WWUTT 225 Q&A and Our Current Cultural Context?

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When we understand the scriptures, we understand them according to what the Spirit wants them to say, not what we want them to say.
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We're also to understand the scriptures according to our current cultural context. And this is also the work of the
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Spirit when we understand the text. Many of the
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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.
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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
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Thank you, Becky. Psalm 140, beginning in verse 6. I say to the Lord, you are my
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God. Give ear to the voice of my pleas for mercy, O Lord. O Lord, my
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Lord, the strength of my salvation, you have covered my head in the day of battle.
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Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked. Do not further their evil plot. Or they will be exalted.
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What a crazy week of news this has been. Ever since July 4th, we had the story of Alton Sterling shot by police in Baton Rouge on Tuesday.
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The next night, we had the story of Philando Castile shot by police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
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And whatever you think about these two stories, they are completely separate events with different sets of circumstances.
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The judging public has largely viewed them the same, but they are not. Nonetheless, in protest to the
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Sterling and Castile shootings, there was a Black Lives Matter march in Dallas, Texas last night. As the protest was about to conclude, several shooters who had triangulated their positions on the route of the march began firing on police officers.
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It was a premeditated and strategic attack that has resulted in 11 officers shot, five of whom are dead.
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At least at the time of this recording. When I started recording, it had just been announced that the fifth officer had died.
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In a standoff with one of the snipers, which ended with the sniper killing himself, he said to the officers that this was only the beginning and that more officers would be killed.
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This is the kind of news cycle that we've been experiencing this week. And a lot of speculations have been made about all of these events.
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What was in the officers' hearts? What was in Sterling and Castile's hearts? We can't know those things.
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Only the Lord knows the heart. Many conclusions have been drawn before all of the details have been in.
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There are still things that we don't know about the shootings that have taken place this week. I had a friend last night say that she couldn't be silent because to be silent is to be complicit in these deaths, which, come on, that's just ridiculous.
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But it's a common cultural narrative that I've been hearing repeated for several years now. Having a
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Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account means that you have a responsibility to express your opinion now.
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We are entitled to your opinion. And the longer you take, the more complicit you are in any act pop culture deems to be unjust.
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And that's just absolute nonsense. Votie Bauckham wrote about this when there were people demanding of him that he make a response about the events that happened in Ferguson, Missouri, back in 2014.
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And he said the following. No one is entitled to my opinion, nor is my faithfulness to God determined by how quickly
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I respond to relevant issues. As a pastor, I have a responsibility to my flock.
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If those for whose souls I care want help thinking through these issues,
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I am obligated to them. I have a duty to walk them through issues like these to the best of my ability and with sensitivity to their particular needs.
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You can find the rest of that article online. Just Google Votie Bauckham thoughts on Ferguson. My friends, our response to this should be to pray.
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This is a very real situation involving very real people made in the image of God.
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These people are dying. And as long as this has been going on, this,
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I'm afraid, is only the start. We're going to see more of this. So be peaceful and pray.
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Exercise something that I mentioned yesterday. Talk about this among your friends at church with whom you worship and grow personally in fellowship, because these events affect a person here in Junction City, Kansas, different than they affect a person in Dallas, Texas, or in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, or in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
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The social media world does not need your opinion. Newsflash, you don't need to make any public statement whatsoever except to speak peace and the gospel in the midst of unrest.
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It is Friday and typically we take questions from listeners to this program and viewers of what videos.
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And I've got a couple that I'm going to do here. But before I get to those, I'd like to respond to a couple of comments.
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And this is still in context with what we were just talking about. These comments were sent to me. I believe they came from Facebook.
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And I've received comments like this before, but I'm not going to mention who said these.
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We're just going to keep these anonymous because I've had comments like this before. Like I said. But anyway, here's here's the pair of comments that I'd like to respond to.
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The first one is, I love your videos, but I wish you'd stay out of politics. And the second one is,
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I wish you'd just stick with Bible commentary and away from offering commentary on social issues.
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So basically, these individuals want us just to do what videos not address politics. And when
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I do this, this program that I'm just doing the Bible reading and I'm sharing funny little personal stories, but I not make any commentary on social issues.
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Now, here's the problem with those viewpoints. If all you want is
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Bible teaching and theology without hearing how this pertains to our cultural context, then all you want is knowledge, which puffs up, which we read yesterday in First Corinthians eight.
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And you don't love the word of God the way that you say that you do. The Bible for you is a textbook, but you don't actually love it as God's word.
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Let me give you a couple of examples of this. And both of these come from First Timothy, because this happened to me when I was teaching through First Timothy a couple of years ago.
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If I were to just present the Bible to you as a textbook, that really does not offend a lot of people.
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As much as we think that there are verses in the Bible that just automatically offend folks whenever we quote them.
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It's not offensive until you apply it to our current context, because otherwise a person hears the Bible being read and they just dismiss it as, oh,
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OK, well, that was something that was said 2 ,000 years ago, but that's not really relevant to me now. So I can read
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First Timothy 2 .12, which says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
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Rather, she is to remain quiet. And I can read that verse and not really many people are going to be offended by that.
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I know it's one of the more trigger verses that we consider, but not a lot of folks are offended by it, because even a person who is egalitarian, who believes that women can be pastors can read that verse and say, well, you know, that that's the way that things worked in first century in a first century
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Roman Empire culture. But that doesn't relate to things now. But then once I read that verse and I say, so Paul is saying here that women can't be pastors, whether you're talking about the first century you're talking about today.
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Now people are offended by it because I put it in a present cultural context. Yes, it does apply to you now.
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And yes, you do have to obey it. Now it's offensive. OK, let me give you another example. First Timothy 417 says, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.
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Rather, train yourself for godliness. And I can say that and people can sit in their pews and then go, yeah, right.
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Amen. Amen, brother. You just read it right from the word of God. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. I'm with you there.
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And then I say Santa Claus is an irreverent, silly myth and people are offended. I say the shack by William Paul Young is an irreverent, silly myth.
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Have nothing to do with it. And people are offended. I say that the current trend in the church of calling
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God Papa is an irreverent, silly myth because he's not your cosmic dad. He's your God. And suddenly people are offended.
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I say that Beth Moore's visions that God shows her and now she's telling them to you and you have to believe what it is that she says because God said it to her.
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That's an irreverent, silly myth. And suddenly people are offended. You get what I'm saying? So if you've listened to me for any length of time, you know how big
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I am on context. It's where the whole concept of when we understand the text came from to teach people the scriptures in context because we take things way out of context like Jeremiah 29 11 often the example that I use for I know the plans
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I have for you declares the Lord a plan to prosper and not to harm you to give you a hope and a future. And we'll use that verse and we'll slap it in our graduation cards and wedding cards and all these other kinds of things.
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But what that verse means when we read it in context and we see all the other verses around it, we see that Jeremiah through his scribe
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Baruch was speaking to the Israelite people who were under Babylonian exile and they were fearful that the
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Babylonians were going to annihilate them. But God was assuring the Israelites that he was not going to allow them to be destroyed.
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But rather, here was what was going to happen for them. Only it was a promise that would not come to fulfillment for another 150 years.
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So in the context in which we read that this was something that was being issued to a people that wouldn't even see this promise happen in their lifetime.
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But it would be their children's children's children that would see God's promises be fulfilled with the restoration of the
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Israelite people back to their land. OK. And yet we take this verse out of context to mean that God is going to give us a fulfill a promise for us in the here and now, which is not what that verse meant.
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So we are supposed to understand these things in a literary context. That's the first context in which we should understand these things.
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So we read all the verses around it and understand this in a proper way. But then there's also a historical context which we must consider in the history of the church.
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So the literary context is the immediate context that we should be reading and looking at as we study these verses in the scriptures.
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But then there's a historical church context. And that requires us to do a little bit more research outside the pages of the
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Bible. We need to look at what some of the preachers in the history of the church have said about those passages.
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Augustine, what did he have to say? Luther, Calvin, Irenaeus, Matthew Henry, Charles Spurgeon, Martin Lloyd -Jones.
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Okay, just some names I'm drawing off the top of my head, but you kind of understand where I'm coming from. And in searching for these teachings from these other men that have taught the word of God over the course of the history of the church, we're also hearing about context in their day and age and time and also the country that they would have been living in at the time that they were writing these things.
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So that is a grander historical narrative that we are supposed to also consider when it comes to understanding the context of these passages.
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It gives us greater focus on how these things meant to the people to whom they were written at the time they were written, then how these things meant to people over the course of history.
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And then our third context that we're supposed to consider is our present day context. So how do these things pertain to us now?
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And as a pastor, this is constantly what I'm thinking about when I'm preparing a sermon on Sunday, which this
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Sunday is going to be concluding Romans 14, just as we have done this week. As I'm thinking about these things,
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I'm trying to figure out how is it that I make these things relevant to the people that I am speaking to living in 21st century
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America, Junction City, Kansas. OK, so that's the context. And I'll tell you that a person who is preaching the same scriptures that I'm going to be preaching on this
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Sunday is going to be talking to. I kind of fumbled that a little bit.
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But anyway, so considering a pastor in Virginia, let's say he's going to deliver these things out of Romans 14 to his congregation, specifically that group of people and in the context of the culture that they live in differently than the way that I'm going to deliver this to people in Kansas.
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So there's always going to be a different cultural context. And if we're not willing to apply that context, then we don't really love the word of God as a living, breathing, active word that is piercing through bone and marrow into the soul and the heart of man, as it's talked about in the book of Hebrews.
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We just love it as a textbook, but not as a living, active word. And so if God's word is as relevant today as it was the days that it was first written, then we need to love and enjoy and receive and long for understanding this in our current cultural context.
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So we know how to speak the gospel to the people that we live among now, and they would they would know that this is not just from a centuries old book that doesn't apply to us anymore.
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It is as relevant to us today as it was in the days that it was written. OK, so that was responding to that particular criticism.
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And this next one, this is the first letter that I have ever read on this program.
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And I mean, letter, it came in a stamped envelope. I most of the time
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I'm reading comments that either came from Twitter or questions that I've received from email. But this is my first that has come by mail.
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And this one, it's from let's see, it's Ryan in Bonnie in South Carolina.
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I was born in South Carolina and I don't know where Bonnie is. But anyway, this is more a criticism than it is a question, but that's
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OK. I read those two. He says, dear, what I have recently watched some videos of yours. And with all due respect,
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I strongly disagree with some of your points. The first video that I viewed was concerning the Sabbath.
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And before we go on here, before I continue with the letter, why don't we hear that video? So here this is one of the older what videos on the
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Sabbath? In Mark two, Jesus and his disciples were walking through the grain fields on the
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Sabbath, which was supposed to be a day of rest, as the fourth commandment says. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy on that day.
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You shall not work as they made their way. The disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. Now, according to the
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Pharisees, that qualified as work. And what they were doing was unlawful. But Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
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Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. Today we live in what is called the age of fulfillment.
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In Matthew 517, Jesus said, I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them with his death on the cross.
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He fulfilled the Old Testament laws of the Sabbath. No longer do we have to labor to attain our salvation, which we can't do anyway.
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Nor do we have to carry the weight of guilt or the burden of legalism. Instead, we can rest in the finished work of Christ.
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By the way, this is also the meeting of Matthew 11, 28, where he says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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As the Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 2, 16, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a
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Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Today, we honor the fourth commandment by gathering regularly as the church and celebrating as his body in our common salvation.
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It's still important to have a day of rest, but as Paul says in Romans 14, only those who are weak in the faith argue about which day is better.
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Welcome that person, he says, but don't quarrel over opinions when we understand the text. All right.
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So there is our video on the Sabbath, and I've actually been meaning to update that video, and I'll explain why here in just a moment.
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But first Ryan's letter goes on. He says that video on the Sabbath was the first one that he viewed.
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I must point out that the Sabbath was established at creation and not a Mosaic law. For proof of this, please read
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Genesis 2, 2 through 3. OK, if the Sabbath was done away with at the cross, like you claim, then read
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Luke 23, 56. Explain how they rested according to the commandment if the commandment was done away with.
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Romans 14, 5 through 6 is talking about fasting. In fact, the word Sabbath doesn't even appear in the book of Romans.
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Colossians 2, 16 is ceremonial days. Colossians 2, 14 has some key words in it was against us and it was against us and contrary to us.
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You honestly think God's commandments are against us? I should hope not. I don't think he worded that quite right. But anyway, now you might be thinking this guy hasn't read
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Acts 20, verse 7. I know that it does mention the first day of the week, but this phrase means
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Miaton Sabbath, which means the first day until the Sabbath. Now on to 1 Corinthians 16, 2.
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This passage has a key phrase in it, lay by him store. That's a funny way of saying pass around the offering plate, don't you think?
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There is absolutely no biblical evidence to support your claims in your video. Please check out this website for more information.
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Ryan. Now, I'm not trying to embarrass Ryan in any way, but the wording there is kind of awkward and I don't know what else he meant.
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Otherwise, I'd correct it for him. So I just read it as is. So if I get the opportunity to update the what video on the
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Sabbath, what would I change it to? Well, here's what I would clarify. First of all, there is no command in the New Testament to keep the
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Sabbath. It isn't there. The closest we get is something that was mentioned in the video where Jesus says that the
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Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And so the son of man is the Lord of the
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Sabbath. And so what Jesus is basically saying is that in him, he has fulfilled all of the laws of the Sabbath.
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And there was more than just keep the Sabbath holy, keep Saturday holy. There were also
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Sabbath years and there were Sabbath sets of years. So whenever we get into this argument about keeping the
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Sabbath, why doesn't the argument also extend into the Sabbath year and those Sabbath sets of years?
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Because there was more than one Sabbath that the Israelites were supposed to honor and keeping the Sabbath meant more than the seventh day of the week.
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So all of these laws that pertain to ceremonial Sabbath keeping Christ fulfilled and he has become our
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Sabbath rest. We read this in Hebrews chapter three and four, where it says that there is a rest for the people of God and it's in Christ Jesus, not in our works for we, our works are not sufficient.
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They aren't good enough. We cannot work to attain rest. Christ fulfilled all of the law and the prophets, and it is in his finished work that we can rest.
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So for the Christian, every single day is a Sabbath day. Every single day that we rest in Christ and his finished work, we are keeping the fourth commandment.
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But for those who are not in Christ, every single day they break the fourth commandment because they are attempting to attain righteousness by their works instead of resting in the work of Christ.
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So this is a hermeneutic. You're not going to go to the scriptures and you're going to see it said Christ fulfilled all the laws of the
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Sabbath. And so you no longer have to keep the Sabbath. It's not going to say that in there. This is understanding how Christ fulfilled all the law and the prophets.
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And so then when you understand that, then you can understand a passage like Colossians chapter two, verse 16.
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I'm going to read this again, which we read earlier this week. But once again, it says, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a
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Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
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So all of the laws pertaining to the Sabbath were pointing towards something that was coming in the future. And that was
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Christ who fulfilled all the law and the prophets. He is our Sabbath rest.
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Now, does that mean that we're not supposed to keep a day of the week holy unto the
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Lord? No, that's not what that means. There still should be a day of the week that we set aside to fellowship with the people of God, to read the word of God, to hear the word of God being preached and taught and spoken, maybe commit ourselves to reading
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Christian books, to spending more time with the family than we might any other day of the week. And that just more often than not falls on Sunday because that is the
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Lord's day. And that was the day that the church was gathering together and worshiping as we see it being talked about in the
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New Testament. Now, Ryan had brought up in his letter, he said, if these things had been fulfilled with Christ's death, then why does it say in Luke 23, 56, that that they rested according to the commandment if the commandment was done away with?
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Well, because they didn't understand these things yet. They didn't understand how Christ had fulfilled all the law and the prophets.
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Their Messiah had just been crucified and buried in a tomb. They were mourning that he had died.
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And so they didn't understand how all the scriptures were fulfilled in this yet. That comes later in the book of Luke, by the way, in Luke 24, 44, he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the
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Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
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So of course they kept the Sabbath in chapter 23 because they did not yet understand how Christ had fulfilled all the laws of the
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Sabbath, which he explained to them in chapter 24. So, uh, so anyway, uh, now somehow
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I have to condense all of that into 90 seconds and put that in a what video. But there is my response to that particular comment.
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All right. We're going to jump across an ocean now. And, uh, this question comes from Tim in Cornwall, England.
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He says, hi, Gabe. I have had a really hard time understanding first Corinthians 13 verses eight through 13.
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Some say that this proves various gifts such as tongues, et cetera, still continue until the perfect comes, which many take to mean the
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Lord Jesus return. I believe these gifts have finished with the apostles tongues was a foreign language, not babbling, but I don't understand what the context of this is and what is meant by the perfect.
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Thank you for your ministry, Tim. We'll appreciate your question, Tim. Let's go to first Corinthians 13 and we'll look at this together here.
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So beginning in verse eight, love never ends as for prophecies. They will pass away as for tongues.
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They will cease as for knowledge. It will pass away for, we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
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When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reason like a child. When I became a man,
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I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
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Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
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So now faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.
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And so here's what it was that I said to Tim, the way that most cessationists read this passage, uh, and a cessationist being a person that believes that the more miraculous apostolic gifts have ceased.
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So miraculous healings, gifts of tongues, that sort of a thing. A cessationist would read this passage and say that it pertains to how certain apostolic gifts will cease.
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And when the perfect comes, it describes the perfect word of God in its completeness.
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Now, not every cessationist believes that way, but there are many that do. And I know that B .B. Warfield has written on that, uh, that Warfield believed that the
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Bible in its completeness is the perfect that Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 13.
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However, I've not been able to accept that definition because I don't see that in the context.
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It appears to me that Paul is talking about how, what we experience in this temporal existence is partial.
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Spiritual gifts have a particular purpose now, but they're not eternal. When the perfect comes, specifically when
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Christ returns and ushers in his imperishable kingdom, that which is partial, which we live in now will no longer be, we see in part now, but soon we will see in full as it talks about.
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Now we see as in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, and then I shall know fully, even as I am in fully known.
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That won't come to be until Christ returns. And we read this in, uh, let me, let me turn to 1
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John because John says this a great way in chapter three, verse two, beloved, we are
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God's children now. And what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.
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So now we see in a very limited space in time, but there's a day that will come when the perfect comes, when we will see fully, just as we are fully known.
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Now, having said that, I still believe that certain apostolic gifts came to an end at the end of the apostolic age with the death of John at the end of the first century.
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And we also see a ceasing of these gifts occurring even in the scriptures.
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So we see that the spiritual gifts, miraculous healings, speaking in tongues, extended prophecy, some of these kinds of things, they came to an end, even in the progression of the new
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Testament, because Paul got sick. Like the Galatian church was planted because Paul got sick and had to divert his route and so came to Galatia and planted the church there.
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Why wasn't Paul healed? He was an apostle. Why didn't he just heal himself? Paul also says to Timothy that he needs to mix a little bit of wine with water to aid his stomach ailments.
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Why doesn't Paul just say to Timothy, I'll heal you of your stomach ailment? Because these miraculous healings that were being done to authenticate the message as being from the apostles of Jesus Christ was for a particular period of time.
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And once the church was being planted and thriving, then it was no longer necessary for those gifts of tongues and miraculous healings to continue.
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Very simply, we can see that in the scriptures. And we don't need first Corinthians 13, 8 through 13 to be saying that in order to believe that we can understand that and discern that from the scriptures without taking that section of first Corinthians 13 to mean that.
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Furthermore, the context of prophecies, tongues and knowledge in verse 8 must be considered with the greater context of what
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Paul is talking about in first Corinthians 12 and 14. He's not referencing prophecies, tongues and knowledge as they stand on their own.
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Clearly, knowledge can't have passed away at the end of the apostolic age, because then how would we be able to know the word of God, which we have today in the
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Bible? And clearly, prophecies can't still be continuing. Otherwise, we'd still be adding to the
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Bible. Rather, prophecies, tongues and knowledge are examples Paul is using to describe spiritual gifts in general, those things which will only be around for a particular temporary period of time and those that will extend into the far future.
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Paul is using this to describe all spiritual gifts. Again, spiritual gifts have a particular purpose in this temporal existence.
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But once the perfect kingdom comes, things like spiritual gifts will no longer be needed.
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Of the three essential Christian virtues that Paul mentions at the end of chapter 13, faith, hope and love, the greatest is love, because that's the one that never ends.
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Faith and hope we have in this life only, just as we have spiritual gifts in this life only. But love is greater than all of these things because love never ends and we will live in God's perfect, wonderful, holy love forever.
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And there's my answer to that question. So thank you so much, Tim, from England, for sending that question.
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If you would like to send a question to the broadcast, the email address is whenweunderstandthetextatgmail .com.
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God bless. Study the scriptures in context and know how to speak the gospel into our current cultural context.
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I must emphasize to you yet again, speak peace into our culture. Share the gospel.
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Go with God. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books and more, visit our website at www .utt
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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetextatgmail .com
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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again next week as we grow together in God's Word when we understand the text.