Bill. So we're in Romans 15. We're real close to finishing this book up, and I think we will next week. We have one interesting issue to deal with at the beginning of 16 about Phoebe and and I can't totally resolve that but I can give you some Perspective on whether you know, she could be a deacon or not and what that means but we really want to start in 15 chapter 15 verse 14 the the Apostle Says and in this is in a way. This is like where the book ends, right? The what he has to say to them the body of his epistle really ends in chapter 15, verse 13, and now he's moving on to sort of final remarks. It's the PS and the greetings and that kind of thing. And he wants them to understand that he wants to come visit them. Remember, Paul had never been to the church in Rome. He's, as we'll see through the end of the book and even through chapter 16, He knows by name a bunch of the people there, which tells us that either through correspondence or through travelers, Paul is getting lots of intelligence about the church in Rome. He knows where the house churches are meeting. He's got them by name. So just to say he's well acquainted with them, but he wants to tell them that he hopes to come visit them After he goes to Jerusalem to deliver a contribution that has been taken up from the Gentile churches to provide to the Jewish people there in Jerusalem at that church, And then he wants to come to Rome on his trip to Spain, which is, you know, we, people tend to assume he didn't go there. I mean, we can't say for certain, but we're not aware from anything else in the scripture that he was able to go there. And it seems like he probably was not, but just understand that had been his plan. So Paul says to his brothers and sisters in verse 14, that he's convinced, I myself am convinced, he's confident about you, that you also are full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and able to instruct one another. So after saying all the things he said, he certainly didn't want them to have the idea that because he talked about what we covered last week, being of one voice, of one mind, having unity between Jew and Gentile, I don't think that he necessarily had intel that there was a problem, but he certainly had seen these kinds of issues in other churches, and he's given them some confirmation that he's convinced that they're full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. That word, instruct one another, is interesting. It's a Greek verb, nutheteo, And it is used here in Romans for, in my translation, says instruct one another. That's maybe, it could mean that, and it can have a little bit of a gloss to it. But I did want to point out that the word is used seven other times in the New Testament, all in Paul's writings, except for in Acts 20, verse 31, where I think it's Paul talking. But it's interesting, we have this concept now, biblical counseling or Christian counseling, and it's not a new concept, but in the way in which it has been promoted as sort of a Christian counterpart, to a secular psychologist or counselor is somewhat new. It's a thing now to go see a Christian counselor. And understand I'm not critiquing or saying it's bad, I'm just noting that it's a historical, somewhat recent historical thing. I don't know how long it's been around, maybe, I know it goes back several decades, but you can actually trace a lot of the popularity of the movement of not only having people who would hang up a shingle as a Christian counselor, but having seminaries and Bible colleges offering counseling degrees, counseling programs for Christians. A lot of it goes back to a popular book, and worth the read, by a guy named Jay Adams. You know, he popularized this idea, and I'm not saying only him, but he was one of them. And in those circles of, you know, and if you were to go to a seminary or Bible college to learn, you know, counseling, take counseling classes, they will often call it newthetic counseling. And that word newthetic, is taken from this word that Paul uses, translated here in my CSB, is instruct one another. I think the King James probably says admonish one another. But it gets you this idea of euthedic and just from the Greek, euthateo. And so a lot of times Christian counseling and some of the books you would see out there, and certainly what I read, I read Jay Adams' book, He's got a lot of books, but his big popular one is, it's worth the read, would use that phrase, Newthetic counseling. His Reformed theology will come up in places in that book. Nevertheless, it's interesting. You know what it really comes down to? Is is, you know, I don't know necessarily the utility of having, you know, people, you know, specifically labeled as a Christian counselor. But I do know that the expectation of scripture is that we would minister to 1 another and. And here he says to instruct or admonish, or you could even say you can have the gloss of to counsel, you know, can have some different senses. We're all sort of called to do that. It's part of discipleship that we would minister to others. And so I'm something of a fan of the idea of the Christian counseling from the perspective that it's a part of discipleship. The bad part is, or the negative side, I should say, or the con is just that there are a lot of people that would hang a shingle as a Christian counselor and may not be that skilled at it. And I do think, you know, one caution is sometimes there are some problems that are just, you know, that may require more expertise than some people have. But that said, I mean, just, it's something to note there that, you know, when you see Christian counseling programs, a lot of the books that are about these things, they'll tie it to this word. So thought or comment about that before I move forward? Yeah. Colonel theme always taught that you need to be spiritually self-sustaining, that you shouldn't have to rely on anyone else to counsel you. But if you do need counseling, that's the way to go. You don't go to a worldly counselor because, uh, then you're just going to be, uh, led astray by empty philosophy. Yeah. That's good advice. And, and you, you know, one of the things that's happened. either because people in the pastorate, in the ministry are too busy or feel like they're not capable, is that often they will send people to a non-Christian counselor, a secular counselor. And those people may be able to bring some help, but they have a different worldview. But I will say that that's common. And that is one of the areas where this, you know, again, fairly recent phenomena of Christian counselors, maybe even doing this full time, either as a ministry in the sense of, you know, volunteering or something, but even as their vocation. has helped some, because at least if the pastor feels like he needs to refer people to someone else to help, he might be able to have a name of somebody that at least is coming from a biblical perspective. What would you expect is probably the most common reason people want a counselor, a Christian counselor? Oh, sorry, Susan, I see your hand up. Oh, yeah. In my many years, I have gone to many counselors. I was divorced in the 90s, and I had a daughter who was eight years old when I got divorced, and she was, and still is, a difficult person to deal with. And she was damaged by the divorce. So I, I had, and plus there were marriage issues and all, you know, all you have to go to a counselor for the marriage. And we tried doing that, my ex-husband and I, and that was a disaster. And we went to a regular counselor and the woman or man, I don't even remember which said, just get a divorce, get it over with. So that is often their solution. And, frankly, if two people are not anyway. So I have a lot of experience and my final opinion is that I wouldn't do it again because it's really just everything I've experienced unless somebody has some really good credentials and I wouldn't even know how to know if they have good credentials. Um, they're just, They're emoting, they're using their own experiences. And unless you're very wise in the word of God, you really, it doesn't matter what kind of a degree you have, you're not gonna be qualified. It's God who qualifies you. And it's through your friendships, like what you said. And plus it's expensive. I mean, you know, even the Christian counselors are like, okay, well, this is how much this is. And you're like, I can't afford this. I better just be dysfunctional and get over it. Yeah. You know, I mean, but you've touched on, on the issue and, and it's in, in, you know, and I want to be balanced and not, not, not misunderstood on this. I think there probably are some good Christian counselors. I think there's a lot of them and they may be well-intended. but they're not any good at it. And it's for a host of reasons, but you can get a degree in biblical counseling and not have real biblical depth. And of course, knowing the word of God is more than an academic exercise. It's an experience. It's experientially lived. You learn how to apply the word of God to different areas of your life. And that takes time or you just get older and never, never really learn how to apply it. And, and, uh, we can fool ourselves into making the assumption that because of the passage of time, you've matured and maybe we have it. And then, you know, we can get a degree in counseling. Um, I have been asked and I've lost count how many times. For a, you know, a Christian counselor for people that are having marriage problems. And I've had a name or two over time that I've sent them to. But even then, I couldn't know for sure that they were really any good. One or two of them had been professors I had that taught counseling, and I knew had done it for a, that was their vocation. So it's a real challenge. And I've also gotten involved more times than I care to admit where people have asked me to do the counseling. I've come to the conclusion somewhat from, you know, there's a, you can go find the video, but there's, there's like a, I don't know if it was Saturday night live or whatever, but it's a skit with Bob Newhart being the counselor. And the young lady goes in there and she's saying, you know, what our problems are. and he's being paid a great amount for his time. And after he hears the whole story, he just yells at her, stop it, just stop it. I remember that, that was so good. I had read a Christian book the other day. Well, in fact, I think it was in the Shepherds for Sale book. It's kind of a popular book right now. It's well worth the read. offend lots of people, so it's good to read, but I think that author, Megan Basham, had made a reference to it, but part of that's right, that we need to have a right view of sin, and when you really get down to it, there's always a sin issue, you know, and people don't like in our culture, even people that are supposed to be the ones that would share that biblical wisdom and stuff, they don't want to confront people with that. So anyway, it's a challenge. But we have this text here that would certainly tell us that among Christian brothers and sisters, we should be in a position to provide instruction or admonishment or counsel You know, it is needed and I, and I think certainly as commented earlier. It would be the more spiritual people, the more mature that could do it. that could, I should say, could do it well. They should be able to do it well. And Paul's expectation is they would. And I don't mean that he's expecting they sit down and give counseling sessions and have someone sit down on the long couch. But the idea of being there to minister to people is probably why I've gotten myself in trouble in answering the phone when folks call with their marriage problems. But I will say, every time, if you just listen to what they're describing, one or both of them, and it's 99% of the time it's both of them, they just have a sin issue and they won't stop it, right? That combined with an inability to communicate one another, to work on resolving conflicts. I see a couple of hands raised, Dart? Yes, I think the issue with counseling is that people are too lazy. I think 80% of the counseling is not something that they really need to go to your counselor for. They need to have a good Bible teacher. Themes, 10 problem-solving devices, will help you with a lot of different things. And getting into the Word and having a relationship with Christ The Holy Spirit will work with you and help you resolve these things. Now, there are some cases where they have a true problem, a serious, you know, they're paranoid or whatever else. And in those cases, there are some competent counselors out there. The best one I ever saw was like 40 years ago. And she said, Dart, your life is crap because, no, you feel like crap because your life is crap. straighten up your life and you'll feel better. Sounds like something God would have said. Sounds like something God would have said, right? Genesis 4? Yes, yes. If you do well, you'll feel well. But you've put it in the right perspective. It really is a sin issue, and perhaps a wisdom issue as well. And that's where the breakdown is. We have the things we've talked about a number of times, but people not really getting, not only getting deep in the word, but taking seriously the idea that even when I'm reading things that take me out of my comfort zone and show me that, you know, would suggest that something I previously believed was wrong, am I willing to make the change and trust God on that and then start seeing things sort of come together and improve. And anyway, that's kind of been like my experience in the marriage counseling. And so I'm not, wouldn't say, you know, don't try to help people to try to help them. But if you're going to do it, you know, with a gentle spirit, okay, and with some humility, you need to share the actual truth. And that, no doubt, is what Paul would have in mind, not just trying to probe the past and figure out why, you know, they can blame their parents. But, like, let's talk about now. What is the... Because there's usually a routine or a habit that's a sin problem. I've upset a lot of people in counseling that way the ones that I've done because I've said outrageous things like You need to get a job And then she's gonna find you a lot more attractive You know Let's see, Judd is your- He spoke the truth. Yeah. I wanted to say that I worked in a drug and alcohol treatment center, Pembroke Pines, right by USU, for about six years. And I think that there are definitely people that need medicine. There's if you're psychotic. Yeah. Another another one is, you know, even a lot of people that with the Bible, that if somebody is drinking every single day, it's much better to go off the alcohol with I never saw such seizures as I did with with going off alcohol as opposed to any other drug. So I mean, even for those reasons, to me, that would be a good thing. But I found I was in a ton of those sessions on the counseling and with the people. And it was like both people were trying to prove to the counselor that they were the better person. It was really... That's exactly what happens, right? Yes. If you... could just do some surgery on the other person, I'll be all right. That's why I've recommended some marriage books to a lot of people, but one of them that I always recommend is, I think it's called Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, because his focus is about how, even in a marriage with some difficulties, God may not, you know, the other person may not change, but God may have you there to teach you something and train you in that situation. We don't think that way. If it doesn't make me happy and please me, it needs to change or I'll bolt. And so you get that kind of, it's why, you know, most counselors want to talk to both sides, but that's what you're always going to get is, you know, they want to be vindicated as they complain about the other person. And some of that or all that may be true. But you made a good, good comment though about, you know, sometimes there really does need to be some medical help. And that's where we had to be real careful. You have a branch of Christian counseling that they would call it an integration approach. where they look to the scripture, but they're open to, you know, psychological studies and things printed by universities and their journals and that sort of thing. And then you have sort of a strict, just the Bible alone. And whichever those you go with, the fact is that sometimes people can have a problem that isn't just a sin issue or something, meaning there could be a physical issue. One of those times I got a call from somebody for Christian counseling. My instruction to her was, get out of the house, pack up the kids and leave. But I had suggested that the husband needs to be taken to a hospital because the behavior she described, which had been no history of it, suggested to me quite, quite possibly, I'm not a doctor, but maybe there's a physical problem and that needs to be, I mean, you know, that needs to be looked at. And it turned out it was, and, and, and his tumor behind his eye was, was causing extremely erratic and, and violent behavior that put the family in danger. But it didn't all happen just overnight, but it happened in a fairly short period of time. And you had people saying, well, you need to stay there and you need to be submissive and all that. I'm like, you need to get out of Dodge. But it killed him, ultimately. But it was a physical thing. And so just to say, we need to you know, know our limits and be, you know, sometimes you need to say, well, maybe you should go see a medical doctor. And that includes some other, I mean, there are some other issues where the medication may save someone's life. So I don't ever want to pretend to be a doctor, but setting that aside, we can offer some biblical counsel and should. But let's shove a little forward. I know it's a bit of a rabbit chase, but because it's theirs, I wanted you all to be aware of it. Paul says, nevertheless, I have written to remind you, and it raises the question of why they would need reminding. I think it's in the sense of fortify them boldly. on some points because the grace given me by God, the grace given Paul by God is, I think his authority as an apostle. It says in verse 16, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the gospel of God. You see in the New Testament, the gospel sometimes called the gospel of God, sometimes the gospel of Jesus or Jesus Christ. It's much more unusual for it to be called the gospel of God. Paul opened this book in Romans 1, saying he's not ashamed of the gospel. He views himself as a minister of the gospel. This word priest here could be used in sort of a metaphoric sense, maybe, just in the sense that he's handling something, whereas the priest of their day under the old covenant would have handled animal sacrifices. What he's handling is this good news about Jesus, who has made the only sacrifice that ever needs to be made for sin. And he says, God's purpose is that the Gentiles may be an acceptable offering. And if you go back and look at Romans 12, one to two, he has a big therefore and says, you need to offer yourselves a living sacrifice. It's kind of similar language here, that the Gentiles would be an acceptable offering sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And I think when he says this, it's interesting because I think he has in mind not only that the Gentiles would become Christians, but that they would be maturing Christians. And I think he's kind of got all of that Romans 1 through 8 in mind, not merely Paul's. Paul's mission wasn't, you know, we had, and especially in the 1900s and the late 1800s, you had a lot of ministries that went around doing evangelistic crusades where they focused almost exclusively on evangelism, which obviously is good, but there was nothing behind it in terms of getting people plugged into churches, getting them You know sanctified getting him in the process of growing and Paul's mission was always the whole the whole thing And so he says therefore Looking at this ministry that was given to him this grace. He says I have reason to boast in Christ Jesus Regarding what pertains to God, but I would not dare for I would not dare say anything Except he's talking about in terms of boasting. He's not going to boast except that Remember he he Well, but Paul would use that word boast elsewhere But he says I wouldn't dare to say anything except what Christ has accomplished through me by word and deed for the obedience of the Gentiles he's talking about The idea of Christ working through him in his ministry not only in what he says but as well as he'll mention here in a moment some of the these signs some of the the miracles, if you will, that were performed during his ministry. We read about them in the Book of Acts, there's a lot of them, because he adds in verse 19, by the power of miraculous signs and wonders, and by the power of God's Spirit. So, when you read the Book of Acts, We need to understand that Paul and the others, John, Peter, they don't have, like some in recent times have done, especially not only within charismatic movements, but especially there we would find, I've known of people that their whole stick is their ministry is a healing ministry, or their ministry is a casting out demons ministry. You don't see anything even close to that in the scriptures, but you do see casting out demons. You do see healing. So what's the difference? And the difference is because what the apostle did was first, he had authority from Jesus to do it. There's no indication that that was something that we would necessarily have today. But it was to aid the gospel ministry. There wasn't a healing ministry like in the past, Benny Hinn would do, and for a lot of money, you could go and not get healed. I've seen people go and take their cancer to Benny Hinn and bring it back because he's a fraud. But it was for money. That's not what Paul was doing. These miracles, and he did heal people, they vindicated the reality that he, in fact, had authority from God. And they were a way of aiding the gospel ministry. His preaching came not only in word, but it did come in word, but in power. For example, in the book of Acts, I just wrote down a few of the ones that we would know. In Acts 14, he heals a man that was born lame. He had never been able to walk, paralytic. He casted out the evil spirit from the slave girl in Acts 16, made people angry. I think she was the one that could help prophecy and stuff. He cast out demons in Acts 19, verses 11 to 12. And then, like my favorite story in the whole book of Acts, where there's a healing, is, you know, Paul was preaching, and I'm sure they told him that, you know, church services, your sermon can't go over 40 minutes, because you go over 40 minutes. you know, whatever, right? You're not allowed to do that, so sermons have to be 40 minutes. Well, Paul went several hours, and it went into the night, and the lamps were burning, and they're giving off their fumes, and poor Eutychus fell out the window and died. He fell asleep during Paul's waxing eloquent, and he died. And Paul went down there and healed him, right? The gift of healing, as we see in the scripture, includes healing dead people. It wasn't limited to psychosomatic things that we can't see. So you see people's limbs grow back where they had no limbs. You see people being raised from the dead. But these things weren't just to wow people. They did vindicate the message Paul had about Jesus Christ. you know, including his, his, uh, being the resurrection and the life. So this, that, that's just an important part as we, as we look at what, um, you know, what Paul describes there is, is these miracles really happened. And I'm not suggesting they can't happen today. I have grave doubts about someone who says I have, you know, uh, the gift of healing. Okay. Go down to Houston, our big cancer hospitals, MD Anderson, go down there and do your work. Right. Um, but they won't. But the fact is, I mean, miracles happen. God heals people today. There's no question about it. The Apostle Paul and the other apostles had authority directly from Jesus Christ that enabled them to do some of these things. And that's what they did, but with a purpose. And even Jesus's miracles, his signs, were done with the purpose of helping to convince people who he was. John, at the end of his gospel in chapter 20, verse 31, in reference to those signs that Jesus had done, said he wrote about them so that you would believe that he's the Christ, the Son of God. It always had that purpose. And of course, with Jesus doing the miracles, it had a purpose of fulfilling Old Testament prophecies, right? John the baptizer even sent some of his disciples while he was in jail to sort of quiz Jesus and say, are you really the one? And Jesus says, you know, essentially quoting the scripture from Isaiah. I mean, I'm causing the blind to see and the lame to walk and that sort of thing. So that's what these miracles were done for. And Paul is only boasting what Christ has done, and his point in part is he'd like to come see them in Rome, but also he's on his own missionary journeys, and so he says in verse 19, as a result, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, My aim is to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named, so that it won't build on someone else's foundation. He's not criticizing someone doing Christian ministry where someone else has already been there. But Paul's mission, personal mission, was to take the gospel to places where it hadn't been taken yet. And that's why he went and fully proclaimed the gospel from Jerusalem all the way around to Lyricum. And in as it's written in verse 21 those who were not told about him will see and those who've not heard will understand He wants to take the gospel to areas where it hasn't been and that's what he did Now there's a reference to a lyrical This is the only place in the in the New Testament that suggests that Paul went to a lyrical You know, I looked at my Bible map and always tell people, you know when you buy a Bible You know get get a nice one and get one with some good maps. Well mine has great maps and a lyrical is not on there and and the reason is if you look at your Bible map and you're looking at Macedonia, which is where you know, Philippi and in fact, I'm looking at my Macedonia map right Macedonia was a Roman province and Berea is there Thessalonica Amphipolis You know You know, several, several places it goes all the way down to send sentry, which we'll see mentioned in a moment. Maybe. and Athens, but then you get down to Achaia down there. But you'll find Macedonia on your map, and then you'll probably see the Adriatic Sea just east of Macedonia. Illyricum is along the Adriatic just above, in other words, just a little northeast of Macedonia. And my point, just mentioning that, is we do tend to make some assumptions that are unfounded, that, you know, Paul or Peter never did this or did that. And it's entirely based on silence, primarily from the Book of Acts, right? You know, and so nowhere in the Book of Acts does it say he went to a lyricum, but here it suggests he did. And I take it at some point he probably did. The Book of Acts is an early history But it doesn't purport to capture everything that was done. And in particular, and everybody kind of sees this, it focuses on Peter and John primarily, not exclusively, early on. And then the focus changes to Paul. This has caused some to draw an erroneous conclusion that, you know, we need to be followers of Paul. It's just Paul's gospel and Peter's you know, God's done with him, or, you know, all this kind of just absurd stuff. Luke's writing in the first person about his experience traveling with Paul, and he, Luke, made his choice to focus on Paul. But even in so doing, that leaves a big open question. What was Peter doing all that time? There's some early church tradition that Peter ended up in Rome in the 60s and died there. But Peter leaves the scene early in the book of Acts and he's just gone. There's nothing else about Peter. So lots of assumptions get made. For example, first Peter, if you read the end of the epistle, he says he writes from Babylon. You can't find a modern scholar, with maybe the exception of Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who believes Peter wrote 1 Peter from Babylon. And they give their reasons, and that's not a rabbit that I want to chase, other than to say the sole basis usually argued for why he couldn't write from Babylon is two things. One, there were no Jewish believers there, no Jewish settlements there. That's just historically false. And two, that we have no recording in scripture that Peter ever went to Babylon. Well, it's misleading, right? We actually have a big gap in the book of Acts after Acts 15. where we don't know anything about Peter's ministry apart from what gets mentioned maybe in his epistles. And so the argument gets made, well, he never went there. I don't know if he did or not. He could have. But just understand that there's probably a lot we don't know About what Peter was doing in the decades before he likely ended up in Rome and died in Rome under Nero It's it's it's he had to be doing a lot. We we just we don't have it's just not covered We may be some church traditions about it and some are things in some of the early church fathers But within this canon, it's not covered and so so we shouldn't make an assumption and and and this is a good example because if you just read the book of Acts and you might infer, well, he never went to a lyricum, and that would seem to be a bad inference, right? So, anyway, there's a lot of things these apostles were doing that we don't know about, and it gets to that question that I've been asked a number of times, well, what about all the other apostles? They didn't do anything, did they? They simply, the answer is they did do stuff, and it's just not the focus of the Book of Acts, you know, to have recorded all of that. So, I hope that makes some sense. Any comment, thought, Dan? Yeah, I mean, I always thought about the Jewish apostles, like you're saying, it says that Peter was writing from Babylon, and I believe he went to Babylon. And I think, you know, there's all the I've also heard other traditions that say, like, Thomas went to India, stuff like that. But I always thought that when the dispersion happened, I would have thought that all the Jewish apostles went to the Jewish people that were outside of Israel to try to bring the gospel to them. There were Jewish colonies all over the world, and so I just simply assumed that's what they did. Well, and I think that's likely. When I say church tradition, if things were written about fairly early, they maybe have some reliability. Christians have never thought that the other apostles did nothing But you do have this this And I think it's a really dangerous teaching That you know people say why we follow Paul's gospel. I hear that all the time, you know because you know, there's a major shift in the book of Acts and and that's when the dispensation changes and and You know, Peter's, you know, he's just an apostle to the Jews. It's just, it's just absurd that you have a history book and it's being inferred that because it doesn't talk about some people that they did nothing, but there's also a misunderstanding. You know, Peter was not someone who only ministered to Jews. I mean, The whole Book of Acts, you know, a big part of the material is him and Cornelius. And he knew that. And Peter was in Antioch, according to Galatians 1 and 2. So he and guess who was an Antioch's a bunch of Gentiles and Peter was ministering to them there so so So yeah, I mean, you know, we have a lot of history. We don't know it's a fair assumption that that that the Christians including the Apostles spread out from Jerusalem at some point and Probably before the you know well before the destruction and and and but they were doing ministry is I guess is the point in what we don't want to do is is take silence to suggest that they weren't there, but also just recognizing there's probably a good deal of information about what Peter did, what Paul did, what some of the others did that we don't have. It's just to say we have some missing, we just don't have it. And then with Babylon, if you look at Jewish sources, there were Jewish settlements in that region. But if somebody asked me where I live, if the person asking me is in the general area where I live, I will say Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill has 300 people. If I were in an office in New York and someone said, where do you live? I'd say Houston. Where are you from? Houston. Because that's what they'd recognize. Is it possible Peter wrote from Babylon or that general area? It is. He may not have, but it is possible. And, and, uh, but there's, there's just a strong insistence that, well, we don't have it in the book of acts, so it didn't happen. And anyway, enough of the soap box, Judd. Yeah, a couple of things. Yeah, there's a Babylonian Talmud and a Jerusalem Talmud because there was a huge settlement in Babylon, so there's no reason to doubt that Peter may have actually been in Babylon, but Babylon is also used, right? Mystery Babylon and other strange ways, so I don't know that you could be too dogmatic about it. And yeah, the hyper-dispensationalist thing, we have personal experience with that, right? Paul's gospel, my gospel, the gospel is only found in 1 Corinthians 15, right? That's the only gospel that's for the church today. So that hyper-dispensationalism is good, right? Covenant theology, bad. Dispensationalism, good. Hyper-dispensationalism, bad. you got to be right in the middle. You got to make the proper divisions and not make too many divisions or wrong divisions. But on healing, it's funny, we were doing continuationism or charismatics versus cessationism in our Bible study on Wednesday night. And I think there's a very nice proof that some of those gifts have ceased. They don't function in the same way that they did in the pre-canon period of the church age. And the one that I think is the clearest is that Paul, in the beginning of his ministry, was able to touch handkerchiefs. And if those handkerchiefs were touched by somebody who was sick, they were healed. And later on, he says, Trophimus, I left sick at Miletus. And he says to Timothy, don't drink water only, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. So if he had that strong of a gift of healing, where all you had to do was touch a handkerchief, and if that handkerchief touched anyone else, they were healed. But then he had to leave Trophimus, one of his top companions, sick. And he couldn't heal Timothy right probably his closest. All right. Then, um, that gift of healing faded out so those sign gifts were only their tongues and healing and. Miracles and those types of gifts were only there to establish the credibility of the revelation, the new revelation, the revelation of the new covenant or New Testament, and once that was established, you no longer needed them and they faded out. And I just want to, before we hang up, because it's been like five meetings and I never asked you, before you sign off today, I bought a few of your books. I want you to tell me what the latest one you wrote is. and but but getting back to what we're talking about um we have this beautiful young girl she's you know my daughter's age and she is just she was in a church that she liked them and then all of a sudden everybody breaks out in the tongue gmail artisans market right now uh so i Anyway, they all break out in the tongues. So we did the whole study on tongues. And I just wanted to hear what your thoughts are of what you say to somebody like that about whether she said she can never go back there again. She's never going back. And the thought of it makes her sick. And I just wanted to hear your take on what we should We taught a whole club judge taught the whole class. I said a few things on Wednesday and I wanted to know what you think are the really important things where something like that goes on. Yeah, I, I, I'm not offended by folks believing that. you know, tongues still exist. I am offended if they teach that you are not saved unless you speak in tongues, the so-called second grace. That is unfounded anywhere in scripture. So I have been a part of charismatic churches in the past. What is often done as tongues simply isn't. That's my bigger issue. I have not witnessed but heard of places where people said, you know, someone who didn't know Russian, spoken Russian, and someone else translated it. I've not seen that happen, but that is what was happening in the New Testament. The idea of a so-called ecstatic speech or angelic language, to play off of Paul's hyperbolic metaphor, if I could speak with the voice of angels, He's not saying that anybody does. He's saying if I could, it's hypothetical. Even if I could do that, but I don't have love, you know what good is it? But non Christian groups also speak in tongues. If we label speaking in tongues is is the what goes on a lot of places. Muslim some groups speak in tongues in that way. And you know, so so what I've. One, I kind of, you know, I wouldn't go in a church that has those beliefs and I'm not there to crusade against them or whatever. But from teaching it, my main admonition is we cannot observe something in the world and plant it into the scripture. We need to find the example in the scripture and see if what we're witnessing in the world is the same thing. And when you do that, it's difficult. We've got one example, and it's in Acts 2, and they were speaking known languages to primarily Jewish people who had traveled to Pentecost from various places surrounding Israel. And they're hearing things in their native tongue because people in that day didn't necessarily, you know, they would not have generally spoken Hebrew. So anyway, that's kind of my thought on it. I think it's not a dangerous thing if it's just people believe that some people may have the gift of tongues. and do that. It is dangerous if that becomes the litmus for whether you're a Christian, and that's very common, and that's unfortunate because this is not true. Yeah. Thank you very much, but what if there's no interpreter? Well, and that's, again, there should be an interpreter. And I have been in, you know, an Assembly of God church. I remember visiting a few times that I liked. And he made that point. Like if there's no interpreter, you shouldn't be doing it. And he talked about it in terms of it being an actual known language that's just not your native language. But you're right. In almost all instances, one, it's ecstatic speech, which in the end, of course, people will say, well, the Muslims that do it, that's just the devil tricking me. No, the devil is tricking you. But I've never seen an interpreter, not even one time. I've never even seen someone suggest in those settings where people were speaking in tongues that there should be an interpreter. In one case, we were invited to visit a church, and I didn't comment about anything, but at the end of that, with their prophecies and their tongues and all that, the female pastor, and this was, I was much younger, I wouldn't even have gone in there today, but she came directly up to me and my wife and told us to never come again. We hadn't said a thing. So, you know, who's trying to trick who, right? The devil works in those things, and we have to be real careful. It's fundamentally, though, you know, we need to be gracious to people we talk to about this, because it becomes part culture. You're raising that kind of church. I mean, Elvis Presley was raising the Assembly of God church. But at some level, you are responsible for looking at the scripture, not only about the tongues issue, but about other things, like how the Word of God is presented. and look at it and say, well, what's the model? What's the model for church leadership? Is that what we're doing? If we're not, why are we not doing it? But what happens, particularly in this area, You're shown something in in in the world and I don't mean worldly I just mean just you know you're shown something you know in a church setting and you're told that's tongues and then you find it in the scripture and in in that's backwards and in that leads to a lot of the the confusion, but You will hear stories in even Billy Graham talks about this one of his books and about some tongues happening on missionary frontiers. I don't, you know, there's stories. I wasn't there. I can't deny them or confirm them, but at least it was in the context of someone who doesn't know the native tongue speaking the language of the people that they're ministering to. Could have happened, might could have. I know that I haven't seen that yet in a church here. One last comment is if you read 1 Corinthians, the tongue seemed in part, not in the book of Acts, but by later time when you see it in 1 Corinthians, In part, it was apparently used as a sign of judgment, fulfilling, you know, things God said in the Old Testament about bringing judgment on the Jews from a people whose language they don't understand. So, that's a piece of it. So, let me read a couple of verses and we'll stop, just to give you the flavor. Paul's gonna, and we'll be able to finish out 15 next time pretty easily. I don't have a lot of comments on it, and we'll get I'm gonna try to finish the book next time but Paul says In verse 22, that's why I've been prevented many times from coming to you He was just talking about his ministry and how Jesus had performed miracles and things through him And he says that's why I've been prevented many times for coming to you. He wants to come to Rome but he's had essentially church business get in the way meaning the the ministry of the gospel and has taken him in different paths. But he says, but now I no longer have any work to do in these regions, and I've strongly desired for many years to come to you. It's fascinating. So this church has been around a while. And he says, whenever I travel to Spain, I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there once I first enjoyed your company for a while. So he's gonna stay a while and hope they'll give him some provision as he heads out to to Spain. And right now I'm traveling to Jerusalem to serve the saints. We'll talk a little about that next time. He's taking some money there. But Paul plans to go and see the church in Rome, and then from there go to Spain. When we get to Chapter 16, other than dealing with this matter of whether Phoebe was a deacon, there's just a lot of greetings, but there are a couple of interesting little remarks he makes that are very difficult for a Reformed theology perspective. So we'll see that as well next time. Let me...