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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...
Instruct One Another (Rom15)
Series Mission 119 Zoom Bible Study
This lesson is part of a verse by verse series through Romans.
| Sermon ID | 112324151586249 |
| Duration | 55:13 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Romans 15:14-24 |
| Language | English |
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