Bible Guys Classics: Acts 23

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So Jeff, Yes, the subtitle in My Bible says they're

making plans to kill Paul.

Yes.

So the thing that comes to my mind is these

things must be done delicately.

I don't know movie that is.

That's the Wizard of Oz.

Wizard of Oz.

Yeah, when she said, he said, she says how to

do It's not my concerned. These things must be done delicates.

Okay, I was trying to figure out how I've seen

The Wizard of Oz.

Yeah, oh it is an old movie.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good movie. I like it.

So he's Chris and I'm Jason with the Bible guys,

get off with it. Mh, you forgot forgot? I forgot that.

We get buddy, that's so great.

So hey, uh, we just want to remind everybody to

like us or subscribe comment in the in the section

uh you know, and and if you're on YouTube, there's

a section of comment. We love feedback. Or by the way,

we haven't said this in a while. Uh, email us

at any time at info at the Bible guys dot com,

uh to ask us questions like that we can use

for a segment called mail bags or stump the pastor.

Right'll be fun.

We love all that stuff. So hey, we are going

to do a little segment called Who's most Likely? So

these are the instructions.

That's the fun one.

Uh oh, it says you'll use the Jeff and Chris faces.

We don't have those though.

Okay, well we'll just raise it. Bring you know what,

We'll raise hands dead gummet oh.

Josh has them. Oh, this is fun. This has never

been done before.

If you're watching the video, assistant, yeah, come on, buddy, if.

You're watching this, uh, as opposed to listening to the podcast,

we're actually gonna hold up signs.

Okay.

That one says Jeff, and one says Chris. Yeah, okay, okay,

So here's here, here's the question. Number one, who's most

we're gonna put him down like this ready? Who's most

likely to end up on Broadway? You answer, Chris, that'd

be me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Whether or not it'd be good or not, that's all

a different story. Just more likely than us.

You're the showman though, yeah.

Number two. Who's most likely to spill a secret? Oh?

Gee?

Uh?

One? Two? Three goat, I'll fall on it.

I'll fall on it, I'll follow the sword. I don't know.

I think we're both storytellers, so we.

To truth be told. I just didn't want to put

I didn't want to put you up, but I should

I should I should have I should have done it? Okay.

Number three? Who is most likely to sleep through their

alarm clock?

Oh? This is definitely These.

Are definitely Yeah, there's no question there all right. Number four,

who's most likely to forget to text back?

Oh?

That's me, that's definitely yeah, that's me. Yeah. Just so

you'll know, I am an excellent.

Texture, you're an excellent texter.

I text with the best of them. Gill.

That should be on your resume.

Yes, well I don't mean I don't mean with my

thumbs like efficiency, I mean just respond y. Yeah. And

then finally, who's most likely to break a world record?

I think that can go either way.

Yeah, I'm gonna pick it.

I'm gonna give you the credit that I'm gonna give

you the credit. Yeah, only because I think that people

who are uh interested in that are well read and

they're fascinated by things, and I think that you could

find yourself in a position where, you know what it

reminds me of. I went to Catalyst one time in

Atlanta and there's like sixteen thousand people in this arena

and they wanted to they wanted to do something with

sixteen thousand people. They said, the records, they said, yeah.

So they said, we looked and we realized that we

only need fourteen thousand people to break the world record

of the largest pillow fight. Oh. So they bought little

pillows for everybody and they said, ready go, and every

stood up and just started whacking each other on these

on the head with these pillows. And they're like, they're like,

that's it. We beach broke a world record.

Well, then you were part of breaking a world record. Yes,

so then why did you vote for me? You broke

a world record already.

Well it it wasn't for me. It wasn't me.

Well you did though, one of sixteen thousand people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's funny.

Okay, they're fun.

Yeah, those are very fun. Okay. So anyway, I just

want to say my Broadway thing, the Showman piece. I

love going to see Broadway.

But you do too, Yeah yeah, yeah, you go to

a lot more Broadway than I do. But my wife

and I enjoyed.

And and I quote and sing Broadway.

Yes you do. He just sings and dances all through

the office all the time. That'd be you. You'd be the

greatest showman.

So, by the way, one of my favorite movies ever, it.

Was because zach Efron's in it.

This again you were waiting for that, you were throwing

a little bit.

Yeah, if you miss the zach Efron thing, you need

to go back digging in. That's that's a call back there,

that's for our loyal followers written listeners right there.

Daily back and like it would have been like almost a.

Year ago, more than a year ago. Yeah, So anyways,

we should pick up and go that was a fun

one to see, for sure. So this plan to kill

Paul where in Acts chapter twenty three, he's been arrested,

he's getting handed off from the Roman guys. They're going

to beat him, and then they find out he's a

citizen and they send him to the High Council, the

Jewish High Council. Jewics High Council can't solve this thing,

So then it says here the next morning, a group

of Jews got together and bound themselves with an oath

not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul,

which is just.

What an opening statement. Wow, Hey, listen, nobody's even going

to have their next meal until this dead.

That's right, that's right. There were more than forty of

them in the conspiracy. They went to the leading priests

and elders and told them, we've bound ourselves with an

oath eat nothing until we have killed Paul. So you

and the High Council should ask the commander to bring

Paul back to the Council again, pretend you want to

examine his case more fully. We'll kill him on the way.

But Paul's nephew, his sister son heard of their plan

and went to the fortress and told Paul. Paul called

for one of the Roman officers and said, take this

young man to the commander. He has something important to

tell him. So the officer did did, explaining Paul. The

prisoner called me over and asked me to bring this

young man to you because he has something to tell you.

Commander took his hand, let him aside, and ask what

is it you want to tell me? Paul's nephew told

him some Jews are going to ask you to bring

Paul before the High Council tomorrow, pretending they want to

get some information, but don't do it. They're more than

forty men hiding along the way, ready to ambush him.

They have vowed not to eat or drink anything until

they've killed him. They are ready now, just waiting for

your consent. Don't let anyone know you who told this,

the commander warned the young man. Don't let anyone know

you told me this. How about that? Yep, the commander

warned the young man. Then the commander called two of

his officers in order to get two hundred soldiers ready

to leave for cessarea by nine o'clock to night. Also

take two hundred spearmen and seventy mounted troops provide horses

for Paul to ride and get him safely to Governor Felix.

Then he wrote this letter to the Governor from Claudius

Lysius to his excellency, Governor Felix, Greetings, This man was

seized by some Jews, and they were about to kill

him when I arrived with the troops. When I learned

that he was a Roman citizen, I removed him to safety,

and then I took him to their high council to

try to learn the basis of the accusations against him.

I soon discovered the charge was something regarding their religious law,

certainly nothing worthy of imprisonment or death. But when I

was informed of a lot to kill him, I immediately

sent him on to you. I've told you his accusers.

I've told his accusers to bring their charges before you.

So that night, as ordered, the soldiers took Paul as

far as an anti patris.

I never heard never either.

They returned to the fortress the next morning, while the

mounted troops took him on to Cesarea. When they arrived

in Cesarea, they presented Paul in a letter to Governor Felix,

and he read it and then asked Paul what province

he was from. Celicia. Paul answered, I'll hear your case myself.

When your accusers arrived, the governor told him. Then the

governor ordered him kept in the prison at Herod's headquarters.

There it goes. So it's really interesting because I believe

this is the only place where Paul's family is actually mentioned,

and because it's so out of the blue, and because Paul,

you know, is responsible for writing most of the New Testament, right,

just throwing it out of the blue. Paul and his sister,

what h and his sister's son was not only like

he was there, he was within close proximity, right, hear this? Yeah,

Like that's amazing.

Well, just think of how many times in our podcast

we've incidentally mentioned your three kids, my three kids, our wives. Yeah,

You've told stories about your brothers, You've told stories about

your mom, about your uncles. We've told so many stories

about our family, just in you know, in twenty minute

chunks over the last year. But this is the only

time Paul's family's mentioned in the whole Bible.

That's crazy.

The note in the Life Application Bible says this is

the only Biblical reference to remember to a member of

Paul's family. Some scholars believe that Paul's family had disowned

him when he became a Christian, and Paul had written

of suffering the loss of everything for Christ and Phippians

three and so that might have been what he's referencing there.

But his nephew was able to see him because he

was a Roman citizen. Roman citizens that were imprisoned were

treated very differently, you know, when they were under the

authority of the court, they were treated very differently than

non Roman citizens, and so they had access to family

members at one point through Paul's arrest. Here in this cycle,

he spends years just living in his own apartment, but

he's got Roman soldiers you know, that are assigned to

him all day every day. But he has his own

home and he's doing all these things. So it was

a very different experience to be arrested as a Roman

citizen that it would have been as a non Roman citizen, right, Yeah.

And I think it's interesting to theorize that his family

would have disowned him because I think Adnew Murray we

had him as a guest and one of our you know,

Sunday Morning experiences, and he actually talked about the cost

that Paul would have had to pay and just you know,

sort of brings to mind would have cost Paul to say, oh,

just kidding, I'm now a Christian or a follower of

the Way, and you're talking about pretty high price.

Well, that happens all around the world today, you know,

and not just within you know, not just people who

become new believers in Christ, but in so many different areas.

You know, people that leave Islam, or leave Hinduism, or

leave Buddhism oftentimes are rejected by the families, people who

leave families that are centered around humanism and atheism, same things.

Sometimes you become a Christian and your family sometimes will

abandon you. And Paul said, hey, you know what, if

I suffer total loss for Christ, it's still worth it.

And we also know from other sections in Paul's writings

that Paul was single, because he talks about, you know,

it's better like me to serve Christ, but if you

must go ahead and.

Marry yeah, First Corinthians seven.

Oh, there it is. So we do know that Paul

is single. So it's very safe to assume he doesn't

have any children, you know, no spouse at this point,

there's no indication that he ever got one, really, but

we do know that his nephew cares about him enough

to look out for him. So if he was dis

owned by his faamily, it could have been he might

have been disowned by his sister, but the nephew didn't

understand or didn't care. Yeah, and loved Uncle Paul.

And this is years, Like, this is decades saw slash Paul. Yeah,

this is decades. This is close to fifty seven AD

at this point. Yeah, yeah, this is decades after he

trusted Christ. So you know, sometimes it's a lot of

heat at the beginning, and then over time the family

will soften a little bit. Now he's in prison, he's

in Jerusalem, and they maybe the families have compassion on him. Whatever.

Yeah.

Oftentimes, you know, if you were going to be fed

in the prison, it's going to be gruel, you know

what I mean, It's going to just be bread and

water kind of thing. But the families were allowed to

bring food for the Roman citizens, and so there's all

kinds of reasons maybe, but it does. This is the

only time ever mentions this family, which is kind of cool.

You know, we often mentioned the Life Application Study Bible.

And there's a little chart here in mind that talk

about the unsung heroes in the book of Acts. Yeah,

and he says when we think of this, says of

the early church, we often think of the work by

the apostles, but the church. But the Church couldn't have

done it, have not been not been for the unsung heroes,

the men and women who through some small committed act

moved the church forward. So it mentions at Act chapter three,

the crippled man after his healing, he praised God and

the crowds gathered the five deacons in Act chapter six,

Annonius and Act chapter nine who brought sight to Saul

and Cornelius, Rhoda, James, Lydia, Julius, and Jason. And then

it says Paul's nephew, right, so he doesn't have a name.

This is Paul and nephew. He saved Paul's life by

telling the officials about the murder plot. So think about

the contribution that this young man had, assuming he's a

young man to the church that you and I pastor today.

So the connected, the connect the dots syndrome, the ripple

effect of Paul spreading the gospel to the ends, of

the world, including the tells, which are you and me

and and you know, the church just you know, blossoming

across Europe and in Asia and then eventually coming across

the seas you know, of the Pond or whatever and

making it over here. So think about that. So, so

we're gonna get to Heaven one day be like, hey,

you're the nephew kid.

Yeah. Yeah, then nobody else gets to say Hi, I'm Jason,

I'm Lydia and he's like, I'm Paul's nephew. So he's

gonna have to tell us his name and we get

to Heaven.

I think this would be funny. We're sharing I was.

I was in Atlanta, Georgia for eleven years, and you know,

they're pretty southern in Atlanta in some parts of it.

And I had a really Southern speaking friend named Mark,

and mark'sluck. He's like, dude, you got to go downtown

Atlanta of this church that I grew up in and

they do this play and it's the same play like

every year, and I'm telling you it is dynamite. I'm like, okay,

and it's supposed to be It's supposed to be this

like end of the end of life kind of thing.

And so every year, you know, they made up this play,

like the person in the congregation wrote it, and they

perform it. And then at the end he's he's like

at the end, they walk up to you and they

hand you these crosses, you know, like will you accept

the cross today? You know, all these kind of things. Well, anyway,

in the script it said, uh, blind boy, a blind boy.

They say this before. Okay, So first of all, Jesus

was a silhouette of somebody wearing a burger king crown, okay,

behind a bed sheet. It was absolutely laughable, right, hysterical,

hysterical in this poor little church.

Right, So the light was shining behind him, and so

then you had the shadow.

And you see the crowd, right, and so anyway, so

what ends up happening is this boy, you know, this

sweet little character that they had written in. Well, he

dies and he goes in front of the bed sheet,

right with the big silhouette, and and and then God's

voice and the microphone says, ah, my friend, blind.

Boy instead of a name, because God wouldn't have known

his name, knew his circumstances.

Apparently you're only known by your defects, right, but I've

telling you what. Nobody even caught it around me. Nobody

even caught it. But he said, my friend, blind boy,

I almost fell out of the pew. I could not recover.

And I'm telling you and Marcus like, what's the matter

with you?

They called a blind boy.

This is Paul's nephew. But you know, he's not given

any credit here, but he's the guy, he's the man.

Yeah, and I think it's neat how God uses apparently,

you know, it's it's assumed believe that he would have

been a kid, right, so maybe you know, a young

teenager or whatever. He had the ability to navigate on

his own. His mom's not there, so yeah, probably a

young teenager. And I think sometimes we underestimate even young teenagers,

underestimate what they can do for God. And in this instance,

he winds up getting a bit of knowledge that's important.

He cares about his uncle, and he has the guts

to go and tell his uncle, but of course his

uncle's in jail. So then Paul says, well, why don't

you go tell that commander, And he had the guts

to continue to follow through, and God use this kid

to save Paul's life, and by the way, A whole

bunch of books of the Bible are written after this moment. Right,

had they killed him in this moment, had he been

assassinated on this road, we would have missed out on Ephesians,

on Galatians, we would have missed out on First and

Tewod Timothy Titus fi Lehman. Right, there's so many books

that Paul has not yet written that still needed. There

was still a lot of mission left for Paul, and

God use his nephew to rescue him.

Yeah. And so here's the great thing about any time

that you come across an unsung hero, as the Life

of Christian Bible describes, is that you know some of

the greatest contributions to any worthwhile organizations, nonprofits. You know

things that people have given their lives to and sacrificed

for that they've moved the Kingdom of God forward. There

are so many unsung heroes along the way, and so

you could be an unsung hero behind a great movement.

I remember a friend of mine who actually, uh did

this exercise, and long story short, they identified that that

they're like who lift up the arms of Moses.

It was Aaron and Joshua.

Aaron Joshua. So then so there's a scripture where it says,

you know, as as long as Moses held his arms

up there winning the war, you know, his arms got tired.

So they so they actually you know, stood on either

side of.

Them, and they held about his arm.

And and this guy was trying to say that he

identified with being the unsung hero like he's he said,

I'm not a Moses. I'm not an outfront kind of leader.

He said, you know what I am, He goes, I'm

an Aaron who Uh, I'm going to do my very

very best to lift up the hands, uh, you know,

or the position or the voice, or the or the

desires or whatever of the leaders. You know, these are

the unsung heroes of the world, right, And so just

just know that nobody may know your name, and you

may have a phenomenal contribution to wherever God has placed you,

you know, in your sphere of influence, in your relationships,

or in your church, in the mission of your church.

Yeah that was her, Aaron and her oh her, Yeah,

that's because Joshua is out leading the army there. So yeah, yeah, sorry,

my brain didn't come along quick enough. You know, we

have a guy like that in our life. Chad Asman

is our executive pastor at Ariedis Church.

Yeah yeah, and nobody really knows.

Unless we're telling funny stories about him, right right, because

he's not an on stage guy. But you know, he'll

tell you in his life growing up, he always he

never wanted to be like in a TV show or

a movie. He didn't want to be the president. He

wanted to be the chief of staff guy. He wanted

to be the guy behind the guy. And so if

you ask him his favorite movie characters, his favorite TV

characters tend to be the guy behind the guy. And

it's always been that way for him, that that's what

he wants to be. Is the is the one making

it happen, not the one just out saying stuff, right,

And he's just brilliant. God's given him that gift. And

so you know, if you and I were responsible for

just doing all the work that's at Heritage Church that

we have, nothing would get done hardly, right. We'd have

a lot of fun, but not a lot to happen,

you know. But Chad's one of the guys who as

soon as we start talking, he's over at the whiteboard

starting to break it into pieces of figuring out how

to make it happen. He's a make it happen kind

of guy, and a lot of people feel like I

just don't have you know, I'm not a famous ministry person.

I'm a I don't have a lot of power influence,

and I think we underestimate the super gifts that God's

given every every person, and so you know, the unsung

heroes are. Every bit is important to the story as

Paul right, If Paul's story ended there, that was it?

Right?

One thing, as we're finishing up here, I think it's

humorous that, you know, this soldier decides this commander says,

all right, there, forty bad guy assassins, let's go ahead

and send four hundred and seventy elite Roman soldiers to

as court Paul up. I mean, it was just a

massive show of force at that point. And Paul's riding

on a horse instead of walking normally. I mean, it'd

be rare for a prisoner ride it, but he's riding

on a horse, so he's got an escape vehicle already,

and they just come walking by, and I wonder what

it was like to be those forty guys hiding in

the bushes, they come, they ground shaking as they come

rolling in, and the assassination didn't happen. And I think

it's cool to see how God decides that his mission

is going to be done no matter what. These Roman

soldiers aren't aren't living their life to honor God. But

God's purposes will be fulfilled. And sometimes he does it

in funny ways or extravagant ways, and in this situation,

that's exactly what he does. So God is going to

fulfill his purpose in your life. You just have to

keep following him and going on this journey with him.

Which, by the way, there are so many examples in

the scriptures that actually where God uses sometimes even like

bad or corrupt leaders, which accomplishes his purpose. That's right, right,

God used Herod, right Augustus who issued a decree that

a sensus should be taken. Right if not for him?

That you know that you know. But so God is

going to use leaders that even that we don't believe in. Uh.

And maybe it's because one of my spiritual gifts is faith.

It's actually one of the strongest gifts. But like I,

I honestly believe regardless of who's in office. And you know.

And again I'm not making a statement about not fighting

for what's right, sure, because we should always stand up

and fight for which right's right. But however, what I'm

saying is I always have faith that God is going

to use leaders in spite of themselves just as much

as he will because of themselves, because God will always

have his way.

So let's wrap up with this. It says God's ways

are not our ways. Ours are limited his or not.

Don't limit God by asking him to respond to your way.

When God intervenes, things will work out much better than

you could have ever imagined.

Right.

That's a good word, and that's a great way to

end this because that's exactly what happens for Paul here.

That's great, all right, Well, we will see you next

time on the Bible guys. M.