Eden to Eternity | Ep. 6

Well, hey everybody, welcome to episode six of From Eden to Eternity, where we are walking through the story of the Bible, trying to get an idea of what the Bible teaches from cover to cover, to see the story of God, how it's unfolded through history and how it's even unfolding in our lives today. Last week, we got to really the crux of the story, getting into the story of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, the hero coming onto the scene, dying our death, and being raised to life again to give us hope. And Derek and Sarah, what we're going to see as we head into this week is that the resurrection really changes everything, right? This moment that all of history has been building towards, this moment that all of the story has been pointing towards, is now going to be transformative, not just in Jerusalem where it happened, but across the known world and across time. So let's kind of talk about that before we hop into kind of the particulars of what that looks like. So how does the resurrection change things? How does God's kingdom begin to infiltrate the world after the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus? Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the things that Sarah said, I think in the last episode, was that for me, like the resurrection has become like one of the most convincing arguments, well I guess the result of the resurrection, in terms of how the disciples reacted post-resurrection. They went from literally scattering when Jesus was being arrested and at the cross to, gosh, most of them, if not all of them, most of them, supposedly, historically, being martyred for their faith. Yeah, everybody but Judas and John, hear that? And so I think you see that within that his closest followers, like something had to have happened that changed, changed everything for them. And they were willing, these people that were scared are now willing to die because they've seen the risen Christ.

Yeah. That's the point I was going to make, actually, just kind of pointing back to the end of our last episode of like, yeah, that was kind of this catalyst for the gospel being just transported throughout the whole world. And we'll get into that and kind of see how that happened, but they really changed the world through their testimony. And I love Acts 4.13, and we'll kind of get into the book of Acts here in a second, but it talks about how the people viewing the disciples said, you know, they were unschooled ordinary men, but it was so clear that they had been with Jesus. And I think that's such a great kind of like example of what's about to happen through the book of Acts and how the church grows is that, you know, there was nothing really special about them, but they had been with Jesus. And that was just their whole testimony of just bringing the gospel to all the places, not only in Jerusalem, but in Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Yeah, I mean, there's other people that are going to be influenced by the resurrected Christ and encounter him along the way. We see a guy named Saul who becomes Paul, we'll probably talk about here in a little bit, and gosh, God uses someone like him to, I mean, heck, create, what, three-fourths of what we have in the New Testament to write. But it's this idea that this message and hope of Jesus and this message he was preaching about the kingdom of God was kind of in this one area, and from here on out we're going to see it explode throughout the rest of the world, not just through these apostles, but through common people that are being taught this truth about Jesus and who he is and who he was and his resurrection, and it changes everything. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it takes me back to the beginning of the story in a sense, because you think about when you go back to Genesis 3 and the decision that was made at that first tree, everything starts to seep out from that, like we start getting the spread of sin, we start getting the spread of destruction, like everything starts to fall apart. But then we come to the tree where Jesus dies, the cross, and everything starts changing

in a different way, right? Like there's this transformation of evil is being pushed back, darkness is being undone, that everything that our sin has done, Jesus is fixing and he's undoing. And I think it's just such an interesting overlap when you look at the beginning of the Old Testament versus the beginning of the New Testament. Like we have to come to this tree as this pivotal moment, and at the first tree we did something and messed everything up, at the second tree God does something and fixes everything. And that's what we're gonna see start to happen as the gospel goes out into the known world. So let's talk a little bit about kind of the beginning of Acts and the space between Jesus' resurrection and the beginning of the church. So Jesus doesn't immediately ascend or return into heaven. he spends 40 days with his disciples there. So how does that kind of set them up for mission? And why is the ascension ultimately important? Yeah, I think it's so interesting that he doesn't appear for just like three days and is gone. Like I think the 40 days is significant for a lot of things, but I think the first is just like giving so many different eyewitnesses proof that he is alive. It says like there were over what 500 eyewitnesses. And so I think if he had only just appeared to the disciples, right? And then had ascended to heaven, there'd be so much doubt. But I think he stays for such a significant period of time to say, hey, like, no, I am alive. And it talks about that he eats meals with the disciples together. So he's still proving his humanity in this 40 days. But he also has a really important goal of telling the disciples their next mission. Like he knows that the Holy Spirit is about to come. And I love that. We'll talk about that in a second about the day of Pentecost. But he's kind of preparing them for what's ahead. Like he's also spending time with them, like proving that he's alive, but also preparing for what's ahead. And then I think about the 40 days of, you know, before he really began his ministry and after he was baptized, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. And so it's almost like setting up for a different kind of ministry, right? Like he spends 40 days in the wilderness by himself, is tempted by the devil, and then really begins his three-year journey of ministry. And here he's spending 40 days with his disciples because he knows that they're about to go into all the world. And so it's a really cool parallel here. I know the 40 days is probably significant for more reasons, Brandon, that you could tell us. But yeah, there's a lot of important things happening

in that 40 days. Yeah, obviously, I come from the perspective, maybe it's not obvious to someone watching this, but I do come from the belief that what we have in Scripture is exactly the way that it was supposed to be. Originally intended, it's without error. But I so wish that we had more about this period that Jesus spent with his disciples. I just so wish that we did, because I can only imagine the types of conversations that he's having with his people over the course of this of... Just probably thinking back on all the things that he taught them prior to his death, and then all these conversations he's having post his resurrection, and like Sarah said, about, hey, what's to come, about what they need for the journey ahead. And yeah, I don't really have anything to add other than I just wish that there was more there, because I think that that's fascinating to think about what those conversations would be. Yeah, well, and Luke covers it. So Luke writes not only the Gospel of Luke, but the Book of Acts, kind of the sequel to it. And he's very short in what he says about the 40 days. It's in 1.3. It says, during the 40 days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the kingdom of God. Like, okay, what did he say? What did he talk about the kingdom of God? Was there new stuff? Was he revisiting the old stuff and just explaining it in light of the resurrection? Like, what's going on there? Yeah. Like, are there any heavenly archives that we can go back and listen in on these conversations one day? That'd be awesome. Yeah, that would be great. Like, hey, Jesus, walk us through that. Like, what was going on there? So they get to the end of this 40 days. Jesus kind of takes them out to this mountain, and he gives them kind of their last instructions that are going to form the basis for the Book of Acts and really the spread of the church going forward. In Acts 1.8, Jesus tells them that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. So there's a couple of things that are going on there. One is that you're going to have power to go and do this mission. The Holy Spirit is going to come. But then there's also the kind of parameters of this mission. You're going to go out, you're going to be my witnesses, and you're going to start where you're at. You're going to start in Jerusalem, but don't think it's going to end there. You're going to go to Jerusalem, to Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. So how do you think they kind of felt when they initially heard this? You're thinking about, these are simple fishermen, most of them, or simple

just workers. And Jesus is standing there telling them, like, hey, no, you're going to go do this, and it's going to be everywhere. How do you think that mission first struck them to think about? You know, it's funny that this never really occurred to me before, but as we kind of talk through each episode, I wonder if they're first thinking about political power, of, like, that would be the way that they would gain, like, resources and maybe access to all of this territory. Because they are thinking about, like, okay, maybe this is our way of finally getting, you know, the temple being rebuilt and all of these things. And so I don't think that would have been my first thought, maybe before we started kind of going through this. But I wonder if that's why they're thinking, oh, like, how are we going to get access to all of this territory? other than gaining that political power. I know they definitely weren't thinking about the Holy Spirit power, because that really wasn't a thing before this moment that happens on the day of Pentecost. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they were thinking other than maybe political gain or advantage in that way. Yeah, I mean, it would probably be somewhat of a new responsibility for them, right? I mean, like they had gone out before, like while Jesus was on earth to go out and to proclaim that, what was it, that the kingdom of God is at hand. And we see a little bit of those stories in the New Testament writings. But here, right, they are going to be given the Spirit of God, which will provide everything that they'll need for the journey ahead. He will provide everything. And I wonder, and I don't know if this is right,

but I almost wonder if Jesus was preparing them for that way back when, when he told them, hey, just leave with, what was it, just close on your back type of thing. And now, right, they're gonna be going forward with something infinitely valuable, someone infinitely wise. Well, it's gonna be with Jesus himself, that Jesus is gonna say, hey, but it's actually going to be better that the Spirit of God is with you, which is confusing to us. It's confusing to me maybe of like, well, actually, Jesus, in my opinion, it would be a lot better if you were just here, and then I could ask you questions. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if the actual teacher was here. But they get to have the responsibility, as we do as well, of getting to be a witness to the resurrection of Jesus, that this guy, not only do we believe who he says he is, but we believe he's alive. And we believe that he has the power to change our life and to forgive our sin. Yeah, absolutely. So Jesus ascends into heaven after giving him these marching orders, what you need to do. We don't talk about the ascension all that much,

but I think the key truth of it that we need to hold on to is that for the early church, Jesus ascending into heaven was the sign of his position in power, right? We have, the person we are serving is the person who's in charge of everything. And I think, given where we're gonna go throughout today's story, that's gonna be a great assurance to them. Like, hey, even when everything is falling apart, even when this mission doesn't make sense to us, like he's still at God's right hand. He's still the one seated on the throne. So Jesus ascends on the 40th day. On the 50th day, we come to the day of Pentecost. And the day of Pentecost in the Old Testament was a celebration of the harvest, basically, that it was a day that when they celebrated that the harvest was coming in, it was also a day that got tied to the giving of the law and things like that throughout Jewish tradition. So we come to the day of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, as it was sometimes called. And it's on that day that we kind of celebrate in Acts chapter two, the birth of the church as the Holy Spirit is given to the church. And some pretty incredible things happen there. So let's kind of talk through a couple things. One is, like, what happens on the day of Pentecost?

And then two, what happens, how does that early community form around the gospel? You wanna go? Yeah, I'll grab it, I'll take it. I was letting you do it, yeah. So in Acts chapter two in the New Testament, so kind of the back part of our Bibles, it says, when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together at one place, right? All these disciples, all these people together at one place. And suddenly, there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house in that they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as a fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And here in verse four, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. And so, here, you have all these people, these disciples that are in this place, that the Spirit of God is being poured out on them as if tongues of fire. And they start preaching the gospel in such a way, in this language, that everyone's able to understand in their own tongue. And people start to give their life to this, right? They trust in this. And what was it, 2,000, 3,000 people?

Oh, yeah, 3,000. 3,000 million. 3,000 people. And so you have this explosion of faith, this life change that's happening in this moment. But it's unique and significant because here we have recorded from Luke, who's not only wrote the gospel of Luke, but is writing Acts, as Brandon had mentioned, about this story in vivid detail about this almost experience in all of us. all of their senses of the Spirit, right, of almost this fire of feeling it, of hearing Him, and then seeing the difference and the change that happens in people in that moment. Yeah, and there's so many things that are so significant about this moment. You know, Derek kind of mentioned that in John, I think it's chapter 16, when Jesus is talking to the disciples at the Lord's Supper, or the Lord's Supper, the Last Supper. It is the Lord's Supper a little bit. But he's also talking about, you know, he's talking about the Holy Spirit in this moment. But of course, they don't know what he's talking about. But he's saying, it's for your good that I am to go away. Because, you know, obviously, we think of the physical presence of Jesus and how amazing that would be to walk with Him. But I think we as Christians now forget we have that same presence in us. And Jesus left, so everyone can have Him at the same time. Like, He's just one man. Yes, He is fully God. But He's one man. And so He's saying, hey, I can't be everywhere at once. But now the Holy Spirit's going to be in every single one of you. And it's so much prophecy fulfilled, because there's so many passages in the Old Testament that talk about this new temple that's going to be filled with God's presence. And they're thinking it's a building, but it's actually us. Like, we are the new temple that God's presence is going to dwell in. And there's, again, just so much imagery of God's presence being in fire in the Old Testament. And so then it's these tongues of fire that come down. And so, you know, I just think, for me personally, I just forget that. Like, I think we think of the Holy Spirit sometimes, I've heard Him referred to as, like, the weird uncle. Like, we really don't know what to do with it sometimes, because it is just, like, this mysterious thing. But it really is just the presence of God in us. Like, we have

that power and access to it. And I can't even imagine how they felt in that moment of, oh, my gosh, we get that power in us. Like, we get the Holy Spirit. Like, this is what Jesus was talking about, and they understood it in that moment. Well, and, you know, I think we lose a little bit of perspective on what the Holy Spirit means, because, you know, the Holy Spirit is present in the Old Testament. But very often, His role is limited to specific people or specific situations, right? Like, David talks about the King of Israel having the Holy Spirit, or even, I think it's in the early books, when Moses is talking about who's building the tabernacle. Like, this guy has the Spirit of God on him, because he has these skills. But there wasn't this widespread availability of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. And in fact, that's what Peter quotes in his sermon in Acts 2, is when people are wondering what's going on, he quotes the prophet Joel. I think it's Joel 2. And he says, like, hey, what you're seeing is what Joel was saying, is that one day the Spirit is gonna be poured out, and people are going to prophesy and see visions and dream dreams, and we're gonna have just this outpouring of God's Spirit on every single person who believes. And I think, you know, we live 2000 years after it, so we're kind of desensitized to it. But there is this idea of, you know, to the Old Testament believers, the idea of the Holy Spirit being available to every believer would have been just astounding. It just would have been miraculous. And now we're just kind of like, oh, well, the crazy uncle idea. We just kind of, okay, well, the Holy Spirit, we don't know. Well, this idea of God's presence dwelling within us is a wild idea, considering that, you know, like, gosh, back in the day, Old Testament times, you think of God's presence being hid behind this curtain, right, that only... Right, is that the high priest can only go back in there, and you see a little bit of imagery spoken in detail in the Gospels about when Jesus died that the veil was torn in two. And yet we see here that, you know, where there once was a temple of God, now we become the temple. Yeah, yeah. It's funny too, because I was thinking about the parallel between... I think we talked about this in the very first episode of the Tower of Babel, where the people were trying to get up to God and build like cities of their own. And then I feel like it's so crazy, because God is so gracious in coming down in this moment to us. Like, what a beautiful fulfillment of that moment of Him just saying like, hey, I know you wanted to build yourself up to gain access to me. I'm just going to come down. And like, not only with Jesus, but then again, the outpouring of His

Spirit just coming down to us. And yeah, I love that you bring that up, because there's so many ways that Acts 2 is kind of an anti-Babel, right? Because you have the... Babel is about building up to get to God. Acts 2 is about God's Spirit coming down to us. Babel is the jumbling of all the languages. And Acts 2 is when they're given the Holy Spirit, they can speak in other languages to share the Gospel. So it's like God is... Even here in this moment, like, oh, you guys know that mistake you made? I'm fixing it, and we're gonna change everything that's happened. So the evidence of the Holy Spirit... in the lives of the believers isn't just in them individually, it's in them corporately. We see this new community that builds around the gospel almost immediately begin to make a difference. In Acts 2.42, we get this great summary statement, that all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the sharing of meals, including the Lord's Supper, and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And a little bit later, at the end of the paragraph, it says, each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who are being saved, that they are just reaching out into the community, they're making a difference. As you think about the early community of the church through Acts 2 through 4, things like that, what stands out to you? If you had to describe the early church atmosphere to someone, what would you say? I think of the church being so diverse, because you see from, I mean, as you read through Acts, and as you see more and more about the church, I mean, it's made up of Jews and Gentiles. It's made up of so many different cultural groups, made up of people with different languages, like we see at the Day of Pentecost. But there's something so special about their unity, of how they did share. It says, you know, they were together and had everything in common. That didn't mean they were the same person, that meant that they just shared everything, they had the same beliefs, they were moving towards one specific goal and purpose. And I think we have a lot to learn from the church in Acts, honestly, because we get so

tripped up by such trivial things in our churches today. But I think that's one of the most beautiful things I love about following Jesus and being a believer, is like, it's so diverse. And it makes me think of heaven one day, and there's going to be so many different tribes and tongues and languages. And I just love that that's such a beautiful picture of what we see in early Acts of the church, just really sharing together and having this, like, around really one thing, and that's just following Jesus and His ways. Yeah. Yeah, I would say, you know, they were the opposite of self-obsessed. Yeah. That's good. You know, I think that that word, self-obsessed, if that's a full word, hyphenated, everything, you know what I mean? That's what our culture is, like, I know I am thinking about every day waking up, how do I feel? What am I doing today? How much money do I have? What don't I have? Am I happy, sad, whatever it is, and I can be so obsessed with how I'm doing, which there's a healthy part of that, right? Like there's a healthy part of making sure that we're taking care of ourselves. But these people were literally selling things that they had in order that no one else... So that no one else was in need. And even the way I think about finances now is like, oh, well, if I have enough of an abundance, only then I will share. But to sell the things that I have, and I think that's probably just... It's interesting to me that that's one of the things that Luke decided to share, because I think that's significant. Like, who does that?

Yeah. Who does that? And I just think it's beautiful. Yeah. And I love that implication of the gospel for them is that they almost immediately understood, the gospel message isn't about just my relationship with God or with Jesus, the gospel message is about how I treat other people. And I think sometimes we kind of delude ourselves into thinking like, oh, I can just focus on my relationship with God, and it doesn't matter how I treat other people, it doesn't matter what I say to other people, it doesn't matter if I'm generous to other people, what matters is how I am with God, and it's like, no, they almost immediately were like, no, this matters, this community matters, and we should be devoted to it. So the rest of the book of Acts tells the story of the growth of the church. And there are a couple different movements that go on in there. For one, it follows the structure of Acts 1-8 pretty well, that they start in Jerusalem, they spread into Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. It's pretty incredible when you trace it. I know we talked last week, or maybe it was two weeks ago, about the Roman roads and everyone speaking the Greek language. The world is primed for them to be able to travel out and spread the gospel in this way. But along the way, they run into a couple of different roadblocks, as we see through the book of Acts. One of them comes in Acts, I'm trying to think, well, one starts in Acts 7, when we get persecution breakout against the church, like the Sanhedrin that so chased down Jesus comes after one of the early leaders in the church named Stephen, and he gives a very impassioned speech to the Sanhedrin. He's preaching the Old Testament to them, reminding them of the stories of Jesus, and then at the end, he ends his sermon by saying, you stubborn people, you are a heathen at heart and deaf to the truth, must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? Like, that's a...

It's not a... conclusion, but they react to it and they murder him for it. But in the midst of this, we are introduced to a man named Saul who is kind of heading up the early persecution of the church from a Jewish perspective. So Derek, why don't you take us into a little bit of Saul, what happens to him? How does that transform the church? Yeah, so this guy named Saul was a persecutor of the church. He ends up writing a ton of what we have in the New Testament, but he's on this road to Damascus and has this confrontation with Jesus, right? He just kind of appears to him, knocks him to his knees, and in that moment, I think the phrase that he uses, he uses Lord when referring to Jesus in that moment. And basically Jesus tells him that, hey, in that moment, you know, you're going to be blind until you get to this guy's house, you know, journey up the road, and then once you're there, then is it that he will tell you? Am I getting that right? Yeah, he says, get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do. Yeah, and so immediately in this moment, he's confronted with what he's done, because Jesus is asking him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Right? Not even just his church, but Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I think in that moment, it becomes abundantly clear that what Saul has been doing isn't just to squash this, like, rebellious group of Jewish people, like, no, you are actually offending the Lord himself. Where you think you're probably doing the Lord's work, you're actually fighting against the Lord. And in that moment, you see this incredible moment of repentance for Saul, then he's going to be named Paul, and then Jesus is going to send him on these missionary journeys ahead, but not before, right? He goes through some testing with the disciples and the people to make sure that he has actually had this real conversion of faith. Because I don't know about you guys, but if there was... I mean, he's a terrorist. If there was somebody that was as against the church in terms of killing people as Paul was, well, we'd probably be a little skeptical too. Yeah, that guy threw my grandma in jail. It was like, wait, did you add him to the Outlook invitation for this meeting? Like, I'm not sure, did you do it? And so they kind of take him through some testing, but after seeing that God has indeed changed his entire heart, the Lord uses him in some remarkable ways. Yeah. And I love that Jesus does that, right? Because you think... I mean, the phrase that's

used about Paul is that he is breathing out murderous threats against the church. That's his entire atmosphere. He wants to kill Christians. What a biography. Yeah. And Jesus is like, no, I can use that guy. I can figure this out. So he meets him on the road to Damascus. But one of the interesting things, which leads us to the next hurdle the church has to deal with, is that even though Paul was a Jewish man who's very passionate about the Jewish Hebrew scriptures, God has a particular mission in mind for Paul, and that he is gonna go and reach the Gentiles. This is what Paul has to do, but that leads to some problems for the church. Hey, can I stop you there? Yeah, no, go ahead. Can I stop you there for a second? Yeah. So that word Gentiles... Yes. Kind of a crazy word. Yes. Maybe a little new to some people. What does that mean? So basically, to oversimplify things, in the Old Testament, you would view anyone who wasn't Jewish was a Gentile, that they're basically someone who is an outsider from the nation and the people of God. Everyone else. Everyone else. So Jews and everyone else. And so there was this idea that when God called Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, we are God's chosen people. So there is us and there's everyone else. And there were laws throughout the Old Testament designed to help them keep their distance from some of the influences of Gentile culture. There were laws that kept them from, even in a lot of cases, intermarrying and being drawn to the gods of the pagan nations, was kind of the idea there. Not so much about... It wasn't so much about race, but about religion. They would draw them away from the Lord, unintentionally or intentionally. So these divisions were very deep in that day. The Jewish people were very skeptical

and scared of Gentile people, and Gentiles would kind of view Jewish people as, well, they're a little backwards. They don't do some of the things that we do. And so there becomes, in the early days of the church, there's this idea, well, is the gospel just for Jewish people? because Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. And the church begins to realize, like, no, the gospel is for all people. And they look back to the Old Testament and see these prophecies where God is talking about, I'm gonna call all men to be a part of the kingdom I'm building. And Paul is really the one who, in the back half of Acts, really leads that charge. But the church has to deal with that. Now, because you have Jewish people, Jewish Christians, I shouldn't say, Jewish Christians have, they've been following the dietary laws of the Old Testament. And suddenly, they've been following the circumcision laws of the Old Testament. And so when Gentile people become Christians who haven't been circumcised, who have been eating bacon, they have to decide, can we have fellowship with them? Do they have to be circumcised? Do they have to follow the Jewish dietary laws? So with these 3,000 people that are being converted that we see in the earlier parts of Acts, safe to assume almost every single one of those people were Jewish. Yes. Yeah. It's really... So in Acts 2, they would pretty much all be Jews in Jerusalem for Pentecost. It's really in Acts 10, most people think that that's the first Gentile convert. And that's a man by the name of Cornelius, who's a Roman soldier. And there's this really cool imagery where Cornelius has a dream and says, God tells him, hey, send for Peter, who's in Joppa. And Peter, at the same time, has a dream where the Lord tells him, like, hey, don't call anything unclean that I've made clean. And also, be on the lookout for... Excuse me, a guy named Cornelius, who's gonna send messengers to you. And so Peter goes to Cornelius' house, he begins to share the gospel, and then God pours out the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his household, just, I think, to show Peter, like, no, this is happening. This is happening, man. The gospel is going to the Gentiles. So Acts 10 is when that kinda happens. And then it's not until Acts 15 where they have to start to sort this out, because the issues are becoming very hard, is can... If you're... One of the Jewish dietary laws is you can't eat shellfish. Well, can I sit at a table with a Gentile who's eating that? And so they have to kinda navigate that unity, is how do we live together after centuries of our lifestyles being different? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because you think all of those dietary laws and all the different laws,

all the way back to Leviticus, people that are trying to follow the Lord are genuinely trying to do the right thing, right? They're trying to honor the Lord. And like we're saying now is that this is such a big part of Scripture with Paul, not only is this amazing conversion of this person that was a terrorist to the church at the time, but that God is going to use him to help reach a people group, everyone else right outside of the Jewish people, to be a part that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And I think that's part of Joel that Peter was referencing in the early parts of Acts, that everyone would be saved. And so I get it, in a certain regard of like, gosh, you have all these people that have been following these different gods and all of the different... I think it was a few episodes ago we talked about was it Greek culture that had become or was becoming very big at the time? And even for Rome, I mean, gosh, all the different... Would deities be the right word in that perspective? I mean, the Romans basically took the Greek gods and just gave them Roman names. Like, you guys got Zeus, we like Jupiter. Like, yeah, that's what his name is now. And so you have this merging of a lot of different backgrounds. And honestly, it reminds me a little bit of the story of the prodigal son, because we talk about, it's a story of these two sons. One son decides to, the younger son decides to squander all his wealth. Jesus talks about this story in a lot of the Gospels, but we forget about the older brother a little bit, and the older brother is the one who stays at home. And then when the son eventually comes back, the father welcomes him with open arms, and he gets mad because he says, you know, I've been at your house, I've been following all these rules. And the father just looks at him, he says, you know, both are welcome. He's like, why would I not love this son just as much as I've loved you? And it's kind of a little bit, it was what's happening here, is like the Jews are, you know, saying, hey, we followed all the rules, like, why can they just be accepted? But it's that grace of the Lord, right? Like, even though, like, you know, we have not followed all of these Jewish laws, like, God is welcoming them in, and I love what Peter says, kind of at this council that you're talking about, Brandon, in Acts chapter 15, he says, God who knows the heart showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he did to us. us. He did not discriminate between us and them for he purified their hearts by faith." And it's just this turning point of, it's not just following the law now, it's actually like believing and

accepting and having that faith. Yeah. So they deal with that whole issue. It's the Jerusalem Council or Conference in Acts 15. They decide, you know, beyond a couple of things that the Gentiles don't have to follow the law. Like they can't eat meat with blood in it, they can't commit sexual immorality, but they don't have to be circumcised and things like that. And it's at this point that the church really hones in and focuses in on reaching Gentiles and everything explodes from that point on. Like you get the gospel spreading across the Roman Empire within 30 years of Jesus' crucifixion. Like it's reached Rome, the capital city. And so we see just an incredible growth through the church. But one of the problems that comes along with that is, you know, we started with the problem of persecution. And what happens as we go through the rest of the New Testament and the Book of Acts is the problem becomes unity and community in the church, is how do you keep all of these people together? And that's really... The Book of Acts is really beyond the gospels, the only history book in the New Testament. And the others are the epistles, the letters that are written by Paul and other leaders of the church, writing to the churches to be like, hey, this is what you guys are doing good. This is what you guys need to knock off because we're facing problems with disunity and difficulty. So when you guys... I know we're doing a very broad overview here, but when you guys think through the issues that the church has faced and the disunity, the discord, the issues that we see in the congregations throughout the rest of the New Testament, what stands out to you? How do we see those issues, maybe even in the church today? How do we deal with and focus on the gospel when we're facing those difficult issues? I think it is at the heart of... It's hard for us to grasp that the gospel really is for everyone, like no matter your culture, no matter your... They were dealing with their ethnic identity with that Jerusalem council. And I think it's hard for us because we like to look at ourselves and compare and to measure against each other, but it's really hard for us sometimes to think like we really are equal in the sight of God, like we really are. And I think that's just an issue that clearly has dated back to the early church. And I can imagine with all these different culture groups and ethnic groups kind of mixed together into one hodgepodge of what we call the church, that's going to happen. There's just this clash of cultures. And I think repeatedly, we just see that Jesus started it and with so many of his teachings that the gospel is for everybody. And he starts it from the very beginning when he talks about the Sermon on the Mount,

saying, hey, this kingdom of yours is going to be unlike anything that you have ever seen before. And it's going to be something you're not used to because it's very counter-cultural. And we had a study through the Sermon on the Mount called everything is backwards. And I think about that so many times that the kingdom of God is so backwards to so much of our thinking because it is just so unique and so different. And again, I just think that we still struggle with that unity now because again, like Derek said, we're all so self-obsessed and we're all so prideful. But yeah, I think we still struggle with that today, sadly. At its very best, I think the church is supposed to be an outpost of the kingdom, that we're supposed to take those backwards things and live them out and be like, oh, this is a place that's different than anyone else. But at our worst, what happens is that we become like the rest of the world and we end up living that self-obsessed way that just people would come into the church and be like, well, how is this any different than what's out there? And I think that's really... Thanks for putting the words to that, because I think that's the struggle we deal with. Derek, what do you think? Yeah, I appreciate the effort to make sure that clear doctrine is... Or just that doctrine is clear, right? And because in all these different areas, as you can imagine, as they're traveling around through these different geographical areas, well, there are probably going to be some things that are going to bleed into their Christianity or their belief about God, Jesus, Spirit of God, what that looks like, what is baptism with our bodies, what do we eat, what do we do in terms of circumcision, all these different things. And so you see Paul or Peter, whoever, talking about just being able to stay on the same page because there are going to be things that obviously will be confusing to people and will cause confusion. And that's where I think you can see just in church history, different branches of Christianity break off from one another. And I think what it helps me realize, especially today, is that we can... Gosh, even probably the three of us, there are probably some certain things that we could disagree on in terms of theology and what certain things mean and what certain things don't mean. But there are certain things that should be irrefutable, right? Irrefutable. And I love that throughout the New Testament writings that whoever was writing them at the time, depending on the certain letter, is that they continue to stay committed to a few different things, right? That Jesus is the Son of God.

Yes. There is no doubt about that. Like, as a Christian, Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the only way to the Father. There's not another way. It's not through this Greek mythology, it's not through a Roman deity, it's not through our own personal striving, it's through Jesus alone. That He indeed died on a cross. He didn't just, like, give the appearance of death, He didn't just pass out. No, He actually died. Three days later, He actually rose from the grave. There is a resurrection. And I think those are examples of things that you continue to see brought up again and again and again and again and again, because as you can imagine, during this movement at that time, you could probably see some different beliefs stemming off of what Jesus had actually done. And even just to think about today, like, gosh, even as someone is listening to this Bible study, like, check us. Check us, you know? Like, read your Bible. Read your Bible. Because ultimately, we believe, if we believe that God has breathed life into this book that we have in the Bible and these letters, and that's exactly what it should be, then, right, we don't need to be listening to a thousand different preachers, right? That can be helpful, right? And I hope this Bible study is helpful. But it's not as helpful as what is actually written in this book. Yeah, that's great. You know, you made me think, you know, earlier in the Gospels, Jesus talked about the greatest command being to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, basically this idea. And when I think about the unity we're supposed to have as a church, I think that's exactly what we ought to be aiming for, you know, is that there is unity in strength, because we are unified in mission, right? We are going in the same direction. We want to be witnesses in our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria. We want to see the world transformed for the Gospel. We want to have unity in mind. That's that unity in doctrine you're talking about. Like, we want to believe the same things as much as we need to, as much as we can, because this is what matters. This is what's important. We want to have unity in our affection for God, for one another. We want unity in community, basically. That's love God with our heart, is that we are living this out, committed to these things,

living in unity, because it's that unity that's not only expression of how we feel about one another. It's that unity that's an expression of how we feel about God and what He's done for us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, thank you all for joining us for our discussion for week six of Eden to Eternity. We're gonna be wrapping up next week talking about the end of the story, now that we know what the Gospel has done, the community that has been formed around Jesus. How does the story end? Where is everything going? So I hope you'll join us next week as we wrap up from Eden to Eternity. We'll see you then.