The Office of Apostle and its Qualifications

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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like to ask a question via chat, you are welcome to do that as well. So one of the things as a standard practice here is that we do talk about, you know, we do allow people to ask questions about the sermon.

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If you think my exegesis is off, you are welcome to ask questions for the purpose of clarification, and thanks to Bruce I've gotten used to high -inside fastballs.

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So I mean, you know, you can throw anything at me. Anyway, so let's see here,

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I'm going to check here, attack on freedom of assembly and religion, worship, the libs forget that, yeah, yeah.

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So true that the word about Facebook posts, also in Finland, during Easter season I posted some text, so this is

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Lyris from Finland, during Easter I posted some text about what Easter events personally mean to me, and several people told me it's problematic, and I shouldn't do so.

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Wow, you know, Jesus rose from the dead, can't say that, yeah, all right. But it makes logically no sense.

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Why would it be weird for Christians to ponder the meaning of Easter on Easter? Tells something about the world we live in, and on the contrary, it's currently the

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Muslim EID, and a lot of my non -Muslim

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Facebook friends are wishing happy Eid to those celebrating, it's interesting why the same people didn't do the same on Easter.

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Yeah, well, the thing is, I'm going to note this, and so when we note the inconsistency of the world as it relates to Islam, or as it relates to other people who are in religions as they ponder their religion, or their faith, or whatever, see, the thing is that every one of us already knows not only that God exists, we actually have a pretty good idea who that God is.

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And so you'll note that we've turned the God who is into a cuss word. So Jesus Christ is either the

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Lord you worship, or it is the expletive you let out when you hit your thumb with a hammer, which is very fascinating.

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And so the reason why people don't get bent out of shape regarding Muslims practicing

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Islam is because Muslims do not worship the true

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God. So you get the idea, people are not bent out of shape, they're not at war with Allah because Allah doesn't exist.

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They're at war with the God who exists. So that's the reason why they take us on.

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And so our epistle text today is helpful in this regard because it tells us to note that when fiery trials come at us, people persecute us, try to make us ashamed, this is normal.

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The reason why they're doing this is because they hate, Jesus said, they hate him, they hate

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God the Father. And you'll note that when it comes to the true God, nobody is Switzerland. Nobody gets to take a neutral position.

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You are either for him or you are against him. There is no in -between. And if you do not have faith in him, you are against him.

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Who am I trying to sound like? Where did I hear that? I blame me from Bible study.

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Yeah, okay. All right, I blame Bruce because he blamed me. Anyway, I'm trying to remember where did

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I pick up that particular slang? Anyway, you get the idea. Josh says a meddler is known as Karen.

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Yeah, meddlers have names now. And anyway, I think you're right. So Finland is theoretically a

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Christian country. I would say historically Finland is a country that had a high population of Christians.

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There is no such thing as a Christian country, by the way. So you got to keep that in mind.

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So even if you have a high percentage of the population who are Christians, that doesn't make you a

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Christian country. So we must keep that in mind here.

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At no point did Finland make Jesus king and make him call the shots.

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But anyway, but if you dare to mention Christ nowadays, sin, or salvation publicly, you will be frowned upon.

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Yes, of course, and that's normal. So rejoice. So you know what you do in a situation like that?

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You got to take those frowns and turn them upside down, you know, and so you rejoice that you are suffering for the name of Christ, and you keep proclaiming

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Christ and him crucified for the forgiveness of our sins. You proclaim salvation publicly to people.

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The thing is, they know it's true. So, you know, that's kind of fascinating. Doesn't Finland have a pastor who's being prosecuted for publicly endorsing the

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Bible's stance on marriage? Okay, so there is a Christian democratic politician, at least,

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I cannot pronounce that, by the way, my Finnish does not exist, so I couldn't even begin to tell you what all those dots and dashes mean.

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And she's a pastor's wife that has reached also international news. She's investigated by the police for her

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Facebook post quoting Romans and another text published several years ago. I can only imagine which text from Romans that would be, you know, could it be

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Romans 1, right? Anyway, so there are more updated news in Finnish, but that gives an idea.

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The ironic part is that this is being done by the so -called liberals in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism.

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And that's the ironic bit. You know, liberals who are all about tolerance, this is a complete farce.

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It's just absolutely a farce. They are the most intolerant people on planet Earth. And so what they end up doing is they engage in something that on its face is duplicitous.

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So somebody says, you know, I have taken the high road and I believe that there are no absolute moral truths in the world today.

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There are no absolute truths. And people go, wow, what a profound position.

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You don't believe in any absolute truth, so oh, that's amazing. And then somebody just sits there and goes, so is that an absolute truth, that there are no absolutes?

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Because that sounds like an absolute to me, okay? So the people who are claiming tolerance are the most intolerant people in the whole world.

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What they are not permitting is for you to be intolerant while they are being intolerant, all right?

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So the idea here is that it's a game, you know? So oh, in the name of, oh, let's be loving and kind to everybody, don't you dare tell anybody that Jesus is the only way of salvation.

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We refuse to allow that hate speech. And they say it with such hate. So this is called hypocrisy.

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That's exactly what that is. All right, 120 if you're Kevin Copeland, oh man. All right, and the

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US is definitely headed in the same direction fast. Yes, it is, Sarah. Yes, it is

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Rose family. Yeah, so all right, so let's see here.

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God bless everybody. So we've got a bunch of people have, okay, yes, eight, all right.

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So the lyricist then says, yes, even the neighbor of my parents had asked my mother if I had radicalized because I had written that I celebrate the gift of the forgiveness of sins, the crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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So radical to say that on Easter. Wow, that's interesting language to use about Christians, because we talk about somebody who's a radicalized

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Muslim, they're ready to strap a bomb to their body and blow people up in themselves. But radicalized

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Christians are those who believe that they're forgiven because of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

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Wow, good to know I'm now a radical Christian. I guess, so there we go. Yeah, I just thought that was just a plain

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Jane vanilla Christian. Anyway, oh wow. Okay, tolerance and multiculturalism is just coded language for anything that contradicts my warped worldview will be purged violently at some point, by the way.

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So is it sin for me to not tell my friends that her Circlemaker book is idolatry, Heather asks.

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She just posted that she got the kids the Circlemaker book and that she's a pastor's wife and children

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Sunday school teacher. Wow. Okay, so a little bit of a...

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hold on one second, Micah, I'll come right back to you. So a little bit of a note. There is a sense in which that when we know that people are going astray, that Christ does require us in love to point out their error and call them to repentance.

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This is actually clearly taught in Scripture in several places. But I would go about it very carefully and very lovingly, and with the idea that it's not merely enough to say the

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Circlemaker doesn't actually teach you what biblical prayer is, it's actually a form of witchcraft.

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And the Circlemaker book is based upon not the

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Bible, but a Jewish apocryphal text called the Book of Legends.

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And so the primary story in the Circlemaker that informs his theology regarding prayer is the story from the

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Jewish Book of Legends of Choni, the Circlemaker. And I guess as the story goes,

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Choni was... it hadn't rained for a while in his region, and so Choni decided that he was going to basically take

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God on. And so Choni went outside of a city, drew a circle in the sand with his staff, and basically stood inside the circle and said,

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I'm not going to leave this circle until you make it rain. And so apparently

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Mark Batterson now finds that this is a pattern that we need to follow, basically we need to hold

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God hostage. I would say it's the theological equivalent of basically saying, God, if you don't give me what

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I want or what I need right now when I'm demanding it, then I'm going to hold my breath and die.

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And so if you don't want me to die, then you need to give me what I'm demanding from you. Let's see, 1

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Timothy 4, 7 and 8. All right, hang on a second. All right, I saw that. Let's see here.

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Choni, the Circlemaker, 1 Timothy 4, 1 Timothy 4, verses 7 and 8.

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Have nothing to do with irrelevant silly myths, rather train yourself for godliness. Yeah, exactly.

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For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds its promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

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Yeah, and so I would say the Jewish book of legends would qualify, according to this passage, as silly myths, okay?

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It's not biblical, this is apocryphal Jewish literature, and we are not to look to that for our theology and practice.

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And Mark Batterson, I've noted over the years, he's been somebody I've been critiquing relentlessly for about 10 years, is that this guy is way off the rails theologically, way off the rails.

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So the idea then here is you basically challenge it based upon its presuppositions,

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Choni the Circlemakers from the book of legends, we're not to follow silly myths, and then be prepared to have an in -depth discussion about what prayer really is.

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Not holding your breath and saying that if you don't give me what I want, God, then I'm going to die, but instead humbly coming before God and making your requests known to him.

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Completely different theology altogether. Okay, so Mikey, I just answered your question.

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I didn't even know your question, so all right, so wow, I'm good, man. I can answer a question without even knowing what it is.

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Okay, yeah, yeah, so I kind of assumed that people, not everybody would know what the

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Circlemaker is. Okay, so all of that being said, and by the way, then the practice that Mark Batterson teaches,

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I mean, it just looks like straight -up Wicca. Draw a circle, stand in it, and pray.

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It's crazy, man. It's absolutely nuts. Okay, so let's talk about one of our texts today, and the text that I want to look at is from Acts chapter 1, and we'll do a little mini -study on apostles.

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Why? Because people claim that they are apostles today and that God has restored. I see that hand,

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Bruce, I see that hand, I've unmuted you. What would you like to say? You couldn't help yourself, could you? I couldn't because of the epistle text.

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Okay, what's that? So, there is kind of an ethical dilemma, and we've touched on this a little bit before in Bible study, but it was today's epistle.

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So, there's a,

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I perceive a conflict, at least in the general teaching of the Christian church about, because among other things, for those of you who don't know,

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I do prison ministries, and traditionally in Lutheranism, the interpretation of Romans 13, submit to the authorities, is turn yourself in.

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Where the dilemma is with 1 Peter is that Peter says suffering for your crimes is of no benefit, and that renders, so scripture interpreting scripture, when red flags go up in my mind is when an interpretation renders another passage of scripture gibberish.

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And so, if it is God's will that we turn ourselves in for crimes, and there is no benefit for suffering for your crimes, then

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God just wants to destroy you because repenting, bearing the fruit of repentance is of no benefit for you because you're bad.

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Okay, so I would say, I think you may have taken what is the intended message here in 1

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Peter, in the section of 1 Peter, and may have bled a little bit beyond its borders.

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Let me explain what I mean here, because this is not a concept in regard to turning yourself in, but you'll note then, so here's our context.

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Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you. So the context here is suffering as a

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Christian, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's suffering.

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So our rejoicing then is the fact that we rejoice with the sufferings of Christ, that you may also be glad when his glory is revealed.

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And so watch the distinction here. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory of God rests upon you.

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But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a meddler.

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And so you'll note that a meddler here is going to be your

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Karens, your Mrs. Kravitzes, and people like that, and people don't go to jail for that, okay?

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But the idea here is that… Slander was a felony in Greco -Roman law.

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Okay. Well, even though this is not about you turning yourself in, this is about you being made to suffer as a result of the fact that you're a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler, okay?

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So how does one suffer in that way? Well, they're brought up on charges, so this is not… there's no implicit command here to turn yourself in.

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So if you are made to suffer in this way, like I said in the sermon, if people are saying, you're not suffering because you're a

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Christian, you're suffering because you're a jerk, okay? Then it doesn't matter how much pious language or how much you confess

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Christ. Somebody who is a murderer in the name of Jesus is a murderer, is not suffering as a

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Christian. So does that make sense? So I think you just take it a little too far when you say that somehow this is one way or another talking about whether or not we're to turn ourselves in.

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No, what I was bringing in was the kind of de facto interpretation of Romans 13.

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Okay. These two passages, it's hard to…

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Romans 13 went through… was it seven or eight? But that these interpretations, the interpretations are hard to reconcile between these two.

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And there's also the command to thieves, you know, go and steal no more, but find useful labor for your hands.

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You'll have something to share with others. Right. The punishment for thievery in Greco -Roman law was a beating that if you survived it, you were then enslaved until you, you know, until you were… until you had your labor had paid back to… there was used to be four and then became two times the debt of what you had stolen.

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Right. Which renders that command gibberish. What is the punishment for a runaway slave in Roman jurisprudence?

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Do you know? Yes, it is at the… so in Roman law, there was no district attorney.

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You only… there only were persecutions if someone brought an accusation against you. Okay. The state didn't have its own accuser.

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Okay. There was actually a feud between two Roman families, one completely wiped out the other. And it was a… everybody knew about it, but there was no way to prosecute them because there was nobody left alive to accuse them in court.

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Wow. As the extreme example. So, for a runaway slave, for example,

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Philemon, it was up to crucifixion. It was at the discretion. It could be nothing.

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It was because the master who received the runaway slave back could have them publicly crucified or, you know, everything from that to letting them go scot -free in terms of like Philemon, if that's where you're going.

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Right. No, I… so here's the deal. I'm with you in your challenge of this blanket statement that somehow somebody who's committed a sin that equals a crime is required to turn themselves in.

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And I think Philemon would be a text that you would go into that case because if there's a requirement to do so, then this runaway slave did not turn himself in.

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Paul didn't turn him in, and he basically pleaded for mercy for this runaway slave rather than he be turned in and punished for his evil.

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You know, so the idea that somehow there is a tacit implicit within, you know, a tacit imperative within the biblical text that require somebody to turn themselves in, that is…

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I don't think you can universally apply that. You know, I just don't see it. But the text from 1

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Peter isn't going to… you know, side as a text that one way or another is going to get rid of this tacit imperative.

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I don't think there is a tacit imperative. Right. So if I'm dealing with someone in prison ministry and they, you know, they were… well, never mind.

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I can extrapolate from there. Thank you for your time. All right. Very good. Okay. Speaking of any kind of truth these days gets you labeled as a jerk.

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Yeah, I know. That's the thing. Yeah. No one's allowed to speak any truth that actually is like, you know, is limited.

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You know, like, you know, it… yeah, that's inflexible. All right. Coming then to Acts 1.

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I'm going to pay attention to Acts 1 and its cross -reference and see what it teaches us in regards to today's claims to modern apostles.

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And are there a such thing as small A apostles and big

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A apostles? This is Michael Brown's distinction. Okay. So you'll note, yeah, we'll do a little bit of work along these lines.

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So after the Ascension of Christ, and it says that in those days

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Peter stood up among the brothers, the company of persons was in all about 120. He said, brothers, the scriptures had to be fulfilled, which the

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Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas. And you'll note that Peter here at this point shows that he has adopted

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Christ's view of scripture, that when scripture says something, it has to be fulfilled. I mean, remember, he was the one when

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Jesus told him that the scriptures had to be fulfilled, and the scripture says that,

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I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. So Jesus warns his disciples on the night that he's betrayed that he's going to be arrested and that they're all going to scatter and they're going to flee from him.

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And Peter says, no way, man, I'm with you until the death. And capital letters, yes,

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I know. By the way, capital letters are, if you think of written language, written language is like computer code.

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There's new versions, okay? So the original version of Greek, there were no spaces between words, and everything was written in capital letters.

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It was called unsull script, and it's just brutally difficult to read an unsull manuscript.

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I don't like doing it. I've done some work with unsull manuscripts. If you want to see what that looks like, by the way, since we're doing

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Bunny Trails, give me a second here. I want to find the website for Codex Sinaticus.

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Codex Sinaticus. All right, so there we go, and there is a website for Codex Sinaticus, and let's see here about the project.

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See the manuscript. You want to see what an unsull script looks like. Oh, this is brutal. Okay, so let me go to a particular text.

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So let's go to, maybe we'll go to the book of Ephesians chapter, yeah, we'll go to chapter two, and then let me see if I can make this bigger.

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I gotta zoom in just a little bit. How do I zoom in? I hate these older websites where, yeah, okay, there is a way to zoom in, and it's here.

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So there we go. All right, so yeah, you'll note something here.

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That's all just one big run -on. It's just brutal to read. So what's helpful is the

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Codex Sinaticus website, and by the way, this is one of our oldest manuscripts of a nearly complete

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Bible, and this one is really fantastic. And on their website, they've broken up the

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Greek for us so that we don't have to guess, and it does include notes regarding the marks that appear in some of the corrections that appear within the manuscript itself.

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So in the ancient world, everything was capitalized. So the claim that there's big

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A Apostles and small A Apostles, that's a little bit of a historic anachronism, but the concept still in some senses does apply.

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But coming back then to our text, so Peter now adopts the

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Lord's view of Scripture. It has to be fulfilled. Now, what was the purpose for Unseld Script for compressing data?

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No, it wasn't that. The purpose of the Unseld Script is that you think of it as... So written language as we know it really starts to show up about the time of Joseph from the

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Book of Genesis. There's a proto -Hebrew script, it has a very early

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Hebrew script that is a phonetic alphabet, which some scholars nowadays are arguing predates the

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Phoenician alphabet. But what ended up happening is written language 1 .0,

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so it's a technology. You have to think of written language as a technology. Written language 1 .0

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in its first iteration, there were no upper and lower cases, there was just one case, and everything was just squished together because that was, you know, it was a new technology.

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So in written language 2 .0, you begin to get upper and lower cases. 3 .0,

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they've now added spaces in between words. Written language 4 .0,

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this is a really old operating system, now you'll start to see commas and semicolons and different ways of doing things like this.

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So the current version of written language that we have is maybe 6 .0

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or 7 .0 or maybe 10 .0 or something like that. So there's new iterations, there's new ways of approaching written language, because it is a technology, so it develops.

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All right, so, brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled that the Holy Spirit had spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested

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Jesus, for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out.

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And you're going to note here, it talks about the fact that Judas hung himself, so what happens to his body is after the ligaments and stuff like that within his neck kind of gave out, or the rope gave out, or maybe they cut him down, and his body fell headfirst and he burst out in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.

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Terrible but fitting end for a fellow who betrayed Christ in that way. So it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the field was called in their

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Psalms. And now here's your governing text that Peter say have to be fulfilled. May his camp become desolate, let there be no one to dwell in it.

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So he sees in this particular Psalm, this is Psalm 69 verse 25, he sees this as a prophecy regarding Judas, and then a secondary prophecy regarding him from Psalm 109 verse 8, let another take his office.

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Which is a fascinating word, by the way, and it has a Hebrew equivalent that, again, does, it's an office.

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So talking about a position of responsibility, a position or an assignment.

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And so the Greek word here is episcope, episcope is our word here.

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So it's a position of responsibility, a position or assignment. And so the idea here is that within the

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Church then, Peter's understanding based upon Psalm 109 is that the

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Apostles of Jesus Christ, these are positions of responsibility within the

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Church, and they reflect a concept that we recognize then as an office. And so the office itself has been vacated, and the office itself must therefore be filled.

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And that's the idea. So we need another Apostle of Jesus Christ.

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Why? Because we need 12, okay? And so this group is going to go on to be known as the

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Twelve. And so at this point, I always find it fascinating that there are people, and there are scholars and there are commentators, who critique the method for choosing the

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Apostle who will fill the vacant office that was vacated by Judas.

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But, you know, we do not get to sit here and critique this. There is nothing in this text that offers criticism or rebuke on the part of Peter in the method that the

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Apostles then use for filling the vacant office. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the

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Lord Jesus went in and out among us, so here's your requirements then for filling the office. Beginning from the

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Baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us. So it's got to be a fellow who's been with us from the

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Baptism of John, with us the whole way. One of these men must become a witness to the

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Resurrection. So you're going to know primary function of somebody holding that office is they are an eyewitness to the

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Resurrection, they've been around for all the teaching of Jesus, and so they put forward two.

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Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and Matthias, so they prayed and said, you

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Lord, you know the hearts of all, show us which one of these two you have chosen.

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And so you'll note that the Lord is the one doing the choosing. How is he doing the choosing?

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Through the casting of dice. For real. He said there, come on.

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Yeah, no, I mean, this is how the Lord chose. The result of the lot belongs to the Lord. The So show us which one you've chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which

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Judah's turned aside to go to his own place. So they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the 11 apostles.

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So he was now numbered with them, and the number goes from 11 to 12. So you'll note then, the primary way, you know, the primary qualifications for an apostle, and being an apostle is not a title, it is not a position, an apostle is an office.

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But I always like to point this out to people. All right, so in the Bible, in the Bible, how many tribes of Israel are there?

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There are 12. How many names are listed for the 12 tribes of Israel?

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13. There's a half -tribe of Ephraim and a half -tribe of Manasseh.

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Always fascinating to me, you know. So there's 12 tribes, 13 names. And in a similar way,

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I like to point out that when it comes to the apostles, there are 12 apostles. How many are named apostles of Jesus Christ?

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13. And so it's kind of fascinating when you consider the parallel when you work it on both sides of it.

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But here's the issue. So an apostle, and let me show you what the word apostle itself means.

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So this is the noun form here, yeah. All right, so let's pull that up.

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So an apostolos, all right? An apostolos.

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What is an apostolos? A messenger without extraordinary status, a delegate, an envoy, a messenger.

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A messenger with extraordinary status. So an apostle is a common term.

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It could be an envoy, a messenger. And so the idea here, so they can either be extraordinary or not extraordinary.

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So the idea then is an envoy or a messenger. So if you were in the ancient world and you were to show up on somebody's doorstep and say,

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I am an apostle, it's not an uncommon way of talking.

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So immediately the person would say, well, who sent ya? All right? Whose apostle is ya?

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All right? Because apostles are sent as a messenger or an envoy for somebody else.

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It could be for legal purposes, you know, I'm an apostle sent by Epaphroditus and I'm here to purchase your vineyard on his behalf.

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So in that case, I'm an apostle with the power given to me for the purpose of negotiating and purchasing a piece of property.

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That's one thing that you can do. An apostle can be sent by the government as an official, as an envoy, as a delegate, as a messenger.

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I'm sent from the emperor, I'm an apostle of the emperor, and I'm here to tell you, you are behind in your taxes, so speed it up, otherwise the whip will come down on you.

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Things like that. But when we're talking about the office of apostle, we're talking about something very unique within the

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Church, and to say that somebody is an apostle is different than saying they are an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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And so you'll note then, people sit there and go, well, there are lots of apostles in the Bible, there's like apostles all over the place.

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And so when we look at, for instance, Barnabas is referred to as an apostle. See, Barnabas is an apostle, and he is not part of the

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Twelve. Barnabas is not considered to be an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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He is, in this sense, he's an apostle, an envoy, a messenger sent by a

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Church, but he's not an apostle of Jesus Christ. So when we look at 1

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Peter 1, so note what it says here at the beginning of 1

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Peter. Petros Apostolos Jesu Christu eclectos, to the elect.

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All right, so Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. So an apostle of Jesus Christ, it doesn't just say that he's an apostle, he's an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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He's sent by Jesus himself. Now the question is, how many of those guys are there?

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How many are those who can say they are apostles sent by Jesus?

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Well, let's take a look now at another text, all right? I want to show you this, because Peter constantly refers to himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ, sent by Jesus.

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Let me give you another one here. Let's see, Galatians chapter 1.

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Paul, watch this one, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ.

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Paul claims to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. And do you know who validates his apostleship?

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Peter. Peter does. Peter validates Paul's apostleship and even makes it clear that what

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Paul writes is Scripture. So Paul is a unique fellow as an apostle, and again, there are 12 tribes of Israel, 13 names, there are 12 apostles, and Paul himself makes it clear that his apostleship is different than Peter's, but nonetheless, he is an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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So 1 Corinthians 15, 1, Paul says this, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word

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I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.

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And we'll note that the gospel that Paul received, he received it directly from Jesus Christ. He did not learn the gospel from a human being.

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And we know this from Galatians, and let me take a look at the cross -reference on this again so that we got that worked out.

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So Galatians 1, 11 says, Paul writes, he says, I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.

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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, as an apostle, he gets direct revelation from Jesus, and the gospel he preaches, he gets it directly from Jesus himself, full stop.

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So here's the gospel that he received from Jesus. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the

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Twelve, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

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Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

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Okay? So note here, he appeared to the Twelve, and that's referring to the

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Twelve who are the apostles of Jesus Christ. That's who he's referring to.

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He appeared to more than 500, all right? He appeared to James, and then to the apostles, and these apostles then are going to be the men who are maybe envoys or messengers of the

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Church, but they're not considered part of the Twelve. And this is where Barnabas would fit, because Barnabas is described as an apostle, but he's not considered part of the

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Twelve. So he's an apostle, he's an envoy, he's a messenger of the Church, you know, and so he's an envoy in that sense, but he is not part of the

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Twelve. So you get the idea here. So, and then last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the

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Church of God. But in his particular case, so Paul then gets numbered with the apostles, but he gets numbered with the apostles in a different subset.

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So you can say of Barnabas, he's an envoy set apart for the work of missionary work, he's set apart as an envoy by the

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Holy Spirit, but he's not an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul, on the other hand, he is the same as Peter.

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He is an apostle of Jesus Christ, the same exact person who sent

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Peter, sent Paul. And so that puts him into a unique group.

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So Romans 1, let's see here. Yeah, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

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Just doing a quick sampling of the opening of his, here we go,

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Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. Barnabas is not an apostle of Christ Jesus.

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Barnabas is an apostle, he's an envoy of the Church, but he's not an apostle of Christ Jesus. And that's why the

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Epistle of Barnabas is not in your Bible. And not only is it not in your

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Bible, because he wasn't an apostle of Jesus Christ, because that's your qualifications, it also contains some errors in it, which is another reason why it does not stand.

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It was an early candidate for the New Testament, but eventually ruled out, because Barnabas is not an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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Whereas all of the Pauline corpus of the New Testament has always been never challenged as part of the

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Bible, as part of the Scriptures. So Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, 2 Corinthians 1.

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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, there it is again. And then same thing again with Peter.

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Peter, like I pointed out, he's an apostle of Christ Jesus, so I need 2 Peter 1, hang on a second here, 2

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Peter 1. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Christ Jesus, okay, and in 1

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Peter he calls himself an apostle of Christ Jesus. So the idea then here is this, is that the office of apostle is closed.

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None of the 12, upon their death, left for us qualifications so that men could then fill the vacant offices as they were dying.

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So you'll note that instead what the apostles did is they had established that the men who would follow them would be pastors, that they would be the presbyteroi or the episkopos, the presbyters or bishops, they're interchangeable.

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But historically, every bishop is a presbyter, but not every presbyter is a bishop.

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That's kind of historically how that plays out. But regardless, the pastoral office is then established for the purpose of preaching the

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Word of God and proclaiming the Word of God, the written Word of God, upon the death of the apostles.

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So there are no ongoing qualifications for an apostle. Apostle must be a husband of one wife, or things like this.

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No, those are the pastors. And that the early on, the requirements to be an apostle, and this is why

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Paul says he's abnormally born, it is true he is sent by Jesus Christ, it is true that the apostle

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Paul is a witness to the resurrection of Jesus, this is most certainly true, that he has direct revelation given to him from Jesus, but he doesn't quite fit the qualifications for the

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Twelve due to the fact that he is not somebody who was with Jesus from the time of the ministry of John the

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Baptist, and then onto his death and his resurrection. So that's why Paul says he's an apostle abnormally born, but what sets

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Paul apart then is that he's still, like Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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Okay? So when somebody runs around the landscape today claiming that God has restored apostles to the earth, this is gobbledygook.

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You know, and that is far out false. And then we're going to note something here.

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There's another aspect to it, 2 Corinthians 10. Let's see here.

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Let's see here. I've got to find the text real quick here.

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I know it's in here. I'm going to say signs, hang on a second here, and I'm going to look in the epistle, 2

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Corinthians, ah, 2 Corinthians 12. It's 2 Corinthians 12. Now there's another aspect to this, and that is that the apostles, they were given signs by Christ to verify their apostleship.

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That's an important bit of all of this. So Paul, talking to the Church in Corinth and trying to get them to come to their senses, he says,

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I've been a fool, you forced me to it. This is 2 Corinthians 12 .11. For I ought to have been commended by you, for I was not at all inferior to these so -called super apostles.

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They're false apostles claiming to be super apostles, even though I am nothing. And he says this, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.

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Now this is the other bit of it. Those who were apostles of Jesus Christ were given by Jesus signs to validate their, who was the one who sent them.

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Think of it this way, when Moses met with the Lord at the burning bush, and Yahweh says to Moses, I'm sending you to go and tell

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Pharaoh to let my people go, and so Moses says, what if they don't believe me?

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God gave Moses signs to validate that he was sent by Yahweh. And so in the same way, then, that the apostles of Jesus Christ, that's going to be a group.

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The apostles of Jesus Christ, it's the 12 plus 1, and the plus 1 is

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Paul. The apostles of Jesus Christ, they were given miraculous signs and wonders to validate their apostleship.

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And so you'll note that Peter operates in those miraculous signs, and the book of Acts records for us,

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Paul did too. This was a unique feature of the apostles.

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And so when we talk about today the topic of cessationism, the charismatics,

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I would argue, intentionally get it wrong. The charismatics intentionally get it wrong.

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They will not deal with this topic correctly, because to deal with it correctly exposes their beliefs to be false and incompatible with scripture.

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And so you'll note that the signs that Peter operated in and the signs that Paul operated in, these were not signs that every

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Christian was able to operate in. In fact, not at all. They were not universally given to the

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Church. And if everybody could operate in the signs of the apostles, then these signs and wonders had no distinctive to them.

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So you'll note, Paul was able to pray for somebody who was bitten by a snake, and he lived.

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Paul, by the way, he wasn't that great of a public speaker. He droned on and on and on one night while preaching, and some fellow fell asleep, fell out of the window that he was sitting in, and died because of the fall.

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And so Paul went over and prayed, and the fellow's life was restored to him. He was able to raise somebody from the dead.

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Peter also operated in these signs and wonders. These are the signs of the apostles. And so the idea here is that people who are who are apostles sent by Jesus, they can heal the sick.

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They can raise the dead. These are part of their signs and wonders that they can operate in, and this validates the fact that they are sent by Jesus Christ, in the same way that Moses, the signs that he was given validate that he was sent by Yahweh.

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And so Paul operated in these signs, but Barnabas didn't. So just keep that in mind as we work these things out.

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So back in near Christmastime, there was a little child, a little girl who died, and her parents were well -known worship leaders at Bethel Church.

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And so what did they do? They left her body in the morgue while they were decreeing and declaring that Olive was going to raise from the dead.

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Her name was Olive. Did she raise from the dead? No, she didn't. And it's fascinating to note that today's

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NAR claims that Bill Johnson is an apostle. Well, Bill Johnson of Bethel does not operate in the signs of the apostles.

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None of the dead are raised when he prays for the dead. You'll note that, so he's kind of missing some things. Now, other texts in this that they take out of context in these regards, regarding the signs and wonders, hang on a second here,

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Gospel of John 14. Okay, so Gospel of John chapter 14, they misuse this text, and here's the text.

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Truly, truly, this is Jesus saying, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the

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Father. Okay? So the question is, all right, what does it mean that do the works and the greater works that Jesus does?

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All right? So the Charismatic claims that this is a promise from Jesus, and so you've got to get out there and you've got to do greater works than Jesus.

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Jesus raised the dead, he healed the sick, he walked on the water, so Jesus says you're going to do greater works, so get busy, get to it, and so there you go.

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You just need to figure out what you need to do in order to do this. That's ridiculous. That's not what this text is referring to.

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Instead, it refers to something else, and let me show you how the Church has historically understood this, and you can see this in our first reading today.

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Hang on a second here, I hate it when that does that. All right, one of the things I do not like about Accordance is that it doesn't, it sometimes tries to anticipate what you're typing and ends up making the assumptions are way wrong.

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All right, so watch this, okay? So, in those days Peter stood up among the brothers, the company of persons was in all about 120.

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All right, so Jesus spends three years doing earthly ministry, and what does he do? He preaches the kingdom.

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Jesus was a preacher of repentance. At the end of the day, when Jesus is crucified, died, buried, risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, how many brothers are there?

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120. That's it? That's all he did?

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All right, so let me ask you this. How many disciples of Jesus were there on planet earth who heard the gospel from the mouth of Peter from the day of Pentecost until he was crucified upside down by Emperor Nero?

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How many people believed in Jesus after that? Was it 120?

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We're talking tens of thousands. Tens of thousands. Now, did

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Peter perform more miracles than Jesus? Nope, he didn't. All right?

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Was the quality of his miracles that he performed greater than Jesus? Not really.

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Not really at all. All right? Well, you sit there and go, well, I mean, when a shadow would fall on people, he got healed.

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Yeah, so what? Okay. Jesus used mud one time to heal a blind man.

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Qualitatively, there's nothing better in Peter's miracles at all. In fact, Peter performed less miracles than Jesus did.

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We know this from the Gospel of John, because John says that they have recorded everything that Jesus did, all the books of the world couldn't have handled it.

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So is John 14 saying that we're going to perform greater miracles than Jesus?

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The answer is no, because the work is taerga, okay? These are works.

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The works that I do. What did Jesus do? He was a preacher, he was a teacher, and the work that he did, the result was 120 believers.

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And when Peter's done, there's tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who now believe in Jesus.

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When Paul is done, there are churches circling the

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Mediterranean Sea, and they're in Asia, they're in Pamphylia, they're in Perga, in Antioch, Pisidia, they're in Ephesus, they're in Corinth, they're in Colossae, they're all over the place.

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And how many believers were now disciples of Jesus were there when the

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Apostle Paul had his head taken off him by a Roman gladius? Significantly more than when

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Jesus was on the earth. And I want to be careful here, because this could easily be misconstrued, but I'm just going to be blunt, is that in the two plus decades of teaching in Christ's Church, and six years of being a pastor, and doing work on the internet,

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I've reached more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ than Jesus did in his lifetime.

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That's just numerically true. How is that possible?

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Not because I'm so great, all right? So you'll note that the Church for real has done greater works than Jesus has, and this is not talking about performing miracles.

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And I would note that today's so -called signs and wonders movement, for all their claims of being continuationists, everybody knows that signs and wonders have not been the distinguishing mark of Christianity for the last two decades.

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And when you read even the leaders who were there to start the

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Azusa Street Revival, they were full -on cessationists, all right? Believing that the gifts had, you know, that the sign gifts had stopped, there were no apostles, there were no prophets.

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So the idea here is that what today's NAR churches are doing in using

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John 14 -12, they are taking this out of context and misapplying, misappropriating what

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Jesus is referring to when he talks about the works. They say this is signs and wonders, and it's not.

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It's not. It's never been signs and wonders. And the Church historically has always understood that, yeah, the apostles that came after Jesus, they definitely did do greater works than Jesus did.

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Jesus was on earth for three years doing his ministry. Three. They were around a lot longer than that and reached more people.

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But Peter did not perform more works than Jesus did, and neither did Paul. And then miracles become very, very scarce throughout the history of the

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Church. You know, God does from time to time perform miracles, but to sit there and say, you know, this is a command, this is a promise that we're going to perform miracles, signs and wonders, we're going to raise the dead, we're going to walk on...that's

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nonsense. That's not to end there, because I've got to wrap up, and I've got to head out to Radium today, so peace to you brothers and sisters.