- 2 days ago
In this conversation, the Common Sense Bible Study crew discuss Paul’s closing section of Romans and how his greetings are grouped into five sets (Phoebe as courier; greetings to Roman residents; greetings from Paul’s ministry companions; a greeting from Tertius the scribe; greetings from Corinth residents) followed by a doxology. We then focus on Paul's warning to believers to watch for and avoid those who cause divisions contrary to taught doctrine, noting how smooth talk can deceive the naive. The group explores modern sources of division such as Gnosticism-like ideas, works-based “Phariseeism,” leadership power plays, and consumer-style church structures, while stressing personal responsibility, humility, and not being naive. We talk about setting community boundaries, ranking doctrines (discordant/divergent/academic), and stopping arguments when anger rises. We also talk about what it means to be “wise as to good, innocent as to evil,” connecting it to Eden and the promise to crush Satan, and to Joseph as an example of resisting evil and gaining victory through God.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
Follow me on Whole Bible Community: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
Follow me on Whole Bible Community: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:01Welcome back to Common Sense Bible Study and a journey through the Book of Romans.
00:00:06Last week, I went through a whole bunch of names and talked about the history and what we can know
00:00:12about these people from Scripture, from what Paul says, and things outside the Bible.
00:00:19I'm not going to go into so much detail tonight.
00:00:21There are some names here, but some of them you're going to be a little bit more familiar with already.
00:00:26Here's where we are in the Romans chiasm.
00:00:29There's this parallelism at the bottom where Paul has divided up his greetings into different sections.
00:00:36This pairs with the first seven verses of chapter one, where he gives his initial greetings.
00:00:42And then on to verse 17.
00:00:44I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine
00:00:50that you have been taught.
00:00:51Avoid them.
00:00:52For such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery
00:00:58they deceive the hearts of the naive.
00:01:00For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise
00:01:05as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.
00:01:08The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
00:01:11The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
00:01:14Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you.
00:01:17So do Lucius and Jason and Sosapater, my kinsmen.
00:01:20I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.
00:01:24Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you.
00:01:27Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Cortus greet you.
00:01:31Now, to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ,
00:01:36excuse me, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages,
00:01:42but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations,
00:01:47according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith.
00:01:51To the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ.
00:01:55Amen.
00:01:56All right.
00:01:57Now, before we get into talking about what Paul has written here,
00:02:01something that I noticed when I was preparing for tonight that I should have noticed a few weeks ago,
00:02:08but I think this actually makes it a little easier to know why Paul has chopped this chapter up in
00:02:15the way that he has,
00:02:15because it seems strange where he gives some greetings and then some instruction and then more greetings and then some
00:02:20instruction.
00:02:22But there is a kind of a method behind this.
00:02:24And the reason is that he has actually cut this into five sets of greetings.
00:02:31The first set is just verse one.
00:02:34This is Phoebe, verses one and two.
00:02:37And Phoebe is Paul's courier.
00:02:40She is a resident of Corinth going to Rome.
00:02:43The next set from verse three down to verse 16.
00:02:48These are the residents of Rome.
00:02:50So he is sending his greetings to them and then he gives them some instructions.
00:02:56But then he returns to his greetings and says in verse 21, he gives greetings from his companions, pretty much
00:03:05his ministry team, so to speak.
00:03:07And this is Timothy, Lucius, Jason and Sosapater.
00:03:10So these are the people who are traveling with him.
00:03:12And we may talk about that a little bit later.
00:03:15Then there's a fourth greeting, the scribe.
00:03:18And Tertius is Paul's, he's Paul's scribe and he just inserts his own greeting right here in the middle of
00:03:24Paul's.
00:03:25And then it goes back to Paul and he sends greetings from the residents of Corinth.
00:03:30So they're the residents of Rome at the beginning, the residents of Corinth at the end.
00:03:35And then a final doxology at the end.
00:03:39And we may talk about what that means to a little bit later.
00:03:42Anyways, I thought it was interesting that Paul divided it up that way.
00:03:45And you can see who these people are just a little bit by the way he has grouped them.
00:03:51So let's go back to verse 17.
00:03:53I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine
00:03:59that you have been taught.
00:04:00Avoid them.
00:04:01Such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.
00:04:04And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.
00:04:08Most of the New Testament, everything after the book of Acts, so all of the epistles,
00:04:15and even part of the book of Revelation is talking about this problem.
00:04:21People who are sowing division.
00:04:23And from the very beginning, they were people trying to hijack the gospel for their own purposes.
00:04:31You get the sorcerer in the book of Acts, who's like,
00:04:35how can I buy the Holy Spirit so I can do these magic tricks like you guys?
00:04:40And it wasn't just Simon the sorcerer.
00:04:42There were what you might call the proto-Gnostics.
00:04:47Gnosticism was a melding of Christianity and Greek philosophy, or Christianity, Greek philosophy, and Egyptian mysticism, probably.
00:04:57But obviously, that hadn't really happened yet because Christianity wasn't a big force.
00:05:02But as the gospel grew in popularity and influence, these other people started to latch onto it.
00:05:10And just like Simon, tried to hijack it for their own purposes.
00:05:14And there were a whole bunch of these people.
00:05:18And by the end of the first century, Gnosticism was really becoming a force.
00:05:22And it was a few hundred years where it was pretty popular.
00:05:28And to be honest, I don't think it entirely went away.
00:05:32I think we are still dealing with the same ideas because at the heart of Gnosticism is the idea that
00:05:39you can become God.
00:05:40And that was the very first lie.
00:05:43This is what Satan told Eve in the garden is that God doesn't want you to become like him.
00:05:47And if you eat of this tree, you're going to know good from evil and be just like him.
00:05:51This is what the Gnostics teach, that if you know the right stuff, you can become like God.
00:05:59And this is what the word Gnostic means.
00:06:01Knowledge, essentially.
00:06:03So we've got our own varieties of this today.
00:06:06And not just Gnosticism, where it's people talking about trying to convince you that you can become like God.
00:06:12And this is what is at the heart of Mormonism and a lot of Eastern mysticism and what we call
00:06:20the New Age movement.
00:06:21Those are all varieties of Gnosticism, where if you just learn the right formulas and if you understand the universe
00:06:28in the right way,
00:06:29then you can master the universe and you become like God.
00:06:33But we also have something on the other extreme.
00:06:38And that is people who essentially say you earn your salvation by doing works, work-based salvation.
00:06:47Man-made creeds, doctrinal statements, adding what Paul called works of the law.
00:06:54And that phrase was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
00:06:57And we talked about that.
00:06:59That was a long time ago.
00:07:01But this was the problem that the Pharisees had, is that they were always, to make sure that you don't
00:07:07violate this rule, they add a bunch of other rules on top of it.
00:07:11And before you know it, the rules that were added on top become the rules.
00:07:16And if you're not doing those rules, then you're going to be cut off from your people or whatever, however
00:07:22it is that they looked at it.
00:07:24And so if you were a Gentile and you wanted to come and worship the God of Abraham and be
00:07:29part of the chosen people, you had to keep all of these rules.
00:07:33And none of those rules were God's.
00:07:34These were all the rules of men.
00:07:37And it's similar to Gnosticism in the sense that you have to learn a bunch of stuff.
00:07:42Gnosticism doesn't really emphasize doing anything.
00:07:44It emphasizes thinking about things.
00:07:47Right thinking.
00:07:49But we might, for lack of a better term, calling it Phariseeism, which I know is not exactly right.
00:07:55But I'm going to go with that because everybody knows what I mean, I think.
00:08:00Phariseeism emphasizes doing over knowing or understanding or even caring why.
00:08:06You just do the stuff.
00:08:07You don't have to know why.
00:08:08You don't have to care about God.
00:08:09You don't have to care about much of anything.
00:08:12Just check off all the boxes and you'll be fine.
00:08:15And we actually have religions that blend both of these ideas.
00:08:20Probably they all do to some extent.
00:08:24So, yeah, I don't want to turn this into another monologue night.
00:08:27So, I'd like to hear your thoughts about what causes division and what Paul means by creating obstacles contrary to
00:08:36the doctrine that you have been taught.
00:08:38And then how do we avoid them?
00:08:41So, what do you think?
00:08:42What causes these divisions and how can we avoid them?
00:08:45My experience is it's usually a power play in trying to get somebody to elevate individuals so that you are,
00:08:57in essence, following them and looking to them for what's acceptable and not acceptable.
00:09:04I've fallen to this before.
00:09:07It's not to put anybody as needing to sanction my belief systems or what I embrace.
00:09:17And I have experienced that where you've been in a fellowship and everybody looks to whoever that person is.
00:09:26What do we think?
00:09:28How do we think about this?
00:09:29And they're always looking to them to fill in that gap instead of doing it themselves.
00:09:34So, it's a very common thing in the Catholic Church, that type of thing, in my opinion.
00:09:39But it exists outside the Catholic Church, too, because in Protestantism, it's often the pastor.
00:09:49They will tell you what to think and not to think.
00:09:54And it alleviates from you your responsibility and, really, your thinking and your intellect, as far as I'm concerned.
00:10:02Yeah, that makes sense.
00:10:03And I think there are a couple of things that play into that and that kind of encourage that sort
00:10:07of thing.
00:10:09And one thing is the way that we have structured our churches, where you have the pastor at the top
00:10:15or the priest or whatever you're calling him, rabbi, same thing.
00:10:19And this is the person who is authorized to understand the scripture, not just authorized, but trained, and nobody else
00:10:27is really capable.
00:10:28So, if you're not listening to him, then you're just off in the weeds somewhere, and you can't possibly know
00:10:37what you're talking about.
00:10:39And putting that one person up in the front, delivering the message every week, and then we all just sit
00:10:46and we consume it.
00:10:47It becomes a consumer religion, where you don't produce, you don't add to it.
00:10:53This is one of the things that Paul said we are responsible for doing.
00:10:57Let everyone bring a word.
00:10:59Everyone bring a psalm.
00:11:01Or we are there to build up the body.
00:11:04We have to build up ourselves.
00:11:06And so, when we go to a church, and we expect to be fed, we go there to consume, to
00:11:13be, the preacher aims the fire hose at us and fires off his three-point sermon.
00:11:20And we get it or we don't get it, and then we go home.
00:11:23And it's his responsibility.
00:11:24It's taken to an extreme, though.
00:11:25I've seen before, whereby people in power have said, you do not come against God's ordained.
00:11:35So, they embrace it wholeheartedly.
00:11:38And they are, in essence, differentiating themselves from you.
00:11:42And they're claiming certain privileges.
00:11:45So, how dare you question me, because I'm God's ordained.
00:11:48I mean, you in the pulpit or the crowd or whoever's the consumer, I think, have a responsibility to not
00:11:58check your brain at the door and to contemplate what's being presented and see if it makes sense.
00:12:05Because you've got to be your own filter.
00:12:08And when you give that up, it's a dangerous place, in my opinion.
00:12:13Yeah, and I think that we need to move away from the standard church model where there's one guy at
00:12:19the top and everybody else just accepts what they're told.
00:12:24And it's one thing to acknowledge that some people know more or are smarter or more anointed.
00:12:30All of that can be true and is true.
00:12:34But we all have a responsibility.
00:12:36Like you said, we are responsible for our own faith and for our own beliefs.
00:12:40And we can't just push that off onto somebody else.
00:12:45And if we get it wrong, oh, well, it's the pastor's fault, not mine.
00:12:49He is at fault for teaching you wrongly, but it's your fault for accepting that bad teaching.
00:12:54Ironically, my father, once we had a conversation about the priesthood.
00:13:01And he presented it, and it was interesting.
00:13:04He said, well, he's the professional, not me.
00:13:06He's paid to do this thinking, not me.
00:13:09And I was just like, okay, that works for some people.
00:13:14Yeah.
00:13:16Yeah.
00:13:16And to an extent, he has a point in that there are depths of scripture that not everybody has the
00:13:24time to do that kind of research and really understand it.
00:13:27I would love to just quit my job, go to school and learn Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic and really
00:13:34go full bore into all the academia and intellectualism.
00:13:39But I don't have the time for that.
00:13:42And I get, I still dedicate a ton of time to studying the scriptures.
00:13:48But I know most people don't have that time or the capability to do that.
00:13:53And that's fine.
00:13:54But one of the great things about the scriptures is that they are layered.
00:13:58They're easy to understand on the surface.
00:14:01You can get the basics of the faith and not even the basics.
00:14:05You can get advanced levels into the faith and the word that God is trying to convey to us just
00:14:12by reading.
00:14:12You don't have to be smart.
00:14:14You know, there's a lot of subtlety and a lot of layers, especially when you get into the prophets and
00:14:18the wisdom literature.
00:14:22But the basic commandments are pretty straightforward.
00:14:25The books of history, straightforward.
00:14:27The gospels, very straightforward.
00:14:29It's not that hard when you've got somebody who is saying, I'm the one who has the right to explain
00:14:36this to you.
00:14:37You don't have the right or the capability to understand it.
00:14:40Then you're in a bad place.
00:14:42And I think that our standard model of having the one guy up on the stage dictating theology to everybody
00:14:50else who doesn't really have any opportunity to speak back.
00:14:54I don't mean be rude, but there's no invitation to a conversation.
00:15:00It's a lecture.
00:15:01And that whole system just lends itself to elitism.
00:15:06And it's helpful in many ways, but it's just it's also harmful in many ways.
00:15:12And I think that a healthy body of Messiah would have a lot more a lot more interaction, a lot
00:15:21more room for conversation and people to interact and ask questions without being afraid that they're going to be rebuked
00:15:30or ostracized for having an honest question.
00:15:33Obviously, there are mockers, and those are some of the people that Paul is talking about here, people who are
00:15:38just out to make trouble.
00:15:39And so there does have to be some kind of hierarchy.
00:15:42Somebody's got to be in charge.
00:15:43Somebody has to have the authority to be able to stop that kind of thing, because if it's completely egalitarian
00:15:51and everybody is on the same level, then who's to say who is the troublemaker?
00:15:58There are some people who will gravitate into the leadership positions, but the instructions that we have from Paul and
00:16:07the examples that we have from Scripture and the commands even from Moses show that we are supposed to have
00:16:15some kind of hierarchy.
00:16:17It doesn't have to be super formal, it doesn't have to be people with titles, doesn't have to be paid
00:16:22clergy, nothing like that.
00:16:23But there do have to be some people who can make decisions, and that can also help avoid these divisions
00:16:30and obstacles.
00:16:31And that's a whole other aspect to it.
00:16:34All right, so the second half of this, verse 18.
00:16:37Such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.
00:16:40By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.
00:16:44Do you think that's the case with all people who create divisions?
00:16:49They don't serve Christ, but their own appetites, and they're trying to deceive the hearts of the naive.
00:16:56Do you think everybody who causes division fits that description?
00:17:00I hope not.
00:17:01I have pushed back against church leadership when they were out of line.
00:17:08And, of course, it was easy for them to point to me as the troublemaker.
00:17:16But I was able to document why they were out of line.
00:17:23But anyway, I hope it's not always bad to disagree.
00:17:31Yeah, no, it's not bad to disagree.
00:17:35It's really the way that people disagree that becomes a problem.
00:17:40And the way that the leadership handles disagreement can also be a problem.
00:17:44And you're right that sometimes the division is not caused by what we might call a person in the pew.
00:17:50It's caused by the person who is rejecting their views or not allowing them to speak.
00:17:57And I think that, in some ways, it does describe, it is described by what Paul is saying here, that
00:18:03they're serving their own appetites.
00:18:05They want to be in charge.
00:18:06They want to be the one making the decisions.
00:18:09And they may not be doing that consciously.
00:18:11They may not be setting out to serve themselves and to deceive people.
00:18:17And I think most people who are causing divisions aren't setting out to cause division or to deceive anyone.
00:18:24Most of them think that they are in the right.
00:18:27And that concerns me in the sense that I wonder sometimes if the things that I do and say may
00:18:34be causing division.
00:18:35And I think that if I'm just speaking truth to power, whatever it is, am I out of line?
00:18:42I think that's something that we always need to be asking ourselves.
00:18:46Yeah, a lot of times I think it depends on the context.
00:18:50If I'm in a situation where I really have no influence, it's outside of my circle of responsibility.
00:18:57I might just be causing trouble if I speak up and say what I think is true.
00:19:03But in other situations where it is within my circle of influence, I'm responsible for speaking up.
00:19:10So, I don't know.
00:19:12Yeah.
00:19:13Let me describe to you how we've evolved doing things here in our local fellowship.
00:19:20And we're starting to formalize some of these things, put it down in paper.
00:19:25But we have decided that there are certain things that we're just not going to argue about.
00:19:31We're not going to argue about calendars or all kinds of things like that.
00:19:37Don't need to get into specific topics.
00:19:39But whatever the topic is, that is somebody's pet theology.
00:19:43You can be passionate about it.
00:19:45You can really be on fire.
00:19:47And that's admirable.
00:19:49I appreciate somebody who really cares about what they believe in.
00:19:53But not everybody else cares so much about that particular topic.
00:19:57And it's possible that your passion is misplaced.
00:20:00I'm not going to tell you.
00:20:02It may not be my place to tell you that your passion on some topic is misplaced.
00:20:06Maybe God is driving you to do that.
00:20:08But at least in our gatherings, here is what we believe as a group.
00:20:14This is our official stance.
00:20:16We follow this calendar.
00:20:18Here's how we do Passover.
00:20:20Once you leave here, when you go home, you do it however you want to do it.
00:20:25You figure out for yourself what you believe the Sabbath is and how you're supposed to keep it.
00:20:30You figure out exactly, should you be doing a Passover Seder?
00:20:35Should you be doing Passover at all?
00:20:36That's your business.
00:20:37I'm not going to tell you what you need to believe.
00:20:40This is just how we're going to do it as a fellowship.
00:20:43And if you want to come and fellowship with us, you are welcome.
00:20:48And you would just have to be okay with us doing it in a way that you don't particularly like.
00:20:53And I will be okay with you doing things your way.
00:20:56So sometimes you just have to draw those lines just for the sake of peace.
00:21:01And it's not necessarily about being the thought police.
00:21:05It's more about being in unity as a community, as the body of Messiah.
00:21:14To flesh that out a little bit, I'm on a stock board.
00:21:17There's almost 15,000 people on that board.
00:21:21And we peeled out probably 12 people and created our own little discord group.
00:21:26And we were talking heavily on the stock.
00:21:30Now, the purpose of this is to learn of certain tells that we're looking for and make meaningful decisions.
00:21:41It was agreed when we peeled away so as to not have division.
00:21:47We weren't going to talk politics because it evokes passion and it's a sidetrack.
00:21:58And it's not useful to what our ultimate goal is, right?
00:22:04Sometimes people swerve into talking politics and they get very passionate about it.
00:22:09And they say it is pertinent because it can affect the stock in this fashion.
00:22:13So they'll make an argument as to why it's important and why we should be giving consideration for these things.
00:22:20However, the experience that I've had is that it's a side route that is not ultimately helping us to realize
00:22:29why we are focusing or what we're attempting to focus on.
00:22:34I'll say it like that.
00:22:35You can have, take it and apply that towards the word.
00:22:39You can have the most passionate opinion, but if ultimately you immerse yourself into that passion to the point that
00:22:50you've effectively lost the audience or you become so distracted and so down a rabbit trail,
00:23:00it is not useful to what ultimately the word is trying to present, right or wrong.
00:23:09You might be spot on with your belief, but it's really not, it's not useful.
00:23:17Yeah.
00:23:17Let me, there's a conversation I was having with somebody recently and I might've brought this up in this group,
00:23:24but I don't remember for sure if I did.
00:23:28So let me find this conversation.
00:23:32Okay.
00:23:33So there are a couple of things that I think you have to do.
00:23:36And this is a very fine line or foggy, depending on which way you want to look at it.
00:23:42And it's a difficult thing to navigate because like you're saying with a stock, politics are relevant because the political
00:23:50climate will affect how the stock is going to work.
00:23:52Who is the president is going to affect the stock value because it's going to affect contracts in the economy
00:23:58and what industries are prospering and which ones aren't.
00:24:02So the same thing happens in theology.
00:24:05If you believe that to do something one way is a sin, then you're probably going to feel pretty strongly
00:24:11that we shouldn't do that.
00:24:14And take the Sabbath, for instance, and I'm going to take some idea that I don't think anybody would ever
00:24:19believe.
00:24:20You believe that it is a sin to use transparent glasses.
00:24:24You can't even see, it looks invisible on the camera, on the Sabbath for whatever reason.
00:24:31And you believe there's scriptural support for this.
00:24:34And God says, this is a stoning offense.
00:24:38Well, then you're going to feel pretty strongly about it.
00:24:40I actually have a slide that I kind of skimmed past earlier.
00:24:45And we have definitely talked about this one before.
00:24:48And the premise is a Bible study.
00:24:50And these are my rules for approaching any emotional topic.
00:24:56You have to be aware that the Bible is a contextual book.
00:24:59It was written by people, for people, even under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
00:25:05They're using human languages and human communication modes.
00:25:08So you have to understand that there are idioms and sarcasm and hyperbole and all these things in the scriptures.
00:25:13And if you can't agree with that, the Bible is going to be nonsense.
00:25:17It's just going to be unintelligible in many areas.
00:25:21Then you have to have humility.
00:25:23That means that you have to be willing to be wrong.
00:25:26I might not be understanding this passage correctly.
00:25:29That's possible, no matter how strongly I feel about it.
00:25:33And you have to admit that the scriptures are correct.
00:25:37Whatever the scriptures are meant to say, that's the truth.
00:25:41Everything that I believe is my interpretation of scripture, not the scripture itself.
00:25:47Take, for example, thou shalt not kill.
00:25:51What about hunting?
00:25:52That's killing.
00:25:54What about war?
00:25:55When God says you're supposed to execute somebody, isn't that killing?
00:25:58So even in the simplest commands, there's room for interpretation.
00:26:03You have to take all of scripture into context and you have to make all of it supreme and subordinate
00:26:10yourself to that.
00:26:12And the final one is courage.
00:26:14You have to be willing to give up your most closely held beliefs and be willing to embrace a position
00:26:26that is totally contrary to everything that feels right to you because scripture says it.
00:26:32So that's where I start.
00:26:34And then you'll also need to, I'll make a slide, someday I'll make a slide for this one.
00:26:41You need to be able to rank ideas.
00:26:44How important really is an idea?
00:26:47And so I have put them into three general categories.
00:26:51And I actually got this idea from a YouTube channel that I no longer watch because I think they've gone
00:26:56completely off the deep end.
00:27:00And I'll tell you where they fit in this scale here.
00:27:05I put every doctrine into three different categories.
00:27:10Not every doctrine, but every doctrine that I might disagree with, I put it into three different categories.
00:27:16The first category is discordant.
00:27:20These are doctrines that are completely incompatible with close friendships and fellowship.
00:27:25I can't be a part of the same fellowship as you because you believe and do this other thing.
00:27:30There's not a lot of that.
00:27:33One thing would be human sacrifice.
00:27:35Oh, you guys believe in human sacrifice?
00:27:37Okay.
00:27:37I'm not, I'm going somewhere else.
00:27:39I'm done here.
00:27:40Now, obviously that's an extreme case.
00:27:42In many beliefs that I would put in that category, I would still say that that person is a believer.
00:27:49They're still part of the kingdom.
00:27:51They're just doing something that is so far off that I can't get on board with that.
00:27:57And one of those things is the Sabbath.
00:28:00If you are keeping a lunar Sabbath, I'm not really sure how we can fellowship.
00:28:04I can't go to a lunar Sabbath fellowship and say, this is the Sabbath.
00:28:09Now, I could go there and I could fellowship, but everybody around me is saying, hey, Shabbat Shalom or whatever
00:28:14they're doing.
00:28:15And it's going to be so discordant that it's just not practical to fellowship in that way.
00:28:22So there are some things that you just have to agree on.
00:28:25Otherwise, you can't have a good relationship.
00:28:28The second category is divergent.
00:28:32And these are things that are incompatible to close partnerships in ministry and leadership.
00:28:37I can be part of the same fellowship with you if you believe these things, but we can't be in
00:28:42leadership together.
00:28:44If we are both elders or partners in a ministry, if we have, if you or I have one of
00:28:53these beliefs and the other one feels that this is a divergent doctrine, then we're probably going to have to
00:28:58split.
00:28:59Now, maybe one of us steps down.
00:29:02I don't know how we work that out, but you figure it out.
00:29:04Now, this is where I would put that YouTube channel that I no longer watch.
00:29:10I, they say a lot of great things, and I think they have some good things going on.
00:29:14But I think that this one particular issue has so compromised their ability to understand scripture that they're no longer
00:29:22trustworthy.
00:29:24They're still believers.
00:29:25I could still fellowship with them.
00:29:27If they were a part of our fellowship here, I would welcome them and say, okay, on this one topic,
00:29:32we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
00:29:35And you can explain your point of view, but then we're just going to have to set it aside.
00:29:40And you're just going to have to accept that our fellowship doesn't agree with that.
00:29:45The third one is academic.
00:29:47And this is a topic that has almost no bearing on anything that we do.
00:29:52We can fellowship together.
00:29:53We can be in ministry together.
00:29:55We can be close friends.
00:29:57And we just disagree about this thing.
00:29:59And okay, whatever.
00:30:02And one example of that, at least in my opinion, is, was Yeshua crucified on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday?
00:30:12Whichever one you believe, you still believe he was in the grave three days.
00:30:16Three days and three nights, if you think that's an idiom or literal or whatever, you still believe the scriptures.
00:30:22You still believe he was crucified.
00:30:24He died.
00:30:25He was in the grave.
00:30:26He rose again.
00:30:27And whether three days and three nights means 72 hours, or it just means parts of three days, that's an
00:30:34academic question.
00:30:35It has no bearing on what we do.
00:30:38So that's not something I would ever argue with somebody about.
00:30:42I will explain my opinion and say, invite somebody else to explain their opinion and why they believe what they
00:30:47do.
00:30:48And then, okay, I don't really feel that strongly about it.
00:30:53So I don't need to argue about that.
00:30:55And the higher on this scale it gets, the more closer to discordant it gets, the less likely I am
00:31:03to argue with somebody about it.
00:31:05And honestly, the less likely I am to communicate with them at all.
00:31:08And so you have to, like the slide on the screen says, you have to be willing to let scripture
00:31:16speak for itself and let it have priority over your opinions.
00:31:21And then you need to be able to categorize doctrines or political opinions or whatever it is into things that
00:31:28matter and things that don't matter in some kind of scale in between.
00:31:33And be able to talk to people in such a way that I can tell you what I believe about
00:31:38this, and you can tell me what you believe about it, and then that's the end of it.
00:31:42And maybe I'm convinced, maybe I'm not.
00:31:44But the moment that we start butting heads and we start getting angry, that's the end of the conversation.
00:31:50We move on to something else.
00:31:52And I think that's just necessary for civil discourse and fellowship.
00:31:58And maybe if it's important, you have to come back to it another day.
00:32:02But you stop at the moment that people start getting angry about it.
00:32:06If you still want to be in fellowship, if you don't, then there's still no reason to argue.
00:32:12You just move on.
00:32:13Is all that helpful?
00:32:14Yes, it's helpful.
00:32:16It's interesting because not everybody can be so unemotional and so systematic and thoughtful about putting things in categories like
00:32:31this.
00:32:31And so I appreciate that you've done that.
00:32:34But I also am well aware that that's not how most, that's not how the average person's really operating.
00:32:45And that's unfortunate because I think that there are many situations in life where we could avoid a lot of,
00:32:57for lack of a better term, drama.
00:32:59By having clear thoughts and clear understandings of these types of things so that we can know what's worth getting
00:33:12excited about and what's not worth getting excited about.
00:33:15And I think that's part of what the modern church is struggling with, is what's worth getting excited about, what's
00:33:22not worth getting excited about.
00:33:25Everybody, I think, at least in the West, in the United States, this idea of everybody's opinion matters.
00:33:35It's like everybody has value, but it doesn't mean that every opinion that everybody has value.
00:33:41And there's a thing about that, that I think that has affected the church.
00:33:50And so you just have a lot of people spouting off stuff that they're very emotionally attached to.
00:33:57And it's like, it feels like childishness in the sense that children do stuff emotionally because they don't have certain
00:34:07capabilities.
00:34:09But it really seems like the less that you, the less time you have spent thinking about these kinds of
00:34:15things, the more likely you are to misunderstand, miscategorize, misuse, misappropriate something.
00:34:24So I think it's really great that you can put something like this into a systematic sort of way of
00:34:34looking at stuff.
00:34:36Yeah.
00:34:38It seems very cold to people who are emotional, and I understand that.
00:34:45But it also is very helpful and very useful since, as humans, we do have so much tendency to get
00:34:53bogged down in how we feel about something.
00:34:56Yeah, that's true.
00:34:57And I guess I am a little different in some ways like that, where I don't get excited about a
00:35:08lot of stuff.
00:35:09There are some topics that will get me riled up, and Paula knows what those are.
00:35:14But yeah, but it's true that not everybody can talk to somebody about any topic that they feel strongly about
00:35:23and not get upset about it.
00:35:27And I think it's also important to maybe add to these other rules that on those topics where you know
00:35:34that you are more likely to get upset, you should try to avoid those topics as much as possible.
00:35:40Or shift them into a kind of conversation that is more conducive to being calm instead of face-to-face.
00:35:51If you tend to get hot and argue about things, maybe shift into a written conversation.
00:36:00That's only appropriate for certain kinds of relationships.
00:36:03If you're talking about a husband and wife, that's almost never a good idea.
00:36:07Because then that just lets you escape the things that are really important and the problems that you really need
00:36:12to work out.
00:36:12Which are your ability to talk to each other and have an argument and come out the other side better
00:36:17than you went in.
00:36:19But that's a whole other topic.
00:36:21I think Scott brought up a good point when he was talking about his group that he mentioned.
00:36:30And I think that also alludes to some of the issues and challenges of what we see in terms of
00:36:38division and arguments and stuff like that.
00:36:42And one of those really, I'm questioning if some of that really has to do with purpose and mission.
00:36:54And so thinking about Scott's comment about how his group decided not to have political discussions because it didn't serve
00:37:04their purpose.
00:37:05It didn't help further the purpose of why they were together.
00:37:09And when we look at what Paul's saying here and encouragement that he's giving, Paul was a man on a
00:37:17mission.
00:37:17And he's talking to people who at the time and in the culture they were in, they were actively engaged
00:37:27in spreading the gospel and doing things that were growing the church and all kinds of things.
00:37:33But it wasn't like, it wasn't like what we see now with these places that people go, these safe, controlled
00:37:41places that people go where somebody else goes out on a mission, but everybody else is there every other Sunday
00:37:49or whatever.
00:37:50It's just a very different kind of environment.
00:37:55And so I wonder if a lot of what we see with divisions is just driven by, I hate to
00:38:05say this because I'm not, I don't mean it in the worst way, but it's more like idleness, like people
00:38:14who don't have anything better to do.
00:38:19Because when you're in, just like in a military situation, in a combat situation where people are on a mission,
00:38:28there's not a whole lot of time to argue.
00:38:30There's not a whole lot of impetus to argue.
00:38:35Nobody would be really motivated to argue when life or death is on the line.
00:38:44And so I just wonder how much of what we see with division is actually kind of a luxury or
00:38:54divisiveness is actually a luxury that we have culturally, particularly in the West, when there's not as much at stake
00:39:05in our circumstances.
00:39:09It's like, when you can just cut and run and go to another church around the corner, it just seems
00:39:16like such an easy thing.
00:39:20Yeah.
00:39:21Versus like, these are the people God put me with.
00:39:23We're on a mission to do something together.
00:39:26There's a lot coming at us and we really got to stick together.
00:39:31Mindset versus like, I'll just go sit in a pew somewhere else and chill out with people that agree with
00:39:37me.
00:39:39These are very different sort of circumstances.
00:39:43And I think Paul is speaking from a circumstance that most of us haven't really been in or the church
00:39:53hasn't really been in a long time.
00:39:55And so I'm just thinking through that and thinking about what Scott said and how that could be a more
00:40:02relevant aspect of this.
00:40:04Yeah.
00:40:05And I think another, I taught with, I had mentioned marriage earlier and how sometimes when it, when you're always
00:40:13finding yourself in an argument, it can be tempting to try to write letters to each other, emails.
00:40:19And that can be useful to an extent, but you need to get past that.
00:40:22You need to be able, you need to learn to be able to work out your problems face to face.
00:40:30And the goal of writing the letter should be to get past this one really contentious point so that then
00:40:40we can come together and talk about it.
00:40:42And maybe if somebody gets so angry about something that you can't get through the making your point and you
00:40:49can't explain yourself fully, or maybe you get too emotional and you're unable to explain yourself fully, then resorting to
00:40:55writing could be a helpful thing.
00:40:58But yeah, the goal is to, to grow that relationship to the point where you can have a serious disagreement
00:41:06and work it out and still be together.
00:41:08And this is an important part of fellowshipping with people too.
00:41:11It's a skill that we need to learn and having options really has spoiled us in that sense.
00:41:17I myself have found writing to be extremely detrimental, trying to work out marital situations and the various interpretations that
00:41:30we would have on what was being written, what was being intended.
00:41:35It was so much better to interact maybe over the phone or in person or whatever.
00:41:45And I think you're having a good example of it in this whole book of Romans from Paul.
00:41:50That's true.
00:41:51This is written and look how many different interpretations there are of it.
00:41:57Whereas if you're speaking face to face, if you're having that fellowship, hopefully clarity can be reached and I meant
00:42:04this or whatever.
00:42:06So writing is great and it's not great.
00:42:10So that's my thoughts.
00:42:13Yeah, that makes sense.
00:42:14I can see that argument too.
00:42:16Yeah.
00:42:17You think about things like Calvinism, Arminianism and provisionism and all of the things in between.
00:42:23These are all very different ideas, but they all go to the same verses in Romans to defend their viewpoint.
00:42:29So if you try writing in order to get past these hot points, you have to be exhaustive in how
00:42:38you're explaining your point.
00:42:39And then are you really communicating your point or are you just boring people or frustrating them because of how
00:42:46many words you're using?
00:42:47So, yeah, there's pitfalls in every way you want to handle it.
00:42:51And it really comes down to self-control and subordinating your own desires to other people.
00:42:59That doesn't mean that you give other people their way all the time.
00:43:02No, but it's also a true desire to communicate and to know and be known.
00:43:09And if you don't have that, then you're going to go down rabbit trails because you maybe want to or
00:43:18you deflect or whatever.
00:43:21But without that underpinning, you're really not going to communicate.
00:43:27You're going to have a miscommunication of some sort.
00:43:29Yeah.
00:43:30And I yeah, that'll happen no matter how you're communicating.
00:43:32And you're right that it comes down to wanting to communicate, wanting not just to get communicate your views, but
00:43:39to understand the other person's views.
00:43:42Because if you don't want to, what's even the point?
00:43:45In this last part, when Paul is talking about they're serving their own appetites and the smooth talk and flattery,
00:43:52they deceive the hearts of the naive.
00:43:54I said that most people who cause divisions aren't really setting out to deceive people.
00:44:02They're not.
00:44:03They don't think that they're serving themselves, although really most of the time they are because it's about ego.
00:44:08It's about me being right.
00:44:10That's why people argue.
00:44:12And sometimes there are some really important issues that have to be worked out.
00:44:17And obviously, Paul and Yeshua both got pretty hot with people at times.
00:44:22Yeshua overturning the tables in the temple and calling people sons of vipers and even sons of the devil.
00:44:31That's pretty confrontational.
00:44:33So there are topics where you need to stand your ground.
00:44:36But most of the time, most of our disagreements don't really matter that much.
00:44:41And it's our ego that drives us to be right.
00:44:45I wrote down three different kinds of people that I see very frequently today causing division.
00:44:51And most of them, obviously, like I said before, there are people who really do want to cause division.
00:44:57They just, we call them trolls online.
00:44:59They're just trying to stir up trouble.
00:45:02But for those people who aren't necessarily trying to create division, but they are a problem because it usually comes
00:45:11back to their ego.
00:45:12So the first one out of three kinds, the first one are the sensationalists.
00:45:17These are people who are always chasing the shiny object, the mysteries, the surprising revelations.
00:45:26And I have been guilty of this at times.
00:45:28And probably that's what originally got me interested in the concept of literary patterns, things like chiasms.
00:45:35Ooh, that's cool.
00:45:36That's a mystery.
00:45:38And over time, the more I understood about it, the more my position on that kind of moderated.
00:45:42And it's like, oh, this can be a useful tool, but let's not get carried away because it's not going
00:45:46to tell you everything.
00:45:48They love the esoteric ideas and the edgier, the more shocking it is, usually the better.
00:45:55And you can see this in well-known teachers.
00:45:59If their books always say the mystery of this or such and such revealed, that's somebody I'd recommend staying away
00:46:08from for the most part.
00:46:09They might have some good things to say, but they're just engaging in sensationalism.
00:46:13And I don't think that's healthy.
00:46:15I don't think it's good for the body as a whole.
00:46:17The next group of people are closed-minded.
00:46:21These are people who have decided that something is true, and they will never consider any evidence to the contrary.
00:46:28I am right.
00:46:30And I am so convinced that I'm right that you can put ironclad evidence right in front of my face,
00:46:37and I will deny it.
00:46:39You made it up.
00:46:40It's a lie.
00:46:41It's an illusion.
00:46:43It's irrelevant.
00:46:44Something.
00:46:44I'll make up some reason why it doesn't matter.
00:46:48I'm not going to get into the doctrines that I see this the most in, but this is pretty common
00:46:53among religious people.
00:46:55Whether it's Catholics, Protestants, Hebrew roots, Messianic Jews, everybody does it.
00:47:01The next category are obsessive, obviously very closely related to closed-minded, but this isn't somebody who has necessarily decided
00:47:10that their view is the correct one.
00:47:13But it's that this one topic, this is the most important thing, and they will bring everything back to that
00:47:19topic.
00:47:20Whether it is, maybe it's the end times.
00:47:23Maybe it's Israel.
00:47:25Maybe it's every Sunday we must preach Jesus and him crucified.
00:47:30That's almost a nonsense expression because you just can't say that over and over and over every week.
00:47:35You have to teach people something new.
00:47:38You have to advance people.
00:47:40That's the whole point of discipleship.
00:47:42So if every verse in the Bible, if every topic comes back to the same thing, then this is a
00:47:49problem.
00:47:51Everything isn't about you and your particular hobby horse, but that's another one that I see all the time.
00:47:58Has anybody else seen any patterns or any particular kind of mindset that fosters division like that?
00:48:06Piggyback on the end times.
00:48:08I know for me that's okay, but I've interacted with others that are very focused upon that.
00:48:18And they make the assumption that I am equal-minded and I'm not.
00:48:27And it affects the interaction because it's a wink and a nod.
00:48:34You know what I mean?
00:48:34I'm like, actually, I don't.
00:48:38It doesn't really stir me.
00:48:40I don't really care because I've also seen the same with the petirism.
00:48:47I've seen some people that have basically concluded that it's been concluded.
00:48:54And they will watch you struggle and you're like, yeah, but I already know.
00:48:59And it just doesn't make for a good discourse.
00:49:02Because they...
00:49:03It tends to go along with Calvinism, too, in that everything gets reinterpreted to reinforce the belief.
00:49:09Right, right.
00:49:11So, especially with petirism, there's no meaningful interaction because they know it all.
00:49:20And if you're not, you'll learn.
00:49:24They're putting themselves above me and we'll never really have a good interaction.
00:49:28So, that's an experience I've had.
00:49:31And, yeah, and I'm sure not all preterists are that way, but I've definitely seen it.
00:49:37Sorry, it's preter?
00:49:38Yeah.
00:49:38If anybody doesn't know what Scott is talking about, preterism is the idea that pretty much all prophecy has already
00:49:45been fulfilled.
00:49:47And there are extreme preterists who believe that all prophecy was fulfilled by 70 AD.
00:49:53And there's no more prophecy.
00:49:55And there are others who will say, most of it was fulfilled in 70 AD, but now we've got these
00:49:59last two chapters of Revelation that we're still waiting for.
00:50:02Or that were fulfilled later or something like that.
00:50:04That's what preterism is.
00:50:07Technical theological words, Scott.
00:50:09You're talking over everybody's head.
00:50:11I'm sorry.
00:50:12In this group, probably everybody knows what it means.
00:50:15And I even said it wrong, so I'm messing people up more.
00:50:19All right.
00:50:19So, what all these things have in common is pride.
00:50:22That it is about me.
00:50:24It's serving their own appetites instead of serving Christ.
00:50:29Which is exactly what Paul said here.
00:50:31And a lot of these people aren't smooth talking.
00:50:33They're not flattering.
00:50:34Some of them are very abrasive.
00:50:36Some of them come across as crazy.
00:50:39I don't think Paul was trying to give a comprehensive description of the people who cause divisions.
00:50:45There are all kinds.
00:50:46I have seen some of those flattering, smooth talking ones, though, too.
00:50:49And they probably give the creepiest vibes of all.
00:50:53Actually, Jay, the phrase naive, the naive, that's kind of damning.
00:50:59I think we, in the pews, if you want to say it like that, I don't know how else to
00:51:04try to differentiate.
00:51:06Yeah.
00:51:08We have an obligation to move beyond naivete.
00:51:13And I think some people would rather be naive.
00:51:16They would rather be, tell me what to think.
00:51:19Or, I'm going to check my brain at the door.
00:51:22And I'm going to feel emotion.
00:51:24I'll do the Pentecostal dance because that's the emotion I like.
00:51:30And I really don't have to think things through, you know, that type of thing.
00:51:35So, that particular phrase, I think, is pointing at the public, so to speak.
00:51:41Yeah, it is.
00:51:42And it's our, you're right, it's our responsibility not to be naive.
00:51:45And this means being aware that there are people who cause divisions and being on a watch for it.
00:51:51And when we see somebody who's exhibiting these behaviors, then we have a responsibility to either put a stop to
00:52:00the behavior or divide that person away from the rest of the people.
00:52:05And that's not up to each individual.
00:52:07That needs to be a corporate kind of thing.
00:52:10You follow the Matthew 18 protocol, and if the person is not a crazy person, then you go to them
00:52:17and try to work it out and escalate up the chain from there.
00:52:21But you have to be aware.
00:52:22You can't do any of that if you're not aware that this person is the kind of person who causes
00:52:27divisions and that this behavior that you saw last week, if it happens again this week, it's probably a pattern.
00:52:34And it's going to continue.
00:52:35And you have to do something about it.
00:52:38If you let it go on, it's just going to get worse.
00:52:42So I am not, yeah, I'm not the best person for understanding what other people are doing or observing human
00:52:51behavior.
00:52:51I can be aware of it in the abstract, but in the real world, sometimes it's difficult for me to
00:52:56see patterns in people where I can see patterns in text and ideas so much easier.
00:53:02I had an interaction recently in the last year, year and a half, and it was an elder.
00:53:09It really got under my craw because a lot of people were looking to him, what should we think?
00:53:14But he used the approach of asking a question, and if you gave an answer, he would jump upon that,
00:53:25that's right, and he would lift you up in your answer and then basically take the ball and run it
00:53:32and craft it into what he was saying.
00:53:35So it was more or less, it was a crafty way of basically being the gatekeeper of, I'm asking a
00:53:41question, does anybody know the answer?
00:53:43Nope, wrong, wrong, that person has it, and lifting them up.
00:53:49It took me a little bit to realize what was going on, but it's a gatekeeper function of, I have
00:53:57the information, and I'll let you know if you're smart enough to pass the test and come to my level,
00:54:06so to speak.
00:54:07So there's some crafty ways of people doing these things, and honestly, it takes a while to realize what's going
00:54:13on.
00:54:14Yeah, that's true, and I think that the kind of fellowship that I prefer and that we're trying to create
00:54:21here is probably more vulnerable to some of that, where we have a group of people in an intimate setting
00:54:28with open conversation.
00:54:29We're going to read the scriptures, and then we're going to talk about it as a group.
00:54:35That invites trouble sometimes, and that's something that we need to learn to manage.
00:54:40We need to be aware of it, spot it, spot problems before they happen, or as they're happening so that
00:54:45we can stop them.
00:54:47But it's part of growing up.
00:54:49If we don't do that, if we just shut it down and put the one guy up on the stage
00:54:53dictating to everybody, then you never have the opportunities to grow up.
00:54:58And that's an important part of becoming a healthy member of the body of Christ.
00:55:02We have to have conflict.
00:55:05All right, let's move on to verse 19, 19 and 20.
00:55:09For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise
00:55:13as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.
00:55:16The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
00:55:19The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
00:55:23Okay, so Paul says, your obedience is known to all.
00:55:27One of the curious things that I've seen in this letter is how much all these fellowships around, especially around
00:55:35the Adriatic Sea, how much they all know about each other.
00:55:39There's all these people going back and forth.
00:55:41And half the people in the congregation at Corinth, they know the people in Rome.
00:55:46Half the people in Rome know half the people in Corinth.
00:55:48And so the reputation of the Roman assembly is known all over the Mediterranean.
00:55:54Even though Paul has never been there, he knows all about them because he knows many of the people there
00:55:59and he's heard about them from other people.
00:56:02So I think it's, we talked before about how slow communication can be around the Mediterranean.
00:56:08It took centuries for Christianity to really spread to all of the cities in the Roman Empire.
00:56:14But word spreads, in some ways, word spreads a whole lot faster than you would think, too.
00:56:19It's a strange dichotomy.
00:56:21Okay, I want you to be wise.
00:56:23What does it mean to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil?
00:56:27Is he talking about your behavior?
00:56:30Being good versus being evil?
00:56:31What is he saying?
00:56:33Any opinions?
00:56:35I'll get you started in the right direction.
00:56:37At least what I think is the right direction.
00:56:39He's putting this in a small parallelism.
00:56:43Wise to what is good, innocent to what is evil.
00:56:47So wise is comparable to innocent.
00:56:49These two words are either, it's an antithetical parallelism.
00:56:56Good is the opposite of evil.
00:56:57So wise is the opposite of innocent.
00:57:00So if you are wise as to what is good, what does it mean to be innocent as to what
00:57:05is evil?
00:57:06Be a participant.
00:57:07Or at least to be ignorant.
00:57:10And yeah, ignorant in this case would mean being a participant.
00:57:13You're unmixed.
00:57:15I think the Greek word that's translated here as innocent literally means to be mixed or to be unmixed.
00:57:21Sorry.
00:57:22So being wise as to what is good is talking about understanding it and being pure in your motives and
00:57:31behavior.
00:57:32It is about both.
00:57:33And then being innocent as to what is evil means to be unmixed with what is evil.
00:57:39So your thoughts are pure.
00:57:41You are trying to do the right thing.
00:57:43And it is unmixed with evil.
00:57:46So you may have some things wrong.
00:57:48You may have some wrong beliefs.
00:57:49You may have, you may be doing some things wrong, but you are at least trying to do the right
00:57:57thing.
00:57:57Your motives are not impure.
00:57:59It's your knowledge, maybe, that isn't up to snuff.
00:58:03Your understanding of the scriptures and what God expects of you.
00:58:07At least I'm pretty sure that's what he is trying to say here.
00:58:10Anybody else have any thoughts about these verses?
00:58:13I wonder if, as far as wisdom is concerned, it's something that we want to seek.
00:58:22It's something that has to be sought out.
00:58:25It's something that has to be pursued.
00:58:26And so I wonder if also in the same way that innocent as to what is evil has to do
00:58:36with really fleeing from evil, not allowing ourselves to indulge in anything that is evil.
00:58:46So almost like a fleeing from evil, it's what you said, but it's like a different perspective about how it
00:58:57might be approached.
00:58:58Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it because that way it connects it back to being
00:59:02naive.
00:59:03Don't be naive, but be aware.
00:59:06Yeah, so knowing what evil is and staying away from it, running away from it is different than being naive.
00:59:14Yeah, there's a word here for wise.
00:59:17It's a Greek word, sophos.
00:59:20And it's the root of sophistry, like big words and lots of talk.
00:59:26But it comes from the same idea that somebody who is wise knows how to speak.
00:59:30But what it really means is being expert, really knowing what it's about.
00:59:35So if you really know what is good, then you're aware of what is evil and you can avoid it.
00:59:43And so being wise to what is good helps you to be unmixed with what is evil because you are
00:59:51not naive when it's in your presence.
00:59:53When somebody has come into your fellowship and they're creating division, you spot it and you say, we're going to
00:59:59stop this.
01:00:01And then you take whatever action is necessary.
01:00:03Sometimes it's a mild rebuke will stop that kind of behavior.
01:00:07Sometimes you need to pull somebody aside and sometimes maybe you need to get the bat out.
01:00:11I don't know.
01:00:12I'm kidding a little bit with that last one.
01:00:15I know you're kidding.
01:00:17Kidding everyone.
01:00:18Did you notice the garden reference with that phrase?
01:00:23Yeah, it goes back to Genesis 3.15, crushing Satan under your feet.
01:00:28No, no, I'm talking about the tree of innocence.
01:00:31Oh, the good and evil.
01:00:32The tree of good and evil, yeah.
01:00:33Because then he makes a Genesis reference immediately after that.
01:00:37And I missed the first one.
01:00:40Yeah.
01:00:41Yeah, and the problem with Adam and Eve is that they ate the trees that they would know both good
01:00:46and evil.
01:00:48In here, Paul is saying, know what's good.
01:00:50Don't know what's evil.
01:00:52You don't know it as in to experience it.
01:00:54It's as if they hadn't eaten.
01:00:56It'd be wise to good.
01:00:58Yeah, that's a really good connection.
01:01:00I hadn't seen that.
01:01:01Yeah, and that explains exactly why he goes into the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
01:01:07Because that's what comes next.
01:01:09That's part of the punishment for Satan deceiving them into eating from the tree, is that he will be crushed
01:01:17under the feet of Messiah.
01:01:18And we, as the body of Messiah, take part in that.
01:01:21He crushes him through us.
01:01:24And Paul is talking about in their lives.
01:01:27In the Roman assembly, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet if you are wise to
01:01:33what is good and innocent to what is evil,
01:01:35and you don't allow people to come in and create divisions and problems in your fellowship.
01:01:39Yeah, it's so easy to take these, especially when I've got like just one or two verses on the screen.
01:01:44It's so easy to take these as little sound bites and forget that they're connected to everything around them.
01:01:49The last sentence here, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
01:01:53It seems to be just stuck in there.
01:01:56What is this about?
01:01:58I think that what Paul is saying is that grace isn't talking about the charismatic superpower that many people want
01:02:07to define that as.
01:02:09Grace is God's mercy and forbearance.
01:02:13Well, may the Lord Jesus Christ mercy be with you.
01:02:19And this is, in a sense, this goes back to the Garden of Eden again.
01:02:23He is the embodiment of the seed that was promised to Eve, who will crush Satan's head under his feet,
01:02:30and you are part of his feet.
01:02:33And so it is through him and through his power.
01:02:36And this, it's also easy to see where people get the idea that grace is a superpower, because it is
01:02:43through his mercy and his willingness to give us things that he doesn't owe us.
01:02:49That we have this power.
01:02:52We have the power to resist Satan.
01:02:55We have been declared innocent of all the charges, and those are the only powers that he has over us.
01:03:01And so, by Yeshua's grace, we have power over Satan.
01:03:06You can go ahead, June.
01:03:07Did you have something you wanted to add?
01:03:09I was thinking about Joseph, because he was wise as to what is good, when Potiphar's wife made that advance
01:03:24towards him.
01:03:25And his wisdom caused him to say that he wasn't really sinning against Potiphar.
01:03:33He was sinning against God, because he knew about the laws of God, that you must not commit another person's
01:03:44wife.
01:03:46And when she made that advance to him, he rejected her.
01:03:53And as a result, he was able to cross Satan under his feet, because she actually tried to make him
01:04:06look guilty by holding his coat and saying,
01:04:11Listen, this Hebrew man that you have brought into our house, look what he has done.
01:04:17And she tried to use a coat to show how involved Joseph was in trying to have sexual intercourse with
01:04:33her, not realizing that just a mere idea of Joseph saying that I'll be sinning against God.
01:04:42So he put the father above everyone else.
01:04:48And because of that, although he was thrown into prison, and where was he thrown?
01:04:55Where all of Pharaoh's subjects, if they sin, did they do anything wrong, they were thrown into the same prison.
01:05:03And that was the exact prison that Joseph was thrown into.
01:05:08And because of being there, he eventually became the viceroy of Egypt.
01:05:16So in the end, we see where Yahweh allowed Joseph to cross Satan under his feet, because he gave him
01:05:26victory in the end.
01:05:27So when we stand up for the heavenly principles, for heavenly principles, we see where we give glory to the
01:05:38father, and in the end, he gave us victory, because he's the one that fights our brother.
01:05:47Yeah, that's good.
01:05:49Yeah, we have victory through him.
01:05:52Yeah.
Comments