Latest / The Rhett Palmer Show / Biblical Context is Everything Part 2

Transcript

Biblical Context is Everything Part 2 · The Rhett Palmer Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: He is the great I am.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: His first friend was Abraham.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Surely said to Abraham, I am that I am.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello, I'm Rhett Palmer, and uh I'm here with Michael Bagby.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Michael Bagby is a biblical scholar, studied in Europe, history.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh, you know, so you what are you looking for?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: You make it sound so grandiose.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think what I'm trying to do is to build the credibility.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: You want to know who's teaching you, and so that's why we have titles.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Who's teaching is the coffee roaster at the Rio Coco Cafe.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, the coffee roaster.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a we have a coffee for the show.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Cup of Friendship.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually drinking one of our blends right now.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: This is a blend of some Ethiopian, Colombian, and uh Honduran coffee.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Did you get the first bag made yet?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: You were going to do that yesterday.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You were said you were getting busied yesterday.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: You wanted to do it yesterday, but anyway, we will be having a putting myself on report publicly.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have a do we have a page yet, or how do they order this?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll uh have the details in our next uh It's not available yet, so you cannot have the same coffee that we're having, nanny nanny boo-boo.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thus far.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We will soon.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get on to what we're talking about.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking about the biblical We're talking about just the context of the Bible.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So biblical context is important.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how we uh 21st century uh North Americans we try to read the Bible through our own eyes, and often we miss some very significant uh messages that are being conveyed.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we talked about how when uh Jesus broke the bread and passed the wine out to his disciples, which we call communion, the disciples understood that this is the way that uh Hebrew men proposed marriage to their beloved, and they perhaps thought that Jesus was now proposing a relationship with them uh that was uh on a very intimate level.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And afterwards, uh we see in the pages of the Christian scriptures they refer to the church as the bride of Christ, and we're gonna have a big celebration with all the followers of Jesus, the marriage supper of the Lamb, as it says in the book of Revelation.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: So this image of passing bread and wine was connected to a betrothal.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so for us, when we take communion, as we're told to do, often in remembrance of me, uh I think it now adds another dimension to the whole little tradition that we have among the body of Christ here.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're not just eating a little piece of uh wafer and drinking uh some grape juice as we do in our churches.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this is actually a representation of a proposal of an intimate relationship between God and mankind.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing, you know, uh you you you think flippantly these things can be broken and how important that covenant is, because there was a uh a prophet, right?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he was married to a woman who was a a whore, a prostitute.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: She left the house and went downtown and she was prostitute, and now she became an old lady, and that God speaks to the prophet says, Go back downtown, get your wife, and bring her home.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: As as as you are married to her, so am I married to Israel.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Though she go whoring about, I will forgive her and reconcile.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So good point.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So God really is out there wanting to forgive us of our um our error in our ways.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the um the story of Hosea is a remarkable story.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the story?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because he's told to uh marry this woman and keep keep keep in relationship with her, even when she's out having sex with other men, you know.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I thought if you had a sexual affair in a relationship that you ended the covenant with marriage.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It says that somewhere in the Bible.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: But this is uh an example of God's grace and mercy in the pages of the Hebrew scripture.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Over the case.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Moses gave a decree that you could divorce.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Well, that was only because of the hardness of your heart.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So then so in other words, so when a woman forgives her husband or a husband forgives his wife for maybe doing things she shouldn't do, that that doesn't necessarily mean the covenant is eternally broken between them.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think we have seen many marriages restored and reconciled.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I have dear friends uh in Hawaii that married, had a a child, and then through differences, I don't think there was infidelity, but just irresec irreconcilable differences, they divorced.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: She moved to Kansas, and he was on flights to see his son, and as they went back and forth, they started to remember why they got married in the first place.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when I met them, uh uh, this was in uh probably '89, when I first met uh Mark and Jory Spencer, my dear friends on Maui.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um they had just remarried.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: They had a couple more kids.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: They are uh if you would meet them, you would never imagine that these two were divorced.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: The second time around wasn't Sinatra's.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and their family has uh been kind of a uh a low uh a centerpiece of community in Maui.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: So many uh young people have come through their home, and Mark and Jory have a ministry of just bringing of hospitality, bringing so many people uh in their home.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Mark is a builder, he and his uh uh father Jesse built many homes on Maui, and uh they're just remarkable people.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love stories of reconciliation.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can sit there and boohoo watching these miracles and things, and you know, they pull culprits who were bank robbers or or people that have been alcoholics or whatever, and they come to a saving knowledge of the Lord, and the Lord ostensibly says, I I don't see your sins in there.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're wiped out, that's why I died on the cross, and so there's there is a new beginning available for all of us.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we once knew the Lord and fell, you can come back to him.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh uh the Bible says very clearly that the process of salvation is a process.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's a process.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: When Peter gives the message on the day of Pentecost about Jesus being the Messiah, the people say, What shall we do?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And Peter says, Repent and be baptized, and the Lord will give you the Holy Spirit.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: The process is that we consider the offer of forgiveness and we stop walking in the direction that we are walking, and we turn, and repentance literally means to turn and walk a different direction.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we walk now with God.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now we accept God's grace, and when God sees the sincerity of our heart, then he accepts us into his family and he seals the deal by giving us his Holy Spirit.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: And now we begin a process of change.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this is what happened to my friends Mark and Jory.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Mark was a guy that went to church pretty much all his life, but at some point he really it became very real for him.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And Jory the same thing, and now they're passionate.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wonder why some people seem to be you know, I've interviewed over 40,000 people, according to the detective.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Over 40,000 people in 32 years having a radio show.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had see different threads.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what amazes me is some people are born with a humility, uh, and and some people are born with integrity.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's you know, just like you and I have a little covenant with our our coffee, but we haven't even signed a contract.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I would not I would never worry about any any sort of a contract with you.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you're an absolutely righteous man for Jesus, and I just don't have to worry about that.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm your friend.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're friends.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And this is this is the way friends treat one another.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, okay.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: With honesty and so the point I think you're making, Red, is there's so many people out there that come to know Christ and they become changed people.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: They become very different, and they become men and women of integrity.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a much easier road to be honest.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh d this is what we've we finished our last episode talking about, Jesus taking his disciples to this region of Caesarea Philippi, where there's the city of Banyas.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um Banias was a place where there was cultic worship going on.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Cultic.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's a big uh area where there's basically a big bedrock that's coming a part of the Mount Hermon Formation, and there's a big, like, solid wall and cliff about 150 feet high.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's caves that go into this wall and there's niches.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh the temple to Augustus was built over the mouth of the cave that was so deep the locals called it the gates of hell.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Next to it was the court of Pan and the Nymphs, where some sort of sexual worship was taking place.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: And right next to that was the temple to Nemesis, where you could curse people by going into this temple and walking to the back and writing the name of the person you want to be cursed, throw it down into the hole, and when it broke, hence the word nemesis.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he or she is my nemesis, my enemy.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and so this is, and there are thousands of pottery fragments in the bottom of this cave.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then right next to it, as we described last time, was the altar of the dancing goats, where they took uh goats and they shaved their hooves and put them on this metal.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: But these are cults.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Differentiate, wait, wait, let me please let me finish here, okay?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because the point that you're talking about is the point that Jesus is making here by taking his disciples to Caesarea Philippi.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Who do people say that I am?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, Ah, some say you're Jeremiah, some say you're John the Baptist, some say you're Elijah.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Who do you say that I am?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And Peter says, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus says, Peter, you didn't come up with that yourself.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: My Father in heaven gave you a child.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you are a small rock, as it says in the Greek, but upon this bedrock or this big big rock, I will build my church.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: And what does that mean?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the gates of hell will not come up.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean by this rock?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if this is this is the point that I hope I'm making with you, is the geography of the moment, of the situation, of the setting, I believe helps us understand what Jesus is actually saying.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you've never visited Caesarea Philippi, and you've never gone to Banias, and you haven't been by the waterfalls of the mountain come of the snow melting from Mount Hermon, and you haven't seen the stream that's coming out of this cave that was called the gates of hell by the locals, and you haven't witnessed the altar of the dancing goats where this bloody ritual was done where goats were dancing on this hot metal grill, and and the priests were cutting off their limbs and throwing them back, and blood is splattering around, and people are there worshiping their gods.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, On this big rock I will build my church.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: However, in the Reformation, when the papacy was very corrupt, uh guys like uh Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI, he invited people to come down to the uh celebration of the year 1500 in Rome.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, if you come and join the celebration in the month of December to bring in this new century, any sins that you commit during that celebration will be forgiven beforehand.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: So come on down.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously, for the reformers man-made religions.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, for the reformers, this if they look at this passage from uh Matthew chapter 16, this is not Jesus giving authority to the popes at Rome to be the leaders of the church.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: What else could it be?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for the reformers, they said, it must be the truth that Jesus is the Messiah.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Upon this rock I will build my church.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it makes total sense.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: It really does.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: The truth that Jesus is the Messiah, this is gonna be the foundation of the church, the body of Christ.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's true.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: But when you go to Banyas and you're standing in front of this huge rock formation where all this cultic idol worship was taking place, and Jesus says, I'm gonna build my church upon this bedrock or this big rock.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: I have the notion what Jesus is saying to his disciples, you see all these people running around worshiping their pagan gods this way?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna come in and build my church right on top of that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And Rhett, that's what happened to me.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was a guy that was a pilot in the Navy.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: I thought about God only in critical situations.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, God help me!
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: The engines just died in an aircraft.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: I uh got out of the Navy, I became a ski bum in Vale, Colorado.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: I managed a bar and worked in a hotel.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Were you into Eastern Malaysia?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: My lifestyle was a very much uh just fun and satisfying myself.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I moved to Maui to open an ice cream business with a friend.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: My cousins who had lived there took me to their church.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: I had an experience with God.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Everything changed, Rett.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: You see, I was one of those guys that was worshiping my idol at the time was the mountain, was skiing.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: That was my God.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: But when I had that experience with the Lord, I went back to Vale after uh being five months on Maui, because I could not imagine not skiing that winter.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: But when I got back and I got my ski pass and I got my job back at the hotel, the mountain didn't have a hold on me anymore.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Something had changed in me.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: You see, Jesus came and he built his church right on top of me.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I I have many friends who had this very similar experience that I have, that they weren't looking for God.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: But the reality is, in the Bible says, that God is constantly pursuing us.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: He's tapping us on the shoulder, he's giving us signs to say, hey, look, I'm your creator, I'm here, I love you, I care for you, I dearly want you to live life in a manner that's good for you and good for the people around you.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus came and he built his church right on top of me, Rit.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: And my wife, Laura Uetta, grew up as a Buddhist in uh Honolulu, and she didn't never hurt really knew about Jesus, and she practiced this very mystical form of Buddhism.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: They had a box, they offered uh they burnt incense, they had uh bowls of rice, they they they were talking to the spirits.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then her auntie uh told her about Jesus and gave her a prayer that ended in Jesus' name.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so Lara, as a 16-year-old girl, thought, I wonder who this guy Jesus is.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So she went to the library that was uh in her neighborhood, and she was so surprised when she looked in the card catalog to see all of these books, and then she walked back to the section of the library, and here are these two long shelves with books about Jesus.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: She thought, this guy must be somebody.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And she checked out five books and she took them home and read them.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: She became convinced that this guy was somebody special, and she walked down the hill to the church at the bottom of her street at Wanaloa Gardens Missionary Church, and there was her piano teacher, Jackie Weber, and Laura was the first Christian in her family.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: So in my family, Jesus came and built his church right on top of us who were literally worshiping other gods.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the context, the geographical context of this passage in Matthew 16 helps us understand that the church is going to be an offensive force.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: It will be nothing will overpower it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so the geography really helps me understand upon you, upon this rock, I will build my church.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, culture we've talked about, geography we've talked about.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: There's a third factor that helps us understand uh the message of the Bible, and that's the politics.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: What were the politics that were going on in the background of the Bible?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: For example, we got this guy Herod that was the king when Jesus was born.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: What do we know about Herod?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he went to uh school in Rome, and one of his classmates, Octavian, who later became Caesar Augustus, knew Herod and knew his family.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: And he knew Herod to be a very ruthless man with just uh a very paranoid guy who anybody who challenged him he had killed.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he slaughtered thousands of his own subjects during his long reign.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, Octavian said, uh, it's better to be Herod's pig than be a family member.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: You have a better chance of surviving.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Herod killed his two sons when they thought uh they were conspiring against him.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: He drowned them in the pools right below the Herodian.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: His wife Miriam, he had her killed because he thought she was uh conspiring against him.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Who had his wife killed?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Herod.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking about Herod the Great, the one that was the king when Jesus was born.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So had his wife killed?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I never knew that.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh a very brutal man.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not the one that was warned by his wife.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: That was Pontius Pyle, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, this is this is King Herod.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: King Herod the one that built the temple, uh, the one that uh was alive when the Magi came.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty bad guy.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because when uh Matthew records, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Matthew 2, in the days of Herod the king, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who is born the king of the Jews?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's a line that kind of sticks out.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Why was all Jerusalem troubled with him?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because they knew who Herod was, and anybody that challenged him, Herod killed, they knew there was going to be blood.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: So once we understand this paranoia of Herod, Matthew records, When Herod saw that he'd been tricked by the Magi, he became very enraged, and he sent and slewed all the male children who were in Bethlehem and its vicinity from two years old and younger, according to the time that had been determined by the Magi.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: So now we can understand why Herod sent soldiers to slaughter all the babies in Bethlehem.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because he was a ruthless guy.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now why is it that people are not cognizant?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: They have this they're in a fanciful dream thinking they're going to last forever, and that greed and and uh you know lasciviousness and all these things will never visit them.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't get it.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for me, the the politics of this story helped me understand why all of Jerusalem was troubled.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: We read that line and uh we we just don't get it unless we understand who Herod was.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when Jesus uh says in the uh in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Whoever forces you to go to one mile, go with him too.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what do you think is the background of Jesus saying that?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's because the Romans were were it was dictated that if you were a Jew and a Roman soldier said, You have to carry my stuff uh for for a mile, you had to do it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, Not only do what that is, go with him two miles.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a specific Roman law, Angaria.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: It authorized Roman officers to force the inhabitants of any occupied territory.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: A guy named Mike Bagby.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sit right across from me.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because of this law, this is why uh the uh Jesus is saying, when they for force you to carry their stuff one mile, go ahead and carry it to show the love.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: So unless we understand the background, this apps absolutely makes sense.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Roman soldier would just be perplexed.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: You being a Jew here, I harshly give you this burden to carry my backpack or whatever for a mile, and you're willing to go another mile?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we see this uh again uh when Paul and Silas are arrested in uh Philippi and they're thrown, beaten and thrown in jail.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the next when the jailer uh finds out the that the doors come open that night during the earthquake and they don't escape, suddenly the jailer.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Now becomes a follower of Jesus.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next day the magistrates say, Well, just release them.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And Paul and Silas say, No, we are Roman citizens.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, now in the text we read that, but the understanding that we need to get is Roman citizens were not allowed to be beaten and imprisoned unless there was due process.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And these guys had not gotten due process.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So the city officials were now terrified that they had beaten Romans and Silas.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Both Paul and Silas are Roman citizens.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now who was Silas?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Silas was his traveling companion, fellow evangelist.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Luke was the doctor.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: So when the policeman reported these words, uh okay.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: So what Paul says is they have beaten us in public without trial, men who are Romans and thrown us into prison, and now they're sending us away secretly?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Indeed, let them come themselves and bring us out.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the policeman reported these words to the chief magistrates.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: They were afraid when they heard they were Romans, and they came and appealed to them.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And when they had brought them out, they kept begging them to leave the city.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: See?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you understand the politics behind Roman citizens having rights.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: So did Paul forgive them and move out?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: He moved on.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Another time politics comes into the picture is on our celebration of Palm Sunday.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now John records that on the next day, this is the first day of the Passover week, a large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches of palm trees and they went out to meet him, and they began to shout, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus, finding a young donkey, said on it, as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Alright?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now, when I was a kid, and my parents took me to church, and in Sunday school on Palm Sunday, we drew pictures of palm branches.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: And in Hawaii, I uh churches that I'm part of there on Palm Sunday, they cut palm fronds and they bring it into Sunday school.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I was at Kumalani Chapel uh on the West Maui a couple years ago, and my friend Rhondolan uh and her husband Steve uh cut some palm branches and they brought them in, and the kids were waving those as they were celebrating the uh reenactment of Palm Sunday.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: But what's with the palm branch?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Why were they waving palm branches?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh my name happens to be Palmer.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Palmer means one coming home from the holy land bearing well, because the palm tree was revered because it takes the brackish black water at its basin, and when it goes up to the top, it's drinkable.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: It also sways in the wind, and unlike regular trees that will break in a hurricane, the palm tree is very flexible, teachable, meek, pliable, and it will survive.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what the this is where the good thing is, it bears more fruit, and I hope this is true.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: It bears more fruit in its latter years rather than its former years.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's highly revered.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's good.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: In addition to that, palm branches had a special meaning for the people of Israel.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: What was that?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: If you go into the old city, there's uh a couple places, like, for example, there's one shop, walk right in on David Street, um, right off past Jaffa.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's the street that kind of goes down into the old city from Jaffa Gate.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And uh a few steps down, there's a store just to your left, and some friends of uh Randy's run that store, and so oftentimes we've gone there with him.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Randy has bought some coins from these guys, and one day Randy is Randy Smith, our uh teacher, uh archaeologist, uh professor that we work with.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, he runs Christian travel study programs.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Randy introduced me to these guys, so they started pulling out some first century coins because they thought I would want to buy one and make a necklace out of it.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: Randy actually has a ring uh made out of a first century coin.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the every coin wret that I saw that they showed me had a palm tree or a palm branch on it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: And these were coins that were minted during the Jewish revolt of '66.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it turns out that the palm tree was a symbol of the nation of Israel.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why they put it on the back of their coins.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I never knew that the palm tree was a symbol of nation of Israel.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: So they're waving the branch of the symbol of the nation of Israel, and they're yelling, Hosanna.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And John quotes Zechariah 9:9 Behold, your king is coming, mounted on a colt, a donkey of a colt, okay?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Humbly riding on a donkey.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a prophecy.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: How old was that prophecy?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's uh probably at least uh 400 years old, okay.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: So they're Jesus riding down the Mount of Olives.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's the first day of Passover.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're expecting the Messiah to come.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus has already proven that he can feed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: He's walked on water, he's healed many people.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's even recorded in the Gospels that after some of his miracles, especially after he fed the people, the five and the four thousand, they wanted to make him king.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they're hopeful that he's going to be the general that's going to subdue the uh Romans.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Not only is there free lunch, but he's going to kick the Romans out and re-establish the Jewish uh nation.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: They're expecting that.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: So here comes Jesus riding just as the kings did.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: They're waving the palm branch, the nation, it's like na uh the national flag, and they're hollering, Hosanna.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that word hosanna, I used to think, ah, praise the Lord.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's an Aramaic phrase that actually means, save us now.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Save us now.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: They're waving the national flag.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're yelling, save us now.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Hosanna.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a religious procession, it's a political demonstration.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the people are thinking.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: They're welcoming the military political leader into the city to kick out the Romans.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why a lot of the big shots were ticked off at this guy.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: And they and the religious people say, told Jesus, tell them to stop saying that.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, if I tell them to stop saying that, the stones themselves will speak.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now often I I for many years I thought miraculously the stones themselves will call out that Jesus is Lord.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be some supernatural thing.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, there's a first century uh walkway that goes up from the Kidron Valley right up past Caiaphas's house, and the stones are actually in situ, right where they've always been.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: You can walk up them, and I can imagine Jesus walking up the stones and these stones, and uh, and I've thought these are the stones that are going to cry out.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus is Lord.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: The stones themselves will cry out.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in I think it was 2007.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: This was after uh the intifada of 2000, 2001 and two, where there was armed uh Palestinian gunmen that were shooting Israelis at bus stops and bridge overpasses, and there was a lot of people killed during this time.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh the Israelis built a 18-foot cement wall between where our neighborhood of uh Gilo and Bethlehem.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: What year did they do that?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I think they did this in 2004, 2004.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was after I was there.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: So now you can't go in on the main street anymore where there was a great pizza place called Balloons that we used to go to on Sunday after church and uh eat.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, there was good p there was good food in Bethlehem.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: We lived, we were in the neighborhood right next to Bethlehem.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: But now there's a big cement wall, and you have to actually enter through a military checkpoint, which is in another location.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were coming through with our group, and we were actually uh with a uh Palestinian, an Arab Christian guy that was our tour guide, uh last name Sabat.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have friends in Israel that are from Jerusalem, Sami and Diana Sabat.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked him, Do you have any uh any family in Honduras?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, my cousin Sammy.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I know them.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: They're the ones that taught me to drink Turkish coffee, and Diana fed me falafel for the first time in my life, you know.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, as we're coming through the gate, there's a bunch of Palestinian teenagers and they're throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: And my friend uh Mr.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sabat just calmly said, the stones are crying out.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: The stones are crying out.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus is saying, if I tell them to stop, the rocks are gonna start speaking.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: People are gonna start picking them up and throwing them at the soldiers and the authorities.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's the context of this political demonstration of what Jesus was saying.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: He's riding it on a donkey, the people are yelling, save us now, they're waving uh symbol of the nation.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and Jesus is coming in, and the the uh religious authorities say, Stop your disciples from saying this.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: I tell you, if I tell them to stop, the stones are gonna start speaking.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: So riding on a donkey humbly, is that was that something all the leaders did?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh remember, David rode his mule into town.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: But remember, Rhett, this is also the first day of Passover.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: This was a time where people traditionally came into the city to choose their sacrifice for the Passover sacrifice on the altar on the Passover celebration.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus wasn't coming as the reigning king.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: He was presenting himself as the perfect Passover Lamb.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's such a connection between that Passover celebration and the crucifixion of Jesus.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what are the chances that God could orchestrate it that he comes in on Passover?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Behold the Passover lamb that taketh away the sins of the world.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this was what John uh said uh behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus was presenting himself as the sacrifice that was going to keep the angel of death uh passing over the house, as it happened in the book of Exodus, and not killing the firstborn uh of the family.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And still people will say today, oh, I wish she didn't have to do that.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then and we think that.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter said, uh, you know, let's when Peter said about washing my feet, oh no, you can't, well, I'm not gonna let you wash my feet.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: So Pete, he says, Peter, if you don't let me wash your feet, you have no place with me.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the same thing with this.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he had to do this or decided long ago in all eternity that he would prove his love.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what greater, what greater way?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say right now, okay, to prove a friendship, somebody's going by and they're shooting bullets at us.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I jump out in front of you and I take a bullet.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go, wow, Rhett was even a better friend than I thought.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: To lay down his life for me.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: So so I think we we we misunderstand what's happening on Palm Sunday.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: So knowing the context of what the people are thinking really helps us get the message.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a political demonstration going on.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: People are saying, let's make him king, but a few days later they're saying crucify him because Jesus did not meet their expectations.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so they were ticked off because he decided he wasn't going to be the military guy they wanted him to be.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't care that you heal people, we don't care about that.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is how Jesus came to the point of uh offering uh uh to betray him because Jesus was not meeting his expectations.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: Judas's.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you think that was part of Judas's thing.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Even after the resurrection in Acts chapter 1, we hear the disciples say, now, Jesus, is this the time that you're going to restore the kingdom?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're still thinking.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have the benefit of hindsight.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: So looking back and reading what the gospels are telling us, for me, it really helps me to get into the room and understand what they're thinking.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: This was super important.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: So geography, culture, politics.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think another uh thing to consider is the textual context of understanding a passage.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the scriptures are to really to be read as a whole, not just disjointed paragraphs or sentences.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just cherry pick a verse out of its context to try and prove a point.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like I could say to you, Rhett, you know, the Bible declares that there is no God.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's true.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: The Bible declares, Psalm 14 says, There is no God.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at the entire verse of Psalm 14, verse 1, the verse says, a fool says in his heart, there is no God.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: So this is like uh really important that we read in the uh just the context of what the Bible is actually talking about before we pull out a passage of scripture and start building a doctrine.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, one of the things that I've heard over and over again is when uh when a group of people are together and it's time to start either praying or worshiping, we'll hear somebody say, Well, we're two or more gathered, he's there with us, so we can begin.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard that?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: I sure have.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I heard it probably uh the first time uh as a new believer, I read a book uh on the shroud of Turin.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the there had been a team from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that had gone in 1979 to actually examine the shroud, and it appeared in an issue of National Geographic, and it was very intriguing to me.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: I actually bought a book about the shroud, and then I contacted the author who put me in touch with the Holy Shroud Guild in New York, and they sent me the pictures that this NASA jet propulsion lab team uh took, and I had these slides, and so I showed it to a Bible study at Hope Chapel, and then I uh showed it to some other friends, and then I got invited to speak at a Catholic church and show them.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: And soon I was speaking at every Catholic church on Maui, showing the the Shroud of Turin, and I was explaining it as the a good example of what crucifixion really looked like.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not I wasn't trying to portray it as a relic and a holy magical thing, but there's a image on that cloud.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know recently, within the past six months, the scientists have determined a billion trillion megapower uh, because our preacher was saying it last week, uh, went into whatever made this image had to be an atom almost like an atomic blast of power.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was uh the reality is the image is uh on the top microfibers of the fabric.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the only explanation is a burst of energy created the image.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's actually a negative image.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when the uh Secundo Pia.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder why.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: When Secundo Pia was an Italian guy that photographed the shroud in 1898, and when he was developing his negative, the glass plate, suddenly he saw the positive image come forth, and he realized this was a negative.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of mystery to the shroud.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: I used to develop films, I know what he's talking about.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: But uh one particular time I was at St.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Joseph's Church in Waikapoo, and it was my friend Norman and I.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: We set up our slide projector, and it was the priest.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody else showed up, Brett.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the priest said, Well, we're two or more gathered.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: God is here with us, so let's begin.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: That was wise of you.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's look at the context of that.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: We're two or more gathered, because at the time I was running, I was doing a lot of running, and uh I was training, I was ran the Maui Marathon a couple of times.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I would run from my house in Kehe all the way down to McKenna, and I would sit on the rocks, and I felt I was talking to the Lord.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: It was he and I one on one, and I I felt the presence of the Lord.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't quite understand someone telling me that it took two or three people to feel the presence of the Lord.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I investigated, where does this passage of Scripture come from?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually in Matthew chapter 18, and this is a good example of a disjointed interpretation.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: And here's what Jesus says.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: If he sins, if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: But if he does not listen to you, take one or two with you, so by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Again I say to you, and here's the verse, that if two of you agree on earth about anything they might ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: And here's the verse, for where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: We have two minutes left.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a teaching about the presence of God.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: This is a teaching about discipline in the church and what you do when a brother starts walking off the path.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: Where two or three are witnesses are gathered, now Jesus says, In your judgments and your evaluations, with two or three of witnesses gathered, trustworthy witnesses, they have my authority, I am there in with you in this.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: So this is not a teaching about the presence of God.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is a teaching about church discipline.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think about corporate prayer?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I uh that's a whole nother day.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to do a whole nother look, we got fifty-seven seconds.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: We'll have to talk that about that another day.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: So give us a summation.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think as we read the Bible, we have to step into their world.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: We have to get out of our 21st century world, the way we think, and understand we're dealing with a Greek-Roman culture, we're dealing with a Hebrew culture, we're dealing with two different languages that are being spoken.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're dealing with cultural practices that we have no understanding.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: But once we take time to actually dig in, the story, for example, that you mentioned of Abraham, when God said you're going to have uh this many children, he took them outside and showed him the stars, and Abram said, How will I know what you're saying is true?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then verse uh six of chapter 15, Abram believed God and it was reckoning to him as righteousness.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, God showed him by this very unusual practice of splitting animals and people walking between them and making covenant.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: God told Abram to split the animals, and God himself went through.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: And Abram knew God's going to be faithful, and even if I don't uphold my end of the bargain, he will uphold his.