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We will start the show with a discussion on if Jesus died on Thursday or Friday. After that, we will open the show to any questions.
Mr. Smalley, do you believe that abortion is moral? Oh boy, I'm glad I'm debating him instead of you. This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapoport.
Well, we are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your questions about God and the Bible. We can answer any question you have about God and the Bible. You doubt that? Well, come on in and take the challenge.
I do hear, and rumor has it, that Mr. Chris Honholz is going to be watching tonight, host of Voice of Reason Radio. He had the day off, so we're going to see what kind of comments he has. But I think everybody that are, if he starts commenting, folks, I want you to start encouraging him to actually join.
Let's see if we can get Chris Honholz to join us. All right, so tonight we're going to start off with the topic of what day did Jesus die? And that's going to be before we get to open Q &A, but we're going to do open Q &A tonight.
And so if you guys have any questions, good, Chris Honholz is here. He says he's here. I don't see him backstage here, though, so folks, get him to come on. All right, so with that, let's bring in Dr. Silvestro, who is in the dark.
Hey, good night. I don't know what's with your camera, what's with your settings there, but you know, I have no idea. I really should start recording early so people can watch what happens when you try to, like, for folks who don't understand, Anthony has the easiest equipment.
We got him the easiest equipment to work with, and yet every week he can't figure out how to get it working. Can you hear me? I can't hear you. It's like we have to spend 30 minutes getting him set up again and again and again.
And like, just don't touch the equipment. I mean, I always know how.
To fix it. The settings always get knocked off in the computer. I have no idea how this happens.
There's nothing that has to change. It's really sad. Yeah, I know. We do have our Cluck Commander here. There he is. I'm so thankful we finally got the chickens back on. Yes, so we have John sort of with us.
And so, Anthony, we do have a couple events coming up. We just planned, you and I just booked our flights and all for Beulah Baptist Church, May 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th, actually. That's Friday all the way to Monday.
You and I and Justin Peters will all be doing a Snatch Them From the Flames seminar. It's one of the seminars we have that's a discernment seminar. So, if you're anywhere in the Winter Garden area, that's in the Orlando area.
So, Florida, please go to Beulah Baptist Church so you can register and be there for that event. We'll also be, the three of us, Justin Peters, Anthony, and I will also be at Cruciform Conference in June.
I think it's the first week in June. Go to Cruciform Conference. Anthony, you're speaking. You and I, I guess, are speaking at the pre-conference as well. So, on apologetics. So, I guess.
I'm excited. I've got two hours to teach late-level precepts. So, one of my favorite things to do. I think you only have one hour.
And I have two. Well, I got to figure out what I'm going to do because I'm going to be teaching precepts. So, I guess if I go first, I get to steal all your thunder. Yeah, I'll just do it better.
Yeah, but that is exciting. We've got a couple of those conferences coming up, not to mention Israel in six months.
That's right. Prices did go up as of today for the Israel trip. But if you want to join us in Israel, let me get that banner up wherever that is. You just have to go to IsraelTour2021 .com, IsraelTour2021 .com to join us in Israel this October.
I know the price went up by $100, but it's still that trip. Although it's expensive, it includes all your hotels, two meals a day. It includes the bus driver and the guides and everything. And I heard that the rumor is that prices are going to be going up in Israel even more.
So, that might be a reason to come now. So, Chris Honholz is saying, Andrew, you need to...
Oh, Andrew, I think you just cut yourself out. So, on that, Chris, I just sent you...
Oh, there you go. I don't know what just happened. I just dropped out for some reason.
You just dropped out. Yeah, but I took over. It's no big deal.
So, Chris Honholz wants the link. The link is really simple, Chris. It's the same link every time. All you have to do is go to ApologeticsLive .com. And there's a little duck icon. You click on that. It was so easy.
Oh, wait, no. I was going to say it was so easy Anthony could do it, but... I'm in. All right. So, why don't we... I'm going to bring in.
AM Brewster. Well, before we get to this though, Andrew, there's one other thing we wanted to bring up tonight before this. Oh, that's right. Okay. I'm going to put him back. Yeah. That's right. So, we want to bring this up because we hear...
There were two things, two things. Okay. Well, one of them is we heard through the grapevine that...
Well, let me say something before you get to that though. That's the thing I'm saying. Okay. Then say it first. I meant to do this. I meant to welcome all of the atheists watching on their national holiday.
Welcome to National Atheist Day, April Fool's Day. Because we know that Psalm 14 says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. So, welcome, April 1st, National Atheist Day, April Fool's Day. Okay.
Now to a more serious matter.
Well, that is pretty serious too, but... So, we've heard rumors that while we did a number of shows last year on the cultish practices of the church in Davenport, Iowa, pastored by, and I say that loosely, by Mike Reed and the church attended by Tony Miano, that we have done a number of shows that's showing what victims have said regarding the spiritual abuse and abusive practices by Mike Reed and his other two elders.
And Mike has refused time and time again to come onto the show. He's refused time and time again to publicly put out statements as to whether he still believes the stuff that has happened in the past, whether he still preaches on the same things he was preaching four, five, six years ago about some of the really weird and sinful doctrines that he teaches.
And I know, Andrew, you came up with a list of questions, 12 very simple questions, such as, do you meet with women alone on a regular basis?
We can give these questions again, if you want. And these questions still have not been answered, even in what you're about to announce. These questions still have not been answered. Yeah. So, do you want to read them all?
Yeah. Do you meet alone with women on a regular basis? Do you ask for details of spousal intimacy? Have you ever said, quote, to not trust the elders, unquote, is to, quote, not trust God, unquote. Number four, have you ever said whatever the elders would counsel for you, for your life is perfect?
Number five, have you ever said that GFC is the only true church in the Quad Cities? Number six, do you believe the elders have nearly unlimited authority in the lives of congregants? Have you ever said if someone owns a gun, is in the military or police, they have premeditated murder in their hearts?
Do you share details about counseling sessions with other members? Did you ever imply that men and women should be able to kiss someone else on the lips that is not his or her spouse? Have you ever shared details of your own sexual intimacy with any of the people in your counseling sessions with members of the opposite sex?
Do you believe you are infallible against sexual immorality? And the last one, by name, what specific pastors, theologians, and or teachers have you condoned the practice of meeting with women alone in counseling sessions?
So those were the 12 questions that we had.
Yeah. And I can assure you on that last question, that Phil Johnson and Justin Peters are not two of them because I've spoken with both of them personally. And so even though there's been rumors out there that Phil has condoned this or has been okay with it, that is absolutely, completely false.
Absolutely, completely false. So having said all these questions, Andrew, very simple to answer, right? And he knows these questions are out there. He's been given these questions. He's decided not to answer these questions.
And so what we have found out in recent times is that Mike Reed decided to do a response video, he and his elders, and they did a response video for their congregation.
Now, that was a great video, right? I mean, you got to see it and get all the answers to the questions, right? Oh, yeah.
That was a great, great video. Yeah. April fools. Yeah. Yeah. Because apparently his response video for our questions was not given to the public. It was only allowed to be shown to people who were in the church.
Well, in fact, it was sent to people that I spoke to at Grace Community Church. And the issue that came up is Tony Miano was going to be coming back out there to be able to do some evangelism. And they actually, some folks over there watched all of the episodes we did on Dangerous Doctrines.
And so in that, what ends up happening is they gave a response video to, I guess, some of the elders over there at Grace Community Church. But you know who hasn't gotten a video that's responding to what we've done?
Us.
Yeah. You know who else hasn't gotten it? Kevin and Jen Yant, who are the ones who were the big whistleblowers a couple of years ago and have continued to be whistleblowers. They also have not gotten the opportunity.
In fact, Mike Reed does not want to talk to them at all unless Kevin and Jen fly across the country and go back to their church and meet in front of their elders with nobody else present in order to levy charges.
And that's the thing that, I mean, I do find it very interesting that someone would do a response video to the work we did, but they don't want us to see it. And even the folks that did have it, I guess, were, you know, it was given to them with, I guess, instructions not to share it.
And so Kevin has requested it. Does seem strange. I did ask someone who at least got to see it and said, have they, first off, is there anything that we said that they said we got inaccurate or is there anything that, you know, where they felt they needed to correct something we said?
Did they answer any of the dozen questions we asked? And basically the answer was they really didn't answer the questions. They didn't in this response video that we can't see. I do think it's strange.
You respond to someone, but you don't want the person you're responding, you know, just you want people to see it, but not the person that actually kind of levied the accusation. Almost as if they don't want people to know that this exists because they don't want anyone to see their poor responses maybe, or someone to question their responses.
Yeah. It's almost like they want to control the narrative, like the Democrat party. Yeah, that's right.
So on that, if there's anybody who can get their hands on a video, or if there's anybody who has left Mike Reed's church and has a copy of that video, we'd love to have a copy of it. And we'd love to show it live and work through it.
So, all right. And so for folks, real quick, for folks on Facebook, Anthony sometimes will also respond to folks on chat. So if people on Facebook are wondering why it says we will bond servants from striving fraternity ministries, it's because Anthony doesn't know how to click the little box at the bottom that says to choose between Facebook and YouTube.
So he's responding to someone on YouTube. It's amazing that Anthony knows how to drill in people's teeth.
Okay. It's just, it's just, I can do blindfolded.
All right. So let's bring in A .M. Rooster now. So, so Anthony, you know, I don't, I don't know that, you know, Aaron very well. I do not. But he's one of the podcast, actually, he has two of the podcasts in the Christian podcast community, but I'm going to ask you, Aaron, to introduce yourself.
And it's one of your podcasts on that actually brought about this topic. But you know, this is coming, Aaron, you know, I'm going to make you have to explain this, but he's an actual ninja. I'm going to let him explain it.
Before I do that, I'm going to say, Anthony, apparently I know a lot more about you than you know about me, because man, what he's been saying about you for the past 16 minutes is just, it's gold. It's absolute gold.
So I'm glad you have a chance now to get to know me a little bit. Yeah. Usually doing this to me. Trust me. Okay. Yeah. So I'm, I'm a ninja, right? That's okay. That's the thing. So I actually have been studying the martial arts since I was 12 years old.
I have studied over 10 different styles. I've been teaching since I was 15. I have three different black belts, one in Tang Sudo, one in a traditional form of ninjutsu and one in a modernized ninjutsu.
I have a first degree, a third degree, and then I have a fifth degree black belt in the modern ninjutsu. So technically when you study ninjutsu, when you become a black belt, you are officially a ninja.
Now it's, you know, it's nothing like Hollywood, Andrew. I keep having to tell him he doesn't listen. I know it's not like the smoke bombs and the climbing of walls and all that kind of, it's just, it's not, but he just, so I, you know, I maybe that's why I wore all black today.
I did it for you.
Wait, so you're saying that you don't do all this just to prepare for the TV show. It's true. It's true. I don't, I don't.
I thought that's what being a ninja was all about. Exactly. Modern. Or was it, was it a American ninja warrior? That's what it is. I watched those people and I just go, wow. You know, and probably in real life they can climb a rope and get over a wall and do all that kind of stuff, but I could still beat them up.
So I just have that.
I feel better about myself. Please tell me you at least know how to throw those little star things, right? Yes.
Yes, I do. I have studied most of the traditional weapons. My favorites are the nunchaku or as we would call them nunchucks and the bow, which is like the six foot staff.
Oh yeah. One of the Ninja Turtles had that Donatello man. And it's hello. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I got black belts and AR 15, a Sig P 938 and a few others. That's about all I have.
I have a similar one in the, in the Springfield XDS mod too. I, so I have a, that, that one of those similar belts ranks. Yes, that's a nice one.
All right. So, so Aaron, on one of your podcasts, Celebration of God, and I put up a banner, folks, if you want to check out his podcasts, he has two of them. One is Truth, Love, Parent podcast. Both of his podcasts, Celebration of God and Truth, Love, Parent are both available at the Christian podcast community.
Go to christianpodcastcommunity .org and you can find both of them there and subscribe to them. Excellent podcasts. I was actually listening to his podcast before he joined. And so when he joined, I was like, oh, this is easy.
So, but you had a podcast. I'm going to let you, you start off. I, I don't know if you got a chance to listen. I, about two years ago on my Daily Rap Report podcast, that's a two minute one. I had dealt with the question of the day that Jesus died.
Uh, and I thoroughly, you know, proved without a shadow of a doubt that, that Friday, the traditional day is the accurate day. And, and so you mistakenly have gone on your podcast and decided to, to say that, that, you know, you actually think it was Thursday.
So, but I wanted to, I thought, you know, with, with Resurrection Sunday coming up, you know, with whether today is good Thursday or for us, good Friday tomorrow, uh, this would be a good starter topic.
Um, so why don't you go through quickly for folks who didn't listen, get a chance to listen to your podcast, go through your, your position with why you think that, um, why it was Thursday was the day Christ died.
There we go. I'm back. You know, I asked him if this was going to be a discussion or debate. He says, oh, it's just a discussion. I'm kind of getting that debate feel. I don't know. I'm kind of feeling like the, uh, like I need to get my sparring gear on or something.
Um, yeah, it's the celebration of God. So this is, uh, this whole thing about Easter has been a, uh, something I've been working on for all over five years now. It's just, uh, been one of those things that's just a passion.
I, as a follower of Christ, I wanted to understand, uh, these and answer these big questions that I had. Now I listened to your podcast, actually I did, and I think you did a great job. It's exactly what I would have expected to hear.
It's exactly what I believed, uh, for the majority of my life. Uh, with, with the occasion, I mean, as growing up as a child, I always had these questions in my head on Easter, you know, the big theological questions that every kid asked their parents.
Uh, but for the most part, you know, when it came right down to it, I just accepted that Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday. And, uh, and that was that. Uh, and so I, I, I loved what you said and how you put it out there.
And the fact that you could do it in two minutes, even just eight minutes, all of them together was amazing to me. I hope you're not expecting me to do the same thing. Um, there are, I have three main points that I like to focus on.
Uh, one of them was the main one that you addressed. And so I'll start with that. And that has to do with the number three, right? Um, and of course, everyone who's a Christian, who's read the scriptures knows that, uh, the number three, when it came to, you know, Jesus rising three days later was extremely, uh, important and, uh, desperately, you know, uh, it was, it needed to be fulfilling prophecy and so on and so forth.
And all throughout the scriptures, he talks about in three days and the prophets talk about in three days and so on and so forth. But there's one passage in particular, uh, being one that sticks out to me as being a significant issue, uh, with the Friday night, Friday crucifixion, um, and Friday burial.
And that's the fact that it's the, uh, the passage of Matthew 1240, where Christ says for his Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. So shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Now this is known as Christ's sign of Jonah. It comes from Jonah 117 that talks about how the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. And he was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
Now in Sunday school, uh, we know when they have the felt board, right? Um, and they have Jonah and they've got the, the whale and everything. Um, everyone just accepts the fact that he was in the belly of the whale for three days and for three nights.
Um, and we don't have an issue with that. Everyone's fine with that. And so here Christ is quoting that in two times in the same passage, he says, um, just as he was in the belly of the whale or the fish for three days and three nights.
So the son of man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. And, uh, one, one big, one big question I have about that is the fact that if he were buried during the daytime hours on Friday, now, by the way, what you said about the word day, uh, in your podcast, being able to be used for a portion of a day, a full day, even just an age, which could be a ton of days is a hundred percent correct for the Hebrew usage of the word, even the Greek usage of the word, uh, the word day didn't need to always refer to a 24 hour day.
And I agree with that. Um, but still, even with that said, uh, even though we could say, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, three days. Um, when we look specifically at that passage where Christ makes a big deal out of saying three days and three nights, if he were buried during the daytime hours on Friday and then rose on the, uh, before the daytime hours, the Bible is very clear about rising before the daytime hours on Sunday.
That's only two days and two nights. That would be Friday day in the grave. Now a portion of the day, which would count as the whole thing, Friday night, Saturday day, Saturday night, he raises before Sunday day.
Therefore it was only two days and two nights in the grave. And I think in the exact same way that we take, uh, Jonah, you know, uh, for what it is literally, uh, that he was in the whale for three days and three nights.
Uh, I think it's very important that we take Christ literally here, which is why he specifically made it a point to say that. So do you want me to get to the other points too, or do you want to have a chance to answer that?
How do you want to do this discussion debate slash thing?
Um, well, I'll say this and, and I'll kind of, I guess, correct a little bit. I would argue he, with that, it was, he was, he would be buried for three days and two nights, maybe then not to do because right.
He was in the ground Friday before sundown. And that's one of the things that I dealt with on my podcast is that it's sundown is the, is the time break. So Friday day, Saturday day, and then Sunday in the morning was sun, you know, is now Sunday.
So can I say something to that real quick? Cause that's a, I, that's a totally fair observation. I think one of the important things we need to remember though, and I have a feeling I've heard you talk about this before, so forgive me if I'm wrong.
Um, but the Jews historically during that time, and even nowadays don't count time the same way we do. Correct. Um, they have the evening and the morning, basically the evening and the day being their day.
And one of the really important elements, uh, I believe of Christ's rising and the Bible specifically says before dawn, before dawn, every single time, you know, rising before dawn, uh, is the fact that he didn't actually get into the, what would be considered the Jewish daytime hours.
He was in the Jewish evening hours of Sunday, but he wasn't in the Jewish daytime hours of Sunday, which I think is a really important observation to look at.
Yeah. And so I think, I think there, what we get to is the question of, cause I think this is where we end up differing, right? Either the three days and three nights is literally three days and three nights, or it's just referring to three period, three days of time, uh, in which you have either one.
And so, I mean, my argument is, and I would agree that the passage you bring out is probably the strongest argument I know of for a Thursday burial.
Oh man, I can't wait to show you the other stuff then if that's what you think.
I already listened to both your podcasts on this. Oh, but I got more. I brought more.
Okay. All right. So that's the one thing. And like I said, you, uh, you, uh, you answered that. Um, the two other points are the, and the second one is kind of a smorgasbord. It's a, it's a, a potpourri miscellaneous category.
I just called the textual questions, um, because there are some important textual questions that all apply to this particular thing. I'm going to go through this as quickly as I can, uh, but it's so fascinating for me.
I hope you guys, uh, think equally that it's, it's cool. Um, one of the questions that gets asked a lot in regard to this is when was the Passover actually observed? Um, because there are some, uh, there are some passages in the scripture that give us that, that confuse people.
I'll just put it that, that, that way. Uh, it talks about Jesus observing the Passover with his disciples. Um, but then it talks about the fact that that, what we call the last supper actually was before the Passover.
And so, uh, just to, to simplify this, uh, really during that time period, historically, the Passover was observed at two different times and in two different places. We know from Exodus 12, seven, that God originally prescribed through Moses that the Passover would be celebrated at twilight on Nisan 14.
Now Nisan is the Jewish month and the day 14, they don't say like the 14th of Nisan like we do. They say Nisan 14. And that was the day that God prescribed way back in Exodus. And the families were meeting together at twilight.
They were slaughtering the lamb in their home. They were putting it up on the, on the doorposts and they were celebrating that together. However, long before the time of Jesus, many Jews, specifically the religious leaders had started observing the Passover in the temple.
This started during the reforms of Josiah and second Chronicles 30 and 35. And I wanted to quote from the encyclopedia, uh, Judaica, because I think it's really fascinating. He says, quote, the first Passover consists of, sorry, the feast of Passover consists of two parts, the Passover ceremony and the feast of unleavened bread.
Originally, both parts existed separately, but at the beginning of the Babylonian exile, they were combined. Now concerning this practice, David Crabb makes this really interesting observation. He says this careless and unscriptural merging of festivals resulted in the Jews observing Passover late on Abib 14 or Nisan 14, as it was later renamed just hours before the feast of unleavened bread.
Thus, a third variation of Passover observance was added to the mix. So there was a lot of confusion and people were honestly doing Passover in different ways at different times. So here's my conclusion.
You're not going to like the day, but just stick with me for a minute. Jesus and his disciples followed the traditional observance of the Passover, which makes all the sense in the world that he would do that because that's what it was instituted by God, the father.
That was on Nisan 14, which was the date of the Passover. But of course, evening precedes day. And so I would say that, and I would argue that he was observing the Passover with his disciples on what we would call Wednesday evening, which was the beginning of Nisan 14.
Whereas the scribes and the Pharisees were planning to eat the Passover at the temple later during the daytime hours of Nisan 14, which would have been our Thursday afternoon. This is why Matthew 26, 17 refers to the last supper as the Passover.
But John 13, one through two says that the last supper was before the Passover. And that's an important part of this. We'll see how it connects in a minute. Another one of the textual questions that comes up is when is the first day of unleavened bread?
Okay. Is it the Passover? Is it the day after the Passover? How does that work? And there's a lot of confusion on this matter. Some people refer to the Passover as Nisan 14, and then Nisan 15 is the first day of unleavened bread.
Some people today refer to the Passover and the entire feast of unleavened bread, which is seven days, they call the whole thing the Passover. And then some people refer to the Passover just as the first day of unleavened bread.
Like it's kind of like the eighth day that got tacked on, the first of eight days that got tacked on. But when we go to Exodus 12, seven and Leviticus 23, five through eight, we learned that the Passover was celebrated on Nisan 14 and the feast of unleavened bread was to start on Nisan 15.
And I'll let you guys look at those passages on your own. Okay. So this provides us half of the clarity because I, Andrew, I appreciate that you brought up Matthew 26, 17 in your podcast. This understanding about the feast of unleavened bread brings up a really kind of half of the clarity needed to understand what it means in Matthew 26, 17, when it says now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?
Okay. So if, if the actual Passover were the first day of unleavened bread, there wouldn't, there would have been a problem. The disciples wouldn't have eaten the Passover on the first day of unleavened bread.
That would have been a day late for them because the Passover was before that day. They also wouldn't prepare the Passover meal on the first day of unleavened bread because the first day of unleavened bread was a high Sabbath, just like the seventh day was.
So Passover preparations would have broken all of the Sabbath rules. Okay. But the verse says on the first day of unleavened bread. All right. So we see, we need some more clarification. We need some help putting all this together.
And here's the second half of what I believe is going to give us the full clarity for understanding this. Um, it comes from really what I'm going to call an unfortunate English translation. All right.
Um, in the King James, for those of us who grew up on that, it reads now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus. There's no preposition on like there is with a lot of our modern translations.
And then the word day and feast are all in italics, uh, meaning that they're at the context. They weren't there in the original. So the passage could read now first of the unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus.
Now that's a terrible translation. I never claimed to be a Greek scholar and that's obviously why they didn't translate it that way. And it obviously just doesn't make any sense in English, but the Greek word translated first in scripture is often translated before.
It's kind of like the word day. It doesn't just refer to one thing. For example, in John 1, 15 and verse 30, John uses the same Greek word to explain that Jesus existed before John existed. And in John 15, 18, Jesus himself uses the word.
He says, if the world hates you, you know, that it's hated me before it hated you. All right. So going back to Matthew 26, 17, we find that a correct English translation, uh, would have to read now before the day of unleavened bread.
And this is totally consistent with the fact that the Passover was really genuinely the day before the first day of the feast of unleavened bread. All right. Now, uh, somebody who believes that Christ died on a Friday would have no problem with that because, um, Passover would have been on Friday, the day before the feast of unleavened bread, which would have been on the Saturday and everything's fine.
Okay. But there's another consideration we have to understand. This is another one of these potpourri topics of textual questions. When was the Sabbath during this passion week? And of course, we all know, uh, there are four times in scripture that the word preparation and Sabbath show up together.
Only four times, uh, one in each of the gospels. And it tells us that, uh, in Mark 15, 42, when evening had already come because it was the preparation day, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Marimathea, he asked for the body of Christ.
And Luke 23, 54, it says something very similar. Um, in John 19, 31, it tells us that the Jews, because it was the day of preparation so that bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath for that Sabbath was a high day.
They went and asked Pilate for the body. And then the, uh, the fourth one is actually from Matthew 27, 62. And it actually refers to the day after Jesus's death as being the day after the preparation.
Okay. So I know I'm going through this quickly. Stick with me. Since the weekly Sabbath started on Friday evening and continue through the afternoon on Saturday, most Christians have understood this day of preparation before the Sabbath to be the evening and the daytime hours that preceded Friday evening.
All right. So Jesus, if he died on Passover, if he died on the preparation before the Sabbath, he clearly died on Friday. The conclusion that is, you know, moving backward, Jesus was raised on Sunday.
He was in the tomb on the Sabbath, Saturday. He was crucified on Friday, the preparation, and he observed the Passover on Thursday evening. But there are some other, there are actually a lot of issues associated with this understanding, but there's only one issue I want to focus on right now is that there were often more than one Sabbath in a Jewish week.
All right. Um, the, in this particular event, the first Sabbath, um, if it happened right after the, I'm sorry, the second Sabbath happened right after the first Sabbath, they shared the same day of preparation because depending on the year, the Jews observed a ton of Sabbaths.
I won't even go through the list right now, but basically it's over 60 Sabbaths in a year that only had 50 to 54 weeks in it, depending on the year. Okay. So if we assume that the Mark 1542 Sabbath is Saturday, then a Friday crucifixion makes sense, at least partial sense.
But what if there were another Sabbath that week that landed before Saturday? And as we've already learned, the seventh day or the seven day feast of unleavened bread is preceded by the feast of the Passover.
The Passover falls on the 14th of Nisan and the 15th of unleavened, sorry, the feast of unleavened bread officially starts on the 15th. Now, just like kind of December 25th can fall on any day of the week, Nisan 15 and Nisan 14 can also fall on any day of the week, depending on that particular year.
But regardless of on what day it falls, the first day of the feast of unleavened bread is considered a high Sabbath, called simply a high day. As a high Sabbath, it's preceded by its own day of preparation, which would have been obviously the Passover on the 14th.
That means that regardless of the day the Passover fell on, it was always the preparation for the Sabbath on the first day of unleavened bread. Hypothetically speaking, if the Passover had shown up on a Monday, then the next day would have been a Sabbath.
Passover would have been the preparation before the Sabbath. So the fact that the phrase preparation for the Sabbath is used does not necessitate that it had to be Friday before a Saturday, because the Passover, regardless of what day it fell on, was always going to be a preparation, all right?
Not only that, but like I said, in the John passage, John gives us a little bit more information about the Sabbath, and it refers to it specifically as a high day, a high Sabbath. And the weekly Sabbaths were never called high days.
They were never called high Sabbaths. They were just, they were the regular Sabbath. Very important, but they were the regular Sabbath. But this feast of unleavened bread, the first day was a high day, which of course, all of this makes sense.
Okay, so let me kind of wrap all this up. We know that Jesus was crucified on Passover, which was the day before the high Sabbath of unleavened bread. So claiming that Jesus had to be crucified on Friday because of all the references to the preparation day ignores the reality that Passover was always going to be a preparation for a high Sabbath, all right?
So that's that. And I only have one more, okay? Sorry, one more, and then you can jump in here. This is another piece of this puzzle, is the question, when did Jesus travel to Bethany? This is a small one, a minor one.
It won't take long. But in John 12, one, we read that Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. A simple observation. If the Passover were on Friday that particular year, then Jesus and the disciples would have traveled over 10 miles from where they were in Ephraim to Bethany during the daytime hours on Saturday, because that's what would have been six days before, which would have been breaking the biblical Sabbath laws, not just the pharisaical Sabbath laws, but the actual biblical Sabbath laws about travel on the Sabbath.
Or if they didn't do that, they would have had to travel those 10 miles in the evening hours, which would have been extremely unsafe back at that time. However, if the Passover were on Thursday, then the Jesus and the disciples would have traveled on the previous Friday, and there would have been no problem with the Sabbath breaking.
So those are some of the four things that I think play into this that I kind of call the textual questions, that when you understand those textual questions all together within the framework of a Thursday crucifixion, they make more sense and there's less confusion.
Yeah, I never thought of the John 12 one is actually quite interesting. I'll look at that more to see, you know, that one, I just hadn't seen this. So six days before, but six days before Friday, again, I'm trying to calculate in my head that could mean that they traveled on Friday during the day.
I'm just trying to think that one through, but all right, he's counting on his fingers. No, I don't know. It's again, it comes down to how, and this is part of the thing a lot of people don't understand, is we think of a day starting at midnight, which wouldn't have been the way they would done.
They would have done it from twilight to twilight. And so here'd be the thing, I mean, and you actually hit on really my main point is the day of preparation. Now you're right, there was preparation for Passover and for the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but those preparations are different than the preparations for the seven day Sabbath.
Okay, so there would be different preparations. And so I think that what we end up seeing is the Sabbath referred to, I would argue is the seventh day. Even though it was referred to as that, you know, that high Sabbath, you think that's specifically?
Yeah, I mean, the high holy days, you have several high holy days, right? You have Passover, the of Yom Kippur and Yom Rosh Hashanah. Those would be the three high holy days that they are a Sabbath, but the preparation for those are different than any other.
And we typically don't refer to them as they are a Sabbath day, meaning they're a day set apart, but they're usually not referred to as the Sabbath. It's typically referred to as the preparation for Unleavened Bread.
Well, I think it's interesting. And in my study, I definitely could have missed something, but the scriptures don't really, especially in the New Testament, ever talk about these preparation days outside of Passion Week.
Correct. I think that's a unique thing too. You know, kind of like in the same way with the Hapach's Legomena, you know, you're left with this one-time usage in scripture, come to these,.
You're laughing at me? I'm laughing because I'm agreeing with you.
Yeah, you have to come to all these conclusions about this one word that shows up one time. I think it's difficult to say for certain in regard to the preparation and the Sabbath, if that was a special word used specifically for the preparation before the weekly Sabbath or before the first Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Yeah, I mean, I think that, as you brought up, so the passages I would look to, and you're right with the Greek word in Matthew 26, 17, that's translated first. And I know a lot of people in chat are saying they're waiting for Dr. Speicher to jump in on Genesis being a literal 24-hour days because in Genesis 1, he's going to focus there.
But the Greek word there is protos. We get, it can mean before or first. It's the idea of, you know, we, you know, we get the idea prototiter. It can mean first, foremost, most important, earlier. These are all, the idea of it, it's a prominent.
So it doesn't necessarily mean the, like the, what we are thinking of with first day, like the first day of the seven days. And so I'm agreeing with you on that one. Now, I, you know, the focus there becomes is that it's the, he's asking, where do we prepare the Passover?
So here is, you know, when I look at, let me just read John 18, 28. And I think you might've referred to some of this, but, you know, in here it says, and then they led Jesus from, oh, why am I drawing a blank?
By the way, so they Yeah, no, not really.
I just went blank on Caiaphas' name. And then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Petorium and it was early, and they themselves did not enter the Petorium so that they would not be defiled, that they might eat the Passover.
So this is showing us that before the Passover that he's being brought up. So he was, he then therefore would be on, you know, it would be the Passover that he's, he ends up being crucified.
Definitely, definitely the Passover day. And it was before the priest's observance of the Passover, but not before everyone else's.
Which is why some people think that, like John MacArthur will say there's two Passovers. That's, and I was glad that you kind of gave some of the history of where people make that claim. It's not that there's two Passovers, it was just, there was the celebration and then the actual Passover.
So what you do in the temple versus what you do in your home. And Passover was one of those holidays. There's three holidays where everyone had to return to Jerusalem. And so, but in John 19 .31 is where it says, then the Jews came because it was the day of preparation so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath.
For the Sabbath was a high day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken. So the idea that we see in John here is the fact that this is clearly the Passover day. And so the Sabbath being referred to, now I think your argument's gonna be the Sabbath is the day, the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Correct. Okay, being a high day. The, cause it does mention that it's a high day. The issue though is, is that there's, we are kind of stuck with the fact of, we don't know what this high day is referring to, whether it's the seventh day or not.
Well, so let me share with you my third group of reasoning, if I may, for why I believe this is the case. And I think, I think you'll appreciate this.
Is it okay? Should I go? I was just gonna, let me just finish the one thought real quick. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to catch off. Yeah. So the high day references back to Exodus 12, 16, which says, it will be for you on the first day, a holy assembly and on the seventh day, a holy assembly.
No work will be done on them. Only what is eaten for every person. It alone will be prepared for you. So what that says is that the high day, when referring to the Passover is, at least according to Exodus, is the first and the seventh.
Correct. But that's, there was a, there's a misunderstanding. I think that people look at it different ways. In that transition from talking about the Passover to talking about the Feast of Unleavened Bread for the seven days, he actually, there is a transition.
He moves from the Passover to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The thing that confuses people is that they, both the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread have unleavened bread as a main fixture within both of those feasts, which is why it's clarified in the Leviticus passage I mentioned earlier, where it specifically says that on the 14th is the Passover, on the 15th starts the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is seven days long.
The first day and the seventh day of that feast are those high holy days.
Yeah. See, I just, I guess the thing we're going to end up coming down is I'm convinced that the Passover, or sorry, that the seventh day, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. I see. And it wouldn't be a conflict with them doing the work on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread because you don't have the same day of rest.
So they could do the work. So, but for folks that are watching, listening, we're now going to leave it up to you guys to do some research. So my encouragement is to go check out Celebration of God podcast, where Aaron has done two episodes on that.
He promises not to sneak into your house at night and kill you while you sleep, super ninja skills, if you disagree with him. But what you end up seeing is, you know, there's going to be disagreement.
You can go to my podcast, Wrap Report Daily podcast, and go search. I think you search for the day Jesus died. It's there from like 2018, April of 2018. And so with that, I'm going to, Aaron, I'm going to leave you in.
I'm going to, Anthony walked away. So I'll wait back in.
I know you need to transition, but can I just bring up one more interesting point about this? Yeah. Because I think for me, this is the kicker. This is why I saved it for last. And maybe I spent too long on that middle one, but I just want to bring this out because this for me was the thing that absolutely sold it.
And it has to do with what I call necessary symbolism. We know from Hebrews that the sacrificial system was a picture. It was an image of a spiritual reality, right? And there was so much symbolism. I mean, even the fact that Christ died on the Passover, all Protestant believers, all Christians acknowledged the fact that that was significant.
Of course, Christ was crucified and slaughtered on the Passover. But here's the interesting thing. So the Passover, regardless of what day it's on, is on the 14th. Part of the Passover proceedings, okay, was that four days before this time on the 10th.
And it was specifically mentioned in the Old Testament on Exodus 12, 3, that on the 10th day of this month that you would choose your lamb. And what we see is on Sunday, Jesus Christ is entering into Jerusalem, right?
It's the triumphal entry and the sacrificial lamb is being presented to the people. What would then happen is over the next four days, there would be a testing and a making certain that the lamb was truly without blemish.
And Christ did that before the people and before the spiritual leaders, leading up to then the Passover crucifixion. Here's the problem. If you believe that Christ was crucified on Friday, you actually lose the huge symbolism of Christ entering into Jerusalem on the 10th, because the 10th would have been on the Monday, not on the Sunday, which is an interesting thing, okay?
So there's that. And I could go more and more into that, but I'll save that for later, okay? But here's for me, the big kicker. So Jesus Christ rose on Sunday, right? If the 14th had been a Friday, Saturday would have been the 15th, and then Sunday would have been the 16th.
We lose another extremely significant from Genesis, like through the end of the Old Testament, a focus and symbolism that is really very important. However, if Jesus were crucified on Thursday, Thursday would have been the 14th, Friday the 15th, and Saturday would have been the 16th, which means Sunday would have been Nisan 17.
And here's why this is so incredibly significant, okay? Jesus fulfilled all of the requirements for the perfect Passover lamb, okay? He was presented on the 10th, so on and so forth, but he also fulfilled the Feast of the Firstfruits perfectly.
And the Feast of the Firstfruits came on that Sunday, it was always the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, unless it landed on a Sabbath, like it would have had to if the feast were on Friday, Sabbath would have been on Saturday, they'd have to wait until Sunday, okay?
So the Feast of Firstfruits comes in, and Christ is the way of offering, he's the Firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, as we learn in 1 Corinthians 15, 20, okay? So all of that's important. And if you believe, again, if you believe that he was crucified on Friday, none of that changes, the Feast of Firstfruits still would have been on Sunday, Christ would have been that.
But it's significant that if you were crucified on Thursday, that the Feast of Firstfruits, that particular year would have been on the 17th of Nisan, okay? And this is why it's a big deal. If you look through scripture, okay, Noah's Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat on Nisan 17.
The Hebrews entered Egypt, same day. Moses led the Israelites through the parting of the Red Sea on the exact same day. Israel entered and ate the first fruit of the promised land, we learned this in Joshua 5, 10 through 12, on Nisan 14.
The cleansing of the temple by Hezekiah, 800 years after entering the promised land, happened on the same day. Queen Esther saved the Jews from elimination on Nisan 17, okay? God miraculously used Nisan 17 to be a day of new beginnings, all throughout the scripture.
All of those events have very similar things in common with each other. What more perfect day could there have been for Christ to rise? But if you hold to a Friday crucifixion, then Jesus would have risen, like I said, on Nisan 16.
Yes, it still would have been the day that the priest did the wave offering. It still would have been, we'd be celebrating it, but it would never have fulfilled the Old Testament long setup that God was preparing for Nisan 17.
And I think that is hugely awesome that the resurrection of the Messiah fell in line with all those other days that God had orchestrated specifically to fall on Nisan 17. He was setting the stage for that.
And I think it's a beautiful thing that you lose if you say that Christ was crucified on a Friday. Yeah, I guess I'm looking,.
And we'll have to get all the references that you have there, because I'm looking at Esther 37, and it says on the first month, in the first month, that is Nisan, on the 12th, in the 12th year. I'm trying to see where it says that.
See, I only see two references to Nisan. That's in Nehemiah and Esther. So I'd be curious to see where you get the others, but it's... Open up my Bible right now. Yeah. But, well, the one thing is I want to try to get, we have a couple other people that are in the backstage with some questions.
Oh, yes. I guess, oh, well, David says he's got some interesting information for a topic. I was going to put David, David came in last. So I'm going to hold off on the other two men and I'm going to bring David in.
Just so you know, Aaron, David would, I believe, still say that he's an agnostic, grew up in a Christian home. He's a, I know, David, forgive me. I'm just this old to call you a kid. I know I hated it when old guys did that to me when I was your age.
But he's a young man, I think just getting into college. And he's been on the program before, but a very respectful young man. So go ahead, David. Hey, how are you guys doing?
Very interesting topic. I actually found a website where you could take the Hebrew calendar and it kind of goes all the way back through the first century. And what I found is the year 33 CE, which is generally when people think Jesus died.
According to this calendar, Nissan 14 would have been on a Friday and Nissan 15 would be one Saturday and the 16th would be a Sunday and the 17th would be a Monday. So just thought that would be kind of cool and I would throw that out to you.
Here is the source for that if you are interested in taking a look at that. You put it in the chat, in the private.
Yeah, I appreciate that. So let me try to put that as a banner real quick so folks can find that.
Do you mind if I provide some counter to that, Andrew? Or do you want to get someone else?
Well, if you have something real quick, I mean, I have not looked at this calendar. So I really, it's...
That's exactly what I would have expected to have here. Yeah, that's, yeah. In fact, Nissan 14 lands on Friday a lot. Yeah, I mean, one of the things, I guess, would be the question of,.
And this becomes the question, is you're looking at it in the Roman calendar of year 33 and there is some discussion of whether Christ died in 32 or 33. I'd be curious... Or 34. Yeah, or 34. So if we change that, I'm going to look at 32 and 34.
Well, here's a thing.
And I just want to throw this out there. This was part of, like, I hit a huge snag in my study as I came to this because I found that... I was actually just really discouraged because as I did these calculations backward using online calculators and things like that, the 14th never landed on a Thursday, ever.
It was always on a Friday or another day. So at one point, I was willing to throw everything I learned out throughout the three days, throughout the three nights, just get rid of it all and just go with this Friday thing because the calendars proved it, right?
But I learned that there were actually some really significant... There are some significant issues with applying current calculation models with past Jewish years. It doesn't work. Nearly all the Hebrew year calculators on the internet, for example, have no problem extrapolating out the dates moving forward, but they can't perfectly determine the dates moving backward.
There's a ton of reasons. Just one example is the fact that back then, you would determine if it were the new spring moon when two independent sources went to the priest and verified that they had seen the waxing crescent moon.
So, I mean, there is definite possibilities for human error due to overcast nights and the like, all right? So what they've said was the 14th, we may have thought was another day using our calculations.
But here's the thing that I found that I thought was really cool. The US Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department calculated that on AD 34, the vernal equinox fell on Monday, March 22nd and the astronomical new moon junction was Wednesday, April 7th.
Now, I'll just tell you what this means, okay? The first evening, the waxing crescent after the new moon would have been visible, that particular year was on Thursday, April 8th. And that corresponds to the first day of Nissan.
So on our Gregorian calendar, based off of what they said about the way the moon and the planets and everything were actually working that particular year, that would have been the Thursday evening on the 8th through Friday afternoon on the 9th, which means that, and I know I'm throwing this math at you and you're like, you can't check me, I get it.
But all this means that in AD 34, the Passover, okay, the 14th day of Nissan actually would have landed on a Thursday. And so that on the Gregorian calendar, that would have been Thursday, April 22nd at 3 p .m. would have been when Christ died, according to this information we have from this one particular source.
So I thought that was pretty stellar, pun intended.
All right, well, thank you for that, David. I'll leave you backstage in case you have more questions, especially when Dr. Sovestro comes in. Oh, there he is, he's back. Anthony, I don't know if there was anything you wanted to add.
I know people were, Ethan was anxiously waiting to hear you say no, they're 24 literal 24 hour days. But I don't know if you have, see, he doesn't even know how to unmute himself. There we go.
I at least got the camera turned back on. That's half the battle. Well done. No, so evening and morning is a clue that the word yom is a 24 hour day in Genesis. So is having ordinal numbers, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth.
Obviously it's not what we're talking about here, so. He just had to get that in. I'm so glad you did.
I feel better, I can sleep tonight. All right, so I'm gonna go in order here. The next person up is, and he's dressed for the occasion, folks. He's dressed for the occasion. It is none other than Captain America.
Look at him dressed for the occasion. This is none other than Chris Honholz.
So the question is, are you gonna have to be gay now since the next character is coming out as gay? Oh, you had to go there.
We were doing so well. Don't even get me started on that. I'm about ready to throw everything I have out.
Might have to change over to Wonder Woman or something now.
I had already brought that up online with him.
Yeah, that's a sore topic right now.
For folks who don't know Chris Honholz, everyone here should, but host, half of the hosts of Voice of Reason Radio, an award-winning podcast from the Christian podcast community. And so, now I will tell you this, Chris.
I will tell you this. You're gonna kind of be upset. Because of COVID, we weren't really, all of us were not really paying attention to podcasts as much and giving as much listens like we usually do. And so we were struggling to find which was the best podcast episode this year.
I will say that both you and Truth Love Parent were in the mix of best podcasts. We really decided we weren't gonna give awards this year because we weren't properly prepared. I'm just gonna say the only thing we agreed on is that Voice of Reason was going to be the best podcast of the year.
We weren't properly prepared. So maybe it was just a lack of...
But that is true. That's the problem. Y 'all weren't listening to all the other podcasts. Sometimes I wonder about the math, how you come to these conclusions, my friend. Content.
So, Chris, we busted on everyone to get you in here because we like having you here, like having your wisdom. I don't know if you want to add anything to the first discussion we've had already. But if not, I definitely want you staying on because we have two people in backstage.
One, I think Anthony, it's Anthony's, I don't know, I saw some conversations Anthony was sending in chat back and forth when he was sending something, someone was talking about him identifying as having a black belt and they identify as calculus.
He, of course, responds both to Facebook and YouTube responding about calculus because he doesn't know how to respond just to the one. But we do have someone backstage called Calculus Man. I'm wondering if it's Anthony's alter ego here or something.
I know who it is. Oh, you do? Okay. And we also have from last week back is Emeka. So, we'll be bringing him in soon. Now, Aaron, you probably didn't watch last week so you don't know his view. I did watch last week.
Thank you very much. I skipped around, but I did watch it.
So, Chris, I don't know if you have any questions or any comments you want to make.
No, on this topic, this one is where I'm pretty useless. A lot of math there. Very interesting conversation. Ultimately, I'm probably going to be more like what you say on this, Andrew. I'm just going to go with the traditional understanding of it.
But by the way, the way I look at it is Christ died. He's risen. And the rest of it, I'll let you guys debate. He's risen indeed.
So, Andrew, I will say Calculus Man does have a question he posted in the private chats. You might want to bring him in.
Yeah, I did see that on Deuteronomy 22. So, well, we could do that now since you know who this is. I'll bring in Calculus Man. You know who it is, Andrew. All right.
Can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay. All right. So the short story is, so I'm not sure you guys heard like the other day when the Star Wars Facebook page had like the prose transgender posts. Yeah, the short story is I posted Deuteronomy 22 5 in their comment section just to try to get like in regards to being scriptural in that regard.
Now, my question is this regard. I do believe that obviously Deuteronomy 22 5 applies for today or whatnot. But the thing is, I know from a dispensational perspective, I know there's a difference. I know, let me clarify my question here.
So I know some people would say, like when it comes to Mosaic law stuff, oh, that's Old Testament. We're under the new covenant. So that doesn't apply anymore. What would be a good response in that regard?
Well, I mean, the first thing I'm going to say is that it has nothing to do with your question. I'm just disappointed. I mean, all of a sudden, Chris Honholtz went off camera, comes back and he's no longer Captain America.
I'm so depressed. It's a little hot in this room. Are you saying you're full of hot air? So that could be true, too. My goodness, man, what's your first name? It's Chris.
So Chris Hudson is actually my full name. Oh, OK. So Andrew, he was at a repentant witness with us like four years ago now. OK.
And back in G3 2019 with the G3 mission conference, we met in person at that point, too.
OK, OK. So Andrew, he was confused. He would wear a Patriots hat with a Green Bay Packers jersey. The next day was a Green Bay hat with a Patriots jersey. So it was confusing for a lot of people. Not for me, because I didn't.
For you, because you don't know a football from a baseball.
So yeah, I mean, it just it wasn't a big deal. It could have been a baseball team and a football team for all I know. So so I think I think what we end up seeing is from a dispensational view, since you brought that into it, you have Old Testament law that was written for the nation of Israel.
But there are now I view the laws different in this sense. I don't hold to like the Westminster Confession that would talk about a tripartite law being ceremonial, moral and civil. OK, I look at the laws more being laws that are universal.
In other words, laws that are for all mankind, regardless of Jewish, Gentile, whatever. You know, thou shalt not lie is a universal law for everybody in in every dispensation, every time period. But then I think there's laws that are specific for the nation of Israel that are going to be different than laws that would be for the the church.
And they could be different than were laws given to, you know, Adam or, you know, you know, Noah or different periods of time. So I think that what you end up seeing is that there's we have to try to figure out, is this a law that carries over to that's universal?
OK, so looking at the law. So you brought up Deuteronomy 22, verse five. I just want to get to that. I want to read in context. So I'm going to start at verse one. You shall see, you shall not see your countryman's ox or his sheep straying away and pay no attention to them.
You shall surely bring them back to your countryman. If your countryman is not near you or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it home to your house and it shall remain with you until your countryman looks for it and you shall restore it to him.
Thus, you shall do with his donkey and you shall do the same with his with his garment and you shall do likewise with anything lost by your countryman, which he has lost and you have found.
OK, let me clarify something. I might have done the wrong reference or whatnot. I thought there's a verse in Deuteronomy 22 about like calling, God calling, forbidding people to like women wearing men's clothes.
We're getting there.
So we're still in verse three. You are not allowed to neglect them. You shall see your countryman's donkey or his ox falling down on the way and you will pay and you pay no attention to them. You shall surely help him to raise them up.
Now the verse five, a woman shall not wear men's clothes, nor shall a man put on women's clothes for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. Verse six, if you happen to come upon a bird nest along the way in the tree on the ground with one young, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.
You shall certainly let the mother go. But the young you may take for yourself in order that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days. So I just see the context ends up helping us to see these laws that are here are seeming to be laws that are more universal to anyone.
Okay, it's speaking of a countryman, it's speaking about looking at a nest. So in fact, you thought that I was giving a wrong verse because we tend to just look verse five and take it out of the context.
So, but the context helps us to see, is this a law that would be universal for everybody? And I would say, as you look through the context and the laws there, this is a universal law. So because of that, I would say that this still holds for in practice today.
Now, I will admit that it's always been puzzling. You have all this stuff about your countryman with his property. Then you get into this thing of a crossdresser and then you get into birds, you know?
And so, you end up seeing that there's this strange, what seems strange is the way that this lays out and what it'll get back to toward the end is, if we keep reading verse eight, when you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof so that you will not bring blood guilt on your house if anyone falls from it.
You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed or all produce of the seed which have sown in increase of the vine will become defiled. And you shall not plow with ox or donkey together. So there's a whole series of things that he's giving here.
And when you look at this, it's just a bunch of different prescriptions that God is giving in these laws. In fact, at least in the NASB, the title of at the top of chapter 22 is sundry laws because it's just like to use Aaron's term from earlier, a potpourri of laws, a collage of laws.
And that's really what it is. It's almost like you have in Proverbs, where there's just these one proverb after another, after another, just generalizations. Here, he's doing this with laws. They're very short.
They're not directly connected to each other. But what we do see, I think, from the context is that the laws around it would all be universal for all people, the way we treat one another.
And so jump in here real quick and offer some, just an observation. I'm sorry. The name of our Captain Calculus is who again? Chris. Chris. Sorry. I was going to call you David because I was looking at that in the chat.
Chris. Yes. Okay. So one of the things I think is interesting about the law is that you see laws that grow directly from God's character. Okay. And then you see laws that are an application of God's character.
And this is what I mean by that. So the Jews had a lot of things that they were not allowed to do. They weren't allowed to, as we saw, I mean, actually, as we saw here, they had to have the tassels. They weren't allowed to trim the corners of their beards, all this kind of stuff, the shellfish and all that they weren't allowed to eat.
And that a lot of people believe, and I think it's a really good understanding of what we see in the Old Testament, was that God was creating a people who outwardly were very different from the rest of the world around them.
That was an important application of the reality that God wanted his people to be holy, to be set apart. It's a picture for us here in the New Testament of the fact that in the way that the Jews are supposed to be externally separate from their culture, we Christians are to be spiritually separated from sin.
All right. That's a beautiful picture of that. Whereas the Ten Commandments, some of the commandments we see even in this particular passage are tied directly to God's character. It's not just an application trying to be a picture of a truth that God wants us to know, separation from sin.
It's the fact that a man pretending to be a woman or a woman pretending to be a man goes directly against God's character. And that's, yeah. And I think it's completely appropriate to look at it that way and when people come to you and they say, oh, so, so you're not going to eat, you know, bacon.
If you're going to follow that law, you're going to follow the other ones, right? That's, that, that just shows a really big misunderstanding on their part. And, and they, and they love to do that. People who don't understand what they're talking about, love to point at stuff like that, just to try and make you feel bad.
Like you're the idiot who for believing this. And that's probably not the case. Yeah, I agree.
And that's the other thing too. Like after I made that comment in the Star Wars post or whatnot, some guy responded and used eight, John eight, seven out of context to try to get me to try to silence my arguments or whatnot.
And the thing is too, I've actually made, I respond to his argument, but then somehow someone else deleted my comments. So obviously Facebook censorship has finest there. You're not being canceled. Don't worry.
Don't worry.
Yeah. So does that answer your question? It does. It's really helpful. Thank you. Okay. All right. I'll put you backstage. If you have another question, feel free to jump back in. Just let us know in the private chat.
So Chris, anything, Chris Hunholds, anything else you want to add?
No, I mean, I think you guys did that pretty well. I agree. It's one of those things where there are answers to this that explain there are things that were clearly civil or ceremonial. And there are things that are, as he said, reflect the character of God there, or as you said, are universal moral applications.
The answers are there. Most of the time when we're confronted with those questions, the simple fact is, is the people don't even want the answer. They just think that's a gotcha question. You can't answer it.
And if you try to answer it, it's kind of like when you say, when someone says, well, you're a racist and you deny it, that proves you're a racist. If I actually attempt to answer your question, then you're going to say, oh, see, you're picking and choosing.
So it's nine times out of 10. Exactly. And so there's nine times out of 10, when they're hitting you with these, they don't, they're not actually looking for an answer. They're actually just wanting to throw an objection up because they don't want to hear it from you.
That's actually one of the things that Anthony and I do on the streets when we get someone challenging us, when we're sharing the gospel. One of the things we sometimes will do is someone will throw a challenge out and we'll go, do you actually want the answer?
You know, and it's funny how, you know, people will be like, no, I mean, we've asked this question. At least I've asked this question lots of times. I'll ask a person that says he's an atheist and I'll say, if I can prove to you, to your satisfaction that God exists and that you're accountable to him, would you worship him?
And they're like, no. And they'll be like, and I said, no, to your satisfaction, like if I could prove it to your satisfaction, right? And they'll be like, well, no, I still won't worship him. And it's like, so, okay, there's no, there's no sense in having this conversation, right?
Because they're really not interested in the conversation. It's pearls before swine.
Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, no, that, that, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Just because I think the reality is, is when we're being confronted with that, it's good to know as we get here, being able to provide an answer, but you're going to have to realize that there are some folks that simply aren't interested in that conversation.
And if you get sidetracked into every particular argument that could be out there, and that's what they'll do, they'll pull you into all those different weeds. You're never going to get to the real issue.
You're never going to get to the need for their repentance before Christ. The desperate sin and wretched situation they find themselves in before God. So that's what a lot of this is, is, and we just, we as Christians have to remember that a social media makes it real easy to get hung up on the arguments and the debates, but we have to remember that the individuals who are doing this are people who are going to stand before God and they're going to be judged.
And they're not going to have an answer to be able to say, well, none of your, none of your people could answer the Deuteronomy 22 question. Well, yeah, we can, but you ignored it, but that's not the issue.
The issue is every one of them is going to stand before God for their sin. We want to not get bogged down too often in those weeds.
And that's, folks, when you're doing apologetics, just remember this one thing is that when you give an answer, a lot of times you get someone that says you didn't answer because you didn't answer the way they wanted.
Our, you know, my agreement with your argument doesn't mean that you didn't give an answer. Okay. And a lot of people think that you, you have to give an answer that convinces them or it's not an answer.
Now I give you an answer, whether you agree with it or not. Now, Anthony being typical, Anthony, he puts up a question for us to discuss before we finish the current topic. So we'll just hold off and finish up.
There's one thing for calculus, man, that I don't know if this was, and I'm going to just bring them in real quick to ask. I don't know if this was your thinking, Chris, but I could see someone and maybe the way you worded it, because you were saying, you know, for a dispensational view and is it still applicable?
I could see someone today trying to say that, oh, well, that's Deuteronomy 22. That's Old Testament. That doesn't apply to us today. So today we can have people that could cross dress. Was that in your thinking with the question or?
I mean, yeah, partially. Now, granted, I don't believe that or whatnot, but I could see that as a potential argument, especially from like progressive Christians or liberal folks.
Yeah, yeah. And I was thinking about it while Chris was talking when like, you know, if it's from a progressive Christian, I could see them trying to argue that way, especially if they're, you know, what's called a red letter Christian.
For folks that don't know, you could go search the rap report on red letter Christianity. I did an episode on that where we explain what this is. But it's people, these progressive Christians that believe only in the red lettering of the Bible.
Now, I grant you the reason I have a problem with that is because if we were going to put everything in red letters of what God actually said and Jesus is God, it would be the whole thing. The whole Bible is red letters.
Okay. So, what you see is there are progressive Christians that they ignore, they want to ignore the Old Testament. And you'll see this with some hyper-dispensationalists, they ignore the Old Testament as well.
And we don't do that. But the way we have to look at it is to say whether those things carry over into today. So, I hope that helps, Chris. It does. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thanks. You know, I really should get David Wood in here because there's a lot of people in the chat.
And I don't know, Aaron, if you can, if you're able to see the chat, but a lot of people think that you are a David Wood lookalike. You know. I can't see the chat. So, it says, haha, Chris. Thanks. You got it.
You look like David Wood's twin bro.
So, I don't know who's supposed to be. I think he was referring to me because he was asking the picture in the bottom left, which was me. Oh, okay. I thought he said bottom right.
Okay. Well, I've hung out with David Wood and you don't look anything like him. I'm sorry. It was news to me too. So, I thought it was referring to Aaron and I was going to say, well, no offense, but Aaron's a lot thinner than David.
I've watched him. Okay. So, let's get to the question before we get to. We have to bring Joe in next. He's got a question. He's texting me about it. Well, you know, you keep breaking the, you know, we have people that come in order.
So, okay. Melissa is asking, should we drink juice or wine for communion? Does it matter? Okay. So, I actually have a daily podcast, I believe, on this. Or at least the YouTube video where I dealt with this.
But I do find it interesting that I think it's inconsistent people that will say that they have to drink wine for communion because that's what they would have done in the first century. And for folks, I know, I think I saw some comments earlier about this in the chat.
I think it was Ethan that might've said that, if I'm wrong, forgive me, that said they wouldn't have had wine. They would have. That's exactly what they would have drank at a Passover. Was wine. It would have been wine.
It would, it may not have been as strong as the wine we have today, but they would have had wine. I think it's inconsistent when people say they have to have wine, real wine, but then have leavened bread, like a loaf of bread.
You know, if you're going to argue that you have to be biblical and keep it the same, then, you know, do both. I think that grape juice is wiser. It's still of the vine. You don't need the juice to be fermented.
I think that's just wiser, especially when you come to people that might have issues with alcohol. Now, I will say this. I've only been in one church service where I was preaching at a church where they had communion with real wine.
And it was a little strange to me. What I did notice was everyone that had juice had the little communion cups. And then what they did was they had people come up to pour real wine if they wanted wine.
I will admit that the pastor of that church poured a full cup of wine and said, let's do this in remembrance of him and guzzled a whole glass of wine. And when I say glass, it's actually like, you know, a wine glass holds like two or three glasses of wine.
You're not supposed to fill it all the way up.
Well, he may have had a tummy ache that day. And so he was following a different instruction.
A little wine for the stomach's sake is what Paul instructed that it could be. I think that some might use it as a means of, you know, I mean, if they did the same small little communion cup of real wine, it probably wouldn't have triggered me as much.
But I don't think there's any problem with not having fermented wine. I prefer and think that it's wiser in our culture, which has a different view of wine than they did in the first century to have something non-fermented, non-alcoholic.
But let's be clear on one thing. It is downright silly when people say that it was only grape juice in the Bible. Yeah, yeah.
And the reason being is people, and this is where I say it's a different way of thinking. The first century, yes, it was fermented for a very simple reason. The alcohol killed the dysentery, right? They didn't drink wine for the drunkenness part.
There is a hard, you know, there is reference to hard drink, which would be the strong liquor. But the wine that they would drink every day is different. And I can tell you that there is a difference, even in America, when you have people that grow up just having, you know, Anthony, I don't know if you did in an Italian family, but in a Jewish family, we would have wine, you know, it wouldn't be a big deal.
Passover, we had wine, you know, even as kids. My parents actually kind of liked it because there's a special, my grandmother's matzo ball soup and Manischewitz wine is the ultimate sleep aid. So, I think my parents—.
In a sense, in this way. So, I mean, all the kids would be out. So, but, you know, we grew up and it was not a big deal, but that's not the way it is for most in America. And for that reason, I wouldn't encourage churches to be having wine at, you know, during communion.
I think it could put a stumbling block before people. So, anyone else have anything else on that?
I would agree with you on that, Andrew. I think ultimately, you know, be consistent for your church's sake. Don't guzzle it from the pulpit. That's a bad idea. But, you know, the idea is that we're doing it in remembrance of Christ.
And so, whether you have something that has a low alcohol content, or it's juice, or you are using wine, the point of it is not so much, what is the alcohol content? Was it, you know, is it wine? Is it grape juice?
But rather what we're doing in remembrance of Christ, his shed blood, his broken body for our sins. So, that I absolutely agree. I think that, you know, just be consistent about it. But I also agree with you.
I think one of the, where we, a lot of people will get hung up on this, and I've actually heard this from people where it's like, they're so concerned about the idea of it being alcohol, that if they even hint that it was alcohol in the Bible, that would make it okay for someone to drink.
And while we're so anti-alcohol, now we're going to say it was miraculously unfermented grape juice. And let's be realistic. Let's be historically accurate. Yeah, it might have had a different content than hard liquor, but it was wine.
And let's just be honest about that and not jump through hoops to make the argument because we're scared we might stumble someone.
And when Jesus changed water to wine, it was actually wine. How do we know? Because at the wedding, the head of the guy goes, you bring out, usually people give the good stuff until people have drunk a little bit, and then they can't taste the difference with the bad stuff.
So, you give them the cheap stuff later, but you brought out the good stuff. So, obviously it is. You know, Chris, I know you need a sleep aid. You don't have to drink matzo ball soup and Manischewitz wine, but there is something else you can have.
And that would be a MyPillow. If you ever considered it, Chris, you could get yourself a nice MyPillow pillow. You can get a MyPillow mattress top. You could even get their sheets and towels. They even have robes and slippers just for you, Chris.
And if you were to go and do that, if you could go to MyPillow .com and click on the radio listeners square and use promo code SFE to get the discounts. That not only gets you a good night of sleep, Chris, but it also supports striving for eternity.
The other option you have is to call 1 -800 -873 -0176. That's 800 -873 -0176. And use promo code SFE to get the discounts. If you go to their website, you'll see that they have a lot of discounts that are there, but you can only get it with the promo code.
And so one of the things they're doing right now is, KT is saying, throw in a towel and have a pillow fight. I like that. That's good. I love my pillow. And so if you go there, you will be able to see some of the discounts they have there.
The one they're running right now as a sale is the largest discount they've done on their premium pillows, $40 off on their premium pillows. I don't know how much longer that's going to run. So if I've already, we're starting to buy Christmas presents because we're going to start giving away my pillows to folks because they're cheap enough now.
These are great pillows. I use them. I travel with them. So I encourage you to go there and get one. Let us, we can't bring in Joe Conkle because he dropped out. So I don't know what question he had. I do, but I want him to ask it.
Okay. Well then we're going to bring in, we're going to bring in our friend from last week. Hey, greetings guys. Mecca, how are you? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. How are you guys all doing? Good.
So, so, you know, Aaron, if you, I don't know if you watched toward the end, but Chris, I think you might've, but if you didn't make effort, people who are new, you didn't see last week's show. Emeka was with us last week.
Emeka, sorry. Yeah, no. Good catch, good catch.
Is a person who grew up in a Christian home. He had, believes now in just the Old Testament, doesn't believe that the New Testament prophecies that we'd hold to as prophecies, that they were fulfilled, that they were fulfilled and does not believe that the Messiah has come yet.
Is that fair?
Yeah, that's pretty fair. Okay. So what do you have for us this week? Today, actually I wanted to discuss, cause we, we had touched on something last week and that was Messiah, the word Messiah. What does it mean?
And I was, you know, I was saying that there were many Messiahs in the scripture in the Old Testament. And I know there was some disagreement there. So what I actually did today, which I hope, I don't think this will take up too much time, but I actually prepared kind of like a seg, little segmental teaching, or at least some scriptures that I could show that would hopefully help bring that understanding into why I have that belief.
So I don't know if it's okay with you that if I share my screen.
So I can pull these verses up. How, how long of a thing you want to?
It's like, I mean, it shouldn't take too long. I'm thinking like 10 minutes.
Well, we won't have that much time. Let's, let's bring, let's bring Joe on first.
And let him ask this question. Then maybe we can come back in the rest of the time. Was that okay with you? Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. All right. We'll do that. Okay. I'll put you backstage. I'll bring Joe in.
But why is Joe? I see Joe in backstage. I see his face, but maybe his camera is frozen. Yeah.
I saw him clearly in the backstage. Yeah. I think his camera froze on him. Oh no. Of course it did. He's been trying to get in. Yeah. Okay. Let's remove. And then Adam streaming.
No, I think someone has more trouble than Anthony now. Apparently.
Wow. Yeah. But the difference is Anthony has this trouble every week. Here's the thing. He blames it on his son. Oh, my son came in and was, you know, you know, this is the reason. So he dropped out. He's probably gonna come back.
This is the reason, you know, like dads, what do they do? It's like, oh, let me blame myself. As a, you know, a ministry truth, love parent. What would you think about a parent who blames his son for his inability to figure out technology?
Do you have any counsel for that as a counselor? Yeah. It's a poor parenting.
You're living in a delusion. You need to buy a white t-shirt and a black magic marker and write. I don't read my Bible on the t-shirt because it's clear. You, sir, are a deplorable parent who would do that to his child.
You know, the best part is it's not going to say anything against that because he knows that he can get hurt. No, no, he thinks. Anthony always says he's he knows street deals. He's, you know, Italian.
When you're an Italian street fighter. I don't care how many black belts somebody has. We'll win. It doesn't matter. All right. So, Joe, you're you're here. We see you walking around. So what question do you have for us tonight?
It's good to see you, Joe, by the way.
Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can hear you. I don't know if the video is any good. Yeah, that's OK. We can hear you, though. It sounds like there's a delay on your end, Joe. Maybe maybe just turn the camera off so we can hear you as close to the routers I can get.
Yeah, I would turn your video off so that it doesn't send as much and just ask your question. And video keeps cutting in and out. Says I'm having trouble. Unstable Internet connection. All right. Well, just turn turn your camera off, Joe.
I'll text him. I don't remember where the router is. All right. You text him because I was just starting to do the same thing.
Yeah. All right. So modern technology.
But Joe lives away from any of the big cities, so, yeah, Internet's not as good there as it is in some other places. Oh, here's one.
Look at this. Andrew, how how do I purchase a my pillow from Canada? The same way anyone else does. You go to my pillow dot com. Yeah. Go to my pillow dot com or you call the 1 -800 -873 -8000. 0176. But you should be able to get it from Canada as well.
They're made in the USA. So that's something. And, you know, it's actually kind of funny. This is the thing. Cancel culture. They tried to cancel him. What ends up happening? He's end up doing more business with being taken out of all the box stores because people like me are saying, well, I'm going to go buy a bunch of these now.
All right. I'm going to I'm going to bring back in since Joe's having trouble connecting. We might have to just ask Joe's question next week. But yes, you if you want to go through a couple of it, I'll give you like five minutes.
Is that that sound good?
Yeah, that's good. All right. So would I be able to can I share that? Is that all right? If I share my screen because I want to go for it. All right. All right. So, yeah, one of the the work, you know, considering the word Messiah, I don't see airing right now.
Oh, there we go. OK, there we go. I had I had it's been there. So the word Mashiach, as it's pronounced in the Hebrew, which is in the English Messiah. All right. It comes up quite a bit of times. And I just wanted to go over some of the times it comes up and some of the scriptures that use this word.
And so the first word, the first time I'm just going to go, I'm not the first time it comes up, but one of the first ones I'm going to go over, it comes from First Samuel, this word Mashiach. Now, you guys can if you want to go back and double check to make sure I'm using all the right inserts, you'll be able to see that.
But in First Samuel, Chapter 26, verses 9 through 11, it says, and David said on to Abishai, destroy him not. Now, this is David talking about King Saul when he had he had an opportunity to kill King Saul.
He said, destroy him not for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed. Now, this word anointed is Mashiach. All right. And so literally, that's what he's saying here. He's saying who can stretch his hand against the Lord's Messiah.
Right here.
Here's the thing. Just I don't mean to cut you off, but because maybe you missed it. Well, I did not disagree that the word anointed was used for other people. OK, what we were talking about last week was in the passage in Daniel, Chapter 9, when it spoke of a Messiah that was going to bring an end to sin.
That's a specific Messiah. Right. And so in Daniel 9, 24, I had said that the Messiah that's referenced there, that's referenced in verse 25, Messiah, the prince. OK, so it was it's a specific Messiah, but that Messiah was one that in verse 24, there was six things he was that were going to that he was going to do to bring a finish to transgression, to make an end of sin, to make an atonement for iniquity, to bring everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision of prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.
Those are six things that this specific Messiah was going to do in those 77 year periods. And so the reason that I was bringing it up last week is because that Messiah is the one that hasn't come yet, according to you.
Right. The Messiah that brings an end of sin, that's the the ultimate Messiah being described, the Messiah, the prince. And yet in verse 26, it says an exact time frame that that this 62 weeks that after sorry, in verse 25, that after the seven weeks and the 62 weeks is when the Messiah is going to come.
Right now, I was saying that those were 77 year periods, you were saying they were seven days, OK, which makes it even harder because the decree to rebuild Jerusalem was 2500 years ago. Right. And so if if this Messiah hasn't come on the scene.
That's where I was saying that we have have the difference. So I'm not saying that there weren't different Messiah, that the word anointed wasn't used of of priests or different people, but it wasn't used in the same way.
Let's talk about this way. We speak of the disciples. In the New Testament, that's different than every disciple, everyone's a disciple, but there's the disciples. We have the apostles. That's different than all Christians that are apostles.
Every Christian is a sent out one, which is sent out doesn't mean that we're the apostles. It's it's a difference. So this is the Messiah, the until the Messiah, the prince.
OK, let me let me maybe I can pull up Daniel nine, because I think there's something that I think there's something here that's getting overlooked and it comes from a previous verse. So let me stop screen sharing and then rescreen share so I can pull up description.
Maybe we can we can look at this together. All right, so did it come up? Hold up. There we go. OK, OK, so. In verse 16, I think what's one of the main important things to realize about this prophecy in Daniel is verse 16.
Or maybe, yeah, when we when we look at verse 16, we have to realize that Daniel is coming before the most high. He's coming before, you know, our heavenly father for deliverance from. Babylon in this Persian captivity that they're in.
So when you look in verse 16, I'll just read it. It says, oh, Lord, thy mercy is over all. Let I pray thee thy wrath turn away and I'm anger from the city, Jerusalem, even that holy mountain, for we have sinned and because of our iniquities and those of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach among all the all around about us.
And now, oh, Lord, our God, hearken to the prayer of thy servant and his supplication and cause the face and cause thy face to shine on a desolate sanctuary for thine own sake. Right. So first he's he's addressing the most high for the captivity that they're in and knowing because Jerusalem at this point is desolate, the Babylonians desolated Jerusalem.
They completely brought it down. And then we had the Persians come in after and conquer the Babylonians. But this is what he's addressing our heavenly father for. So when we see right going down to the verses that you're talking about, you know, when we see him now come into the most, I begin to speak.
Right. And he's telling him in 24, he's starting to say 70 weeks have been determined upon thy people and upon the holy city for sin to be ended and to seal up transgressions and to blot out the iniquities and to make atonement for iniquities and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal the vision and the prophet and to anoint the most holy.
He's talking about this time period that's been determined for them to finish this captivity that they're in that started with the Babylonians and now is being carried on to the Persians. So this is the time period he's talking about bringing to an end.
And so in the last time when we when we talked, I briefly mentioned that there was a priest, the son of Josedek. Josedek was the high priest. And you can find this in Zachariah chapter, Zachariah chapter three and chapter six.
Josedek, the high priest, who may be called Joshua. I'm sorry, Josedek, the high priest, his son's name was Joshua. He was actually brought before the most high, even as it says, you know, that that one will be brought before the most high in chapter three.
You see he's brought before the most high and it even says the devil stood at his right hand. And then in chapter six, you see that the most high commands Zachariah to crown Joshua as and to anoint him.
And so we literally see that from Daniel giving this supplication, the most high responds and says, look, this is OK, so you're seeking me about getting out of Babylon. This is now the time period that I've told you.
Seventy weeks have been determined upon thy people and upon the holy city for sin to be ended. So he's told now he's telling him he's given him a time frame that this is what you can look forward towards.
And then what you see is you kind of actually see that because 70 weeks, as you mentioned, I think when we talked last time is about a little bit over a year, right?
It's about if you do, if you're if you're doing 77 day periods, but like I said, I don't think that is. And if you take it as seven seven year periods, it fits with history in the first seven first forty nine years.
That's how long it took to rebuild Jerusalem. The next sixty two seven year periods. It brings us to the time of Christ.
Wait, wait. I'm sorry. You said how long did it take to rebuild Jerusalem? It was the forty nine years. Forty nine years. OK, I'd have to I'd have definitely have to look into that again, just to double check.
But what I do see here is is for me that for me, what's what's very clear here is that Daniel is addressing the most high about the captivity that they're in. And then the most high responds to bring them out of that captivity, which he does.
And it doesn't take 400 years for them to come out of this captivity. It does. You know, it doesn't take them that long to come out of this captivity. So for me, that time frame, it sounds it sounds really off because we do see that once the most high responds to him, he brings them out of that captivity within four hundred years.
Well, hold on. I would agree.
I'd agree with that. It sounds off. You know why? Because you just switched what the text says and what I said. I didn't say that this is to take them out of captivity. See, that was never said. So you're you're.
I don't know if you noticed what you did there, but you said, well, it doesn't make sense. Captivity. But that was never the issue. See, the captivity was seven years of captivity. And it was because they skipped 77 year rest for the land because they had 70 years that they were supposed to let the land rest every seventh year.
And for 70 times, they didn't do that. That was why they went into a 70 year captivity. And so what you have here is now that 70 years is coming to a close. Daniel knows that. But that's out of the captivity.
This isn't dealing with the captivity. OK, no, it is. That's why he's and that's that's one of the things in verse 16 that he's praying to the most high about bringing them out of captivity. And then this was his response.
No, but the thing is, is that Gabriel gives a response. And I know, Aaron, you want to say something. Gabriel gives the response, OK, to the to what he's what he was praying. He gets he gets an answer.
But the answer this is not dealing with the captivity is the answer is not captivity. Gabriel is giving him a different answer. OK, Gabriel's giving because he says it right here, 70 weeks have been decreed for your people and holy city.
That's who it's for the people in the city. And there's the six things that are going to take place. So those six things don't deal with captivity. OK, so so that's the thing that, you know, we're dealing with is the the six things.
So, Aaron, I know you wanted to say something.
Go ahead. I was going to ask a question of a Mecca. Where do you stand on the the concept of double fulfillment when it comes to prophecies in the Old Testament?
For me, what I see, what I see a lot when it comes to the double fulfillment of prophecy for me, if there's going to be a double fulfillment of prophecy, number one. It should be spoken again, for instance, when you talk about the captivities, right, when the most high of Deuteronomy 28, when he laid down the blessings and the curses for his people, he told them, you know, if you break these commandments and you walk, you turn away from me and you do all these things, you're going to go back and you know, you're going to serve your enemies.
They'll rule over you, all those things. And then what you see is every time, you know, he let's say they broke the commandments, they were going to captivity. They would repent. He would bring them out.
Then it just that was kind of like the cycle that was going on. Right. So every time they were about to go into captivity, the most I would speak again and warn them he would send his prophets to tell them.
So if there's going to be a double fulfillment of prophecy for me, number one, it should be re-spoken again before it happens.
Well, just before you continue, I would just say of that, be careful because I've spoken with a lot of people who you would completely disagree with on certain topics who are bold enough to say, well, if God wanted to such and such, he should have such and such.
God's going to do what he's going to do regardless of what we think. So I would say just be careful making the statement. Well, if there's going to be a double fulfillment, then, you know, that needs to be said the second time.
You know, just be careful because if God chose to do it in a way that you don't like.
Well, that's OK. That almost sounds like the guy that I debated on Calvinism where he said, well, you know, God would never give a command that we can't keep. And where does God say that? And I brought up, OK, God says, be holy as I am holy.
Right. Unfortunately, the sad part is what Seth decided to do there instead of just going, hey, you're right. I got to throw out that theory because God does give us commands we can't keep. Instead, he goes, I can be holy like God is holy.
Let me tell you, Emeka, why I asked the question, because as you study through the New Testament, the writers did a fantastic job of making it very clear where Christ was the fulfillment of these Old Testament passages point for point.
So one of the things that I think is interesting is the fact that, you know, for example, David multiple times, you know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And Christ is quoting that on the cross.
David meant it in the moment. It was his words. And yet it was also predictive. And he didn't sit down and say, this is a prophecy. I'm prophesying what the Messiah is going to say when we've all turned against him.
I mean, all throughout Isaiah, you know, speaking of the suffering servant and whatnot, there are so many things that were point for point exactly what Christ fulfilled. And so I guess I'm confused. I mean, I guess you could, you know, you could toss out double fulfillment and just say, well, you know, if it was fulfilled in the Old Testament, it wasn't going to be fulfilled again in the future at any point, which if you do that, you got a lot of end times prophecy issues that you're going to struggle with.
But maybe this was answered on the last show because I didn't watch all of it. So I don't want to take up too much time. But I'm just curious how it is you feel comfortable saying that when Christ in the New Testament clearly fulfilled these Old Testament prophecies.
Well, we don't count that.
Well, one of the things that we talked about in the first week was that number one, when you actually look at the entirety of those prophecies that you say fulfilled, one we went over was Matthew, the prophecy in Matthew about the virgin birth.
It comes from Isaiah seven. When you read Isaiah seven in the full context, there was more than just the virgin birth to that prophecy.
There was, there was. So same thing is true in Isaiah 11. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. In Micah five two, it's the exact same thing. There's more than just somebody who's there from the beginning. We're talking about now. Also later on, it mentions in verse 16, a deliverance from the Assyrians.
So for me, if we're talking about double prophecy, you need to fulfill all the requirements of that prophecy or you make that prophet a liar because everything that the most high said must come to pass.
According to what, to what the prophet spoke, if the prophet said anything and that didn't come to path, they had a, they had a death sentence. So if we're going to look at prophecies, because especially when we dealt with the Matthew, I'm sorry, Isaiah seven in verse 16, it specifically said, and before that child.
So now it's pointing back to the same child in verse 14. Before that child reaches a certain age, the two Kings, which you're afraid of Ahaz, shall be, their land shall be forsaken. So if that child is, if the Messiah is that child, then you need to see that happen with that Messiah.
And because we don't see that happen with that Messiah, therefore, to me, he cannot be that child.
Well, yeah. And that's where you and I are going to disagree on the double fulfillment aspect of it because it was completely perfectly fulfilled within the Old Testament context. But then it was also fulfilled in a later context.
I said, Isaiah chapter 11, because in that passage it talks about that, that root, you know, coming from Jesse, which is really specific, you know, what you're going to, you're going to name Jesse and you get the line of David and so on and so forth.
But it talks about things that Christ did during his earthly ministry, but it also talks about things that he hasn't done yet. Things that he is going to do when he returns. Things that have not been completed.
Then that doesn't mean that because Christ didn't do all of those things from Isaiah 11, when he was here on earth the first time, that therefore Christ didn't fulfill the prophecy because it wasn't all fulfilled.
There's a future fulfillment of the later parts. I'm sure you've heard of the mountain view aspect to this. You know what I'm talking about?
I haven't heard that, but I think I can flip my head around what you're getting at. We talked about it last week.
Oh, you did? Okay. Yeah, I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and my favorite view is when my wife and I are out walking, there's just this vista of mountains. It's so glorious, but I've actually hiked those mountains too.
And from where I'm walking, you know, the mountains are like this. You can't tell with the human eye how much space there is in between them. You see them almost as if they're the same singular mountain.
But as you get close to them and you notice that there are miles in between peaks, it has everything to do with how you're looking at it. And so oftentimes, you know, people say with the double fulfillment is that these Old Testament prophets were seeing what we don't even know how they saw.
I mean, yeah, sometimes they were given a vision. Sometimes God told them things, but even their visions, such a hard time explaining what they were looking at because it just blew their minds so often that as they were looking at these things, they didn't always completely, perfectly see the timeframes involved.
They saw things happening, but they didn't always, God didn't always give to them. And, you know, this is gonna happen the first time Christ comes and this is gonna happen later. So that's an important thing to consider because you see that even in the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that happened with this.
In the context of the Old Testament. Okay, no, I completely understand what you're saying. I understand your point of view because trust me, I used to, like he said earlier, you know, I was, I came from, I mean, even in my youth, I wasn't very book knowledgeable with the word that happened within my life.
Actually within the last three years is when I really began to do my studying and researching things. And I began messianic, Christian, like all about, you know, and for me, like if you're familiar with the Hebrew roots movement, it's that's messianic.
It's also that we gotta keep the law. So that was kind of my background. And I seen, I mean, man, I would look through the Old Testament and I would just, oh, he's here, he's there, he's there. He's, I mean, I seen him everywhere, right?
And then as I What was that? But just not in Jesus. You see him all throughout the Old Testament. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. I seen him, I seen the Messiah all throughout the Old Testament.
And, you know, from my knowledge, but as I began to look for context and read for context to get the understanding of the Old Testament, I put myself in the people, in the shoes of the people in the Old Testament to say, okay, if these people were hearing something and they seen it fulfilled in their time, they're looking at it saying, yo, this was fulfilled, right?
Even the prophets would say, yep, my word came to pass. That's it. They're not saying that there's a double meaning. And I don't believe anybody in the Old Testament was looking for this other aspect to be a double fulfillment of prophecy.
They were looking at saying, look, it came to pass. This is who fulfilled it. You know, this person fulfilled that. This person fulfilled this. This person fulfilled that. And that's it, you know? And so for me, it makes it hard for me, like when you talk about double prophecy and then you see the incompleteness of the fulfillment of certain prophecies, that's what really, for me, threw up a red flag and said, this couldn't be this individual because he's not fulfilling these prophecies according to what the Most High said.
Yeah. So one of the, I mean, there's a lot, and it's at the end of the show, but, you know, one of the things, I'm going to do this. What I want to do is, if I sent you a book called Torahism, would you read it?
Yeah, sure. Okay. It's basically a book that addresses the Hebrew roots movement and ones like it. So what we're going to do is, send me your name and address so I can order a copy for you, okay? And I'll send you that to read through.
I think that might be helpful for you. And we'll try to, you know, maybe next week we can get further along in this. I know that you're going, and you're, you know, folks, I want you to recognize someone with a Mecca different than some of the other people we've had on here is he's not just sitting here and trying to argue and debate, okay?
Just for debate sake, if you're seeing, he went and spent the week trying to look up some things we talked about. And so, you know, this is something where I want to point a difference. Let me use two examples, you know, a Mecca and Seth, who had debated on Calvinism.
You notice the difference. Seth got very prideful. Seth, you know, last week, he was all over the chat. You know, he was still blowing up the video in the comments from the debate, you know, and people are still answering them.
The reality is that that's a person who's very prideful and is, you know, trying to prove he's right to the point where he'll commit blasphemy to hold his position, which is really sad. That's not a Mecca, right?
I hope you guys see a difference. Why would I spend the time with him? Very simple, because he's trying to understand and he's not someone that's just, he's not here just trying to teach us, just trying to convince us how right he is, right?
There's a difference there. When you are practicing apologetics, you have to recognize the difference of the person you're dealing with. You're dealing with a guy like Seth, that's where the scripture verse, don't throw your pearls before swine would come in.
You're dealing with a guy like a Mecca, you're going to take the time and work with him, okay? So I just wanted to point that out to folks, because I mean, we're here to teach you guys, to show you guys how to do apologetics.
So a couple of things real quick before we close out. And Mecca, I'm going to keep looking. I was trying to find, I actually have someone that I knew, a professor did his dissertation, his doctoral dissertation on those very passages that you were saying are, have the dual meanings.
And he, I mean, it's about 700, 800 pages of explanation of that. So I'm trying to look for that to send to you. So for Chris Honholds, I did get a text message here from Joe Conkle. And he just said this, he said, because he couldn't get a good connection.
He just said, love you guys and tell Chris, I don't know why, but when I see him, I think of Buddy the Elf. Look, he told me to, he told me to read it. I, I'm just after, all right, let's finish up. I'm going to put a Mecca out.
And John, you had, you had a question real quick. Let's seek to answer it. So we'd answer this one before we close out tonight.
Okay, because we're officially in Anthony time. So I'm really excited about that.
So Aaron, Anthony time is because when, when Anthony was hosting the show, when I couldn't, I couldn't be here. Every show he does goes over the two hour mark. And so now officially anything after 10 o 'clock is called Anthony time.
And now it's where everyone's cheering because Anthony time. So go ahead. Just to prolong it, to get into Anthony time. I understand. I know, I know.
I'm just drawing it out. Anyway, quick question was this. I was having a conversation on Facebook group. And, and so basically the question was who raised Jesus from the dead? You know, did he, did he raise himself or was it God the father?
And, or, or was it Trinity itself or whatever? And so I refer to the verse of Jesus when he said I destroyed this temple, you know, and three days later, I will raise myself. So I would say that it was Jesus himself that raised himself, but you guys also make probably some good comments also.
So go ahead. Let's put it this way. There's, there's certain acts that we see all three members of the Trinity involved in. Creation would be one. The resurrection would be another. So to say, did Jesus raise himself from the dead?
The answer is yes. But as in private chat, as Aaron said, who raised them from the dead? God, Jesus is God. So, you know, the, the, you can say the father did it. You could say the spirit did it. And you could say Jesus did it.
Sure. Because God did it. The same, you can say with creation, because we see all three members of the Trinity created. Right.
Do you mind if I share a couple of these verses here? There are verses. Oh yeah. And Acts 2 .32 says, God has raised this Jesus to life. You specifically said, you know, Christ said, I will, I will raise it again in three days.
He said, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down. I have a full authority to lay it down. And the authority to take it up again. And then Romans 8 .11 says,. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you.
So it's there in the scriptures. It's easy to see if you, if you say, you know, only one of the, you know, God had did it. You're denying the scriptures that say the other members of the Godhead were involved.
Gotcha.
So specifically Galatians 1 .1 says that the father raised Jesus from the dead. First Peter 3 .18 says the spirit raised Jesus from the dead. We also see that in Romans 1 .4, Romans 8 .11. And then John, as you just stated in John, Jesus says he'll raise himself from the dead.
So we have verses where all three of them are said to have raised Jesus from the dead, including Acts 2 .24, where it just says in general, God raised Jesus from the dead. So it's pretty clear.
Okay. And so before we end up closing out, just to let folks know, if you saw when Emeka was sharing on his, sharing his desktop, you saw that he was going online to get some tools to try to be able to do his Bible search.
And that's a great idea that works, you know, using free tools, but there's something else you can get. And not only can you get it, but you could support striving for eternity at the same time. And that is Lagos Bible software.
It is a great software product. It's happens to be what I use. And we actually, they are a sponsor here of the apologetics live and to make it easy for you. Cause they gave us a link. That's kind of hard, but to make it easy for you, all you have to go do is go to bit .ly bit .ly slash SFE Lagos.
And if you go there, you will get five free books from striving for eternity on your new Lagos system. Even if you're upgrading your Lagos, you can go there and get five free books on us along with the discounts that Lagos provides.
So now we, before we close out, there's a couple of comments here that I did notice, you know, humble clay said, love you guys. God bless back to work. But then there was something else. Chris is always letting us know when we have different advertising breaks.
Um, there were some comments that I noticed here, Anthony, that, you know, humble clay says, Anthony time rocks, you know, and Melissa says, I would listen to the show, even if it went on for another hour.
And KT had said tonight, Anthony can hardly get a word in edgewise. But I think that, I think the comment that, that wins it is KT's other comment that said, Anthony could talk all night. People can have their kids go to sleep listening to him.
And that is the winning comment of the night.
Of course, I think you're taking it out of context, but.
No, that was, that was right in direct context of Melissa's. I would listen to it for another hour. And then KT said, Anthony can talk on there. If anyone that doesn't know, go evangelize with Anthony sometime and you'll see he can talk all night because once he preaching, he doesn't get off the box preaching.
And I always look to see who's to my right. If it's somebody other than Andrew, I'll kindly get down. If it's Andrew, I kindly stay on.
People have their kids listening to him. So there you go. Anthony is his own anesthetic. So folks, we really do appreciate you listening. Appreciate all of those. Appreciate Aaron coming in. Chris, I know you had your night off and you came in.
Appreciate that. Mecca and the others who came in real quick before we go. I want to encourage you guys. If you would consider supporting Striving for Eternity. If you like the work that we're doing here, we put these shows on two hours every week.
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