:14:	but they are nearly identical. The Jews traditionally pray three times per day.

01:25:15 – 01:25:19:	This is the Burqat Haminim. And here is the prayer in English.

01:25:20 – 01:25:24:	For the apostates let there be no hope and uproot the kingdom of arrogance,

01:25:24 – 01:25:30:	speedily and in our days. May the Nazarenes and the sectarians perish as in a moment.

01:25:30 – 01:25:35:	Let them be blotted out of the Book of Life and not be written together with the righteous.

01:25:35 – 01:25:37:	You are praised, O Lord, who subdues the arrogant.

01:25:39 – 01:25:43:	You are a Nazarene, if you're a Christian. That's what that means.

01:25:44 – 01:25:51:	Traditionally, and still today, Jews pray three times per day, cursing you specifically because

01:25:52 – 01:25:56:	you are a Christian. That is something they've been doing for centuries.

01:25:57 – 01:26:03:	That is something, again, they still do today. This was something they hid for a very long time.

01:26:03 – 01:26:09:	But then, I believe it was originally a German academic who got a hold of a copy

01:26:09 – 01:26:13:	of some of these documents and started translating them. And as the Talmud has been translated,

01:26:13 – 01:26:18:	we've found more and worse things. And I'm sure at some point we will go over the Talmud in greater

01:26:18 – 01:26:29:	depth. But this is the mindset of modern Jews. They hate Christians. And incidentally, when

01:26:29 – 01:26:35:	they're talking about apostates, they are cursing Jews who have converted to Christianity.

01:26:35 – 01:26:44:	They hold a particular hatred for Jews who convert. But they hate Christians. And they pray and curse

01:26:44 – 01:26:49:	you multiple times per day. Now, of course, they are not praying to the Lord God because those

01:26:49 – 01:26:54:	who do not have the Son do not have the Father. And they reject the Son, so they are not praying

01:26:54 – 01:26:59:	to God the Father. That is an important point. There are many pastors and others who will say,

01:26:59 – 01:27:05:	well, no, the Jews worship God. They just don't worship Him correctly. No. Scripture says that

01:27:05 – 01:27:10:	those who do not have the Son do not have the Father. The Jews do not worship the Lord God.

01:27:10 – 01:27:16:	They do not worship the Father. They do not worship the Trinity. They are not in any way,

01:27:16 – 01:27:25:	shape or form, related to Christians or Christianity. They are vile pagans. And they pray to curse you

01:27:25 – 01:27:29:	three times per day, at least. There are other prayers they say that are daily prayers that

01:27:29 – 01:27:37:	also call down curses. That is the reality of the situation. Yes, exactly. Their prayers are to

01:27:37 – 01:27:43:	Satan. They are praying to Satan to curse you. There are so many pastors and leaders and others

01:27:43 – 01:27:49:	who are afraid to say these things. But this is the reality. This is exactly what their own

01:27:49 – 01:27:57:	holy books say, so-called holy books. And this is just grazing the surface. Incidentally,

01:27:57 – 01:28:05:	Christ responds to the Talmud in Scripture. One of the most abused passages in Scripture is in part

01:28:05 – 01:28:11:	a response to a wicked Jewish prayer from proto-versions of the Talmud. Because one of the

01:28:11 – 01:28:16:	prayers that is said by Jewish men traditionally, at least once per day, sometimes multiple times

01:28:16 – 01:28:26:	per day, is a prayer that basically says, thank you to God that I was not made a Gentile. Thank you

01:28:26 – 01:28:32:	to God that I was not made a woman. And so you should be thinking of Galatians 3 28.

01:28:33 – 01:28:38:	There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is not male and female.

01:28:39 – 01:28:44:	Well, they also add to their prayer that thank you God for not making me a slave. Well,

01:28:44 – 01:28:51:	there are the three categories that Christ uses right there in a Jewish prayer. He is

01:28:51 – 01:28:57:	responding in part to the evil of the Talmud as it is taking form, because it was not finished until

01:28:58 – 01:29:03:	around the five hundreds, perhaps a little earlier, but right around that time.

01:29:04 – 01:29:09:	But some of the materials were obviously coalescing at the time of Christ's ministry.

01:29:11 – 01:29:17:	So Christians should have some familiarity with these things, because it is responded to in our

01:29:17 – 01:29:24:	own holy documents, in Scripture. This is not just some esoteric issue that's off on the sidelines.

01:29:24 – 01:29:31:	This is of the utmost importance, because this deals with a very real, very live controversy in

01:29:31 – 01:29:39:	our time. And the reason for pointing these things out in time is that none of these are flukes.

01:29:39 – 01:29:45:	It wasn't a fluke that they just happened to be really mean in the year that Jesus was

01:29:45 – 01:29:50:	ministering. And it doesn't so happen that they just happen to be really mean when they wrote

01:29:50 – 01:29:56:	those prayers, or that they're really mean today. For Cesslonians 2 says,

01:29:56 – 01:30:01:	For you, brothers, became imitators of the Church of God and Christ Jesus that are in Judea,

01:30:01 – 01:30:06:	for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,

01:30:06 – 01:30:12:	who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out and displeased God and opposed

01:30:12 – 01:30:17:	all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved,

01:30:17 – 01:30:22:	so as always to fill up the measure of their sins, but wrath has come upon them at last.

01:30:23 – 01:30:28:	This was Paul writing to a Greek city, but he's talking not only about the murder of Christ,

01:30:28 – 01:30:34:	but how the Jews have been murdering prophets for centuries. This was not new behavior for them.

01:30:34 – 01:30:40:	God kept sending prophets and they kept getting killed or ignored. Being selected as a prophet

01:30:40 – 01:30:48:	is never good news. It never ends well. I think the one who got off the best was Elijah.

01:30:48 – 01:30:54:	He didn't die. He was just taken up on a whirlwind or on a chariot. He didn't have to

01:30:54 – 01:31:02:	suffer as many others did in death, but his life was no bowl of roses. I think it's important

01:31:02 – 01:31:06:	to harken back to something that we have mentioned on previous episodes. We didn't mention we were

01:31:06 – 01:31:12:	talking about the Old Testament today. When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt,

01:31:13 – 01:31:19:	they were in the desert. He went up on the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments from God.

01:31:19 – 01:31:26:	He was gone for 40 days. That was when he received the books. He was up there for 40 days.

01:31:27 – 01:31:33:	There was a pillar of fire at night and pillars smoked during the day. It was a huge scene.

01:31:33 – 01:31:39:	It was very visible. The Israelites were down at the base of the mountain. In the 40 days that

01:31:39 – 01:31:46:	Moses was up there, they descended into idolatry. They had Aaron melt down their gold and make a

01:31:46 – 01:31:51:	golden calf for them, which, as Corius said previously, was almost certainly one of the

01:31:51 – 01:31:58:	gods of Egypt that they chose to worship. They said, Aaron, make a god for us. Make the god that

01:31:58 – 01:32:03:	led us out of Egypt. God's right there in the mountain. God's in a pillar of fire talking to

01:32:03 – 01:32:08:	Moses, talking to the prophet who led them out of captivity. What do they do? They turn their back

01:32:08 – 01:32:14:	on him and say, no, we want to make shift, God. We're going to worship this instead. They did.

01:32:14 – 01:32:21:	Moses comes down and they're having a big party worshiping pagan gods. They just left Egypt.

01:32:21 – 01:32:27:	They'd just seen all of these miracles. They're before a miracle with the physical special presence

01:32:27 – 01:32:33:	of God through the fire and the smoke, and they apostatize. This was the spirit of these people.

01:32:33 – 01:32:40:	So I think one of the key things to understand about the Jewish period of time in scripture is that

01:32:42 – 01:32:49:	I think a good analog for it is a message in a bottle. The gospel was given to Adam

01:32:49 – 01:32:56:	in the garden, Genesis 3.15. There was a promise made that God was going to fix this.

01:32:57 – 01:33:04:	That was expanded upon in future generations. When the day came that God came to Abraham

01:33:04 – 01:33:09:	and made the special promise to him and then wrestled with Jacob and named him Israel,

01:33:10 – 01:33:21:	and then when Moses was given the books of God, something changed. What changed was that what

01:33:21 – 01:33:29:	had been a broadly defined promise became much more narrowly defined in terms of additional

01:33:29 – 01:33:35:	promises were being made. A covenant was specifically made with Abraham and was renewed with his

01:33:35 – 01:33:42:	descendants. In some ways, that covenant and the laws, the Levitical laws in particular,

01:33:42 – 01:33:47:	were like the bottle. You throw a message in the bottle and you throw it in the ocean. It's going

01:33:47 – 01:33:56:	to bob away and then get somewhere. The function that the Levitical laws or the ceremonial laws

01:33:56 – 01:34:03:	had for the Israelites is that it made them weird. They had to do weird stuff with their clothing and

01:34:03 – 01:34:09:	with their food and with their appearance. They weren't going to be permitted to mix with their

01:34:09 – 01:34:15:	neighbors because God knew that every time his people mixed with their pagan neighbors, they

01:34:15 – 01:34:20:	became pagan. It didn't work the other way. It should have worked the other way, but they were

01:34:20 – 01:34:27:	not faithful. Any exposure to foreign gods caused them to whore after foreign gods. That's how God

01:34:27 – 01:34:34:	describes it as whoring. That's what it is. It's spiritual lust after that which is forbidden,

01:34:34 – 01:34:40:	which is a cheap imitation, but people's passions get inflamed and they chase that which is fake

01:34:40 – 01:34:46:	and they turn their back on that which is real. God knew this. He wrapped them in this bottle of

01:34:46 – 01:34:51:	these Levitical laws that said, you have to do this with your beard and you can't eat these foods

01:34:51 – 01:34:57:	and you can't sow your grains like this. The isolation that that caused from them

01:34:57 – 01:35:03:	relative to their neighbors helped to preserve the message, which was the gospel. It was the word

01:35:03 – 01:35:08:	of God and it was the promises of the Messiah. They were to be preserved through the people

01:35:08 – 01:35:17:	as well as through the bloodline. The word that was basically their DNA, the ACTG in their genes,

01:35:17 – 01:35:25:	they would be passed down to Jesus in the flesh. That was from Abraham's seed and there was also

01:35:25 – 01:35:31:	the word, the spoken word, the promises of God were also passed and that was the function that

01:35:31 – 01:35:37:	the Jews served for 2000 years. For 2000 years there were no Jews and then for 2000 years from

01:35:37 – 01:35:46:	Abraham to Jesus the Jews were in varying states of evolution preserving these messages from God

01:35:46 – 01:35:52:	so that in the day when the Messiah came and fulfilled the prophecies everyone would know

01:35:52 – 01:35:57:	they would have a list and they would have been studying and looking for it and being excited

01:35:57 – 01:36:04:	to see it come so that when a man appears and heals the blind and the lame you rejoice and you say

01:36:04 – 01:36:11:	alas the Messiah has come. That was the purpose. They did everything in their power to fail that

01:36:11 – 01:36:17:	purpose and yet God preserved them for his ends because they were chosen not to be special

01:36:18 – 01:36:24:	in some sense of its own but to be the vessel that would preserve these promises until they were

01:36:24 – 01:36:31:	fulfilled. One of the things that's emphasized repeatedly, particularly in Paul's epistles,

01:36:31 – 01:36:39:	is because the promises had been given to the Jews they knew about them. Paul's very clear

01:36:39 – 01:36:45:	that when there's no knowledge sin does not attach in the same way as when there's knowledge

01:36:45 – 01:36:50:	and so the urgency of reaching the Jews with the gospel especially in his day

01:36:50 – 01:36:55:	was but they had become apostate. When the prophecies were not yet fulfilled they could hope

01:36:55 – 01:37:01:	in their future fulfillment but now that they had been fulfilled it was urgent that the Jews

01:37:01 – 01:37:06:	would be told the prophecies are fulfilled the Messiah has come and he's died and he is

01:37:06 – 01:37:11:	living again. It was urgent for them to hear that because they were now under condemnation

01:37:11 – 01:37:18:	for refusing to believe. That's a fundamentally different thing than the the Greek or the Roman

01:37:18 – 01:37:23:	or the Ugandan or the Indian who's never heard any of this stuff. He's not in the same spiritual

01:37:23 – 01:37:28:	state as these people who for hundreds and thousands of years had been told these stories

01:37:28 – 01:37:34:	who'd been given these promises because the promises were made to them and through them for all.

01:37:35 – 01:37:39:	When Jesus came and fulfilled them and then they rejected them and said his blood be on us

01:37:39 – 01:37:44:	and our children that was the worst possible thing for them and part of Paul's urgency to

01:37:44 – 01:37:51:	reach the Jews was to try to save them from their own wickedness just as Peter did in this sermon.

01:37:51 – 01:37:59:	We said you unknowingly did this repent because when they die that's it. We get to read the book

01:37:59 – 01:38:05:	today that says here's what happened bad 2000 years ago it wasn't written yet they were living it

01:38:05 – 01:38:10:	and so they had the choice in their lifetime do I believe in the promise that God has fulfilled

01:38:10 – 01:38:16:	or do I continue in my hatred of those promises. It might not have been hatred before Christ came

01:38:16 – 01:38:22:	but once he came that was the proof of who was elect and who was faithless.

01:38:22 – 01:38:30:	And so on the topic of the Jews and whether or not they can convert to be Christian

01:38:31 – 01:38:37:	we should of course read Romans 9 the words of Paul here the words of the Holy Spirit

01:38:38 – 01:38:45:	spoken written through Paul. I am speaking the truth in Christ I am not lying my conscience

01:38:45 – 01:38:50:	bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart

01:38:51 – 01:38:56:	for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers

01:38:57 – 01:39:02:	my kinsmen according to the flesh they are Israelites and to them belong the adoption

01:39:02 – 01:39:08:	the glory the covenants the giving of the law the worship and the promises to them belong the

01:39:08 – 01:39:14:	patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God overall

01:39:14 – 01:39:15:	forever amen

01:39:45 – 01:39:51:	son and not only so but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man our forefather

01:39:51 – 01:39:57:	Isaac though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's

01:39:57 – 01:40:04:	purpose of election might continue not because of works but because of him who calls she was told

01:40:04 – 01:40:09:	the older will serve the younger as it is written Jacob I loved but Esau I hated

01:40:09 – 01:40:16:	it what shall we say then is there injustice on God's part by no means for he says to Moses

01:40:16 – 01:40:21:	I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion

01:40:22 – 01:40:26:	so then it depends not on human will or exertion but on God who has mercy

01:40:26 – 01:40:31:	for the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose I have raised you up

01:40:31 – 01:40:36:	that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth

01:40:36 – 01:40:41:	so then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he heartens whomever he wills

01:40:42 – 01:40:47:	I think that ties back perfectly into the the election episode that we mentioned earlier again

01:40:47 – 01:40:51:	that's it's really an important one to understand this and many of the other things we say a lot of

01:40:52 – 01:40:58:	a lot of what is misunderstood in 21st century Christian theology is the result of a bad

01:40:58 – 01:41:03:	understanding of election we don't take it seriously we don't we don't think it means anything

01:41:04 – 01:41:07:	and neither did the Jews I mean that was part of the problem

01:41:08 – 01:41:13:	they thought that being lineal sons of Abraham was all it took that and obeying the law you

01:41:13 – 01:41:17:	you keep the law and you're a child of Abraham and you're in and everyone else is out no matter

01:41:17 – 01:41:25:	what that's not what God said it was never what God promised and so as we look at these things

01:41:25 – 01:41:30:	it's just important to remember how God speaks he talks about them being important for these

01:41:30 – 01:41:36:	purposes but it wasn't they were not a purpose unto themselves the Jews didn't exist for the sake

01:41:36 – 01:41:44:	of the Jews they do today and frankly in most times in history they did the few glory days that

01:41:44 – 01:41:51:	Israel had were the few days when they were being faithful there wasn't much he had a period under

01:41:51 – 01:41:57:	David a period under Solomon in precious few other times where there were really glory periods

01:41:57 – 01:42:01:	the rest was punishment from God for faithlessness

01:42:03 – 01:42:10:	I want to end here with a passage from John 8 that it comes up every year when Easter rolls around

01:42:10 – 01:42:18:	because it's something that the Jews to this day explicitly condemn whenever you hear a Jew talking

01:42:18 – 01:42:23:	about Christianity they will bring up John John 8 particularly John 844 but I'm going to read the

01:42:23 – 01:42:29:	whole passage to putting in context we're going to talk next week about some of the early church

01:42:29 – 01:42:37:	fathers and some of the quotes and sermons that are called anti-Semitic where the notion arose

01:42:37 – 01:42:44:	that you know that that's basically a term of blasphemy to say you were blaspheming against

01:42:44 – 01:42:48:	something you know when something is called anti-Semitic you're saying you're blaspheming

01:42:48 – 01:42:54:	the Jews well that is a religion due to have that sort of blasphemy law is indeed a religion

01:42:54 – 01:42:59:	but it's not the Christian religion a Christian can only blaspheme God we can't blaspheme anything

01:42:59 – 01:43:06:	else now there are ways that we can blaspheme God that don't necessarily involve that which is overt

01:43:06 – 01:43:13:	so I'm not trying to draw a fuzzy line here where there's a clear one but we don't get to speak in

01:43:13 – 01:43:19:	ways that God doesn't speak so I'm going to read this passage from John 8 to close because it's one

01:43:19 – 01:43:26:	that's despised and it's one that frankly makes Christians uncomfortable this day and that really

01:43:26 – 01:43:30:	concerns us I mean that's why stone choir exists if there's a passage in scripture that you can

01:43:30 – 01:43:36:	read to Christians and Christians start squirming you have a problem forget anybody else in the

01:43:36 – 01:43:43:	world forget any other opinions you might have if you are uncomfortable about something in scripture

01:43:43 – 01:43:51:	you have a spiritual problem so John 8 Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him

01:43:51 – 01:43:55:	if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set

01:43:55 – 01:44:01:	you free they answered him we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone

01:44:01 – 01:44:07:	how is it you say you will become free Jesus answers them truly truly I say to you

01:44:07 – 01:44:12:	everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin the slave does not remain in the house forever the

01:44:12 – 01:44:18:	son remains forever so if the son sets you free you will be free indeed I know that you're offspring

01:44:18 – 01:44:24:	of Abraham yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you I speak of what I

01:44:24 – 01:44:30:	have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father they answered him

01:44:30 – 01:44:35:	Abraham is our father Jesus said to them if you were Abraham's children you would be doing the

01:44:35 – 01:44:40:	works Abraham did but now you seek to kill me a man who has told you the truth that I heard from

01:44:40 – 01:44:47:	God this is not what Abraham did you were doing the works your father did they said to him we are

01:44:47 – 01:44:53:	not born of sexual immorality we have one father even God Jesus said to them if God were your

01:44:53 – 01:44:58:	father you would love me for I came from God and I am here I came not of my own accord but he sent

01:44:58 – 01:45:04:	me why do you not understand what I say it is because you cannot bear to hear my word you are

01:45:04 – 01:45:10:	of your father the devil and your will is to do your father's desires he was a murderer from the

01:45:10 – 01:45:15:	beginning and he does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him when he lies he

01:45:15 – 01:45:22:	speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies but because I tell you the

01:45:22 – 01:45:27:	truth you do not believe me which one of you convicts me of sin if I tell the truth why do you not

01:45:27 – 01:45:33:	believe me whoever is of God hears the words of God the reason why you do not hear them as a you

01:45:33 – 01:45:43:	are not of God this is a profound passage because Jesus is speaking directly to a crowd of Jews

01:45:43 – 01:45:49:	and he's telling them you are Satan's children you are deaf to my voice because you were born

01:45:49 – 01:45:55:	of the father of lies even as they stand there and they make claims of lineage and claims of

01:45:55 – 01:46:01:	being sons of Abraham and claims of righteousness he says you have none of those things you do not

01:46:01 – 01:46:06:	do Abraham's works because you do not have Abraham's faith which was the root of election

01:46:07 – 01:46:13:	Abraham had faith and it was counted to him as righteousness the circumcision came after the

01:46:13 – 01:46:18:	circumcision was not what made him righteous he was circumcised because he was righteous he was

01:46:18 – 01:46:25:	righteous and therefore he obeyed God the order of operations matters and Jesus understood that

01:46:25 – 01:46:30:	Jesus is God as he said when he came to him and he did his father's things and they hated it it's

01:46:30 – 01:46:38:	because they are of their father when there's a man today whether it's 2000 years ago or today

01:46:38 – 01:46:46:	when a man hates the things of God that man is of Satan it's not all Jews today there are a few

01:46:46 – 01:46:51:	Jews who actually become Christian and cease to be Jews and there are many who are not Jews

01:46:51 – 01:46:56:	who are enemies of God today and today in our own churches we have these same Jews

01:46:56 – 01:47:02:	they don't go by the name Jew but they hate God just as much they will thump their genealogy

01:47:02 – 01:47:07:	it won't be the genealogy of Abraham it will be the genealogy of some confession a confession

01:47:07 – 01:47:13:	which points God faithfully but they will ignore that part they will just use whatever they can

01:47:14 – 01:47:19:	as an anchor to make themselves a participant in something where they are not participants

01:47:19 – 01:47:23:	you can only participate in God's things if you were God's child and you're only his child by

01:47:23 – 01:47:29:	adoption through faith those who do not have faith are not adopted sons of God they remain

01:47:29 – 01:47:37:	children of Satan and so as you see people in the world reacting to God's things many times in

01:47:37 – 01:47:42:	this preaching whether it's from Jesus or Peter or Paul or any other man when they preach some of

01:47:42 – 01:47:48:	the people were confused they it wasn't ignorant confusion it wasn't a confusion born of a lack

01:47:48 – 01:47:51:	of faith they were hearing something for the first time and they didn't know what to make of it

01:47:52 – 01:47:59:	that's okay that there's hope for that man some believed immediately some all already believed

01:48:00 – 01:48:07:	those are saved the rest and frankly the majority in Jesus day and in our day hear the things of

01:48:07 – 01:48:13:	God and they react by saying you have a demon you're evil there's no middle ground when you're

01:48:13 – 01:48:19:	dealing with people who are possessed by the devil they know when they're dealing with a son of God

01:48:19 – 01:48:25:	and their reactions are violent they're filled with hatred we should expect that when we are

01:48:25 – 01:48:31:	faithful to God there will be times when it elicits those same responses that is not that

01:48:31 – 01:48:36:	there's been some miscommunication it's not that we should have been more winsome we should have

01:48:36 – 01:48:42:	been nicer it's not that if we'd only use different words they would understand it's that we are of

01:48:42 – 01:48:47:	our father in heaven and they are of their father the devil you will face this in your

01:48:47 – 01:48:52:	lives if you're faithful christians if you just if you hide and try to ride it out

01:48:52 – 01:48:56:	it's not going to work but you'll you'll learn that the hard way you are going to have to take

01:48:56 – 01:49:02:	a stand for christ and there there will be days when that hurts there will be days where you suffer

01:49:02 – 01:49:09:	for it and you were hated to your face because that is the state that the world is in the father

01:49:09 – 01:49:16:	of lies the father of jews is running the show today there's not much left of the faithful remnant

01:49:16 – 01:49:22:	it exists and it will always exist but only because god promised it and god will preserve it

01:49:22 – 01:49:29:	god will preserve his people everyone else is going to try to kill us that's good news it means

01:49:29 – 01:49:34:	that we're on the right side it means that we're on god's side and god is on our side that's the

01:49:34 – 01:49:40:	thing we have to worry about so don't be afraid of topics that seem scary be afraid of the fact

01:49:40 – 01:49:45:	that a topic that seems scary is scary in the first place because it shouldn't be the truth

01:49:45 – 01:49:51:	should not scare christians when someone's afraid of the truth that person has a bigger problem and

01:49:52 – 01:49:56:	we've said before these are not problems that a podcast can solve you need to spend time in the

01:49:56 – 01:50:02:	word you need to spend time studying scripture and contemplating and meditating on these things

01:50:02 – 01:50:08:	and be aware in your life not just on sunday not just in bible class be aware every day of where

01:50:08 – 01:50:13:	you're seeing these things playing out and you will find that there's a spiritual tenor two things

01:50:13 – 01:50:19:	that don't necessarily have a spiritual context your workplace is going to have a spiritual tenor

01:50:19 – 01:50:25:	to things where maybe 20 years ago it didn't or if it did it wasn't at all obvious today it's going

01:50:25 – 01:50:31:	to be obvious this is where the battleground is and this is where we will prove ourselves to either

01:50:31 – 01:50:36:	be faithful children of god or to be sons of satan as christians we have only one choice

01:50:37 – 01:50:42:	and as we see others respond we see them choosing as well all these sermons that were delivered in

01:50:42 – 01:50:50:	the new testament served a winnowing function many wandered away from jesus preaching upset or

01:50:50 – 01:50:55:	confused or angry a few stuck around because they believed the same math is going to work out today

01:50:56 – 01:50:59:	be one of the few who sticks around and believes in god because on the last day

01:50:59 – 01:51:05:	he is going to welcome each of us and so i want to close out this episode by going over

01:51:05 – 01:51:15:	a seemingly minor technical matter but something that is really at the foundation of all of this

01:51:15 – 01:51:23:	for this series of episodes and many of the others as well and that is the word concept fallacy

01:51:24 – 01:51:30:	this is really in a sense related to the idea of essence and accident those who understand

01:51:30 – 01:51:35:	those terms can tie that together i won't go over that bit but the word concept fallacy has

01:51:35 – 01:51:42:	two essential forms the first one is that you believe you've studied a word and therefore you

01:51:42 – 01:51:47:	understand the concept that's a fallacy you can study a word without understanding the concept to

01:51:47 – 01:51:54:	which it refers but the second one and perhaps the more important one here is the conflation

01:51:54 – 01:52:01:	of the two things the conflation of the word that symbolizes the concept and the concept itself

01:52:02 – 01:52:08:	that is what we have happening in many of these issues for instance with the term jew

01:52:09 – 01:52:16:	there are those who will use the term and then conflate it with the concept and there are

01:52:16 – 01:52:21:	several different concepts it covers you can be jewish by blood you can be jewish by religion

01:52:22 – 01:52:29:	those are not the same thing if you conflate those and then say the term always refers to

01:52:30 – 01:52:35:	one or the other or both you are running a foul of this fallacy you are committing this error

01:52:38 – 01:52:42:	and so it is important to understand the sense in which the terms are being used

01:52:43 – 01:52:48:	but perhaps more relevant to us as christians and more on our own backyard

01:52:48 – 01:52:55:	for instance if you are holding a bible and the book of concord that doesn't make you a lutheran

01:52:56 – 01:53:03:	if you just say that well i have these and i believe them that still doesn't make you a lutheran

01:53:04 – 01:53:13:	if you believe them that makes you a lutheran now some will have brought to mind the idea of well

01:53:13 – 01:53:21:	that's no true scotsman fallacy but it's not and that's where that accident and essence issue comes

01:53:21 – 01:53:29:	in there are things that you are essentially and there are things that you are not essentially they

01:53:29 – 01:53:36:	can change if you are male you are essentially male that cannot change you aren't male because you

01:53:36 – 01:53:42:	believe you're male you aren't male because you call yourself male you aren't male because you put

01:53:42 – 01:53:46:	pronouns at the end of your email signature that's not how that works that is something you are

01:53:46 – 01:53:52:	essentially the same is true of your race if you are german you are german because your parents

01:53:52 – 01:53:57:	were german if you are english you are english because your parents were english the same for any

01:53:57 – 01:54:06:	race that is something you are essentially you are not essentially a christian because you may

01:54:06 – 01:54:14:	not have been a christian as a child you could apostatize that can change and therefore it is

01:54:14 – 01:54:21:	not in this sense of the term essential and so when you are dealing with the no true scotsman

01:54:21 – 01:54:28:	issue that only applies to things that are essential and that's why it's no true scotsman

01:54:28 – 01:54:34:	because that is race that is blood you cannot change that and so if you say no true scotsman

01:54:34 – 01:54:39:	would wear pink and you find a scotsman by blood who's wearing pink well you can't just say well

01:54:39 – 01:54:47:	no true scotsman because you found a true scotsman who's wearing pink now there are other issues here

01:54:47 – 01:54:54:	there's some nuance i could go into but we'll leave that aside for now the issue here is that which

01:54:54 – 01:54:58:	when you are dealing with christianity when you are dealing with religion when you're dealing with a

01:54:58 – 01:55:05:	confession or a political party anything like that these things have tenets they have doctrines

01:55:05 – 01:55:11:	they have things they profess things they assert that are true if you believe those things you belong

01:55:11 – 01:55:18:	to that group because that is what defines the group being a scotsman is defined by blood

01:55:18 – 01:55:27:	not by what color you wear or which pattern you wear whatever it happens to be that is not the case

01:55:27 – 01:55:34:	with christianity to be a christian you must believe the things that scripture teaches

01:55:34 – 01:55:41:	that is what it means to be a christian a christian has faith in christ in the saving blood of christ

01:55:41 – 01:55:47:	in his atonement in his sacrifice that is what it means to be a christian being a christian does

01:55:47 – 01:55:51:	not mean holding up the bible and waving it at people that doesn't make you a christian being

01:55:51 – 01:55:55:	a lutheran doesn't mean holding up the book of concord and waving it at people being reformed

01:55:55 – 01:56:00:	doesn't mean holding up the westminster confession and waving it at people whichever group it is

01:56:00 – 01:56:06:	you have to actually believe the contents of that book and so if someone tells you well of course

01:56:06 – 01:56:13:	i'm x of course i'm this kind of christian look i have the caller in the book and that's not what

01:56:13 – 01:56:19:	it means what does he actually believe what does he actually teach what does he do in his life

01:56:20 – 01:56:24:	it is the same thing with the jews there are jews who can convert to christianity

01:56:24 – 01:56:30:	and no longer be a jew and be christian there are christians who can be apostate in everything they

01:56:30 – 01:56:39:	do and still claim to be christian simply labeling yourself with the term does not make you the thing

01:56:39 – 01:56:44:	one would think that christians living in an era when we have men claiming to be women and women

01:56:44 – 01:56:49:	claiming to be men and people claiming to be dogs and whatever else is happening out there

01:56:49 – 01:56:54:	one would think it would be obvious that simply claiming to be a thing does not make you the thing

01:56:55 – 01:57:04:	and yet pastors and many others constantly get away with doing so do not let them get away with it

01:57:05 – 01:57:11:	simply claiming that you are x does not make you x simply claiming that you are christian

01:57:11 – 01:57:17:	does not make you christian being a christian means believing the word of god trusting in christ

01:57:17 – 01:57:25:	as your lord and savior and yes it does also mean rejecting the various teachings of the devil

01:57:26 – 01:57:33:	that is why as lutherans for instance in our confirmation oath we reject the devil in all

01:57:33 – 01:57:37:	his works in all his ways because that is part of what it means to be a christian

01:57:39 – 01:57:45:	and so when the jews told christ we're descended from abraham we've never been slaves of course

01:57:45 – 01:57:52:	we're zaved of course we're elect that's not what it means that's why in romans it says

01:57:52 – 01:57:58:	not all who are descended from israel belong to israel those are two different things the first

01:57:59 – 01:58:07:	is the essential that's race descended from israel the second is belong to israel that's christians

01:58:07 – 01:58:15:	that's the church you can be descended from israel by blood and not belong to israel the church by

01:58:15 – 01:58:24:	faith you can belong to israel the church by faith and not be descended from israel the man by blood

01:58:26 – 01:58:33:	being a christian is a matter of faith that is the core of what we believe that is why

01:58:33 – 01:58:42:	we call it a faith believe the words of god as they are written in his book don't water them down

01:58:42 – 01:58:48:	for the world don't ignore them because they're uncomfortable don't start editing the scripture

01:58:48 – 01:58:53:	because it makes you uncomfortable or it makes your life more difficult as christians we are called

01:58:53 – 01:59:00:	to proclaim the truth in season and out of season and that is in fact regardless of the consequences

01:59:00 – 01:59:05:	yes we may apply wisdom to these things but we do not get to deny the truth

01:59:07 – 01:59:10:	because denying god's truth is denying christ before men

01:59:12 – 01:59:19:	and we know what christ says about that we as christians are going to spend eternity with adam

01:59:19 – 01:59:26:	and with noah and with abraham and with moses and with elijah and with jesus we're going to spend

01:59:26 – 01:59:32:	eternity with them because they were christian they are christian we are christian the essence of

01:59:32 – 01:59:38:	the christian faith is belief in the gospel belief in the promise of the messiah those who lived

01:59:38 – 01:59:44:	before the messiah believed in the promise as it was yet to be fulfilled those who lived in christ

01:59:44 – 01:59:50:	day believed in the promise of the messiah as they witnessed its fulfillment and we who lived

01:59:50 – 01:59:56:	2000 years after the fulfillment of the messiah's promise believe it in retrospect we believe that

01:59:56 – 02:00:02:	which has been fulfilled and transmitted to us through time and in eternity we will all be united

02:00:02 – 02:00:08:	as christians because every single person in heaven every single person who will be in the new

02:00:08 – 02:00:16:	earth is a christian in essence the essence of the christian faith is belief in the messiah

02:00:16 – 02:00:22:	who has delivered the eternal life to us every man in faith in heaven believe that and receive

02:00:22 – 02:00:28:	that is how the christian faith works amen

02:00:52 – 02:00:53:	you