Synoptics - Matthew 23:23-30

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No, they leave on Tuesday Leave on Tuesday. Mm -hmm
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Yep, okay We are in Matthew chapter 23 if you carry around that big blue book, you certainly won't have to worry about it.
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So November that's that's a base there
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Can guarantee you whoever's driving that vehicle is deaf Be heading to Australia on Tuesday, so One day home the rest of October and that's not a
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Sunday. So You all be good. Well, I'm gone. I'm not bringing you any koala bears or kangaroo stuff toys or anything like that It's it's
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I learned my lesson last time you got to remember when you go to Australia They don't they don't care about how much your carry -ons way on the way over, but they do on the way back which is great when
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I got to the airport last time and I flew out of Brisbane that time and all of a sudden
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You have to weigh your carry -ons. I'm like what and all that caused a major problem.
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So keeping that in mind this time and Not bringing anything back or if I do
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I got to get it packed into the luggage somehow. So But anyways, so that means this will be our last study in this for a little while Callahan will be
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Taking my place for a while. And if I recall correctly we are somewhere around Matthew 23 20 ish
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We were talking about the divisions made in Jewish thinking between For example, therefore whoever swears by the altar swears both by the altar and everything on it and Whoever swears for the temple swears both by the temple and by him who dwells within it and whoever swears by heaven swears both
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By the throne of God and him who sits upon it what he's doing here is dealing with the punctilious nature of the
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Pharisees and part of what they were doing for example Next few verses woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you
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Tithe mints and Dillon come in and neglected the weight your provisions of law justice and mercy and faithfulness These are things you should have done without neglecting the others you blind guys you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel in other words
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These are these are punctilious people in the sense that they had all these rules and regulations and Some of them were at least had a biblical foundation.
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Some were just massive expansions upon what had been found in the law and They used it as a method basically of sort of controlling their own little group
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There were only so many people that could do Could invest the kind of time and effort into the doing of all these little things
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Most of the people are on a subsistence diet they they have to get up in the morning and they have to do what they have to do to try to earn enough money or or Do enough farm work or whatever just to just to come up with a subsistence amount of?
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money of food, so You know when you're just trying to survive You can't you know the
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You tie the mint and Dillon coming so, you know, they're there can you imagine taking your your spices and You know you get out your cinnamon, you know you get oh
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I got to make sure you do this and You make sure everybody sees it. Of course, you know and you're you're so focused on that and then
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The weightier provisions of the law justice and mercy and faithfulness
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Those get those fly out the window it was it was a just a complete and total imbalance and part of it was due to the fact that these kinds of groups and systems like the
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Pharisees had developed into Create a mechanism whereby basically the leaders have control over everybody else and you can also sort of determine who's in and who is out and That is what the
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Lord is is focusing upon here they're their oaths where they would make a division between what's on the altar or the altar itself as And that allowed them to be dishonest
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And they could look at well look I As anyone else here, can you tell me exactly what?
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110 that wouldn't have actually been 110 that would have been about 19 % when you put them all together because there are three ties all the rest that stuff
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But I'm sure they had it all figured out and there's probably a book someplace really. See here's my shirt Can you tell me what your tithe of dill is?
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I know what my tithe of dill is and this is while a person is
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Standing back and getting angry about Jesus healing somebody on the
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Sabbath day Or they are promoting injustice. They're not taking care of the widow and the orphan.
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They're not showing mercy they're not being faithful to God, but they know what their tithe of dill is and Jason saying there was anything wrong with their being very careful about what they possessed
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But the fact that you do one you do the minor things and take pride in that while the major things which are repeated over and over and over again and the
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Prophets and things like that those go undone So that these become a source of pride for you that of course is the very essence of hypocrisy itself and so the
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The assertion woe do you scribes and Pharisees you are Hypocrites you blind guides you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel
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Well that that one's easy enough you you know we
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Live in a day where let's face it our Our food preparation
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Processes are a lot better than they used to be let's put it that way I mean it's big news when
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You know there has to be a recall because of e .coli or some type of bacteria and something you know and obviously
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While that happens every once in a while in comparison to how often it used to happen We do a lot better job than we used to and Most the time when you grab a beverage you know
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Yesterday Some friends my and I rode from Prescott Valley up over Mingus down to Jerome down to Clarkdale and Cottonwood so we stopped in Cottonwood before riding back to the direction and Pig mountain
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Wow I had never seen it from that side before and I was sitting down there look at that thing go We're gonna ride up that oh, this is exciting.
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This is this is gonna be fun, but we need some water so I went in to was a
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Maverick you know one of those Maverick gas station quick Mart thingies and bought a bottle of water and I Did not take that bottle of water and hold it up the
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Sun and do all this stuff You know just to see if there's anything floating around in there I didn't really have time to but I I just sort of Assumed that what was in there was probably filtered, and hopefully it wasn't anything floating around in there
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I didn't look and I'm here today, so evidently I was fairly safe on that on that assumption
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But you know we we filter stuff out, and we've all got those little Brita things and that kind of thing and and so What the
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Lord's saying here you strain out a nap they had to back then you know if you had water and something like that You sort of had to strain it you had to run it through a strainer to get rid of stuff because you know stuff would fall in and die and and There'd be stuff floating around and if it came out of a well there might be
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You know parts of leaves or you know say you had to strain it and So there would be you know the the more effort you put into that than the pure the resultant liquid would be
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Well these guys you know they strain out a nap. You know something really tiny and Swallow a camel now now if that's not hyperbole.
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I really don't know what it is. I'm not really sure how you you swallow a camel, but the point was there is a massive difference between the gnat and the camel and These folks are so their their balance is so gone
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They are so much into the that which is good as evil and evil is good black white white black
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Realm of things that we see back in the book of Isaiah That the Lord can use this kind of hyperbolic statement that they are so concerned on the little stuff and yet, you know, it's it's very it's pretty much parallel to the
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Here help me. Let me help you with the speck in your eye while I've got a log hanging out of mine type of a situation
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It is meant to indicate just the backwardness the absurdity of the backwardness of the
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Pharisees and how they have completely lost their balance This is also true of their cleansing rituals
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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish But inside they're full of robbery and self -indulgence you blind
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Pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish So the outside of it may become clean also We know that again, they had all these rules and regulations not only about the washing of the hands
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It's interesting to see the modern Ramifications and embodiment of this there's a lot of close parallels between wadu in Islamic theology the cleansing
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How you have to wash your hands and I have to start with one hand over the other hand not not this hand over this hand, but this hand over this hand and You could do it the other way, and it's not right and and etc.
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Etc. Etc. And What you had going on with the Pharisees at that time as well?
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Not only for the washing of themselves their feet so on so forth, but also of the cooking utensils and again you sort of had to There's there's there's underlying some of this.
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There's there's sort of an economic aspect too because The fact the matter is a really poor person and remember we're not we're not talking
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The poor of today and the poor of then Different things poor of today and most the
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United States means you can't afford cable for your widescreen But the poor of that day meant you go for a few days below a certain level and you starve to death
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Okay, a little bit of a difference Absolute subsistence level versus you know
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I can't get my second cell phone type of a situation not not quite the same and of course the reason was the economy of that time simply could not generate the kind of Sustenance for the population that was attempting to live in a particular given area
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Especially if there was any kind of Weather event now we call them
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Latinas or Latinos and so on and so forth, but you you get a you get a drought going for a period of time and You can't get out of a place fast enough and and there would there would just be a lot of death there were just people living right on that on that border and so the amount of time and effort
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Water access the things that it would take to do a lot of the stuff the
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Pharisees said you need to do also sort of Guaranteed that these were going to be upper middle -class folks at the least because poor folks just I mean if you have to walk a long distance just to get the bucket of water to bring it and you know if you have to Have certain cleaning stuff for the bucket itself just to bring the water to the house and that kind of thing
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You don't have servants do this for you all the rest that stuff And you're just trying to get enough food to live
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Probably couldn't do a lot of this stuff And so I'm certain that the
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Lord had we know the Lord ate at the home of certain Pharisees We've had that recorded for us
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Simon for example And so I'm sure that he had observed the again punctilious nature of the processes of The cleansing of the cups and the dishes now don't get me wrong.
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There's nothing wrong with cleaning cups and dishes You know I've seen some folks that still have last last
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February's Breakfast on some of the stuff that they're they're eating with and I don't find that over particularly appetizing myself, but You know
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I got nothing against doing that, but there was a religious aspect to where this
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Was a mark of separation from others that you put all this together and You can understand the
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Pharisee in Luke's chapter 16 staying in the temple going. I'm not like that public and I thank you
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God I'm not like that publican back there, and He's not just thinking he just didn't wake up that morning go and am
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I good This is a process. This was this was something that built up over time and when you are so focused upon you know
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I My my cups and dishes are clean, and and I do my washing the right way, and I I just you know
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Me me me me me how how lucky the Lord is to have me type of a type of an idea
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And if other people are encouraging you in that way Well You can understand the attitude that develops
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But Jesus pronounces a woe upon them you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish But inside they're full of robbery and self -indulgence you blind
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Pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish So at the outside it may become clean also. He's talking about them specifically
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He's making application from what they do Externally to what good is it to have all this?
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Outward cleanliness when inwardly well, it's The very next verse expresses it with even more force.
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What do you scribes of Pharisees hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs? Which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they're full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness
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So you too outwardly to appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness I mean he provides his own interpretation and It first he uses something that everybody would be familiar with every day the cleansing of the of the cops
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But they're only doing the outside. The inside is all crusty with you know like like I said last
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February's Breakfast so now he uses something. It's even be more repulsive because of the
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Jewish laws against the touching of the dead body and So you are like whitewashed tombs
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Which appear on the outside? beautiful and So you would have a tomb and and it would glisten in the
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Sun And it's just been scrubbed and it's it's it's whitewashed so that you know
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You know how it is around here after death storms like that even though the buildings white You know you get that You know that grime on it and about the only way to get it off is he had a hose the thing down or?
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rain, which it sort of forgot to do this monsoon season, but That you just got that dingy miss to it well when it's when it's all clean
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It's all all been whitewashed and it oh, it's it's it appears beautiful But inside that tomb well, there's dead men's bones and all uncleanness
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Lord he sinketh you know everything that you associate with what is inside a tomb you don't want to be inside a tomb not just for the scary stuff around Halloween or something like that, but The smell and the
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Decayed flesh and and Maggots and all that kind of stuff. It's it's it's something that's repulsive and what he's saying is that's where you are
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That's what you are You may outwardly appear righteous to men
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You have you've got the you've got the paint buckets out, and you have done the whitewashing
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But inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness and so this whole section just keeps going directly to the internal and saying you have become so focused on the external and Only certain elements of the external and certain elements that have become traditionally entrenched in the external, but you've so focused upon the external
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You have completely lost sight of the internal and obviously the point is External activity is supposed to reflect internal reality not the other way around and Of course one of the great failures of all forms of legalism is
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That while external behavior may act as a curb it can never change
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The heart it cannot change you internally and So What normally happens is the doing of religious deeds outwardly without an internal renewal?
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leads to this form of hypocrisy that Finally after the encounter we read in Matthew chapter 22 leads to this extensive and Strongly worded denunciation of religious hypocrisy on the part of the
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Pharisees Woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and say if We had been living in the days of our fathers
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Not have been partners with them and sharing the blood of the prophets and so clearly the
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Jewish leaders had to deal with the reality of the historical record of their own people that is they they had to deal with the fact that If you if you start with the judges onward and especially with the prophets
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I mean, we're in Jeremiah right now and Sunday evenings. We're seeing this you know Jeremiah has been down in the pit and Jeremiah has been the the object of false prophets and and the government likes the false prophets and doesn't like Jeremiah and and all of this stuff going on and Normally the ones speaking truth are in the minority not in the majority and not in the not in leadership
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So if you are the sons of these people then you have to deal with the reality that Well now
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I'm in the religious majority. And so how are we different? Well, so we We we build monuments
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We adorn the monuments of the righteous and we build the tombs of the prophets and all we we honor
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Jeremiah we honor Isaiah we if we had been alive back then we wouldn't have done what what our fathers did and Jesus responses so you testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets you recognize you stand in their line and You are their offspring and of course,
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I can't help but think that in the midst of this there is some Element of Accusation because he knows what's in their heart and he knows that they have already sent people to arrest him more than once and the only reason they didn't was because of the crowds and so there is a in essence the self -identification of Jesus as a prophet here and a
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Not so subtle identification of these as individuals who are seeking to kill him So you testify against yourselves if you're sons of those who murder prophets fill up then the measure of the guilt of your father's those are
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I Mean fill up then the measure of the guilt your father's you serpents you brood of vipers how you escape the sentence of hell
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This is this is this is not Jesus in mediation mode.
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This is not Jesus in non -escalation mode There there has there has been literally years of conflict
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That again in Matthew 22 when Jesus asks them Who is this one in Psalm 110?
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How does David call him Lord and and they just stand there? Okay answer that That's the trigger that finally leads to This Flowing discourse of denunciation and I think we really missed
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Matthews point If we don't see the flow here from chapter 22 through 23 the the enunciation of judgment on the
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Jewish leadership Jerusalem and Then how does chapter 24 start?
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Ah, look at this beautiful city. Not one stones can be left on the other Connection here's judgments coming
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When you see it coming get out of here historically when Titus and Roman legions showed up There are very few
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Christians who died Because they saw it coming they went ha ha we've heard this somewhere before Mmm, you know, they may not have been.
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Oh, it's in the Gospel of Matthew But Jesus's teachings were well known and what did
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Jesus say? Get out and they did and as a result did save their lives.
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So there is a there is a Stream here that needs to be observed which once again,
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I I've decried it before but we were we're thankful for the chapter and verse numbers in the
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Bible their modern innovations The form the final form that we have today 1551 that's a year you can you can put down in your notes or something like that if you want but But they're a modern innovation and they help us to find stuff and all that's but unfortunately,
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I think just especially as Western thinkers It creates artificial divisions that were not there and hence we don't see
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Flow of argument in the flow of thought that the way the way really should allow is chapter 22. We're in chapter 23 now
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What's the there's a relationship between 22 and 20? I mean other than the fact they're bound together in the same book right next to each other
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There there wasn't a chapter division when when Matthew wrote these things and so we need to need to follow these things along and as I've mentioned
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It is phrases like what we have in verses 32 and 33 That cause in the modern theological world
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Especially the book of Matthew to be looked at with Great Reluctance and embarrassment on the part of many
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New Testament scholars ever since World War two and the Holocaust There is a massive sensitivity toward anything that might be called anti -semitism and As much as we criticize the film this was illustrated
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I think very clearly and what happened in the passion of the Christ film remember I told you about how they had the subtitles for everything because remember is an
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Aramaic and so you hadn't If they didn't subtitle it most people listening or watching wouldn't follow the dialogue overly
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Well, not too many people running around in the United States that speaker understand
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Aramaic But when it got to the point of the quote from Matthew's gospel
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Where the Jews say his blood be upon us and upon our children forever They just didn't subtitle it you can still hear it
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I don't you can sit here and babble at me in Aramaic all all day long, but since I knew what the context was
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It's close enough to Hebrew that I recognized where it was in the in the dialogue you can hear it
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But it's just not subtitled. That was one of the main It is just assumed.
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Well. This is anti -semitism. This is an anti -semitism This is anti -pharisee ism.
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This is anti -hypocrisy. This is anti Abuse of God's Word, but it's not anti -semitism, and it's so easy
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To take things Remove them from their context and abuse them I Haven't taken the time to verify this, but I don't have any reason to question it
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But I've been told that during the Nazi era in Germany that Quotations from the
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New Testament would be used and Posted as a Basis for what was being done to the
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Jews so there would be road signs Quoting John 844 you are of your father the devil now
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Any book can be abused in that way? There is no way that anyone could meaningfully defend the idea that what you're doing now
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To that person over there has some connection to what Jesus said to a particular group of Jews who are trying to kill him
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At that particular point in time in history as if that's some Cart blanche for all
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Christians for all time to kill Jews and Anyone who would think that well, you know, but Nazis weren't known for doing their theological debates with their enemies except with the far end of a nine millimeter pistol or something like that, so But that kind of thing took place it's easy to do that kind of thing and unfortunately, the
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Gospel of Matthew has experienced that as well the context is ignored and Things like this have pulled out you serpents you brood of vipers.
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How will you escape the sentence of hell? These are unforgiven men
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These are unforgiven men and Yet they were the very ones that most of the people if they were just observing the religious situation of the day
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Would say these are the ones who would have the most reason to hope for the grace of God The I think the thing that really grabs the
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Lord's Just indignation and righteous anger is
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That the Pharisees said we are the only ones who Have access to the grace of God because we keep
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God's law. They made God's grace something that was Basically a substance that you you obtained through your covenant faithfulness
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Now, you know, there's been a big big big big big huge explosion over the past 40 years now in New Testament studies by people saying the
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Lutherans got it all wrong The Lutherans did have an imbalanced view of first century
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Judaism the very the very idea that this is the only Form of Judaism. Yes It was the predominant form is the form that was in control of the of the religious and political structures in in Israel time
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But we saw Simeon we saw Anna we saw Those people that were still sensitive to God's Word God always has his remnant so And you know, you had the the people that ran off into Qumran and did stuff like that, too so you had different different groups, but You look at those particular people there and These words are being addressed directly to Them in their context for what they did at that time to apply that Carte blanche beyond that just doesn't just doesn't make any sense and and modern scholarship
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Has jumped into this whole realm of saying well actually
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Judaism was a very gracious religion Well, I don't know how you can read some of the
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Psalms his loving -kindness Lasts forever his loving -kindness repeated over and over there have been imbalanced views the
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Jews as if everything was just a a credit I Get I get my brownie points for doing these things versus the merit system and that there was nothing about God's grace and health that that would be a misrepresentation, but the pendulum has swung way over the other side
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So that This type of stuff is pretty much dismissed and Even to the point of Paul being criticized for misrepresenting his own former co -religionists
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It's it's amazing what you can do in liberal seminaries and stuff like that today and and get away with it That's become the foundation for those of you who track with these kinds of things of what's called the new perspective on Paul Where once you determine that well
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Paul really wasn't talking about how you Obtain righteousness with God because that's not really what the Jews were into anyways then you can just completely reinterpret all of Romans and Galatians and you don't have to worry about Philippians and Colossians because Paul didn't write them anyways according to these folks and and you cut
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Paul up and now you've got a whole new understanding of Paul which means you can write all sorts of new books about Paul and and Stuff like that all going back to Looking at something like Matthew and going.
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Oh, that's just That's just it's beyond the bounds. It's beyond the bounds. I don't remember if we did this because it's been a decade now, but Did we ever show my debate with Barry Lynn?
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On homosexuality we show that we did. Okay. Well a couple It's in the notes somewhere
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Good. All right somewhere in the archives You may recall if you
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I know it's again a decade and if you weren't here a decade ago but if you ever seen the debate that I did Barry Lynn Barry Lynn's the head of Americans Unite of a separation of church and state and he's an
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ACLU attorney and and He's the guy that they get on to blast Christianity every time he gets shot he's actually an ordained
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United Church of Christ minister, and if you know the UCC United Church of Christ is
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Basically everything that opposes Christianity made into a Christian religion and During our debate he
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When I when I brought up some of the things that Paul said because we were debating his homosexuality compatible with biblical
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Christianity Remember, this is the one he tried to sue us to hide the tapes of Good old
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Barry Lynn who has testified before Congress that child pornography is a guaranteed First Amendment, right? But he'll sue you if he loses a debate against you to try to suppress the videos of the debate which he agreed to do anyways
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Gotta gotta love the consistency of the radical left. But anyway I brought up some of the things that Paul said and And One of his responses,
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I think I stopped Seemed to have this vague recollection of stopping the tape or something Say did you catch that because back then it would have been a tape.
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I would have been a DVD One of the things he he said was and I think it was specifically about Galatians 5 if I recall correctly but No, it's
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Galatians 1 it was Galatians 1 the anathemas it's Galatians 1 he said well Paul was over -the -top
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Paul was over -the -top and He actually claimed in that debate to receive revelation on the same level as the
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Apostle Paul did that's pretty frightening I I've never heard him claim that on Fox News for some odd reason
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I'm not really sure. I mean it would be a it'd be a killer comeback to somebody Why do you believe that very because God told me so Okay.
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Well, I'd be that's I really wouldn't fit with his paradigm though. But anyway he dismissed entire sections of Scripture as If he had equal authority go and he was he was imbalanced there.
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He was a he was over -the -top He's over -the -top and there is so much that is written today and so much that is said today
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In our seminaries where in essence what they do is they look at this text and They you serpents you brood of vipers.
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How will you escape the sentence of hell? well The Jesus that I love would never say that to anyone and so I Just what?
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The view of Scripture that is developed at that point Is one that allows you to Set Matthew against Mark and Mark against Luke and Luke against John And all four of them against Paul and Paul against Peter and it assumes
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Well, the nice way to put it is from the title of a book that I had to read back in the seminary
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Shortly after it first came out and it was just oh, it was just the cats me out
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Fuller is like Oh, this is wonderful is that we've always been saying well, actually, I've only been saying for 20 years But this is wonderful and it's by James DG Dunn called unity and diversity in the
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New Testament The emphasis is on the diversity part the unity part and That's much
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So what you can do is you can just chop the New Testament up into parts and if you really want to get creative You don't have to just have
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Matthew versus Mark or Mark versus Luke or Peter versus Paul It's really fun to make
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Paul versus Paul That's when it really gets interesting when you start chopping up individual books and have the individual authors
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Contradicting each other then you can come up with this all sorts of wild theories and and you know
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Get your PhD in New Testament studies and it's it's really exciting and and that's what lots of people are doing
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And and so what you do is you look at a text like this you go. Well, you see
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Matthew which wasn't written by Matthew is written at the end of the first century and And there's there's a tremendous amount of animosity between this developing
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Jewish sect called Christianity and the main lines forms of Judaism and they're fighting with one another and Matthew flows out of a community that felt
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Persecuted by the Jews and so they put into the mouth of Jesus these particular words that represent their struggles at that time you see and So these are people we need to understand that these are people who've been persecuted maybe they've lost their families or their livelihood or they've had to leave their communities and so on so forth because of These conflicts that existed and of course, they were just as guilty of doing it to other people
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And but that's where the animosity comes from and and so really all Matthew tells us
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Is that there is animosity at the end of the first century? between Jewish Christians and Non -christian
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Jews, that's all that's really the entire Value of the book of Matthew I Mean it had some historical value, you know to verify certain traditions that exist and stuff like that but fundamentally that's it's that's its primary value and you you wonder when you look at the extreme left of What calls itself
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Christianity United States today, whether it be the United Church Christ or there be?
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Elca evangelical Lutheran Church in America, that's the left side Versus the conservative sides,
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Wisconsin and Missouri Sinai and then of course all your Presbyterian groups we're on the conservative side you got your
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OPC and our PCA and our PCNA and and Then you've still got your Conservative PCA folks, but then you've got your left conservative
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PCA folks and then you've got as My Presbyterian friends taught me to say it
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Pucasa which is PC USA and They just I just saw the announcement
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Last night or this morning wanted to that as a result of changes they made just a matter of weeks ago
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They just had their first celebrated their first ordination of their first openly gay
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Clergyman and I'm gonna write an article about it because one of the things he said was and Even those of you who disagree with what we're doing here today.
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We are all one in Christ So we'll have some comments make on that but you look at these groups and you go, how can they do this?
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How can how can they just just so openly flaunt what the New Testament teaches and this is how
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It's this kind of thinking that takes Some external standard.
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Well, my Jesus would never say this to anybody even if it was people who were who had for decades now been in essence shutting people out of the kingdom of God and and Abusing the scriptures and profiting off of Their abuse the scriptures and all the rest of stuff.
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Oh Still he would never say anything like that. So I just don't think he said it
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This is just simply the reflections of somebody else at another point in time type type of idea That's what you can do that with anything.
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I Mean I can I can tell you exactly how this particular Presbyterian minister quote -unquote
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Who is openly gay I can tell you exactly how he interprets all the texts Easy to do once you are freed from the constraints of actually
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Interpreting an author and then the body of works called the New Testament as a consistent whole
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There's there's many ways around many ways around once you once you've abandoned that So What we'll need to pick up with next time and I'll Have to somehow don't ask me how
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I'm going to remember this But I'm going to try to remember to suggest to myself that we
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Look carefully at especially verse 35 of chapter 20. It's very very very interesting
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I'll try to remember to bring in a particular book that has an extensive discussion of Possible ways of understanding verse 35 specifically who is
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Zechariah son of Barak I is That's a
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That's a mind -bender that that one's a tough one that one's a tough one Well, we'll take a look at that, but as I said, it should be significantly cooler outside Lord willing
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By the time we get around to that because I'm gonna be next two weeks in in Oz Next next
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Sunday will be in Sydney. I'll actually be preaching at st. Augustine's neutral Bay Anglican Church If you don't hang about Sydney Anglicans, they are the old -time inerrancy believing evangelical conservative
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Who wrote J. C. Ryle type Anglicans they're about the only ones left as few in Africa and Every church of hers preached that in Sydney was an
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Anglican Church So you have to go up into the curly Q thing up into the high Pulpit up there and get to look down and you know, just like Calvin did and that's uh, that's lots of fun
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I'm sorry. No, no, no. No. No, are you kidding? Are you kidding? This is Australia folks That I'm doing 19
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TV shows down there next week and they had to ask me to bring some ties Because they're primarily for Muslims and for some reason
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Muslims respect you when you wear a tie more than when you don't But they had a specific after that because when
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I showed up at the first Anglican Church speak at last time I was in suit, you know,
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I had a jacket tied Hawaiian arts the rector the bishop comes up using a t -shirt This is
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Australia folks. You don't you don't even call somebody professor. Dr. Reverend. Mr. Anything.
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It's first name This is Australia and it's jeans and t -shirts Yeah, it's it's it's weird but Mmm, it's even worse even worse
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It's it's interesting. But then the next Sunday, I'll be in Brisbane At a reformed
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Baptist Church in Brisbane and then flying home on Monday Well, I leave on Monday and I get here before I leave on Monday.
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Oh man Monday will be 30 What I?
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Figured it out once it's like 36 hours long your body just goes
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And I have one day to do laundry repack and leave again by six something the next morning, so it's just exciting
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Anyways, I made up my own schedule. So I get to blame myself, but let's let's close our time
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Lord Father we do thank you for your word and we do hear Lord to stay the warning against religious hypocrisy
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May we not have that in our own hearts? May we be open to your spirit. May we do the weightier matters of your law.
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May we be concerned about justice and mercy and faithfulness Be with us now as we go into worship.