Hey folks, welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. And happy Monday. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. Yeah, we hope you're enjoying your week so far. We we have a question that was written in we talked about the dependence that Jesus had upon the spirits to do the ministry that he did. The follow up question to that was we talk about Jesus sometimes as fully God and fully man, but then others will say things like truly God and truly man. And so the question is there precedent or wisdom in using one title over the other? Pierre, what are your thoughts on that one? Or just what's the difference between the two or what's the difference between the two? Yeah, I learned this distinction. I believe the first person I heard it from personally was William Lane Craig, and he's the one who first I think. Showed me to say fully man could be understood as a logical fallacy. 'cause you can't be fully one thing and fully another. If you're fully something, then it excludes other things which is what his reasoning was. So he said one thing that's theologically sound and still helpful to say, is that someone is truly truly this or truly that. So you could say someone is truly a police officer and truly a father, he could be too. Both of those things in a true sense, but to say one is fully this and fully that could be confusing and potentially, you know, logically fallacious was his point. So truly then tells us when we talk about Jesus, we're saying that he is truly authentically human and he's also truly authentically God. And so I will often say truly God and truly human in order to clarify what I'm trying to say. But I don't have any qualms necessarily with saying fully we've, that's kind of a tradition. We've said that for a long time. I'm not sure how long the church has said that, but to say he's fully human and fully divine for most people is not all that confusing. But it is confusing when you start getting into the realm of the triune nature of the Godhead. That's just hard to wrap your mind around it. I don't know that we're gonna resolve that anytime soon. But to say truly versus fully is to say that Jesus is truly authentically human and truly authentically God. Right. And this gets into. The relation, what's called the hypostatic union in theological circles, which is the relationship between Christ's humanity and Christ's divinity. And there's the old joke about shampoo and conditioner in one bottle. It's like, you can't have two in one. It's not all shampoo and all conditioner. A hundred percent of both in one bottle because it wouldn't work that way. Hmm. And yet that's what we have in Christ. You have both natures that like shampoo and conditioner. Yeah. Jesus's book. Yeah. That, that don't mix, that aren't diluted in any way. One is not lessened for the sake of the other one. And they're both present in their full capacity in Jesus. So I'm with you. I don't have any qualms If somebody says fully God, fully, man I think we understand, especially within the context of the church, what that person is talking about. I think the important thing to, to remember is that he's never not one of those things. Right? So even like you gave the example of somebody being a police officer and a father, which I think is helpful. Like he's truly this Yes, he is that, and then he's truly a dad over there, I guess you could say. As far as I, his identity goes, he's always. A police officer even when he is at home. Yes. But he's sometimes not functioning as a police officer. Mm-hmm. He's the he's just at home. He's just dad. Versus sometimes when he is on the job, he's always a dad when he is on the job. But when he's arresting a scumbag and putting him up against the hood of his car and putting his cuffs on him, he's not dad in that moment, in that context, he's a police officer. In that moment, in that context, with Jesus, he's never not. The other, he's always both at the same time, right? He's truly god, truly man. At the same time, in all context, what we see in scripture, for example, in John four, when he sits down by the well being tired, is that there are moments in his, what's known as his kenosis, that is where he's veiled the fullness of his glory with the fullness of his humanity. There are moments where you see some of. The focus shift more towards one aspect of his nature than the other, but it doesn't change the fact that he's still in that moment truly God, even as he's tired in his true humanity, he's still truly God in that moment as he's sitting there. And I think the greatest example is on the cross as he's breathing his last, he's still truly God. Even as in his true humanity, his soul is being yielded up to the father. Yeah, and this is where you get into a realm of a lot of potential dangerous. Hazards theologically. So it's hard to talk about this and remain faithful, which is why we benefit so much from the 2000 years of church history that we can rely upon because people have thought carefully about these matters and said, well, how do we talk about Jesus then as fully or truly human and truly God without violating what we know to be true about him in either place? And this is where it's hard to talk about it because even still after 2000 years of trying to hammer it out, there are still hazards to this where we don't wanna say, well, he's. Operating in a certain mode, Allah, modalism we don't wanna say he's half of this and half of that. There's lots of hazards to this. So man, I would recommend, if you haven't read it yet, I know we talked about it as a starting place. Bruce wears book, the Man Christ Jesus has. It was one of the best books I read the year I read it, whatever it was, maybe a three or five years ago at this point. But well worth their time and attention because we don't give enough attention to the hypostatic union, the strange combination of God and man together. But that strange combination is what saves us, and we could have it no other way. It is the key to our salvation. So it's worth your investment, your time, and your study, and I'm sure it'll deepen your love and respect for Christ. Yeah. Well, let's jump into our DVR for today. We're in Matthew 16 and Mark eight. Matthew 16 is kind of a rollercoaster for the disciples here and specifically for Peter in particular. But it, before we get there he opens talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees who come in. They want a sign from him, and really they want a sign from him saying, by what authority are you doing these things? Essentially? And Jesus indicts them. And it's an indictment that's. Pretty convicting. 'cause he says, look, you're able to go outside and interpret the weather, and yet you miss the signs that you really should be paying attention to, which is the signs of the times the signs of the fact that God is on the move and that things are happening here. And that you've seen plenty of evidence from, Jesus at this point of his power of his authority to cause them at least to, to see and recognize there's something different about this guy. Maybe we should pay attention. And I'll say this, I think Nicodemus is an example of what they should have been doing because Nicodemus, I think. Though not immediately surrendering in faith to Christ. He's going to, he's at the cross. He's helping Joseph and Miaa take the body down from the cross. And so, he's beginning to look and examine and interpret. And I think that's the genesis of his question back in John chapter three when he says, Hey, teacher, we know that no one can do the things you're doing unless they come from God. So here he's telling the Pharisees, you guys are just, you're missing it. You can't see the, you can tell the weather, but you can't see what's right in front of you. And so he's indicting them for their their lack of perception. Notice in verse one, it says here, the Pharisees and the Sadducees came. And they came to test him. I see this as them chasing him down. Yes. I understand that. That's, and again, I'm still operating from the idea here that he was healing, not healing, he was healing, but he was multiplying the fish in the loaves in a primarily gentile territory. And these guys are so steadfast on their opposition to him, they're saying, let's just go find this guy and let's just try to discredit him anyway we can. So, chapter 16 verse one. They came to him, they're trying to pick a fight with him in order to discredit him Well, and the other thing, another example of how much they hate him, the Pharisees and Sadducees did not like each other. They did not get along with each other. Yeah. That was good. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Exactly. And so they're uniting to try to take Jesus out here. From here we, we see the first kind of the downbeat for the disciples. And that is they get in the boat and they realize, Hey, we don't have any bread. Yeah. And Jesus is gonna call 'em out. He's gonna say, Hey you know what? You need to be aware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And he's trying to get them to understand that, that just like leaven will. Work its way through an entire lump of dough. The teaching of the Pharisees and the sades had really pervaded and corrupted so much of the nation of Israel. And even they had been exposed to a lot of this as well. So he's saying, you need to be aware of this. You need to be aware and not fall prey to the same things. They miss it as they so often do, and they stay on the physical plane. They think, oh man, he's mad at us 'cause we didn't bring bread. And that's where I think in yesterday's episode you alluded to the fact that Jesus says what. Seriously guys, really enough about the bread. Well, verse nine and 10 tells us that these two events of multiplying fish and loaves were in fact two distinct events. That's how you know for sure, in addition to saying, well, that there's different numbers and all those other things, but here you have Jesus telling the guys, get past the bread please. And this kinda sounds reminiscent to me of when. Paul and I don't know who the author of Hebrews is, but saying, look, we need to move past the milk. Let's get past the milk and let's talk about the meat here. Let's get into deeper things, which tells all of us, we can laugh at them and Pope fun at them, but you and I would be in the same. Boat. Yeah. Pun intended. Yeah. We'd be in the same boat. We'd be like, Jesus, tell us more about that. We don't get this. And if it weren't for chat, GPT and all the resources that we stand on a day, we'd have a lot harder time answering some of these questions that just kind of pop into our minds. So as you see the scriptures and you see more than what the apostles at least initially saw, and I thank God for that and recognize that with all of this knowledge comes great responsibility for us to grow, are we living up to the level of knowledge that we have? Woo. I don't know that I could say that that's true for me, and maybe it's true for you, but we ought to do that. Yeah. No I'm with you. So many times I read and I'm convicted when I read about the Pharisees or I read about the disciples, I'm like, okay, I need to remember that. I probably would've been there too. Yeah. I probably would've been doing the same thing that they were doing. But for the grace of God, go, we. That's right. Well, we go from a low point from the disciples to this high point here in chapter 16, and that is the question, and I think we've seen this once before, but here it is from Matthew's perspective as he records it for us, and that's this question that Jesus asked, who do the people say that I am? And they go through the list. Well, John the Baptist, or Elijah or Jeremiah. And then he says, but what about you? Who do you say that I am? And here's Simon's confession in verse 16. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him and gives this blessing to Peter. He says, blessed are you Simon Barone, by the way, BARR. In Hebrew means son of, so Simon's, son of Jonah four flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And then he has this statement in verse 18. And this has led to one of the most egregious misunderstandings of the text that we've ever seen. And the birth of a whole polity that is, is now corrupt and continues corrupt. And that is the idea of the. Petrin headship of the church. Peter was the first Pope. And all the popes have descended from Peter because Jesus says to Peter, you're Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And the assumption has been, he's talking about Peter. Peter's name means rock, but it means small rock, like a pebble. Mm-hmm. The rock that Jesus refers to is not the same word here. And so there's a, an illusion to say, okay, well, well Peter, you're the rock and I'm gonna build the church on the rock. But instead, I think what this is about is Peter's confession. Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ, that this is the bread and butter. This is the foundation, this is the message, this is the gospel, and this is the very foundation of the church that Jesus is gonna build and the gates of hell will never prevail against it. Now he does tell Peter, I will give you, and he's speaking individually here, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. Peter, how to up? A part to play. Peter was gonna have a special role in this, and he was, we're gonna see that in the book of Acts, but I don't think we can read this to say, Peter is the foundation of the church and there's an apostolic succession from Peter that we need to still honor today as the pope or the head of the church. Amen to that. And more practically speaking here just think about what happens after Peter says this, Jesus is really gonna go hard after the leader of the church if this in fact is what Jesus is saying. And then when you see James operating in. In at the Jerusalem Church in the Book of Acts. It really seems like James has a pretty significant role if he is not the defacto leader, which is interesting to me because I do think he gives Peter a special place. But James seems to have a pretty large place of authority in the Jerusalem church, which tells me, I don't think that they all understood Peter as being the guy, right? He was not speaking ex cathedra. He wasn't declaring this is the way it is, and you know, he didn't have a fancy hat with a nice cape. I think that, I think they just understood, okay. What Jesus said to Peter is that. As a leader in the band and saying what he's saying, he's operating. Under Christ's authority. That is what he's saying. And what he's doing. This is what Christ blessed, not necessarily that Peter himself or in and of himself was to be some kind of special authoritative leader in and of himself, right. With the scriptures, yes. But not in and of himself. Well, and even Paul is gonna oppose Peter to his face. Yeah. For for being a hypocrite. Yeah. For eating with the Gentiles. And then the Jewish Christians show up and he abstains, he pulls back from that. Even that, if Peter's the guy, I mean, Paul's pretty brash to, to oppose him to his face over. Yeah. He didn't even call him papa or nothing. Right? Just went right after him. Yeah. The binding and loosening thing that can cause some trouble. I think. This is not so much about the church has the authority to determine someone's eternal state, but the church does have the authority given by God to help bring that to light. Whether somebody is truly repentant, whether somebody is rebelling against the church. This is, I think, is part and parcel with Matthew 18 and church discipline, which we're not to yet, but we will get there. I, that's, that seems to be what's operative here behind Jesus' words about you have the authority to bind on earth and loose on earth that the church is meant to be there to help. People understand, okay, this is somebody who's unrepentant. This is somebody who's truly repentant, and you should have confidence in the forgiveness of sins because we see true repentance and fruit of repentance in your life versus to this person over here. You know what? We're gonna warn you because we feel like you're walking and continued rebelling to the Lord. We've got serious questions about whether or not you're truly saved. What's my take on what he's talking about there? Yeah, I would probably be a tad bit stronger on that just because in verse 19 he says, I give you the keys. Keys represent authority. And so there is something to the authority of the gathered body of believers in a formal setting here. And I'm not talking about the institution per se. I'm just talking about a body believers where there is a pastor and there are parishioners that pastor by the authority of the church working together, they can say, this person's clearly in, and this person's clearly out. Now, this is why the latter half of. Matthew 16 talks about church discipline. The church has the authority to say, look, if you keep walking this way, you are outside the bounds of what scripture calls salvation. And of course, this isn't their arrogance saying, you know, if you don't follow our rules and you don't follow our traditions, then you're not gonna be in the group. This is about saying do, are you honoring what God's word says? And I think he does give Peter some authority here. I think Peter is the leader, Peter, James and John. He's always listed first. So I do think there's something to it. I just don't think it's as. As broad as what is often presented in the Catholic church, like he's given this second to divine authoritative position as the Pope of the church. This is not the case, but in so far as he's operating as a pastor, as a leader with the word of God as his authority, he does have the ability to say, look, the, this is loose and this is bound. Yeah. And I guess what I was saying there MacArthur puts it this way. He says, the church's authority is not to determine these things, but to declare the judgment of heaven based on the principles of the word. So the authority being given there is not that the church is determinative, but the church is the mouthpiece of God, so to speak, to say, Hey, you know what? Your persistent rebellion is revealing that you have an unregenerate heart so in other words it's not excommunication coming from the authority of the individual, of the human being, but the church is God's tribunal, if you will, if that makes sense. To. To reveal or to communicate the things that are true based on God's rulings about the these people. Yeah. And I guess that's, that, that's a difficult position to take given the way that it's worded. And I know that in the ESV we word it this way. It says, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Or it sounds like it's one versus the other one first and then the other. But I also know that the LSB translates it like this, and I have it right here in front of me. Whatever you bind on earth. Shall have been bound in heaven so previous. Yes. It's going the other way. Interesting. Which I think is a fair translation. Obviously, I'm not gonna charge the LSB with not doing it right. But yes, I think you're right. I understand that. But if both are fair translations, I think God does endow his church with a lot of authority, whether it's heaven first and then Earth. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll talk about this more when we get to Matthew 18. I guess the takeaway from this 18 is this, the thing I wanna guard against is the view that the churches can just impetuously decide based on people they like and don't like. Hey, you're out. You're out. Right? And that's an abuse of this, right? But what we do need to hold true to and hold fast to is that the church does have authority. And if you're gonna come and be a part of a church and submit yourself to the leadership of the pastors of that church, then you are submitting yourself to the pastoral care, which could involve church discipline at some point. Should you wander? Should you veer off the path? And that's a good thing. That's a mercy of God to have that present. In your life mm-hmm. To have the church care for you to that degree, yes. But if you're gonna be part of a church, but say, yeah, but I would never submit to their authority to that level. Well then this passage would say to you then you've got a problem with your view of the church. Let me take it even further. I. I'm gonna go all the way. Okay? I'm gonna give you the whole nine yards. Let just alienate everybody. I think church discipline should be happening every day. Dude, that's Matt Chandler right there. Is that what he said? He was the first person I heard say that he got that from me and it stopped me in my tracks. I was on a run and I heard him say that, and I just stopped in my tracks. But go on. Okay. Well unpack. I think he probably is looking at my notes is what it, what happened here. Our goal is to see the church built up in Christ, our desire as the pastors. And we speak for Pastor Mark who's not here with us right now, but we speak for all of us and saying that our desire is to see you built up in Christ, to look like Jesus, to follow his way, to honor his word, to do what he wants you to do. And that means. If you're doing that right and you're practicing the one another's, you're gonna see a lot of sin in each other in yourself. You're gonna interact with one another and there's gonna be sin. And the appropriate right thing to do is to say, Hey bro, can I point something out to you? Hey, I saw you, you did this, you said that it seems like you're upset about this. Or it seems like you're, holding grudges or whatever it is. Whatever it is. And that's church discipline. That's at level one. Now, church discipline at level. Five or 10, whatever you wanna call it, is when we say you can no longer come to this church or be part of this body of believers as a member if you're gonna persist in sin. But at the lower level at the family level, at the friend level, there should be church disciplining happening every day. We confront one another in our sin because we love each other. And that's Galatians six. Brothers, if anyone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore that person in a spirit of love. Right? Yeah. So we should I'm with you. Yeah. We should care about one another. Have those kinds of relationships with each other that we can see that and recognize that. And that's hard because most people don't feel comfortable with that. For sure. To get in each other's kitchen is gonna cost you something. Yeah. And then as much as you're able to, I would love for you to foster permission with people. Yeah. And let people know, Hey I trust you enough to call me out. Yeah. Please do this if you see it. Because people are often very hesitant. They're afraid of ruining a relationship, and so it's really helpful if you as a believer in your community group or with your close friends mm-hmm. If you just tell them, Hey, I want you to know in case they haven't made it clear, I want you to call me out so that I can grow up to be more like Christ. That would be such a blessing to them and a blessing to you. I guarantee it. Yeah. And ask that next question. If you've got per request with your community group and prayer requests are kind of all surfacey and you're kinda going, okay, I wanna go to that next level. Go to that next level. Yeah. Seek that person out. Sit down next to 'em. Say like, Hey, I'd love to know, how's your marriage doing? How's your parenting doing? How's your time in the word doing? Yeah. And even men's Bible study yesterday or Saturday today, as we're recording this, I guess two days ago, as you're listening to this now you made the comment, you said you're not gonna be able to have that kinda relationship with everybody in the church. And that's true, but within your community group, you know, men with men women with women, that, that's one of the reasons why we have community groups. We want these types of relationships to be fostered. They have to be taking place. Yeah. Or you won't grow for sure. From here we get another low point because Jesus predicts his crucifixion again, and right off of his confession of Jesus as the Christ. Peter says, Hey you can't do this. Lord. Quit talking about death. And then Jesus very strongly says to him, get behind me, Satan. He Peter rebukes Jesus. Jesus rebukes. And says, get behind me Satan. Satan is the word adversary. And he says, you're a hindrance to me because you're not setting your mind on the things of God. Peter was standing opposed to the things of God, and that's how he was Satan in that moment. He was not Satan personified but that's what he was doing. He was acting in opposition to God's plan. And then I think it, it fits with the way that the chapter concludes because Jesus then goes on to talk about the true cost of following him, and he's reminding, I think. Peter and the others here. Look, if you're looking for the earthly crown I've got a cross for you. Instead, following me is gonna be hard. I'm not here to set up the kingdom that maybe you want in your hearts right now. In fact, I'm here to go to the cross first. It's not about victory now. It's gonna be victory later. And if you're gonna follow me, you're gonna have to recognize we're not about gaining the world, we're about gaining the world to come. And so that's gonna look like counting the cost, taking up your cross and following me. So that when the subtle man comes in glory with his angels, verse 27. He will repay each person according to what he has done. So, yeah and then he makes this statement at the end there that we'll dive into a little bit tomorrow. Truly, truly, I say to you, there's some staying here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. What did that mean? You're gonna have to listen tomorrow to figure that one out. Mark chapter. Eight, a lot of the same material. The one thing probably to call out here is the healing of the blind man, the two stage healing which seems to have indicated metaphorically just a progression of faith. And so there's the initial phase where he does the. Step one and the man can see, but everybody kind of looks like trees walking around here. And then he gives the man stage two full sight to see. And this is kind of where the disciples are right now. They've got a partial faith. They're seeing things about Jesus that they weren't seeing before and that others can't see. And yet they're gonna have their full faith realized in the end there. So I think Jesus even uses this healing. As an example of of faith in its progression. Well, even where it's placed in the text is important to see because it reinforces your point. The verse 21, Jesus says to them, do you not yet understand? Mm-hmm. He's asking, do you guys not see yet? They're the blind ones. And so you have this sandwiched story between that and Peter's confession of you are the Christ. So you have the two stage interaction both in the disciples and in the man who is blind, who can now see. And I think that's why that story is there. Yeah. Well, let's pray and then we will be done with this episode. Lord, we are thankful for the church. I pray that would be true of all of us listening to this right now, that we would not think of the church as something that is a hindrance to our faith, but something that is there to help and guard and protect and encourage our faith. And I pray that we as pastors would take that job seriously, that role seriously. But Lord I pray that our church body would love one another, even as we were talking about love one another enough to get in each other's kitchens to talk about hard. Things to ask hard questions and that we as a church body would be receptive to that. We would be humble. That we would say, yeah, we welcome that because at the end of the day, we wanna be more like Christ. And if you see something in me that doesn't make me like Christ, I wanna know. And so, Lord, purify your body, make us a holy church because of the way that we love one another this way. And so we thank you so much for Christ and the ability for us to do that with one another. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keep it in your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See that? Bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said