Choosing the Twelve

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As I mentioned, we're going to open up our Bibles to Mark chapter 3.
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And tonight we are going to be looking at the calling of the twelve.
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I did a previous message, for those of you who remember, on the disciples, the apostles, when we saw in chapter 1 the calling of Simon and Andrew and James and John.
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And I talked a little bit about the apostles in that message.
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So I'm not going to tonight reiterate everything I said in that message.
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And if you want to go back, you can always go back and listen to those messages online.
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If there's anything I say tonight that you feel like gaps need to be filled in.
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But tonight we're going to specifically be looking at the twelve men as we know them in Scripture.
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And we're going to talk about the fact that there are some question marks on some of these men.
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Because the Bible doesn't tell us about some of their lives.
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And we're going to talk a little bit about the tradition that has grown up around some of them.
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Because some of them, all we have is church tradition.
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We don't have any biblical data other than their name.
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And so that's tonight's focus, is these twelve men.
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Dr.
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John MacArthur wrote a book called Twelve Ordinary Men.
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And if you really are interested in diving into the lives of the apostles, I would recommend that book as a resource.
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He does look at biblical and extra-biblical resources for the history of these twelve men.
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And God's calling on them and what they did and all those things.
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So again, if tonight's message inspires you to a further study, that would be the direction that I would point you, is the book Twelve Ordinary Men.
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So with that, let's read beginning at verse 7.
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It doesn't begin with the calling of the apostles.
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It begins with Christ's ministry continuing to expand and explode with, in one sense, popularity.
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We know that we've talked about this already.
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He is popular with the people, but he is unpopular, hated by the leaders.
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So we see that his popularity is expressed in verses 7 to 12.
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And then we see his calling of the twelve in verses 13 to 19.
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So let's read.
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Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea.
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And a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon.
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When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him.
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And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him.
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For he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.
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And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, You are the Son of God.
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And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.
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Beginning now at verse 13.
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And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired.
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And they came to him.
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And he appointed twelve whom he also named apostles, so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
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He appointed the twelve, Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder.
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Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew and Thomas, and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
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Let's stop there and pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I pray now that you would, as I preach and teach, keep me from error.
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Open our hearts, Lord, to understand your word, and our minds to comprehend it, Lord.
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And open our mouths to ask questions.
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May we have a good lesson tonight in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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So, we see two parts of the narrative, verses 7 to 19, as I mentioned earlier in my series that I'm looking at the outline from Wilmington's outline Bible.
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So, the outline that he gives is verses 7 to 12, is the compassion of Jesus.
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And then verses 13 through 19 is the call of Jesus.
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And we see what he means by compassion there, because in verses 7 to 12, he does show more love on the crowds.
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And we've seen this already.
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We've talked about Jesus's healing miracles.
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We've talked about the fact that he was unlike anyone who'd ever come before or anyone who's ever been after him.
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He was able to heal organic disease.
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He was able to heal people in an instant.
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And it was miraculous.
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And it was whole.
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And it was not something that took time.
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He didn't say, take two of these and call me in the morning.
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He would heal them, and they were healed instantly.
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And he would heal them, and they were healed miraculously.
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And what he does also, along with healing, is that he sends out demons from people.
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Now, that by itself is an interesting subject, one that has inspired the interest of many people.
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And that is the subject of demons and demonology.
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When I was in school, we had to take a class called Angelology and Demonology.
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And that's weird.
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Just to write that down.
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Like, what class are you taking? Well, this person's taking bio, and this person's taking lit.
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Well, what are you taking? Angels and demons.
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Because that was one of the classes.
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And we had to study what the Bible teaches about angels and what the Bible teaches about demons.
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And what we learn is that demons are part of the angelic realm, that demons are the fallen angels, Satan, of course, being the greatest among them, and the one who, it seems, was the one who led the rebellion that they followed and developed that demon category.
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God did not create the angels as angels and demons any more than he created man as sinner.
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He created man as upright, and man fell.
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He created angels as upright, and angels fell.
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Not all of them, but some of them.
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And one of the things that we do recognize in Scripture, one of the most important things that distinguishes man from angel is man is given redemption and angels are not.
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There is no Savior for the angels.
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The consignment of judgment has been laid upon them from their fall, and there has been no promise of redemption for them, neither is there any in Scripture that we could look to and say a possible one is coming.
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And that may be the reason for their hatred of man, because demons do, in Scripture, lay upon men with an attack.
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They hate mankind.
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They indwell men to do them harm.
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And we read stories in Scripture of demons indwelling people and casting them into fire, or indwelling them and sending them into murderous rages, or self-punishing rages, we'll read in a few weeks about the demoniac Gadarene, who was cutting himself and damaging himself because he was filled with many demons.
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And so what we learn in Scripture is that Jesus dealt with two different things when he dealt with people.
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He dealt with disease and he dealt with demons.
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And it isn't always the same.
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The Bible doesn't say that everyone who is sick is sick because they are afflicted by a demon.
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I recently heard a man say, all autistic children are demon-possessed.
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And having an autistic child, I wanted to lose my sanctification and say things I ought not say, and I thought better of myself and didn't.
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But that's the type of thinking that arises from an unbiblical worldview.
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When everything that afflicts a person is demonic, it's not that way.
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There is disease, organic.
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There is disease that is mental.
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There is disease that is even psychosomatic disease, which is disease where we think we're sick and we're not.
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People who are hypochondriacs and things like that can think themselves sick.
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Did you know that a person can actually think themselves pregnant? There have been cases where people have, women believe they were pregnant and so much so that they began to gain weight and began to even stop having their monthly cycle because of their convincing themselves that they were pregnant, but they weren't pregnant.
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It's amazing what the mind can do.
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And when the mind is sick, what it's able to do.
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So just an interesting little point there, that the Bible does distinguish between disease and demons.
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And Jesus deals with both.
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Jesus heals the sick.
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Jesus casts out the demons.
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But I focus tonight on the demons because of verse 12.
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Oh, really, we'll read again verse...
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Well, let's go back up to the beginning.
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I don't want to overlook anything.
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Verse 7, 8, and 9.
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Jesus has so many people following Him.
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And He talks about where He is.
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He's got crowds from Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, Jordan, and Tyre and Sidon.
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And these great crowds heard what He was doing.
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They came to Him and He told His disciples, have a boat ready.
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Why have the boat ready? Because the people are crushing in upon Him.
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He wants to basically turn the boat into a pulpit where He can get in the boat, get a little distance from shore, and have a place where He can speak and not be laid upon by people who are seeking His healing.
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And that just gives you the idea of the throngs of people who are following after the Savior.
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And it makes sense.
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Now, I did hear one pastor in regard to this make a point.
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He said it's amazing that most people in this situation were probably coming to Jesus for a physical reason, that most probably weren't coming for a spiritual reason.
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And it was actually R.C.
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Sproul, now that I think of it, who I was thinking of, as he said, he said, if you think about how much we do for our bodies and not for our souls, would these crowds be so big if it was just spiritual healing that Jesus was providing and not physical healing? We don't know, but probably not.
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The physical healing encouraged people to come.
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The physical deliverance encouraged people to come.
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And they did.
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And so much so that Jesus had to get in a boat and be pushed from shore.
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So, verse 10, it says, For He had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around and touched Him.
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And whenever the unclean spirit saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, You are the Son of God.
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So verse 10 talks about those with disease.
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Verse 11 talks about those with demons.
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And we see Jesus dealing with both.
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But then we get to verse 12.
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And I am going to submit to you that verse 12 has a lot of different interpretations from different teachers because Jesus says to them in verse 12 to not make Him known.
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It says, And He strictly ordered them not to make Him known.
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Well, that's an interesting point because we know this isn't the only time that happened.
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There are several times where Jesus says, in this gospel and in other places, where Jesus says, Don't tell them who I am.
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Don't make me known.
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And there has been no end of debate as to why Jesus said that.
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And there are several reasons which are possible.
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One of the reasons that is given for this particular passage specifically is that Jesus did not want His heralds to be demons.
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That Jesus wanted His heralds to be believers, not demonic spirits.
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And so He told them to keep quiet.
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And that is certainly a logical and thoughtful answer because demons are liars.
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Jesus doesn't want demons to be His heralds because they are liars and therefore that would be logical.
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And there are others who have said that Jesus did not want His popularity to grow.
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I'm not sure I agree with that because it already sort of had grown.
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You know, I don't think He was going to stop that by telling them.
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But what we do know is He had a reason, even if we're not absolutely certain what His reason was at this point, His reason was whether intentionally or unintentionally, He did not want the demons to declare Him to be the Son of God.
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And when I say whether intentionally or unintentionally, what I mean by that is they were doing it and He didn't want them to.
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Whether they were being intentional, you are the Son of God, or unintentionally, it's the Son of God, He did not want them to be the ones to proclaim who He was.
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Now I want to ask, does anyone have a thought on that? Because I know we've all heard different preachers over the years and different people give answers as to why.
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Anybody have a thought as to the reason why Jesus would strictly order them not to make Him known? It wasn't His time.
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And we think about the time at Cana where Mary came to Jesus and He says, why are you saying this? It's not my time, right? This isn't the time, you know.
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So there's that, and that's certainly one that has been suggested.
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Anyone else? Thoughts? It's an interesting reality though, right? That Jesus is saying, don't make me known.
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But again, I think that it's reasonable to assume that it had something to do with the fact that it was demons who were making Him known.
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Well, that leads us to verse 13.
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And verse 13 is the focal point that I wanted to get to tonight because it says, And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him.
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This is an interesting little point to make there, that He is now setting up His band, His apostles.
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He's calling them out.
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He's gone up onto the mountain and He's calling them out.
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If we look at the, you don't have to turn there, but I'll read just for a moment.
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In Matthew chapter 10, we have the parallel passage to this where it says, And He called to Him His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits.
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So, it says there He called them.
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And in Luke chapter 6, verse 12, it says, In these days He went out to the mountain to pray.
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All night He continued in prayer.
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And when the day came, He called His disciples.
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So, Luke tells us a little bit more.
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Where Mark doesn't give us the night before, Mark seems to indicate He went right from the boat to the mountain.
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But remember, Mark is giving us sometimes a quick overview of events.
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And sometimes even days pass between one event and the next.
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And we have this event where Jesus was on the boat, throngs of people around Him.
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He's surrounded to the point where He has to use the boat as a pulpit and be pushed out into the water.
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And then immediately is on the mountain calling the disciples.
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Well, Luke tells us that in the interim, there was an entire night of prayer.
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Christ has prepared for this moment.
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That there is something salient, there is something specific about what is about to be done, so much so that He would spend all night in fellowship with His Father.
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And then back in Luke it says, And when the day came, He called His disciples, and chose from them twelve whom He named apostles.
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And that's something that we need to point out when we talk about the word disciple and apostle.
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Because in Luke it says, He called His disciples and from them chose twelve apostles.
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So that tells us there's more than twelve disciples.
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There are more than twelve disciples because anyone who is a learner, and that's what the word disciple means, is a learner.
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On Sunday, if you remember I mentioned, I said everyone should have a Paul, everyone should have a Barnabas, everyone should have a Timothy.
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I was talking about everyone should have someone discipling them, everyone should have someone they're ministering with, and everyone should have someone they're discipling.
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Everyone should have someone underneath them, a learner.
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That's what a disciple is.
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Well, Jesus calls His disciples, which is a larger group, and from them He establishes a group within the larger group.
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And the group within the larger group is known as the apostles.
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And the word apostles means the sent ones.
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That is a very simple translation.
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A better one might be a messenger.
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Or, and even more officially, an apostle was a delegate, someone who went on behalf of that person.
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They were someone who were in the place of that person, going on their behalf.
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Like a delegate from the United States might go to another country and represent the United States in matters of foreign policy or something like that.
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That is an action that is done by a delegate.
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Well, an apostle is one who Christ is setting aside to be His representative, to be not only a learner, but also a sent one, a messenger.
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And that's what we read.
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He's preparing to send them out to preach.
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He's going to send them out to do the ministry.
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And so, it's important also that when we think about the idea of apostle, there are twelve apostles and we know that one of them dies.
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We're going to get to this in a minute.
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We talked about the names.
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One of them dies and he's replaced.
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So, there's still twelve apostles.
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But there are other people who are given the title of apostle, who are not in the twelve, such as Paul.
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Paul is not one of the twelve.
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And yet, he clearly says that he is an apostolos.
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He is an apostle of Jesus Christ.
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And he calls himself that in 1 Corinthians as one born out of season.
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How does it say it? Out of time.
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Out of time.
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Yeah, he's one not born as the others were born, having walked with Jesus, followed Jesus and were with Him in His ministry, but one who was born out of time.
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But we also see other men who are called apostles, who were not part of the twelve.
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And I wish I would have made a note of this, because in my mind it just slipped.
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But I think it's Barnabas is called an apostle.
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But don't hold me to that.
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I could be wrong.
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Brother, can you remember if I'm right or wrong? It's okay.
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Well, good.
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Two elders don't know, so it's okay then.
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Well, I can't remember, but I know at least one other is called, is the term apostle is used, and yet he wasn't one of the twelve.
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And so I've often described this as a, there's two different ways to use the word apostle.
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There is big A, apostle, and that is the twelve.
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And then there's little a, apostle, and that would be anyone who is sent out to preach the gospel or to minister in the name of Christ.
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The only issue that this has is the question of where does Paul fall? Because I think almost everybody in the church would say Paul would fall under capital A.
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And that may have been what he meant when he said he was born out of season, that he is the one who fits into this category, but is not numbered among them.
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And so I would still say he deserves that capital A.
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And we would say based upon the fact that he wrote 13 of the 27 New Testament books, God certainly used him as a messenger, a delegate, all those things apply to the apostle Paul.
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But since Paul is not in our purview today, I'm not going to spend too much more time with that.
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We're going to focus our attention now on the twelve.
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So let's read.
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It goes on to say, and he appointed, we're back in Mark now.
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And he appointed twelve whom he also called apostles, so that they might be with him, and he might send them out to preach.
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Again, the word apostles, sent ones, that's their job.
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He's assigning them the role of preacher.
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And, verse 15, that they would have authority to cast out demons.
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Something else that, as we will see, was an important part of the ministry at this time.
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And so, verse 16, he appointed the twelve.
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Now, in regard to the twelve, I have a list here.
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And I had intended to do this prior to you all coming, so that it would already be on the board.
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But time got away from me.
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I wasn't able to do it.
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So we're going to do this quickly.
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But I want to show you something very interesting.
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And I'd be happy to photocopy this for anybody afterward, if you're interested.
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But what this is, is there are four listings of the twelve apostles.
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And they're in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts.
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Not John.
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John never lists all twelve apostles as a list.
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So, the four listings are in Matthew, chapter 10, verses 2 to 4.
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Mark, chapter 3, verses 16 to 19, which is where we are in Mark.
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Luke, chapter 6, verses 13 to 16.
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And then Acts 1, 13.
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Now, in all four lists, the same first name is always the same first name.
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Peter.
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So, Peter is the same across the board.
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It's always Peter who is first.
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Now, we can talk about Peter having a place of preeminence among the apostles.
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Even the cursory reading of Scripture would say he certainly, if nothing else, had the biggest mouth, which may have been why he was my favorite.
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Because he spoke a lot and sometimes got his foot caught in there.
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And I feel that.
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I get that.
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But Peter is always listed as first.
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Now, the Roman Catholic Church has certainly run with that and turned that into an entire doctrine of Petri and supremacy, being that Peter is the supreme apostle and all subsequent popes have been in the Cathedral of Petri, which is the seat of Peter.
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And obviously, we would not agree with that idea.
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But understand this.
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In Roman Catholicism, they're concerned about this right here.
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They're concerned about the big A apostle because they believe the pope is the successor, not just of Peter, but that he is the apostolic successor.
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They believe he is the living apostle in the world.
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And they believe the church has to always have a living apostle and therefore, they have to have a pope.
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And again, none of this is, in my opinion, founded in Scripture.
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They would argue that there are certain passages that point to that, such as Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi, things like that.
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But we'll get to those when we actually get to those passages.
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But this idea of apostle, if you hear somebody today call themselves an apostle and they mean they're in this category, then I would disagree.
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Now, if somebody calls himself apostle and they're thinking little a apostle, even though I don't like the title because I think that it tends to have too much overlap and misunderstanding, I don't have as big of an issue with that, even though I would probably not call him apostle.
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I would just say mister or brother because I think the word is too loaded.
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You ever had somebody ask you to call him apostle, Andy? Only once.
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And did you? Barnabas is called an apostle.
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That's what it is, Barnabas.
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Thank you.
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In Acts 14.
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Acts 14, Barnabas.
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I thought it was Barnabas.
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Appreciate you looking that up for me.
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So, when we talk about apostolic, specifically the apostolic church, we're talking about the twelve and we're talking about the big A, apostle.
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None of those exist anymore in anybody who thinks, and this is why, have you ever heard of the NAR? You may say yes.
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Daisy, what is the NAR? Okay, but you've heard of it.
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The NAR, I have talked about it, you're right.
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Daisy's been around for a while.
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You heard me talk a lot.
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The NAR is the New Apostolic Reformation.
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It is an ultra charismatic group who believe that their leaders do constitute a new apostolic movement.
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And that's called the NAR or the New Apostolic Reformation.
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And it's not a good scene, if I be so blunt.
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But let me get back to my list, because I'm never going to get finished if I don't even get started.
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So, Peter's always the first name in the list.
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The second name on this list in Matthew is Andrew.
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But the second name in Mark is James.
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In Luke, it's Andrew.
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And in Acts, it's John.
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So, Peter, John.
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So, it's interesting.
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And I'm going to show you why this matters in a minute.
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I'm not just trying to show you something that doesn't matter.
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In a moment, I'm going to show you that there's categories of these men.
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There's actually groupings.
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And they always fall in the same groupings.
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So, then we come here.
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James, John, James, and James.
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Now, these two are brothers.
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That's that, James and John.
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They're brothers.
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The fourth one in this list is John.
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Fourth one in this list is Andrew.
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Fourth one in this list is John.
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Fourth one in this list is Andrew.
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So, what do we recognize by this list? It's all the same first four.
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It doesn't matter, really, the order they're in.
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They all fall into this category of being the closest to Christ.
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These are the ones that are mentioned the most.
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These are the ones whose names come up most prominently.
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And three of them, Peter, James, and John, are specifically present at some of the most important moments in Christ's ministry.
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Most specifically, the transfiguration and the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the prayer in the garden.
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Each of those scenes, it mentions only three apostles being with Christ.
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Peter, James, and John.
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So, even within this first four, one of them, who is the brother of Peter, is not always present in the most important moments of Jesus's life.
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So, it seems as if there is an inner circle within the apostles and those three men would make up that most close apostolic band.
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The next group always starts with Philip.
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Philip, Philip, Philip, Philip.
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All the way across.
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So, each listing has 12 names.
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Each listing starts with Peter as the first group.
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And then the three names get mixed up.
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And then Philip is the first name in the second group across the board.
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And then the names get mixed up again.
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We have Bartholomew.
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I'm just going to put Bart.
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Bart and Thomas.
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Now, then we come to the next name in this list, which is Thomas, Matthew.
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Matthew and Bartholomew.
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This list, it's Matthew.
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Also called, he's called Matthew the tax collector in Matthew's gospel.
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Thomas, Thomas, and Matthew.
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So, here is our second list of four.
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And we notice, hopefully, again, the same thing is that we have the same names.
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We have Philip across the top.
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And then we have Bartholomew, who is there.
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Thomas, who is there.
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And Matthew, who is there.
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Though the names listed differently, the first one is always the first one, which MacArthur is convinced that means that that second group was a group within the group.
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And they had a leader.
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And the leader was Philip.
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I think that's reasonable to conclude based upon the fact that this doesn't seem to be by accident that the second group always is named by Philip.
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And the rest of them just sort of come in as, I don't want to say haphazardly, but they're not specifically like that.
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And the same thing happens in the third group.
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In the third group, we have James, son of Alphaeus.
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And this is the same name in all four lists.
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So, each list has the names of Peter first, Philip first of the second four, and James, son of Alphaeus is the name on the second, or this one.
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And then we have the name Thaddeus.
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Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot.
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And I'm just going to put a Z next to that.
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Simon the Zealot.
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Then under Thaddeus, we have Simon the Zealot.
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Simon the Zealot.
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Judas, son of James.
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Judas of James.
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So, that's not Judas, son of Alphaeus, or James, son of Alphaeus.
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It's Judas, or not Judas Iscariot, rather.
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Sorry.
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And then Judas, son of James.
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And then the lists always end with the same person.
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Who would be the last one? Judas Iscariot, except the Acts list.
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Who would Acts include? Not Paul.
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Matthias.
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Matthias takes the place of Judas who died.
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Now, there is believed among some that the apostles were wrong in choosing Matthias, and that Paul fills the space of the missing apostle there, and Paul is actually the twelfth apostle.
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I don't agree with that, and I'm not endorsing that.
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I'm just saying there are some who believe that.
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There's nothing in Scripture that would indicate that Matthias did anything wrong, or was not supposed to be there, or the apostles did anything wrong.
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In fact, they used the traditional method of choosing, which was the tossing of lots, which was based...
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Well, didn't they use the lots? Yeah, yeah.
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Based upon the proverb which says the lot is cast in the lap, and it's every decision is from the Lord, right? So, they're trusting that the Spirit is making this choice.
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They had the choice between Justice and Matthias.
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Justice was...
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We named our son after him, the unchosen disciple.
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But that was J.J.'s name.
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It comes from J-U-S-T-U-S.
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There was two that had been with Jesus from the beginning, Justice and Matthias, and they both were cast lots, and the lot was chosen, and it came up for Matthias.
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So, one of the things that is interesting about this list is when we begin to look at some of the names that do not seem to be the same.
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And this can throw people off sometimes, because people say, well, I read the list in Matthew, and I came across the name Thaddeus, and I read the list in Luke, and there's no Thaddeus.
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Right? And so, that becomes an issue.
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But what name do we have twice in these lists that we have twice in these lists? Well, Thaddeus is twice here and not mentioned here.
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James, the son, or Jude, the son of James is mentioned twice here and not here.
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So, it is believed and understood that this is the same person as that, that Thaddeus is a nickname.
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And there are nicknames which are used in the apostles.
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James is also called James the Less.
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You'll see that in some of the texts where James, this James is referred to as James the Less, and the Greek word is Micros, or Micros.
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And when you look at that, you ask the question, Micros means small, like micro.
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Why did they call him James the Less? Was it because he was less than this James, who was greater in prominence? Or was it because he was a Zacchaeus-like little man? We don't know.
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We know that he was called James the Less.
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And so, that is a nickname that he held.
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Like beans.
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Like beans, thank you.
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Or sons of thunder.
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And that's what I was just fixing to say.
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It's interesting that with...
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My brother.
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So, yes, I want to read this paragraph.
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This is, it says, The biggest difference between the lists is that Luke lists one disciple as Judas son of James, while Mark and Matthew list someone named Thaddeus.
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Church tradition has always assumed these were two names for the same person, Thaddeus being a nickname for the disciple known as Judas, perhaps because the name Judas carried such negative connotations.
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And that makes sense, because Judas would become synonymous with traitor, right? Even today, if you call someone a Judas, you're calling them a turncoat or a traitor, right? And so, like calling someone, what was that? Was it Napoleon who turned on his country? And some people get offended.
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Maybe I'm wrong.
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I just went all historic weird.
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Benedict Arnold.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Wasn't Napoleon.
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Benedict Arnold.
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If people call you Benedict Arnold, they're calling you a traitor, right? That's what I meant.
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And so, it could be that Thaddeus is this same person.
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And I'm convinced that it must be, because this is where we see this name.
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But there's another name that is also interesting that shows up in the Gospel of John that doesn't show up in the other Gospels, and that is the name Nathanael.
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Now, Nathanael is mentioned, remember when Jesus met him? And he says, Ah, an Israelite within whom there's no guile, right? And he says, I saw you underneath the tree.
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So, we know Nathanael was one of the men called early in Jesus' ministry.
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John gives us the story of his calling.
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But his name is not mentioned in these lists, any of them.
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But is it? Dun, dun, dun.
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The name Bartholomew is not a name in the strictest sense like Nathanael is a name.
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The name Bartholomew means son of Ptolemy, like we would say Bar-Jonah, Bar, like Jesus would have been called Jesus Bar-Joseph, because he was the son of Joseph, right? That would have been how he would have been known.
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Bar-Ptolemy is Bartholomew.
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And so, Nathanael is Nathanael son of Ptolemy, or Nathanael Bartholomew.
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And so, if you are wondering where he fits in the list, and he is in every list.
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He is just not called Nathanael, except in the Gospel of John.
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So, is this helpful to be able to see this sort of in a picture shot? Okay, here is the 12 men.
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These are the 12 men that Christ has chosen.
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And why 12? We talked about this in my first lesson, because there were 12 tribes in Israel, and now we have 12 apostles of the new covenant.
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You have the 12 tribes of the old covenant, the 12 apostles of the new covenant, and we are told in the new covenant that these men will sit on the thrones of the 12 tribes.
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These men will sit in positions of authority.
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Christ chose not 11, and not 13, and not 5, but 12, because that number had a specific reference in the history of Israel.
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Each one of these men.
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And that is why, again, I am convinced Matthias has that place chosen, because he had been with Christ from the beginning.
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So, last thing I want to mention, because we are basically out of time, but we have a couple of minutes left.
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I have, and I am happy to make a photocopy, I have a list here from one of the chart books that I use for our academy.
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This is the 12 apostles, 12 disciples it says, but it is the 12 apostles, and Paul, and it talks about what the Bible tells us about them, that is this side, and then what tradition tells us about them on the other side, including their deaths.
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For instance, many of you probably already know this, but the tradition is that Peter died under the Neronic persecution, which was the emperor Nero, and he died on a crucifix.
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Tradition says upside down, because he did not want to die in the same position as his savior.
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Tradition says that Andrew died crucified on an X.
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And so, if you ever see the cross like this, that is a standard cross, but if you ever see this cross, which is the symbol on the, if you ever see the Disciples of Christ logo, it looks like that, and it has an X on it.
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The X is the Saint Andrew's cross, that is what it is called, because the idea was he was crucified with his hands splayed, and his legs splayed apart, which I can imagine is horrifically painful.
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So, anyway, if anyone is interested, I will hang around for a few minutes after tonight, and give you a copy of this.
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I was kind of hoping to maybe go through some of this, but we are really low on time.
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What is that? This is from Dr.
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Townsend's charts.
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Remember that white? No, it is not the rose book.
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The white one, yeah.
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I think it is Townsend.
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I use charts all the time.
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I am a chart guy.
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I love visuals, seeing things, and so this is just helpful.
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But what is interesting is, and this does not have everything, it does not mention anything about Thomas in the Scripture, but the Scripture talks about Thomas quite a bit, actually.
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It talks about Thomas when Jesus says, we are going to go to Jerusalem and die, or he said, I am going to Jerusalem, and Thomas said, I will go and die with him.
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In that very important passage where Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me, that was preceded by a question from Thomas.
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Thomas said, we do not know where you are going.
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How can we know the way? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? So Thomas has an important voice.
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That is why I am saying, just because men are lower down the list does not mean that they were not important in the narrative, but some of them are less seen than others, the most prominent, of course, being the first four.
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Thomas is also seen in one of my favorite moments in Scripture where he sees the resurrected Christ and he says, my Lord and my God.
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Very important passage.
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The Jehovah Witnesses have, well, they have messed up a lot of things, but they have really messed that one up by saying that what he was saying was, oh my God, like an exclamation of, someone would say, oh my God, and a surprise.
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It is not what he was saying.
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He was saying, my Lord, speaking of Christ, and my God.
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And it is one of the great testimonies to the divinity of Christ by the apostles.
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So, again, there is a lot here.
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Last one, Judas, there are questions about how he died, because one Scripture talks about him hanging himself, another text talks about him falling and his entrails bursting.
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And so there are two different narratives, and some would say contradictory accounts, but the way that the accounts have been harmonized by scholars is that he did, in fact, hang himself and the rope broke, and when he fell, his entrails burst.
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And so perhaps he had been dead for quite a while.
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It doesn't take long for the body to putrefy and become able for that to happen.
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So, but the point is, we need not think there's contradictions, but there are times where the whole story is told in various narratives.
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All right, any questions? I have one.
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Sure.
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In verse 15, when you read it, you had mentioned just these.
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In King James, it says they had the power to heal sickness and to cast out devils.
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Okay.
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Did I mention in yours? I'm looking.
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Verse 15 is, this one wouldn't have many variants in it, even if it were there, but I don't see a reference to a textual variant, but if it's there, that's the reason why.
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And the only thing I would say is if it were in another verse.
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Remember the other week where I showed you, it was when I was preaching, how sometimes things will fall into another verse, and it's not missing, it's just rearranged.
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But I don't see it in here mentioned either.
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New King says, heal the sick? No, it says the same thing he says, but it has a variant in the margin.
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It says it.
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Says the variant's a margin.
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Okay, thank you.
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So, yes, so there is a variant there.
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Thank you.
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Yeah, so that's why I didn't mention it, because tonight I'm just looking at the ESV.
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I didn't bring my Greek text with me.
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All right, any other questions? Good question, by the way.
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Any other questions? All right, well, let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for, again, giving us the opportunity to study your word.
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I pray that this study tonight has been fruitful in showing us the cohesion of your word and how these men who were chosen by Christ were used by you, Lord, as your apostles.
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And as we're going to see in the weeks to come, men who were raised up to be sent out to preach the gospel, and how these 12 men who were not men of renown or men of education or men of letters became men who turned the world upside down because they were filled with the spirit of God and with the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Lord, may we be encouraged by such men, and may we also seek to turn the world upside down with the message of Christ.
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We pray this in his name.
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Amen.