How to Study the Bible, History II, New Testament History

Okay, we're going to be taking a look at New Testament history, and that should start on page 26 of the handout. And by the way, while we try to keep handout material available here, we also have pretty much all of it available on the church website for this class, and I try to keep it updated so you can download not only any of the audio that you might have missed, but you can also download these materials that you have here. So the idea is that you're able to get all of that, to keep your binder up to date, hand it off to other people if you'd like, and to study it. How was your yurting? Cool, huh? Alright, great.

Okay, let's take a look through this New Testament history. The life of Christ, of course, we said we had a chronology of the life of Christ in appendix in the back, two pages, that's item five. So I'd surely encourage you to take a look at that. There's also a set of maps available on the internet in full color. These are ones I'm really glad I discovered. Here's a sample. They're in color. They're high resolution, so they're not cartoonish or fuzzy. They've got some really nice detail on them, and they're pretty carefully and well done.

You get links to all of those by name on the first page of your handout. They also provide not just the map, but also some semblance of sequence, which is real good because we're talking about history here, not just maps. So I think they're highly recommendable. The web page says they're free, so you can print out these maps. You can give them to other people. You can send other people the link.

Now, for example, you have Jesus' birth and early childhood. That's where it shows Christ and Joseph and Mary heading off to Egypt. And then coming back, Jesus' journey from Galilee to Judea. That is coming from Galilee where he originated his ministry down into Jerusalem in that area. And so that's shown. Anyway, it continues on down even to giving detail around Jerusalem for the Passover week. So there's really quite a bit of detail and sequence information on these maps, and highly recommended.

Afterwards, if you like, you can come on and take a look at one of the samples. If anybody does not have internet access and just says, Vern, I'd love this, but I just don't have internet access, let me know, and I can print them out and get them to you.

And that's fine. Be happy to do that. And I think you'll find them real helpful. Okay. There are other things on that website I wouldn't particularly recommend, but these maps are good. That's okay. In that case, we'd go ahead and get those to you if you'd like. No problem.

The other thing is we... have a New Testament chronological overview. The website, if you care to put it in or you can even download and just click on the link if typing is not your forte. We have a large, oversized New Testament chronological overview chart there. And the overview chart doesn't give information on the sequence of things of the life of Christ. You notice all it has on there is the time of the crucifixion. So it doesn't give that piece of detail, but it gives everything after that and when key events took place and when certain books were written.

Is everybody with me on that? You see that overview chart? So, between those, you've got some easily accessible, large scale, you can read them. This one isn't in color, but it's still quite clear. The other maps do show some sequence or are in color, easily used for your own study or a study with other groups. How are we doing so far? Doing okay? All right. Holding up okay. All right. Good deal. Just as we look at this, step through some of the details that show up. We have the ministries of Peter and Paul, which are detailed in some degree on this overview chart and actually provide an amazing amount of detail right on the chart.

The big picture is this, that from the crucifixion of Christ, to about Acts 15, who is the prominent personality, not the only, but the prominent personality in the book of Acts? From the beginning to chapter 15? Peter is the first one, right? Peter is the first one from the very beginning of Acts. to about chapter 15. Chapter 15 is the last time he's mentioned in the book of Acts. So he is not the only personality by any means, but he's the prominent guy for that section. Now, we have during that time about the middle of that 1-15 where Peter's the prominent person.

Another person comes out who is the second a prominent person in the book of Acts. And that's who? Through the end. Paul, right. So you've got Peter first and then Paul with some overlap there in rough numbers of a half dozen chapters. Paul comes on the scene and immediately he's just real enthusiastic about his relationship with the Lord, right? How is Paul introduced in the book of Acts?

Martyrdom of Stephen. Yeah. That's the first place you hear of him. And he is holding the coats in support of the martyrdom of Stephen. Yes. So here's Paul and the first thing you hear of him is not good news. At least not for the church. And then it's chapter 9 that gives the description of Paul becoming a believer. How that came about.

And so you see this breakdown given in that New Testament chronological overview. Now, you can get again these full color and high resolution maps of Paul's conversion and ministries on these same series of, it's a similar series of web pages. Again, high-resolution maps, full color, details in sequence, so those can easily be gotten, and except for the printing and the cost of your computer and all the things that go along with that, it's free. Okay, so those are great resources. Now, looking at these things, let's switch back to this chronological chart here.

Alright, now, the first thing you notice is you've got Paul's missionary journeys. Paul's missionary journeys. His first missionary journey takes off from which church? Where does he start from? starts off from Antioch. He starts off from Antioch, not Jerusalem, but Antioch. That's the sending church where he was at. And he taught there. And so the passages and acts are included in that. Mostly, his first missionary journey, Acts 13 and 14. Mostly Acts 13 and 14. See the pattern there.

And then his second missionary journey, he returns to the same churches and then proceeds on to establish more. And his second missionary journey is where he picks up Timothy, as well as others, but a key personality in the New Testament, he picks up Timothy from some of those churches where he founded on the first journey. He also goes to Philippi, which is the first church on the European continent. So that's the second missionary journey.

Then he comes back in his third missionary journey. He spends a good deal of time in Ephesus and then up in Greece on the third journey there. Now, something real interesting, the Book of Acts ends up, some call it his fourth missionary journey, but it wasn't one he planned on taking. The Book of Acts ends up where? What's the location? Excuse me. The Book of Acts ends up in what city? Where is Paul at the end of the Book of Acts? In Rome, yes. He ends up in Rome.

And he ends up there under house arrest where he's given some liberty. He's still chained to a Praetorian guard 24-7. But he's given some liberty. People are able to come visit him. And he even seems to have some latitude to write letters and things of that sort.

And so one of the things you see is that time when he's in Rome, They they note Paul wrote the letter of Philemon of Colossians Ephesians and Philippians as prison epistles, okay It's also quite possible about in that time they may have written first Timothy Now what happens is, and you don't see it detailed or just noted here, Paul and Peter martyred 67 AD.

See that over in the top part on the very right hand side. And we'll address that a little bit more in a minute. Okay, this is not intended to give us all the details on New Testament history, but just to tell you, here are the resources. Here is where you can look to try to piece together chronologies of things, what was written when, and that kind of thing using these resources. And the maps you can either look up online or print out, and those I would recommend you as real helpful. Questions at this point? Thoughts? Comments?

How come they didn't put the Bible chronologically? Ah, okay. He asks a good question. Why isn't the New Testament ordered chronologically? Right. You would have some things certainly different, wouldn't you? Some of it is, and some of it is not. Let's go over and talk about what is and what isn't.

How about the four Gospels? Are those first in the series of New Testament events? Are those chronological? Yes, yes they are. So the four Gospels are chronological. So you've got that much. Now, next thing is the book of Acts. There's the fifth book. Does that fit chronologically? Yes, it does. It starts when Christ is still on the earth. Chapter 1, Christ ascends. So that by the middle of chapter 1, Christ is ascended and then you get into the time right after what's covered in the Gospels. So Acts is chronological.

And let's ask an important question while we're in the midst of that. What would happen if we were to take the book of Acts and just pull it Let's just say it didn't exist. What would be the problem with that? We wouldn't have the historical viewpoint. We wouldn't have the historical viewpoint. Any other thoughts? Yeah, okay, so the beginning of the church, the giving of the Holy Spirit, the coming of the Holy Spirit, all that would be a mystery to us, wouldn't it?

Ah, yeah, here you've got all these letters from Paul. Thirteen letters from Paul. Who's Paul? What? You would have this guy Paul would be a complete puzzlement. Oh, and by the way, he keeps talking about this guy Timothy. A number of Paul's letters are written as co-authored or at least co-sent from Timothy. And there are two letters to Timothy. You'd have not the foggiest idea who that guy is. So who's Paul? Who's Timothy? And then there's a whole bunch of these other people. Who are they? So there would be a lot of questions unanswered. We would have a significant piece missing if we didn't have Acts. Okay, so Gospels in sequence, Acts in sequence.

Now, then we come to the rest of the letters and we get the question, and this is where my question really fits in, why aren't we just putting these things in all chronologically? A number of the other books, once we get to that point, a number of the other books were put in an order primarily by grouping. And what do I mean by grouping? Let's take it for instance.

We've got 1st and 2nd Timothy. They're grouped together, right? They are two of what are three books called the Pastoral Epistles. Now what follows 1st and 2nd Timothy? Titus, and it appears chronologically, so Mike, your question is very appropriate, that the sequence was 1st Timothy, Titus, 2nd Timothy. So why are they grouped together? So you have 1st and 2nd Timothy together, not because of chronology.

Then, for example, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. Right after his trip, he had just been there. and he wrote them in fairly tight sequence. So those are really close together, but chronologically there are other books and you would have those in other places. So a lot of the other sequences more for the grouping that makes sense by these, like 1st and 2nd Timothy together, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians together, That grouping took priority rather than the chronology. So it's just by grouping taking priority next.

Now, fortunately, all of Paul's epistles were written together regardless of, your question, chronology. They were all written together regardless of chronology. Now what comes after, you've got Philemon as the last one there, which by the way is not his last letter. Well, then we get Titus, and we do get 1st, 2nd, 3rd John a little farther down there, but what do we get before that?

Pardon? We get Hebrews, right? And then you get Hebrews in there, and James. Hebrews is, we have an unknown author. Several people have taken the guess. Some think it's Paul. I think the language indicates probably not. It's a different kind of writing than Paul does. My favorite guess, and that's just a guess, is that it's Barnabas. Because Barnabas was a Levite, which would have given him qualifications in the area of the sacrifices.

But that aside, 1 and 2 Peter, why would those be grouped together? Written likely to the same people and written by the same person. So grouped together because of the author and who they were written to, not because of chronology. Then we got the letters from John. 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. And those were likely written a fair amount of time later. And then Jude. And then Revelation. the last book of the New Testament and that would be the last book also by chronology.

But a lot of it is by groupings of the same author or the same audience, the same recipient. If you look at it, you could say, what are some other ways we could do it? You could simply say, I'm going to put them by chronology and just leave it. So you could do that, in which case you'd have a number of them mixed up with other authors. Well, I would have put James, and then Galatians, and then Thessalonians, and Great Man. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's ask this question.

There's the way it's been done, which is partly by chronology, but partly by grouping. You could also just simply said, we're going to go by chronology and put them in that order. Do you think of any other ways it might have been done? Just grouping by author, in which case you'd have Luke and Acts together, right? So you could, for example, do Matthew, Mark, John, and then Luke and Acts, right? That would be one way to do it.

However, you think of it, what books did John write? John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and Revelation. So the Gospel of John is really chronologically earlier in terms of the material it covers. Revelation is later, and then the letters are in between. So you actually could think of other ways of putting those together and grouping them than the way things are. In truth, the order of Bible books is something that's just come about by a tradition. And originally, I'm not so sure that they were all that concerned about which one. Think of this, too. We are really glad that we're able to say, here's our Bible and here's the order.

None of the authors of the New Testament, none of the authors of any of Scripture ever saw a book like this. Because this kind of idea where you sew something together on one edge, did not come about until just after John died. It was unknown. And so you would have scrolls, they would have even sometimes just stacks of pieces of papyrus that they would tie together and you'd have your various stacks of books. And which order didn't make any difference because people carried them all kinds of orders. The New Testament was most likely originally all of it written on pieces of papyrus. The Old Testament was written more on scrolls, not entirely, but more often on scrolls. The New Testament was written initially almost entirely on papyrus, and most of the early copies that we have are papyrus copies. Not entirely, but largely. Yes?

What was the time frame? Oh, the first binding of books together on one side was just after John died. In other words, in this early second century is when they began putting books together like this, in which case the sequence begins to matter. But that was the way things were done after the New Testament was completed. So we think about a Bible, and we think of this.

Whereas they never saw anything like this, ever. They were written out by hand. Because the Gutenberg Press hasn't come along yet. Yeah, that's right. The Gutenberg Press wasn't going to come around for centuries. And so things were written out by hand. They were copied by hand. And during the New Testament times, nothing was put together like this.

What would very likely happen is someone would say, hey, I've got a copy of Paul's letter to Colossae. Oh, you got one of those? I've got a copy of this letter to the Ephesians, too. Hey, that's great. Hey, I understand that Mark wrote a gospel. Do you have a copy of that? Yeah, yeah, let's get that.

So they would get collections of these things, but not in the order that we have them now. That's come about by tradition. Something else that's come about by tradition is our chapter and verse breakdown. The chapters around the year 1200 And verses are about the middle 1500s. When the Reformation, the early 1500s, first began, no verses. So our adding of chapters and verses is still centuries after.

If you had come to the Apostle John, the last living Apostle, and said, John, turn to Mark 14.2, he'd have gone, And that's why when you find references in your Bibles to other Bible verses, they never give the reference. Because they never heard of it. Somewhere it is said, or you've heard that it was said, or it is written, but that's as close as they got. Or Isaiah wrote, but no chapter and no verse because it hadn't come about.

I hear that sometimes today. What's that? They say, well, somewhere it says there. Somewhere it says that. Yes. And then you say, well, where does it say that? Yeah. And they can never find it. Yeah. Yeah. The somewhere gets a little bit vague. Yeah.

You know, there are places where I wish they had broken the chapters differently than they did and things like that. But on the other hand, it does make it a whole lot easier to say where this and that is than to just say somewhere it says. Right. Yeah, and the only problem is sometimes you hear that, somewhere it says, and the only problem is it's not anywhere. It's somewhere, but it's sure not in the Bible, right? Somewhere it says, God helps those who help themselves. Well, not in the Bible. You may say it's somewhere, but not in the Bible, right? Yeah, you're right. There's a lot of vagueness even now, even with centuries of having this tool available to us of chapter and verse.

Oh yeah, yeah, they would just sit there and copy because you did not have, as you mentioned, the printing press. So there were people who just spent their days copying. And matter of fact, we have descriptions of the scribes, you know, complaining about, oh, I get so tired. You know, because they're going on for hours just copying and copying and copying. Hey, no, they actually described having neck aches and fingers getting tired. And yeah, all the little maladies of being a scribe when you're copying hour by hour by hour because of no printing press. Now, instead, the guys are running printing press have other occupational issues.

Right. Yeah. All right. Now we've got a transition here. We're going to hand this over to Chris Smucker, who goes by the nickname Smuck. OK. And he's going to tell us about the life and times after Peter and Paul. I'll let him get set up here. After Peter and Paul and into the very end of the time of John. And with a piece in between and that is the whatever happened to the rest of these apostles. Morning everybody. In the book of Acts, the names of all the apostles. And including the various people aside from them in chapter 1 through 15 begin with a focus primarily on Peter, but in Acts 7 through 28 reveals a shift toward ending with Paul called Saul. The general timeline in your handout for Acts shows the overlap that Vern talked about with Paul in the blue and Peter in the green. No, Peter in the blue and Paul in the green. Where are you looking? In the handout. No, they may not have the color. Sorry. I'm special, I guess. Page 27, yes.

And then... The earthly end of the apostles and the later life of John. 67 through 70 AD was not a good time to be a Christian or a Jew. Paul writes his last New Testament letter, 2 Timothy. with the phrase, for I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only me, but also to all who loved His appearing. And Peter finishes his last New Testament letter with, You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you will not be carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. So you kind of get the idea that both Paul and Peter kind of knew their ends were near and they're kind of just giving last orders to the recipients of their letters.

Though Christians endured persecution from the Jews in earlier decades, by the middle of the 60s the source of the persecution had shifted to the Romans. and Tacitus from 55 to 117 AD wrote, the Christians in Rome under Nero, in perishing they were additionally made into sports, they were killed by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to them, or they were nailed to crosses and set aflame, and they were used as night time lamps. Probably not a fun way to die.

The Zealot and Sicarii groups And Israel had reached a peak of anti-Roman fervor so that by about 66 AD outright rebellion against Rome had begun. And in the beginning they were fairly successful because Rome only had occupation forces. But by 70 AD, the Romans had crushed the rebellion in Judea with 12 legions of soldiers. And a legion of soldiers is about 5,000. So with 12 legions, that's 60,000. So they just came in and crushed them. By this time, however, the apostles had already been martyred. Many would be martyred shortly thereafter.

And what do we know? only two accounts come from the Bible which is Judas which we know who hung himself so he was obviously never sent as an apostle over the church and Judas is who Matthias replaced in Acts chapter 1 and then James the brother of John we're told in Acts 12 1 and 2 that he was killed by the sword under Herod And then Herod himself died a painful death, being eaten by worms.

That also comes from secular sources, which is interesting. And Verne always points out, it's kind of interesting how James is the first to die, and his brother John is the last to die, so they're kind of like ends to the apostles. When it says he was killed by the sword, that could mean he was just stabbed to death, but it's more likely that he was beheaded.

And then Peter, some scholars don't believe Peter ever made it to Rome, but we have a A tradition that he spent many years in Antioch, which would line up with the account of Galatians 2. And we have tradition that he ended up in Rome and was crucified upside down under Nero. And the reason he was crucified upside down was because he didn't believe he was worthy enough to die in the same manner as Christ. Then Paul is thought by many scholars to have gone to Spain, but extra-biblical accounts have his life ending in Rome, being beheaded around the same time as Peter, which is 67-68 AD. That would make sense because since Paul was a Roman citizen, they were merciful to him and he just got beheading, but since Peter was not a Roman citizen, he was crucified.

Traditions have Andrew traveling and spread the gospel to Scythia, which is the southern part of old USSR, Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey, and finally Greece, where he is reported to have been crucified. That cross is representative of his martyrdom. Thomas is reported to have preached the gospel and taught in the area east of Syria to India and his life ending in Madras, India, which we have extra biblical sources that back that up and also even modern-day Christians in India today claim that Thomas is the reason that their churches were started in the first place.

Tradition tells us that Philip was instrumental in the salvation of the wife of the Roman procouncil in Heropolis. who retaliated by having him cruelly put to death. And Heropolis is near Colossae and Laodicea, which are mentioned in Revelation. Heropolis having the hot springs, Colossae having the cold stream, and then Laodicea gets all the lukewarm water, which fits with the account.

And Matthew, also called Levi, is said to have preached the gospel in Parthia. which is on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire, and to have been killed in Ethiopia by having wooden stakes driven through him. And the story goes that all the while, while they're killing him, he was preaching the gospel. Bartholomew is credited with spreading the gospel to India, Armenia, Arabia, and Ethiopia, which Arabia is not modern-day Saudi Arabia, it's the Sinai Peninsula and east of the Dead Sea. And accounts of his death vary, one of the stronger ones being in Armenia, which is up there by Turkey.

James, son of Alphaeus, sent to Syria and is reported by Josephus to have been both stoned and clubbed to death. Josephus is a fairly reliable source. Sometimes he exaggerates, but it's usually only when it benefits himself. Josephus also talked about John the Baptist, Jesus, and James, the brother of Jesus. and Simon the Zealot said to have been killed in Parthia for refusing a sacrifice to the sun god and Simon was part of that Zealot movement and he got out of that after the resurrection and spread the gospel so while others in his group were busy starting rebellion he was preaching the gospel And Matthias, who replaced Judas, is not mentioned before or after Acts 1, but is said to have gone with Andrew and also with Matthew to Ethiopia and been burned to death. And then John, the only apostle that we think died a natural death, but just because he died a natural death doesn't mean that his life was all roses. He is reported to have been boiled in oil that didn't work so they banished him to the island of Patmos and John's the one who Jesus told to take care of his mother Mary and Patmos is that little island off the coast of Ephesus and he was sent to Patmos under the reign of Emperor Demetian He was later released from Patmos because when Emperor Nerva came to power it was common for the new emperor to reverse the legal decrees of the old emperor to kind of show his power so John was able to come back and later died probably in Ephesus.

So why should we study what happened to the apostles? Does anyone have any idea? Why study what happened to the Apostles? You know how to study the Bible? Well, they died for a reason. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they all died pretty gruesome deaths and even John who didn't die of martyrdom was still, there were attempts on his life and things and some people try to make the point, they try to claim that the Bible story was just kind of made up and these guys just went along with it, but that doesn't really hold up because, you know, twelve guys start in Jerusalem, they all go their separate ways, three different continents, and they all stand for their faith and die and they couldn't really do anything else. One thing's for sure, you wouldn't die for something that isn't true. Yes. Yeah, one of the reasons for asking Chris to present this stuff is just to think about when we read this, how seriously do we take it? And a good question is, how seriously did they take it?

They couldn't stick around and kind of have pure confirmation. They went all different places, died in different places. This wasn't a matter of keeping each other happy. And another point is, why were they so sought after? You think today, well, they believed this, so they fought them cold. But there was, I think, a satanic motion to try and get rid of them, because they knew it was the truth, and they hated them. You wonder why, well how come they were such a threat to what they believed, you know, that they were just a point of death. Were they threats to the people? Or to the leadership? More to the leadership. More to the leadership. Like Martin Luther King? More to the leadership. Think about it. Remember you brought up, here's Philip who was killed by the pro-consul in Harappa. There was a program a little bit off.

It was Rome under the... Yeah, I mean in Rome you could be polytheistic and have any gods you wanted as long as you acknowledge the emperor as god. So, you know, with Christians, only acknowledging one god, they were kind of persecuted for that reason. It's neat to see the contrast when they were with Christ and kind of confused about what was going on.

And then after that, they were so driven. They were sure of their faith and strong enough to die for it. I was just thinking, you know, you went down the line. I was thinking, which of those guys earlier on made some kind of an error in what they said or did? Peter? Did he blow it? No. Publicly, I'm not going to believe it. Other thoughts, comments? Can you pray for us? Sure. Dear Lord, thank you for this day and that we could come to fellowship and get into your word and read the histories of those that came before us and their faith that they were willing to die for. Just strengthen us and give us that drive for you also. In your name I pray, amen.