Survey of the Pauline Epistles (Classes 1 & 2)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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June 8, 2022

00:00: All right, everybody, let's see where we are with our pop quiz.
00:06: Those of you who are joining us by video or audio, the class has been taking a very quick quiz to start today.
00:16: And this is to go over what we have talked about so far in this class, seven questions.
00:22: Question number one, which gospel writer is historically identified with the apostle Peter, Daisy? Okay, no.
00:33: The gospel writer, which one of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Huh? No, that's okay, I didn't mean to, I wasn't trying to call you out, I was just, yeah, all right, who was it? Yeah, Mark, remember we said Matthew was an apostle, Luke was associated with Paul, John was an apostle, and Mark was writing from the perspective of Peter.
00:55: According to church tradition, Mark is writing from Peter, so therefore we could, in a sense, call Mark the gospel of Peter.
01:07: Now, which gospel is identified as autopic, John? And what does autopic mean? Means from a singular perspective, from a single perspective, the synoptic gospels come from three, it's the three sort of working together, coming from three perspectives, but the autopic gospel is a single perspective.
01:40: All right, now this one here could have a variety of answers.
01:44: What three events from the life of Christ are in all four gospels? Now, there's a bunch, but somebody give me one.
01:58: Water to wine's only in the gospel of John.
02:02: Yeah, that was one of the miracles.
02:05: That's the first miracle John mentioned, one of his, the seven miracles.
02:08: This is something that all four gospels contain.
02:12: What's something all four gospels contain? You know, I'd have to look that up, but I think you're right.
02:20: Feeding of the 5,000 is mentioned in all four.
02:25: Anybody else have one? Cleansing of the temple.
02:30: I'm not sure that that is included in all four.
02:32: I'd have to look that up.
02:34: Most specifically, I'm looking for death, burial, and resurrection.
02:39: That's why I had three, because the death, burial, and resurrection, the heart of the gospel is in all three.
02:44: Now, Mark's gospel, with the ending controversy, we could say there's questions about how much he tells about the resurrection, but all three have the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
02:57: That, of course, being foundational to the gospel.
03:03: All right, who was the first Christian martyr in the book of Acts? Stephen, that's right.
03:12: Often referred to as Saint Stephen.
03:18: What was the purpose of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15? Not everybody refers to it as the Jerusalem Council, but I tend to.
03:27: Yes.
03:29: Yes, it was debating the inclusion of the Gentiles within the covenant, and moreover, how they would be included.
03:40: Would they have to be circumcised? But yes, the inclusion of the Gentiles was the purpose of that council.
03:49: Number six, Acts focuses primarily on the ministry of two apostles.
03:55: Who are they? Peter and Paul, that's right.
04:02: The first 12 or so chapters deal with the ministry of Peter.
04:07: The last half or more deals with the ministry of Paul.
04:11: So, Peter and Paul.
04:16: How does the Bible describe the death of Paul? It is not a trick question, but it is a specifically written question.
04:31: How does the Bible describe the death of Paul? The answer is it doesn't.
04:35: It doesn't describe the death of Paul.
04:37: We are not given that information.
04:39: In fact, the Bible doesn't tell us about the deaths of the apostles.
04:44: We get that information through tradition and other historical sources, such as a lot of people believe Peter was crucified upside down.
04:54: Is that true? Well, church tradition says it is, but there's nothing biblical about that.
04:58: If a person said, I don't believe that's how it happened, that's fine.
05:03: I don't have any other evidence of anything else, right? So, I just take it as the fact that it's our tradition, but it's not scriptures.
05:14: Well, tonight we are going to begin a two-part lesson on the Pauline epistles.
05:22: The Pauline epistles will take up this class and next class.
05:28: And I know this may seem like a very simple question, but who wrote the Pauline epistles? Paul, absolutely.
05:37: We're going to be looking at the epistles that Paul wrote.
05:42: Now, if you were here last week, we talked about Paul's biography, which we find portions of in the book of Acts, and we find portions of Paul's biography in his letters, most specifically the beginning of Galatians, which was his first letter.
06:00: He writes talking about what happened right after his conversion and those things.
06:05: And so, I showed you on the board last week how we have to harmonize some of Acts with some of what Paul wrote to arrive at a conclusion of when things are happening in his life.
06:20: I want to read to you a quote.
06:24: The man known to us as the Apostle Paul began life as Saul of Tarsus.
06:29: The account of his radical conversion to Christ is found in several places in the New Testament.
06:38: From the moment he was saved, he began preaching about Jesus, and over the next several years, he traveled extensively planting churches wherever he went.
06:47: When not with those churches, he still carried the responsibility for them in his heart like a father for his children.
06:54: Much of the New Testament is made up of his letters to some of those churches.
06:59: We know for certain that Paul wrote at least 13 letters that are included in the New Testament.
07:08: So, what are those letters? Romans would be the first one in the list.
07:15: Now, this is not chronological.
07:17: This is the way the Bible gives them to us.
07:19: We know we have four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
07:23: We have the book of Acts, and then it immediately goes into the letters of Paul with Romans, 1 Corinthians, General Electric Power Company.
07:36: Yeah, you got it, yeah.
07:38: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
07:42: First and second Thessalonians, first and second Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.
07:49: All right, so how many did we just count? Romans, first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, first, second Thessalonians, first, second Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, 13 books.
08:03: Now, there are those who argue that Paul wrote Hebrews, which would make that the 14th writing of Paul.
08:10: But in this class, I am going to contend that he did not write the book of Hebrews.
08:15: Therefore, I will not be including it in the Pauline epistles.
08:18: However, if you want to believe that Paul wrote Hebrews, you are welcome to continue to believe something that is wrong.
08:28: That's a little bit of a joke, a little bit of Pauline humor, ha ha.
08:32: No, I honestly don't know who wrote Hebrews, but I don't believe Paul wrote it because the book of Hebrews states, the author states that he got his information secondhand.
08:43: And Paul would never say that.
08:45: Paul says, I got my information directly as a revelation from Jesus Christ.
08:51: So I think that to me excludes Pauline authorship as Hebrews chapter two, clearly he says that he received this information from others.
09:03: Whereas Paul clearly says in Galatians, I received my ministry, my gospel is a revelation of Jesus Christ specifically.
09:15: Now, in our lesson on the book of Acts, we look briefly at the significance of the apostle Paul.
09:22: And as we noted, the latter half of the book of Acts recounts his missionary work.
09:26: The book of Acts records three missionary journeys.
09:30: So we have the first missionary journey, which is in Acts 13 and 14.
09:35: So I'm just gonna put the first missionary journey is in Acts 13 and 14.
09:44: You may wanna take these down because we're gonna address some chronological things here.
09:50: His second missionary journey is in Acts 1536 to 1822.
10:05: And the last missionary journey is 1823 to 2038.
10:25: So the first one, Acts 13 and 14 was into lower Asia minor and it was with Barnabas.
10:38: He traveled with Barnabas on his first missionary journey.
10:45: The second missionary journey was with Silas to Asia minor and Greece.
10:55: And the third missionary journey was also in Asia minor.
11:03: Some believe that Paul had a fourth journey, but it is not explicitly recorded for us.
11:09: These missionary journeys are important because it is where we are introduced to many of the places where Paul's letters will be addressed.
11:17: In fact, Galatia, if you're familiar with the area known right now as Turkey, that is the area that at that point would have been referred to as Asia minor.
11:35: Well, not exactly.
11:37: There is some debate about where Galatians was sent.
11:44: Now I have my opinion and I'll explain why I'm right in a minute, but there's a Northern area where the people were called Galatians.
11:57: And then there's the Southern region that was referred to also as the Galatian region.
12:04: So there were two regions and both had names that were the same.
12:11: And so you had basically like a North and South Galatia.
12:14: The Northern Galatian region would not be reached until Paul's second or third missionary journey, but the Southern would have been reached on his first missionary journey.
12:27: Based upon the internal evidence of the book of Galatians that he writes to the Galatians, it seems very obvious to me that he's writing before the second and third missionary journey.
12:41: He's writing after his first missionary journey.
12:46: So if you read Acts 13 and 14, you read about places like Lystra and Derbe and Iconium and those places, that's Southern Galatia.
12:57: And I believe that's where Paul is writing to when he writes to the Galatians.
13:01: So on his first missionary journey, we get one letter, after, after, and that letter is the letter to the Galatians.
13:08: So that's his first letter, first missionary journey.
13:17: Yeah, it would have been afterwards, so it would have been in there, yeah.
13:23: Now, the second missionary journey would be where we, afterwards, where we get the Thessalonian letters, first and second Thessalonians.
13:41: So as far as order, you're starting to see the order come about, right? You're starting to see when these things are happening.
13:52: After the third missionary journey is when we get the Corinthian letters and also Romans.
14:09: Now there are also the letters known as the prison epistles, which are Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.
14:19: Those are all written by Paul from prison.
14:25: And then we have the pastoral epistles, which are toward the end of Paul's life, which would be 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus.
14:39: We know 2nd Timothy very specifically is towards the end of his life, because he says, you know, I've run the race, I've kept the faith, you know, my time is coming to an end.
14:49: He knows that his life is close to being at an end point.
14:55: And so that kind of gives you an idea.
14:58: And we are going to be following the order that we have in our Bibles, Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, but honestly, a proper study of Paul's epistles, if I were doing a longer, broader study, would begin with Galatians.
15:17: And I believe Galatians sets the stage for the rest of Paul's letters.
15:22: It's very unique within the Pauline corpus, because it is more autobiographical.
15:28: He talks about his life and what he's done.
15:31: He does that in other letters, but very specifically in Galatians, he's defending himself against those who would say that he's preached essentially a false gospel, that he hasn't given them all the information, because they're demanding that people be circumcised and all that, and Paul's coming in and says, no, I didn't preach a false gospel.
15:51: They're preaching the false gospel.
15:53: Remember, it's at the beginning of Galatians where Paul says, if any man brings to you a gospel other than what I gave you, let him be accursed.
15:59: There's a very tense opening to Galatians.
16:03: Galatians, the only letter where there's no greeting.
16:06: There's no, I give thanks to you, and I give thanks for all of you.
16:11: There's none of that in Galatians.
16:12: It just goes right into, who has bewitched you? Who has brought this bad teaching in? So Galatians is, like I said, it's Paul's first letter.
16:25: It's very bold, it's unique among the corpus, and we're gonna talk about it some tonight, but just to give you an idea, this is the chronology of Paul's writing.
16:41: So with that in mind, I do wanna say something else about Paul's theology, and I wanna mention, this is not in my notes.
16:48: This is actually something I had the opportunity to do a little bit of studying, to prepare myself to teach again, as I always try to learn myself.
17:00: Had an opportunity to listen to some lectures by Dr.
17:03: Douglas Moo, who wrote the textbook, one of the textbooks that I use for this class, and wonderful teacher, wonderful Bible teacher.
17:15: And he mentioned something that I thought would be helpful for us.
17:19: And so this is new in the sense that it was from his lecture, not from my original notes.
17:24: He said, when we consider the theology of Paul, we need to consider it from the perspective of coherence and contingency.
17:33: So if you'll write those two words down, coherence and contingency.
17:39: And here's what he's referring to.
17:43: If I were to ask you, what is the theology of Paul? Well, Paul didn't write a theological textbook.
17:56: Paul wrote 13 letters to churches and individuals that are filled with theological information, but they are not 13 theological books, as if like Wayne Grudem, Wayne Grudem wrote a systematic theology and Jim Boyce wrote a systematic theology and different people have written.
18:22: Paul never sat down and said, okay, I'm gonna tell you all about God and his nature and being.
18:28: And now I'm gonna tell you all about Christ and his nature and being.
18:31: And I'm gonna tell you all about the Holy Spirit.
18:33: And like if you guys continue in the academy, one day we'll do that course together.
18:38: I teach systematic theology.
18:40: One of my favorite courses, because I love it.
18:43: And that's what we do.
18:43: We start with God and then Christ and then the Spirit.
18:46: And we look at the church and the gifts and all kinds of things.
18:49: It's an outlined, but Paul never does that.
18:53: What he does is he writes his letters contingent, and that's where the word contingency comes from, contingent upon the needs of the specific church or person that he's writing to.
19:05: So when he writes to Corinthians, he's writing a letter which is answering questions that they have sent to him.
19:15: And here's the kicker.
19:17: We don't have the questions.
19:20: We don't have the letter that he got that he's responding to.
19:24: He mentioned several times in 1 Corinthians about what you wrote, about what you wrote.
19:30: Well, we don't got what they wrote.
19:32: We don't know if they were asking him open-ended questions like, Paul, what do you think about thus and so? Or if they had an opinion and they were saying, this is the way it is.
19:42: Paul, tell us how right we are.
19:45: So the difference in Corinthians and Romans is massive because Romans is not written to answer the questions of the Roman church.
19:57: Corinthians is, 1 Corinthians is written to answer the questions of the church, right? And what Paul deals with in Romans and 1 Corinthians is different than what he deals with in 1 Thessalonians.
20:11: It's different than what he deals with in Titus and Philemon.
20:16: I mean, Philemon just by itself, we'll look at it more next week, but just by itself, it's a book about a escaped slave who Paul is sending back to his master with a commendation to free him and make him a brother in Christ.
20:30: I mean, essentially, right? There's more to it than that, but if you think about it, that whole book by itself speaks very little about any theological information.
20:41: We don't really read in that book about the nature of God or about the nature of justification or things like that.
20:48: And so if I said, let's look at the theology of Paul from Philemon, we'd get very little.
20:54: So this is where coherence comes in.
20:57: Contingency is the idea of what each book says.
21:01: So it's contingent on the book, but coherence is bringing the books together, you see, and forming a coherent theology based upon the 13 letters of Paul.
21:20: And then of course, you have to harmonize that with what else? The rest of the New Testament, right? There's 27 books, 13 of them belong to the apostle Paul as author, but there are more books.
21:31: And then what else do you have to harmonize it with? The Old Testament, right? You have to harmonize the New Testament and the Old Testament.
21:39: So this isn't anything new, the idea of contingency and coherence, but where we get the issue with Paul is there are people who will make bold claims.
21:48: There are people who would make really bold claims about Paul and what he taught.
21:56: And yet they're only focusing on one thing, one book, one contingent situation.
22:06: Rather than looking at the whole and making it coherent with everything.
22:11: That's the part that's most important is having your contingent statements come together in coherence with the whole.
22:20: Some people think that it's impossible because there are people who don't believe the Bible is of God.
22:26: I mean, there are people who just believe these are guys, these are first century men writing from their own minds.
22:33: And the idea is that Paul could have had this idea over here and this idea over here, and there's no reason to try to bring them together.
22:38: That's an ungodly way of looking at it, but that's the way a lot of people do.
22:43: Or they put positions on Paul's letters.
22:46: Well, Romans is more important than this, so we're gonna always take this or this, rather than trying to harmonize, and I mean, honestly, I remember a guy telling me years ago, all I need is the book of Romans.
23:01: Now, I remember he said, I would just spend the rest of my life studying Romans and preaching Romans.
23:05: I don't need any of the rest of it.
23:07: And I thought, what a myopic view.
23:10: One of, you know, you don't need the Gospels.
23:14: You don't need the words of Christ.
23:17: There's one thing about Paul's letters that you'll notice, he rarely quotes Christ.
23:22: Go through, go through over the next few weeks, read just the 13 letters of Paul.
23:26: It's short, you can read them all in a weekend.
23:28: The letters of Paul are short, right? Read through all of them, find how many times he quotes Jesus.
23:34: Now, I'm not saying he's wrong in that.
23:36: I'm just saying it's just the idea of Paul is, Paul, it's, think of Paul like this.
23:45: The Gospels are narrative, Acts is also narrative, but the epistles are didactic.
24:08: The word didactic means the what? The dialogue? No, no, that's dialogical.
24:14: The word didactic means that they are teaching literature.
24:20: So narrative literature tells a story.
24:24: Didactic literature teaches a lesson.
24:28: But what are the didactic letters intending to do? They're intending to explain the narrative.
24:39: Paul's letters are explaining to us who Christ is and what Christ did.
24:47: So the fact that he doesn't quote Christ doesn't mean he's not infatuated with Christ.
24:52: He certainly loves Christ.
24:53: He is infatuated with his Savior and the letters are all about the Lord Jesus Christ, but he's not quoting him, he's exegeting him.
25:03: Paul is exegeting who Jesus is and what he did.
25:12: So Paul's theology is wrapped up in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
25:20: So tonight we are going to look at Romans to Colossians.
25:27: We're going to look at authorship, dating and purpose, which we sort of already have done a little bit of.
25:38: We're going to look also at theological insights, which we're getting to.
25:43: And then we're going to look at interpretive challenges probably after the break.
25:51: So let's talk about authorship.
25:55: And you say, well, wait a minute, these are Paul's epistles.
25:56: We know who the author is.
25:57: Yes, we do.
26:01: But we need to take a step back and say, even though Paul is the author of all 13 of these books, Paul did not write all 13 of these books.
26:10: You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
26:12: How do you say he's the author, but not the writer? Well, in many of them, he used what was called an Emanuensis.
26:20: An Emanuensis was a person that wrote as he spoke.
26:25: So Paul spoke and they dictated what he wrote onto a paper.
26:34: So we see him talk about that.
26:37: In fact, in certain letters, the Emanuensis actually names himself and tells that he, you know, the one who wrote this.
26:45: I want to quote to you from the, this is actually from the Encyclopedia Britannica.
26:51: It says of the 27 books of the New Testament, 13 are traditionally attributed to Paul, though only seven of these are accepted as being entirely authentic and dictated by Paul himself.
27:03: The authorship of the others is debated and they're commonly thought to have come from contemporary or later followers writing in Paul's name.
27:09: Now, I don't agree with that.
27:10: I'm just reading that quote because when I say Paul wrote 13 letters, I do believe some people wrote as he spoke, but I believe he is the author in the sense of the source of all 13 letters.
27:22: There are those who believe that Paul is not the source of certain letters.
27:27: In fact, within critical theory, which takes a higher critical approach to the scriptures, there are those who would say Paul didn't write 2 Timothy.
27:36: There are those who'd say Paul didn't write Colossians.
27:40: There are those who would say Paul did not write a few of the other letters.
27:45: And they would say only seven of them are authentically Pauline, but I disagree with that completely.
27:50: I don't believe that, I don't believe the critical theory at that point, but just to make the simple argument, especially about like 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy seems to be a very personal letter from Paul, and he speaks of personal experiences had with Timothy.
28:12: So those who argue for it, tend to argue for it from the perspective of someone is using Paul's name to try to get some credibility for their work, but there's nothing in the internal information of that book that would support that, at least not from my perspective.
28:34: There's a lot of different arguments as to who might've written it, but like I said, I believe Paul is the source of all of these, not necessarily the writer, because there are people who are writing, but certainly the source.
28:50: All right, very quickly, I'm gonna give you the order that I believe they're written in.
28:57: I don't know how fast you wanna try to write these down, but I'll give them to you.
29:01: I believe Galatians was first, as I already mentioned, would have been written around the year 48.
29:07: This would have been just prior to the events of Acts 15.
29:12: And think about it, Galatians and Acts 15 are both dealing with the same thing.
29:15: We talked about this for the pop quiz.
29:17: They're both dealing with the inclusion of the Gentiles.
29:21: First Thessalonians would have been written around the year 50, second Thessalonians would have been written shortly thereafter.
29:31: By the way, they didn't come with titles.
29:34: They didn't come with, it didn't say, this is my first letter to Thessalonica, this is my first letter to the second letter or whatever.
29:41: These are letters we've attributed to them, or titles rather, we've attributed to them.
29:46: So some people have even argued that second Thessalonians was written first.
29:50: I don't think that that's accurate.
29:51: I think the traditional order is correct, but they were both written close in time.
29:59: 1 Corinthians would have been written in the mid 50s as well as 2 Corinthians.
30:06: 2 Corinthians mentioning events from 1 Corinthians pretty much makes no argument as to which one came first.
30:15: Romans would have been the mid to late 50s.
30:19: Philippians would have been in the early 60s as would be Colossians, Philemon and Ephesians.
30:29: 1 Timothy, Titus and 2 Timothy would have all been mid 60s.
30:38: And that would have been right around the time of Paul's demise.
30:46: Yeah, Ephesians would have been early 60s and Titus would all been mid 60s.
30:54: Like I said, they were the last of his writings.
31:04: And what's interesting is if you look at it from that perspective, if you look at that list I just gave you, you can see an evolution in Paul's teaching.
31:15: Now be careful with the word evolution because some people think evolution means, well, evolution does mean change, but I don't mean a change in the sense of Paul changing his views, but we see an evolution in Paul's teaching where early on in Galatians and Corinthians, he is correcting error.
31:34: But by the time of Romans and Ephesians, he's systematizing his theology and making himself clear.
31:43: By the time of Titus and Timothy, he's establishing rules and procedures for the church.
31:49: See how that sort of at the beginning, it's like, okay, I planted the churches and here's where you guys are messing up.
31:57: Here's in the middle where I'm gonna focus on more systematized understanding.
32:03: And then by the end, okay, now we got to structure the church and that's why Titus and Timothy gives us the outline of the elders and the pastors and the deacons and all those things.
32:18: As I said earlier, when I talked about contingency, the purpose of each of Paul's books is contextual, it's written to a specific audience and it comes in the form of a epistle.
32:30: We often talk about the book of Romans or the book of Ephesians, but actually they're not books, they are epistles.
32:37: The word epistle comes from the Greek word apostole, which means a letter, a message, or a dispatch of the 27 books of the New Testament, 21 of them are epistles.
33:00: The ones that are not epistles are four gospels, Acts and Revelation.
33:14: Paul's epistles were written to either a specific church or a specific person.
33:19: Some of them were written in response to letters we don't have, as I said, with 1 Corinthians.
33:25: And here's a few verses, 1 Corinthians 7, 1, now concerning the matters which you wrote, 1 Corinthians 5, 9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate, you know, oh, that's, I'm sorry, I just skipped over something.
33:41: There's a letter that we don't have from Paul because in 1 Corinthians 7, 1, he says concerning what you wrote, meaning he received a letter, but in 1 Corinthians 5, he says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate.
33:54: So there's a missing letter of Paul out there somewhere.
33:58: It's not scriptural, but there was a letter of Paul to the Corinthians where he specifically addressed sexually immoral people.
34:05: He says, I wrote to you in my letter.
34:11: No, this would either be saying, here's one of two ways, either there's a letter we don't know about, or Paul is saying, I wrote to you in my letter, and he's referring to the letter he's currently writing.
34:22: Like I wrote to you earlier in this letter, and that could be as well.
34:25: So there's a couple of different ways that scholars have sort of dealt with that.
34:28: But he addresses a letter, potentially the idea of a letter that we don't have.
34:38: If I were to ascribe an overall purpose to Paul, I would say his letters are mainly pastoral in nature.
34:47: Even though we have three that we call the pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy and Titus, his entire corpus or his entire work is that of a pastor to the churches.
35:01: He's a missionary church planter and theologian, but at his heart, he is a shepherd.
35:07: He's planted these churches and he's writing to instruct and rebuke error.
35:13: That's what a pastor does.
35:22: Now, as to the theology of Paul, which again, we've already sort of touched on, Paul is the theologian of the early church.
35:31: Therefore, it's difficult to describe exactly how much breadth and weight we can put regarding his theological contribution.
35:43: It does make sense that Paul would have a great theological mind.
35:47: He was trained in such a way, according to Philippians 3, 5, he was trained in theology as a Pharisee.
35:54: The Pharisees were trained in the Old Testament, but Paul does not appeal to his training as his source of information.
36:04: Paul claims to have received his revelation directly from Jesus Christ.
36:12: You can write this down, Galatians 1, 11 and 12.
36:15: He says this, for I have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
36:31: This is not to say that his former training didn't serve him, we know that it did, but we need to understand, because this is what some, this is where a lot of people miss the mark.
36:44: They come to some conclusion that Paul's teachings are somehow being over, maybe that's, that Paul's training as a Pharisee is somehow overcoming his teaching as an apostle, and therefore some of what he says is not accurate, it's a product of his teaching.
37:14: Good example, Paul clearly says that women are not to be pastors.
37:19: Some people get offended by that, but Paul is clear that women are not to be pastors.
37:25: And some would say, well, that's not Christian, that is a by-product of his Pharisaical upbringing, and I don't believe that that's true.
37:36: One of the places that people argue for that, most specifically, is in 1 Corinthians where Paul says, I, not the Lord, say to you.
37:48: Remember that, 1 Corinthians 7, he specifically says, I, not the Lord, and therefore they assume that what Paul means is that he's giving his own opinion, and he's not giving them revelation from Christ.
38:05: You can ask me, it's okay.
38:09: Not that I'm aware of, I'd have to look it up.
38:11: This is specifically 1 Corinthians 7.
38:15: Paul is- Women pastors.
38:17: Huh? Yeah, women pastors.
38:19: Well, I'm talking about, in this particular instance, it's talking about marriage and divorce.
38:25: In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, I say to you, I, not the Lord.
38:30: And what he is saying there, a lot of people assume that this Paul is giving his opinion, but it's not a direct revelation from the Lord, so therefore we can ignore it.
38:41: That's the way a lot of people treat it.
38:42: We can ignore that.
38:43: The problem with that line of thinking is what Paul is saying in context is that Christ gave specific commands about marriage and divorce when he was on the earth, Matthew chapter 19, Matthew chapter 6.
38:57: There's several places where Jesus has specifically addressed this marriage and divorce, but he didn't say everything.
39:04: And so Paul says, I say to you, I, not the Lord, in the sense that the Lord Jesus said these things, but I am giving you additional revelation, and I have the authority of an apostle to do so because I'm filled with the Holy Spirit.
39:19: I'm being used by God as an apostle, and I have the ability to make, because Paul says to us things about marriage that Jesus doesn't.
39:27: For instance, the issue of a unbelieving spouse.
39:30: Jesus doesn't address that specifically.
39:33: Paul does.
39:35: Paul also addresses the issue of someone being remarried, and he says it's better to marry than to burn with desire, right? That's an issue that he's specifically addressing there.
39:47: And so my point is simply to say this.
39:48: Some people would say Paul is not speaking from God.
39:52: He's speaking from experience.
39:53: He's speaking from his life's training as a Pharisee, but Paul doesn't allow for that.
39:58: He says, no, what I'm saying is revelation from God, revelation from Christ.
40:04: And so we have to come to the conclusion that Paul is either speaking from God or he's not.
40:11: Some people believe he's not.
40:12: Some people believe Paul absconded with the Christian faith, that Paul took what Christ taught and perverted it.
40:19: Obviously, I think those people are mad, but that is what some people believe.
40:30: Paul's letters are not his interpretation of the truth, but rather they are the truth of God, which is given through him.
40:36: That is a very important understanding.
40:38: Paul is not interpreting truth or history.
40:40: He is proclaiming truth that has been given to him by God.
40:48: Now, I think I've already said this, but I'll go ahead and tip my hand if it hasn't been obvious.
40:55: I have a favorite letter of Paul's, and it is the letter of Galatians, followed very quickly by the letter of Romans.
41:05: Galatians is my favorite because it's his first letter and it's different than the others.
41:11: But Romans is my favorite second because it is Paul's magnum opus.
41:17: Paul clearly outlines doctrines such as sin, justification, sanctification, election, adoption, even doctrines like predestination and reprobation.
41:28: They are clearly outlined in Romans.
41:33: And it is these two books, keep it from a historical perspective, and if you take my church history class, you'll hear me say this again.
41:39: These two books had the most profound impact on Martin Luther and ultimately the rest of the reformers as well.
41:45: Both letters stood at the center of the Reformation protest that rocked and eventually split the Christian church during the 16th century.
41:53: In fact, the beginning of the Reformation can, with some justification, be traced to Martin Luther's lectures on Romans, which happened from 1515 to 1516, and then Galatians, which happened from 1517 to 1518 in Wittenberg.
42:07: And that was a quote, by the way, I was quoting from a blog article, but that we can look to those two books and Martin Luther's study of Romans first and then Galatians as having a profound impact.
42:25: And within almost a decade between them, they demonstrate Paul's consistent theological message, because his message between Galatians and Romans, which are 10 years apart, his message remains the same.
42:47: One could argue, since we're on theological insights, one could argue that even though you can't pin down Paul's theology to any one area, one could argue that his most significant contribution comes to us in the doctrine of justification.
43:31: In fact, interestingly enough, about the doctrine of justification is there's only one place that I'm aware of, and I think I'm correct about this.
43:38: I remember looking it up one time.
43:42: The only place in the gospels, that is the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the only place where the word justified is used in regard to sin is when Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
43:58: Remember he said there was a Pharisee and a tax collector who went to the temple, the Pharisee went to the temple and he says, "'Lord, I'm not like other men.
44:04: "'I thank thee that I'm not like other men.
44:06: "'Don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other.'" And it says the tax collector stood at a distance and he beat his breast and he said, "'Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.'" And then Jesus said, it was that man and not the other who went home justified.
44:20: Interesting.
44:21: I believe that's Jesus teaching us justification by faith, by the way, because that man didn't bring any works, that man didn't bring any goodness, he brought a broken and contrite heart.
44:30: The Bible says that's what God is looking for, a person who has a broken and contrite heart, right? That's what he did, he brought a broken heart to God and God justified him based on his faith.
44:42: So thinking, yeah, they're having a barbecue across the street, I thought the house was on fire.
44:48: It's a lot of smoke pouring out of that house over there.
44:51: Hope it isn't a fire.
44:54: Hope it is not a fire, that wasn't clear.
44:56: I'll make sure the recording didn't take it.
44:57: I said, hope it's a fire, no, I hope it is not a fire.
45:01: Okay, so Paul, as I said earlier, Paul is exegeting the work of Christ and he provides for us insight into the doctrine of justification.
45:16: And he provides to us, and I'm gonna change colors here, a threefold doctrine of imputation, a threefold doctrine of imputation.
45:41: Now, what is imputation, class? Yes, you're right, but what is the word impute? What does that mean? Not quite substitute, substitute is in there, but that's the word imputation means to charge to someone's account, to place something into someone's account.
46:08: So for instance, if Daisy with all her millions of dollars decided she wanted to make me a millionaire, she could go to her bank and she could take a check for her millions and she could charge that to my account.
46:25: She could impute that into my account and then I would be just as rich as Daisy.
46:30: I'm trying to get her to smile, she's not smiling.
46:35: Okay, that is the picture of imputing to put something in to an account, okay? Now, how this relates to justification is three ways.
46:51: Three imputations.
46:54: The first is Adam, Adam sins and he becomes a sinner and the guilt of his sin is charged to all of us.
47:08: We receive the imputation of Adam's sin and that is why we say every man is born a sinner.
47:19: Adam did not just sin on his own behalf, Adam sinned as the representative of all mankind and therefore we all bear the guilt of his sin.
47:30: That's the first step, that's the first imputation.
47:35: The second imputation is when Christ dies on the cross and this is what you were getting to Corey, when our sin, which by the way is ours, you say, wait a minute, you just said it was Adam's.
47:49: No, no, no, we have Adam's sin, but we also have our own sin.
47:53: We got enough without Adam to make us guilty, amen? We got enough, I don't need Adam to make me guilty.
47:59: I'm already guilty, but I do bear the weight of the guilt that Adam carried because that goes to all mankind.
48:07: You know, in Adam all die, the Bible says.
48:10: But I carry my own guilt as well.
48:13: That sin is imputed to Christ, that's the substitution because Christ becomes me on the tree.
48:22: God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
48:31: That's the, we're gonna get to that second part in a moment, but God made him who knew no sin, he had an empty account of sin, no sin in Jesus's account.
48:38: My sin account, full.
48:41: God takes all my sin in my account, he puts it in Jesus's account and Jesus pays for it, right? That's what he does on the cross.
48:51: So the second imputation is my sin is imputed to Christ, but there's a third imputation.
48:58: And the third imputation is Christ's righteousness is imputed to me.
49:07: I am given his perfect righteousness as we sing in the great hymn, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.
49:23: Naked come to thee for dress, helpless, right? We come to Christ without anything and he gives us righteousness.
49:33: Remember that parable Jesus told of the man who went to the wedding feast and he was dressed in the wrong outfit.
49:39: A lot of people misunderstand the meaning of that because Jesus is talking, people say, why would any man be in trouble just because he wore the wrong outfit? What they miss in the story is that the man's outfit was given by the king and he rejected it.
49:57: You see, we will stand before God either in our filthy rags or in the righteousness of Christ, clothed in his righteousness.
50:05: We will stand with our goodness, which is none, or we will stand in his goodness, which is perfect.
50:13: That man chose to stand in his own rags and he was cast in the outer darkness.
50:18: That's what that picture is.
50:20: So three levels of imputation and this is Paul's doctrine of justification.
50:25: Now I'm gonna give you three verses that you can spend some time with later.
50:30: Romans 3, 21 to 26.
50:32: When I do baptisms, I always make the people study this passage.
50:37: Romans 3, 21 to 26.
50:47: The next is Galatians 2, 15 and 16.
50:56: And finally is 2 Corinthians 5, 21.
51:03: That's the one, God made him and knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
51:08: That's right.
51:10: There's another passage, if you wanna write this down, another one just for your own edification.
51:14: When we talk about Adam's sin being imputed to us, that's Romans chapter five, verses 12 to 18, where it says death.
51:29: How's it start? Romans 5, 12, it says through one man, therefore through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all men sinned.
51:39: And then it goes on to talk about Adam bringing death and Christ bringing life.
51:45: Those who are in Adam die, those who are in Christ are made alive, right? So we see that in that passage.
51:54: Now, I'm gonna give you a one sentence description of Romans to Colossians.
52:05: And then we're gonna take a break.
52:08: One sentence for each book.
52:12: This is not enough, but it's all we're gonna have time for.
52:17: Romans is the saving power of the gospel.
52:25: First Corinthians, the necessity of love.
52:34: By the way, I can't stop on each one, but I'll stop for just a moment.
52:39: First Corinthians has that wonderful passage about love.
52:42: First Corinthians 13, I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I'm a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal, right? We know that passage.
52:49: But really the whole book is about that because all leading up to that is what do you do about me, Alfred the idols? Well, out of love for your neighbor, you treat them as more valuable than yourself.
53:00: What do you do about the man who committed adultery with his father's wife? Well, you have to cast that man out because he's sinning within the church and that's harming the church, but also you do it out of love for that man because you don't let somebody continue to sin without addressing their sin.
53:15: It really is all about how to love.
53:18: And some say I follow Apollo, some say I follow Cephas, some say I follow Christ.
53:23: Remember, those people are not loving one another, they're loving position.
53:28: So the whole book really is about the necessity of love and how they have missed the mark.
53:33: Kind of like the church in Revelation that lost or rather left its first love.
53:40: Second Corinthians is about reconciliation, the ministry of reconciliation.
53:48: Galatians is about freedom in Christ, sometimes called the Magna Carta of the Christian faith.
53:58: Freedom in Christ, the Magna Carta of the Christian faith.
54:02: Ephesians is about our riches in Christ.
54:06: He's blessed us in heavenly places with all spiritual blessings in Christ, right? Philippians, Philippians is arguably there's two I could give you, I'm gonna give you the first one, the value of humility, but I also would say Philippians also is about joy and suffering.
54:26: Philippians is all about joy and Paul's writing from prison, but he's still talking about joy.
54:34: And Colossians, which is my plan after Genesis, by the way, my plan is to preach through the short letter of Colossians probably after the baby comes, because I'm gonna take, I finished Genesis probably in the summer, and then the baby will come and then I'm gonna begin a new book.
54:53: And it's been so long since I've been in the New Testament, I'm gonna be so happy to be back.
54:59: But Colossians is about the supremacy of Christ.
55:07: All right, well, we're gonna take five, go use your restroom, whatever you gotta do.
55:12: When we come back, we're gonna talk about the new perspective on Paul and what that means, so come on back.
55:25: I really don't even need to live stream, I could probably do just as well to record it and then post it, because so few people watch it live.
55:36: All right, well, we are now at the final portion of our first study of the Pauline epistles.
55:44: And I gave you a handout.
55:46: This handout is from the book, Introducing the New Testament by Carson and Mu.
55:55: And this tells you about the new perspective of Paul.
56:01: And I just by show of hands, how many of you have ever heard someone mention the new perspective on Paul? Okay, all right, well, I am going to try to give you the 10 cent tour and help you to understand one.
56:26: I think that they're, go ahead.
56:32: You have the book, okay.
56:34: Yeah.
56:39: Basically, here's what the new perspective says.
56:43: It says that when Luther and Calvin were interpreting Paul, they were interpreting Paul within their context.
56:59: And the context was that of a oppressive Roman church that was teaching justification by works.
57:10: And therefore, they read Paul in light of their situation, which was the 16th century Roman church.
57:24: And that they read into Paul things that should not have been read into Paul.
57:31: Because Paul was not living and writing in the 16th century.
57:36: Paul was living and writing in a first century Jewish context, not a 16th century German context, right? And so the argument goes something like this.
57:51: And again, I'm probably not doing it justice.
57:54: And maybe somebody from the internet will send me a letter and say, you just missed it.
57:58: I hope I don't.
57:59: I hope I get at least the basics.
58:04: Paul, we have already said, Paul writes about justification.
58:11: Luther's argument was, Paul was referring to how men are made right with God.
58:16: Justification means how you're a sinful man is made right in the eyes of a holy God.
58:22: But the new perspective on Paul says that that's not really the focus of justification.
58:30: And rather than that being the focus of justification, it is more in line with the idea of covenant inclusion, not so much as sin and justification.
58:46: And so there are men like N.T.
58:49: Wright who have championed this new perspective on Paul with the idea that we need to read Paul within his historic context to really understand what he was saying.
59:02: Now, I wanna say this.
59:04: One, N.T.
59:05: Wright is a very brilliant man, but he is also a man who I have many issues with what he says.
59:16: Dr.
59:16: R.C.
59:17: Sproul was once asked, do you believe that N.T.
59:20: Wright has said things that are heretical? And R.C.
59:25: Sproul's answer, and I've posted this before, R.C.
59:29: Sproul said if N.T.
59:32: Wright hasn't spoken heresy, then there's no such thing as heresy.
59:38: Just, I mean, just outright said.
59:41: So I'm not saying N.T.
59:43: Wright is a heretic.
59:46: However, R.C.
59:47: Sproul said that he had dabbled in heresy, and there's a difference between somebody who says something heretical and somebody who is a heretic, you understand, right? I could say something that's wrong and heretical, but not be a heretic.
59:59: I could make a mistake.
01:00:02: But Sproul's argument was that N.T.
01:00:04: Wright's view of justification was wrong and that he misunderstood Paul.
01:00:11: So basically what we have is we have a, we have two different understandings of what Paul was trying to accomplish.
01:00:20: What Paul was trying to say and what Paul was trying to do.
01:00:23: Let me read you just the first paragraph of this page that I gave you.
01:00:30: First century Judaism played a critical role in the development of Paul's theology, both in his upbringing and his interaction with various Jewish and Jewish Christian viewpoints.
01:00:41: This interaction is most obvious in Galatians and Romans, but it is present in varying degrees in all the letters, determining just what the Judaism of Paul's day looked like is therefore quite significant for accurately interpreting Paul's letters.
01:00:56: I agree with that.
01:00:57: Understanding Paul's context, that's part of how we interpret things.
01:01:04: And ultimately this is the issue.
01:01:10: The church in the 17th or the church in the 16th century was teaching a justification by works.
01:01:16: That's what the reformers rebelled against.
01:01:19: It's justification by faith, not by works, right? But the question is, was the first century Jews teaching justification by works? That's the question.
01:01:32: N.T.
01:01:32: Wright would say they weren't.
01:01:34: And therefore that wasn't Paul's argument.
01:01:37: They were not.
01:01:45: Okay, I think you're, you may be a little different place than I am.
01:01:47: What are you saying? Okay, well, because James refers to justifying our faith by our works.
01:01:55: Yes, so that is true.
01:01:57: But that's not what the point is.
01:02:01: When Paul is writing to the Galatians, Paul is writing about a specific contingent group that has moved into the Galatian region and is teaching what? That before you can be saved, you have to do what? You have to be circumcised.
01:02:17: What is, how does Paul define that? He defines that as you are going under the law and you are requiring the law for salvation.
01:02:27: And the law doesn't save.
01:02:30: Paul says that clearly in Galatians, that no man is justified by keeping the law, but he's justified through faith in Christ.
01:02:40: So that becomes the issue that N.T.
01:02:44: Wright is challenging.
01:02:47: Is the justification there regarding eternal justification of sin and damnation, or is it referring to entrance into the covenant community? So there's a lot of nuance that comes with this particular debate.
01:03:05: And in fact, I did on my podcast a few weeks ago, I had my friend Matthew Henson.
01:03:08: Matthew Henson really likes N.T.
01:03:10: Wright, which is fine.
01:03:11: N.T.
01:03:11: Wright, like I said, he's a scholar.
01:03:13: And Matthew was sort of defending N.T.
01:03:15: Wright and we challenged each other on a few things.
01:03:18: But one of the things I said on that podcast was my issue with N.T.
01:03:23: Wright is that he nuances everything to the Nth degree to where you can never nail him down on anything.
01:03:31: If you try to nail him down on penal substitution and say, do you believe in penal substitution? Yes or no? He's gonna give you a 15 minute answer.
01:03:38: And at the end of that answer, you're not gonna know whether or not he believes in penal substitution.
01:03:42: It's like nailing Jell-O to the wall.
01:03:47: It just doesn't work.
01:03:49: And so that's my issue with a lot of this is I think they're making some good points in certain areas, such as I do think we have to consider context and Paul's context.
01:04:01: And I do think we have to ask the question, did Second Temple Judaism believe that you were justified by works? And I think that's a good question.
01:04:11: However, it seems to me obvious, at least from the plain reading of Galatians, it seems to me obvious that there was at least the argument that you must be circumcised.
01:04:24: That you must be circumcised, because that's Paul's.
01:04:27: And what is Paul's ending of Galatians? I wish you would circumcise yourself and be cut off.
01:04:33: Actually, that's not what he says.
01:04:35: He says, I wish you would just cut it all off.
01:04:38: The word circumcise, he uses, circumcise means to cut around.
01:04:41: And he uses the word to cut off.
01:04:45: He says, those who want you to be circumcised, I would prefer they would just be cut off.
01:04:50: So he, and he says at the beginning of the letter, they're teaching a false gospel.
01:04:55: And a false gospel is damnable, anathema.
01:05:00: So I want you to read this when you get a chance.
01:05:05: I gave you, if you have the book, you've already read it, but read it again if you get a chance and just sort of consider what the arguments are.
01:05:13: It says on the back, I wrote a little, I added a little, I said, for further consideration, you can watch these two videos.
01:05:22: Phil Johnson does a good video on the new perspective on Paul.
01:05:27: And DA Carson does a really good video.
01:05:32: So if you want to dive deeper into this, you know, when you're, when you have time, pull those up and take the opportunity to do that.
01:05:43: Oh, let me read the last part of this.
01:05:47: This is from Douglas and Mu, or from Carson and Mu.
01:05:52: Ultimately, the new perspective as a comprehensive explanation of Paul's relationship to Judaism must be rejected.
01:05:58: Okay, so they're saying it must be rejected, as I said.
01:06:01: On the basis of the single most important issue, it does not offer a better interpretation of the key texts than the competing schools of thought.
01:06:09: While the reformers may have missed some of the nuances of implication of Paul's argument regarding how Gentiles in the new era of salvation are added to the people of God, they were right to discern in Paul a key antithesis between faith and works as the means of accessing God's salvation.
01:06:25: The attempt to redefine justification in terms of covenant identity and entrance into the people of God reverses what is primary with what is secondary.
01:06:33: Justification language refers primarily to one's right relationship with God.
01:06:38: And secondarily, it is a consequence of justification that a person enters the people of God.
01:06:44: So as I said, you can read this whole thing, but the last paragraph sort of sums up the issue.
01:06:52: All right, so this last portion I've entitled interpretive challenges.
01:07:00: That's the first one.
01:07:01: The first interpretive challenge in the writings of Paul are people like this who try to give us a new perspective on Paul.
01:07:08: Another interpretive challenge comes from 2 Peter.
01:07:15: If you have your Bibles, turn to 2 Peter 3.
01:07:24: What am I gonna say? Yep.
01:07:31: Yep, 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16.
01:07:40: He says this.
01:07:43: And count the patience of our Lord as salvation just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.
01:08:03: So what do we learn from that? One, we learn that some things that Paul writes are weighty and difficult to understand.
01:08:09: He just said that.
01:08:10: He literally just said, some of the things Paul wrote are difficult to understand because Paul dives into some deep waters.
01:08:19: He also tells us that some people had already begun distorting what Paul wrote.
01:08:30: What's one of the things that, I give you a quick pop quiz.
01:08:33: What is one of the areas that Paul's theology is most misused? One of the areas where Paul's theology is most misused.
01:08:46: Hold on.
01:08:47: She said election.
01:08:48: I would say there is disagreement there for sure.
01:08:53: What did you say? Nothing.
01:08:57: It's okay.
01:08:58: What did you say? Philippians 4, 13? Predestination, yeah.
01:09:03: But the one thing I'm thinking specifically, people take Paul's doctrine of justification by faith and use it as an excuse for sin.
01:09:13: That's perverting it.
01:09:14: Wouldn't you say? You look like you disagreed there.
01:09:22: No, I know, but even in Paul's own day, what is Romans 6? It's a defense of his doctrine of justification because he says, shall we continue in sin so that grace can abound? Why is he even asking that question? Because he knows that's the natural thing.
01:09:36: People are gonna pervert his words.
01:09:38: People are gonna pervert the idea that just because I'm saved by faith, that doesn't matter if I sin.
01:09:43: And Paul says, shall we continue in sin so that grace can abound? Certainly not.
01:09:47: Meganoita, may it never be.
01:09:49: So that's what I'm saying is even Paul recognizes there's gonna be people who are gonna misinterpret or misapply what he's saying.
01:09:57: And the same thing goes with predestination in Romans 9.
01:10:00: Remember in Romans 9, when he says, you will say to me, who can resist God's will? But I say to you, who are you old man to answer back to God? Can the things formed say to him who formed it? Why did you make me this way? So his response is to address the person who is disagreeing with him or who is misunderstanding.
01:10:22: Something else we learned from the 2nd Peter passage is also that Paul's writings are considered scripture very early.
01:10:29: Notice that Peter says that they twist the writings of Paul like they do all the scriptures.
01:10:35: Notice he's equating Paul's writings to scripture.
01:10:40: As he says, as they do the other scriptures.
01:10:50: We only have a few minutes left.
01:10:52: So let me ask you this question.
01:10:53: Do you have, and let's try to limit it to Romans through Colossians.
01:10:59: Do you have any interpretive challenges from Paul's writings that you have questions about? Anything that you've read or anything that you've had taught to you that you say, I just don't think this is right or I don't understand it.
01:11:13: I don't always have time for questions, but we do have a few extra minutes tonight.
01:11:21: Okay, go ahead.
01:11:21: I don't know the particular one, but where he met John the Baptist and he was being baptized and so they saw the spirit descending on him like a dove.
01:11:33: Before that, he obviously knew who he was while he was teaching in the church at what, 11 or something? You talking about Jesus? Yeah.
01:11:46: No, so he had, he obviously knew what he was there for, what he was born on earth for.
01:11:52: Sure.
01:11:52: So he had a Holy Spirit in him, but this descending on him like a dove, is that like a spirit that he can give away at will or use for different things or what? I've never really got a clear answer on that.
01:12:04: Ah, well, at the baptism of Christ, we see an anointing for ministry that begins Christ's public ministry.
01:12:20: Now one could say Christ was filled with the spirit always in the sense of the fact that he is divine and holy, but the anointing for ministry is what comes upon him at baptism.
01:12:32: He immediately forces him into the wilderness where he's faced with the temptation of 40 days of...
01:12:38: He actually needs the Holy Spirit to let him in.
01:12:41: Yeah, yeah.
01:12:41: It says the spirit let him into the wilderness.
01:12:43: Yeah, so we know that.
01:12:45: And so I do think that there's a particular anointing that comes upon him then for what he's about to do.
01:12:53: All of the things that happened prior to Christ's baptism are still in one sense miraculous because you've got the son of God walking the earth, but it was the baptism that birthed his public ministry.
01:13:09: I've often wondered what life was like in the household of Jesus as he grew up.
01:13:18: I believe Mary and Joseph had other children.
01:13:21: Talks about his brothers and sisters.
01:13:23: Some people believe those were from a previous marriage of Joseph or perhaps they were like half siblings.
01:13:30: The Bible never says that.
01:13:31: So I believe Mary and Joseph went on to have other children and just living in the house of Jesus.
01:13:39: Now there are some extra biblical writings that try to fill in some of those gaps, but it's often the stuff is very dangerous.
01:13:47: He said a lot, it is not my time has not yet come.
01:13:51: Now I heard, I always thought that was not my time yet to go public, but I kind of heard something that was not my time yet to start to die.
01:14:01: Depends on the context, because in the one time he says it in John chapter four, no.
01:14:08: The wedding at Canaan, he says it to his mother.
01:14:12: And I think that's referring to public ministry.
01:14:15: Whereas other times when he says it, I think he's referring to his death.
01:14:18: So it just depends on the context there.
01:14:22: All right.
01:14:24: Yes.
01:14:25: Romans 2.6, you'll read it according to the words.
01:14:28: Yes.
01:14:30: Romans 2 is a very important within the entire context of Romans.
01:14:38: Because Romans one, two and three have the purpose of condemning all men under sin.
01:14:46: Romans one, beginning at verse 18, condemns all men, whether they've heard the gospel or not.
01:14:52: It says in Romans 1.18, that the righteousness of God has been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
01:15:01: For what can be known about God is plain to them.
01:15:03: And it talks about that.
01:15:05: And it expresses the sinful nature of all men.
01:15:09: But in chapter two, it's specifically addressing the people who have the law, who would be the Jews.
01:15:17: The Jews think they're better off because they have the law.
01:15:21: And Paul says, no, you're not better off because you have the law.
01:15:25: Because having the law just makes you more condemned.
01:15:28: Because you have more revelation, which means you're more guilty.
01:15:35: So when you come to the section about being justified, how does it read again? Tell me.
01:15:41: Yes, that is true.
01:15:43: When any man dies, he will receive what his works deserve, unless he be in Christ.
01:15:50: Because if he is in Christ, he will receive what Christ's works deserve.
01:15:55: And so there is a distinction to be made there.
01:15:57: So when a man goes to hell, he is going to hell based upon his works.
01:16:03: Now, I do think also, and this is another, this is a question for another time.
01:16:11: But I do think that there will be rewards even in the new heaven in regard to works.
01:16:19: I think 1 Corinthians 3 specifically addresses this because it talks about those who are saved, having had a foundation in Christ, some build on that foundation with wood, hay and stubble, some build with gold, silver and precious stones, but they will all be saved.
01:16:34: Yet some as through fire, which means I think in a sense by the skin of their teeth in one sense.
01:16:40: So I do think our works matter.
01:16:42: I just don't think they save us.
01:16:44: So he will render to us according to our works, but we will not be saved by our works.
01:16:51: So that fits in that, within that as well.
01:16:54: I have a question.
01:16:55: The thing we just read about the NT, right? Talking about it is part of that because they were just saying, they're trying to say Paul growing up in the intertestamental period is completely different than Old Testament Judaism.
01:17:14: Well, yes.
01:17:15: Because of the Pharisee parties and all that kind of stuff? Yes, and I talked about this a little bit in my Old Testament survey class when we talked about the intertestamental period.
01:17:24: Second Temple Judaism, referring to the temple that was built after, the first temple of course was destroyed, the second temple.
01:17:34: Second Temple Judaism, which now not only has the scriptures, but also has the writings and of the teachers of the law.
01:17:48: And during the time of Christ, there are teachers of the law.
01:17:51: Like there were two specific rabbis, Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel, who argued over the subject of divorce and marriage.
01:17:59: And so when Jesus was asked in Matthew 19, can a man divorce his wife for any cause? I believe that's in direct relation to what the debate that was going on between Hillel and Shammai over the subject of divorce.
01:18:11: So there were contextual things that were happening within Judaism of Jesus's day and of Paul's day that do affect things.
01:18:20: And this is again, coming back to the issue of circumcision.
01:18:24: You know, you were either a circumcised person or you an uncircumcised dog.
01:18:29: And so now we're welcoming in the uncircumcised into the covenant of faith.
01:18:35: Why should we do that? I mean, you can see it from the Jewish perspective.
01:18:39: They could go back to Genesis 17 and say, look, God commanded that we be circumcised.
01:18:45: Who are you to say they don't have to be circumcised? God said, if they're not circumcised, they will not be welcome into the family, you see? And so they're basing their argument on how they understand that text and how they understand the historical background.
01:19:01: And again, I don't think they're right.
01:19:02: I'm just saying this is how somebody, if they only have that one specific idea or tradition, you know, they make their argument from that.
01:19:13: All right, one more and then we're gonna close up.
01:19:16: I'm not sure what's at this is.
01:19:18: God didn't call you here.
01:19:21: Romans 11, two, I think.
01:19:23: First John five, I wanna say seven, eight, eight, nine, something like that.
01:19:27: If you see a fellow believer, meaning a sin does not lead to death, just pray for him.
01:19:31: But if you see one that is leading to death, I'm not gonna expect that.
01:19:35: I asked you to keep it between Paul and Romans and Colossians and neither one of them.
01:19:40: Well, I guess Romans 11, two.
01:19:43: The sin unto death is, I'm just gonna readily admit it's a difficult passage.
01:19:48: There's several ways that people interpret it.
01:19:51: I'm still in my heart.
01:19:53: I have questions about the differing interpretations, but how I would compare that to the Romans passage where the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
01:20:02: If God has called the man to salvation, he's not gonna take it away.
01:20:07: So if you're thinking that the sin unto death is something of God removing someone's salvation, I would say that's a bridge too far.
01:20:17: I wouldn't take it there.
01:20:19: I do believe that it's possible that the sin unto death is that a believer may be falling into a sin that brings him to physical death.
01:20:29: Yeah, but engaging in a sin that leads to physical death.
01:20:32: That's one of the ways that it's interpreted.
01:20:33: And I think that that's a possibility, but it's not a, again, that's not something I'm gonna die on that hill, but that's the way I would relate those two.
01:20:47: All right, Ms.
01:20:48: Daisy, I look like I've confused you all night long.
01:20:50: You keep giving me looks.
01:20:55: Hopefully it was somewhat helpful.
01:20:57: If nothing else, I hope what we did on this board was helpful.
01:21:01: Talking about Paul's relationship to his missionary journeys and what he wrote in the context that he was writing in, I think it was very helpful.
01:21:08: All right, guys, let's pray.
01:21:10: Father, I thank you for your word, for your truth, and I thank you for these folks.
01:21:14: I pray that you'll get them home safely.
01:21:16: And Lord, bring us back again next week as we continue to study the works of Paul.
01:21:19: In Jesus' name, amen.
01:21:32: Well, good evening, everyone.
01:21:34: It is good to see, well, everyone being slightly, well, I'll say everyone who's here, we definitely have a small crowd tonight.
01:21:46: And this class is, so far, I think, has just kind of keeps going like this.
01:21:57: And every class, my other classes, usually I'll start with about 25 and then it'll get down to about half.
01:22:04: So when we end, we end with about 12.
01:22:06: Well, this class only started with about 12.
01:22:09: So ending with five or six is, I guess, still sticking with the norm.
01:22:16: We are going to continue tonight what we started last week, and that is our survey of the Pauline epistles.
01:22:28: And our focus is to look at them in order of the New Testament canon, but as I said last week, that is not the order in which they were written.
01:22:44: And so we're gonna be, in kind of a sense, we're gonna be talking sort of in two ways.
01:22:51: We're gonna talk about the order that they're written in and then the order that they are in in our Bibles.
01:22:56: So, so far, we have looked at Romans through Colossians.
01:23:07: That's where we ended last week.
01:23:12: And obviously we are not doing exegesis of this work.
01:23:17: We are just simply giving an overview of who Paul is writing to and what Paul is writing about, the focus of the letters.
01:23:26: Paul wrote 13 epistles in our New Testament.
01:23:30: And as I said, we have surveyed Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
01:23:35: So we have looked at seven.
01:23:38: And tonight we're going to look at the remaining six, which are 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.
01:23:52: But just to kind of make a note of something, if we look at the books in order, Romans is not the first one that is written.
01:24:05: I know, Caleb, you were here last week.
01:24:07: You two guys were here last week.
01:24:08: Which one do we think was the first one written? Galatians, all right.
01:24:12: So if we put that one here, as far as the time, Galatians was probably the first one written based upon several factors, not the least of which based upon what it's about.
01:24:26: It deals with the subject of how Gentiles are being brought into the New Covenant community and whether or not they have to be made part of the Jewish community through circumcision and that.
01:24:40: We know that that subject is dealt with in the book of Acts in Acts chapter 15.
01:24:46: And a decision is made through what is sometimes referred to as the Jerusalem Council.
01:24:51: The first time, first real ecumenical time where the churches sort of came together to make a decision and a decision went out.
01:25:00: And that decision was that the Gentiles were going to be welcomed as full members of the church without having to have circumcision.
01:25:09: And therefore, it seems like Galatians after that wouldn't make a lot of sense because the decision has been made and Paul never appeals to that decision in his writing to Galatians.
01:25:23: If Paul was writing the letter to the Galatians after Acts 15, it would have made sense that he would have said, oh, and by the way, this decision was made and ratified in Jerusalem and everybody agreed, but he never says that.
01:25:35: So that indicates that the writing of Galatians most likely around the year 48.
01:25:41: So that puts the timeline for Galatians much earlier than the rest of his writings.
01:25:48: Now, the next two letters, oh, by the way, and I did this last week, I'm just just sort of a refresher.
01:25:53: I know not everybody was here.
01:25:55: That would mean that this is connected to his first missionary journey.
01:26:06: His first missionary journey would have been in the lower, what we call today Turkey area or what was then called Asia Minor, which would have been the Southern Galatian region.
01:26:18: Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, those places that we read about in Acts 13 are all the places that this book would have associated with.
01:26:27: So we can associate Galatians with his first missionary journey.
01:26:30: Now, the next two books likely in the writing would have been 1st and 2nd Thessalonians and they would have been associated with his second missionary journey.
01:26:55: And then we have 1st and 2nd Corinthians and Romans, which would have been associated with his third missionary journey.
01:27:16: So if we're looking at this purely on the basis of memory palette, sort of kind of creating something, first missionary journey, one book, second missionary journey, two books, third missionary journey, three books.
01:27:29: If you're looking in line of time, right? Because it is after this that we have the other books such as the books that we separate by what we call prison epistles, which would be what? Nope, nope.
01:27:51: The prison epistles are Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and actually it's Philemon, Philemon, yeah.
01:28:11: So those are typically referred to as the prison epistles because he wrote these from prison, at least we assume he did, based on some of what was written.
01:28:19: But then we have the pastoral epistles.
01:28:26: The pastoral epistles, 1st, 2nd Timothy and Titus.
01:28:29: So that's what you're thinking about.
01:28:37: And if my math is correct, that's one, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13.
01:28:44: That's 13, that's all I was leaving any of them out.
01:28:48: So this kind of puts you together.
01:28:50: You can associate these letters to these groups with his missionary journeys.
01:28:56: You associate these with him writing from prison.
01:28:59: You can associate these with him writing to the pastors, Timothy and Titus.
01:29:04: Now with that in mind, remember what I said last week, when we talk about the theology of Paul, we have to consider two things.
01:29:14: The first is the concept of contingency and what was the other one? Do you remember? Contingency and there's also the C, coherence.
01:29:32: Coherence.
01:29:33: And what does that mean? Well, contingency relates to the circumstances under which a book was written.
01:29:40: So for instance, we know the circumstance that Galatians was written to because Galatians is written to a church that has been infiltrated by a group that I call the Judaizers.
01:29:49: Not everybody agrees with that term.
01:29:51: Certainly we could say they were the people that had come from Jerusalem.
01:29:55: They say they come from James and they've come to try to correct Paul's theology regarding circumcision.
01:30:01: I think Judaizers is just an easier term to use.
01:30:04: They're trying to push Old Testament Jewish ceremonial law onto the people of Galatia.
01:30:10: So the Galatians, we know the contingency of the book.
01:30:14: That's the circumstance under which it's written.
01:30:17: 1 and 2 Thessalonians, we're gonna talk about a little bit tonight.
01:30:20: 1 and 2 Corinthians, we talked about last week.
01:30:22: We said they were sent, Paul received a letter from Chloe's people, says he got the Chloe's people sent him a letter.
01:30:31: She's obviously an important person within the church.
01:30:34: And that letter became the reason for his response because he says, you wrote this to me and this is the answer to that question.
01:30:41: So that's the contingency upon which this is written.
01:30:45: And we talked about these letters here.
01:30:47: We talked about Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
01:30:49: We talked about being written from prison and the things there.
01:30:51: So all of these are, they all have a context or a contingency that makes them be written.
01:31:00: And the reason why this is important and Doug Moo makes a very important statement about this.
01:31:05: He says, it's not as if Paul ever sat down and wrote a systematic theology.
01:31:12: We don't have like, Wayne Grudem has a systematic theology and James Montgomery Boyce has a systematic theology.
01:31:18: And even James Pettigrew Boyce has a, and that's two James voices.
01:31:23: James Pettigrew Boyce was a Baptist.
01:31:24: And he wrote the abstract of systematic theology, which I still contend is one of the finest systematic theologies that's available to us today.
01:31:32: But all of those are written with a very specific method.
01:31:37: The purpose of which is to explain the systematic understanding of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the church, those things and its headings and all of that.
01:31:48: Paul never did that.
01:31:49: Paul never sat down and he said, okay, take my little pen about God.
01:31:54: God is holy.
01:31:57: God is omnipotent.
01:31:59: Paul, and then explain that.
01:32:01: Paul never did it that way.
01:32:02: So we don't have a systematic theology from the apostle Paul.
01:32:07: The closest that we would have, I would say would be which book, anyone? Romans.
01:32:11: I would say Romans is the closest only because Paul does seem to throughout Romans address specific theological subjects, even though he doesn't head it that way.
01:32:24: We know chapters one through three is sin and chapters four and five justification.
01:32:27: Chapter six through eight is sanctification.
01:32:29: It can be broken down that way, but that's as close as we have.
01:32:34: We don't have a systematic theology.
01:32:36: So we understand that each one of these books is written in a context or a contingency, but we have to harmonize them and that's where the idea of coherence comes in.
01:32:47: We have to make sure that we don't have a Paul that only comes from Romans.
01:32:53: Like I told you guys last week, didn't I tell you about the guy who told me all I need is a book of Romans? Remember I said there was a guy I knew he was a preacher and he says, yeah, I just wish I could just preach Romans forever.
01:33:02: Yeah, I just, that's all I need is a book of Romans.
01:33:04: And I thought, you know, I love Romans and I would probably say I've spent more time there than maybe the book of Luke because that's where I did my doctoral.
01:33:12: But other than that, I mean, just in the book, I've spent many, many years just pouring over Romans, but it's not the only thing.
01:33:19: It's not the only thing we have from Paul.
01:33:21: And if your Paul is only coming from Romans and there are things in Ephesians and Colossians and Philippians that don't agree with your conclusions and you're probably not reading Romans right.
01:33:33: There has to be coherence because it's all coming from the same author.
01:33:37: It's all coming ultimately from the Holy Spirit, but it's all coming from the same human writer.
01:33:41: And therefore there has to be agreement within all of this, as much as there's agreement across all of the Bible, there certainly has to be agreement with the man with what he's saying.
01:33:51: And so it's important that we have coherence in our study.
01:33:59: All right, well, tonight we're gonna look at, we're gonna look at basically three sections.
01:34:04: We're gonna be focusing on 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
01:34:08: And again, because we're following the order of our New Testament, we ended last week with Colossians.
01:34:12: So the next would be 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
01:34:15: So we're gonna focus first there.
01:34:17: Then we're going to actually jump to the pastorals and we're gonna look here.
01:34:23: So these are the two parts we're looking at tonight.
01:34:29: Oh, and well, there is one missing, not missing, but we didn't talk about Philemon last week.
01:34:35: So we'll go, this is the most personal letter of Paul.
01:34:39: So even though it does fall under the category of prison epistles, this is a personal epistle.
01:34:46: And so we'll address it and probably do that last.
01:34:49: I recently preached on Philemon.
01:34:52: So if we don't get to it tonight, at least very much, feel free to go back.
01:34:59: I know you guys were there when I preached on it, but I know you guys weren't.
01:35:02: You can always go back and listen to that sermon on our sermon audio page, just to give you a little bit more insight.
01:35:08: I talked about views of slavery and things like that, because that's a lot, that's one of the themes in the book of Philemon that I probably won't get to deal with tonight.
01:35:18: Okay? Okay.
01:35:19: All right, so let's move now to 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
01:35:23: And I'm gonna call this early Paul, because as we can see, it still fits within that early timeframe.
01:35:35: I'm dating 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, probably in the, it's still pre 50, or right at 50.
01:35:46: So pre 50 or right at 50.
01:35:50: And I have some, I'm gonna do a little bit, I'm gonna read to you guys some notes here that I have.
01:35:57: Paul visited Thessalonica or Thessalonica, which was a large commercial city in Macedonia during his second missionary journey, which would have been around 48 to 49.
01:36:11: He caused such a disturbance that he and Silas had to be sent away.
01:36:17: A short time later, Timothy returned from Thessalonica with good news about the church there.
01:36:24: And this good news is what prompted the letter of 1st Thessalonians.
01:36:28: Open your Bibles to 1st Thessalonians chapter three, and let's just look at what I'm referring to here.
01:36:52: All right, 1st Thessalonians chapter three, verse six.
01:36:55: It says, but now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought us good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and love to see us, and we long to see you.
01:37:09: For this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction, we have been comforted about you through your faith.
01:37:16: So right there is the occasion or the circumstance of the writing of the letter.
01:37:23: Timothy has come, he has given a good report about the church, and Paul is writing this letter in response to that good report.
01:37:31: Now there is almost universal acceptance, even among skeptics, that Paul wrote this.
01:37:39: What we're gonna see later when we look at 1st and 2nd Timothy, there's a lot of argument that Paul didn't write the letter.
01:37:45: Now, I believe he did.
01:37:46: Don't think I'm gonna make an argument on the other side, but among critical scholars, there are those which are accepted as Pauline, and there are those that are considered to be pseudonymous or false name, you know, that they applied Paul's name to a false letter.
01:38:05: And 2nd Timothy is one of those.
01:38:07: Titus is one of those.
01:38:09: I believe Colossians is.
01:38:11: There's just a lot that they, and we talked about this a little bit last week.
01:38:13: There's a lot that they argue.
01:38:15: I don't agree with their arguments.
01:38:16: I don't agree with their conclusions, but it's just interesting when you do see a letter like 1st Thessalonians, where even the skeptics would say, yeah, this is totally Paul.
01:38:26: This is no doubt that this came from the pen of the apostle Paul, or the authorship of the apostle Paul, rather.
01:38:33: Both books mentioned Silas and Timothy, but yet Paul was the primary author.
01:38:40: And since these books come shortly after Paul's visit, as we said, his visit would have been 48, 49, then we would say they were written somewhere in that timeframe, possibly by the year 50, and they were written closely together.
01:38:54: Some have even suggested that 2nd Thessalonians may have even been written first, but there is some internal evidence to say the otherwise, because Paul mentions his previous letter in 2nd Thessalonians.
01:39:05: So even though some people would say, well, it possibly came first, well, if so, then there's another letter.
01:39:11: And I don't think that's actually the case in such a short amount of time.
01:39:16: And by the way, the address for that one is 2nd Thessalonians 2, 15.
01:39:20: He says, so then brother, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by spoken word or by our letter.
01:39:27: He references specifically his letter in 2nd Thessalonians, which most likely would have been his first letter when he's writing about the second letter.
01:39:44: 1st Thessalonians is about strengthening the faith of new converts.
01:39:49: Remember, and keep this in mind, this is something we cannot forget.
01:39:54: These are all basically brand new churches.
01:39:58: How many of you have ever been a part of a church plant? You have? Okay.
01:40:07: Yeah, technically, yeah, that's fine.
01:40:08: So it's hard to get a church off the ground, isn't it? And we live in a culture that knows what a church is.
01:40:16: I mean, even if they're wrong, they've heard the word.
01:40:19: They understand, you know, it's about Jesus and there's a focus here and people know what we're doing.
01:40:25: But imagine yourself in 48.
01:40:30: Imagine yourself in a time when the religions were polytheistic and were fairly ubiquitous.
01:40:41: They were everywhere, all kinds of different religions.
01:40:44: And you have now come under the teaching of the gospel.
01:40:49: The apostle Paul has preached and you have believed that God sent his only son into the world through the womb of a virgin.
01:40:56: He grew up to be a man and he died on a cross for your sins.
01:41:00: And because of faith in him, you now have entrance and citizenship and to an eternal kingdom which will last forever.
01:41:09: First of all, that's a fantastic promise.
01:41:12: And it's a promise that was unlike anything else.
01:41:16: There's no other religion like it.
01:41:18: There's no other belief system like it, but it's brand new.
01:41:23: Now, some of these people maybe came out of a Jewish culture, but in Thessalonica, probably not so much.
01:41:29: It probably would have been a primarily Gentile culture, even though there would have been.
01:41:33: Did you? No, I'm just saying it's Macedonia.
01:41:36: We're stationed in Greece now.
01:41:39: Yeah, yeah, so this is Greek culture.
01:41:41: Yeah, so the idea that they don't have a foundation.
01:41:47: And so, I know this.
01:41:51: I know a few men who planted churches and it's hard when you're dealing with people who've been Christians 20 years and they're ready to plant a church.
01:42:00: Imagine people who've been Christians for 20 minutes.
01:42:02: I mean, not quite that, but you understand this.
01:42:06: If he planted the church in 48 or 49 and he's writing a letter a year later, these are all new believers.
01:42:15: These are new Christians.
01:42:16: I mean, you have to kind of put yourself in the idea that the context is so different than today.
01:42:24: We read everything in our modern context.
01:42:26: We forget that this is written to brand new believers and, or like I said, people who've only had their spiritual rebirth within the last couple of years.
01:42:38: And Paul reminds them that they have been transformed by God's word.
01:42:42: If you have your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians, turn back to chapter one.
01:42:49: I wanna read verses four to 10.
01:42:57: Paul says, for we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.
01:43:09: You know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake.
01:43:13: And you became imitators of us and of the Lord for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.
01:43:26: For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything for they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
01:43:51: I mean, he's writing a word of encouragement.
01:43:54: He's saying, you're doing a great, you know, you're doing a good thing.
01:43:57: Your gospel, you accepted us first when we came, you imitated us, you're putting the gospel out and now you are living this Christian life among idolaters and you're waiting on Christ and his return.
01:44:20: Now, Paul is encouraging them in their faith.
01:44:25: He is also encouraging them in light of their possible death.
01:44:32: And I hate to be one who jumps around the book a lot, but please turn over to 1 Thessalonians 4.
01:44:36: I do have to point this out because this is probably one of the most common passages read from 1 Thessalonians, but I want you to remember this, the context that we're in, because most people talk about this in the context of end time studies.
01:44:55: People want to talk about the rapture, but understand Paul, when he gets to chapter four, verse 13, he's dealing with people who literally are facing potential threat, imprisonment, even death for their faith.
01:45:11: And so when he's talking to them about the resurrection, he's not talking to them about some sort of ethereal idea.
01:45:19: You know, one day we're all going to die.
01:45:20: He's talking about there have been people who have died and some of you may die, but there is hope.
01:45:27: And we're not to grieve as those who have no hope.
01:45:29: That's the context of this passage.
01:45:31: He says, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.
01:45:36: That is a common Christian euphemism for death, especially among believers, that they are not dead, but rather asleep.
01:45:44: And that does not, that does not endorse the doctrine of soul sleep, also called psychopenicia, which is a very common doctrine among the Jehovah Witnesses and other Adventist groups like the Seventh-day Adventist or the Advent Christian Church.
01:45:59: They endorse something called soul sleep because they take the verses which say sleep and believe that that means that when we die, our souls also go into a state of unconscious rest until the resurrection.
01:46:14: The Bible, I don't believe fully supports that, but this is one of the passages that they would argue does support it.
01:46:19: So just to be clear, somebody just pulled into the parking lot.
01:46:25: Mike, would you just scope out and see if that's a visitor? All right, well, we'll see if they're just leaving.
01:46:46: Okay, all right.
01:46:47: Sometimes people, for some reason, come make a circle through here.
01:46:51: In fact, not to change the subject, but y'all remember back when the Pokemon game was big on the phones and people would go all over town to get a Pokemon? Our church parking lot was a Poke spot, and we'd see people pull in.
01:47:06: We'd think they were coming to church and they'd pull right back out.
01:47:09: They were coming to get their Pokemons.
01:47:12: So I know, I was gonna start handing out tracks to people driving in the driveway.
01:47:17: Just go stand out there.
01:47:18: He's coming again? Well, we'll see if he tries to, if he knocks on the front door, would you check on him? So going back again to 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul is talking about those who have died and he uses the euphemism sleep.
01:47:42: And in verse 15, he says, "'For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, "'that we who are alive, "'who are left until the coming of the Lord, "'will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
01:47:52: "'For the Lord himself will descend from heaven "'with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, "'and with the sound of the trumpet of God, "'and the dead in Christ will rise first.
01:48:02: "'Then we who are alive and who are left "'will be caught up together with them in the clouds "'to meet the Lord in the air.
01:48:09: "'And so we will always be with the Lord.
01:48:11: "'Therefore, encourage one another with these words.'" This is Paul's way of saying, look, I know some have died and I know some of you may face death, but understand that the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is not only a faith for the living, but it is a faith that we can trust even those who have died are saved by it.
01:48:34: And so it's a confidence in the face of death.
01:48:38: It's confidence in the face of pain and loss.
01:48:43: So he's strengthening new converts with the promises of God.
01:48:50: Everything good? Let's see what he's up to.
01:49:02: All right, so we're strengthening new converts with the promises of God.
01:49:06: That's 1 Thessalonians.
01:49:07: Now, 2 Thessalonians basically has a similar purpose, but this time in 2 Thessalonians, he addresses a fresh outbreak of persecution.
01:49:20: And he addresses the end times to give perspective to that persecution.
01:49:26: Now, I do believe that it is possible that in 2 Thessalonians, there were those who believed that Jesus had already returned and that the end times had already essentially begun.
01:49:45: And we see this in 2 Thessalonians 2, if you wanna turn there.
01:49:56: It says in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse one, "'Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ "'and our being gathered together to him, "'we ask you, brothers, "'not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, "'either by spirit or spoken word, "'or a letter seeming to be from us, "'to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.'" All right, the idea is apparently someone was trying to convince them that the day of the Lord had already arrived, that the day of the Lord has already come, that this promised parousia, which is a word which means the arrival or the coming of the Lord, that the promised parousia had already come.
01:50:37: And this led to an idleness problem.
01:50:46: If you go over to chapter three, you'll see this in verse six.
01:50:50: He says, "'Now we command you, brothers, "'in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, "'that you keep away from any brother "'who is walking in idleness "'and not in accord with the tradition "'that you have received from us.'" Now, just think about that for a moment.
01:51:02: If you thought the end had already come, you might become very complacent in the sense that, well, it's over and everything is done and idleness may set in.
01:51:12: In fact, I'll give you a modern take on this.
01:51:17: And I don't know what anybody's particular end times view is, whether you're pre-distanciational, tribulational, you know, whatever.
01:51:28: But I will say that among the three most common views of end times, which are known as the pre-millennial, the post-millennial and the amillennial, within the pre-millennial camp, I know, especially back in the 90s, when like the left behind books came out and all that came out, there was almost a sense of like, we don't need to worry about doing anything because Jesus is gonna come so soon from now.
01:51:51: He's coming back.
01:51:52: You know, it could be today, it could be next week.
01:51:54: It could be right around the corner.
01:51:55: So therefore, we don't really need to be doing political action or we don't really need to be concerning ourselves with the next generation.
01:52:04: There's not gonna be a next generation.
01:52:05: Who cares if, you know, who cares if our freedoms stand or fall? Who cares if our land stands or falls? It doesn't matter.
01:52:12: Jesus is coming.
01:52:14: And so the idea of almost a spiritual lethargy sort of sets in as a result.
01:52:22: And I'm not saying all pre-millennialists happen.
01:52:24: I'm just saying that's a common issue.
01:52:30: And what we see with that, can you imagine what it would be if people thought the end was already here? It's already happened.
01:52:37: Jesus already returned.
01:52:38: We just haven't seen it.
01:52:39: He just hadn't gotten to us yet, but he's already in the world.
01:52:41: He's just not got here yet.
01:52:43: And we're just Biden time.
01:52:46: Biden.
01:52:48: Anyway.
01:52:50: Anyway.
01:52:51: Yeah, pun intended.
01:52:53: Yeah.
01:52:55: So Paul is encouraging them in the second letter, but in a slightly different way.
01:53:00: He's letting them know the day of the Lord, in one sense, you know, has the idea that it's come, it's causing you to give in to an outbreak of idleness.
01:53:14: And that's not good.
01:53:16: So again, these letters are written to a young church experiencing the sufferings of following Christ in the context of first century Macedonia.
01:53:25: And Paul is writing to encourage them.
01:53:30: Now, as far as theological insights, the most distinctive contribution in theology in the Thessalonian letters tends to be in regards to eschatology.
01:53:42: The themes are comfort, deliverance, resurrection, judgment, and preliminary revelation, such as in 2 Thessalonians 2, we're introduced to the man of lawlessness.
01:53:56: And so the question often becomes, who is that man? Was that referring to the Antichrist, the 1 John 2.18? Or is that referring to the beast of Revelation 13? Is that the same person? Has that person already come? Is he still to come? And a lot of questions arise out of that.
01:54:12: It becomes, in fact, how many of you have ever met somebody who's just ate up with end times and that's all they ever want to talk about? Y'all look at each other.
01:54:25: When I was in seminary, again, this was only 18 years, well, 18 years ago now.
01:54:33: No, I started seminary in 2002, so 20 years ago.
01:54:39: Again, that was right on the end of the Left Behind series, was still somewhat popular at that point.
01:54:44: Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, all this stuff about end times.
01:54:49: And I remember getting a book, it was prophecy charts.
01:54:57: Like you could chart out all of what was gonna happen through the book of Revelation and what was gonna happen with the seal judgments and the bowl judgments and the trumpet judgments and what it was gonna look like and what we could expect.
01:55:11: And it was sort of a, it was that guy with the blood moons, big, big chubby guy.
01:55:17: I'm chubby too, but he's, yeah, come on.
01:55:20: Somebody knows, the guy in Texas, what's his name? John Hagee, yeah, that's it.
01:55:27: I think that's what you said.
01:55:29: John Hagee had these, if you ever watched him preach, he had these, I don't know who his artist was, but the tremendous artist would draw these giant pictures of what the end times are gonna look like and what the Antichrist and all this stuff.
01:55:45: And he would have, the whole back of the chancel of his church would be 10 foot tall by 20 foot and it wasn't like today where it was like a screen image.
01:55:55: It was like a printed image on a giant wall.
01:55:59: And that was all they wanted to talk about.
01:56:00: And almost all of their information was either from the book of Revelation, which obviously, because that's deals with prophecy, but a lot of it would draw from first and second Thessalonians and they would draw from these texts.
01:56:16: And so does first and second Thessalonians make a contribution to eschatology? Yes.
01:56:23: Has some of it been misinterpreted? Well, yeah, I would say so.
01:56:31: Probably the most misinterpreted part would be what's known as the rapture.
01:56:42: And the word rapture is not in the book, but it is the, oh, sorry.
01:56:50: The concept is there.
01:56:52: The word rapture means snatching away.
01:56:56: So the idea is in first Thessalonians four, where it talks about the dead in Christ rising first and those who were alive being caught up together in the clouds, that word caught up.
01:57:09: That's the idea, right? And I do believe the Latin is raptizo, to be caught away.
01:57:14: And that's where the word rapture comes from.
01:57:18: This is the concept that became sort of the flashpoint of conversation because the flashpoint of conversation for first Thessalonians was the timing of this event.
01:57:34: And the timing, the question was, and I don't ascribe to this, I'm just explaining it.
01:57:41: Just understand what I'm about to say, I'm not endorsing.
01:57:44: Was that there was a seven year of tribulation with a three and a half years of bad and then three and a half years of, I'll just say real bad.
01:58:03: Tribulation, great tribulation, separated three and a half years.
01:58:07: And that at the end of this seven year period, there was going to be the return of Christ.
01:58:17: But they would say that's not what Paul's talking about in first Thessalonians.
01:58:21: They would say Paul was talking about a secret, invisible event, which happens before the seven year tribulation, which is known as the rapture and that's the snatching away.
01:58:35: And so Christ takes his church away.
01:58:37: The church is no longer in the world.
01:58:40: During this seven year tribulation, he focuses back on the nation of Israel.
01:58:47: Israel becomes the focus.
01:58:50: And then when Christ returns, he returns with his church to bring all things together, to introduce the millennial kingdom, which is a thousand year reign of Christ on this earth, not the new earth, because that doesn't come until the end of the millennium, which is when eternity begins.
01:59:08: So this is all drafted based upon this concept of rapture, which comes from first Thessalonians four.
01:59:17: Now, my point in simply saying all this is you can see there's a lot that's introduced and stringed together.
01:59:23: I remember when my professor talked about this, I said, this sounds like a string of pearls.
01:59:28: And I don't know if you understand what that means, but a string of pearls is where you got one idea and another idea and another idea and you just sort of string them all together.
01:59:35: They don't really fit together, but you're gonna hook them together with this string because a lot of this within the context doesn't seem to fit.
01:59:44: I think first Thessalonians four is not referring to a secret rapture that's going to take away the people seven years before the end.
01:59:52: I do believe that that is referring to what happens at the end.
01:59:55: I think that the rapture is coincides with what we would call the resurrection, that those two events are one and the same.
02:00:04: Mike, you look like you're thinking real hard, am I? Okay, would you agree with that? That the rapture and the resurrection is catching up together, right? There's movies where people would be hoping.
02:00:24: That's funny.
02:00:25: Yeah, and how many of those movies were them? And there was a left behind movies.
02:00:29: There was back in the 80s and stuff.
02:00:32: There was like 88 reasons Jesus is gonna return in 1988.
02:00:34: That was a book.
02:00:35: And then there were movies.
02:00:37: There was one that was either the 70s or 80s.
02:00:40: It was called like the thief in the night.
02:00:43: And it was a movie and it was about this, it was about the rapture.
02:00:47: So end times is fascinating.
02:00:51: First Thessalonians, second Thessalonians is often used as the argument.
02:00:56: Also second Thessalonians two specifically refers to the restrainer being removed.
02:01:01: And they think that that's referring to the Holy Spirit.
02:01:03: So they make the argument that this is when the Holy Spirit is taken away.
02:01:06: And I remember asking this question to a New Testament professor.
02:01:08: We were having dinner.
02:01:09: I was having dinner with a man who's a New Testament professor and he believed all this.
02:01:13: And I asked him, I said, okay, so you believe the Holy Spirit is removed at the rapture because that's one of their arguments.
02:01:20: They say the church is gonna be taken away because the Spirit's taken away and because the Spirit indwells all believers.
02:01:24: If the Spirit taken away, the people have to be taken away.
02:01:26: I said, okay, so during the seven year tribulation, the Spirit is taken away.
02:01:30: He said, yes.
02:01:31: I said, how then do anyone get saved? Because you believe people get saved during the tribulation.
02:01:37: Do you believe someone can get saved apart from the work of the Holy Spirit? And he said, well, he comes back 30 days after the rapture.
02:01:45: I was like, now you're just making stuff up.
02:01:47: I literally, I threw my fork.
02:01:49: I was like, I said, are you kidding? I said, no, that is not in the text.
02:01:54: You made that up.
02:01:56: We were right over here.
02:01:57: We were at Ruby Tuesdays.
02:01:59: And I was wanting to throw the salad bars tongs.
02:02:02: Like what? It's all, it's a string of pearls.
02:02:12: And like I said, when we get to the book of Revelation, our last night, which is in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna talk a little bit about, a little more about this, because I'm gonna share how I think the book of Revelation is to be interpreted.
02:02:25: I'm not 100%, I'm not 100% on that.
02:02:28: I'll give you, just so you know, my view of Revelation is somewhat icky squishy because I'm not certain, but I do take an approach that I think is at least reasonable.
02:02:40: I don't think a lot of this is reasonable, so.
02:02:44: All right, now I know we took a lot of time on that.
02:02:49: Let's now turn our attention for just a moment away from 1 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
02:02:54: Let's move over to the pastoral epistles.
02:02:57: Now, of course, the word pastoral refers to the pastors.
02:03:02: That title was not used about them until the 1700s, but it is appropriate because they're the only New Testament letters that address individuals charged with pastoring and appointing other pastors.
02:03:17: These letters are important in the life of all believers, but especially in the life of any man who feels called to preach.
02:03:22: If you are a man who feels called to preach, and unfortunately, Ms.
02:03:25: Deborah, for you, I don't believe a woman is called to preach.
02:03:28: I mentioned that this morning in my sermon, but if any man feels called to preach, I think you should become intimately acquainted with Paul's letters to Timothy and to Titus, because those were written to men who have the same calling and the sense of calling to preach.
02:03:48: It's not all they talk about, but it is a big part of what those letters are about.
02:03:56: They become a place to examine both our motivations for pastoral ministry and our qualifications for pastoral ministry.
02:04:07: I mentioned earlier that some consider them to be pseudonymous, which means they have, they were not written by Paul.
02:04:14: They claim the vocabulary syntax and rhetorical style is different from his other letters.
02:04:22: However, none of those arguments make a definitive case against Pauline authorship.
02:04:26: Throughout the letters, there are so many interpersonal notes that he makes specifically, ones that would address him as a person specifically, it doesn't make sense that it would be written by anyone else.
02:04:37: Second Timothy, especially, because he writes as one who seems to know Timothy personally and intimately, as we know the Apostle Paul did.
02:04:49: So for those who argue, well, it's a different style, I would say this, if you listen to me preach now, and you had a recording of me when I began preaching, my first sermon was the Sunday after 9-11, 2001.
02:05:05: So I can go back to the date that was my first sermon.
02:05:08: And if you were to listen to that sermon, and you were listening to me now on recording, you would probably think it was a different man too, because as we mature and as our language becomes more mature and as our thinking becomes more mature, and you might say, well, wait a minute, we're talking about the Apostle Paul here.
02:05:26: Yes, but he was still being sanctified like any man, he was still going through those things, and there were things that he was dealing with here that he's not dealing with here.
02:05:36: Understand, he's not appointing, he's not giving pastoral qualifications here because he's still dealing with a church that doesn't know what the gospel is.
02:05:44: Remember the beginning of Galatians is, who has bewitched you? You know, you didn't get the gospel right.
02:05:49: And here he's dealing with men who are literally building up other churches and they're qualifying or raising up pastors and giving qualifications.
02:05:59: So it's an entirely different context.
02:06:01: It's letters that are over a decade removed from one another because the first letters would have been an early, 50 at the earliest, 48, 50.
02:06:11: And then the last of Paul's letters, which would have been the pastoral epistles, we're looking at in the mid 60s.
02:06:17: So you're looking at a 15 year gap in time.
02:06:21: Yes.
02:06:22: I think so, yeah, that's what is believed, yes.
02:06:34: Yeah, there's argument for, yeah, the idea that we know that several of the letters, Paul had a Emanuensis, which is a person who wrote as he spoke.
02:06:43: So yeah, yeah.
02:06:45: And so that would also affect some of how it was written.
02:06:48: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
02:06:50: Yeah, could certainly be.
02:06:53: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
02:06:58: So these books serve as the closest things we have to how-to manuals for ministry.
02:07:05: Now, they're not that, but that's, they're as close as, as I said, Romans is the closest we got to systematic theology.
02:07:12: First and second Timothy and Titus are the closest we have for manuals for church leadership.
02:07:17: They're full of heartfelt warnings and instructions that characterize Paul's ministry, revealing his pastor's heart for the care for the churches he founded.
02:07:25: He speaks on church organization.
02:07:27: He addresses the role of women in ministry.
02:07:29: He reveals Christ as the mediator between God and man.
02:07:32: That's 1 Timothy 2.5.
02:07:34: He encourages believers to persevere in the faith and to remain firm in sound doctrine.
02:07:39: He verifies the tenacity of scripture and what scripture is in 2 Timothy 3.16, when he says, all scripture is the honest us God breathed.
02:07:48: All these things are part of this.
02:07:50: He is giving the foundation for a solid Christian minister.
02:07:57: What's the tool of the Christian pastor? The word.
02:08:01: So what does he say in the second letter? Yeah.
02:08:05: All scripture is inspired by God and profitable.
02:08:08: So that the man of God be what? Equipped for every good work, right? So he gives them, here's your toolbox.
02:08:16: Here's what you have.
02:08:17: You have God's word.
02:08:20: These letters are highly practical.
02:08:24: And I would say, when we talk about the theology of the pastoral letters, I would say they are more practical than they are theological, but that doesn't mean they're not theological.
02:08:32: It's just what the purpose of the writing is practicality.
02:08:37: So what are some of the theological contributions? Number one, I would say the inspiration of scripture is a theological contribution that we get in 2 Timothy 3.
02:08:49: The inspiration of scripture.
02:08:52: By the way, on that note, how many of you are familiar with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy? Okay.
02:09:06: If you take other classes with me, one of our classes is on church history.
02:09:12: And that will probably be our next class after the baby comes and I get back in the groove and I can start a new semester.
02:09:20: In the church history class, last class, class eight, I asked, what are some of the most important things that have happened in the last 100 years of the church? Good and bad.
02:09:34: And that's what we discussed in that last class, last 100 years.
02:09:37: And I would rank the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy as one of the most important things that happened in the history of the church in the last 100 years.
02:09:47: Now, I'm saying as far as doctrinally significant, because what it was, was a group of evangelical scholars met in Chicago, including men that you've heard of, men like R.C.
02:10:00: Sproul and James Montgomery Boyce.
02:10:03: And they sat down and penned an argument as to what do we mean when we use the term inerrant? And you might say, well, that should take five minutes.
02:10:13: Inerrant means without errors, but no, no.
02:10:15: They dealt with things like textual variation and all of these other issues that do arise when we do historical study of the text.
02:10:22: And if you read a church's document on their history of inerrancy, or like our church, we have 14 statements of faith that go along with our confession.
02:10:32: One of them talks about what we believe about the word of God, that we believe that it is inerrant in the original autographs.
02:10:37: That is a term which came out of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.
02:10:42: So my recommendation to all of you, and I recommend this in history class, but you can do it anytime, is to look up the Chicago Statement and actually read, because it is a very scholarly look at what we mean when we talk about the subject of inerrancy.
02:10:56: So I would definitely encourage that to all of you.
02:11:04: The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, I believe it was, I don't have the date in my mind, but it was in the 70s, was when it, I believe when it was, when it came together.
02:11:16: Now, and keep in mind this, why it was important, and again, I don't wanna waste our time here.
02:11:20: Come to history class and you'll learn more about this.
02:11:22: But why it was so important was because the enlightenment brought about the movement which sought to diminish the truthfulness of the Bible and eliminate the concept of inerrancy.
02:11:34: And so this was a pushback against that movement.
02:11:38: Think about the PCUSA, United Methodist Church, the Disciples of Christ, all of these denominations that were denying that the Bible is accurate and true is what it says.
02:11:55: And so these men came together to produce a response, a scholarly response against that liberalism that had so taken hold.
02:12:04: And there was commensurate movements within the Baptists as well.
02:12:08: Men like Adrian Rogers and others were standing and they were fighting that fight because, when Al Mohler went to Southern Seminary, I believe it was 1993.
02:12:20: You know what battle he fought first when he got there? There's, this is well-documented.
02:12:25: One of the first battles he had to fight was the women preacher thing, because they were already ordaining women preachers in the Southern Baptist Church.
02:12:35: And he came and said, I won't stand.
02:12:38: We're not gonna continue going this direction.
02:12:40: He was vilified for it.
02:12:41: It's on video.
02:12:42: You can watch YouTube him being questioned by women in the audience.
02:12:45: I'm here to become a pastor and you're telling me I can't become a pastor.
02:12:48: And this is a young Al Mohler standing up for this.
02:12:52: What I'm saying is there was a tie toward liberalism that was going strong.
02:12:57: And there were men, as again, even though Adrian Rogers was not a Calvinist, I would say he was one of the men who stood strong for biblical faithfulness.
02:13:07: And other men like him, like I said, Al Mohler and others, back when it was a different time.
02:13:13: We're fighting a different battle now, but the battle is always the same, battle for the word, right? Battle for the truth.
02:13:18: And so this all was happening around that same time.
02:13:22: Sorry, didn't mean to get off on that.
02:13:25: Teaching on inerrancy for me is so fun because I love to even discuss just the word of God.
02:13:34: It's just- China says some stuff is like a metaphor instead of actual fact.
02:13:39: Boy, I tell you, it's not just that.
02:13:41: I mean, this church used to be part of the disciples.
02:13:44: I've told y'all that before.
02:13:45: In the 1980s, this church, before it was Sovereign Grace, this back when it was Forest Christian Church, they had a, we had a pastor who didn't even believe in the virgin birth.
02:13:55: I remember, I swam in his pool because I was a little kid and he didn't believe in the virgin.
02:14:00: Christmas time coming around, he's not preaching about Jesus born a virgin.
02:14:03: People want to know why, because I don't believe it.
02:14:06: That is the level.
02:14:10: And it was so insidious that the church hired him.
02:14:14: They didn't know because they didn't think to ask.
02:14:16: That's not a question you usually have to ask the man of God.
02:14:19: Do you believe Jesus was born of a virgin? You know what I mean? But that's how insidious and how it crept in, crept in through the seminaries like Union Seminary, which today, I mean, they are so far gone and their theological liberalism, it's out of their minds, stuff they teach.
02:14:38: I bet you if you go to Union Seminary right now and look at their website, I bet you they got a pride flag.
02:14:43: I would, I'm not allowed to bet, I'm a man of God, but I would say they're going to have a pride flag somewhere.
02:14:53: Then yeah, I know you're going to look too.
02:14:55: We're fixing to take a break, maybe you want to look.
02:14:57: All right, real quick, a couple of things.
02:15:01: First Timothy also gives us on the mediatorial work of Christ.
02:15:04: That's what we're told that there's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, very important passage and it is found in the pastorals.
02:15:12: But the most important thing that we receive from the pastoral epistles is our faith.
02:15:20: Our ecclesiology.
02:15:22: Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church.
02:15:25: The doctrine of the church, that the church is not made up of just a haphazard group of people, but that there is a structure to the church, elders, deacons, the body, the ministry of the gifts within the body.
02:15:39: That is what first Timothy, second Timothy and Titus provide for us.
02:15:46: When we come back, we're going to talk about one of the most difficult of the interpretive challenges in first Timothy and second Timothy and that is the issue of women pastors.
02:15:57: I've already mentioned it a few times, but we are going to talk about that for another minute when we come back.
02:16:01: But let's take, I got to get some water.
02:16:03: So let's take a five minute break and we'll come back.
02:16:14: Let's finish out this portion.
02:16:17: As I said, we're not going to talk a lot about Philemon because I did do that sermon on it.
02:16:21: I would recommend if you didn't get a chance I go a lot deeper than I would have time to do here.
02:16:27: So make that part of your homework if you want to learn more about Philemon.
02:16:30: In fact, if I can remember, I'll email y'all the link, but all you have to do is go back a couple of weeks ago on our website, on the sermon audio page and it's there.
02:16:43: So let's talk a little bit about this debate regarding women in ministry.
02:16:49: The pastoral epistles are often maligned because of their teaching on women.
02:16:56: In the midst of the qualifications of elder, pastor or bishop, they're all basically the same position.
02:17:03: There is an inescapable sense in which this role is to be held by men only.
02:17:09: We know this from the qualifications themselves.
02:17:13: It says he is to be the husband of one wife.
02:17:16: It's hard to imagine that a woman would fill that qualification even after the Obergefell decision.
02:17:23: Aha, yeah, it's still, that's ungodly in this case.
02:17:28: Obergefell was the decision about homosexual unions.
02:17:32: I was gonna ask a question about the conversation about that.
02:17:45: I don't know that particular historical thread.
02:17:50: I mean, there could be a thread there and we're gonna talk about deacons and deaconesses in a minute because I do think that there's two conversations that need to be had.
02:18:00: But right away, the qualifications for elder are husband of one wife.
02:18:06: Literally, the word is meon gunakos andre.
02:18:08: The Greek word is one woman man is the term.
02:18:12: And it does define it as man.
02:18:15: He's a one woman man.
02:18:19: And he must be able to rule his household well.
02:18:22: That again speaks to the position of a man within the home.
02:18:25: The Ephesians chapter five talks about the man having authority in the home and the wife submitting to that authority.
02:18:33: So again, that fits together the narrative that Paul is giving qualifications that would only fit a man.
02:18:40: And he is also one regarding the elder or pastor.
02:18:47: He is also one that must be able to teach.
02:18:50: And I would say that that is the most important prohibition that would keep a woman from being an elder because a woman is not supposed to teach men in the church.
02:19:05: And let's look at that text specifically.
02:19:07: First Timothy two, if you have your Bibles, and let's look at first Timothy two, verse 11.
02:19:17: What does it teach men? That means like teach men.
02:19:31: There's some debate about that.
02:19:33: In our church, we do allow women Sunday school teachers for children.
02:19:40: So we would see this specifically as being men.
02:19:43: There is a question of when does a boy become a man? And therefore the question can be somewhat subjective at that point.
02:19:51: But there's also the issue here of the issue of authority.
02:19:57: And so we don't see the tea of a woman teaching a boy to be usurping authority, whereas we do see a woman teaching a man to be doing that.
02:20:09: So that would be the distinction there.
02:20:12: It says in first Timothy two, 11, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.
02:20:19: I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
02:20:23: Rather, she is to remain quiet.
02:20:26: And many people have capitalized on the fact that Paul says, I do not permit.
02:20:32: And some have said that that's Paul talking, not God.
02:20:37: God has not spoken, Paul has spoken.
02:20:40: Well, we talked about this last week because Paul says something similar in first Corinthians where he talks about marriage.
02:20:48: And he says, I say this, not the Lord.
02:20:50: And then another portion, he says the Lord, not I.
02:20:53: And some people are thinking that what Paul is saying there is there are certain things that he is saying that's not coming from the Lord.
02:20:59: And that's not what he's saying.
02:21:00: In first Corinthians, what he's saying is the Lord has spoken definitively on this subject, but he's not spoken everything about this subject.
02:21:08: And so I'm saying things the Lord didn't say, but that's not to say that this is not inspired.
02:21:12: It's just not, I'm not saying what the Lord said because the Lord's already spoken.
02:21:16: In regard to this, when Paul gives the statement, I do not permit a woman to teach, he is within the realm of his authority because he is an apostle who has the purpose of planting churches.
02:21:30: And what he says is representative of God's will.
02:21:33: And that's our point is he's not just giving Paul's opinion.
02:21:37: He's giving the opinion of God's will here.
02:21:40: And he says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
02:21:46: Now that prohibition does not mean that a woman cannot teach anything ever.
02:21:52: In fact, we are told in Titus, another pastoral epistle that women do have a responsibility to teach, but who are they to teach? What's that? Younger women, that's the first thing.
02:22:05: And we would say, somebody said, who said children? Okay, but the primary focus is women teaching other women.
02:22:12: And the scope of that teaching is to teaching them to live the Christian life as mothers and as wives, particularly being submissive to their husbands and doing those things.
02:22:25: So the older women are to teach the younger women and be examples to the younger women.
02:22:30: Now that leads to the question, well, should a woman have her own Sunday school class where a woman teaches other women? And like at our church here, we have a women's Bible study that's led by a lady.
02:22:42: I think that in a way that's fine, but what happens though, and this is often the case and we have to be careful, is that it does bleed over into being a, rather than a discourse of a woman to women, it blends over to a discourse of almost being like a pastorette to the women.
02:23:08: And we see this insidious growth within the church now where you see pastors in the role of man and woman as co-pastors.
02:23:17: And some people define that, well, he's the pastor to the men and she's the pastor to the women.
02:23:23: And I don't think that that is a right application of Titus there when he talks about the women.
02:23:29: You know where I think most teaching happens between women is in the homes as women do life together.
02:23:37: You know, my wife has great affection for Ms.
02:23:40: Deborah who's here tonight and appreciates very much the life skills that you guys have discussed and talked about and that she's learned watching you as a mother.
02:23:50: And those are the things that I think are really what Titus is referring to here.
02:23:56: And certainly there's going to be doctrinal conversations within those, there's gonna be things about doctrine in Christ and things, but it's very much also a practical thing.
02:24:09: How to love your husband well, how to teach your children well, how to answer your six-year-old boy who is literally just dying to ask you questions all day long.
02:24:18: And sometimes they're difficult questions.
02:24:20: You know, I only bring that up because today my son, my wife texted me when she got home from church and she said, your son has been asking me theological questions all the way home.
02:24:31: Because today something I preached on apparently got his attention.
02:24:35: And he now, I was preaching on, it's a long story, but apparently got his attention because he had all these questions.
02:24:41: He goes, you got to answer these questions when you get home.
02:24:44: I said, I'm on vacation when I get home.
02:24:48: I said, no, but that, what's that? Yeah, that's right.
02:24:57: Well, that's what I said.
02:24:58: I said, when your children ask those questions, you need to be ready to give an answer.
02:25:04: So I do believe the Bible provides a universal prohibition against women pastors.
02:25:12: But I don't know, and this is gonna get a little muddy.
02:25:17: So if I get muddy and you get mad, hold your tomatoes because I'm gonna throw out something that's gonna sound weird coming from me.
02:25:29: I don't know for certain that there's a universal prohibition against women deacons.
02:25:35: Let me explain what I mean.
02:25:37: We don't have women deacons here and I do argue against women deacons.
02:25:41: But I argue with an asterisk saying there are men, good men who allow women deacons like John MacArthur.
02:25:48: And I do understand his argument.
02:25:50: I don't agree with his argument, but I'm not willing to die on that.
02:25:55: If I were in a church that had women deacons, I wouldn't necessarily have to leave that church.
02:26:00: But let me give you his argument and you guys tell me what you think.
02:26:05: In 1 Timothy 3, it talks about elders and then it talks about deacons and then it talks about women.
02:26:13: Go with me if you have your Bibles.
02:26:15: Just look with me at 1 Timothy 3.
02:26:27: And it says, verse 11.
02:26:36: Mike, what does the King James say in verse 11? It's interesting that it translates it wives because so does the ESV.
02:26:49: That the new American standard Bible translates the word women and so does the NIV.
02:26:55: Now that's not a case where we need to start having an argument over which translation is better because the word gounakos in Greek is the word women because there is no word for wife in Greek.
02:27:09: It is his woman.
02:27:12: So when I call my wife, my woman.
02:27:15: Yeah, he does something to say women.
02:27:19: Yeah, yeah, the idea of gounakos there is it's either gounakos in general women or gounakos in the possessive his woman or his wife.
02:27:30: And therefore the idea is could be either or.
02:27:34: So those who translate this as women argue that what Paul is giving in that verse, verse 11 is a additional set of standards that would apply to women who hold the office of deacon.
02:27:48: And what they claim is that women like Phoebe who is in Romans, the book of Romans, she is called a diakonos in the book of Romans chapter 16.
02:28:01: She's the one who delivers the letter.
02:28:03: She is the one who is given the title diakonos.
02:28:07: And therefore they would argue that she served in the role of deacon in the church that was sending the letter to Rome.
02:28:16: I have some difficulty with that, but that's their argument, right? And so they do have a, just like what brother Mike says a lot of time, tell me how you got your conclusion.
02:28:27: You always hear that from us.
02:28:29: If you come to me and say something to me, I'm gonna say, how did you arrive at that? Okay, well, that's how they arrived there.
02:28:36: The word gounakos can be generic to mean women.
02:28:39: It could be a specific set of qualifications for women deacons.
02:28:44: And there is a woman, at least one woman who has given that title in the book of Romans.
02:28:49: Therefore they come to the conclusion that women can be deacons.
02:28:57: No, no, you don't have to be sorry, but I'm gonna argue against it in a minute.
02:29:00: No, no, no, I'm just saying, but context though.
02:29:10: She's not coming from Rome, she's going to Rome.
02:29:12: She's an emissary of the church.
02:29:14: Well, I mean, just in that context, wouldn't that be different contextually? Well, here- I mean, is she coming from like a church church, like a plant? Well, she's coming from the church Paul's writing from and being sent as a letter carrier.
02:29:32: They have small foot in the door.
02:29:34: Here's my response.
02:29:35: And again, as I said, we don't have women deacons in part and parcel of the reason why we don't have women deacons, because we have people in this church who believe in it.
02:29:42: And they've come to me and talked to me about it.
02:29:44: And I have heard their arguments.
02:29:46: And I'm talking about over the last, I ain't talking about the last 10 minutes.
02:29:48: I'm talking about the last 15 years.
02:29:50: We've had people make this argument with me.
02:29:52: I've listened to their argument.
02:29:54: I have consumed what they've asked me to read and thought about it, listened to Dr.
02:29:57: MacArthur and heard him make his argument.
02:29:59: But I have some rebuttals to that.
02:30:02: But I always want to be fair when I don't think this is an issue that people should divide over.
02:30:07: I want to be fair.
02:30:08: I think that we can discuss it.
02:30:11: But here's my primary one.
02:30:15: Oh, by the way, they do have one other good argument.
02:30:17: And I would say on their side, a good argument for their side is it never mentions the wife of elders.
02:30:24: And I do find that to be somewhat interesting that only the wives of deacons are given any qualifications, never for the wives of elders.
02:30:32: So that would make sense if this isn't talking about the wives of deacons, but rather women deacons.
02:30:36: That would make sense because there are no women elders.
02:30:39: So that I do think on the plus side of their argument, that's one of the better parts, right? I don't agree with it.
02:30:46: But again, I got to give credit where credit's due.
02:30:47: It never gives a qualification for the wives of elders.
02:30:51: So it does seem interesting that we have a qualification for the wives of deacons.
02:30:56: All right, now my response.
02:30:58: Number one, I think that the, I do think Dunacoste refers to their wives.
02:31:07: And I do think that it refers to the women who are the counterpart to the man.
02:31:16: In this sense, that in the role of service, the role of service and servant, though it is held by the man, is typically aided by a woman.
02:31:26: And typically his wife is his support and helpmate in this work.
02:31:30: And therefore, I do think that she has to live up to certain qualifications as well.
02:31:34: I like the fact that it mentions her being not a slanderer and sober-minded and things like that, because that's what you would expect out of a woman who is serving alongside her husband in the ministry of the gospel within the context of the local church.
02:31:46: You don't want a man serving as a deacon whose wife is a gossip, because he's gonna be privileged information that would be very hurtful if that information became known throughout the church.
02:31:57: So there are certain things that I think make sense in that.
02:32:00: And you can say, well, the same thing that we said about a wife of a pastor, I know that.
02:32:03: But in this context, she's going to be serving more alongside of him.
02:32:07: And I do think when we call a man to be a deacon, I do think there is a sense in which his wife is going to be a part of that, whether or not it's as upfront as some, but men who serve tend to not serve alone.
02:32:21: And so we tend to see that with that being a co-laboring with their wife.
02:32:25: And so that's my first thing.
02:32:27: The second thing, I do not have any confidence that Paul would ever ordain or commission a female deacon whose husband was not a deacon, because now you're asking a woman who is supposed to submit him to her husband and manage her home under the authority of her husband to split her duties and her allegiances with the church.
02:32:53: That's a big issue for me.
02:32:55: And this is the argument I made when I said, I don't want us to take women deacons.
02:32:59: I said, because we're asking a woman whose husband's not a deacon to serve the church when her primary responsibility is to serve her house and her husband and her children.
02:33:09: I said, so I don't think that it works practically.
02:33:13: So I don't, so that's, on a practical level, I don't think that works.
02:33:21: Thirdly, within the context of the hierarchy of male leadership within the church, I think when, even though the deacon position is a position of service, it is a position of servant leadership.
02:33:35: And you are putting women in a position where they will, by nature, have some authority over men within the church.
02:33:41: And I think that would be in opposition to male leadership in the church.
02:33:46: So these are my arguments opposing it.
02:33:49: And this is why we, as a church, continue to not ordain or commission women to the office of deacon.
02:33:57: As far as Phoebe is concerned, the word diachoness is a generic word and is often used generically in the Bible as to simply mean a servant.
02:34:08: And that is why most translations do not translate it as Phoebe, a deacon of the church, but they call her a servant of the church.
02:34:15: And all of us are called to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ and servants of the church.
02:34:19: So I don't think that calling her a deacon is enough.
02:34:23: I mean, if you had six or seven women and they were all called deacon and they were all functioning in various roles of authority within the church, I think then an argument could be made, but one person in one passage who is serving the church in a specific role of courier and letter carrier, I don't think you can make an office out of that.
02:34:39: So that's, you know, if you wanna argue with me, you know, write me an email.
02:34:47: But those are, I think that all of those are legitimate.
02:34:50: I think the biggest one, though, is I could not imagine commissioning a woman whose husband was not involved and asking her to serve at the behest of the church without her husband being also, of whether she's a widow with no kids.
02:35:06: I still don't know if I would feel comfortable with that.
02:35:09: So in your eyes, it's different than them being basically recognized as- Yeah, and again- As a way to look at it.
02:35:18: Yeah, and I try to make this point to everybody who argues against this position.
02:35:22: I always say there is nothing that we're telling you you can't do in the sense of serving.
02:35:28: There's nothing that we're telling anyone in the church they can't do, but we are saying that there are men that God has commissioned to the position of deacon who are to be the servant leader and an example to the congregation of what service should look like.
02:35:45: And this has been a hard issue for me because I say if the deacons are not the example of service in the church, then the church has got a problem because that's what the church is supposed to be looking to them, those men, and the elders, but those men specifically, as this is what the service in the church is to look like.
02:36:03: That's what it should be, not always, it's not perfect, nobody's perfect, but that's, you know.
02:36:09: I'm sitting with one in the room, so I'm trying to be, but he's a great deacon, so.
02:36:14: Yeah, well, yeah.
02:36:15: Do we believe? Yeah, no, no, no.
02:36:17: But Brother Mike, how do you think on this? I know you've probably had thoughts over the years.
02:36:21: At the end of the day, it just doesn't bear out what you're thinking.
02:36:33: That puts, I mean, the elders and deacons are ordained to a position.
02:36:41: Also, they're called out from amongst the congregation.
02:36:44: Hands are laid on them.
02:36:45: Right, exactly.
02:36:46: Yeah.
02:36:46: It's not, like you just said, it's not to say that women can't serve in the church.
02:36:51: Women do a lot of service in the church.
02:36:54: They have not been called out from among the congregation and had their hands laid on them and ordained into the position.
02:37:03: That's right, and what MacArthur does, you just reminded me of something.
02:37:06: What MacArthur does in this is he essentially establishes a third office because those of us who hold to Reformed ecclesiology typically say there's only two offices, the office of elder and the office of deacon.
02:37:17: Now, there are different ways elders function.
02:37:18: There's different ways deacons function, but ultimately there's only two offices, your elder and deacon, but by establishing the woman, they're establishing the office of deaconess, and typically they say that.
02:37:30: We're establishing a third office that I don't think the Bible bears out.
02:37:34: Yes, sir.
02:37:34: I can just remember, John, Sunday school teachers, I took preschool, kindergarten.
02:37:42: I went to this church for regular school too.
02:37:44: Yeah.
02:37:45: They had a lot of responsibility at Crystal Baptist Church.
02:37:49: However, they were not in the meetings.
02:37:55: Oh, really? You know what I mean? No, that's interesting.
02:37:57: I mean, he would have a meeting with them separately as teachers.
02:38:01: But they were not in the position of leadership.
02:38:04: Well, I mean, I guess they were sub, whatever.
02:38:07: Yeah, under the authority.
02:38:08: They had a lot of responsibility, but they weren't, like Guy Sammons was a deacon and elder.
02:38:14: Sandra had a lot of, who was his wife, had a lot of responsibility.
02:38:18: Yeah, there was a distinction.
02:38:22: Well, I'm gonna finish.
02:38:23: I'll finish with a quick story and then we'll close.
02:38:25: Oh, I'm sorry, Mark.
02:38:26: No, I was just gonna ask what your take would be on the qualifications for an elder, for a man who is not married.
02:38:35: How can you rule his house well? I will tell you this.
02:38:39: I have recently been more moved toward the idea that a man should not serve as an elder or pastor if he's not married.
02:38:48: But that is a recent change.
02:38:51: It was actually just my own study, but also some influence that I've had from Brother Mike and a few others who've sort of helped me understand why they hold that.
02:39:01: Brother Mike Collier does hold that very strongly, that a man, he believes that man should also have to have children because he can't rule his house, hold well, and can't see how he manages his home if he doesn't have women and children, doesn't have a wife and women.
02:39:13: I meant one woman, doesn't have a wife and children.
02:39:16: So I'm more inclined to that now.
02:39:18: Thankfully, we haven't had to deal with that.
02:39:20: We've never had a man who we've had to say, had to come to that conclusion on, but I'm not saying it never would happen.
02:39:27: It would be very hard for me to conclude that a man was qualified who was not married and didn't have children.
02:39:33: I know two elders that are that way.
02:39:36: Sure, sure.
02:39:36: And I know the arguments for the other side.
02:39:39: I'm just saying, it would be very difficult for me to affirm that.
02:39:43: In fact, I've almost come to the conclusion, this is gonna sound really weird, because I had this conversation with a missionary.
02:39:51: We were talking about this subject and he held that position and I said, well, if that's true, then Paul wasn't qualified as a pastor.
02:39:58: And he said, where does it ever say Paul was a pastor? Paul was a missionary, but he was not a pastor.
02:40:02: And I thought, that's an interesting thought because Paul wasn't married, because how far did we know? As far as you know, he didn't have any children.
02:40:10: So this doesn't mean he couldn't serve in the church as a missionary or whatever, but as far as being a pastor or elder of the church, he may not have qualified.
02:40:16: That's an interesting, if you hold that position, you gotta be consistent, right? And that I think is, that made me go, hmm, I'd take a step back and oh, I hadn't thought about that.
02:40:28: So like I said, I'm still working through it in my mind, but at this point, it would be hard, very hard for me to affirm that.
02:40:35: I'm not saying that it'll never change.
02:40:36: Like I said, I'm sort of like this on it right now, because I have known people who have been placed in those positions before who weren't.
02:40:44: I know some of the same guys you do, but I know other churches and things.
02:40:47: And I know the arguments that are made on both sides, but it does seem to me it would be hard to, it would be hard to vet a man who lived alone, had no wife and no children, upon which you could look and say, this is how he manages his household.
02:41:05: So.
02:41:09: Any other questions real quick before I tell my final story and we finish up? No, no, I'm glad, that's a good question, because there's another question, I didn't want to get into it, and that's the question of divorce and things like that, because that's a whole other can of worms.
02:41:21: We'll be here for another hour.
02:41:23: Yeah, well, I think that one's a little more difficult because of the issues of timing.
02:41:30: What happens to a man before he becomes a believer, what happens after he becomes a believer, I think does play into part there.
02:41:35: I think so.
02:41:37: I think so.
02:41:37: Before coming to faith.
02:41:39: I don't think we can hold a standard to anyone before they come to Christ.
02:41:43: But that's a hard, because, I mean, a man who, before he comes to Christ, Paul was killing Christians, you know? I mean, holding a standard to somebody before they come to Christ is difficult for me, so that's where the issue of, man's a 19-year-old getting married, two years, and then gets divorced.
02:41:58: Two years later, he meets a woman, he's been married to her for 30 years, and now he feels God's call to ministry.
02:42:02: It's hard for me to say to that man he's not been the husband of one wife in the sense of this passage.
02:42:07: So that's where I think the difficulty lies.
02:42:10: So, but again, that's a big old can of worms because there are a lot of opinions on that, and I don't wanna be disrespectful and just dismiss any of them.
02:42:22: I realize that's a very important subject.
02:42:27: So, but let me just, real quick.
02:42:29: When I became the pastor of this church, it was called Forest Christian Church, it was 2006, January of 2006, and we had a female elder.
02:42:36: Her name is on my ordination certificate.
02:42:38: I see it every time I come in my office.
02:42:40: It's hanging on my office, and it still has her name on it.
02:42:44: When I was called for my ordination and I went through the questions of ordination, she was sitting right there in the, in fact, it was in the, what is now my podcast studio, it used to be the elders meeting room, and that's where it was.
02:42:56: And she sat there and asked me, do you affirm my position as an elder? And I said, no, ma'am, I do not.
02:43:01: Said, I love you as an individual.
02:43:03: And I said, but your position is unbiblical.
02:43:09: And she still okayed it, she still signed my certificate.
02:43:13: So she was willing to at least go along with me, but not long after I became the pastor, she, by God's grace, stepped down.
02:43:24: Not because I had convinced her of the position, but rather because she knew that her position was creating contention with me and with others in the church who did not believe she should be in that position.
02:43:39: So I was grateful for that.
02:43:40: I was grateful God fought that battle for me.
02:43:42: I talked about, yeah, it was.
02:43:43: And I preached about that one time.
02:43:45: I talked about God fighting our battles for us.
02:43:47: I fought that battle on my knees and God saw it through because I could have easily been a, you know, just been a tyrant, beat my hand down on the table, and we're not gonna do this, and I'm not gonna stand for this.
02:43:58: And eventually I may have had to do that.
02:44:00: By God's grace, I didn't.
02:44:01: And I was able to see God move in a way that was more gracious and like you said, more respectful.
02:44:07: And she was able to step out and so.
02:44:11: Serving to the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men and teach patience, in meekness, instructing those who oppose themselves with God's third bencher, who give him repentance, to the knowledge and the truth.
02:44:25: Amen.
02:44:25: And there's that patience in meekness, you know.
02:44:29: That's right.
02:44:29: Even if you know.
02:44:31: You know you're right.
02:44:32: Yeah, right.
02:44:34: Yeah.
02:44:34: Right, so.
02:44:36: Lord, we're gonna honor to step you back.
02:44:38: Yeah.
02:44:38: Yeah, I was grateful.
02:44:40: I was grateful.
02:44:42: So I just, I always like to point that out.
02:44:44: If you're, if you happen to find yourself in a church where there may be things you don't always agree with, but God's called you to serve in that church, you might be able to make positive change over time if you're willing to be patient and stick it out and preach the truth and do so in a way that brings glory to God.
02:45:01: So don't always think that just because the church isn't perfect, God hasn't called you to serve that.
02:45:05: Because you're never gonna get called to serve at a perfect church.
02:45:08: You're just gonna, you know, if you go there, you're gonna ruin it, as they say.
02:45:13: So, so.
02:45:15: Yeah.
02:45:17: All right, well, let's end with a word of prayer.
02:45:19: Father, I thank you for your word.
02:45:21: I thank you for your truth.
02:45:22: I thank you for the call to ministry.
02:45:23: I pray, Lord, that you would continue to raise up, raise up godly men within this church and through this program to serve in your body.
02:45:32: And Lord, I do pray also for the women who take these classes, Lord, that you would continue to grow them in their faith, strengthen them in their faith, and to the duties and service you've called them to as well.
02:45:42: I pray, Lord, that as you bring us home tonight, that you would do so safely.
02:45:46: And Lord, throughout this week, that we would glorify you.
02:45:49: In Jesus' name, amen.
02:45:55: Amen.
02:45:56: All right, great.
02:45:56: I stood in that classroom and said.