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Faith and Freedom · The Rhett Palmer Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: He is the great I am.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: His first friend was Abraham.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Surely said to Abraham, I am that I am.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've got a lot to talk about today.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um we got the professor here himself.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: The professor.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The professor, Mike.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we are unlocking the truths of the Bible together.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you've had multiple visits to the Holy Land.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: How many uh how many times?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: 30 times?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've gone in uh 96, let's see, 97, 99, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007, 18, 23, and uh then gone to Greece and Turkey um 21, 2001, 2008.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that's enough.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's enough.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I've been I've been very fortunate to work with Dr.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Randy Smith, uh, who was our teacher on our first trip in uh 97.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Randy was um when I met him was training all the Ministry of Tourism guides for the nation uh of Israel.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to be a certified guide, Randy taught you and had to certify you.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he's a graduate of Hebrew University uh degree, doctorate in rabbinical literature.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to meeting him someday.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Randy's just he's just a really good guy.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: He uh during the Intifada and uh uh when that was happening intifada.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: The uprising that happened in 2000, 2001 when Yasser Arafat was negotiating with Ehud Barak over uh a Palestinian state, and they had agreed to uh a 50-50 thing, right?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, just that the West Bank area would be a Palestinian state, and then they were negotiating on which suburbs of uh Jerusalem would be uh the uh Palestinian capital, and uh Yarf Arafat did not he wanted at all, literally.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he unleashed his gunmen and in the winter the fall of 2000, uh suddenly uh Israelis standing at bus stops were being shot.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um driving home uh they were being shot by snipers from uh bridges and overpasses.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um so we were there that uh nov uh November and December of 2000, and then in 2001, and uh Randy uh uh started buying food for some of his Arab Christian neighbors in Bethlehem and Betjala.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we s helped Randy start kind of a uh a food and pay electricity and buy medicine for uh these families.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um because it the economy just died, tourism died.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually uh Randy woke up one morning with uh six bullets bouncing around his bedroom.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: This was in two thousand uh three, and his wife said, I think it's time we go home, and Randy came to Seabring, Florida, where his parents lived, and and in the next year he started the Great Commission Bible School, which uh we we participated with him in that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: But Randy uh was was always has always been just a very good friend.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh when we had the storms in 2004, the hurricanes, uh Randy uh he's uh he's a builder, he he builds homes uh along with his uh his his Bible schools.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: But he just has yeah, he's able to do that.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so he got a crew and he started going around uh Sebring, where he was living, and if he saw uh plywood that was exposed or shingles missing, he would ask the owner, can we just fix your roof?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And by golly, he fixed roofs.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's get let's get on to what we're gonna study today.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, all of that's to say they don't know about Randy, and I don't think they care much.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: But all of that to say is his outreach to the community by helping people who needed help really backed up to me his theological discussions.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because Randy knew we're the heart of Jesus.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what were the three things you wanted to discuss today?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh the the title of this uh discussion we're having is what?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Unlocking the Bible.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, Rhett, why do you think the Bible has been locked up?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: What are the factors that cause the Bible to be a mysterious book that uh seems to be very strange and foreign and not really applied to our things at work here?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you got a guy like me who tried to read the Bible prior to knowing the Lord, it was who begat, who begat, who be yet who.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's all this for?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we know later on that that was set up because the scribes set it up because it was prophesied that the Messiah would come through the lineage of David, and this proved that all these people, be yet who, be yet, who, be yet who, all lead up to Mary and Joseph, both, those separate families, came from the lineage of King David, therefore fulfilling that prophecy.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: We also have people who don't have the holiness of God until until my eyes were open, and then I could read it and understand it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got, of course, you've got the uh I I I'm not gonna pick on any particular religion, but there's a religion out there where they would not let the proletariat, the common people, read the Bible because they wanted the power to know what's in it.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to ask about what's in the Bible.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: We'll tell you how to live your life.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Man wanting control, there's that fact.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh okay, can I offer one other uh uh factor?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of times we very naturally read the Bible through our own cultural eyes and our own cultural understanding.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: We forget that uh the Bible was written um Moses was what, 1500 BC?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh John wrote his gospel about maybe 85 or 90.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about 2,000.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Two to four thousand thirty, five hundred years ago.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's written in another three different languages, it's written in in uh the Middle East, in Asia, it's written in Africa, it's written in Europe.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're talking about uh an ancient book written in a different culture and a different time, and when we try to read it in our 21st century eyes, sometimes, especially getting translated from Hebrew and uh Greek into English, we misunderstand.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think over the years Christians have done their very best to try and understand and apply it, but sometimes uh we've come up with um things that we think the Bible says that in fact would really surprise the writers of the Bible.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, I have uh had a friend on uh Utilla where we have uh one of our Rio Coco cafes, a guy named Webb, and Webb was uh one of the characters on our island.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's like a pirate guy that uh uh when I met him, he was uh he was engaged in a lot of nefarious activities, but Webb uh straightened out and uh became a dear, dear friend.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: He said to me one day uh that um a pastor told him that if he if you had tattoos, you were going to hell.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Webb had a few tattoos.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, have you heard that before, Rhett?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have, and I know what you I I thought that for a long time too, that we shouldn't, you know, touch our bodies with tattoos, but it was a whole other reason, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: That we they were told not to put tattoos because they they were imitating the Egyptians and they wanted us to look entirely different.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you could be confused for you know, no razor to your hair, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh so I said to Webb, well, let's find that verse in the Bible that is referred to.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's in Leviticus 19.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And verse 27, do not cut off the hair on your temples or trim your beards, do not cut your bodies for the dead, nor mark your skin with tattoos.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's the entire commandment.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Don't trim off the hair on your temples or trim your beards.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: I trimmed my beard this morning before I came over.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think you trimmed yours too.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Don't cut your bodies for the dead, nor mark your skin with tattoos.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what was going on in the culture of the time that God would say this to his people?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, remember, these are a group of Hebrews that have been living in Egypt for how many years?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: 400 years, right?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And they have become totally Egyptian in their thinking and in their culture.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And now God is taking them out of uh Egypt and bringing them into a land which He's going to give them.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so at the beginning of uh Leviticus 18, which is kind of the setup for what we just read about not trimming your hair on your temples or beards or cutting your body or for the marks of uh making marks for the dead, the uh God said to Moses, give the instructions to the people of Israel, I am the Lord your God.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So do not act like the people in Egypt where you used to live, or like the people in Canaan where I am taking you.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: You must not imitate their way of life.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the Lord your God.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you obey my decrees and my regulations, you will find life through them.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So he wanted them to come out and be separate.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted them to not look like the Egyptians or the Canaanites.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't want them to think like them nor act like them.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so in chapter 18, God continues to with us to tell us about sexual relationships.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't have sex with your mother-in-law.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's going to create problems.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Don't have sex with your aunt, that will create problems.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Don't have sex with your sister or your uh sister-in-law.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Inbreeding.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh don't have sex with uh animals.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's just disgusting.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Don't have sex with uh same sex partners.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Same sex partners because that's not why I created you.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now the whole basis of God's uh commandments here is God's plan for humanity was very obviously a husband and wife that loved each other, cared for each other, supported one another, protected one another, children that they raised to uh and they taught them and they trained them up in the ways of the Lord.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: This was God's plan for civilization, for humanity.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously we've had a lot of attacks upon the family unit just in our generation.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But we also on the other side, we also had uh some people who jump in and get very judgmental of others when I think the Lord told me that I'm supposed to love everybody, whether you're gay or you're straight, whatever you are.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not really called into judgment.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I will not call sin not sin, though.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So for me that, you know, man with a man, woman with a woman, but but nonetheless, I'm still called to love others.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I believe you will find, Rhett, that people that are in walking in those paths of life are guys just like you and me.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if if we didn't have the Lord in our life, if we were left to our own ideas about how life should be, we could come up with all sorts of things.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: When we were young before Jesus, we were too.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at least in my life, and I can uh probably assume that in yours, that you and I were making decisions based on what was going to set it up.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: If it feels good, it's okay, man.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not hurting anybody.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: That was the lie.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: The sixties, baby.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was told in high school and in college, if it if it feels good and it doesn't hurt anybody, it's okay.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what I realized later was the person that was getting hurt the most was me.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So God is now taking his people out from this land and bringing them in, and he says, I want you to be holy.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I want you to be give my instructions to the entire community.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: You must be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's Leviticus 19, verse 1 and 2.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what does that word holy mean?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's kind of a nebulous term, and sometimes that term seems to blur the the uh relationship between God and man, and and instead it promotes codes of behavior.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now my dictionary describes this word holy, which in the Hebrew is kadash, it means uh cut cut out, uh set apart.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: It means uh literally it is God says, I am holy, and the the word, the concept is mean I'm cut out of your normal paradigm of thinking.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so far high above it that there is no comparison, and that you must be holy because I'm holy.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: So now we are to imitate or to uh project or to adopt these characteristics of this God that is so far above our human culture.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I read a d uh one of the dictionaries one of my dictionaries gives uh Kadash this meaning.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's displaying a morality that is different from the people around you and is of a divine origin.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is what holy means.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So now we're adopting God's morality because He is uh a cut out from this and way above.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: We are set apart from the morality of this world.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, a lot of uh Christians have understood this set apart to mean we're to separate ourselves from our society and sort of be in our own little enclaves.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who said to be in the world but not of the world?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's that's that's the whole point.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Who said that?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: We we forget.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Was it Paul or was it Jesus?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was one of the in one of the epistles, yeah.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um come out and be ye separate.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um don't be in the world but not of the world.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea is that we should definitely, as he's writing to his uh friends in Corinth, he said, when I told you to when I told you to be what you just quoted, I didn't mean to separate yourself, because obviously how are you gonna reach people if you're separating yourself and not reaching out.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or visit people in prisons?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So how are you gonna do opposite?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: So so we are we are called to live according to a different morality.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you see Egyptian culture, you see in the tomb paintings, you see uh the priest or the men, and they have their hair cut shaved real much on the side right here.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so uh I think what God is saying uh don't look even look like them.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: But also part of their rituals for their worship and the worship of the dead was they would cut themselves and make marks on their body.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that weird?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because in our generation nobody cut themselves, but you know, the kids, your kids, that generation, kids are where'd they come up with this thing of cutting themselves when they were in pain?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was demonic personally.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it is demonic.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um the commandment here is don't act and look like the Egyptians or the Canaanites.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Don't walk like an Egyptian.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, look uh uh act like me.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so um Well and also on the other side, you've got Christians that read this stuff and then get cockadoodle-doo or puffed up thinking that they're holy.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember God admonishing me, you know, sometimes he'll speak to me through a word, and I forget where I read this, and said, You have seen God ostensibly.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have not seen him, but he understands in the spiritual realm I was birthed into seeing him and knowing him.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So why he why are you judging someone who doesn't know that?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're walking in the darkness.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't yell at a blind man, hey, stupid, what are you doing?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, he's blind.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you go up and you help him, you know.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh this also because a lot of Christians they do have a miraculous encounter and suddenly they get real cocka-doodle-doo, and the fire and brimstone, you're going to hell, and I'm not, and I'm righteous, and you have to go.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I tell these Christians say, wait a second, your only righteousness is the blood of Jesus Christ.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: You did not earn this.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your righteousness, it's his righteousness.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that ought to humble you a little bit, you know?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the point here, I think, in God's commandment was the Egyptians were making cuts and marks on their body in the worship of the dead, and he said, Don't do that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: So if if I want to obey the commandment that's given here in Leviticus 19, then I'm going to never trim my beard.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to have a Z top.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why the Hasidic Jews look so frumpy to today.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: They don't trim it, you know.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Yeah, I I would uh I don't you know you know the band Z Z Top?
• 17:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I would have I would have uh a beard like the kids listen to this may not know.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: They were they were guys that had these big two brothers that had these big long beards.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I would look like Dusty or uh the other uh the guitar player.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or um, you know, uh religious Jews, uh you notice they don't cut the hair and this right above their skin.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the divided curls.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they uh well they have curls and the curls are there.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know why the curls are there?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're a good student of the of in the yeshiva, you study and you sit and you're doing this while you're studying, and the more that you're curling, you're kind of running your finger and curling these uh they become curls.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I did that when I was younger, but then I would go down and actually have a bald spark because it would fall out.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I read that that's a psychological problem that you have if you're nervous underneath the skin, you know?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I what I've seen when I've been at the Cotel, which is the Western Wall.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: The Cotel?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's that plaza that where the Western Wall is in Jerusalem.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Into the Western Wall.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's a big there's a restroom there, and whenever there's um like a bar mitzvah or some ceremony going on, uh the uh religious Jewish men, especially the young guys, are in the bathroom and they have their curling iron and they've got some sort of dippity-doo or something.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they're curling those forelocks so the curls are like this uh cylinder or this column of hair that comes out.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: They want to be in obedience to this law here.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think we really this is what God is saying, Rhett, to uh the Hebrew people.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't be like the Egyptians or the Canaanites, because their standards of morality and their behavior is just corrupt.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: God says, I will show you how to live lives that are satisfying, that are productive for now and even for eternity.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Just follow my directives.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: The principles behind them are everlasting because they originate from me.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: But mankind being so arrogant, they think they have a better way.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: If there's if I could tell anything to young people today, I just look around and I go, it's uh I'm because I'm one of the dummies that had to go through everything to learn.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't learn by listening.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, then maybe now I do as an older man.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say this listen, you're gonna have a much better life if you do it God's way.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need a big lonely mansion.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Have a family.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you have to live in a little house filled with a lot of love, I promise you God's ways are the way to go.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: But let's get back to tattoos.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: When pastors tell you that if you have a tattoo, you're going to hell, I think he's missing the point.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's missing the point.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's missing uh because that was then, this is now.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, right.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm looking at that passage in Leviticus 19, the question is what is the principle behind it?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't look like the Egyptians.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Come out and be used to be able to get the don't don't act like them, don't think like them, don't even look like them.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now they were worshipping devils, too.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was on a cruise back in 2004, and the staff of the uh cruise ship was mostly from India.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we sat at a table, same table, had the same waiter every night.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Our waiter was a guy named Geronimo.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, isn't that an interesting name for a guy from India?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I started thinking about that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, where did he get that name?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then it came to me.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Bollywood.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want to have done it from Bollywood, probably.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Probably he was from a Portuguese colony in the south that was centered around the city of Goa.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: That he would get a name like Geronimo.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the next night I said, Um, Geronimo, are you by chance from Goa?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, yes, I am.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then I asked him the trick question.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Are you Hindu or are you Muslim?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he took off his white glove and he put it down on the table between my son Lucas and I, and right on that space between his thumb and his forefinger was a cross that was tattooed.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: He said, No, I'm Christian.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then I asked him, I said, Do all Christians have that mark on their hand?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, That's what makes us Christian.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: So in Geronimo's culture, having a tattoo is what actually identifies him as a follower of Jesus.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So here we have uh pastors in America telling people if they have a tattoo they're going to hell.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: But in Goa, in the Christian community there, if If you don't have a tattoo, you're going to hell.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, isn't Geronimo the name you used for American Indians?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how did the American Indian get the name?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, from some Spanish culture influence.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: That was my connecting point.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Geronimo.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I was telling this story to a friend of mine, uh a friend of mine from Czechoslovakia that came, uh Czech Republic that came to Maui and he became part of our church.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: A guy named Modik, and uh he had a big eagle tattooed on his shoulder.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so one day we were driving down to Kihay to Hope Chapel for a men's uh meeting Bible study, and uh Modik said, uh, hey Mike, uh what's the Bible say about tattoos?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's a brand new Christian.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I told him kind of the discussion we just had.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, so uh uh the Egyptians were making marks, worshiping the god of the dead, the gods of the dead, and okay, so Chris, so it's okay to have tattoos.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that what the teaching is?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Yeah, Modik, it's okay.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I said, by the way, what's that big eagle that's on your right shoulder there?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: He said, it's the Egyptian god of the dead.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Modik, you're definitely going to hell.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he's driving along and he almost he pulled off on the curve.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: He almost went off the road.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: We started laughing so hard, okay?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: But um this is, I think, the conflict, Brett, is we take things out in the Bible out of their context, and we try to apply them to our 21st century life, and sometimes we come up with very strange commandments.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: We think that we're going to make it by our own virtue.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's just like the disciples were with Jesus one morning, and they're sitting on the ground and they're eating, and up come the Pharisees with their beautiful white robes, and they called him rabbi.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so they honored Jesus by calling him rabbi and say, Rabbi, your disciples are eating with uncleaned hands.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus looks up and goes, You follow the precepts of man, not God.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: For what goes into a man's mouth and comes out does not defile him, but what comes out of his mouth defiles him.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so, you know, that that's man's attempt.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to be very careful about our attempt to be religious and think we're going to get in by our behavior, by our goodness, by our acting holy.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the the problem comes from Red is we're trying to obey the letter of the law without understanding the principle behind it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is the litmus test.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like for example.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Did you feed me?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Did you clothe me?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did you visit me in prison, man?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I work in a culture on the Coco River in Honduras and Nicaragua, mosquito culture, mosquito Indians.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: They speak their own language.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's an indigenous culture.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Christianity first came to this region in 1928.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Moravian pastor, uh Rikert Watson, came up from the uh coast and he started a school in Wasla and he started a church.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is like 1928.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where my mom was born.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: The Moravians uh and were followed by the Catholics, and they they came to the Cocoa River.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the mosquitoes uh pretty much accepted Jesus into their realm of spirituality.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was just another spirit.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Our challenge has been to to really uh help them understand that he's way above all those other microscopies.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Are they the ones that killed Mr.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Elliot?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, no, that's in Ecuador.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is in uh in Honduras, Nicaragua, that area.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, once you one one thing that you'll notice if you're in a Moravian church on the Cocoa River is the women wear little lace doilies on top of their head.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And this is because it says in First Corinthians chapter 11 that women should have their head covered.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I've been sitting on the window of the church building.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: When you're at a when it's in the middle of July and it's 95 degrees and there's a hundred people crowded into a small building, the coolest place, I just want to make sure my my my my skylights closed in my car because it's raining.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yes, it's cool.
• 26:26
  unknown: Okay, yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um the coolest place in those situations is sitting on the back window of the church because that's where the breeze is.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been sitting back there while the service is going on, and I've noticed women standing outside the church building, and they won't come in.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I've motioned for them and I've invited them to come in, but they they tap their top of their head and they point out that they're not wearing a head covering.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so they will not come into the church because First Corinthians chapter eleven says that women should have their head covered.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think Paul told those women in Corinth that they should have their head covered?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little residual of him having been a Pharisee, I don't know.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's go to Corinth in the first century.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on in Corinth?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Corinth is up uh in a isthmus uh in Greece that the Peloponnesian Peninsula is separated from the rest of Greece by this very thin four-mile isthmus.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Corinth is on the north side of this isthmus.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're traveling by boat from uh Italy or the uh Turrinian Sea or uh the western Mediterranean and you're going to Athens, then rather than sail around the very dangerous Peloponnesian peninsula, you come up the calm waters of the Gulf of Corinth, and there people would take your boat and with logs and roll it across this isthmus, and now you would have uh just a very short journey to uh Athens.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now they have a canal that was cut there by the guys who made the Suez Canal, so you can just drive your boat right through.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: But Corinth became a sailor's town.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh people uh uh I was a sailor for uh ten years in the United States Navy.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Corinth was right, but I was uh also trained as a naval officer and spent time on ships.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Corinth was also had a uh temple to the uh goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and it's right at the top of the Acropolis in uh Corinth.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And at that time uh when Paul went there, there were close to a thousand temple prostitutes that were working, male and female.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if you wanted to worship the goddess of love in Corinth, you went up to the Acropolis and you had sex with one of the temple prostitutes.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you paid them for the sex.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's the goddess of love.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is how you worship the goddess of love.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: So Corinth was the sex capital of the ancient world.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Think of Las Vegas, okay?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to think of it.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a sailor's town because I can tell you, when you're out at sea for weeks at time and you come ashore, you're thirsty, and you really are desiring female company.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way sailors are.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So people came to Corinth for sex, and Paul went there and started a church.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what happened?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: People started getting saved.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, prostitutes uh in Corinth often had their heads shaved or their hair very very closely cut.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my conclusion is that the reason that Paul told uh women in Corinth to cover their head was one of two reasons or a combination of both.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: In Greek culture, a woman's hair was considered to be the most alluring part of her beauty, uh much more than the physical uh parts of her body.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Her hair was the most sexual thing that you could show.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um temple prostitutes, for some reason, had short hair because of their job and what they were doing.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: So for one of these.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I know, but uh that's I I I'm I'm just trying to put two and two together.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to be in the room of uh the church and the congregation in Corinth when I received the letter from Paul.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that there's a lot of former prostitutes that are coming to our church meeting.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul probably does not want the outside community being confused that we are welcoming practicing prostitutes into the assembly of Christ, and that our morality is in fact different from uh the what's going on in Corinth.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So covering your head if you're a prostit were a prostitute and your hair is growing out is going to be less confusing.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Covering your beautiful, sexually alluring hair in a culture where that was um perhaps the most um sensuous thing was also uh less alluring.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for these two reasons that Paul gave the commandment women should have their head covered.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been to churches where all women are either wearing a hat or wearing a scarf.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I carries on till today, which is It does.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in the churches on the Cocoa River, if a woman is standing outside and won't come in because she doesn't have that little lace doily on her head, do you think Paul wrote that commandment to keep them out of their out of church?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't think he did.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was something that was totally culturally uh appropriate for Corinth at that moment.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so what's the principle behind what Paul was saying?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it's that when you come into a uh uh Christian meeting that you should be attired in a manner that's honoring to you and the people around you and not be reflective of the culture around you.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that's why Paul talks about uh women's modesty and and being uh sober minded regarding the way that you dress and the way that you attract attention to yourself.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: This goes on with what he wrote to Timothy about women dressing modestly.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in today's society, it's right.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really gotten bad.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: So this is another example of they leave nothing to the imagination.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is an example of tattoos now we have head coverings, things that have been taken out of their context and applied to our culture.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I told my friend Webb, no, as long as you're not putting marks on your body that are honoring and worshiping the dead, it's probably okay.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, my son Lucas and my daughter Michaela, I think they went together one day and they got a tattoo on their wrist that was the I N R I that was on the cross over Jesus' name, you know?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when they showed me that, it's a it's a Christian symbol.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, okay.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then my son, after his grandmother died, got a very nice tattoo of her face on his right shoulder.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well done.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So in in my son's case, Lucas, he's honoring his heavenly father and his savior and honoring his family, and his whole arm is basically family tattoos.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's got my mom and dad right here on his bicep.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, these are uh strictly honoring God and honoring family.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so it's not in worship of the dead.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I think tattoos are okay.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, man, man becomes very tribal.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we do.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're all going to wear blue shirts and brown pants.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you're if you're part of the tribe, man is insecure and fearful, so they want everybody to be just like them.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Look back in the 60s, we were conforming nonconformists.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're we're nonconformists.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: We all wore blue jeans, we all had bell bottom blue jeans, we all wore, you know, we had beads around our neck.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: We were conforming to the non uh in nonconformity.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: A nonconformance way, yeah.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: But but people feel secure with a tribe.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way we do it here.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a member of us, then and we have to be careful about tribalism, don't we?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think uh in our discussion regarding tattoos and head coverings, when you apply a practice from the Bible apart from the principle behind it, then there's a danger of becoming religious.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're doing things to possibly gain favor from God that have very little meaning.
• 35:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Especially if uh not having a head cover excludes you from the house of the world.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I remember there was a famous uh musician, uh he's George Winston, I think he's dead now.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he played this uh like uh nouveau music that was very soft and you know, uh uh anyway, the new age stuff.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we he and I had had a fabulous interview via telephone, just before we had visuals, and gotten along perfectly.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when he came to town, all him and his long-haired friends were backstage.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now remember, they have no idea that I was a long-haired hippie in the 60s, and I was 15 years of age and went to Woodstock.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when Barbara and I, who are sophisticated now, wearing my dress pants and a dress shirt, maybe even navy blue blazer, we went into the back behind stage, and George and all those people just like ignored us.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were prejudiced towards us because we didn't have the tie-dye shirts and then the frumpy hair and the long beard anymore.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw discrimination in reverse.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um when I was in high school, I had a friend that went to a church across the street from the Reynoldsburg Methodist Church where I went.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at the time I thought the uh that the church was pretty much a social club with a lot of rules.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I was uh kind of a rule breaker back in those days.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really want to conform to the rules.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: A rebel without a cause.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I didn't have a cause, that's true.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had a friend.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: I had a friend uh named Jean that was uh she was uh went to the church that was across the street from our church.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: So she invited me to come with her one day.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went, and I one thing I noticed was there was uh no organ or piano up on the platform.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when the service started, a guy stood up and with a little pitch pipe kind of blew a tone, and then they started singing the hymns and they were singing a cappella.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, this is interesting.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of nice.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Refreshing.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's interesting.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh I asked Jean afterwards, I said, uh, why does your church not have like a piano organ or guitars or anything?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, we are a New Testament church, and there is no mention in the New Testament the use of any instruments.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why we worship with our voices to the church.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Church of Christ, I think they call themselves, something like that.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, hmm, that's interesting, you know, because there is a verse in Ephesians and one I think in Colossians, but Ephesians 5, 19 says, Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had to think about that for a while.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember, well, David used musical instruments, but I guess that was Old Testament.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: The timbrel, you know, the drum.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh Psalm 108, David says, My heart is steadfast, O God, I will sing, I will sing praises, uh, even with my soul awake, harp and lyre, I will awaken the dawn.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, obviously, uh worship in uh Jewish culture involved instruments.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: But my friend said, we're New Testament Christians.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And since there's no mention of musical instruments, now we are the holy ones.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she considered her denomination to be the really the true Christians.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell, Well, that's what I was told.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: I w I knew an old lady, uh uh I think she's still alive, she's 104 right now, and she went out there, she said, Well, they she actually believed that church, I went with her uh to the service where they only did a cappella, she actually believed that they were all going to heaven and everyone else was going to heaven.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: So here is something that has separated the body of Christ over an interpretation of Scripture that seems to be far from the heart of God, doesn't it?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Very far from the heart of God.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, now you've got churches where they're handing out these uh earstopples when you go in.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you lower the volume?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh personally I think that performance has entered the churches and we need to get back to a place of worship because you it I'm I happen to this happen to be my calling, you're to initiate praise and then back off from the microphone.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, the crowd gets louder, and these people get louder and they start swallowing the microphone, and I'm going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're to initiate praise and worship, and then you should disappear.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: If people are seeing you on the platform, perhaps you better take your musical group and go to the back of the church where you're not seen, because this is not about your glory, it is about the Lord's glory.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Which is true.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I just I just think my friend Jean was a bit confused, and her whole denomination got off track because they separated themselves from the rest of the body of Christ because over a misunderstanding of what Scripture was saying.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as followers of Jesus, you know, we we really want to reach the world for Christ.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but sometimes we have this strange religious behavior that sort of sets us apart from society.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: And really apart, we're like on the margins.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're out on the edges.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um we speak our own Christianese language.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like we walk up to someone and say, Are you washed in the blood?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: What the heck?
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody said that to me, I would step back and think they were into some sort of demonic cultic worship, you know.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have our own dress codes.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know the doctrine of salvation?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: We have our own rules of behavior, which usually begin with can't and don't.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you notice?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're so much uh in that.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh when when you read 1 Corinthians and especially chapter 8, 9, and 10, and the whole discussion about uh can we eat food offered to idols?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now remember in Paul's world in Corinth, there were animals being sacrificed at the Temple of Apollo, and just right down the street were the butcher shops.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Laura and I have stood in those butcher shops, and guess what's right next to the butcher shops?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is the Commodore, the restaurant, where you're gonna get the freshest cut of beef in that city.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so the question moving yesterday.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, mooing just a few hours before it was sacrificed at the Temple of Apollo.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so the conflict and the question uh for Christians in Corinth was can we eat that meat offered to idols?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul said, Well, you know, there's only really one true God, and these uh so-called gods are all a bunch of demons.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so uh if you're eating food that was offered to a so-called God and your conscience says it's okay, well, go ahead.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably okay.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: But if your conscience uh gives you a check, then don't eat it.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he's appealing to our personal relationship and what God has told us to do.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: But he points out in chapter 9 that he's trying to build bridges uh with his friends in Corinth.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's trying to, when he's with a Jew, he says, I act like a Jew.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm with a Greek, I act like a Greek.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I try to fit in wherever I can, I try to build bridges.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then he finally finishes that discussion in chapter 10 by saying, Well, of course, you can eat anything that's uh uh set before you.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: But if one of your brothers uh who is with you has a hesitation, then don't cause him to stumble by eating that because you're stumbling somebody who Christ died on the cross for.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's a very interesting discussion on our integration with culture.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we are told to be kadash, to be set apart, to be uh displaying God's moral culture.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I think holiness and morality and in character and cultural relevance are not mutually exclusive.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of Christians over the years have thought if we're gonna be holy, if we're gonna be obedient to God, we have to separate ourselves from the culture.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's such an anti-biblical language, because we are called to engage the culture and be be part of the culture, but stand out because our morality is different than the those people around us.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's the story where Jesus said, Many, many will come to me on that day and said, We we delivered demons in your name.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: We uh we had big uh uh whatever, tent revivals.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he said.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: They said, you know, we healed many.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: He killed many in your name.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he will say, I never knew you.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Depart from me.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine Jesus saying, Depart me from me.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Those things you did were unauthorized.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then others will be there, and he said, you know, you fed me when I was hungry, clothed me when I was naked, visited me in prison, and I can just picture this old guy there saying, Well, what Jesus, we don't remember you.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: When do we what are you saying?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, uh, you know, sir, when you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Come in for your reward is great.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now you would think that the people that were out there having these meetings where people are being healed or whatever.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: It confuses me a little, um, because it's not we don't have a ministry of works, but true works of love will follow true faith.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what he's getting to here?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, of course.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is the biblical mandate.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: If we have faith, James says, then our actions are going to uh reflect what our faith is.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, many of us who really don't have faith, but we're trying to act in that manner, will take things out of the Bible and start applying them in a manner that makes us look holy.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the issue.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: These phony baloneys that are on TV or something, and they're spouting it out.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh some of them don't even know Jesus.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the actors, the hypocrites.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the Greek word for actors.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: So how but so they did healings in his name, they did these events in his name.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you check yourself to make sure, hmm?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's between you and the Lord and no other man.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have to say, Yeah, have you ever had a case where something happened and you acted a certain way and you went, Maybe you were a little jealous or something, or maybe what what was what what was my part in this situation?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's very hard to look in the mirror and go, you know?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um tattoos, head coverings, musical instruments, these have been things that have been divisive in our culture.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: And historically there have been things that have happened, like uh that uh we have considered to be biblical actions, but in fact we're totally different.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, uh I have a friend on Maui that's from Jerusalem.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: She is a girl named Una.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: Her husband's name is Leonardo.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um they had an uh Una had an experience with Jesus.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: She's a Jew, secular Jew.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't raised as a religious Jew, but she and her husband decided uh to go uh to a Catholic church uh on Easter in Kihay, on Maui.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: And while she was there, the statue of Jesus began speaking to her.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: And she thought she was hallucinating, and she thought she was losing her mind, so she went to see her doctor the next week, and the doctor examined her and said, Well, Una, you're you're fine.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, what do I do if something like this happens again?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, talk back.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so she goes out to get in her truck to drive back up to Kula, and there's Jesus sitting on the seat next to her.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard of that happen to a friend of mine, Joseph.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they have a conversation now in Hebrew, and for the next few weeks, every uh occasionally when uh Una comes out of her house, there's Jesus sitting on her uh porch, and eventually she became a very fervent follower of Yeshua.
• 47:19
  unknown: Okay?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time I heard his voice.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have not seen him, but I heard his voice and I said, Don't talk to me.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm going nuts.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for Una, she be when I met her, she just was a very enthusiastic girl.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: So gloriously born again, I think.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: A year later, we were in Jerusalem.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: And she invited us to come to her home of her mom and dad.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh so we sh uh showed up.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was about nine o'clock at night.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I I didn't find out this till later.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: But um, her mom and dad really didn't want Christians in the house.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they were really suspicious of what had happened to their daughter because now she's a follower of Yeshua.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they're very wary of Christian friends coming in.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: But Una said, Look, these are my friends from Maui, just please let them come.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: And her dad, Ely, said, Okay, they can stay for one hour.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's because we supplied by being together.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we came in and uh we met her mom, Edis, and Edis gave Laura a big hug, and they it was like immediate connection.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they walk off in another room, and Ely looks at me and says, Mike, would you like to have some coffee?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, sure.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're couple of friendship.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we go uh into the kitchen and he makes the uh the Turkish coffee with cardamom, and and we sit and we start talking, and then kind of uh in the middle of that conversation, Ely just gets up and walks away and then comes back, sits down.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: Later, what Una said to me was uh my dad came then and told me, you know, these people seem nice, they can stay as long as they like.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we left their house at 4:30 a.m.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you drink coffee at 9 30 at night, right?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then a few weeks, uh it was a few days later, we got invited to Itis and Ely's house for dinner, which is a very, you know, it's a very special thing when you're invited for dinner.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: And Leonardo and uh Una had uh already returned to Maui.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so we sat down to dinner, and Ely said to me, Mike, Ely's the father.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, before we eat, because when you eat in that culture, you're expressing friendship.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I have to ask you a question.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Why did Christians come to my city a thousand years ago and kill every Muslim and Jew?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I was shocked at this question, and I suddenly realized he's talking about the Crusades, that in 1099 Christian armies had actually come through the northeast corner of the city, and they had uh made their way to the Holy Sepulchre, killing every inhabitant that they came across.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this was a political movement that was started by Pope Urban II in uh 1096, where he issued a call for Christians to go back and retake the sacred places in Jerusalem because Muslim uh armies had now conquered that area in the 7th and 8th century, and now they were prohibiting pilgrims from visiting the holy sites.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a political movement.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to explain this to Eli that this is not a biblical thing.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: We are not told in the Bible and the Christian scriptures to go and kill Muslims and Jews.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: This was tr strictly a political movement of the 11th century.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Okay, now we can eat.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but this historical event gave him some misunderstandings about what the Bible said.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, and this has happened like the the second question that I always get from Europeans and Israelis, but Europeans especially, when they asked me about the Crusades and then they asked me about the Inquisition.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the Spanish Inquisition?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh tell us uh briefly what is the Spanish Inquisition?
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was a time where there was the uh Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the southern part of Spain in 1492.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: They expelled all the Muslims out of the uh country.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: They took over that area.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: Remember in the 7th, 8th, and 9th century, Muslim armies had crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, had taken all of the Iberian Peninsula, had crossed the Pyrenees, and even uh were moving into south southern France, and they were met at the Battle of Tours in 732.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like what's happening in Michigan today.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: By Charles the hammer, Charles Martel, and the uh advance was stopped.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually they do that.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um violently, apparently.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there was a battle, and Charles Martel had trained for this battle for years, and he had uh long polls to attack the cavalry as they uh it's it's a long story.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is after Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Moors, the Muslims, many of the Muslims had converted to Christianity, so they wouldn't be expelled.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: But there was suspicion not a heartfelt Christian There was suspicion that they were still practicing their Muslim ways, so courts of Inquisition were set up to examine their faith, and the chief of the ex uh of the inquisition was a guy named Tomas de Tokomanda, and he employed torture as a form of questioning.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um if they finally confessed their sins that they were heretics, then he had them burned at the stake.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: And during his reign, over two thousand people were burned at the stake.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now, where did he get this idea that you should be burned at the stake if you were not a believer?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think he took a verse in John chapter 15, and he uh the application was totally different than what Jesus uh was saying.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 5 of chapter 15, I'm the vine, you are the branches.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: For apart from me you can do nothing.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who parts from me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, brother.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is Jesus really took it literally?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think he took it literally.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: But do you think Jesus is saying that if you're not a Christian or if your understanding of the Christian faith is different than the approved beliefs of some ecclesiastical organization, that you should be killed by burning at the stake?
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think Jesus was saying that?
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Of course he wasn't.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, two years ago, we were in a traditional Jewish uh Judean vineyard just south of Jerusalem.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a vineyard, unlike the California vineyards and the French vineyards and the German ones, where you have poles with wires and the vines grow up and the grapes are growing around these wires, and you've seen those kinds of vineyards.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Traditional uh Jewish vineyards of the first century had the vines growing, but they used rocks to pull them up off the ground.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you pile rocks up and the vines are laying across the rocks.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we were standing in this vineyard, and there were there was a vine running across right in front of me.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: And as Randy Smith was explaining this to us, and we were seeing the farmers sitting over in their hut with their tractor across the field, I noticed uh one of the uh leaf areas where the grapes were going, they were just coming out at the time, was touching the ground.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually lifted the vine up and I placed another rock under to lift it further off the ground.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: But right at the other side on my right side of my foot was a piece of vine that was cut and it was withered and was just laying there.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what Randy said as he read this, he said, you know, tonight it's gonna be about 50 degrees.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's cold.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was cold during that month we were there.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: And these farmers are gonna gather these broken up withered vines that have been cut off.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: And guess what they're gonna do?
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna heat their house with them.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what Jesus was saying is, you know, if you're not being productive, there are secondary uses perhaps to this.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: But he certainly wasn't saying that you should be burned at the stake because you don't agree with what the doctrine of the church I I thought he was always talking about the day of judgment, which will come later on, you know.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well um Amazingly, the debate among the uh Inquisition priests who were doing the questioning and and read, I've seen these uh thumb screws that they were using.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: They would the these metal devices with screws, and they would put them on the thumbs and then they screw them down to and start asking questions.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: And they had crosses on them.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: They they put crosses on these torture devices.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: And when it came time to actually the heretic was confessing, you know, you get the thumb screws and you do it say anything to stop the pain, right?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then the priests were debating among themselves, can we actually be the ones that burn them at the stake or should we hire executioners to do that?
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, after all, we are the the uh communicators of God's word and uh and guides to life, right?
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this and this is such a question among European culture today is what about the how can the Christianity be true if the Inquisition used biblical principles to kill thousands of people?
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the uh the answer is obviously those priests were missing a few chapters and verses, and they had a gross misunderstanding of what was actually being communicated.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: They had the law, but maybe not the love.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here's the challenge for us, you know.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: We must uh understand the Bible in its historical and cultural context.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: If we don't, we come up with a meaningless message.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I first read this in Paul Hebert's book, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: On page 14, he says, if we're gonna communicate to this culture that we've been sent to, we must first understand the Bible in its cultural and historical context.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, we're gonna do things like cause people to wear headdress or head uh coverings, uh, prohibit them to have tattoos, and burn them at the stake and not use uh uh uh guitars and pianos in our worship service, okay?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're not understanding the context of these verses.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Well, that's why we're here doing the show, which is called Unlocking the Bible.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're about out of time for this segment.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me finish up.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let me finish up real quick here.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thirty seconds.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll start our next uh topic with uh continuation of this.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, our challenge is if we're going to avoid religious behaviors, we've got to uh first understand the Bible in its historical context.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: Then we have to extract the biblical truth that we can apply to our lives, and when we do that, then now I think we're qualified to proclaim the message and the truth it it contains to those around us.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: Ezra was a priest that was part of the refugees returning to Israel after the Babylonian captivity.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: And Ezra determined, as he says in uh chapter 7, verse 10, for Ezra had set in his heart to study the law of the Lord, to practice it, and to teach his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: So Ezra gave us a process here that uh that we are to study and understand the Word of God, we are to put biblical truth into practice in our own life, and teach it to the people of the Israel.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not only if you learn the Word of God, no one else can manipulate but manipulate you by coming up with a King David said, Cursed is the man that makes man his trust, blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, your relationship is private between you and God, and so is mine.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: So ultimately, we can listen to our rabbis, listen to our teachers, whatever, but ultimately, I I think the litmus test for true Christianity is love.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: Did you feed me?
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did you clothe me?
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did you make me in prison?
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta take a break.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: We will be back, unlocking the Bible and its truths.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so uh our next session.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: We'll pick up on this one.