What about the Staff?

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If you have your Bibles, please take them and open them to Mark chapter 6.
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We have been, in the last few months, going through a verse-by-verse study of the Gospel of Mark on Wednesday night.
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This is intended to be more of a Bible study, even though I tend to roll into preaching any time I teach, just like Andy and Mike.
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We all are preachers by nature.
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But if you have a question, please feel free to ask, raise your hand, you know, as we're going through.
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And tonight, I am going to need some readers.
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So if I could ask for two readers, are there two who would like to read? All right, Wes and Caleb.
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Wes, when it's time, I'm going to ask for you to read Matthew chapter 10, verses 5-15.
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And Caleb, when it's your turn, we're going to read Luke 9, verses 1-6, if you would.
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And the reason why is, as we have noted in many of our studies, when we look at one Gospel, we are often only getting one perspective of a story.
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And because God has seen fit to be gracious to us and not give us only one account of the life of Christ, there are many times wherein we have to harmonize the different accounts so that we come to a fuller conclusion as to what is being said.
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And tonight is one of those times, and I brought this up a few times over the last few weeks.
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Tonight is one of those times where the unbelievers and the atheists will often go, aha, here is a contradiction, and so we have to address that.
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Now let me say we have to.
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We don't have to.
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We could ignore it.
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But what happens often is when we ignore things in this setting, and then we're out in the world giving testimony to the Gospel, and someone hits us with something that we've never heard or never studied or never examined, then we are knocked back on our heels like a boxer who's unprepared to go in the ring.
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We are not prepared to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
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And I'm not saying that to give a defense for the hope that is within you, you have to answer every apologetic question there is because you can't do that.
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However, we have moved into a new era in human history.
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Over the last 200 years, the doubt regarding the Scriptures has only increased, and it has increased exponentially.
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And so we find ourselves as when we are giving an evangelistic appeal, oftentimes we are also exercising the work of an apologist.
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An apologist is not one who says, I'm sorry, but one who gives a defense.
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And that's what we're called to do.
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We're called to give a defense.
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And so, and many of you know this, my heart has always been in the subject of apologetics.
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When I did my master's thesis, I did it on the subject of faith and science because I don't think that the two are contradictory.
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And it's my heart to teach these things.
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And so, sometimes I over-focus on this just because it's the way my mind works, but I hope that in some way it's an encouragement to you.
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And you may say, tonight this is, I spent too much time on the whole staff thing.
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We'll talk about that, you'll see what I mean in a moment.
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But to me, it deserves to be at least treated with some respect to say, okay, there's a question that arises.
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How do we answer the staff question? And you'll see when we read what the staff question is, but let's just read the text to begin with.
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We're going to read Mark chapter six, beginning at verse seven, and then we're going to jump.
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We're going to get to verse 13, and then we're going to jump to verse 30.
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And the reason why is we've come to another one of these times where we have what John MacArthur calls a Markin sandwich.
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And what he's saying is in the gospel of Mark, Mark will often start a story, include another story, and then finish the story with something in between.
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He did that with the story of Jairus and his daughter.
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In between was the woman with the issue of blood, and then he comes back to the daughter.
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Well, the same thing happens here.
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We see the beginning of the story of Jesus sending out the 12, and then there's an interlude about the death of John the Baptist, and then we come back and the 12 have returned.
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So we're going to skip the John the Baptist part, because that's what we're going to look at next week, but I want us to see both parts of this story.
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So let's read beginning at verse seven.
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Speaking of Jesus, it says, And to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.
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And if any place will not receive you, and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.
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So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent, and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
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Now down to verse 30.
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The apostles returned to Jesus.
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So this is coming back from this short-term mission.
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The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught.
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And he said to them, Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.
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For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
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And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.
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Let's just one more time pray.
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Father, I pray, Lord, that you'll give us wisdom to understand your word.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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So Mark chapter six is incredibly long.
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I think I mentioned that last week.
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It begins with Jesus returning to Nazareth, his hometown, and experiencing another rejection there where people were saying, This is just Mary's son.
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This is just, we know his brothers.
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We knew him growing up.
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Who does he think he is? And Jesus makes that profound statement, A prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown.
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We talked about that last week.
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And we made quite a bit of commentary on verse six, actually, verses five and six, because in verse five, it says he could not or excuse me, he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.
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And he marveled because of their unbelief.
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And he went about among the villages teaching.
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And we the commentary we focused on was one.
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Why was it that he could not heal? And we said that the cannot doesn't mean a lack of power, but rather, he was choosing not to work among them because of their unbelief.
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Our unbelief doesn't rob God of his power.
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But certainly, God responds positively to faith.
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We see that in Scripture and Christ is responding negatively to their lack of faith.
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And we see this throughout the Bible, that God is unpleased with our lack of faith.
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And but as I said last week, the proof the proof of the pudding is when they're in the boat and the wind and everything's howling and they said, Master, do you not care that we're perishing? And Jesus stood up, calm the wind and the waves.
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And he says, oh, ye of little faith.
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But their little faith didn't keep him from calming the storm.
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So our faith doesn't make him strong or weak.
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But in this regard, Christ did choose not to work many miracles in his hometown because of their unbelief, and he marveled at their unbelief.
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So this brings us to the next section of Mark six.
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And this section is what we just read.
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And it is the the sending of the twelve.
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And one might refer to this in a modern context as a short term missions trip.
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Now, I have publicly stated in the past that I am not a big fan of short term missions trips.
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I've done podcasts about it and things like that.
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And my reasoning is not that they're bad in and of themselves, but I have seen them too much become rather than missionaries, people become vacationaries.
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Right.
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They want to go to Guam or Cuba or wherever.
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So they use the trip as an excuse and they go and they dig a well and then they spend the rest of the time sightseeing and they call it a missions trip.
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That's that's maybe unfair.
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And if you've done short term missions, please don't think I'm being ugly.
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I'm saying I've seen that happen.
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But that's not all that there is.
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There are good short term missions.
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And this text is a good example, because what this text does show as a valuable thing is the value of putting to practice what we have learned.
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Because that's what we're actually seeing in this text.
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Jesus, up until this point, has been the primary, if we not could say only teacher and healer in the group.
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Jesus has gone and where I would think at this point about a year and a half in to his ministry.
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And he has been the one who's taught.
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He's been the one who cast out demons.
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He's been the one who's healed.
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He's been the one who's raised the dead.
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And the others have been disciples.
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But now they are going to become apostles.
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Notice again in verse seven, it says, and he called the twelve and he began to send them out.
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Now, I brought along my Greek text tonight because I just wanted to point out something to you in verse seven when it says he called them to himself the twelve and he began to send them out.
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The the word to send them out is apostolane.
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And it's where we get the word apostle.
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It's the verbal form of the word apostle.
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To send is what it means to be an apostle.
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It means to be a sent one.
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Jesus calls them in and he sends them out and he sends them out in a very specific way.
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The text tells us he sends them out with his authority.
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There's a phrase we use.
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Often, if you've ever come to my church history class or if you've ever been a part of my New Testament studies class, the term that is often used is apostolic authority.
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Apostolic authority refers to that which Christ imbibed into his apostles in his departure when Christ went in to heaven, having been ascended to heaven, he gave them authority to go and preach and that authority became the foundation for many churches.
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And what does the Bible say? It says it says, what is the foundation of the church? Everybody always runs and says it's Jesus.
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Well, actually, the Bible says the foundation of the church is the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone.
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Christ is the cornerstone, but the church is built on the apostles and the prophets because they were the ones who were going and founding the churches.
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They were the ones planting the churches.
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They were the ones by the power of the spirit going and doing the work of Christ, carrying it on after his ministry.
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And this is why we often refer to the church as apostolic.
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If you read the Apostles Creed, what is it? One holy apostolic church, right? One holy, universal apostolic, the word apostolic.
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Is it in the Apostles Creed or in the Nicene Creed? Is it? But you know, I'm afraid that term we talk about the apostolic church.
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This is one of the ways in which Rome has contorted the truth because they believe that the apostolic authority that was housed in those men or was contained in those men continues down now through the office of the bishop of Rome, who they call the pope.
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They call the pope the vicar of Christ, the one who stands in the place of Christ.
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But they believe he is the successor of Peter, who they believe represents the authority of the apostles.
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So they believe they have a living apostle in the world and the apostle is the pope.
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Now, we disagree.
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We believe there was an apostolic age, meaning there was a time where the apostles were on the earth and the apostles were used by God as agents of revelation.
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And that revelation came to us by virtue of written communication, Paul's letters and the books that came out of that, the writings, all of them have apostolic authority.
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You can go through each of the book of the New Testament.
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And we talked about this and how we got our Bible class.
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We talked about how each of them can be confirmed as either being from an apostle or under the authority of an apostle, such as the Gospel of Mark is being written from the told that an early church writer gives us that information that this is actually I'm sorry.
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Who did I say? I meant Peter.
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My bad.
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It's the it's it's it's Peter's memories.
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This is Peter's story.
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Sometimes the Gospel of Mark, you can think of it as the Gospel of Peter.
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This is Peter's gospel in that sense.
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So we have this apostolic age where there was apostolic authority.
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When did this end? This is a good question.
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When when did the apostolic age end, sir? Yeah.
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The death of the last apostle would have been late first century with the death of the apostle John.
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He lived the longest.
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I forget the date of his.
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I don't remember if the date is specific, but it's around 90.
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So we put a very late life for him having lived a very long life.
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Um, but when did it begin? That's the next question.
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We know when it ended, ended with the last apostle.
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When did the apostolic age begin? Well, we could argue and say that it began when Christ ascended, because that's when he gave them, you know, go ye into all the world baptizing, making disciples.
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That was the Great Commission and therefore the establishment of the apostolic church.
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But you could say, well, it wasn't really then.
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It was the falling of the spirit and Acts chapter two when they received the gift of the spirit to go and do this work, because that the time period between the the first thing and the second thing, you know, is that the apostolic age? It's the issue is it hasn't started yet.
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We're still in the time of Christ's being here.
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So what is Christ doing? Christ is preparing them for that.
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Christ is giving them the opportunity to go and do this in his name with his authority while he's still here to offer them encouragement and correction.
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This is very much a time of training.
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And so, as I said, over the years, I've given short term missions a little black eye, maybe.
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But there are times where things like that can be good training opportunities.
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If, in fact, you do desire to be a missionary and go and spend your life overseas, a short term work might be good for you to experience that life and see if that is truly what God has called you to do.
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So just as a practical way to apply this, I normally don't jump to the practical application that quickly, but this is just a thought.
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Jesus is giving them the opportunity to go out and teach and preach and cast out demons and do these things in his name.
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Notice also, it does say he gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
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And that idea of authority again in verse seven is some texts say power.
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How many of your Bibles say in verse seven that he gave them the power to do this? OK, there's two words for power in the Greek language.
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The one that we're normally used to hearing is the word dunamis, and people make a big deal about dunamis because it's where we get the word dynamite.
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And people always say the power of God is like dynamite because it's dunamis.
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Well, the word dynamite comes from dunamis.
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It's sort of reading back into it, thinking of it as an explosive power.
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But it is the power of God is described as dunamis.
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But in this text, it's not that word.
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In this text, it is the word exousion and the word exousion is the right to do something.
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Not the ability necessarily, but the authority.
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And that's why the ESV translates it as authority.
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Now, we could argue that they also had to be empowered.
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They had to be given the power because they're going to cast out demons and they're going to do these things.
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So the power is there.
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But what we're getting in this text is a is a proto example of the authority that they're going to be exercising in the apostolic age.
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Again, they're having this authority given to them, which won't be permanent until after the falling of the spirit in Acts two.
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But now is a moment of training.
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And what's interesting about it, Judas is among them.
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And Judas is there.
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Judas experiences this, I can only assume in the same way that the others did, which is to me just an amazing thought that the one who would ultimately turn against Christ is experiencing the authority of Christ in this moment.
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Just this amazing thought.
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So it says, and he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two.
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Oh, very quickly, let me just mention the two by two.
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The two by two is not given an explanation.
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So various commentators come to various conclusions.
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I think it's safe enough to say that two by two is a is in general a good way for people to go about doing ministry.
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Some have tied this to Exodus and how in the old covenant, a testimony was not valid unless there was someone there to back it up.
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You had to have two or three witnesses to back up a testimony.
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So some believe that sending them out two by two was a way for one to give testimony and the other to give a affirmation of it.
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I think that's legitimately possible.
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The text doesn't say that.
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So, again, we're just sort of drawing out an idea.
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We know that that's an Old Testament principle.
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We know that's true, that testimonies are based upon more than one witness.
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So if Jesus is sending them out two by two for that reason, that makes perfect sense.
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There's also the truth.
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And this is something that sort of I lean towards a little bit is that people tend to do better when they're not all alone.
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This is why, you know, you go out witnessing door to door and I've done this.
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If you've ever gone door to door by yourself, it's very uncomfortable.
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One, because if you look like me, nobody comes to the door because everybody's scared to death.
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Like, why is this giant man standing at my door all by himself? Is this, you know, I mean, I'm serious.
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People look out the window.
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What do you want? You know, they don't.
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But if you have two people going some for some reason, it's more it's it's more conducive to that interaction.
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It's also if one is a better speaker or more comfortable witnessing, the other person comes along and is their help.
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And one is sort of helping the other.
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And in this situation, I don't think necessarily they needed help because they had the power of Christ and the authority of Christ.
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But at the same time, having the two together certainly makes sense from a practical standpoint.
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So not only would they be filling the Exodus or the Old Testament command, but they also would have a practical and I think a practical example to us.
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When when Brother Mike goes and preaches outside, he sometimes used to go by himself and we've had conversations about that.
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He says it's very, very troubling to be out there all along because I may come up behind you and hit you in the head.
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You know, there's all kinds of stuff can happen.
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So oftentimes now if he goes, I go with him, stand close by, hand out tracks and we do it together because there's more comfort in that.
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And again, not saying he wouldn't go by himself, but we prefer to go out together.
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And the same for me.
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I prefer to go out with someone else.
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So there's so there's certain practicality here.
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But this is the picture.
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Jesus has gathered the 12.
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He's sending them out two by two.
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He's given them authority, which is the power, the right to do this in his name.
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And he gave them authority, according to the Gospel of Mark, over unclean spirits.
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And here's where the difficult part begins.
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And this is where the conflict arises in the various narratives, because in Mark's gospel, he charged them to take nothing for their journey except.
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A staff, I'm going to write these down, because this is when you guys read, he said, take nothing except the staff.
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And he says, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sand.
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And he says, no sandals, all right, so they they can wear sandals, which is good.
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We're not we're not going barefoot in this.
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And third, where am I at? Sorry.
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OK.
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And and not put on two tunics.
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OK, so what's the assumption there? One tunic.
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That's right.
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Right.
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The tunic was the undergarment.
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It was worn close to the body.
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And a second tunic was often used for when you were sleeping outside.
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So the second tunic was almost like a sleeping bag.
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It was carried.
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It was used for outdoor sleeping.
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Yeah, it was it was used for being outside.
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And there's a reason why I believe Jesus says don't take two tunics and and why he doesn't forbid the one, but he forbids the two.
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We'll talk about that in a moment.
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All right.
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Now, let's stop right there, because we're going to get to verse 11.
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I'm sorry, verse 10.
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But I want to I want to hear the other two narratives.
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Let's begin with Wes, if you would read from Matthew's gospel.
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Jesus, they're giving them instructions.
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Don't take the road that leads to the Gentile.
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Don't enter any Samaritan town.
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Instead, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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As you go, of heaven has come near.
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Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons.
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Freely you receive, freely give.
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Don't acquire gold, silver.
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Don't take a traveling bag for the road or an extra shirt, sandals or or a staff.
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For the worker is worthy of this food.
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When you enter any town or village, find out who's worthy and stay there until you leave.
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Greet a household when you enter it.
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And if the household is worthy, let your peace be on it.
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But if it is unworthy, let your peace return to you.
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If anyone does not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet.
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When you leave that house or town, truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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I know I wrote it on the board, so did anybody pick it up? Pick up the difference.
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He said no staff.
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And no sandals.
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I say it's the staff problem, but it's the staff.
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It's the staff sandal problem, because in Mark's gospel, he said, take a staff and take sandals.
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But in Matthew's gospel, he says, take verse 10, no bag for your journey or two tunics or sandals or a staff.
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OK, so just that by itself raises the question of the unbeliever, we're going to get to the solution in a few minutes, but just for now, I'm identifying the concern.
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Caleb, if you would, same thing with the gospel of Luke, please.
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He sent them out to the place and he said to them, take nothing for your journey, no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, and do not have whatever house you enter, stay there and from there depart, and wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.
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And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
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All right, so didn't mention sandals, right? But it did mention no staff and I don't mean to make a big deal about that, but it is in Matthew's gospel and in Luke's gospel, it's no staff, but in Mark's gospel, it's a staff.
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And again, I can't tell you how many times I've spent just engaging with unbelievers in different ways and they pull out stuff you've never even thought of.
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And this is one of the ones it's like this is one of the ones they throw out.
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They see here the Bible is filled with contradictions and here's a contradiction, Jesus says.
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And this is the same narrative, by the way, because some could argue, well, he said here, don't take a staff, but here it was OK.
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And so it's two different.
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No, this is the same account from these three synoptic gospels.
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No one really debates that the language is too similar where they are.
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It's the same place.
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It's the same point in time and ministry.
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It's not a simply a he said it here and he didn't say it here.
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There are times when that does happen.
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This is not one of those times.
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So we have to come to some conclusions and the unbeliever, of course, the conclusion is simple.
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The Bible is just not true.
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Therefore, it's filled with contradictions.
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The progressive Christian is easy enough because they would say, well, I believe some of the Bible, but not all the Bible.
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Here's one of the places where the Bible makes a mistake.
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But if we are going to be consistent.
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And believe that the Bible is true and everything that it says, then we have to come to this text and honestly evaluate what is being said.
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And there are several solutions that have been proposed right away.
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Let's just mention the sandals situation.
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If you go back to Matthew's gospel, when he says acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey or two tunics or sandals, I think that it's legitimately possible that the two modifies both tunics and sandals.
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And so Jesus is not saying don't take any sandals because he's not saying run around barefoot all over Galilee sharing the ministry.
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He's saying don't take an extra pair of sandals.
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His translation says don't take an extra shirt, sandals or stuff.
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So there.
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What translation is that? It's the perfect translation then because it got it right.
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No, absolutely.
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That's great.
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See, I hadn't read that particular translation, but that's a good point.
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What does the King James say? Anything different or at that point? But where are we at? Matthew chapter 10, verse 10.
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OK, yeah.
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Translates it issues.
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And like I said, the two modifying there and an extra pair.
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So don't take an extra pair of sandals.
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So I think that is satisfactory.
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As I said, Brother West's translation helps satisfy that.
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So I don't think we have too much to worry about with the.
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Sandals, I think that was pretty easy, but the staff is a little more difficult because it says a staff take a staff and the other says don't.
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And so the question becomes, what is the answer? And there are, like I said, various ways that different commentators try to deal with this.
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I want to give you what I think is the simplest answer, and that is.
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Well, there's two I'm going to give you to I'll let you figure out which one you think is better.
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I think both are reasonable.
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One is that there are two different types of staffs that were carried in the first century.
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And we know this from Psalm 23, which refers to two different types of staffs when it talks about the shepherd.
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Remember Psalm 23.
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The Lord is my shepherd.
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I shall not want and maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
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He leadeth me beside the still waters.
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He restoreth my soul.
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And what does it say? Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
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And the picture there is the the shepherd who would carry the the what we call the crook.
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Which was used for guiding, and if a sheep got out of line, pulling the sheep back in and that crook is just that this is I mean, if you anything that deals with shepherds, this is usually the logo, right? This is the symbol of shepherding.
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But they also had a, for lack of a better term, a club.
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And the club, the rod, was used for defending against wolves and things like that.
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And it was more of a tool of defense.
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And so you had a rod and a staff.
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And it's interesting that the the the writer of Psalm 23 chooses to say God has both of those.
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God has the shepherd's crook who guides and directs us.
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And he also has an instrument of discipline.
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The Bible says God disciplines those who are his.
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And if we are his, we are objects of that discipline because he loves us.
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Discipline is an act of love.
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So one way to understand Mark's gospel versus the other gospel is Jesus is saying you can take your walking stick, but don't take your club.
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And R.C.
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Sproul, so funny, as I did listen to his message on this and he said, he said, don't go packing.
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And I thought that was very funny way of saying it.
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But the idea of having something for defense, because what we're going to see in just a moment, we're almost out of time.
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What we what we see in this text is Christ is commanding dependence.
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Saying don't take extra.
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When you go, trust that you will be provided for.
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Trust that when you enter a town, someone's going to receive you.
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They're going to put you in their home and stay there while you're there and receive from them the care that they give you, because that care is ultimately not coming from them.
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It's coming from God.
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Receive their hospitality, receive their care.
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Don't take bread.
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Don't take a bag.
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These are things that are consistent across all three narratives.
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Don't take a bag.
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Don't take any money.
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Don't take anything extra.
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No extra sandals, no extra shirt.
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You're not going to be sleeping outside.
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God is going to provide a place for you to stay.
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Isn't that an amazing thought? Christ is making them essentially a promise.
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You are going to go and you are going to have your needs met.
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So while we get all excited about the sandals and the sandals, the staff, because that's my how my brain works and I get all caught up in apologetic stuff.
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That's really not the point.
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The point is, Christ is promising provision to his apostles and go knowing that I'm going to provide for you through these people.
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So the other thing is he could be simply saying, don't take an additional staff.
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A normal staff would have been something that they all would have carried.
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But again, he's he's got this idea of not taking extra.
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Don't take extra.
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And that's the other way of perhaps thinking when he says in the gospel of Matthew and Luke not to take a staff, is he saying not to take an extra because it's in the same vein as not taking an extra shirt, not taking extra sandals, not taking an extra staff that would reasonably fit into all of those things.
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And I think either one of those is satisfactory enough for me.
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Either he's saying, don't take a club.
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It's a different kind of stick.
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Or he's saying, don't take two sticks.
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Don't take anything extra.
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Don't take anything extra because.
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God's going to provide all your needs now.
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Last thing I want to say about this text, again, because time has come and I can't believe we're already out of time, so much 40 minutes into the lesson.
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Well, there is a statement here and maybe I should wait till next week because this is this is good.
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There's a statement of Christ.
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Interwoven into this about the subject of judgment, and maybe we will, maybe we'll just wait, because here's what I want you to see, because in the other gospel narratives, this is actually fleshed out even further in Matthew's gospel.
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It goes on well past what I asked West to read.
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It goes for another like 20 verses, goes down into verse 42, and what it is, is Jesus talking about the judgment that is going to befall those who do not hear the apostles gospel, that when they go and preach this gospel, that some are going to receive them, welcome them there into their homes, give them all they need.
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They're going to provide for them.
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But some are going to reject it.
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And what happens to those who reject you shake the dust off of your feet? And you move on.
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And there's a wonderful, important lesson in that as well.
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So I think that's what we'll do, I think we will, because there's also a textual variant and you know how much I love to talk about textual variants, because in Mark's gospel, in the ESV and in most modern translations, it does not mention Sodom and Gomorrah, but in the King James Version, it does say it will be more tolerable in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for those people.
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And so why don't we do that? We'll we'll we'll save that for next time.
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Does anybody have any questions? The money bill? It would take a wallet, but don't put anything in it.
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Yeah, it's it would be a normal part of their attire.
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And he's saying don't carry money, don't carry thing what you would normally carry to buy things.
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Yes, yeah, absolutely.
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Anyone else? Was that helpful? I know I spent probably more time on the stick thing, but but you get why, right? This is like apologetics is important and understanding these things, being able to give an answer for these things.
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It's important.
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All right.