September 12th

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Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

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Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is the 365 Bible reading plan. Today is September the 12th, and our chapter for today is the book of Acts, chapter 22. Now we're going to back up and get some context into chapter 21, where the Apostle Paul is addressing the people in the temple as they have rushed upon him to try to get him arrested. And so in verse 37, that's where we'll begin in chapter twenty-one. Then as Paul was about to be led into the barracks, he said to the commander, May I speak to you? And he replied, Can you speak Greek? Are you not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up rebellion and led four thousand assassins out in the wilderness? Paul said, I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia. That's a Roman province, and Tarsus is a very well known city, a citizen of no mean city, that is, it was not insignificant. And I implore you, permit me to speak to the people. I'm asking you, please, let me speak to the people. So when he had given him permission, that is the commander, Paul stood on the stairs and motioned with his hand to the people, and when there was great silence, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, and he began to speak. Now we'll begin at verse one of chapter twenty two. All I'm saying is there's not a chapter break there in the narrative, but the chapter heading was put in there because that's where in the thirteenth century they believed it needed to be. And so when he was given permission, he spoke in Hebrew. Now Paul had already spoken in Greek. He spoke Aramaic when he was in the temple precincts simply because that's what the language and the trade language of the day was among the Jews. And so he was doing that. He more than likely was fluent in Latin. So four languages I can say with confidence the Apostle Paul was fluent in. And so he said, Brethren and fathers, all in Hebrew, because these were religious leaders and they all knew Hebrew, obviously he could speak to them, and the commander would not have known Hebrew at all. And so it could be between the family, so to speak, and he said, Brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now. And when they had heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. Okay, he knows our language, he's got a good cadence of speech. This is his mother tongue, and indeed it was. Then he said, I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city that is Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel. Now Gamaliel, Gamaliel, as we would say, taught according to the strictness of our father's law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. Now Paul said, Look, I am a Jew. I was born in Tarsus in the province of Cilicia, but I was brought up in this city. That's where he was born, but his father sent him there after he had probably had his bar mitzvah, what we would call a bar mitzvah. He was twelve, thirteen years old. He was sent to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel the great elder. Now the reason Gamaliel stands out is because he was the protege. He was the prized student and the one who took over for Halel, the great rabbi, Hallel, who was a contemporary of Shemai, who was another great rabbi. They were of different schools, different thought trains, both Jews, both very learned, but they had different approaches to the Tanakh and to the Talmudic literature. They gave different commentary on and stressed different aspects of the Tanakh and their commentary on it. And that's where the Talmud comes from. Remember the Mishnah and the Gemarah, that is commentary on the law and then commentary on the commentary, because at this point, already 1400 years since the law was given at Mount Sinai. And so he said, I was taught according to the strictness of our father's law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. I persecuted this way. Now that's what the church and followers of Jesus were called. They were called people of the way. Why? Because they thought a certain way, they lived a certain way, they talked a certain way, they had a lifestyle. That's what the way meant. It was a certain lifestyle and habits of life and routines and rituals. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness. Now you see the same people that were high priest when he was doing this were still in that same family. And he said, The high priest can bear me witness that what I'm telling you is true, and all the council of the elders, all the Sanhedrin. They know all about this because they're the ones that granted me the letters. You see, Paul was no stranger to the Sanhedrin and to the high priest family, because he had studied under the great Rabbi Gamaliel. Now remember, the high priest and his family were all Sadducees. They were of a different belief system in the sense of how they looked at the supernatural at resurrection and angels, because they didn't hold to any of that, and they primarily had charge of the temple, whereas the Pharisees were men who were more familiar with the synagogue system and were in leadership in the synagogues, but not in the temple. And they believed, as Paul did, on the resurrection of the dead, of the supernatural, of angels, and so forth. In other words, they were the Bible believers, the literal interpreters, the natural interpretation of the Tanakh. They took it as it was written, whereas the Sadducees would have been of a different hermeneutic and a different belief system. By the way, just on the side, we don't have any record of any Sadducee being saved. Why? Because if you don't believe that in your heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead, you cannot be saved. You see, there was a literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and you have to believe that in order to believe that Jesus has the power to save you, and that indeed what he said was true, because Jesus bore witness to himself and others did that he's alive and the dead. So Paul was just bringing up that all the Sanhedrin and all of the priests and everyone knew who he was. They knew what they had done. They may not want to admit it, but they did. And he said also I received letters to the brethren and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished. They were going to get Jews, bring them back, and say you can't believe this. Now it happened as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon. This is very important, because people often ask me where was he saved along the road, and it was near to Damascus. It was not somewhere down the Galilee, it was near Damascus. He said suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So I answered, Who are you, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus whom you're persecuting. And those who were with me indeed saw the light, and they were afraid, because they knew this was not normal light, this was way above the brightness of that Syrian sun that was beaming down on them. But they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. So I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do. And since I could not see for the glory of the light, he was blinded. He was blinded for days, and they led him by the hand, those who were with him, and he came to Damascus. Now these were Jews who were on the same mission as Saul of Tarsus, and they left him there. Then a certain Ananias, Ananias, as we say, a devout man according to the law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who were living there, came to me, and he stood and said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at the same hour I looked up at him. Then he said, The God of our fathers has chosen you. He selected you out. Yes, chosen means selection. That means he chose him and not somebody else. That's right, because God is sovereign, he can do that. The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know his will and see the just one, Jesus. He said, God has chosen you to show you his will, what his plan for your life is, to be able to see Jesus resurrected from the dead and to hear his very voice. So he heard the voice of Jesus. He is the just one. He's the righteous one, that's what that means, and to know his will. For you will be his witness, his martyr is the word there, to all men of what you have seen and heard, and now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized. This is what he said to him. And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Now it was not the water that saved him, it was the blood of Jesus. But what he said was, You need to show this what you know, just like a ceremonial cleansing, you need to be cleansed to show your seriousness, your devotion, your identification with who Jesus is, and so the scripture says that it happened when he returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance, and I saw him saying unto me, that is the Lord, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they, that is the Jews, the same ones that sent you on this mission, will not receive your testimony concerning me. So I said, Lord, they know that in every synagogue I am prison and beat those who believe on you. Neither would the church receive his testimony, neither would the people who sent him would believe so he was in a mess, he just needed to get out of Jerusalem. So he said, Lord, you know that in every synagogue I am prison and beat those who believe on you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I was standing by consenting to his death. In other words, I was the one that was overseeing that. I kept their coats while they executed him, and I guarded their clothes of those who were killing him. Then he said, Depart for I will send you far from here to the Goim, to the Ethnoi, to the different races, to the Gentiles. And as they listened to him, they listened to him until this word when he said that. As soon as he said, I'm going to send you to the Gentiles, that was that was over the top. How can you go and preach to the Gentiles? They're not a part of us. They will never be part of the family of God. We're not going to allow that. And so it was racist to the core. Now Jews don't like for me to say that, but it doesn't matter. Because this was a racist statement, not by the Jews of our day, but the Jews of that day. They did not want Gentiles in the kingdom of God, and they had been taught that that could never happen. But you see, God did something unusual, but they weren't ready, nor were they willing to listen. It was a religious thing, it was a racial thing, it was a spiritual thing. It was which one was it? It was all of the above, yes. And when he said this about the Gentiles, then they raised their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he's not fit to live, kill him. If he's going to talk like that, kill him. Now that's pretty tough talk. Then as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust in the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, and said that he should be examined under scourging. You see, they'd find out if indeed he was telling the truth, so that he might know why they shouted so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, that is, they bound him to be scourged, Paul said to the centurion who was standing there as watching him be bound, said now let me ask you something. I mean it's not in the text, it's just what he said. I'm trying to help you to understand in our language, it would be like him saying, Let me ask you something. Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? It would be, you see, this was going to be a public thing here for the Romans, and Paul said, Wait just a minute, I you know I'm a Roman. And when the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, Hey, take care what you do, for this man is a Roman. Then the commander came and said to him, Tell me, are you a Roman? And he said, Yes, and the commander answered, With a large sum I obtained this citizenship. And Paul said, I was born a citizen. I was born a Roman. Wow. Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him. They started getting away from him. And the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman because he had had him bound. You see, he had arrested him without ever checking because he assumed that he wasn't a Roman because it was he was a Jew, and most Jews were not Roman citizens. But here was a man who had come from the upper class. He was a man who had known what it was like to be a Roman citizen, fluent in Greek, fluent in Latin and the language of the Romans, fluent in Hebrew, fluent in Aramaic, but they didn't realize all that. And so it says, and then it starts a new paragraph, this should go with chapter twenty three. Then the next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, he released him from his bonds and commanded the chief priest and their council to appear, and brought Paul down and set him before them. So Paul, looking earnestly at the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day, and the high priest Ananias, Ananias, as we would say, commanded those who were stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall, for you set in judgment on me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law? And those who stood by said, Do you revile your slandering the high priest? Paul said, I didn't know, brethren, that he was the high priest, for it's written, You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people. In other words, there was a co-regency there among the high priest, and while Paul had been gone and Aeneas had taken over. This is what that's all about. And if you'll notice, there was a stroke of genius on Paul's part, because Paul said, I didn't know who he was, but when Paul perceived that one part was Sadducees and the other part Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I'm a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead, I'm being judged. Uh-oh. Now that's like throwing red meat into a group of lions. They all started fighting, and when he had said this, the dissension arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees. They forgot about Paul and wanted to argue theology, and the assembly was divided, for the Sadducees say there's no resurrection. There's no angel or spirit. They didn't believe in the supernatural like the Pharisees, but the Pharisees confessed both. Then there arose a loud outcry, and the scribes and the Pharisees, the parties arose and protested, saying, We find no evil in this man, but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, then let us not fight against God. And when there arose a great dissension, the commander, that same Roman, fearing lest Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him into the barracks. Now we'll pick up on the remainder of this story in the days ahead. But what I want you to understand is that Paul is right where he needed to be. Was he causing a commotion? You better believe it. Was he making everybody uncomfortable? Yes, he was. Did he take the opportunities that were given to him to speak the truth of the gospel? Yes, he did. And he did it in a way that the people could understand in a language they could understand. There's lessons galore here. But that's all for now. For on the way, this is Tony Chris.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Chris. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.