Acts, 1:1-11

All right. One of the things I was hoping to get to last week and didn't, and so I'll try to touch on this week. I have, there's a technology that's out there. It's been out there a few years and I've been trying to gather together some files and whatnot. And I just want to see if it's something you'd be interested in. It's probably easier to have on the screen than it is, I mean, on your own personal screen than it is here. But this is a file and I wanted to see if it's something you're interested in because There are various places where they've used this technology, and what it does is it allows you, rather than just looking at a picture, which I think is helpful, and we'll try to include those as much as possible, but actually kind of give you an ability to walk through a site. Let me give you an example of what I mean by that. Take a look up on the screen here.

This is from the Mount of Olives where Acts 1 11 was taking place. So this is kind of looking around. This is the dome of the rock right here. Okay. And then this is the wall around Jerusalem. And and then you can kind of look around this way, this would be the this is the roadway that comes down off of the Mount of Olives. And it's where Jesus would have come over on the donkey towards Jerusalem.

At any rate, you can kind of look at different things like that. And then additionally, on top of that, I might look at that and say, hey, let's get a little closer. So you can kind of walk around as if you were there. And let me get back off a little bit. And move around. You can even look down. And look up. After a while, you kind of lose it.

But the point being, you can take kind of a tour using the computer. Is it of interest to have a disk full of those kinds of things, of the places we're going to? Yeah, I'll try to pull something like that together. Shouldn't be that tough. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to wait a little bit because I want to try to get more sites.

There's several, a couple different technologies that are out there. One is this, it's kind of a bubble vision where you can look down and look up and that kind of thing. Another is called a cylinder, where you're just horizontal, but you can do a 360 rotation.

So both of those are available, and I'm trying to get a collection of those at different biblical sites. Most of what I have now is around Israel, but obviously the Book of Acts, as we go on, takes us into other places, so I'll try to gather those up too. Alright, most of what we've got to cover here is in the binder, so we'll take a look at that there. Just for those of you who might be grabbing that for the first time, we've got this resource CD.

It's passive files. It's not a program. It's passive files. They're in Word format or PDF format, and you can pull those up. There are, I believe, some reader programs on here if you don't have PowerPoint or Excel or something of that sort. But there's lots in there, two rather large commentaries on Acts, among dozens of other files.

OK, we're kind of following on here with the pattern where we give you a passage, we start off by teaching and introducing the passage, and then send home some questions with you. That's the same with today's package as well. And then we'll start off by taking a look at the passage, talking over the questions, and then introduce the next passage. So that's our pattern, and we'll follow that each week What will be different is we won't be using PowerPoint.

We'll be sticking to what's in the handout. As a part of that, I will want to, as much as possible, give you pictures, maps, things like that, that give you a sense of context, rather than just a sea of words. Because I think it's real important to sense the reality of these events, as startling as some of them are, to sense the reality of the events, because the Christian faith matters in history.

If, as Paul put it, if Christ is not raised, we're beyond hope. Buddhism isn't that way. You can follow the eightfold path to enlightenment, and it really doesn't matter whether Buddha ever lived. If you look at Hinduism, its history is not critical to the teachings. What is taught in scripture is definitely tied to history. Galatians 4 at the right time God sent his son.

Where? Into the human plane, into history. So history matters. So that's why we're going to try as much as possible to plug you into and connect you in with the places and the events and the people that are involved. And there's lots to work with there. Lots to look at. So every week we'll include that. It may even sometimes be two or three pages of pictures. There's enough material to work with. Okay? All right.

Now, let's take a look at your Acts 1.11 passage there. 1.1 through 11. And we had some questions there. Did we have fun with those? Did you get a chance to look at them? Your week may be busy. But the first question comes up, what question was in the disciples' minds that they asked Jesus and why? What were they thinking might be happening next? How did the disciples get that idea? Thoughts on that one?

Yeah, they're coming up to Jesus. Think about what's going on. We have this scene here up on the Mount of Olives They're up there. They're looking down. Here's the temple. I mean, this has a long history to it, right? This is the place that's got all sorts of Old Testament prophecies about it. They're standing on the Mount of Olives, looking across this ravine.

And as they're there, and by the way, the eastern gate is open. That's the gate through which the Messiah is to come. The eastern gate's open. They're thinking back on Old Testament passages, looking in the perspective right in front of them. They're looking at the very, you know, points that are there in prophecy. And as they see that, and here's Jesus standing in front of them, resurrected, they say, is now the time. See? So they're asking, and how come? They're expecting that this is the coming of the promised Messiah. This is the coming of the kingdom. They're saying it's now the time. Why would they ask the question? Why would they ask that? They've been asking it, yes. It's the question that's been zeroed in on their minds.

The Jews had been thinking all along, and it was forefront in their thinking. Here is the Messiah, and they thought, well, this whole death and resurrection thing is a little hiccup in the plan, You know, it'll work out and is now the time. See? So, what they were asking is just the very perspective they had been, you know, since they were, you know, knee-high, they had learned about the Messiah's coming. Messiah's coming. And so they're just saying it's now the time. After the death and resurrection hiccup, they're going to be looking at this and saying, okay, A little confusing, but this whole work together is now going to be the time when the Messiah comes and you're it. So Jesus answered and says, of course, right?

No. What does he come back with? Pardon? Okay, did he tell them, you guys are just all wrong and wet? No. Isn't that interesting? He didn't say, look you guys, you guys understand, you guys have it all wrong. I'm not coming back like that. It's all wrong. He didn't do that, did he? That's question number two. He didn't come back and say, look guys, this is all wrong. I'm not coming back in an earthly form. He didn't come back and say, you guys got to make this world real good first, and then I'll come back. He instead said, basically he put the question off. He says, it's not that you're asking the wrong question, but the timing. The timing is the Father's to choose. All right, and what do we see there?

Question three says, what was the source of power that Jesus spoke of in Acts 1.8? How is this different from what had gone before? Here you've got the same disciples. They're looking around and it's just Peter's still Peter. John's still John, right? What's different?

What's going to be different that Jesus is talking about in Acts 1.8? Pardon? Okay, didn't the Jews have that before?

Not consistently and universally, did they? But as you read through the Old Testament, you see the Spirit speaking through and coming and going even amongst different people. Even though they were believers, there was a coming and going. One of the Psalms that Christians have picked up, I think erroneously, and started singing, you know, take not your Holy Spirit from me. Is that a concern for Christians? No. Nancy and I have a good Christian friend that several years ago, she learned for the first time that the Holy Spirit doesn't come and go. She was overjoyed to learn that the Holy Spirit is there with me all the time. And that's what Jesus is talking about here. You shall receive power and the Holy Spirit will come upon you and he's not going to come upon you and then take off.

I don't have to say, fall afresh on me. Or sing it or anything like that. All right, now, question four. Was this power which they were going to receive to come upon each one at different times or all at once? Okay, it was going to come upon a particular group all at once. All right. Yeah? Did you get that from that particular text or other references? It's kind of narrowed down to all at once. It could be taken either way.

Okay, let's take a look at, as far as this particular group, he tells them, you all, you plural, shall receive power and the Holy Spirit is coming upon you, plural, the ones I'm talking to right now, and then you all, plural, shall be my witnesses through Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. So he's talking to all of them that were gathered there at once. What do we see when we get to Acts chapter 2? Of course, we'll look at that in more detail.

It comes upon them all at once. And we'll get at it in detail, but I want us to first take a look at this because there is a tendency in our modern church context among some folks to look at this as a one-at-a-time deal with practice. And that's not what you see here. They're not seeking it. They're not asking for it. It's not coming one at a time, and it's not with practice. You don't just start gibbering, and then all of a sudden something happens.

So anyway, that's key point. When we get to Acts chapter 2, we'll be looking at that in a little more detail here. One of the things you'll notice, there will be three places where the Holy Spirit will come upon the believers, and there'll be a gift of tongues evidenced in each case.

In each case, what we find is there was no seeking of it, there was no asking for it, there was no practice of it, and it came on the specific group all at once. Unanticipated, basically. It wasn't anything they were looking for, expecting, asking for, pleading for, waiting for, anything of the sort. Okay. And then how about question five here?

Zechariah 14, 1 through 5, anybody got that? Anybody take a look at that? What did you see in Zechariah 14, 1-5? What happens in that passage? Christ returned to the Mount of Olives. So what you see there, take a sneak peek at Acts 1-12. What you see is, here they are on the Mount of Olives. Jesus has just left.

And they're told he's going to come back in the same way. And that matches up with Zechariah 14, 1 through 5, where it says specifically that he will come to the Mount of Olives. Where it also, by the way, says that he is God. Okay? And it says specifically he will come down to the Mount of Olives, right there. So there's a complete match-up between the Zechariah 14, 1 through 5, and this passage right here. Tom? You say, who had no conception? The Jews? Okay.

In other words, they wouldn't previously have the concept that he would be coming down out of the air. One of the things that's interesting is that we do get some description out of the Old Testament of what we call his second coming. For example, out of Daniel, some description there.

But what this puts together is, hey, this is the place and this is the Messiah, most definitely. So here the disciples are getting a very clear picture. What you see in this departure is going to be the same thing in reverse with his second coming. That's the picture. It also is a second answer to their question, is now the time. No, but there will be another time and it is coming and this is how it will happen. So it is further description for them, for their benefit, of that time to come and kind of a widening out of their understanding of what's the second coming going to be about and when later. And this is how it will take place. See, so it's answering the question, isn't it? Any other thoughts, questions, observations on this passage? Dave? Sure. Yep. Well, yeah. Yeah.

What's interesting, they don't seem to talk about that as a concern. It's like, you know, hey, I guess, you know, we've come through this far, you know, somehow we're going to get through this. They don't seem to talk about that as if all the earth shaking things are going to be a concern. What's interesting is, you know, we went through the study of Revelation a few years back, and of course there's quite a bit of detail laid out.

The Jews at this point in time didn't have that to work from. So what are they doing? They're instead looking back, you know, to the Old Testament passages, and based on the study of those Old Testament passages, the Orthodox Jews, and even for centuries thereafter, had this anticipation. They said, based on what we read in Daniel, There's going to be a coming time of seven years of great trauma and global cataclysm and tribulation. And at the end of that seven years, the Messiah will come and he will reign. So one question that's going to come in their minds is, okay, is now the time the Messiah is going to come. Have we had that cataclysm or is that still something yet to happen? So that's probably a part of what they're bouncing around in their heads is, where does this all fit?

It's because there hadn't been any revelation about the church to really describe what was going to take place and what that picture is about. So you really, you go with minimal insight into this event, and as the New Testament unfolds, you get far better understanding of what's going to happen next. So they're trying to shape in their minds, they've got a lot of questions, and that's first and foremost, it's now the time. They're not questioning the event, they're not questioning the literal reality of that second coming event, as we would call it.

But their concern is, what's the timing here? And the death and resurrection of Christ was certainly a big wrinkle in their concept of how does this all fit together. That wasn't what they were expecting. They said, hey, that's not in the program. But they were willing to try to work that in. If they could just get an answer to that question, it's now the time. Other questions? Comments?

Ah, now that's very interesting. Scripture often times says angels, and we might assume that they're angels, is there any reason to think that they're not? Two men in white garments. Okay, so you're saying it's a maybe a speculative point but possible that they were among those who rose from the dead that's described by the way at the end of Matthew, okay Because there were resurrections. Okay, so that's one possibility Any other thoughts? There was Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, okay, and those are a couple of men, right?

Yeah. Real interesting. It's been generally assumed that these couple of guys are angels. It doesn't explicitly say that. Some other possibilities are there. Obviously, these guys are making connections for the disciples that the disciples didn't have by themselves. And this is some kind of revelation to them, but it doesn't further describe it, does it?

And I think as we look at this, how many of you have been through culture shock? Ever been through culture shock? some degree, you step into a different culture and it can be wild. When I went to high school, that was culture shock. And it's because I moved from the Silicon Valley up to this podunk place that was isolated way out in the middle of nowhere. So that was a culture shock. But also just, you know, traveling to Europe and we were a very international group there. So kind of multiple culture shocks, you know.

And what happens when you have that culture shock is that so many things shift and change. It's a radical adjustment and your mind just kind of reels. Think of the last two months for these guys. They're thinking, okay, alright, here's the Messiah. I mean, we're just, this is just marvelous stuff. We've got the Messiah's been doing miracles and just phenomenal things.

And then he goes and does this death thing and it was just horrible and some of us, you know, ran for the weeds. And we had an awful time, you know. And then He resurrects, and we didn't believe it when we first heard that either. And these women first came and told us, and we didn't believe them. And then we went there and saw that there's stones rolled away, and it's empty, and there's angels sitting there by the empty tomb. And, you know, we're just in shock.

And then Jesus shows up! And some of them didn't believe that until they were kind of forced to see it. And a total of about 500, Paul spells out, saw Christ resurrected. Now, that's all happened in the last couple of months. If you were to put yourselves in a similar context, since about the first week in November, that's all happened. Can you imagine what that's like? And now this guy's standing in front of you, and you're thinking, okay, now are we going to blast the Romans out of here?

And he goes up in the sky. You know? Whoa! Okay? This is all a radical thing to adjust to. And now it's going to be about roughly ten days from then until what we see described in Acts chapter 2. This is a major thing to try to get their minds wrapped around. Yeah, question? Yeah, Tom? Yes, yes. That's right. Ax describes a smaller number in terms of those waiting. We'll get there, but you're correct. Yeah. Other thoughts, comments, questions? I have a question I had. In Acts 1-3 it talks about Jesus talking to them for 40 days and teaching them about the Kingdom of God. I'm not exactly sure what Kingdom of God is.

Right, right. That's a question that we will address in detail later. I mean, I didn't bring it up here, but the disciples are going to bring it up again. So we're going to need to go there and get that all sorted out. Ultimately, from the Jewish standpoint, their understanding of things, you say the Kingdom of God, you're talking what we call the Millennial Kingdom, the time of Christ's reign. They didn't have any other concept than that. For Christ to talk about anything else other than that wouldn't have been understood as anything different. The question then comes, as we start seeing that phrase show up here in Acts, then how does the Church plug into this?

And just in the quick summary, we will have a relationship to that Millennial Kingdom, but it will be different. Real interesting, Tristan, Tristan Case, last summer was at a vacation Bible school at another church. And the teacher there talked about Christ being our King. And Tristan said, no, Christ is not our King. He's the King of the Jews. He's our Lord, but not our King. And the teacher was very Unraveled by this especially have this six-year-old instructing her But he was right. Okay.

And anyway, that's something that we'll we'll talk about the the church has in its Various braidings and weavings of teaching got a lot of people talking about, you know Bringing people into the kingdom and all that stuff. And so there's a lot of real mixed perspectives on it, but what all do if you don't mind is kind of put that off in terms of dealing with it in detail, because we do want to get to it, because that's an important one to get sorted out as we go through the rest of the Book of Acts here. It's one the disciples aren't going to let loose of. But the context culturally would have been the kingdom of God would have been understood by them as this is the coming millennial kingdom. And that's even the nature of their question, isn't it? Is now the time? If now was the time for the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of God was the Church, Jesus shouldn't have put it off. Okay? Jesus shouldn't have put it off. Yes?

Yeah, the insertion of the Church was not something that is anticipated in the Old Testament. And so their thinking is now the time when the reality is there is an insertion of what's been a couple thousand years already. And that just wasn't on their radar screen. They weren't even imagining that.

Yeah, Tom? Yes. Yup. And we'll be getting there, won't we? Excuse me a minute. Okay, let's take our binders here and step into the next passage, Acts 1, 12-26. And what we've done here is give you a little bit more in the way of pictures and a few fewer questions.

But we'll want to take a look at it here so that you're prepped for sorting that out this next week here and the events here okay Jesus had just ascended you can imagine we mentioned earlier the sort of culture shock like these massive events that just shake your world and and even if you haven't been through culture shock you may have been through some events like that it's like whoa your head spinning trying to sort it all out and that's exactly what they're doing but what's happening Jesus has ascended The disciples have been told to wait for the Holy Spirit, it was promised. Jesus had told them previously, recorded in the book of John, the Holy Spirit's coming. There was the 11 disciples, what happened to one of them? Jesus was a dropout, yes, okay. He was a dropout. So we've got 11 of them, alright.

And here they are gathered. This is the last mention of Mary by name. Here's what's interesting, and especially in view of what happened historically. Here's the last mention of Mary by name, and it's prior to the beginning of the church. Very interesting, huh?

The closest the scripture comes after that is in Galatians 4.4 that I mentioned, that at the right time, Christ was born of a woman. A woman, that's the mention there. It is not dishonoring to Mary, but it's also an important recognition of what place does she have in this whole spiritual picture. And then there's also Jesus' brothers, who by the way, this is the first evidence we have Jesus' brothers are really even involved spiritually and believe in Jesus.

So this is real interesting. This set of events seems to have grabbed them. And then they're going to appoint this fellow Matthias out of a choice of a couple of guys. Tim, you had your hand raised. Acts 1, 12-26. Did you get one of these? Yeah, grab one of those. And you want to put that right in front of your yellow sheet there. Keep them in sequence. Okay, there's a picture that is large on your first page there.

This is kind of over Jerusalem, looking down on Jerusalem, and off in the distance you can see the Dead Sea. Got that? The Dead Sea is marked there. Dead Sea, by the way, is the lowest place on planet Earth. And it's something like 1,200 feet below sea level. So it's way down there. It is a very warm environment. It's exceedingly salty. But anyway, that's off in the distance.

You have the Mount of Olives there, where Jesus had just ascended from. You have the Temple Mount, which now is the Dome of the Rock, but at the time was the Jewish Temple. And then the heart of Jerusalem. Here they are walking off of the Mount of Olives. And there was, by the way, In the area, you can see a kind of an arc of trees coming off the Mount of Olives. That is the treeline path that is quite likely where Jesus would have come over the Mount of Olives on a donkey.

And across the little valley there, there used to be a bridge that went into the Eastern Gate. And that bridge was destroyed sometime in the past, possibly with the Romans. And so that was taken out. But here the disciples would have come across that bridge and back into Jerusalem.

And there in Jerusalem, you see there's a red line pointing to an area on the lower right portion. That area of Jerusalem is the area where traditionally there's a place that is thought to be the upper room. By tradition, I mean, it's been identified, you know, sometime later. Archaeologists have excavated in and around that and they don't find anything that conflicts with that identification. They didn't find anything that confirms it, but nothing that conflicts with it.

So you have a picture of that room there. And we've also got a 3D bubble where you can walk around the room, so to speak, you know, walk up close to the columns and back up and, you know, look around the whole thing. So we'll get a chance to take a look at that. Acts 12 12 has a possible clue because it we see between the Gospels and acts repeated reference to meeting in some upper room and Acts 12 12 indicates that this is John Mark's mother's house So maybe the connection Okay, then it also talks about on the second page this is the field of blood where you know Judas got 30 pieces of silver and he went and cast the money back into the leaders of the Jews there and then went off and hung himself and this is the field which was bought. And then the other, here's a picture of early Roman period dice found in Jerusalem. The reason I put that in there is because it says they cast or drew lots And, but it's, it's not specifically the word for dice, so it could have been like different lengths of sticks or other things of that sort. So anyway, so here's the scene. They've come out of this just amazing departure event with Jesus.

He's told them to wait. Some days are going to go by, about 10 days before the church begins, the Holy Spirit is given. And during that interim period of time, They are going to be waiting. And meanwhile, they say, hey, you know, we're short one disciple.

Let's pick another one. It's got to be somebody who has seen the Lord and been with us and, you know, is able to carry this out. And so they picked a couple of candidates and then drew or cast lots and then ended up with Matthias. All right. Now we've got some questions here.

First question, since Jesus had ascended and the disciples had already been told that they were to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, why didn't they just get on with it right away? Hey, we know where we've got to go. Why not just take off? Tom?

Yeah, that's a part of it. It's interesting, the Lord didn't just have this thing on a snap, snap schedule. Then you have a nice critical pass schedule and figure out how to make this thing happen quick It's interesting that there seems to be some kind of time to absorb this to soak it up. Yeah Yes, and that's the other thing and there's they were to wait for the Holy Spirit the Lord didn't say okay by the time you get back to the upper room it's going to happen the Lord instead said Wait, and there'll be a period of time that was obviously a period of time to kind of soak it all in as Tom pointed out begin to readjust, to kind of get reoriented. It was quite a time. If you've ever been through a time like that where there's a lot to adjust to, it can be fascinating, it can be real interesting, but it can also be sort of mentally and emotionally exhausting, too.

A rather almost out-of-magnitude comparison. Some years back Nancy and I made a trip over to Germany and I was participating in and co-teaching part of a series of seminars on some electronic equipment. And they had groups of different languages. They were there because they had people from all over the world, and so they had different language groups. And Nancy and I were put in with the English-speaking group, and you won't believe the folks who were there in the English-speaking group. There was one Iraqi and one Iranian. There was a fellow from Zambia, and the guy who headed up the group was from India. And we had a few others, I can hardly remember where they were from. But the point being, if you were to guess that as English speaking group, it would be a little startling.

To sit down and talk with these people was amazing. The Iranian and the Iraqi were best buddies, inseparable. And it was during the time when the two countries were at war with each other. So I mean, it was just an amazing time. And then we had gatherings every night with all these people from all over the world. And you'd sit down with people from places you never imagined they even had, you know, electronic equipment. And we're all sitting down, you know, in different groups sitting together. It was really just constantly a rather large adjustment. People would speak, and instead of clapping, they would snap their fingers.

Okay? It was all a rather major adjustment. The disciples were going through an adjustment of orders of magnitude greater than that, because rather than just stepping into a cultural situation, this was, you know, what's my concept of the universe? That was getting yanked and pulled and tugged. So a major, major overhaul in their thinking. Okay. So why didn't they get on with it right away? Boy.

Now, how about Acts 1, you know, 14 there mentions Mary, the mother of Jesus? Here she is with them for the last time. A few questions come up, and this is a part of it. Think about Mary. And Jesus' brothers, and Jesus had some sisters too, but they're not mentioned in this passage. Think about this.

What kinds of adjustments have had to take place in their thinking? They, from any indication we have, even, maybe even a year before this, weren't believers. At least they didn't believe Jesus said, you know, what he, or meant what he said, and this is who he said he was. Yeah, Tom? Yeah Think think about the people that are around you that you've known your whole life and have that you know person pointed out and Somebody says hey, by the way, that's the Messiah. Huh? What do you mean? I eat breakfast with that guy, you know You must be kidding. I mean He made my kitchen table. He made the plow that I use.

I see him every day. That can't possibly be the guy. Can you imagine the mental adjustment that's going on? You imagine having an older brother. This guy's perfect. I mean, that's got to really torque you, you know? This guy always does everything right. And that's just got to chap your hide, you know? So now here's this guy, he's always doing everything right. Your whole life.

Somehow Joseph is dropped out of the picture. Last time we hear mention of Joseph was that event when Jesus was about 12 and goes to the temple. Remember that? And that's the last mention. Some have suggested, and I think there's probably merit in it, that Joseph may have died sometime after that and that Jesus being the oldest and having been trained in carpentry would have had to carry on that trade until he was about 30 in order to raise the rest of them and get them also to a place of carrying on a carpenter's trade. See that?

So it would explain why Jesus delayed until a later period of time starting his ministry. It would kind of give us a picture of what You know, here's Jesus' brothers, and what would they have been trained in? Carpentry. Who would have trained them? Jesus. Hey, that guy taught me carpentry, you know?

I mean, I guess I look up to him, but heaven sakes, I spent a lot of time with him. That can't be the Messiah. Can you imagine the mental adjustment? Now, what had happened in the last couple of months that's going to perhaps rock their world? Yeah. Yeah, there's your brother. Crucified. And by the way, your mom's standing there watching. This is a nice event, right? Yeah. Isn't this going to change your thinking? You know, they're thinking all along, hey, you know, I got slivers like he did.

And one of the things we mentioned in Bible backgrounds, carpenters in those days were not just carpenters because there wasn't any Nazareth lumberyard. So you had to go and select a tree. Somebody would say, yeah, I need you to make a plow or I need you to make roof beams for a house. And you'd go up in the forest up around Galilee and you would pick a tree and you'd cut the tree down and you'd trim off whatever you weren't going to use and you'd haul the tree back yourself to the shop where you'd do the final working of the piece of wood. This was a lot of hard work and they worked alongside their brother with all that stuff. Now, all the carpentry and helping mom and all that stuff seems like almost a world apart.

Here they are dealing with momentous things of universal significance. And now they've just seen their brother go through in a matter of a short period of time being crucified, mom having to watch that. And then a few days later, he's resurrected. That wasn't what you expected when you were alongside him driving nails in. Isn't that a radical thing to think about? Major change.

And then the last point to take a look at here, and that's, here's Matthias. Now, has the Holy Spirit been given? No, not yet. The disciples say we got to pick this guy, we got to get a twelfth in here so we get the full count. So they pick this guy Matthias out of two candidates and They use this method of drawing or casting lots. And what's real interesting, this is the last time that is used in scripture. Yeah, and so that's what I'd like to have you take a look at.

I've shown some dice here. We don't know that it's dice. Cubea is the word for dice, where we get our word cube. It could have been dice, it could have been different lengths of sticks, you know, how you pick out the sticks and they look the same length until you pull it, and then say, who got what? All it takes is two, because you've got two guys, right?

Take a look at that. I'd like to have you take a look at that, and look at these questions here. Do you think that's how the Lord wants us to continue to make decisions? Why? Why not? Check that out. Check it out. All right. Other questions here? The ball's in your court now. You've got three questions to work over and we'll give you some intro. Dave? Yeah. Yes. Interesting. Interesting.

What were the conditions, and take a look at that, what were the conditions that Peter laid out And were there others that would have met that requirement? Take a look at that. Good question. Was this the only two to choose from, Dave's question, and so as a matter of picking between two that qualified, or did they pick two out of what would have been a larger group that was potentially qualified? Check it out. See what you find out. Yes, there are.

It starts off, the first instance we see of it is in the book of Joshua. And the reality is that there's probably a dozen references in the Old Testament. And this is, I mean you don't find much of it in the new and this is the last of it. So real interesting. The only somewhat related reference to it we'll be seeing in Ephesians before very long. And that's a trick loaded dice Paul makes reference to. It's a kind of a different thing in Ephesians 4.

We have a number of different names that sound similar. But interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a reason to think that it was a typo. Barnabas comes into the picture later, and he's not from Jerusalem, from what we see there. And just like now, we've got names that are similar, just slight differences in the letters. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be a confusion there from any evidence that we have. And Barnabas does show up later and seems to be in association with Paul in great part.

And that's some years later. So it's an interesting question. I don't know of any evidence that points to a confusion there. It seems like there were two people. I might also point out Barnabas doesn't claim to have seen the Lord resurrected. from anything that we read from Barnabas directly. Let's call it quits.

You've got stuff to work with there. If going through this thing you run into questions, give me a holler. Phones, gosh, on every single bulletin, phone numbers there. Email me, see me, whatever you'd like. I think this is fascinating stuff. I think the more that we can be drawn into the reality of it, the better. This is not a story, although it's certainly an interesting account, but it is a record of what took place in history, because it's his story.

All right? Let's pray. Lord, thank you. As we look at this here, you have laid out for us truths. We're seeing people who are about to have a massive change take place in their life. Not that that hasn't already happened, but even more is yet to take place. The days and weeks and years ahead are going to be a major transition, and how wonderful it is to have your insights and understanding provided to us, Lord, in terms of what's happening here. We thank you for what you've done. In Jesus' name, Amen.