Bible Guys Classics: Acts 4

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So today we're talking about the apostle Peter calling a

bunch of people a bunch of names.

Wow.

So he's Chris, I'm Jeff, and we're the Dayta Bible guys.

So listen, here's what we want to do today. We

would love to invite our listeners, huh, to be a

part of what we're calling a mail bag segment.

Mail bag segment, although not we're going to read mail

from our listener.

Yeah, but from our listener the one. But we don't

want physical mails, right, This isn't from the nineteen eighties,

this is this would be email, right, So the email

is going to be listed right here on the screen

and it's info at bibbleayes dot com.

That's right.

And so when you email in and here's what we

want you to do. We want you to ask us

about us. So this is more like I get to

know you kind of a thing.

So in the past, the enigma that is Chris Tarba. Yes,

if you just start peeling back the laber.

If anybody cares about such things.

Wow, but it's your mom and my mom. There's the

two listeners.

Well, here was the idea behind the brainstorm behind these

meetings is that in the past we started off podcasts

just by asking each other random questions.

Yeah, that was the fun.

Yeah, that was just goofy. So the question is this,

if you if someone else could ask a question, what

would they ask? Oh yeah, right, or what would they

want to know? So I'll give you an example.

So you look up to well, I mean people, yeah.

Yeah, so somebody I don't know. Let's just take that

somebody I don't know. So I was thinking about this.

I was thinking about Aerosmith Steven Tyler. One of the

things that I would ask him is about his voice.

Did you know that the very popular and most popular

song they sing dream on right. Did you know that

was the very first time that Steven Tyler used his

high voice ever, And everybody told him, well, according to

his interviews, is that everybody told him that don't use

that voice. It wasn't didn't It didn't sound like his

normal voice. So that's why at the beginning of the

song he actually sings pretty low register. If you listen

to all his recent hits, he stays up in that

speech kind of a thing. Well, that's the reason why

that song sounds so different. When he starts, he starts

in low register. Then he went up and he used

it and became such a hit. It became his sort

of trait, his sgnature. And he lived in that well,

so and saw him in concert. And this guy's at

the Palace in Detroit, and he was probably sixty six

years old.

Wow.

And I was actually with a friend of mine, Brian

bell Knapp, who had like front row center tickets, kid

you not, And so he was literally standing right next

to me as close as you are to me.

We're sorry for saying your name, Brian. We don't know

if you want to be associated with Chris or not, but.

Yes he does. Yeah, he's my good friend.

Okay, So anyway, you do that all the time, you

say people's names. I'm like, I hope they don't mind

was saying their names.

Yeah, well I know Brian, So anyway I know people too.

Go ahead.

In other words, he's not gonna mind. So anyway, Steven

Tyler is as close to me as you are, and

he's singing dream On and he has his microphone look

in his handheld, yeah, giving him a rose. He had

a huge microphone stand right, ok, like scarves on it,

and he's singing dream On and he's holding it out

like this out of the stage and it's literally right

above me. So I'm looking up and he's But here's

my point. My point is he's sixty six and he

still hits every single note. So one of the things

I would ask him, what is your voice? What is

your what is your training? What's your regimen? What are

your rules? How do you do that right? Because I'm

very concerned about my voice sometimes I don't, you know,

treat it well, my vocal courts, and so I would

ask him that.

Well, okay, so if you are thinking Chris Starbaugh is

a lot like Stephen Tyler, and you want to learn

everything you can learn about how connect those like Tyler?

Like wants to learn about Tyler, then send an email

to info at the Bible guys dot com.

That's not what I meant And yeah, yeah.

Yeah, So you just want to learn interesting things about

Chris Arbo?

So, right, what would you ask to somebody? Oh?

You know what, I so, I'm terrible at that. I

don't really think through those kinds of questions very often.

But I was with a guy here recently who has

established like fourteen different ETFs and uh, you know, he

struck the gavel like seven times at the Dow Jones thing.

Really great investor, been very successful investing, and I just

couldn't get enough of asking questions and talking to him

about investing and stuff like that. I'm not good at it.

I'm not you know, I'm not an expert investor. But

I'm just very intrigued by the kind of courage and

the strategy behind that. So I asked him a bunch

of questions that it was really interesting. So I was

just interested into finding out how does he do what

he does right? And I think that's what you're asking, right,

is send in funny questions. Anything funny questions, fun questions, Hey,

why do you do this?

How do you think about this?

Or could it be serious as well?

Yeah?

Yeah, and mail bag kind of questions. So we already

have the stump the pastor serious Bible questions, so this

would be different from that. Right, So, if you want

to do the stump the pastor, send in in your

in your the subject the subject line stump the pastor,

and that would be like a tough by question. But

if you just wanted to ask a fun, goofy question,

ask a mailbags question.

Yeah, in the subject we get to know your question. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we took a long time on that, but just

kind of establish it. We'd like to have this be

a segment, So send it to us. Send us those

things and I think it'll be fun. Take the time.

Okay.

So we are in Acts chapter four, and this is

a continuation of the previous story where Peter and John

heal this guy that has been crippled for a long

time and then there's a big crowd and so they

get up and they begin to preach the gospel during

this crowd. So then in verse in chapter four, the

authorities get involved with this, going, Hey, this shouldn't be

going on. So here's where we are. In verse one,

we're reading from the New Living Translation. It says while

Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were

confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple Guard,

and some of the Sadducees. These leaders were very disturbed

that Peter and John were teaching the people that through

Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead. Sadducees didn't

believe in the resurrection.

So you joke.

Yeah, they were sad.

You see, that's why they were sad.

You see, that's right.

So it's very good.

Remember I said, I said, you knew a lot of

lame jokes. They arrested them and since it was already evening,

put them in jail until morning. But many of the

people who had heard their message believed it. So the

number of men who believe now totaled about five thousand.

The next day, the council of all the rulers and

elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem. Annes,

the High Priest, was there, along with Caiaphas, John Alexander,

and other relatives of the high priests. They brought in

the two disciples and demanded, by what power or in

whose name have you done this? Then Peter, filled with

the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers and elders of

our people, are we being questioned today because we've done

a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want

to know how he was healed? Let me clearly state

to all of you, into all the people of Israel,

that was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ

the Nazarene, the man you crucified, but whom God raised

from the dead. For Jesus is the one referred to

in the scriptures where it says the stone that you

builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. And he makes

a very clear statement. He said, there is salvation in

no one else. God has given no other name under

heaven by which we must be saved for now. The

members of the council were amazed when they saw the

boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that

they were ordinary men with no special training in the scriptures.

They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.

But since they could see the man who had been

healed standing right there among them, there was nothing the

council could say, so they ordered Peter and John out

of the council chamber and conferred among themselves. What should

we do with these men, they asked each other. We

can't deny that they've performed a miraculous sign, and everybody

in Jerusalem knows about it. But to keep them from

spreading their propaganda any further, we must warn them not

to speak to anyone in Jesus name again. So they

called the apostles back in and commanded them never again

to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But

Peter and John replied, do you think God wants us

to obey you rather than him? Cannot stop telling about

everything we've seen and heard. The council then threatened them further,

but they finally let them go because they didn't know

how to punish them without starting a riot, for everyone

was praising God for this miraculous sign, the healing of

a man who'd been laying for more than forty years.

You know, I think this story fits my personality. Yeah,

it does every time that I hear this story. And

by the way, we covered this way back in February.

That was a very long time ago. But every time

I hear this story, I get rebbed up, I get

charged up. It makes me want to charge all the

square gun. It makes me want to Like, as long

as i know that I'm doing what's right and I'm

standing up for what is right, then I'm not afraid

to say anything. And you know, listen, I've been through

my series of events, even in the last couple of years,

where I've said some very tough things to some people

who you know, had leverage over me, and I was

never afraid to say them, which is part of my problem. Yeah,

well there is that, But if you know it's right

and you do it in a way that is like

obviously here Peter is just being bold. He's not being disrespectful, right,

So he's not being he's not he's not he's didn't

call them a bunch of names or anything. What he's

really doing is is he's saying, hey, listen, we're not careful,

we're not going to calculate our answers, we're not going

to fear you politically, even though this were probably some

of the same council members that put Jesus to death, right,

so now he's looking at them from the same thing

about this from the same people that Peter ran from.

You know, just when Jesus was crucified just a few

chapters ago. In terms of timeline, right.

Now, he's looking at them directly.

Months later, months later, it's a few months.

He's caught in their crosshairs. Now it's him, but after

everything he's experienced, these.

Guys could get Jesus killed. They can certainly get Peter killed.

Yes, And so he looks at them and says, we're

not even careful. Let me. I love it because he

says this, let me be clear, I'm gonna speak slow

so all of you can understand what I'm about to say.

I'm gonna enunciate.

And then when they threaten him further, then he says,

do you actually think that God wants us to obey

you rather than him? We're not going to do it.

So just before you let us go, I'm announcing to

you we're not going to do it. It's amazing to me.

Well, let's say set the stage here.

So it says that while they're preaching there, they're preaching

that message that we talked about yesterday. While they're preaching

this message, they're confronted by the priests. These would have

been probably these priests would have been probably relatives of

the high priest. That's that's how that all worked anyways.

And then the captain of the Temple guard, the captain

of the Temple guard would have been the most powerful

military quasi military guy engaged with the priests and the Pharisees,

the Saducees, and then it was also the Sadducees. So

the Sadducees, you remember, there were two different sects. There

were the Pharisees, and the Pharisees were very religious and

very wholly acting in their life. The Sadducees were very secular,

very worldly, very Romanesque in the way that they live

their lives. And they were the ones who had compromised

and stood to gain financially from the Roman government by

cooperating with them. So they had They were a small group,

but they were very powerful, and they didn't believe in

the resurrection. So it's incredibly embarrassing that they were part

of getting Jesus killed. They knew he resurrected from the dead,

they just didn't believe in it. It wasn't part of their system.

And so it's this group that goes, hey, you can't

talk about the resurrection. If they were just talking about Jesus,

they wouldn't have cared. But they're talking about we saw

him rise from the dead. That's what was in chapter three.

And so now they're coming back going, whoa, dial it

back here, guys, you're teaching some other god other than

the Roman gods, and you're teaching this resurrection idea. You

can't do that anymore, and so he goes. So when

they're confronting them, Peter goes, are we in trouble for

doing a good thing? Is that we hear guys?

Right?

Which is such a cool way to confront them. Are

we here because we healed a crippled guy? Is that

the issue? Of course, that's not the issue. What you're

wanting to know is how did we do it?

Well?

Let me be as clear as I can. It was

the mighty power, the name of Jesus Christ.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So the great thing is here is that it

indicates that the reason why they let them go is

because there was power in the people. Yeah, And it

says they didn't know how to punish them without causing

a riot. Right, And so if you think about it,

the irony of Peter and John not wanting to play

politics at all, right, and and ye, at the same time,

the reason why they were let go is because the

council were now the ones behind the politics. They're the

ones afraid of the politics.

Right.

So I think it's just really ironic and almost like

a sense of like the tides have turned because Jesus

has risen from the grave and all of a sudden,

now the power is sort of given back to Peter

and John in this moment. Any I think it's very cool.

So they say, he's the man that you crucified, but

God raised from the dead. So they keep driving this

even though they're being told not to talk about it.

They drive that issue in verse ten, and then by

verse twelve he says there is salvation.

And no one else.

God has given no other name under heaven by which

we must be saved for a lot of people. That

seems really narrow minded, right, But this comes from and

he's only just quoting Jesus from John chapter fourteen, verse six.

For Jesus, I'm the way the truth in life. No

one comes to the Father. I am the way, the

truth and the life. No one comes to the Father

except through me, right and he now Peter is essentially

saying the same thing. Jesus is the only way. And

for a lot of people who want to be, you know,

very open minded, they would say that's a very close

minded thing. But Christianity didn't establish this. Peter wasn't the

one who establishes. Jesus is the one who declared it.

So either Jesus is who he says he is or

he's not right. But Jesus said I'm the only way, which,

by the way, there's another time when Jesus said broad

is the way to Hell, narrow is the gate to Heaven, right, right,

And what he's saying is He's the only way.

Yeah. So I think I said this with Wesley back

when we did podcasts the other week with him, but

I took this actually from Andy Stanley. He says that

people think that Christianity is narrow minded, but when you

consider all of the other world religions, he said, Christianity

is the is the only world religion that can claim

these three things. Number One, everyone is invited. That's not

the case with a lot of other world religions. Right.

Number Two, everyone can meet the requirements everyone and then

number three, everyone gets in the exact same way. So

it's not based on performance, it's not based on anything else.

So no other religion and system that you can find

anywhere else that people buy into can claim those three things.

So in that sense, it is the most inviting and

inclusive not exclusive invitation of all time. Yeah, so everyone's invited,

everyone can meet the requirements. Everyone gets in the exact

same way.

I was just at the second one of the holiest

I think they claim it to be the second holiest

Hindu temple in the world in Katmandu, and there was

a place where we from that point on, since we

weren't Hindus, we weren't.

Allowed to go into. Right it was isolated.

Oh sorry, you're not Hindu, and we were treated like

second class citizens. We weren't allowed to come in in that.

I was in Dubai and they let us know, this

is the mosque that non Muslims can visit, but you

can't visit these other mosques. Right, So there were mosques.

Was very clearly stated it's not for you. You can't

come into this mosque. You can go into that one instead.

But that just doesn't exist. The concept. Jesus doesn't say, well,

I'm for these Jewish people, or I'm for these European people,

or I'm only for these Central Asian people. Jesus is

available to everybody all the time. He doesn't isolate and

treat some like second class citizens and others insiders.

It's for everybody.

It reminds me of that Billy Graham clip. And he says,

Jesus belongs to the world.

Yeah, that's right, that's right, nineteen seventy one, Chicago. Yeah

so great, Yeah, that was great.

So I was just gonna mention real quick that Peter

quotes Psalm one eighteen twenty two when he says, Jesus

is the one who referred into the scriptures when it

has said the stone that you builders rejected has now

become the cornerstone. And so at the very beginning of

the podcast, I said, tongue in cheek he calls people names.

It's really not name calling. What he's really doing is

is he saying, by the way, you were the you

were the enemies, you know, way back in the Psalms,

when the scriptures that by the way, you know, and

you have memorized, you know, and you realize that there

are people who reject the cornerstone. Well, the cornerstone was

you know, everybody knows, any builder knows that the cornerstone

is the most important piece because it sets the right

angle for the entire building right right, and without at.

The score, and brings the two walls together.

Yeah, and brings the two walls together, and without that

stone being number one, perfect has to be absolutely perfect.

But also it's foundational, and so the cornerstone is the

foundation and perfection for our religion. That's who Jesus is.

And so you know, for someone to reject the cornerstone

would mean you know, it would mean everything, honestly, And

that's what Peter's trying to say to the Pharisees.

So then when he says there's salvation and no one else,

that salvation is available to everybody, but it's only through Jesus,

then it says in verse thirteen, the members of the

council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter

and John, for they could see that they were ordinary

men with no special training as Christians. Remember just a

few days ago we were talking about when the Holy

Spirit came on them. They're all preaching, all these languages

and they're going, these guys are from Galilee.

Yeah, yeah, the abilities of Israel.

And in this one they're going, there's no special training.

Because you got to remember the priests, Sadducees. These guys

were elite. They were the best educated in the country, right,

And they're dumbfounded by these ordinary uneducated men, right, and

they're going, we can't beat them.

They what what?

So these guys are quoting scripture, they're walking around in

the power of God. It's funny how elite people will

set themselves up because of their pedigree or because of

some people they have on the wall. And Peter and

John did not have any of those things. They just

happen to have the power of God on them, and

they knew God's words, and the Holy Spirit just gave

them this authority. You don't have to wait around for

somebody to give you some kind of pedigree.

You don't. I think that there's there's there's it's a

good idea.

To demonstrate that you have the character to fulfill your

responsibilities and your duties, certainly with regard to education. But

your power does not come from a piece of paper

on the wall, and it doesn't come from some ordination

council or some group that finally approves of you.

Right, it comes from the Holy Spirit.

So these guys who are uneducated step up, and the

power Holy Spirit confound the smartest intelligentsia in Israel at

the time. And then they go on and say, it's

really clear that the whole country can see that this

man has healed and he's standing right here.

How do you fight that results speak for themselves?

That's right. Well, when I read verse thirteen when it

says they were amazed because they realized that they were

unlearned and ignorant men, it reminds me of that scene

in Goodwill Hunting when the genius of Matt Damon and

then Robin Williams says he's from Southee. He's like right here,

from Southee, right. In other words, like no genius could

ever rise up from this area, right right right, And

that's really what it is. Yeah, you're describing the exact

same sort of scenario.

So Paul says later in his writings, which we'll get

to injected through this series as soon as we get

in Paul. But Paul says that God delights in using

the simple things of the world that confound the wise. Right,

that's great, and God loves that. He uses the weak

ones to defeat the strong ones David and Goliath. He

uses the simple ones to confound the wise ones.

God delights in.

So if you feel like you don't have what it takes,

you're the perfect kind of person God wants to use

if you're just surrendered to him, right, and let God's

spirit work.

In you and through you. So you have that.

And then they say get out of the council and

no longer, okay, you can go around. They didn't say

you can't do any more miracles. Isn't it interesting They

don't say, hey, stop healing lame people. They don't say that.

They just say, you can't teachers speak in Jesus name anymore, right, right.

Because we're trying to squash the movement that we tried

to squash when we kill.

Them, right, right, So stop it right.

This is about ready to get out of hand, is

what they're so stop talking about Jesus. And isn't that

amazing how many of us feel intimidated at work or

at school. We feel like we can talk about any topic,

topics that in historically have been taboo are perfectly acceptable

to talk about in school now, but you just not

talk about Jesus. Topics that you would never have thought

would come up in your work environment. Those are now,

there's seminars about them. You have to sit in through

these things, but you just not allowed to talk about Jesus.

And I would say, in all of those things, have

the boldness, be willing to have the boldness of Peter

and John. Make sure you're walking in the power of

the Holy Spirit. But then they just speak up and say,

do you think God wants us to obey.

You rather than him?

We cannot stop telling about everything we've seen and heard.

If you've seen how Jesus changes lives, if you've heard

about the good news of the Gospel, then you cannot

stop talking about these things. So don't be afraid of

the threats. Just keep moving forward with the good news

of the Gospel of Jesus.

Well, that's a good place to stop and obeying God

rather than man. Yeah, so we'll see you next time.

As with the Bible, guys,