Survey of the General Epistles

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Well guys, good evening.
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We are now in class 7, which means we can see the light at the end of this tunnel, the tunnel of New Testament survey.
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We have tonight's class, then we have next week's class, and then we're going to take a break.
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I want to begin tonight with a question.
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How many of you...
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Hey, good evening, Frank.
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Come on in.
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I'm doing very well, sir.
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It's good to see you.
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That's all right.
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You can leave the door open for him.
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You're looking rather dapper.
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You look nice.
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I heard you just got back from a missions trip.
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I did.
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Well, thank you for your good work.
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That's good to hear.
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I want to hear about it later, okay? All right.
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How many of you did the reading for the week? Oh, that's not good.
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That's a stab to the heart, but okay.
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All right.
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Well, here's the thing.
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There are three subjects that were specific in the reading this week that I want you to go back, since many of you didn't read it.
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I want you to go back and look at.
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The first one is the subject of apostasy.
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Now, who can define what apostasy is? Go ahead, Jay.
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Well, that's yes, but there's more to it than just false belief.
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Apostasy is the act of turning away from the faith.
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So, it's someone who claimed to be a believer and now says, I'm not a believer, right? So, apostasizing means to fall away, means to turn your back on Christ.
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And so, yes, we would say there were false believers.
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We would say they weren't believers, so you're right about that, but the idea of apostasy is the action of leaving or turning back.
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So, good evening, Billy Ray.
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Good to see you.
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So, in the book, there were three things.
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The three articles I wanted you to read this week were on apostasy, which is falling away, divine healing, which is a big deal.
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Brother Mike talked about that in his sermon this morning, about fake false healers versus Christ, who was a real healer.
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So, try to go back and read that.
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And then, the last one is the sin unto death, or the sin leading to death, which is from 1st John 5.
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And I know a lot of people have questions about that.
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So, in your reading for the week, that's the three things that I'd like you to go back and look over.
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And if you have questions, maybe next week, before we begin our last class, we can address any questions.
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All right.
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So, in our last two classes, we have examined a survey of the works of Paul.
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So, we had two classes on the Pauline Epistles.
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The first week, we looked at the early Pauline writings, and the last week, we looked at the later Pauline writings.
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And this week, we are going to move on to what are known as the Universal Epistles, or the General Epistles.
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The actual term that's been used in the past is the Catholic Epistles.
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Now, the word Catholic, typically, in our modern tongue, we talk about the Catholics as the Roman Catholics.
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But the term Catholic means what? Universal, right? The idea of universal.
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So, the idea is these have been called the Catholic Epistles because they are not specifically addressed to any one church or any one individual, but rather they are to the church in general.
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You know, one could argue that the James is written to the Twelve Tribes, but still, it's not written to a specific individual or a specific church.
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So, we could say that these books have application more broadly in regard to being general or Catholic Epistles.
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Now, depending on the source that you read, you may find some will number the number of Catholic Epistles at eight, and some will number it at seven.
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And the reason for that is because of the book of Hebrews.
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There is a question mark on Hebrews as to whether or not it should be within the Pauline corpus, which is the writings of Paul, or whether it should be in the Catholic or general corpus.
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I, for one, place it in the General Epistles.
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I do not believe that Hebrews is an epistle of Paul, but there are many people who do, and I will say history somewhat is on the side of this, specifically because the very first grouping of books that was ever sent out among the churches was the Pauline corpus before the New Testament was fully compiled and was brought together.
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You had the Gospels were as one, and then you had the writings of Paul were as one.
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And so, the writings of Paul, the first Pauline corpus that was distributed, included Hebrews.
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So whoever compiled it believed that it was Pauline.
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However, I want to provide this little bit of evidence on the contrary, the evidence for my position.
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If you have your Bibles, open them up to Hebrews chapter 2, and I want to read Hebrews 2.
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Find your place at verse 3.
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All right.
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Jay, you got it? Read it for us.
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Just verse 3, Hebrews 2-3.
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All right, stop.
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Very good.
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All right, so it says that it was proclaimed or declared first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him.
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Now, this is the writer of Hebrews.
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He is identifying himself as one of us.
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He said it was first declared by Christ, and then it was declared to us by those who heard him.
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So, this is a person who, by his own words, has not heard directly from Christ, but has got his information secondhand.
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So, turn to Galatians.
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Before we challenge each other, go to Galatians.
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I just want you to compare what we just read with Galatians 1.11, and I'll read this one.
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Galatians 1.11 says, For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
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So, Paul identifies himself as a first-generation hearer.
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The writer of Hebrews identifies himself as a second-generation hearer, and therefore I conclude, based on that, that Paul is not the writer of Hebrews because he's not a third generation or second generation.
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He's a first-generation hearer.
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He says it in Galatians.
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Now, other people differ.
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Other people see that differently, and I respect differences, but here is my theory, because everybody needs a theory.
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I do believe that Hebrews is Paul line in language, but I believe it is Lucan in authorship, meaning I believe that Luke is writing a sermon that was preached by Paul.
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Now, if you read Hebrews as a sermon, it does read like a sermon.
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Long sermon, to be sure, and it could have been a sermon that was preached over a series of sermons.
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It doesn't have to be all at one time, and if you want to look up a book, David Allen wrote a book called the Lucan Authorship of Hebrews, where he makes the argument that Luke was the actual author of Hebrews.
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Others have suggested Barnabas and Silas, who are also Paul's associates.
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Apollos.
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Yeah, so there are different theories.
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Wherever we come down on this, it certainly seems like there are Paul line, I don't want to say pieces, that it seems like there's Paul line thought when we look at things like New vs.
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Old Covenant, understanding how the supremacy of Christ, which was the letter of Colossians, is all about the supremacy of Christ.
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The letter of Hebrews is all about the supremacy of Christ.
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So there's certainly things that fit within Paul line theology.
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So, I mean, does anybody want to take a, does anybody have a different opinion? Maybe you think it is Paul and you want to make an argument.
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I'm not want to argue with you.
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I'm just saying anybody heard something that maybe I haven't heard? Sure.
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Yeah, like I said, Paul line in theology, Paul line in tone.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Did you have, look like you had a thought, Frank.
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Just, I mean, I find it difficult to say that, to believe that Paul was less than multidimensional in his, I think he's capable of different narratives, different frame of thought, all stemming from the same belief.
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So, I mean, I just think sometimes when you say that it couldn't be Paul, I mean, some people say it was Priscilla or Clement, you know.
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Yeah, we don't know.
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Yeah, I'm not saying, I'm not saying I don't think it was Paul based on the use of language.
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I'm saying I don't think it was Paul based on that one verse.
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That's my argument.
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Hebrews 2, 3 is my position.
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I don't think that, I don't think that it's outside of the scope of something Paul could have written, and like I said, written, and as I said, I think he did preach it.
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I think this is Pauline in words.
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I just don't think that he's the one who's writing.
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So, like I said, at the end of the day, it matters not.
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We know that it's Scripture.
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It's been passed down to us by the forefathers as being recognized by the church as Holy Scripture, but the big question of this, does it belong here or does it belong here? I heard one preacher one time say, I know Paul wrote Hebrews because God told me he did, and I'm satisfied, and that to me is, well, I mean, you know, what do you do with something like that? You know, you can't argue with the guy.
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As they say, a man with an experience is at no mercy of a man with an argument, which is horrible, but people say it.
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It's one of those things where you can't argue with that, but at the end of the day, I don't think that God told that man anything.
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That's my opinion.
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All right, so what we're going to do tonight is we're going to look at the the general epistles, the Catholic epistles, and we're going to start with Hebrews because I'm including it as one of the general epistles.
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So we're going to look at Hebrews, James, first and second Peter, first, second, third John, and Jude.
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Now that's a lot in an hour and a half, but as always, we're not going to dig super deep.
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We're going to look at the basics of what each book teaches.
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We're going to ask them, look at some interpretive challenges, ask some questions, and then move on.
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So let's look first at the book of Hebrews.
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We've already discussed the authorship of Hebrews, and since we don't know who wrote it necessarily, we determining the date is a little more difficult as well.
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It does mention Italy in chapter 13 verse 24, which may indicate the writer was there when he wrote it, and it seems very likely it was written prior to AD 70 because of the impression given that the sacrifices were still going on.
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We know that the sacrifices ended in AD 70, so that's some internal evidence to put it definitely, and you know me, I believe all of them were written pre-70 anyway, but that's some internal evidence to corroborate that theory.
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In Hebrews 8 13, we read the passage that to me says that the sacrifices are still going on.
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It says this, it says, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete is growing old, or excuse me, and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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Notice he says it's ready to vanish away.
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He doesn't say it's vanished away yet.
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Why doesn't he say it's vanished away yet? Because the sacrifices are still happening.
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It hasn't, it hasn't, the old covenant system is still operational in Jerusalem.
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The temple is still there.
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I remember at Set Free several years ago, there was a guy there who was a, he was a Torah observant person, which is a guy, they're the people who believe that as Christians we are still bound to hold to all of the Old Testament laws, including the food laws and the dietary restrictions, all those things, and he caught me after class one day, and he challenged me and wanted to argue with me about that position, and I said, the the Bible says the new covenant makes the old covenant obsolete, and he said, no it doesn't.
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He says it's ready to vanish away.
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It hasn't vanished away yet.
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I said, wait a minute, let's read it.
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I took him to Hebrews 8 13.
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I read the text.
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I said, it says the old, the new covenant makes the old covenant obsolete, and what has been made obsolete is ready to pass away.
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Now, when did it pass away? He's arguing, it hasn't passed away yet.
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I said, sure enough did.
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It sure enough did in AD 70.
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It passed away.
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So the writer of Hebrew, yeah, that's my answer, sure enough did.
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It's because that's the point of this text, is the sacrifices are still happening, but they're about to be finished.
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They're about to pass away, and that old covenant has already been made.
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If you read it again, it says, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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It's becoming obsolete.
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Why? Because the new covenants come.
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It's like when VHS came out, Betamax went away, and then when CDs came out, VHS went away, and now we have mp4s and Netflix, and nobody knows what a VHS tape is.
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My kid saw one.
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He thought it was like a relic from Indiana Jones.
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He holds it up like, oh, you know, it's like this magic thing.
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You mean it has tape inside of it? Yes, it's actual tape.
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We had to rewind it.
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Please be kind.
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Please rewind.
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It's magic, but when the new comes, the old is made obsolete, and by the way, I do think that is the the idea that we often miss with the covenants.
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When God gives a covenant that we are in, we are not in the other covenant.
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We're in this covenant.
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You're not part of the old covenant.
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You're part of the new covenant.
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Now, are there promises within the old covenant that still apply? Yes, but the old covenant is not what you were in.
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You were in the new covenant.
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Thank God, because the new covenant, according to the writer of Hebrews, is better in every way.
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It's supreme.
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In fact, if you want the theme of Hebrews, here it is.
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The theme of Hebrews is simple.
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Christ is better.
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The new covenant is better.
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It is the supremacy of Christ in everything.
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In fact, I'm going to ask you all to read a little bit.
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Who wants to read? All right.
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Jay, read Hebrews 1 to 4.
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Frank, read 2, 1 to 4.
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Billy Ray, if you don't mind, chapter 8, verses 6 and 7.
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And would you like to read chapter 10, verses 26 to 31? All right.
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So, let's start with 1 to 4.
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Yes, that's right.
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Superior.
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Christ is superior.
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Christ is greater.
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Okay.
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Chapter 2, verse 1 through 4.
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Yeah, so not only is Christ greater, but we have this covenant that if we go back to the old covenant, we're going back to something that is not as good.
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Why would you go back? Why would you neglect so great a salvation? So, Billy Ray, chapter 8, verses 6 and 7.
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Isn't that awesome? It's better promises, better covenant, and if that first one, which is the old covenant, if that one would have been perfect, there wouldn't have needed another one.
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That should blow our minds, because people who try to take you back under the old covenant are going back to one that can't save.
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They're abandoning the saving of Christ and going back to a covenant whereby they are only condemned and not saved.
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All right.
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Chapter 10, verses 26 to 31.
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You see, what we have is we have people who are considering abandoning Christ and going back to Judaism, going back to the old covenant.
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That's what Hebrews is written to.
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Hebrews is written to a people who are being persecuted and considering abandoning Christ and going back.
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And the question is, if you were punished by neglecting the old covenant, how much more punishment are you heaping upon yourself if you neglect Christ, if you were to abandon Christ? And see, that's the greater to the lesser.
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Yes, and that's what we were talking about.
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Were you here when we talked about what apostasy is? Yes, that's to turn.
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In fact, that is one of the theological principles that we find in Hebrews more than anywhere else, I think, is what apostasy is.
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Apostasy is knowing the truth of Christ, knowing he is who he said he is, and turning from him to something else, anything else.
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But specifically in Hebrews, turning back to the old system, trying to go under the shadow when you have the substance.
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The Christ is the substance of all the promises.
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You go out of Christ back to the shadow, going back to the old system.
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And yes, that is apostasy because it's abandoning Christ.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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I can make it.
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I can do it myself.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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And in the new covenant, we have we have a new high priest.
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This is another from Hebrews.
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This is another principle that we need to understand.
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The priesthood, the priesthood of Christ is magnified.
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And if you want to write down the verses, particularly chapter 7 verses 23 to 28, where it discusses how the old covenant priests, one, they had to sacrifice for themselves, which showed that they weren't imperfect.
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And two, every time they died, a new priest had to come and take their place.
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Well, now we have a high priest who was tempted in every way as we are, but yet without sin.
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And what's better is he never dies.
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So he never has to be replaced.
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So we have a better high priest.
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He doesn't sin, so he can be a perfect mediator.
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And he doesn't die, so he can be a perpetual mediator.
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So we have a better high priest in the new covenant, better priest, better promises.
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Papa John's.
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No, that's just no, but it is.
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It just came.
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We had a bit of beach baptism today after church.
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So as soon as church was over, we rushed to the beach.
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And then, of course, my kids wanted to stay and play at the beach.
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So we stayed for another hour or two.
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And I got back here just a little over an hour ago and had to change clothes, wash real quick, and get ready.
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So I'm a little jazzed.
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Just, it's been a busy day.
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So if I make a few silly jokes, forgive me.
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So theologically, we have the institution of a better high priest.
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We have an institution of a new covenant.
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We have the concept of apostasy, which is the turning away from Christ.
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And there is one other interpretive challenge I want to just throw at you.
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I'm not necessarily wanting to debate this, but I want to give you both sides.
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And that is about the issue of Melchizedek.
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Melchizedek is mentioned, if you want to write this down, Hebrews 6 19 through 7 3 discusses Melchizedek.
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And it says that Christ is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
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So here's what we know.
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Christ is not of the priestly order.
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Christ is of the line of Judah.
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The priests were from the line of Levi.
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So Christ does not qualify as a priest under the Old Covenant system.
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You had to be a Levite.
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Jesus is not a Levite, so therefore some could say he doesn't qualify as a priest.
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But the writer of Hebrews, anticipating that objection, says no, he's not of the Levitical order because he didn't gain his priesthood by blood, meaning by genes, but rather he receives his priesthood directly from God and he is made a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
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Now Melchizedek, of course, is from the book of Genesis.
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He is the priest of Salem, which was early Jerusalem.
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Jerusalem was early, before it was Jerusalem, it was simply called Salem.
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And he was the priest of Salem.
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He was the one after Abraham went and fought the kings, the Battle of the Kings, and got back Lot.
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And he came back having won that battle, he brought back the spoils of war, and he gave a tithe to Melchizedek.
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The first time we see that concept in the Bible is there when Abraham gives a tithe to Melchizedek.
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And Melchizedek blesses Abraham for his work that he has done.
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And so nothing is said of Melchizedek's parentage.
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He is not a priest because of who his parents were.
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He's not a priest because of his genetics.
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So when it says Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, it's saying Jesus's priesthood is the same as Melchizedek's priesthood.
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It's directly from God.
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It's not based on genetics.
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Now some people believe that Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate Jesus.
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That Melchizedek was not a man but rather was a manifestation of the presence of Christ in the Old Testament.
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Now I want to believe that.
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I like that idea.
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But I don't think it's a necessary belief.
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If somebody doesn't believe it, it's okay.
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And I kind of think not.
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Here's my reasoning.
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They base the argument on Hebrews where it says he was without mother, father, without beginning or ending.
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And they say see Jesus is eternal so he is without beginning or ending.
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He is God so he's without mother and father.
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So that must mean that Melchizedek is Jesus.
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But that language in Hebrews is referring to what is written about Melchizedek.
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It was saying that his parents are not written down and his lineage is not given.
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Therefore we don't know where his priesthood came from.
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It must have come directly from God.
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So the idea that Melchizedek was Jesus is based on what's written in Hebrews.
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And I think that it's a tenuous argument.
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If you want to believe Melchizedek is Jesus, I'm not going to argue with you.
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I think it's a fine idea.
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But that's...
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I don't think it's necessary to believe that.
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Just like the just like the whole Daniel and the Lions...
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I'm sorry Shadrach, Meshach, and Benegal when they've fallen through the fiery furnace.
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There's a fourth man there.
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People want to say that's Jesus.
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Some people say it's an angel.
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I don't think it's necessary to believe that it's Jesus.
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But I like to think that it is.
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You know I like to think that that was Christ.
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You know they based their argument though on the fact that Nebuchadnezzar says it was a son.
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I see one the fourth when he looks like the Son of God.
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That's what the King James says.
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But the phrase Son of God is actually in the Hebrew a son of the gods.
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So it's a it's a it's an expression which means an angel.
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So you can't base it only on that.
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And that's what I'm saying.
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You can't base this Melchizedek being Christ just on what's in Hebrews.
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I don't think it holds enough weight.
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I don't think the argument is enough.
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But again if somebody wants to hold it hold to that I think it's it's fine.
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Yes? Yeah, tides and shadows.
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Yeah.
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Oh absolutely.
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I would say if he's not Christ if he's not Christ in the manifestation of the Theophany or Christophany then he's a then he is a type.
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And when I teach typology I do teach Melchizedek as a type of Christ specifically because we are given in Hebrews that he is of the order of Melchizedek.
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So yes absolutely.
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If not Christ he's certainly a type of Christ.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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All right.
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Anybody have any questions about Hebrews? We got five more books.
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I got to kind of run.
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But anybody got any quick questions? All right.
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Well let's jump let's jump ahead talk about James for a moment.
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Now James I've spent a lot of time with James over the years.
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I taught James at set free.
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I taught James here on Sunday mornings.
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I taught that was one of the first books I ever taught through verse by verse.
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And I taught verse by verse at set free.
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So I've been through James a few times.
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And James is an interesting book because it functions and in a sense it functions as Proverbs does in the Old Testament.
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It is a book of wisdom and contains practical insights for Christian living.
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It moves rapidly from one topic to another as does Proverbs.
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It changes subjects in just a few verses as Proverbs.
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So it's it's similar in its construction and nature.
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So if you wanted to say that the Old Testament has wisdom literature you could say the closest we have to that in the New Testament would be the book of James.
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I do believe James was written by the half-brother of Jesus.
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Jude mentions being the brother of James and James was the pastor of the church in Jerusalem and he is mentioned as being the brother of Jesus.
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This is in Galatians 1 18 and 19 if you just want to write that down.
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Paul says specifically that he met James the Lord's brother who was functioning as a leader in the in the Jerusalem church.
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Which is interesting because when Jesus was alive on the earth his brothers, we talked about this brother Mike preached on this this morning, his brothers repudiated him while he was alive.
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He's crazy.
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But after the resurrection they become followers of Jesus and leaders in the church which is a grace of God right? That they first rejected him and then accepted him and and it's just an amazing thing.
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Now we know this because some people say well how do you know it's that James? How do you know it's not James the brother of John? Because remember there was an apostle named James.
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There was Boanerges which are the Sons of Thunder, James and John.
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Well that James was killed in Acts chapter 12 verse 2.
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So it's not likely that he would have been able to write this before that event.
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That would put this book so early in canonical history.
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It just doesn't make it doesn't fit as far as time wise.
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So it's not likely that this is that James.
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More likely it is James the the brother of Jesus.
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Now when we refer to the interpretive challenges of James, we talk about the theology of James.
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I would say James is highly practical not necessarily highly theological.
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Even though all the books of the Bible contain theology I would say it's much more practical than it is theological.
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And because of that it causes some theological challenges.
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And the the one challenge that James brings us face to face with is the issue of whether or not James is at odds with Paul.
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Just for just for a quick examination of that turn to turn to Galatians with me.
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Go to chapter 2 and go to verse 16.
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So Galatians 2 16 he says this he says we know or excuse me in ESV yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ so we also believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law no one will be justified that's Paul now turn to James chapter 2 and go to verse 24 James 2 24 he says in verse 24 you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone and then he goes on to give the example of Rahab the prostitute having just given Abraham as an example and he says for as the body apart from the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead so here is the that is the two passages that people most commonly cite as a contradiction between Paul and James in fact probably the most famous person to identify that particular issue was Martin Luther Martin Luther even contended at one point that it was possible that James was not a part of the canon that James was not fit to be in the canon he argues that it does not contain the gospel in fact I want to read his quote he he calls the book of James the epistle of straw most people know that quote but they don't know the whole quote that goes with it I'm going to read you the whole paragraph that he wrote he says in a word st.
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John's gospel and his first epistle st.
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Paul's epistles especially Romans Galatians and Ephesians and st.
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Peter's first epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that is necessary and salvatory for you to know even if you were never to see or hear any other book of doctrine therefore st.