I just finished reading the entire New Testament in order, and there are

over 100 things I thought were in the Bible that were nowhere to be found.

Welcome to Seek, go Create.

I'm Tim Winders.

I just read the entire New Testament in 90 days in the order it was

written, not the order in your Bible.

We've talked about that in this 1990 reading plan.

This is the order that we place the books in the way that we

believe that they were written.

The order, the letters actually went out to the audience in the first

century, and what I found surprised me.

In many ways, it challenged me and changed the way I understand scripture.

This series somewhat of a follow up to the reading, the New Testament in order is

where I share those discoveries with you.

We're gonna be going through a number of things and this episode today is

kinda like an overview of a lot of the things that I found and discovered.

If you want to do what I did, read it in order.

If you're just popping in on this episode and you haven't been following

along, the reading plan is free.

just go to K two M. DO foundation slash NT 90, that's K two M Foundation slash NT 90.

You could download the plan, go through the reading plan, just

like I have just finished up.

You could read along, you could read it at your own pace.

I kind of compressed it in 90 days.

That's how I designed it.

But I think you'll enjoy it.

The link is down in the show notes.

Make sure you do that and you can get caught up and kinda see some of these

things that have been, just making me think, pressing me and challenging me.

So here's what we're gonna do in this episode.

It's kind of different and unique, but it's kind of a big

picture of where we may be going.

Like I said before, just finished reading the New Testament.

In 90 days, you can go back and look at those episodes, you can review them, you

could jump in and do the plan yourself.

I highly, highly recommend that.

But what I want to do is just, I'm gonna kind of go over the story of some things

I discovered, but I'm gonna hit a bunch of the topics that came up or jumped out

at me, or challenged me or pressed me.

All along the way, my mind it was just going and going as I was doing this

plan, and I would write down notes, think about things, come back to things.

And so what I wanna do is I'm just going to sort of dump a lot of those in

this episode with a few bullet points, letting you know that in the future,

many of these are going to be standalone episodes or they'll be combined with

some things where they fit together.

But I'm just gonna give you a little taste of what's coming.

Some of these are things I found buried in a single letter

or gospel, others are threads.

I started seeing things and hearing things that kind of connected some

dots about the bigger story or about topics that kind of fit together.

And they developed, across, like we talked about one generation of writing

from James all the way to Revelation.

And when you kinda read it like we just did in order.

In context, I think things, at least for me, will jump out at

you that you didn't see before.

That's the way it was for me.

I'm not gonna really go into a lot of explanation of these topics in this

episode, but know that these are things that I've got on my list that we will

attempt to address in whatever way.

We can study them deeper in future episodes.

I just want you to hear them.

I just want you to hear all that.

I found when I went through the reading of the New Testament in order and.

In context.

If one of these makes you kinda lean in and think more,

then this series is for you.

I'll, I'll just kind of be upfront.

If you are looking for someone or something that just gives you all

the answers and you don't have to spend a lot of time studying or

thinking, this may not be for you.

This is for the deeper thinkers.

This is for the people that have had a lot of questions and they're looking for some

answers about how things fit together.

You love the scripture.

Maybe you, you know, you love Jesus, you love everything about

the Bible, but there's just pieces of it where you've gone, Hmm, some

of that just doesn't make sense.

To me, that was me years ago.

And as I've been going through this process, I will tell you that I don't,

I haven't gotten it all figured out.

Don't pretend that I do and don't look to me as the guy that gives you the answers.

But I will say this, it makes much more sense to me now than it did 90 days ago.

So let's kind of jump in.

this first list is kind of book specific discoveries, things.

When I was reading a certain book or letter that just

kinda like jumped out at me.

And, first thing, first book right outta the gate.

When I read James first before any gospel, it was really kind

of cool putting that one first.

I realized faith was never really meant to be a belief system.

I grew up in the word of faith movement and it was really.

Emphasized, I guess the aspect of faith and having faith, but it was really meant

I think when you read James to be a Monday morning decision, James was the first

thing written before Matthew, before Paul.

It opens with stop talking about faith and start living it.

And you know, that wasn't my mindset.

I think when I first started this.

It's not a theology lecture, it's just a decision.

Live with faith.

Faith without works is dead.

Your speech, your patience, your Monday morning and the

scriptures that, back that up.

James 1 22 be doers of the word, not hearers only James two 14 through 17.

The famous faith without works is.

Dead.

And, there is, kind of a Well, before I get to this next one, I do wanna say I've

got this long list that I'm gonna be going through, and so I'm gonna be hitting it.

I've got it pulled up in front of me here on my screen.

And, and again, everything in me wants to dive into these deeper, but this

episode is about hitting all these topics.

I hope it doesn't frustrate you.

I hope it, I hope it intrigues you where you want to hang out with me

for the next month, two, three or more as we get into these topics.

But all of these are probably almost standalone episodes or possibly

multiple episodes here at Seek.

Go create.

Future and we've already got a few of these laid out.

So anyway, so that's first right outta the gate.

We started reading James back when I first started this plan, and that's the

first thing that kinda jumped out at me.

There's also something else that came to me when I was reading Hebrews and

there's a character there that shows up once in Genesis, 'cause I remembered

it when I was reading Hebrews.

And then the entire argument of Hebrews is sort of built around this person.

And that is Mel Hasek and an odd, weird character.

No genealogy, no tribe, no beginning or end.

He predates the entire Levitical system.

Abraham, of course, went out and paid tithes to him.

He Abraham, the father of the nation, bowed to a priest.

Who was never part of any type system.

The scriptures that you could look for.

If you want to dig just a little greater Genesis 1418 through 20, Psalm

one, ten four, Hebrews five and seven.

That's what triggered me in Hebrews, and then especially seven three and

seven, seven, where it talks about the lesser is blessed by the greater.

And so that was just kinda really interesting thing to me and just

kind of a little bit of a teaser on where my mind went with that topic.

The phrase, captain Marvel came up when I was thinking about Melek

Captain Marvel in the Marvel universe.

And I'm not an expert in the Marvel universe, so no one get upset

if I say something wrong here.

But it seemed as if Captain Marvel had all these powers and you know, abilities

beyond a lot of the characters that we saw in the Marvel Universe, the day-to-day on

earth characters and Captain Marvel was always off doing something else, but would

swoop in and help and then go off again.

When I was reading about Mel Cek, I said to myself, sounds like Captain

Marvel pops into the Bible three times.

What was Mel Cek doing all the other times?

Anyway, you could kind of get into my maybe creative, maybe twisted mind

as I was thinking, as I was reading through the New Testament in order.

Alright, next topic.

Hebrews 11 is not necessarily the faith hall of fame that

we've all been led to believe.

It is really more of a lesson in patience.

If you read it in context, the punchline or the punch is actually devastating.

So this is from Hebrews.

Every hero listed, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets.

They died without receiving what was promised.

And then the gut punch.

The punchline is that since God had provided something better for

us, that's the audience in the first century, that apart from us,

they should not be made perfect.

The audience of Hebrews was standing at the finish line that those heroes

never saw scriptures to back that up.

Hebrews 1139 through 40, and then 12 one, they were surrounded by, so.

Great.

A cloud of witnesses.

Alright, next big topic.

This one was one that kept coming up time and time again and it really

jumped out at me in first Timothy.

And it is this, the desire to be seen as an authority can outrun the

willingness to actually learn and study that was true in the first century.

And it's true now today.

And I got to be honest with you.

I may have been guilty myself.

I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be heard like a lot of preacher,

teacher people that we have today.

But I am not sure until hopefully now that I was really willing to dig

in and do the work and do the study.

I just wanted the fame and the celebrity didn't want to actually do the work.

And, this was brought up in one Timothy.

Some wanted the title without the formation, the teacher's

platform without the students'.

Posture, and again, honestly say the pull to be the one with the answers is real.

I am so attempting not to do that.

Even with this study and sharing the information, I am right here.

I do not have the answers.

The answers are in the scriptures.

I want everything I say to drive you back to the scripture.

If you disagree with me or agree, prove me right, prove me

wrong, but get it for yourself.

The berean that we all hear about, were commended not for being

authorities, but for being willing to examine and learn the scripture.

There is one Timothy one verse six through seven, desiring to be teachers of the law.

Without understanding.

They saw it in the first century.

And of course we still see that today.

Acts 1711 was the Berean that examined the scriptures daily.

Okay, next big topic.

In Galatians, Paul told an entire church that they were going backward.

Freedom was the whole point, and they were trading it for a system

that was putting them in bondage.

Again, that was the message to the Galatians.

People were adding rules back onto the gospel, circumcision, dietary laws.

The old system rebuilt in new clothing.

Paul's response was the most urgent letter he ever wrote.

He did not even bother with the Thanksgiving section.

In this letter, he went straight to you are deserting the gospel.

That's in Galatians one, six and seven.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting, and then in

Galatians five, one for freedom.

Christ has set you free stand firm and, hmm, I'll, I'll get to a bigger

topic later, but this kept bothering me throughout books, but definitely in

Galatians is when it first jumped out at me and my, I made notes about that.

All right, next topic.

From a book, Rome carried their gods on shelves.

God carried his people on eagle's wings.

That's from Colossians and Ephesians.

Then he came to live.

Inside them.

So this is interesting.

I've gotta share this.

I'm actually in the process as I've gone through this reading

plan of studying the Roman Empire.

I also went back to, um, Alexander the Great, I've been just studying

a lot of ancient history, primarily the empires that led up to the time

that the scriptures were written.

I'm just hanging out in a lot of.

2000 plus years ago.

So I am an exciting dude to hang around.

No doubt about that.

One of the things I noticed when I was reading about some of the culture

of the early Roman Republic, 500, 400 BC was that they basically made

their God's statues and they carried around with them, put 'em on shelves.

They were portable, manageable.

When they moved, they carried with them.

Or when they went to war, sometimes they carried them with them, things like that.

They were replaceable, they were statutory.

They were, they were in these statues that they had, so

they just carried them around.

Israel's God reversed the direction and the quote, I bore you on Eagle's

wings, and then in the new Covenant.

This is so powerful.

This is the difference between those that are believers and

those that have the other gods.

God moved in.

You are the temple.

We are the temple.

The scripture that kind of gets that started.

Exodus 19 four, I bore you on eagle's wings, and then in one Corinthians

three 16, you are God's temple.

And then Colossians 1 27 Christ.

In you, the hope of glory.

the church, the the God he is in you.

Not some, not some statue that you carry around like the Romans dead.

Alright, next big topic.

The New Testament, when you read it in context, never

created a paid clergy class.

Paul made tents on purpose.

This was in First Corinthians.

Also, we saw it in Acts.

Paul built a full argument in one Corinthians nine that he had

the right to financial support, then he refused to use it.

His reason we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in

the way of the gospel, financial independence gave him theological.

Freedom Scriptures on that one.

Corinthians 9 12, 9 18, acts 18, three.

He worked with them for, they were tent makers by trade.

Also in Acts 2033 through 34.

One Peter two nine.

It's a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and we're gonna cover that a good

bit because I wanna go through that.

There were some things that I thought that I knew that I didn't, some things

I had some strong ideas on that I found out I was wrong, that we're gonna

talk about in some future episodes.

Very important, and I think it directly relates to some things we're seeing

in our church and churches today.

All right, next topic.

Hebrews 10 25 is not about church attendance.

Read the rest of the sentence.

So in Hebrews, the verse, everyone uses to guilt you into showing up

on Sunday, but the sentence actually ends with all the more, as you see

the day capital in many text drawing.

Near the day is a specific event for a specific audience.

The purpose of gathering was encouragement before what was coming,

not filling a building every week, and I, I'll go into this more.

There may not be anything wrong with going to a building every week.

The point that I will make many times is that.

Scriptures doesn't command us or tell us to do it again.

May not be anything wrong with doing it.

That may be incredible.

Let's just don't say it's biblical and guilt people into doing it.

Okay, the scripture for that.

Hebrews 10 24 through 25.

And, so anyway, that one's we're gonna talk more about that and, kind

of how it fits to some of the things that I've seen and others have seen.

All right, next topic.

Getting saved.

Did not mean what I was taught.

The Greek word means rescued, healed, made whole.

It was actually much bigger than I imagined.

I first saw it, it jumped out at me when I was reading through Romans, but then

you start seeing it throughout scripture.

The word is soso and it appears over 100 times in the New Testament, and it means

delivered, healed, restored, made whole.

The modern version that we've had, that we've taken, it shrinks it

down to one moment, one prayer, one transaction, and for many modern day

believers, it's just kind of punching your ticket to go to heaven or.

Worse, not go to hell.

And it's, I guess it's not that simple when you actually read

the New Testament in context, and it actually meant something very

specific to the audience that was getting the message in the letters

that was, that it was being sent to.

So it was more of a whole life reality.

Wholeness, perfected the scripture.

Luke seven 50, your faith has saved you.

Luke 8 48.

Your faith has made you, well, that's the same Greek word soso.

Acts 2 21, Romans 10, nine to 10.

Romans was strong with this.

Again, that's when it first jumped out at me as kind of

this topic that I'm going, Hmm.

I'm not sure that I totally grasp what that word saved means, especially in

the context that we're trying to read.

The New Testament

Okay, next big topic.

This one was odd.

I've been kind of thinking about this one for a while, and some things in the

New Testament just brought it to light.

Psalm 82 opens with God standing in a divine counsel, judging

the small g Elohim Gods.

It's not a metaphor that is the structure, and it's Psalms 82.

Deuteronomy 32.

It's throughout the Hebrew Bible, describes the Council of Spiritual

Beings, the Sons of God with Yahweh, presiding over them.

Other nations were allotted to these beings.

Israel was God's portion.

So.

When we hear Jesus say, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given

to me, we could sort of connect the dots now and know that he was reclaiming

authority over that entire council that had been divided up back in Psalm 82.

It is cosmic.

It's big.

It's a big picture item, and it's gonna feed into a bigger topic of.

There was probably more going on with what Jesus' mission was than just

personal salvation for individuals.

I am not taking away from personal salvation.

I'm just saying in all likelihood, definitely there was much more that

was going on with Jesus' mission.

I already mentioned Psalms 82.

One is a scripture God has taken his place in the Divine Council.

Deuteronomy 32, 8 9 is the nations that were allotted to the Sons of God Job one.

Six has always been fascinating to me.

When, when God is meeting with the council and then the Satan, Satan

comes and interacts with them, I'm always going, what is going on there?

Well, when we hear what Jesus says in context in the New Testament,

it makes much more sense.

Matthew 28 18.

Colossians two 15, John 10 34.

That is in John 10 34 where Jesus is quoting Psalms 82.

All right.

Here, here's a big one that I am still working on, grasping, but it's important.

No priest in the temple ever sat down.

There was no furniture.

There was no chair in the temple of Jerusalem or Israel.

The work was never done.

That is why in Hebrews when it says Jesus sat down, it is significant.

The Levitical priest stood because the job was never finished.

They rotated.

It was 24 7.

It was endless repetition.

There was constant and endless sacrifice going on Jesus.

Sacrificed once and then sat down at the right hand of God.

The work is and was complete.

The rest is, now we can stop performing.

I need to hear that.

Some of you need to hear that.

The scripture is Hebrews one, three.

He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high and then in Hebrews

10, 11 through 12, every priest stands daily, but when Christ had offer for all

time a single sacrifice, he sat down and then he Hebrews four, nine through 10.

SMOs is the rest that remains now that he has sat down.

Okay.

So those were some of the topics and there were a lot more.

I, I actually have a page, a digital page that I started creating.

Just things that came to my mind, and it is massive, but I wanted to show

you, I actually printed out the reading plan as I was going through it, and

what I did was, is on my reading plan in my morning, I would just like write

down notes and topics that came to me.

But these were just like things, and I would write them down, write them

down, and then I would take time to go to the, The digital thing, and I

just kept dumping things in there, and then I would organize them and all.

So I've got a lot of these type items and I'm gonna rattle off a

number of them here that are kind of bigger, interconnected themes.

Some of the ones I just went through were that way.

But I'm gonna go into some of the bigger ones here so that, I can kind of get

these out and you can kind of get a glimpse of some of the future episodes

and things that are rolling around in my head that I wanna dig in, even more.

okay, so let's dive into these, and I'm gonna try to hit

these as quickly as possible.

All right.

First thing, the kingdom of God was most likely.

The actual message of the New Testament personal salvation was part of it.

Not getting to heaven when you die.

That probably wasn't the message.

But the thread that really runs through the entire New Testament

is the Kingdom of God is at hand over 100 verses about the kingdom.

71% of those, I've gone through every verse.

This was a study I did about eight to 10 years ago.

71% of the verses that bring up Kingdom of God.

Kingdom of Heaven came from Jesus.

It was the headline of almost everything He said.

Somewhere along the way we change the subject to individual salvation.

The New Testament never made that swap.

It was about a new kingdom that had come on the scene.

The kingdom of God.

Amidst these.

Two real big kingdoms that we had, the Kingdom of Rome or the kingdom that

represented the world, and then the covenant of the kingdom of the Jewish

system, and that was the other kingdom.

The kingdom of God split those in two and basically said the kingdom is at hand.

That is what Jesus ushered in the scripture, mark one 15 is when

Jesus walked in and came in and said, the kingdom of God is at hand.

Matthew four 17, Luke 4 43.

I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God for I was sent for.

This purpose and then Acts 28 31.

Paul is still preaching the kingdom at the end of Acts.

Alright, next big topic.

This is probably what triggered me to even do this reading plan.

This generation meant the people standing in front of Jesus every single time and

then every writer in the New Testament.

Knew that.

The challenge is, many of us think that the New Testament was written to us.

I do think it was written for us because of the kingdom that came

in and is now thriving and growing.

But it wasn't written to us.

And I think when we think it's written to us, we twist it and sort

of make a mess of it truthfully.

So, but it was really spoken to this generation.

That's Matthew 24 34, mark 1330, Luke 21, 32.

It's the same phrase, same meeting, It is the people.

In front of him.

In front of them.

Every workaround, every time people have tried to twist the generation,

it, it just, it doesn't hold up to the scripture and the text.

You have to redefine it.

The generation that they spoke about a biblical generation is 40 years.

Jesus ministry most likely ended around 80 30 and the 40

years generation went to 80 70.

That is when the New Testament was written.

Uh, some scholars will disagree on some of the books, but.

Almost all, I believe, all was written within that timeframe to that generation.

When you get that or understand that or accept that, it just

makes so much more sense.

So anyway, this generation means this generation.

All these things will come upon this generation and then Matthew

1628, some standing here, who will not taste death until they see the

son of man coming in his kingdom.

That is really what triggered me to do this whole study, and when

I really read it in that order, in 90 days, it jumped out even more.

It is so clear that the New Testament was written to that generation.

Alright, this is another big topic for me.

The word center.

Does not necessarily mean bad person.

I think in modern culture we have kind of maybe, I don't wanna say misused,

I guess the word sin, but it really at that time to that audience in that

generation meant you are not in our group.

A sinner spoken during the first century was someone who was unclean and they were

not within that Jewish temple structure, and so a sinner was someone outside that.

That's why tax collectors and people like that were called sinners.

That redefinition changes.

Everything from the gospels through Paul.

It was almost more about occupation and stature, not behavior.

Like I said, tax collectors, shepherds Tanners, the poor Gentiles.

It was more social, not really a moral verdict.

Jesus did not argue about where the line should be.

This is what he did.

This is part of what he did.

He erased the line and unfortunately after Jesus left and after all that went

on in the first century, we've spent 2000 years trying to draw those lines back

again and create the in or out, laws.

Definitions, things like that.

The scriptures that, back that up.

Luke five 30, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

That was being asked?

Of course, of Jesus.

Luke 15, one through two, the sinners.

The ones that were outside the group were drawing near to him.

They were attracted to him.

He was inviting them in.

When that structure, that system that was there, the Jewish temple

system repelled those people.

It did not invite them in.

It called them sinners and said, you are not welcome here.

Jesus changed that.

Galatians two 15 says, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not gentile sinners.

Alright, another big topic, eternal life.

You keep seeing this.

It actually.

Doesn't seem to mean living forever in heaven.

It actually means more the life of the age to come and that age has already come.

That's what came in the AD 70 event that the entire New Testament builds

to that you find when you actually reading, read it in order and in context.

The Greek Zoe Aios means life of the age that we have translated eternal life.

It was about a realm, not necessarily duration.

And and it kind of.

Begs the question, which age are we?

Are you living in?

If the age has already come, then eternal life is not something

you wait for after death.

It is the life that we already inhabit and the scripture with that is John?

17 three.

This is eternal life that they know you.

Present, tense, relational, not durational.

John 5 24 Has past from death to life.

Hebrews six, five tasted the powers of the age to come.

Alright, fifth, big topic.

The Bible it.

It is a love story.

Is it a love story to us and for us?

Maybe.

But it's a love story with specific characters, and oddly enough,

there's a divorce in the middle.

Once you see that arc, all the other letters make more sense.

There's a betrothal at Sinai unfaithfulness that we saw throughout the

prophets in most of the Old Testament.

Jeremiah three eight said, God gives Israel a certificate of divorce.

Then Jesus arrives as the bridegroom.

The cross makes remarriage possible, and then Revelation

ends with the wedding hits.

A love story with the divorce in the middle.

The whole story, Genesis to Revelation is one covenant relationship with a lot

of things that go on in between, but it kind of fits all together once you see it.

The theology textbook that we kind of pull and try to invent and come up

with things, that reading really falls apart some scriptures to back that up.

Exodus 19, five through eight, that's the Betrothal at Sinai.

Jeremiah three, eight that I mentioned earlier.

That's the divorce, Jeremiah 31, 31 to 32.

That's the new covenant promise that we see when Jesus comes.

Mark two 19 is Jesus as the bridegroom.

Romans seven, one through four death frees things up for the remarriage to occur.

There's a lot more to that that we'll dig into on future episodes.

And then of course, revelation 19 seven and 21, 2, which is the wedding.

Jeremiah three eight is interesting.

Some people will, will probably push back on the divorce, but there is so many.

Anyway, I'll just go ahead and give you the few things.

King James version calls it a bill of divorce, new King James

and NIVA, certificate of divorce.

The ESV is a decree of divorce, N-A-S-B-A writ of divorce, all those words same.

Hebrew.

God put it in writing.

Alright, next big topic.

I found out some things that God has completed and moved on from, and many

of those, most of what we practice today in our religions, in our churches

and our denominations are things that are still in that category.

One big one.

The old covenant.

It's been fulfilled, the sacrifice.

It was finished, the priesthood replaced.

The temple destroyed.

These are not ongoing projects.

They're not coming back.

There's no reason for them.

Jesus said, It is finished.

The thing that's fascinating to me that I want us to do a little deeper

dive into is why in many of our religious institutions, churches,

things like that, we have this desire to bring as many of those things back.

It's the question that changes everything.

Is this something God completed in the first century or something that continues?

Most of what we argue about is in the completed column.

Some scriptures, John 1930.

It is finished Hebrews eight 13 and speaking of a new covenant,

he makes the first one obsolete.

Hebrews 10 10.

We have been sanctified through the offering of the

body of Jesus Christ once for.

All, not every week, not over and over again.

Not repetitive once for all.

Next topic, there are things in the Bible that are not your covenant.

The New Testament is the announcement that the old contract is done

related to the previous big topic, most of the church is still making

payments on a paid off mortgage.

Things like, we're gonna get into more details on these tithing.

The Sabbath dietary laws priestly mediation.

Animal sacrifice.

All are in the Bible, all belong to a covenant that has been fulfilled.

It's not necessarily wrong to practice some of those things, but when someone

says, you must tithe, must keep the Sabbath, must go through a priest to

reach God or preacher, teacher, whatever that is, rebuilding the old covenant

inside the new one Scripture there.

Hebrews eight 13.

It is obsolete, ready to vanish away.

Colossians two 16 through 17.

Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or a Sabbath.

These are now a shadow two Corinthians nine seven.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not under compulsion.

All right, this topic is cool.

The New Testament is a story that actually has an ending.

It finishes, but for 2000 years, many systems, denominations, belief

structures, whatever we have just kept trying to add to a story that

does not need a better ending.

The old covenant story has a beginning, a middle and end.

The temple fell, the system ended, the kingdom arrived.

The systems built on waiting for the next chapter lose.

Their reason to exist.

Once you accept the story is complete.

Hebrews 9 26.

He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages, one Corinthians 10 11, on

whom the ends of the ages have come, and then Revelation 21, 5 through six.

It is done.

Okay.

This one's kind of a big one.

I started making this long list of things that I was searching for in the

Bible, and so kind of a big topic here.

This probably is gonna be some fun episodes to do.

I made a list of things that I was taught.

But they're not actually in the Bible and it's currently over 100 items.

And let me just spout a few of them here.

The rapture, not in the Bible.

Sinner's prayer, not in the Bible.

Altar calls not in the Bible.

The tithe as a New Testament command, not in the Bible.

The pastor as CEO model, not in the Bible.

God won't give you more than you can handle.

Not in the Bible.

None of those are actually in the text.

Some of it might be harmless tradition or things that have developed over time

or things that we just have in place.

But some of it is used to judge, exclude and control.

Knowing the difference is the point.

Okay.

That was not an exhaustive list, but you can tell that my mind was

twirling and coming up with all kinds of things as I read the New Testament.

Those are just some of the items that I found and were triggered

inside this brain of mind when I read the New Testament in 90 days.

In the order it was written.

And so here's where we're gonna go from here over the next several

weeks, and I have no idea how long I'm going to spend in this season.

To me, this is a continuation of what I'm calling the NT 90, reading the

New Testament in order in context.

It's just a continuation of that because it's things that spun off from that.

If you may be listening in on this episode and haven't done the reading

plan, I highly encourage you to, if you just wanna follow along

with these episodes, do that, but.

I am just going to take these topics and more that I've listed

out and just spend more time with them week after week after week.

And again, I don't know how long it's gonna be.

I actually have a long list of people at Seek Go Create,

that are wanting to be guests.

And that is what we've done for the last five or six years.

And I probably will start integrating guests back in and doing long form

interviews, which I love to do.

But these topics just won't, they won't let me leave them alone.

I have to keep going deeper into them.

So that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna walk through almost every one of them over the next few weeks

and we're gonna have fun with those.

So, Here's, here's what I want to do to kinda finish, finish this up.

I, I want to kind of share, I've done this before, but I wanna do it again.

I wanna share why I did this.

I kept getting bothered.

It kinda started way back 10 plus years ago when I was in Bible school.

And it was somewhat related to people taking scriptures.

What, what?

Felt like they were outta context, but I didn't have enough information or

ammunition to understand the context.

And they would use them and build doctrines off of them and maybe beat

people over the head with them or maybe just use them to try to do certain things.

And I was just like, when it doesn't seem like that's what that scripture is saying.

And then there was some theories or systems that started really bothering me.

And for my personal story, it was related to the rapture theory

dispensationalism, which never it, it always kind of bothered me.

It never seemed to make sense and it really bothered me as we kind of headed

into the COVID time when people were talking about the end of the world and

setting dates and all this type stuff.

And I'd kind of gotten the place in my life where I pretty

much knew if someone were to.

Setting a date for the end of the world, it was probably not gonna happen.

So I became a little bit cynical about it, but I just wanted to kind of dig

a little bit more and that led me getting into Revelation and some of what

people call end times type theology.

And then that kind of opened up this, hold on a second.

What were all of these other letters of the New Testament about?

Because there are more places that talk about the day of the

Lord and end of the age and end times, and I'm not sure it all.

Matches up to what we've been told or people are, you know,

spouting, you know, oh, look at what's going on in the Middle East.

It's the end of the world.

Or this is going on with Israel and we've gotta build another temple.

It's just none of that ever made sense to me.

And when I actually began digging into the scripture, you know, I don't know

everything, but I'll tell you I was right.

There's a reason it doesn't make sense 'cause it's not in the Bible.

It's not scriptural.

It's not scriptural at all.

And to be really blunt, most of it was made up like a lot of things that are,

that we see in, I guess, modern or interpretations of things in the Bible.

And the reason why is because many of us.

Don't spend the time to dig into the scriptures and study them for ourselves.

We just wanna plug into someone that's gonna explain it for us, get a

quick, easy answer, and then move on.

And so I purposed to not do that.

And I encourage you to do the same thing.

If you're listing in this long, you're probably in that category.

And so I started digging and one of the things that kept nagging at me again was

kind of how the books of the New Testament didn't, they didn't totally fit together.

And then when I found out that Paul's letters were added in the New Testament.

In the order of length.

In other words, Romans is first, not because it's incredible and awesome.

It is.

But it was first because it was the longest.

And then the next one, next one, it gets to the shortest.

And I'm like going, what else is like that?

And many things were, so I started doing some deep research on when books of the

New Testament were written, and some scholars had some disagreements on that.

I'm not gonna get into that here, that's probably a topic for another day.

But it really highlighted to me that most, if not all, of the New Testament

books, letters, epistles, were written prior to that big event of 80, 70, the

destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

By Rome and, and so, and also I realized, hmm, as someone who's been

studying scripture for so long, I don't really understand what the

history of the first century was.

All of that came together to a little over a year ago, and I said, you know what?

I want to put the New Testament in order so that I can read it in order,

and I want to dig in and read it as in context as I can and understand

the writer, the author, and the audience that they were writing it to.

And so that's what I did.

And so the result of that is my, in Teen 90, I call it New Testament

in 90 days reading Plan, 27 books.

In order in context.

And my subtitle is The Resurrection to the Revelation Generation, this Generation.

And so that's really what happened.

And so I put it all together and I love doing it.

I learned so much.

But what I've done over the last 90 days is I've been a consumer of what I created

because I created it and shared it.

You can kind of go to YouTube and podcast and my social medias and

things like that at See Go Create and you could jump into the plan, get

the reading plan, things like that.

Like I said, here was my, here's my printed plan that I've got,

that I, that I have is pretty long.

A lot of details there.

And so I actually just decided that I would go through it myself, and that's

what I've done over the last 90 days.

And all that we're doing here is a spinoff of that.

It has been.

Incredible.

And I, and I mean this, not to discourage anyone, but I have literally spent

hours every day going through it.

You could do it in 10 or 15, don't be, discouraged by that.

But the experience of reading it in sequence, it's kind of, it's just

changed me, you know, going from James and then to Matthew and you know, then

getting to, mark and Galatians before you get to Romans and, and, and then

all of that builds up and then you get to John, in the mid sixties and then

you, you finish up with Revelation.

All of that just makes it explode.

And if you have not felt as if you understand the New Testament,

I don't make a lot of guarantees.

I will almost guarantee that when you do that, when you read

it in order, you're gonna go.

Oh my goodness.

Now there's gonna be a lot of questions like I've got, but so many things

are gonna make more sense to you.

You know, you're gonna get so many, hold on a second.

Moments, kinda like I'm doing and sharing here.

So these are the three biggest shifts that came out of it, and I'll wrap

up with this, with this episode.

And each one of these are gonna get, get episodes on their own.

Really the macro, the big picture story changed.

It's not a theology textbook or a prediction chart.

It's a love story with a divorce in the middle that I mentioned earlier.

A lot of words.

Changed sinner saved eternal life.

This generation, when you read them in context, they do not

mean what you were taught.

And then this is big.

The systems denominations, a lot of things that I thought

were biblical just fell apart.

Like they have very little.

Backing when you come to reading the scripture, the things I was taught, many

of them are actually not in the Bible.

The things in the are in Bible belong to a covenant that ended

the entire structure I grew up in.

Looked very, very.

Different.

So here's where we're going from here.

A bunch of solo episodes.

First, this month that we're going into April is gonna be a lot of solo episodes.

I've got a list of about seven.

I think they're going to be every week.

I might get ambitious and do an extra one every few weeks.

It's gonna be a little bit longer form, but, I'm gonna try to cover as much

as I can that's going on in my mind.

And, this is not a follow Tim to see what he says.

This is really where I want you to be diving in and going along with me.

I may start weaving in some guests again in May.

I don't know, I'm hopeful that this is not like a seminary lecture.

Not really debate.

It's just what happens when you read the text in order and in

context and let it speak to you.

So, that's where we are headed here, and I am so excited you're a long.

On this ride with me because I have just so enjoyed this and listen this big deal.

I'm not asking you to agree with me.

I'm not really asking you to follow me or make me some big deal.

I'm asking you, I'm encouraging you to read this for yourself.

I want this to get you thinking.

I want you to go like, you know what I, this sounds right, but I'm gonna find it

for myself or, and I'm okay with this.

Tim's gotta be wrong on this.

I'm gonna dig and prove him wrong.

I welcome that.

In fact, I love those kind of conversations.

I believe that the text can handle your questions, and I've

sat down quietly in the mornings many times and I've said, and.

This is just my conversations.

God, I've got a lot of questions and they're pretty, you know, they're pretty

tough ones and they might seem, someone would call them heretical and all of that.

But God, I gotta ask you about this.

And I really believe deep in my soul and my spirit that God said, Tim,

I love it when you ask questions.

I can handle 'em.

I'm God.

And so ask away, give it a chance and just let these, let it speak to you.

So, anyway, slow down and just enjoy, enjoy this process.

So here's what I'm gonna leave you with.

Don't take my word for it.

Like I said, read it for yourself.

The actual text in the order it was written.

When you do that, the New Testament reads like one story that was told by one.

Generation and it will change you.

Okay?

Don't forget, if you're just following along, just getting started here with

what's going on with this topic, please go get the free 90 day reading plan.

You don't have to do it in 90 days.

You could do it in shorter timeframe.

You could do it in longer.

I try not to make it legalistic or anything, but it is broken

down in 90 days and it's at K two M Foundation slash NT 90.

Download it.

Start wherever you are, and if what you find does not match with what you

were taught, pay attention to that.

All right.

I'm Tim Winders.

This is Seek Go Create.

Keep digging.

See you on the next episode.