Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. Hopefully y'all are all healthy and robust and strong and pressing on through this holiday season right now. Been pretty mild for most of us. I think so, although I think among a lot of the young families in the church, I think that the. Cough and cold bug has been going around for sure. I know it hit my family this past week. Yeah, I think it's spreading. Okay, so let's lay down some tracks on this. Okay. Is it unloving to go out to places when you're sick? Should a Christian have any compunction about that or is it just a matter of what you feel comfortable with? How should we think through some of those things? Should we go to church if we're not feeling well? And to what degree should we. Allow that to dictate what we do. In other words is it a matter of personal opinion and is it a matter of, I don't know. Is it just like, do I feel comfortable? And maybe it does end up coming back down to that question, but gimme some biblical guidance about how you would instruct somebody to think through not being well. Do you power through it? Do you go to the office? Do you go to church or do you do something else in between? Yeah, I think it's dependent on people's circumstances and situations, but I do think we need to love one another well, and if you're gonna put other people in a position of getting sick because you're gonna be in close quarters with them, I think it's wise. Probably to consider whether or not you need to be in that situation. If you're gonna show up at church and you know you're gonna be standing next to other people and singing loudly, to spread Christmas cheer for all to hear you may be spreading something else for everybody to receive as well. So, yeah, I think it's wise to be thoughtful about that. I also think. That there's times that we feel a little tickle in the back of our throat and we're like, oh, good. I don't have to go do that thing. I don't have to be involved in that thing because I can just tell people I'm sick. So I think. We have to be men and women of integrity in making those decisions too. But if you're really sick, there's nothing wrong with stepping out, tapping out, recovering, resting, recuperating you're not gonna be as productive. And that's one of the hard things. I think if we're gonna believe the best about most people. I think the reason most people don't like doing that is because. When you're sick, you get behind on things there, there's no doubt about it. You just, you can't be as productive as otherwise you would be. And part of that is God's design. And I think God sometimes gives us sickness to remind us that we are dependent upon him. I remember it wasn't about sickness, but MacArthur preached a sermon on sleep. And it was the same thing. Somebody asked him the question, Dr. MacArthur, how do you sleep when there's so much to get done and so much evil in the world and everything else? And he said, because I'm not God, because God has commanded me to get sleep because I need sleep. And sleep is a way for me to exercise dependence upon him. And when our bodies get sick, I think likewise, it's an opportunity for us to say, okay, we're not God. Our bodies are frail. They're cursed by the fall and we need to take this time to. Let them recover and get stronger. And you add to that we're not at our top performance when we're sick. So our minds aren't there as sharp as they normally are. And we're probably gonna be better off disengaging, resting, coming back, full strength rather than trying to push through and only being able to give 50%, 60% of what we normally would be able to offer. Yeah, it's one of those. Terrible ironies that in a season where you want to be all in, you wanna go to all the parties and you wanna go to the church and sing all the familiar hymns. It's often this particular season where we get sick, we get sidelined, and I think this is one of those situations where God is just instituting a divinely sanctioned rest period. You don't have a choice. And for most of us, being truly sick is enough of a reason for us to say, okay, I need to slow down and find a way to recover and help make this thing go quicker instead of. What you said earlier, instead of infecting others with my Christmas cheer it's hard though. I don't ever find myself simply making a decision. I'm always agonizing over do I go into the office? Do I go to, what do I do? Yeah. Do I host the rehearsal at my home? If my kids are, am I such a challenging calculus? I never have any. Comfort in that. I always just sense, okay, this is, I have to make a decision. I'm just gonna do this and I just hope it's the right one. We'll see. And will I ever know? Probably not, but I agonize. I agonize over these decisions 'cause it's so hard. I don't wanna get people sick. I don't wanna discourage people from sidelining themselves when they're just got a little throat tickle. It's a challenging one. This is hard. It is. It is. Yeah. Like earlier this week, we recorded on Zoom, we're still recording on Zoom today in part because there's. Good deal of sickness in my house. And earlier this week, Tuesday when I came in I wasn't quite sure if I was on the borderline of getting sick or not. And by God's grace I think, he's preserved my health through that. And so I'm thankful for that. But I also know, man, I've been around my kids who have been sick. I just had to go home at lunchtime today and pick up two more of them from school who were sent back home because they spiked fevers again, even after they were normal when we sent them to school. Just stuff like that happens. And so. Yeah, there's a scale there. There's a spectrum there. And I think if it's just, oh man, I've got that tiny little tickle. Yeah, maybe you do still show up, but like we did, we said, we've got technology. Let's take advantage of this. Let's jump on here and we can avoid spreading anything unnecessarily. But man, if you've got a fever and you've got the chills or your stomach is all messed up and everything else, and you're going and you're hanging out around other people mean just think about. That could have a trickle effect. They might miss out on their family function that they've got. Later on, they might miss out on work because now all of a sudden they've got what you had in things. So it's a matter of our love for one another, just to be cautious on those. What would you say though, to the person who says, man, we are way too soft and sensitive about this, though. In fact, maybe it's because we had this whole COVID ordeal where everyone's sensibilities were drastically upended and changed. We're really not that threatened by a colder of flu. So a. Maybe you would say, Hey, don't do that because it's unkind or un loving. But really we're developing immunity. It's gonna strengthen us over the long term. It's not gonna have an immediate effect for us, a ben, a benefit that is, but it will have a long term effect if we're all strengthened because we are immune to these colds, that's better for everybody. Yeah. There's some of that for sure. And I think the softness is there I would say. We also have to be conscious of the fact that when we're showing up at a place like church, there are gonna be people that are in that room who are immunocompromised. There are gonna be people in that room whose loved ones are immunocompromised. And if we're there with our sickness, then that may be impeding that person from being able to show up at church. For example, somebody going through radiation therapy for cancer, radiation treatment chemotherapy. Man, they've gotta be really careful about people that they're around. Now, the extreme cases, they're not even gonna be out in public at all. But there's more minor cases too, where they're gonna be out, they're gonna be able to be around other people, but they can't get sick. And so we've gotta be careful not to just assume well, everybody is as strong and robust and healthy person and they can just build the bridge and get over the sniffles. We've gotta be. Sensitive to those that are weaker amongst us, even just the elderly amongst us, that our cold is gonna hit them differently than it's gonna hit us. And so we just have to be thoughtful about others as well. Yeah, that's a good reminder for us, especially this time of year. And I think this is one of those weaker brother. Stronger brother situations. Yeah. I suspect that there's a lot of that in involved in this decision for a lot of people. But so maybe the best principle then is to make a decision that you think you can live with, one that is informed by love for God and love for others. And as an act of faith, you make your decision, whether it is to go or to stay, whatever it is, you're doing it as an act of faith. And if you can't do it that way, you need to get that settled first before you make your decision. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I agree. One more before we get to the text. One more kind of public service announcement there. We wanna put some feelers out there for our church body because Garrett and Kirsten are back with us. They are home on leave from their missionary training and they're gonna be with us for about a month. I believe they're here until about January, around this time. In January, January 10th, January 11th. And they are in need of transportation. They had transportation lined up when they were on their way out here, but unfortunately one of their parents got in a car accident. Their parents are okay, but they're down a car, so they had a car lined up. They're not gonna be able to use that if you or your family have an extra vehicle. And you'd be willing to let the Eubanks use that during the time that they're here. Really appreciate that. It would be a way for us as the church to serve some of our missionaries that we support who are gonna be back in town with us for about a month here. And I know you would bless them immensely. And so if you've got something like that, reach out to us, let us know, and we would be happy to connect you with Garrett and Kirsten to get that lined up. What about a motorcycle? I don't know if Kirsten really knows how to drive the motorcycles. How about a tandem e-bike? You know, they might get in even better shape. They're in great shape, but they may get in even better shape. Work off the Christmas cookies with that. Maybe we get them a pair of roller blades if we can't find 'em a car. There it is. Yeah. But if you do let us know and we'd be happy to get you connected there. Well, let's get to our reading. We're in Acts 20 through 23 today. Acts 20 through 23. So in acts chapter 20, as it opens up, there's a lot of movement. Paul is going to end up over in Greece for a minute from Macedonia, but then there's gonna be a plot made against him, which is pretty common at this point for Paul. So he's gonna head back towards Macedonia, but he's gonna stop in Troas. Now, Troas is pretty far out there when you consider where Jerusalem and where the church got its start and everything else. Tru is on the very. It western edge of modern day Turkey. And so across the A GNC from Charles is Greece. That's why Paul came back there from Greece. But this is pretty far out there. And this is again, modern day Asia mi, modern day Turkey, what was known as Asia Minor at the time. Paul's gonna set up camp there and he's going to, when he first gets there, preach, and this is a doozy of a sermon. You talked about that 97 hour sermon that set a record. I don't think this was 97 hours, but it was long enough that he was preaching all the way past midnight and there was a young man who falls down from the window, ledge there and dies from the impact. And Paul. By God's working brings him back to life. Paul takes him up in his arms and this young man is resurrected, resuscitated from the dead. Pretty miraculous event there. Again I think this is still in keeping with the spread of the church in the early ages. Early stages here where people are listening to the message and seeing these things, which are helping to validate the messenger and the message, especially because Paul has so much controversy around him, so many people coming in behind him to deny his teaching. I think this is an object lesson where God allows him to do this. And this is a testimony to the power of Paul's word. Knowing that there was probably gonna be false teachers that would come in behind as they always did, and try to pervert what he was preaching. Yeah. One note I wanna mention here is in verse eight, it seems like a fairly innocuous detail, but it's important because I don't want Paul to get slandered here. He wasn't a bad preacher. It's not like he was boring, right. In fact, I think because he was able to preach for so long, he took advantage of that and he was preaching a long time with most people being able to have their attention fairly wrapped. But verse eight tells us that there are many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered, and that tells us, of course, that that was their light source. And if you have lots of lamps that are lit, all of that fire is sucking up all the oxygen in the air. So UCUs interesting. Doesn't die of boredom. He's not bored of Paul and snoozing and falling outta the window. It is actually because he's probably being deprived of oxygen. And of course, if you know anything about that gets your brain all loopy, you start to get a little drowsy. So that would explain why he falls. It's still important here that Paul does resurrect him. I think that's what's taking place here. But Paul's not boring. It's likely a lack of oxygen. Interesting. I had not heard that before. It does. I mean he, it does explain why he was by the open window too, to try to get some more fresh air. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe he was tired. I don't wanna say that that wasn't part of it, but I don't wanna say that Paul was boring. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Well, I'm sure Paul appreciates that when you get to heaven, Paul's gonna be like, Hey, pastor Rod, give the kn Well, while he's here, he is going to call. Well, I guess he's not there anymore. He travels on at this point too, my elitist and my elitist is gonna be just down the coast there of Turkey. He's gonna call for the elders of Ephesus and the Ephesian elders are gonna meet him there and he's going to, knowing that. This is it for him. The church at Ephesus held a special place in his heart, and so he's going to address them and he's gonna charge them to, basically he's gonna charge them to elder well, to pastor well, elder pastor, overseer these are all terms that mean the same thing, the same office. And that is the office of pastor. And so Paul's addressing the pastors of the local church there in Ephesus and telling them, you need to pastor well, and you need to care for this body of. Of believers there, mindful of the fact that Jesus shed his blood to buy the church. And this is such a point of emphasis for us today to pay attention to that. The church is paramount in God's plan right now. We talk about a personal relationship with Christ a lot and understandably understand that, and the church is made up as of individuals, but what God is concerned with is not individuals. He's concerned with the church. He's concerned with the. The bride of Christ, which is realized through the local body of believers. Whether that's here in prosper as we gather, or some of our other churches, compass Bible churches, or you've got other churches in our area. God is concerned with the church. That's why Jesus died. He died to form the church. He didn't die for a religion of individuals. That's why somebody who says, well, I just do church at home with my family. Is missing the point of what God has done in sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. So Paul is charging the elders there at Ephesus saying, Hey pastor well, and as you do that care well for the church because you're gonna need to protect them because there's gonna be false teachers that are gonna come in and threaten there. Chapter 21, Paul in leaving the elders there in Ephesus in my elitist, Paul's gonna make his way back towards Jerusalem. And this is setting up the beginning of the end. And so as Paul is going, he's going to make his way there, but he's not getting there right away without any stops. So he's gonna stop first at tire, the region of tire, and in stopping at tire, he is going to end up finding a group of disciples that is coming to him and it says encouraging him or urging him through the spirit, not to go to Jerusalem. This is an interesting situation here because you, you have the phrase that by the spirit or through the spirit, they were telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem, and yet we know that it's the will of God for Paul to end up in Jerusalem. There. And so this is such a fascinating situation. In fact, later on you've got Agabus in chapter 21 who's gonna testify that Paul, when he gets to Jerusalem, is going to be bound and imprisoned. And he does that through this object. Listen, Agabus is prophesying that this is gonna happen. Paul's gonna be arrested, he's gonna be imprisoned there. And again, the people there urge Paul, don't go, don't go. And Paul says, I'm ready not only to be in prison, but even to die Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. So I think when it says that they were urging him through the Spirit is their desires were pure number one for Paul and number two that what they were saying was based on things that were actually legitimately a threat and legitimately going to happen. I think they had a perception through the spirit that Paul was going to meet a, an a bad end in Jerusalem, at least humanly speaking a bad end, and they didn't want this to happen, and so they're urging him not to go. Agabus urging him not to go. The other's urging him not to go. But that's seems to be the goings on here. Pastor Rob, what are your thoughts on that group that are urging him not to go through the spirit? Yeah, this is a tough one. I don't think that, well, I do agree. They're clearly sincere. They want what's good for Paul, but I have a hard time with the appendage that it was through the spirit. And because it's the s is capitalized, there clearly are editors think that this is not just a spirit as in it's their own spirits that are moving them. They're being provoked by the spirit of God to say something to Paul. So I wonder then if maybe they're interpreting. The spirit's leading incorrectly. I do know that the spirit does communicate and he does communicate infallibly through his word, and in this case, through the prompting of these people. But the interpretation still has to happen on our side, where, I wonder maybe that's where the breakdown took place. Right. They would assume that because the spirit told them, Paul is going to go and be persecuted and be imprisoned, that it must mean therefore that he should not go. Where Paul in the other hand, understood the spirit's prompting as being, no, this is actually why I want you to go. He was told at the beginning of his ministry that he would be used for that very purpose to make known Christ among the Gentiles and he would do so at great personal cost. So I wonder if there's some of that that's taking place. It's a misfiring of the interpretation, even though the. The information was accurate, the interpretation was wrong. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Yeah. I had the similar thought as well. Yeah, and that's very much possible. Well, he does make it to Jerusalem and he goes to visit James, and James addresses Paul and says, Paul, we've got a problem. People are hearing that you are going to the Gentiles and undermining. Judaism in the process and saying that the law is bad. And so James is gonna encourage Paul, Hey, we've got these four men here who are under an oath and a vow. I want you to take and pay for them to take care of fulfilling their vow. And this seems a little bit like a dog and pony show for Paul to go through to say, look at, look at, I'm showing you that I'm on board with you. And I think this is where we have to go back to when Paul said. To those under the law, I became as one, under the law in order that I might win Mor to Christ. I think this is an example of that, what we're seeing here. I think that's why Paul goes along with this plan from James, that he says, okay, this fine, let me go forward with this. Lemme do this. And he does it, it doesn't really solve the problem because Paul is later on in. At the temple right after this preaching and teaching. And there's a riot that basically happens here. There's an accusation that he was teaching everyone against the people and the law of this place. And so again, the Jews are saying Paul essentially is guilty of blasphemy and disparaging the law and saying that the law's worthless. And so he's gonna be taken, he's gonna be beaten by the people. The soldiers show up, they intervene, they arrest him. Then right before they're about to haul him into the barracks, he stops and asks to address the crowd. And that gets us into chapter 22. But that's kind of the rest of what happens here in Chapter 21. Chapter 22. Then Paul does address the crowd and he does so essentially by bearing te his testimony, giving his testimony, and he starts by appealing to his lineage that he's a Jew. That he was tutored at the feet of Gamal, who was a leading Jew and one of the leading tutors of the day that he persecuted the church there. And then he gets into, in on his way to persecute the church. This is when his life changed and he gives his testimony. And this is beginning in verse six, all the way down through verse 21. This is the story that we've read before all the way back in Acts chapter nine of how Paul came to faith in Jesus. And this is just a good reminder for us that when we are in situations, it's good for us to have our testimony at the ready. Paul. Doesn't launch into a theological diatribe here. He doesn't go into a systematic theology to explain the relationship of the law to the Christian and why Christ came to fulfill the law. He does that in other places, but right here in this moment, what he's concerned with is saying this is the difference. This is the transformation. Because Paul looked at his audience and said, you guys need to know this is who I was. This is what Jesus did for me. This is who I am now. And that's why our testimonies are so good and this is a good reminder that we should have our testimony. Down. We should have the ability to tell somebody, this is how I got saved. If somebody says, Hey, tell me how you became a Christian. You should have an answer to that and you should have an answer to that. That's two versions. You should have your elevator pitch answer where you've got two minutes to tell somebody about your faith in Christ and you should have the longer version where you can sit down in somebody's living room and say, Hey, yeah, lemme tell you my story. This is what God did to save me. And I think that's a good reminder from what we see in Paul here. Yeah, this is the third time we're now seeing a fairly extensive portion of Paul's testimony. He uses it in chapter nine. He uses it again in chapter 26. I guess this is the third time that we're gonna see this. What? What gives, why would Luke spend so much time, energy, and ink repeating essentially the same story? Besides the fact that we do see the point, we should know our testimonies and have the sense of being able to communicate it. What do you think here is happening? Why would Luke do this? I think Luke's detail oriented, I think Luke's goal is to show what actually took place and what actually happened. And I think these are key points in the life and ministry of Paul when this is taking place. And so I, Luke is re reporting it because it, it's part of the story, it's part of the narrative and I think. Luke's also trying to show that those that are ultimately Paul's greatest accusers are those that Paul was a part of. This was Paul's life prior to Christ, and now his transformation has taken place and it reinforces so much of the rest of what we see from Paul and the rest of his teaching and transformation for us to remember, oh yeah, this is who he was. And we see this too in one Timothy. Paul spends a good part of the opening of one Timothy saying, look, this is who I used to be and yet God saved me. He used me as an example of those that he shows the utmost of mercy and patience towards so that others might, through my example, come to faith as well. So that's my take on it. But your thoughts No, I would agree with that. That, that's great. Paul. Paul's an exceptional figure, so I think there's also something about the fact that he's a major player in the Lord's. Works and operations in the early church. So it would make sense to me that there would be this repeated refrain about who he is, how God saved him, and I think that's important. What would you say then about verse nine? Verse nine says, now, those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. In chapter nine, he says that the men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. And so it seems like there's a little bit of, I don't know, I let's just call it a difference between these two things. In chapter nine, they hear the voice, but they don't see anybody. In chapter 22, they see the light, but didn't understand the voice. How do we en mesh these two things together? Is Paul Misspeaking here? What's happening do you think? No, I think it's saying the same thing, just. Tweaked a little bit. So it doesn't say in 22 that they saw a person, that they saw a light. And in chapter nine it says they didn't see anyone. That doesn't preclude the fact that they saw a great light, that there was some sort of blinding light that was there. And then same thing, they may have heard the voice in chapter nine, but that doesn't imply that they understood it. Chapter 22 tells us they didn't understand it, but it doesn't preclude the fact that they may have heard it. So I, I think these two things can fit together and they basically are just different sides of the same coin. The rest of chapter 22. Then the Romans are trying to figure out what in the world is going on. He's basically investigated by a Roman official here. The Roman official finds out that he's a Roman citizen and initially thinks that Paul May have bought his Roman citizenship. Paul says, no, I was born a Roman citizen. So Roman is petrified now because they don't wanna do anything against him that would break their own law. They wanna know though, what's going on. So they go to the council, the Sanhedrin, in chapter 23, and they basically want Paul to address his accusers and therein, Paul finds himself in a difficult situation and he borrows a play from the playbook of Jesus. And he stands up and he. He pits the Pharisees and the Sadducees against each other, and he says, look I'm here with respect to the hope of the resurrection of the Dead, because he knows the Sadducees deny the resurrection. The Pharisees are in support, so he actually gets some of the Pharisees to start supporting him while the Sadducees are after him. And it gets into a really riotous situation again. In verse 10, the dissension became violent. The tribune afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces, commanded the soldiers to go down and take 'em away from them, and to bring 'em into the barracks. And so he's brought into the barracks. He has an appearance by the Lord, verse 11, where Jesus appears and tells him, take courage for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem. You must also testify in Rome. That's gonna be important for us because from here. Paul's gonna move again because there's a plot to execute him, to kill him, to assassinate him, that his nephew finds out about his nephew, warns the Romans. The Romans then say, okay, we gotta get him outta here because things could get really riotous, which is not gonna go well for them with Caesar. And so they move him. And they move him up into an area known as Caesarea. This is Caesar Maritima. This is north on the coast of Israel now. So we've moved away from Jerusalem. We're now up in the region of Galilee in that territory now, and he's gonna be kept here and he's gonna be kept here for quite a while. But the people that he's gonna appear here before are people that are pretty power. And we're gonna see tomorrow how his appearance before them end up moving him towards this destination that he has. Ultimately, that has been set in stone by the Lord, which is that he must appear in Rome. So chapter 23 is really a lot about the movement of Paul to set him up, to get him to where God ultimately wants him to be. This is exciting because even though God's not directly mentioned here, you see his fingerprints and tracks all over this. He's providentially moving him. He providentially puts his nephew in the right place at the right time. So even though God's not here, it's like the book of Esther. You can see his operations even though. You never hear Luke say, and God caused his nephew to do this, and God caused these men to do that. But God is moving Paul exactly where he wants him. Now remember the organization of the book, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth. That is the progression of the gospel, and now we're seeing it played out. Paul is now. About to make his way to the ends of the earth, which in this day and age Rome would've been one of those places that it's the ends of the earth. Obviously they weren't aware of America and Antarctica and places like that. So you're seeing how God is unfolding and unfurling the gospel all over the world by means of Paul. Yep. Yep. Well, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Father, we are thankful that you moved the gospel all the way to where we are. And where we were whenever that was, that we were saved whenever that was. That we heard the gospel and responded in faith and repentance. And we understand, Lord, that you still have a desire to reach more people and now you want to use us. We are now the disciples that have been commissioned to go and. Make disciples of more people teaching them all that you've commanded them and baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son, holy Spirit. We wanna be those that are reaching the ends of the earth now, and so help us to do that even this Christmas season as we'll. Have opportunities to invite people to church, and to talk to our neighbors and our family. Lord, help us to be evangelistic in our pursuits of people this Christmas season to see more and more people. Be able to have their own testimony much like Paul did in the section that we've been reading that we might bear witness of the change and transformation that you've worked in our lives. So we thank you so much for Christ and the fact that he's done that for us. In Jesus' name, amen Keeper in your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Bye y'all.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said