Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "A Study of the book of Acts" by Neal Pollard - Part 11

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"A Study of the book of Acts" by Neal Pollard - Part 11 · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Good morning.
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We are in the class Challenges the Early Church Faced
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that are revealed to us in the book of Acts and how that
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we can learn from that as we face challenges.
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When you think about the challenges that the church faces,
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they're going to probably either be categorized as external challenges
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or internal challenges. What we're looking at today,
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all Hiram has to cover in the last class is the last fourth of
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the book of Acts and the challenges that the church faced. We're going to look
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at the challenges that the church faced at the end of the third missionary journey.
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So we're going to be looking in Acts 19-21. If you want
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to be turning your Bible there, that's where we're going to spend our time this
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morning. The Apostle Paul is on a very ambitious
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journey. Each one of these journeys has characteristics that
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separate them from one another. The first journey is on
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the eastern side of the empire and is Paul's— our
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first look at Paul's preaching. And you get an idea very early
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on of how bold Paul is and how relentless and
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how a lot more of his work in the first journey is going to center
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around the Jews first and then the Gentiles.
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And the Jews seem to play a lot more prominent part in hearing
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the preaching that Paul does. And something else that happens on the first journey is
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you really begin to see the resistance that the Jews have
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to Paul. He was one of them. And sometimes when you are walking
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lockstep with somebody and then you change, those that
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would've felt you to be very close can hold you
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in greater contempt and with greater hostility than they would somebody
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they did not ever align themselves with. And that happens with Paul
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in the first journey. When you get to that second journey, the Apostle Paul is
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going to— it's going to take more time. It's going to cover more area.
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He is going to take the gospel to a new continent. To Europe, and some
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of the churches that we have the letters written to in our New
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Testament are the result of Paul's work on that second journey. When you get to
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this last journey, although Paul is going back
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to some places and Paul is establishing new congregations,
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we're going to see that especially in Ephesus, as this
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journey gets deeper, Paul's mind,
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it's remarkable, Paul's going to say
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in 1 Corinthians 11:1, follow me or be imitators of me as I
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am of Christ. Do you find it interesting that as Jesus is getting near the
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end of His mission, what does He say? After He asked
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the apostles, who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? What do
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the gospel writers say began to happen from that moment forward?
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What does He begin to tell the disciples from that point?
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And what's coming? He says, the Son of Man
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must do what? Die. Go to Jerusalem and
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there suffer many things of the chief priests and the scribes and the elders,
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and there be crucified and be raised the 3rd day. Paul's message isn't
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exactly that, but what do you find Paul doing increasingly as the
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3rd journey progresses? What does he begin to tell everybody
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every place he goes? Where does he have to go?
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Jerusalem. He says, I've got to go, and we'll look at
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that. And so his mind is certainly on what he's doing.
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We're going to see that, but he's also determined to go to Jerusalem,
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and he knows what's going to happen to him in Jerusalem. And if he didn't
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know, there are several people who are going to tell him and remind him and
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warn him of what's going to happen if he goes to Jerusalem. And sure enough,
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that's what's going to happen. In this 3rd journey, especially in the
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part we're going to look at today, there is a great part of this that
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is revolves around the challenge of
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people's disobedience. And the fact of the matter is
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that if we are going to be true to the Lord's Great Commission to us,
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at some point, probably very early on, we are going to meet
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with the disobedience of other people. Now,
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if you think about that in a more nebulous term, why are people disobedient
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to the Word of God?
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Today? Okay, it may be an ignorance. Sometimes people have—
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want nothing to do with Christianity, don't want to follow God,
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and have prejudices against the Bible that they've not even opened. Okay, I think
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that's right. What— okay,
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so their minds have been prejudiced because of other things they've been taught.
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So folks are disobedient because of ignorance,
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It doesn't align with what they want to do. Okay.
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Very fundamentally, people want to do what people want to do.
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And the gospel has a way of really challenging that and forcing
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you to live in a way that's contrary to your nature or how you would
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like to or prefer to live. Anything else? Change is hard.
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Change is hard. It's very difficult.
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And when somebody is challenging us with the convicting
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message of God's Word, which is all about change, it's all about self-denial,
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taking up our cross? What is it that we have to crucify in our
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lives and follow after him, follow a standard outside
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of us? I think you'll find all of that when we are looking at Paul's
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work in Ephesus. How long does Paul spend in Ephesus?
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3 years. It's the longest that he spends in any place in his
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ministry. So in the middle of this long journey,
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he pauses to stay and to work in
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Ephesus. And it seems like that this work begins with what
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we saw at the end of class last week. You remember, that Paul comes
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and he encounters these disciples who had been preaching
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the baptism of John, who had embraced that. And what a
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great way for us to emphasize how even though
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we may have known some of what God's Word says,
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it's not sufficient if there's more to be obeyed and to be processed
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and to do as a part of God's will. And so that kicks off
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Paul's work with the Ephesians. Now, if you have your Bibles turned there,
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We're going to be looking at verse 8 and 9 because Hiram dealt with Ephesians
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19:1-7 at the end of class last week. Now, some of us
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who are in this room went to Cusadasi in
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October of 2023. That's the site where the ancient
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city of Ephesus is nearby. That's really the city, the modern city.
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And what's remarkable about the city of Ephesus is that most
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of it is still in the dirt. They have only been
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able to excavate a little bit of it. But in what has been
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excavated or what was above ground already, you have the Great Theater.
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The Great Theater could house 20,000 people,
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and it did. And then there's the Library of Celsus, which is
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the 2nd century. It would not have been there when Paul was
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doing his 3rd missionary journey there. And then there are terraced
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houses that are on the hillside in Ephesus that are
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a testament to how people lived at that particular time. But what is uncovered,
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And again, much of it is still to be excavated.
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Gives us some idea how grand and how important this city
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was. So here's Paul in the midst of this place,
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a typical flourishing city in
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the Roman Empire. Paul is doing his work there.
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Look at verse 8 and verse 9. Now, this is Paul teaching
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for 3 months in the synagogue of Ephesus. It says, he entered the
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synagogue and for 3 months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about
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the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief,
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speaking evil of the way before the congregation, that is,
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those who were coming into the synagogue, he withdrew from them and
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took his disciples, or the disciples, with him, reasoning daily
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in the Hall of Tyrannus. Here's the first challenge to obedience
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in Paul's work in Ephesus. And what
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is it? How would you describe this first challenge to obedience?
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That we see in verse 8 and verse 9 in the synagogue?
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They're stubborn-hearted. I would have said it very close to that. I would
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have said it's a hard heart in verse 8 and verse 9. Now,
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what evidence do we have that they're hard-hearted when Paul is there 3
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months? How many— how long did he have in Thessalonica?
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That was back in chapter 17. I know it was a few weeks ago.
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You slept a little bit. 3 weeks.
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And a lot was done. The church is established in that period of time.
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So this isn't some small period of time. Think about that. 3 months
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worth of Sundays— of Saturdays, or going into the synagogue
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and teaching there of whatever frequency. He's there in the synagogue
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and He's teaching and He's had an opportunity
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to really get the message planted, but they have
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a hard heart. What evidence do we have?
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Okay, they didn't believe. They spoke evil
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of the way. And then what else? Some of them,
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they were stubborn. All right, so as we
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think about that, what does Paul do prior to this?
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What does it say was his part?
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He does 2 things. Okay.
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What version is that? Is that New King James? The American
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Standard. Okay. The 1901. All right. So he spoke out boldly.
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What other version? What else do you have?
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He reasoned. What did you say?
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Spoke boldly and persuaded.
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All right. So here are the 2 pieces of what
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Paul does when he goes into the synagogue. He's trying to do 2 things.
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He is reasoning with them and he is persuading them with regard to the things
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pertaining to the kingdom of God. What's the difference?
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What's reasoning? Or speaking boldly, I like that,
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that maybe that tells us how he did that, but I think reasoning gets to
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the heart of what Paul is actually doing here. What are you doing when
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you reason with somebody? Okay, certainly it's
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going to involve teaching, but when you think about sometimes
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people will teach things out of the realm of experience and out of the realm
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of emotion, or I think and I believe, We got to know
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that that's not what Paul is doing here.
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Well, there's got to be listening.
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There's an interchange. Okay. All right. I think that's right.
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Tried to meet them where they were. Sure. And by the way,
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you're going to see that throughout the book of Acts. And so you have preachers
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starting at different points. They started a different place on Pentecost
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than they do up on Mars Hill. It depends on your audience. Now, where do
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you think that Paul is going to begin in a synagogue when
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he starts reasoning? The Old Testament, in the Word.
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Why? It's common ground. They believe in
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that. All right, so he's reasoning. So it involves,
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wouldn't you say, reason? So I would think evidence
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that we're going to lay out logically. This is what the Word of
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God says. And you know, you think about in the different types
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of literature of the Old Testament where he would go to that and he would
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appeal to different different things that it was pointing ahead to with regard to the
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coming kingdom and the Messiah and his work and
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his people. And so here's Paul laying that out moment
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after moment, time after time in the synagogues. He's reasoning
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with them, laying out the facts.
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Discussion. All right, so that goes back to what Miller is saying is there's
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an interchange kind of like our Bible class, right? As we're the back
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and forth. Yes, ma'am. Mine says, arguing about the kingdom. All right, so that's the
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second part, arguing persuasively, persuading them.
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So based on laying out arbitrary
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facts of the gospel, truths, we might say
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axiomatic statements. If this is so, then this is so,
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then it follows that what he's going to be doing is trying to say,
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I don't want you just to be processing information. I don't want you just to
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be taking notes. I want this to go into your heart. And I want you
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to do something about it. Every time the
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gospel is proclaimed or taught, it ought
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to involve this. It ought to involve us reasoning.
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Isaiah 1:18, come now, let us reason together. Though your sins
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be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be as red
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as crimson, they shall be as wool. Well, what happens? How does that happen?
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God's not doing it all. I've got to be persuaded of a response
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that's to take place. And so Paul, is convicting them. He's trying to get the
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message to live down inside of them.
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And what happens when he does that?
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Some folks just put up the wall.
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Aren't you glad that doesn't happen today? That you just
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lay it out there. If I can just lay out the facts of the gospel,
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people are just going to embrace it. Isn't that our world?
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Not the world I live in. I don't know where you're living. But that's
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going to happen. And does it surprise you that it happens?
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I mean, it makes a lot of sense. And depending on how long you've been
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studying it and you're more and more convicted about the truth of it,
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this is what could happen. You know, I noticed something.
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We were in a school of preaching environment when we were in Denver and
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it was a 2-year school. And so what would happen is guys would come to
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the school And it was kind of interesting to notice that the guys
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who were in their first year— I'm not criticizing preacher
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training. I'm a big believer in it. But they had just— a lot of them
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had only been a Christian about a year. They would come and they would start
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classes. They hadn't been taught all the stuff all the instructors wanted to teach them.
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And they would go out on campaign just about 6 or 8 weeks after they
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started school. You had the first-year students and the second-year students who had a head
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full of knowledge. And I'm not— I am not I'm not denigrating
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that. I'm not running that down. You know who had the most success
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statistically? It was
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those first-year guys. They were fired up. They were convicted.
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They had just obeyed the gospel. I'm not saying that the knowledge ruined
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them. A lot of those guys have gone on to be very evangelistic,
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but it's interesting that that core passion that takes
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you to go and try to convict people of the truth of a gospel message
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that you have just heard. You think of Paul. Paul had been resisting.
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The truth, and now he's been obedient to the truth, and he's going out.
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He's been a Christian for a while, but he's going out and he's sharing
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the gospel. And some people hear that and they don't share his
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passion, his belief in the gospel. And that's going to be
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the rest of the book of Acts. Paul's going to run up against people.
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He believes the truth of the resurrection and the afterlife, and they
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don't. So they resist. So what's Paul's
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Paul's— that was their response. We just mentioned that. What's Paul's solution?
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What does he do? Does he give up? He goes somewhere else. Okay. And where
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does he go? All right. He went, he withdrew,
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took the disciples, and he went into the school of Tyrannus. Tyrannus,
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a common name in the first century. We know nothing else about this school.
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We don't know what type of school it was.
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Was it a I don't know. I've been places on mission
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trips where they had actual schools that were established
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for the congregation to go and to build and to supplement their
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knowledge. We've had that here in the past when
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you could come on an evening and you could, or I guess it was multiple
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evenings and you could study. I think when Mike Green was here and what
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was it called? The Kentucky something. Some of y'all
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took classes in that. Southern Kentucky
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Biblical Institute, where you could sit. So perhaps if
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you were a part of that or you remember that, maybe that's what's taking place
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here, but he's grounding them and he's teaching them.
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So the first impediment to obedience that he encounters is in that 3-month
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period where he's reasoning with them.
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He is trying to persuade them. They throw up a wall.
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They want nothing to do with that. So instead of giving up,
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Paul says, well, I'm going to take these folks that want to learn more and
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want to know more. We're going to pull them aside and we're going to concentrate
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on them. And in 2 years' time, man, I wonder.
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And by the way, there's a 4th or 5th century
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manuscript called the Bezae Manuscript, one of the older
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witnesses to the New Testament. And it's got
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all the— most all of the Gospels and the book of Acts and a little
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bit of, I think, 1 John. And Revelation may have been a part of that,
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but it says that Paul from 11:00 AM
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to 4:00 PM would go out and would teach.
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He would work his trade in the morning. And if you've ever been
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to the Middle East in the summertime especially, you got to get an early start
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because it gets pretty hot and you wouldn't want to be out in the sun
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or out working or exerting. And so perhaps this is what Paul is doing
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during this 3-year period, verse 10 and verse 26.
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Maybe he's going throughout Asia and he's establishing congregations congregations.
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But my point is, when he encounters resistance and disobedience,
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he doesn't stop. He focuses on more fertile ground.
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Now, here's my question with regard to that.
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When do you know when to move on?
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You're studying the gospel with somebody. You're trying to
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share with them. Maybe you're even just trying to get them to come to church.
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Maybe you're just trying to talk the Bible. With them,
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when do you know when it's
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time to shake the dust? Okay?
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When you've exhausted all your resources. So what resources are we talking about?
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Okay. All right. So if we look at
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this, maybe on a group level, maybe in a place,
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maybe where you're a member of the congregation and you run into these
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kind of impediments, or if you're trying to reach a group and you
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make it to the point where you go, nobody's listening anymore. When they tell you.
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Okay. Does that always have to be the end?
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Okay. Okay. So when they don't want to
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hear anymore. Okay.
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Okay, so what Joe is saying is they're not even only neutral. You're not only
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just hitting that wall as it is here. They're speaking evil of the
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way. They're undermining the work that you are trying to accomplish.
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Okay, any other answers to that?
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Yeah. Okay.
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Okay.
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So in my mind, when you're plowing the same ground over and over again,
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you keep coming back to the same thing, and it's a hurdle that they're
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not willing to get over.
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Right. That's a great observation. And here's the thing.
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Dolores, did you have a comment? Sure. That's a
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great strategy. So this— Dolores is talking about before we get to the give-up point
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there is to try to build common ground. And you think that's what Paul is
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doing because he chooses the synagogue. That's where he's He's trying to meet them
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at the Old Testament, something that they both agree comes from God
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and is the inspired Word of God. And with all of that in hand,
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you got to give Paul credit. It doesn't— it's not even 3 weeks,
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it's 3 months, and he's trying. But now the tide,
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you can kind of see it turning. And my point in all of this,
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and we could probably spend the whole class coming up with other scenarios,
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in all that you've said, it involves necessarily some judgment.
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You've got to discern, and hopefully you're praying about this and
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you're saying at some point, maybe there's a more fertile place.
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That's what's happening with Paul is I'm beating my head against the wall here.
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And meanwhile, there's folks over here that want the Word. And so I'm
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going to go and I'm going to focus on them. I'm going to deepen their
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faith. And maybe as I deepen their faith, they're able to go out and they're
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able to teach and reproduce disciples themselves.
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And so So you've got to use wisdom, but the
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thing is there's going to be resistance if you're sharing the Word. I've got
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a couple of comments and then we need to move on. Yeah. You mentioned shake
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off the dust. That's in Matthew 10:14. It says,
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uh, and whoever will not hear words.
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There you go. So they should be willing to be around them.
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Yep, that's right. And maybe you find yourself in a situation like that.
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Where you just are sure, no, they're not listening. The word
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that they, they may even be nodding their head, but what are they doing?
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They're, they're, they're loaded for the thing they want to say in response to that
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and they're not even hearing. Russell? For sure.
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Uh-huh. That's right.
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That's right.
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That's right. And when we get to the end of Acts 19, before we go
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to fellowship and all the rest of what I have,
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I'm going to look at Mark's account of the parable of the soils as he
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explains that. And that's just a realization. Yes,
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sir. It also does not imply— just because he left
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them, it doesn't imply that they couldn't have come to him. For sure. Yeah.
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Because he went someplace they— we would assume they would all know where that was.
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If they wanted to hear him, Here I am. You can
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come. That's a good point. It's a good point. I'm just going to get out
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of your way. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And that part's not shared with us.
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We don't know that, but certainly within the realm of possibility.
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And that goes with somebody, what somebody said, they may be not receptive now,
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but they may be later. And so we keep that in mind. A second
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very different kind of a challenge pops up right after this that
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Luke records for us. And I've called that competing beliefs. Look in your Bible
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there starting in verse 11. God was doing extraordinary miracles by
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the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched
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his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and the
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evil spirits came out of them. And then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists
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undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil
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spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.
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7 sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this.
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But the evil spirits answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, But who
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are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them,
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mastered all of them, and overpowered them so that they fled out of the house
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naked and wounded. And I imagine this would have been a very
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traumatic thing to see, but I don't know why I find it just a little
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bit humorous. Here they are, they're messing with things
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they don't understand, and they find out very quickly they're
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in over their heads. I think it was Wayne Jackson that says, here's an instance
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where one spirit cast out 7 men. And you know, usually it's going
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the other way around. And I thought, what a great way to put that.
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Now, here's the thing. We talked about the differences on Paul's journeys, but I want
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to pull a core sample out of each of the journeys.
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Paul is beginning his work, as we've already established over and over
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again, among the Jews, but very quickly because Paul, his commission
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is to go where? Acts 9:16, the Gentiles.
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And so as he goes out among the Gentile population, he is being exposed.
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Now, he's a man, a cosmopolitan man. I'm sure he's been exposed to
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this. Of Cilicia. So he's seen
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the world outside of Palestine. First missionary
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journey, he goes to Lystra. What happens with the— religiously with the people?
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What does he encounter? Do you remember? What do they say about Barnabas and Saul
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in Lystra? They're what? Okay.
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Hermes and— so Hermes,
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I wasn't even planning to go there, but you know, one's the messenger, one's the
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chief of the gods. Okay? So you got Barnabas and you got Saul.
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Saul's doing most of the speaking, and they worship them.
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What does that tell us about the folks in Lystra?
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They're idolatrous. I mean, they do not attach their
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mind, their thinking to the God of the Old Testament, the God of Scripture.
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And they are just— they're wildly superstitious.
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They are driven by idolatry and
24:54
mythology. In fact, it says that even after Paul passionately
24:57
says, we're men just like you are, even with that, they hardly
25:00
restrained them from worshiping. And so— and then, by the way, what happens 5
25:04
minutes later when the Jews kind of stir them up? They stone Paul
25:09
and leave him for dead. But that's what he encounters there.
25:11
Second missionary journey. We'll pull that chorus sample out. Can you
25:15
think of something that's not very Jerusalem-like on the second journey?
25:19
Where's Paul find himself where he says, I know I'm not in Jerusalem anymore?
25:25
Some of us on that trip, we were there. Remember?
25:29
Athens, up on Mars Hill. What does he encounter when he comes into the city?
25:34
An altar. And who is it devoted to?
25:38
Maybe the one we forgot. We were worshiping all these other gods, but we got
25:42
the temple I mean, the altar with the inscription to the unknown God.
25:46
All right, so you've got this idolatry that vexes Paul in
25:50
his spirit. And then on this 3rd journey, we could certainly pull
25:54
out other examples, including in Ephesus about what's going to happen next in that 3rd
25:58
impediment. But you've got these Jews.
26:02
Now, most of what Paul has encountered are Judaizers, Judaizers who
26:06
have a reverence for the Old Testament that blinds them, as somebody's already mentioned this
26:10
morning, to who the Messiah is, that Jesus is the Messiah. These guys
26:14
aren't those guys. These are mysticists. They're mystics,
26:17
if you will. They're exorcists. They're superstitious,
26:22
and they see Paul— I
26:26
mean, isn't it incredible the power that God imparts for
26:30
him to be able to create belief even on the handkerchiefs that are passed out
26:33
to those that are sick and have evil spirits? They're being healed.
26:37
And so you got these 7 sons of this high priest, Sceva, they see
26:41
that and they're like, man, that's incredible. Makes me think of Simon the Sorcerer back
26:45
in Acts chapter 8. And they go out and they try to duplicate that.
26:50
There's competing beliefs. And really we don't see— the
26:54
Holy Spirit handles that one. It overpowers them, overwhelms them. They go out naked
26:58
and wounded. But another impediment is competing
27:05
Beliefs. When we were out west,
27:08
it wasn't uncommon to see folks who were Buddhists,
27:12
who were Wiccans, who were— they called themselves pagans. The percentage
27:17
of those who considered themselves unaffiliated
27:22
is 39%, and those
27:25
who consider themselves Christian 53%.
27:29
I mean, that's— that gap outside of that are those who would belong
27:33
to those other religions. That, I mean, 10% who would be scattered
27:38
through different world religions. Now, what do you
27:41
think that— how does that compare to Kentucky? I looked at the Pew Center,
27:44
a massive study that was done in 2024,
27:48
and it does it state by state. In the state of Kentucky, what do you
27:52
think is the percentage of those who profess themselves to
27:55
be Christian? Just throw a wild guess out there. I mean,
28:00
72. How about unaffiliated?
28:05
I mean, you got a little hint. I mean, it's not— there are some others.
28:09
23%. Now that's interesting to
28:13
take notice of, but do you think Bowling Green reflects
28:18
the state averages? Spoiler alert, it doesn't.
28:22
I mean, to some degree, it's not Denver by any stretch of the imagination,
28:27
but the Census Bureau 2024 breaks that down
28:31
for us. It breaks it down in some interesting ways. There are a little over
28:35
12,000 people in Bowling Green counted in the census
28:40
that are non-US-born residents.
28:45
And the percentage of non-naturalized is much higher than the naturalized citizens.
28:52
According to that same census,
28:57
79,083 was the population of Bowling Green, not Warren County, but Bowling Green
29:01
in 2024. So you do the math on that. 18% of
29:06
those in that overall number aren't from
29:10
here. I'm not like, we're not from here. I mean, but not from this country.
29:14
And in that number, a percentage of them because of where
29:18
they come from would consider themselves Christian,
29:22
but more than not do not consider themselves
29:26
Christian. You, just out of your anecdotal experience,
29:30
what have you encountered that folks are in this immediate area
29:35
in the realm of world religion? There's Muslims,
29:38
right? We have the— I think, is it— we have a mosque and an
29:42
education center, or is it 2 mosques? I don't Is it 2 mosques?
29:47
Okay. What else?
29:50
Buddhists. Okay. Hindu.
29:54
And those would be the major 3. And so we've—
29:57
here in our Jerusalem, more Jerusalem-like,
30:01
we got a little Athens. We got a little Ephesus here.
30:05
And you're much more apt to encounter that here than you would in most other
30:10
places in the state of Kentucky. It's pretty neat that the
30:14
high school class right now, and I'm so thankful for that, whoever's responsible for driving
30:18
the curriculum, I guess it'd be the vision group, the education vision group,
30:22
thought that the high school class needed a class on world
30:26
religions. I'd say I think we do on the adult level as well. It would
30:30
be very helpful to us, comparative religion. That's always helpful.
30:34
Is Christianity just one among many? My point in all of
30:38
that is you probably will be more likely to encounter
30:42
somebody who's not professing to be a Christian in this area
30:45
than you would in most other places that you might
30:49
have come from to be here. But when
30:53
you encounter those under the umbrella of Christendom who would profess
30:57
to be Christians, don't you still have competing beliefs and you
31:01
still have to work through all of that. And that's how Paul
31:05
finds himself here. So here's the question.
31:10
More than likely, what you're going to encounter is going to be somebody who says,
31:14
I believe in Christ. I believe He is the Savior.
31:18
How do you settle those conflicting beliefs?
31:24
We'll let Hiram and Travis and Landon tell us how
31:29
to deal with some of the religions we mentioned at the front end of this.
31:34
How do you settle the differences?
31:38
Right. It's not, we've got spirit. Yes, we do. We got spirit. How about you?
31:41
You know, ours is better or bigger or whatever. It's not— that's not how it
31:44
goes. We have got to be able to acknowledge that there is a
31:48
standard and the standard's not me. The standard's not
31:52
us. The standard's not you. Y'all, the standard
31:56
is the Word, and we appeal to it. And that means we've got—
32:00
that means some other things. But certainly, we're not— it's
32:04
the whole measuring stick illustration. You've got to appeal to a
32:08
standard that everyone can agree to. And once you dig into that, you've got to
32:12
be able to be able to use that tool. And that's what's incumbent on
32:16
us. How else do you settle these conflicting beliefs?
32:23
All right. All right. So there's the challenge
32:26
to us. We've got to grow in our reasoning abilities. Now,
32:30
I think that some folks more naturally are geared as
32:34
reasoners. Um, and you know, even in,
32:37
we've talked about this before in different relationships, husbands and wives,
32:41
uh, some are lawyers and some are defendants, you know, or they don't,
32:44
you don't argue with the same degree of of reasoning
32:50
ability on the spot especially, you know. And in other relationships
32:54
you find the same thing. But we have got to be able— how are you
32:57
going to grow your reasoning ability? You've got to be in the Word.
33:00
Here's some others. Be willing to talk about it and not
33:03
let it go by when there's an opportunity. We pray for them all the time.
33:06
Do we capitalize on them? It's the whole— it's not who's
33:11
right, it's what's right. And then to what Joey said,
33:14
1 Peter 3:15, we've got to be ready to give an answer.
33:18
And we've got to grow our ability and practice doing
33:22
that. So, here's Paul who is faced with these conflicting beliefs.
33:26
Holy Spirit solves that for him. You go back to that first one where they
33:29
weren't listening. He's reasoning and explaining, and that's certainly a part of that. And I'll
33:33
just mention this very quickly. The 3rd challenge is money and profession.
33:37
You want to get people upset? 2 things to talk about are religion and money.
33:41
And that's what Paul does here, and they're kind
33:45
of bound together. There are these little silver statues, First of all, the Word of
33:49
God is flourishing and they're convicting the people in Ephesus
33:54
so that they burn their books and they renounce their arts and they repent.
33:58
And as a result of this, they put a valuation on what was
34:01
thrown into the fire. It was 50,000 pieces of silver and
34:05
it's just changing that city. I want you to think about the fact that this
34:09
is the establishment of the church in Ephesus. And I want
34:13
you to see how Ephesus, more than any other congregation, we have a longer timeline
34:17
of that church because you have the establishing
34:20
that's done on the missionary journeys. And then you've got the book
34:24
of Ephesians where we're going to be reading about
34:28
Paul's writing to this mature congregation. You've got Paul writing to
34:32
the preacher at Ephesus in 1 and 2 Timothy. And then you've got the book
34:36
of Revelation, which we commonly believe to be at the end of the 1st century,
34:39
the latest of the books of the New Testament. And it's one of the 7
34:43
churches of Asia that Jesus addresses. And he speaks
34:47
to the church at Ephesus first. And he says, you've left your first love.
34:50
They had been in Christ long enough that they had slipped away, but now
34:54
here's the beginning of it. And so much is powerfully
34:58
being done by the gospel that it is upsetting the
35:02
people. And the response led by a guy named Demetrius is,
35:06
we got to get even with these guys. If we embrace what Paul
35:09
is teaching, it's going to collapse our economy. It's going to change our way of
35:13
life. It's going to change our look at God as they saw it and
35:16
who we are, who he is, and what we're supposed to do by
35:20
way of thinking and acting and speaking.
35:24
Is this still a challenge to obedience? Money and profession.
35:31
If we come to Christ, there's a conflict.
35:34
Between what's first. You know that, that statement where Jesus says,
35:38
but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. You know, the context of
35:42
that, Matthew 6:24-34, is you can't serve God
35:47
and money. And it's so hard because we need money
35:51
to, to make it in this life and to interchange. And I don't think any
35:54
of us in this room hate it, but we've got to make sure we don't
35:58
love it more than God. And sometimes profession
36:01
can get in the way. I find myself pouring more of my purpose and my
36:05
drive and my passion and my devotion and who I am
36:09
and my sense of identity into that and pay no
36:13
attention to my relationship in Christ and why I'm here and
36:17
even why I have that job. I saw a hand somewhere.
36:20
Yeah, for sure.
36:23
For sure. I'm going to have to give up something.
36:30
No doubt. And really, I appreciate that.
36:33
And this is just the way the chapter lays out.
36:36
But at the end of the day, this is the one that was the problem
36:39
in Ephesus, but there's always going to be one. It might be a relationship
36:44
that the Lord says I have to give up and I don't want to give
36:47
that up. And so I'm going to choose that over Christ.
36:51
It could be literally anything that competes with God.
36:54
Yes, ma'am. I know that there are people, I mean,
36:59
that believe they're like a salvation. For sure. For sure.
37:03
Um, we may have this difference, not a salvation
37:06
matter. Yeah. So at that point, so let's let that be.
37:11
We won't, we won't fill in the blank with anything specific. Let's just take what
37:15
you said. The key to that is it's not a matter of salvation.
37:18
Okay. So let's focus on that. That's, that was very important in your statement.
37:22
If it's not a matter of salvation, we defer to Romans chapter 14,
37:26
and it should not stand in the way of our having fellowship.
37:29
Fellowship is breached when one
37:33
of the parties is wanting to hold onto something that is a
37:38
matter of truth and is not a matter of judgment. We can't have fellowship with
37:42
those who, with what they do, rebel against the will
37:45
of God or are disobedient to the Word of God. Because in doing that,
37:49
passages like 2 John 9 through 11 brings us into a relationship
37:54
we can't be in. Is that okay? A follow-up.
38:08
So you're asking actually not one follow-up, you're asking 2 questions there.
38:11
If I could, or at least I'm pulling out a second one if that's okay.
38:16
So one question has to do with, can someone
38:22
in a group that teaches error
38:26
on salvation, can someone
38:30
obey the gospel according to truth though
38:34
being among individuals like that?
38:38
And I would have to say if they're taught the truth,
38:42
and they obey the truth, God adds
38:46
them, Acts 2:47, to His church. Now, that's the first question.
38:50
Stay with me on that one. The second question is, can they stay where they
38:53
are and be right with God where they're teaching
38:57
things that are erroneous? I would say
39:00
no, because the New Testament church has— it
39:04
looks a certain way, it teaches a certain thing. And if
39:07
we are not with those individuals who are
39:11
following New Testament Christianity, then we are— we're
39:15
not in fellowship with God because we have got to be in fellowship with him.
39:20
Now, I appreciate you asking that with like 2 minutes left in the class.
39:23
Does that maybe bring up any other questions or thoughts or comments?
39:27
That was not in my planned response. But if
39:32
an individual's taught the truth, and obeys the truth on salvation,
39:37
then they have done what the Lord tells them to do.
39:42
But that's a different matter from where are they worshiping
39:46
and what are they doing in those regards. Okay. Well, that creates
39:50
a good place for us to stop. I was so looking forward to the challenges
39:54
of fellowship, completely different. And it may be developed a different way than I was
39:57
going to do that. But what's neat is this is
40:01
not— this was not to be a challenge. This was what helps
40:05
us overcome the challenge that we face when God
40:09
wants us to be fellowshipping with one another in the body of Christ.
40:13
And so often there are things that keep us from wanting to do that or
40:17
being willing to do that. And what we see with Paul and the others in
40:20
Acts 20 and Acts 21 is an awesome apology.
40:25
For the power of fellowship. And you see it from the very beginning in Acts
40:29
2:42, and it works its way all the way through to where
40:32
we don't see the church interacting as a whole
40:36
like we do here on the Third Missionary Journey. All right, any thoughts or comments?
40:40
'Cause I'm not even going to touch it in Acts 20. All right,
40:43
you get a minute back. Thank you.