Bible Guys Classics: Acts 21 & 22

So, Jeff, one of my favorite movies. At the very end,

they both end up dying in an arena, and then

she says, honor him. He is a citizen of Rome.

I know this, Yes, Gladiator it is.

And they leave Caesar, which everybody just did not like

in the movie, and they pick up this Gladiator. Well, anyway,

it reminds me of that because today Paul is going

to defend his Roman citizenship.

Well, there we go. He's Chris and I'm Jeff, and

we're the Bob guys.

Well, Jeff, we have stumped the pastor today. Fun. Yeah,

they are fun. And so this comes in from Mike G,

which I don't know.

Mike G. Hi, Mike G.

I don't know if it's the same Mike G. I

have lunch with tomorrow. Maybe. But it is a tough question.

Uh well, I mean yeah, I don't think it's tough.

It's it's a big question though. Okay, So here's how

it reached. There are a lot of people who believe

that you only need to do good deeds or good

acts in order to get to heaven. And here's the question.

Do you know where this idea originated from? Oh?

Well, yeah, okay, that's hard. Is he asking for a

full blown history lesson?

Do you think?

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I So usually we ask

our questions from our own context, right that we're aware

that there are a lot of people now today who

think you're supposed to do good deeds in order to

get to heaven, right, and that would be based on

our religious backgrounds, particularly the raious denominations. But if you're

saying where does it come from, fundamentally, it comes from

the fact that most of us lean towards humanism anyways,

that the humans are the star of the story, and

that we we want to think that we participate in

some significant way, that we earn salvation by doing good works.

And it can be frustrating to some people to find

out it's purely by faith because of God's grace, right,

and you feel like you should be doing something, should

cost you something.

Yeah, And you know, many times when I give the Gospel,

I always say, you know, most people seem to somehow

think that at the end of their lives, they're good

has to weigh they're bad. Right, you know, it's like this,

and I think.

There's some great cosmic scale, right, supposed to tip to

the good instead of the bad. And the Egyptians believed

that and their resurrection stories in the Book of the Dead.

They believe that at the end, your good deeds and

your bad deeds are put on there be a feather

they set on the scales and literally a scale. The

Greeks believe that there's going to be some kind of scale.

That's been a part of human history, that this humanistic

view that somehow my good outweighs my bad should earn

me eternity.

Right. And so another thing that I always say is

I always say, even if you don't know anything but

the Bible, the one thing that I think most people understand,

and this is that this is the main reason why

I think we get confused, because we just sort of

know that, like it's filled with rules and commandments. Yeah,

we've heard thou shalt and thou shalt knots. We've heard

people say, don't do that, it's bad. It's in the Bible.

So we know it's filled with commandments. And so we

also know that he's you know, he's pleased when we

do well, and he's not pleased whether we disobey or

willfully sin. So the idea that there's rules and commandments

in the Bible that we've heard that without hearing the

entire truth just tells us like, hey, we not even

have interesting God, but I think we do know that

he has rules.

Yeah, yeah. And then even understanding that, by the time

Paul is writing the Book of Romans that's fifty five

fifty four AD. When he's writing the Book of Galatians,

for instance, the Judaizers had risen up. Even in what Acts,

chapter fifteen, the Judaizers had risen up and begun to say, well, yes,

salvation is by grace through faith, plus you also have

to be circumstanced and obey the laws of God. It's

salvation through faith in Christ plus good.

Works Jesus plus jump through these oops. That's right.

And I think that that's really at the root of

this question of you know, people earning their way to salvation.

Most people say, oh, no, I believe that you have

to have faith in Jesus, and I believe that if

you don't keep all the ten commandments you can't go

to heaven. Right, And Paul says, all the commandments were

given to us to prove to us we're not able

to keep all the commandments. If you break any part

of it, you've broken all of it, James says, And

so you know it's Ephesians chapter two, verses eight nine.

He says, for by grace are you saved through faith?

He said, it's a gift of God. At the beginning

of verse nine, it says, salvation is not a reward

for the good things we've done.

That's right.

I just can't think of a more clear statement than

that in the whole Bible. What is the phrase to you?

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we've done.

What does that mean? It means Let me think about

it real quick. Salvation is not a reward that the

things we've done. That's what means.

Right.

So then then I have to figure out what is

that mechanism. And he's so clear. What's the mechanism for salvation.

He's so clear in his writing salvation is because of

God's grace. God gives us what we don't deserve, and

it's a free gift offered to us, and we receive

it by faith. Faith just meaning having enough willingness to

turn to God and say God, I can't do it

on my own, but I accept your gift, that's it.

And towards the beginning of the Book of Romans, and

he says, you know, we have righteousness, and he says,

this right standing with God comes from God, and it's

a part from ourselves that's right, and it's a part

from the law that's right, right, which means like commandments.

And so the idea that over and over again he

talks about that.

So I think, so then the law, by the way,

let me just insert there. So then the rules, the

guidelines for life. Don't kill, don't steal, don't commit adultery, right,

keep yourself apart and separate from clean from the world.

Come up from among them and be separate, says the Lord.

And I'll be like a father. You be like my

children to me. All of those things now are not

for salvation. They're because of salvation. We choose to live

clean lives for God, because we're grateful for what he did,

rather than trying to live clean lives in order to

appease God. Right, right, there's a big gives you those

two things. So Jesus ultimately says, if you love me,

keep my commandments. So now it's just my choice to

try to live as best I can, even though I'm

a sinner, I try to live as best I can,

as clean and as well as I can. Is just

to kind of say to Jesus on a daily basis,

I love you, and so I want to offer myself

as clean as I can to you.

Yeah. So I'll just say to Mike g directly. So

not only did the idea you know, come from outside

of the Bible, you know, like you mentioned it, like

the like the Ethiopians, or the he said the Egyptians,

and then you said the Romans, and oh, you know,

the Greeks. So the idea that that you have to

behave or you know, perform you to heaven has come

from without, you know, outside of the Bible. But then

all so, even the entire Old Testament, you know, up

until Jesus came, there were rules that you had to

follow and and even even for salvation, you had to

atone for your sins by you know, offering sacrifices, et cetera,

et cetera. So so it was always attached to something

that we did h without and even within within our

own Bible that we believe. But then Jesus came and

changed everything.

Yeah, well, the difference is, so Jesus didn't come and

changed that. Jesus came and fulfilled it.

Yeah, right, changed.

Jesus was the atonement.

He changed our requirements.

Right, So Jesus was the atonement for salvation. So the

requirement salvation was sacrifice. The innocent died for the guilty.

But then Jesus is the Lamb of God and he

is the atonement for us. So the mechanism for salvation,

the sacrifice for salvation, is the same. The difference was

all the rules built around it. People took that as

also contributing to salvation, and it didn't. It only contributed

to the fact that we're all sinners, right, and so

the Judaizers were trying to continue to blend the two.

So I think in modern well in Christianity. So once

we've pivoted past the resurrection, then the very first group

would have been the Judaizers. In Acts chapter fifteen that

we're pitching a fit with Paul that hey, you got

to keep the rules too.

Well, Hey, night, good one, Michel. We appreciated the question.

That might have been the longest answer we've done so far.

Yeah maybe so yeah, well.

Well we're full of job Mike, we're full of information

that we want to spit out.

Good job, Mike.

So we're picking back up in acts chapter over twenty two,

twenty one, the end of it, and then we're going

to take pretty much the entire chapter of twenty two

as well.

A bunch of it.

Yep, a bunch of it.

So remember Paul was they had to lift him up

on his shoulders the Roman soldiers to get him out

of this mob because the mob was screaming kill him,

kill him, right. So it's pretty crazy. And it says

as Paul was about to be taken inside, he said

to the commander, man, I have a word with you.

Do you know Greek? The commander asked, surprise, aren't you

the Egyptian who led rebellion some time ago and took

four thousand members of the assassins out into the desert. No,

Paul replied, I'm a Jew and a citizen of Tarsus

and Cilicia, which is an important city. Please let me

talk to these people, and the commander agreed. So Paul

stood on the stairs and motioned to the people to

be quiet, and soon a deep silence enveloped to the crowd,

and he addressed them in their own language, Aramic brothers

and esteemed fathers. Paul said, listen to me as I

offer my defense. And when they heard him speaking in

their own language, the silence was even greater. Then Paul said,

I'm a Jew born in Tarsus, the city in Silicia,

and I was brought up and educated here in Jerusalem

under Gamalio as his student. I was carefully trained in

our Jewish laws and customs. I became very zealous to

honor God and everything I did, just like all of

you today, and I persecuted the followers of the Way,

hounding some to death, arresting both men and women, and

throwing them in prison. The High Priest and the whole

Council of Elders can testify that this is so if

I received letters from them to our Jewish brothers in

Damascus authorized me to bring the Christians from there to

Jerusalem in chains to be punished. As I was on

the road approaching Damascus about noon, a very bright light

from heaven suddenly shone down around me. I fell to

the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul,

why are you persecuting me? Who are you Lord? I

asked and the voice replied, I am Jesus, the Nazarene,

the one that you are persecuting. And the people with

me saw the light but didn't understand the voice speaking

to me, and I asked what should I do, Lord?

And the Lord told me, get up and go into Damascus,

and there you be told everything you are to do.

I was blinded by the intense light and had to

be led by the hand to Damascus by my companions.

A man named Annonius lived there. He was a godly man,

deeply devoted to the law, and well regarded by all

the Jews of Damascus. And he came and stood beside

me and said, brother, Saul, regain your sight. And at

that very moment I could see him. And then he

told me, the God of our ancestors has chosen you

to know his will and to see the Righteous One

and hear him speak. For you are to be his witness,

telling everyone what you've seen and heard. What are you

waiting for? Get up and betiz have your sins washed

away by calling on the name of the Lord. After

I returned to Jerusalem, I was praying in the temple

and fell into a trance, and I saw a vision

of Jesus, saying to me, hurry leave Jerusalem, for the

people here won't accept your testimony about me. The Lord,

I argued, they certainly know that in every synagogue imprisoned

and beat those who believed in you. And I was

in complete agreement. When your witness Stephen was killed, I

stood by and kept the coats they took off when

they stoned him. But the Lord said to me, go,

for I will send you far away to the gentiles.

The crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they

all began to shout away with such a fellow, he

isn't fit to live. And they yelled and threw off

their coats and tossed handfuls of dust in the air.

Is that where we end?

Yeah, twenty three. So this is uh yeah, verse number

twenty three. That's correct. Yep. So you know it's great

because it's just like Acts chapter nine, and so we

read nine. That's Paul's conversion. Yeah, and then Paul basically

offers his defense by explaining his conversion. Yeah.

Yea.

By the way, this is a really cool thing in

so many levels. The first thing that it tells us

is it tells us your story is impactful for people. So,

you know, like a lot of ways to tell people

about Jesus is just to tell them your story. And

I tell the story all the time about how you know,

I was in the driveway of my house and that

my pastor took me out to lunch and drove me home,

and five point thirty in the afternoon on May fifteenth,

nineteen eighty five, I accepted Christ And that was my

conversion story. That's when I met Jesus for the first time.

And so that's what Paul's doing. But you'll notice though,

like a surgeon, you know, Paul is also like, hey,

by the way, I'm the Paul that used to, you know,

be a zealot for you guys, and let me tell

you the reason why I've changed. So he's throwing in

his Roman citizenship there, he's throwing in the fact that

he's a Jew, the fact that he studied under Gamelliol,

you know, all these different things, and then he speaks

in Aramaic, which, by the way, where do you go.

Paul, Yeah, yeah, Well, so there's so many cool things.

We'll pivot back into that and kind of move through.

But Paul uses every tool in his toolbox to be

able to build some common ground with these people who

wanted to kill him, which is really extraordinary, and so

he say, hey, I'm a Jew. Well, he speaks to

the Roman soldier in Greek Greek yeah, which means he

was very sophisticated and well educated.

Yeah, right, said whoa, whoa, whoa, you know Greek.

Yeah, common commoners wouldn't do that. So that immediately got

him credibility with the with the Roman soldier or the commander.

And then he pivots. He says, hey, can I speak

to them? And he's sure, you're pretty sophisticated. You seem

like you're put together. Maybe this is just a big misunderstanding,

and he asks him, aren't you the Egyptian that led

these four thousand guys on this assassin raid? And Josephus

wrote about that. Actually, it's kind of cool when the

Bible talks about the exact same things that other historians is.

So Josephus, being one of the prominent Roman historians at

the time, wrote about this Egyptian who led these four

thousand guys, and then that's who this commander thought that

he was. And Paul's like, no, I'm just a Jewish

kid from Tarsus, right, But he's speaking in Greek, and

the guy's like, wow, you know you must be educated.

This must be a misunderstanding. Yeah, go ahead and speak

to him. And then he turns from speaking in Greek

and he turns to these Jewish people and speaks in Arabic.

And then because they hear him speaking in Arabic, they

all get silent and go, who's this guy?

Why?

See? This is now their heart language.

He speaks our language.

This is one of us, right, this isn't their business language.

So they probably were accusing him to the Romans with Greek.

That's probably what they were accusing him with. Right, So

they were communicating with these women, and then he turns

around and speaks to them in their house language, the

language mom and dad speak, the language gramm, my grandpa speak.

This is this speaks to our heart. And they're like,

wait a minute, maybe we misunderstood this guy for just

a second, and let's listen to him. Then he begins

unpack it. Hey I was a student of Gamala Gamelliel. Basically,

what he's saying is, hey, I'm a I'm a Harvard lawgrad. Right,

That's that's what he's saying, I graduated from Yale Law School.

And because if you studied under Gamaliel, he was the

pinnacle Rabbi uh In in that era.

And then and then he associated himself with Caiaphas, with

the Sanhedrin. Yeah, you're talking about the incident next chapter

seven when Stephen was stoned and and and what he's

saying is he's like, yeah, I was there, I was

I was a party to that. You understand he was

without saying and he was trying to say, hey, you

know who I am. Yeah, so if you know who

you're talking to, you're talking to me.

It's exactly what he does, but he does it in

such a nice way, right, he's being so it's it's

as if a bunch of just commoners in the in

the temple or in a religious environment decide that they're

going to go ahead, and they're angry at a pH d.

Theologian for breaking some what they perceived to be a

religious law. Right that that that's what's happening here. And

he's kind of pointing it out to them, but a

nice way. And then he goes on and he says,

what Versus three and four is it? He says in

verse four, he says, and I persecuted the followers. Oh no, no, no.

At the end of verse three, he said, I became

very zealous to honor God and everything I did, just

like all of you today. That's an incredibly respectful statement.

He's like, listen, I know you guys don't mean to

be jerks, right right, and and and I was as

zealous for for what we believe as you are right now.

And let me tell you. And so he's not saying

that they're being a bunch of jerks or that they're

being mean. He's just saying, I think you misunderstand. Yeah,

you misunderstand.

Very clever too, wasn't it. It was so clever because

he threw in the nuance of saying, like I was,

I had just as much passion as you, like you

think you think that you're you know, you need to

go reach this level because you're that passionate about God.

Let me explain to you who you're talking to.

Yeah, you know, and I think that's incredibly important when

we're sharing our faith. And that's what he does. Then

he pivots into, hey, this is my salvation moment. He's

trying to build some common ground with them. And I

think Christians sometimes on social media, especially because it's not

a great forum for substantial communication, but even in person,

we kind of develop a habit of making it be

an argument. It's a you're wrong, I'm right, I found

the truth and you are in ignorance, right, as opposed

to building commonalities, say I understand where you're coming from.

That's where I came from too. And I can remember

one time I was on an airplane and I had

a guy, pretty successful guy, he's a vice president of

his company. We were sitting beside each other and he

just asked me, you know, what was I doing? And

I mentioned that I was doing some work in one

of the countries helping train pastors. And so then he

immediately speaks up saying that he's not a Christian and

then kind of implies to me that I probably am

am an elitist that would look down on him and

his lifestyle, right just immediately. He doesn't say it outright,

but I mean it's pretty strong. And then he had

said some really challenging words to me, like you know, oh, well,

if you're a pastor, you know you're so innocent and

you're so you have no idea, and I said, well, hey,

can I tell you my story where I came from,

because I think maybe you think of me differently than

I really am. And I said, man, I'm just a

kid from Elba, Michigan. I remember when they put up

the blinking light in my you know, neighborhood. It was nothing.

And then I said, but I grew up. There was

a lot of physical abuse my family. There's a lot

of alcoholism. There's a lot of these things. And God

pulled me out of that. And I remember the day

when I found out that Jesus would forgive my sins

and that he would give me adopt me into his

very own family. And that day when I trusted Christ

it was always his plan to adopt me into his family.

He changed my name, he changed my future everything. And

by the way, that's what really happened in my physical

life as well. My dad adopted me after we left

the abuse, and the guy gets all teared up and

he said, dude, you just told my story. I said,

what do you mean and he said, alcoholism, abuse, my

mom and I ran away and my dad adopted me.

Wow.

And I said, well, so then maybe we're more like

than we are different, and he goes, so, then tell

me how did you how did you decide to turn

to Jesus? And how did I turn away from Jesus?

I said, that's great. Well, then I was able to

share the gospel he gave us left to Christ on

the plane. It's pretty cool experience in that moment, right,

He rejected me because he thought he knew me as

a religious leader, and he was guessing my politics, and

he was guessing my experiences, and he was guessing that

I was a holier.

Than now jerky and assuming yes.

And then he finds out that we're the same or

come from a very similar thing, and that the only

difference between our two life arcs was Jesus.

Yeah.

Right, And and that's what Paul does here exactly, is

he doesn't try to pick a fight. He tries to

build common ground. People don't care what you know until

they know that you care.

That's right, right, And and you know, when he tells

the story, he does it in incredible detail. And I'm

gonna sneeze, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.

Oh no, oh no, bless you thank you so much.

That was good. Might have been a first that was exciting.

Yes, yeah, that was the most excitement we had on

a podcast in months.

And when we talked about his conversion to Jesus, he says,

Jesus appears to me. And I've said this before and

and I've never heard anybody else say it, but I've

always stuck to it my entire ministry. He asked Jesus

two questions, and the same two questions that we ourselves

need to ask Jesus. The first question is he says,

who are you Lord? And then when Jesus tells him

who he is, then he says, Lord, what should I do?

And these are the same two questions that we, you know,

the man on the plane probably should ask right like, like,

who are you Lord? Who is Jesus to him? You know,

is he going to be lord of your life? And

by the way, those of us who already know Christ,

we can still ask that question, who are you Lord?

Who is Jesus to you? Is he the one that

has the final authority in your life? And then Lord,

what would you have me to do? I believe that

these two questions are just natural and they make sense,

but also they are very important questions that can actually,

you know, get us out of any jam that we

find ourselves in. You know, it could help us, you know,

rest in his belief or our belief in him. These

are just two great questions, you know.

In the book Revelation, at the end, as we wrap

up the book, Revelation says that the two things that

defeat Satan are the blood of Christ and the word

of our testimony. Those are the two things, right. And

so you might say, oh, my testimony is not like Jeff's,

or my testimony is not as dramatic as Chris is.

Your testimony is your testimony, right. Your story is your story, right,

and alls you need to do. Your job is not

to determine who needs it. Everybody needs it. So your

job is just to share it and let the Holy

Spirit do what the Holy Spirit's going to do with it.

Right that you share your story. And this is what

happened with Paul, and we're going to go on. It

doesn't solve all of Paul's problems, but he did look

for an opportunity to share his faith and to share

the gospel, and he does it in a polite, reasonable way,

even though they wanted to kill him. And I think

that that's really at the core of this conversation today

is that we have to be speak the truth, but

we do it in love.

Yeah, that's a great well, it sounds like a good

place to end, and we will pick up next time

on the Bible. Guys, here we go.