Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012
Vern Peterman · Feb 26, 2012
Bible Bkgds/Church History, No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492633474001

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're going to be going through the Book of Acts and focusing, you know, Peter and Paul. It's typically called Acts of the Apostles, but when you look at it, yeah, it lists all the apostles, but most of the focus is on Peter and Paul for the Book of Acts.

Let's see here. So last time we looked at the life of Christ, so we have kind of marked out there birth, temple visit, and ministry. Those are the three points or periods of time that are covered. And then this week, stepping into the book of Acts, about roughly a decade, because we don't know the exact time, roughly a decade after the end of Christ's earthly ministry, the Gentiles became a part of the church. And imagine that, here are the disciples, they're going out and giving the gospel, and then years later have this discovery, oh, you mean the Gentiles are a part of this too? I mean, that's kind of amazing to ponder. But it was quite a revelation, and as a matter of fact, Peter had a tough time with that.

And then finally, Paul and Rome. Paul, who in the earlier years of the book of Acts, was an enemy of the gospel, right? So, we have the book of Acts extending from Pentecost to Acts 2. Chapter 1 is Christ's ascension, and the listing of here are the apostles, but chapter 2, About 30 A.D. is Pentecost, and then about three decades later, Paul in Rome, Acts 28, 61 A.D. So we have about three decades of time covering the book of Acts. So in the first part of that is Peter, and while I put a solid arrow, in fact, there are certain little gaps in there where Peter is actually not specifically addressed in a few chapters in there.

Then Paul, who initially is an unbeliever, in fact the first chapters of Acts don't even mention him, is initially called what? Saul, right? Interestingly, the Bible has two Saul's from the tribe of Benjamin. One is the first king of Israel, and the second one is the one we call the Apostle Paul.

So, you've got mostly Peter and Paul with some overlap in the coverage. Peter is last seen in Acts chapter 15. That's it. Very interesting. And that brings up another point to take a look at. Acts was written by Dr. Luke, a medical doctor. Colossians 4.14 is where it says, Luke, the beloved physician. And in that listing, he is, by anything that we know, a Gentile, not a Jew. That being the case, he is likely the only author of a Bible book that we know is a Gentile, but nonetheless wrote over a quarter of the New Testament between Luke and Acts. So here is Dr. Luke, a Greek medical doctor. Acts is a transition book from the time of the law to the time of grace.

And think about this. We're going to be focusing on this a little bit. Think about this. The disciples, turned apostles, are having aha moments for 30 years. Oh! Oh! Oh! Because in fact, while they are teaching things, they are also discovering things all the way along. And, yes. And I think the important point is not their discoveries, Is the Holy Spirit enlightening them? Yes. Yes. The Holy Spirit enlightening. And what's interesting is the Holy Spirit didn't go kaboom and they're all of a sudden enlightened. The Holy Spirit enlightened them over time. Even more specifically, we can say that the Apostle Paul was directly ministered to by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, in the first three decades of the Church, the transition is from Israel into Gentile lands. Where does the book of Acts start? What geographically is where it begins? Jerusalem, right. And then where does it end? Where's the Apostle Paul at the end of Acts?

Rome. So you go from Jerusalem to Rome is a part of the transition. So it's a doctrinal transition. It's a transition in terms of what the apostles understand and then reveal. It is also a transition geographically, because it starts off in Jerusalem and ends up in Rome.

Here you have, and by the way, you have this map. It's a supplement. That's what the little S means there. It's on the last page, I believe. You have this map printed out. And what this shows is this is the Roman Empire and how it is growing. With one exception over here, it shows the Parthian Empire to the east. So aside from that, it shows the growth of the Roman Empire during New Testament times. So it starts from Jerusalem and ends in Rome. That's the big picture.

Like the beginnings of the Law of Moses, the beginnings of the Church include some things that are typical of the transition, but not intended to be typical of the entire Church Age. What things happened in the Book of Acts that are things that were transitional, that is, temporary events not intended to be carried on throughout the whole Church Age?

Tongues. Yeah, tongues. And what's interesting is while some Christian groups will make a big deal of tongues. In fact, it occurs three times in the book of Acts. Acts 2, Acts 10, and Acts 19. Only those three times, and in one New Testament book, 1 Corinthians. So, yeah, that would be one thing that is rather a temporary phenomenon, not intended to be long-term.

Can you think of anything else about writing scripture? Writing scripture. You don't have Mike all of a sudden walking through the back doors here saying, hey, I just wrote another Bible book. So authoring scripture would be another thing that's transitional. There comes a time when the writing of scripture is complete.

So here we have Peter and John. with the man in the temple. They're healing the lame man in the temple. Now, you have this as a supplement. I think it's about the second or third page there. This we have also put out in the material in Law and Grace early on.

And I think one of the reasons it's valuable is realizing that introducing the law in Israel was a transition, and introducing grace to the church was a transition. And what's interesting is that there is a correspondence as to the event and the time that matches for each of those events. Example, this is the beginning of Israel's baptism into Moses, 1 Corinthians 10. The second thing is a Passover feast. So here, in the introduction of grace, we have the beginnings of the church's baptism into Christ, and the second event is another Passover feast, but the beginning of the Lord's table.

So, at any rate, I think that kind of comparison is fascinating, but also I think it's very intentional. It's the Lord who arranged these things to say, I'm doing something the same, but I'm also doing something different. It's not the exact same thing, but it rhymes. OK.

This is, of course, what we're looking at in Acts, this first part of Acts. Now, you also have this handout in your series, the last couple of sheets there. Last couple of sheets, you have this handout. And what this does is it goes from the end of Christ's ministry on the earth into the time of the Book of Acts, and thinking about what were they presenting, what were they learning during the time of the Book of Acts.

If we were to compare it, it would be like, OK, let's take the time that we have right now, where we are in the year 2012. Let's add 30 years to that, and it would be like us looking forward to the year 2042. It's that comparable period of time, three decades. And during that time, did the Apostle Peter get up on the day of Pentecost and say, you've been seated with Christ and the heavenlies. No, he didn't get up and say, you have a heavenly citizenship.

Our heavenly seating, our heavenly citizenship are not revealed until the end of the book of Acts when Paul's in Rome. So here Paul writes to the church at Rome in the book of Romans in the middle of the Acts period, about in here. He writes Romans. He writes 16 chapters to the church at Rome where he's going to be some years later. But he writes 16 chapters and he doesn't talk about your heavenly citizenship. He doesn't talk about you've been sued by Christ and the heavenlies.

Very interesting. Why? It's because heavenly citizenship and heavenly seating set your mind on things above. didn't get written about until the very end when Paul was in Rome. on a consecutive basis? You know, here's a real interesting thing. Let's ask this question, and this may be something we really don't have a definitive answer to, but we may have a strong implication. Did the Apostle Paul know this stuff earlier and was just holding back, or was it that it was not revealed to him until the time that he wrote it, or just before that? What do you think it was? You think he but didn't reveal it until later? Yeah. You reveal it when they're ready for it. Otherwise, it can rotate. The truth is he didn't say when it was revealed to him, but you may be right. Any other thoughts? It's real interesting to ponder. Why did he wait until later, or did he? Yes.

Well, if you look at the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the way that things were revealed to them, it was on a progressive basis. And it was consistent with the culture and the timing that God had for His people, which of course is what the church was as well, so that they would progressively understand where they were headed and where they were going.

In the end, I think this will be one of these things where we might, if we even think of it, come up to the Apostle Paul and say, by the way, when did you know this? When did you know this and did you write about it because you just learned it or because it was the right time? So anyway, it's a question I don't know we have a definitive answer to. If we happen to recall such things, we might want to ask.

But what you look at is identification wasn't taught until just before the year 50 AD in Galatians. That was the first time identification was revealed in a New Testament book. Galatians. And then you see shortly thereafter that you're identified with Christ, but at that point in time you're only identified with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, not the ascension and seeding. The earliest books that talk about identification only talk about the first three.

Okay, another thing to look at, I think Winnie, you had pointed out, there's tongues here in Chapter 2, Chapter 10, and Chapter 19. Oh, the pattern with tongues goes this way. Tongues is expressed by Jews in the Jewish land. That's Chapter 2. Chapter 10, tongues is expressed by Gentiles in the Jewish land. That's Chapter 10. and tongues is expressed by Jews in the Gentile land. Is that interesting? And those are the three times that the book of Acts has tongues expressed. Jews in the Jewish land, Gentiles in the Jewish land, Jews in the Gentile land. Those three times. And that's the pattern of tongues throughout the book of Acts.

Here's another interesting point. When Peter goes and talks and presents the gospel to the Gentiles, the Gentiles that he presents the gospel to speak in tongues. And then he goes back, and this is chapter 11, goes back to Jerusalem, and the Jews in Jerusalem that are Christians, the Christians there in Jerusalem say, hey Peter, you've got some explaining to do. Right? And why? Because you just presented the gospel to a bunch of Gentiles, and you went into their house, and you stayed with them, and ate with them, What gives, Peter? You've got a problem.

And then Peter said, what happened to them is like what happened to us at the beginning. So that tells you several things. One, when's the beginning of the church? Acts chapter 2. And he didn't say what happened to them is like what has been happening to us all the way along. but rather he had to point back to roughly ten years before.

So as a group they had their own beginning, but in the meantime there were people like Luke who shared the first beginning with the Jewish fellow disciple. In other words, he wrote about it, is that what you're saying? Well, I'm saying he was there, he was a disciple. Wasn't Luke a disciple? Not in the earlier part. We have no evidence of that. Anyway, he was much earlier than the Gentile awakening, so to speak. Actually, we don't find Luke writing about himself until about chapter 16 of Acts.

And it's from there that you'll often on hear him writing, we, us, you know. And so he gets included about that time. So he would have become a believer after Paul's conversion and after the time that Peter presented the gospel to the Gentiles. Okay, so we have that. There's something else. The initial actions in the book of Acts take place in and around Jerusalem.

The Lord had told them in Acts 1.8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. And I ran out of room, and what's the last part? And to the ends of the earth. That would be the final part. Okay. So here's Act 2 at the Day of Pentecost. Peter's presenting Now here's something interesting.

Early in Acts, rather than the exhortation to believe, it is far more common to have the appeal to the Jews be a call to repent. Why? Why would you appeal to the Jews to repent and to the Gentiles to believe? Is there a conflict there or what's going on? Yes. So what does repent mean? Does that mean I come up front and cry and scream and wail and roll on the ground? Yeah, it's a change of mind. So what is he telling them? Change your mind from a state of unbelief to a state of belief. That's what he's appealing to them.

So repenting is not something you do aside from believing. It's there as an appeal to the Jews because they had been presented with Christ repeatedly, and they did what? They didn't believe. They did not repent. And matter of fact, Jesus talked to them, and we'll see it in today's passage, about their hardness of heart. And so they needed to change their mind to come back to a state of belief.

So repenting and believing are not two different things. The appeal to repent is because, look, you guys know who Jesus is, and you heard about his death and burial and resurrection, but you guys need to turn your mind around. and end up believing. So it's not a conflicted appeal. It has to do with the fact that they had, in fact, had three years of ministry of Christ Himself. And they needed to change their mind from what they had embraced, which was a position of unbelief.

Yes, Dan? Yes. Yeah, you think about it. They thought, I'm born of Abraham. I don't need to accept Jesus. So that's one thing that a lot of them figured, I'm already in. I'm a son of Abraham. I'm there. And so that was one problem. They also looked at Jesus and they said, well, they were expecting a Jesus that looked like what we would say is the second coming, right? So their concept of the Messiah didn't fit what they saw in Jesus. So they said, I don't think so. And so Peter's appeal was, look, you guys, you need to change your mind.

Yes. Are you saying then that the Gentiles don't have to repent and believe? They just believe? Here is why as you go through Acts what you find is later on in the book of Acts you don't find the Apostle Paul going to the Gentiles and telling them to repent as a general pattern. Why?

The reason is it was an initial presentation of the gospel. once you get out into Gentile lands, and so then it was simply a matter of belief, because you hadn't heard this before, right? Here's the Apostle Paul, he goes into Galatia, they had not heard the Gospel before. Here's the Apostle Paul, he goes into Philippi, and the Philippian jailer heard the Gospel before? The Philippian jailer hadn't heard about Christ before. Paul initially presents the Gospel, and so rather than telling the Philippian jailer, repent, because the Philippian jailer hadn't heard anything, he says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Right? So, repenting and believing are not two different things. Repenting is turning one's mind around so as to believe, having previously rejected the Gospel, having previously taken the wrong understanding of Christ. That's why Peter comes with these cutting remarks to the Jews. This is Him you crucified. You know the Messiah that was promised? Yeah, you crucified Him. Right? You got these degrees for Him?

I got to thinking about what you were saying. I have it all together still. But it seems to me that some of their repenting was away from their Jewish set of beliefs and laws that they were dependent on for being okay with God. That's right. In other words, they had to turn away from a reliance upon, you know, hey, I'm Jewish, and I got the law, and I've got, yeah. All that stuff was getting in the way. And that's why Peter's appeal would be, look, you need to change your mind from the position that you've been taking, where you're relying on your Jewishness, you're relying on the law, you're relying on all those things, In fact, you should be believing in Christ.

In fact, you should be listening to the message that Christ brought. And you should be listening to the fact that you guys are the ones who crucified the Messiah. And that got their attention. Three thousand people had their attention brought forward that day.

Is that starting to make sense? Is that okay? Yes? Yes. Yeah, they had been presented with it. Here's Christ, right? Yeah, they didn't believe it. And so they had been presented with it. And he says, hey, we're witnesses and you've heard about this. Jesus was crucified right here. You know, you want to take a little walk? It's right here. Crucified right here. He was buried right here. He was raised right here.

And if you want, we'll go to the place where the cross was. We'll go to the place where the empty tomb is. I'll take you to all those places. And we've got people standing right here who are witnesses to these things. And all this has been presented to you, and you rejected it. You need to repent, turn around, and believe. Yes. Yes, there are people who have heard the gospel.

When the gospel was initially presented to these Gentile lands, it was in great part unknown. It was a fresh presentation of the gospel. The Philippian jailer had not heard this stuff before. So that's why Paul didn't come to them and say, repent, because it was all brand new. Yes. that they were saved because of Abraham, Paul now is opening the door to the Holy Spirit. I mean, there's a whole new direction that people have to go to open their mind, and you open your mind in belief and in faith. Yeah, let's look at this.

Were the Jews expecting the Holy Spirit to come on all the Jews? Yes, under the New Covenant, right? The Holy Spirit would indwell every Jew under the New Covenant, but that continuous universal indwelling would have them know all 613 laws, no rabbis, and have them live it out. by the Holy Spirit. We in the church, however, and this was a shock to them, we in the church, however, have the universal, among all who believe, indwelling of the Holy Spirit all the time. Every single one of us who believes. But is it to know and carry out the law? Anybody know to rattle off the 613 laws? Right? No. We have the universal continuing indwelling of the Holy Spirit for a different purpose and ministry.

And that is that the life of Christ might be lived through us. That's why the law is not written on our heart. That's for the Jews. We live out the righteousness of God by the very life of Christ. We have been crucified with Christ so that his life might do the living, not ours.

So Acts 2, Jerusalem. In Acts 2, here are all the different cities, and you don't have this marked, you can circle it if you want. Here are all the different places where it said that the Jews had come from for that Acts 2 event. So he had all these places mentioned. These are languages that the people heard in that Acts 2 event where tongues were spoken.

And let me ask this question. In this event, was tongues an unknown language or a known language? They were known languages. As a matter of fact, the Apostles spoke these other known languages, and the people from these different places could hear the Apostles speaking in their own language, even though the Apostles were largely Galileans who didn't know these other languages. So, you could, rather than call it the gift of tongues, it could easily be translated the gift of languages. Somebody have started to hand up?

Yes. The question is, was the miracle in the hearing or in the speaking? Yes. So it wasn't the speaking. Yeah, well the apostles did actually speak in a language that was unknown to them, but was known to others. Yes. I don't think that's clear. Because each person heard it simultaneously. That's correct. In their own language. Yes. Therefore, probably the people in the speaker's own language heard their language like usual, and the Greeks heard their kind of Greek, and the Parthians heard their kind of whatever, and so on.

These were all Jews that had converged the first time to Jerusalem. Right, they were coming to a Jewish gathering from these different places. But they were from different areas. Everyone heard in their own language, so I think it was all in the hearing that the miracle was. The reality is that's an area where you probably have some unknown in terms of was it all in the hearing or was it all in the speakers.

The disciples did speak something. And it was looked upon by some as just, well, they're drunk. Yes. Well, if you look at it, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, you know, it may be. In other words, we're not given the details, how exactly was this done? And so that's why there's some room for debate, I'll call it speculation, as to was this a hearing miracle, or was this a speaking miracle, or both.

Then, a significant part of Acts 3-7 takes place in or near the Temple Courtyard. So here you have this little area, about six football fields in size, and from Acts 3-7, that Temple Courtyard is most of the action. Not all of it, but a good deal of it for those chapters. So it's not only just in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth, but even within Jerusalem, a good portion of it is right there in that temple courtyard. Okay, not going to be able to show this one.

Some places that Philip went here, from Acts 8.4 to 8.40, so this is largely most of Acts chapter 8, we find most of the focus on Philip who evangelized several fringe groups and individuals. So Philip, rather than just sticking around Jerusalem, starts going into other areas nearby. This is going from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, right? So that's Philip acting as an evangelist here. He goes, here's the excavations at Caesarea, and that was one of the places that he went. What are some of the places that he went or people that Philip evangelized?

Pardon? Didn't go to Ethiopia. Okay. Who did he talk to from Ethiopia? the Ethiopian eunuch, right, who was up in a kind of a chariot and had a scroll of Isaiah. So you can imagine, here's Philip, and he says, you got Isaiah? Let me show you something. Here's Isaiah 53, right? By his stripes you were healed, right? He was wounded for our transgressions. So here he could take him right there to Isaiah, and there's the Gospel. Do you believe it? Yes, I do. Time to have you baptized, right? So that was Philip's evangelistic movements, not just in Jerusalem now, but in Judea and Samaria, that end up being included there.

So 9-1 begins the chapter on the conversion of the church's arch-enemy Saul, later from the Apostle Paul. And so he's headed up this way off the map here, up to Damascus. And this is Straight Street in Damascus. That's the street that Apostle Paul went on. That's it right there.

Okay, Acts 9.32-10.48 brings Peter to preach the gospel to the Gentiles in Caesarea, so that the first Gentiles are brought into the church. So Philip had been from Caesarea and had gone there, but it was Peter that actually took the gospel to the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius, a centurion. So the Gentiles were brought into the church. This was the second instance of tongues recorded in Acts. This was a Jewish land, Gentiles. So remember the pattern? Jews in a Jewish land. Gentiles in the Jewish land, and then Acts chapter 19, Jews in a Gentile land.

Those are the three instances of tongues in Acts. When he gets back to Jerusalem, Acts chapter 11, Peter has a lot of explaining to do. Because the Lord had revealed to him that he needed to go to Caesarea, the rest of these guys are not in the loop yet. Including James, Jesus' brother.

So, you have this Roman Empire map here. They're from Jerusalem, then things moved to Antioch, you find in the Book of Acts. What was the thing that happened first in Antioch? The believers were first called Christians, right, in Antioch. So, you find that move here.

The martyrdom of James then shows up, I believe that's Acts chapter 12. The Herod family in Acts, I don't have the Herod family tree, I don't believe in the sequence, but we handed this out earlier. The main thing to focus on here, I think you do have this part of it in your handout, and that is Herod Agrippa, there shows up in Acts 12. He's also killed in Acts 12. And it's his sons and daughters, or daughter, that show up later on in the book of Acts.

Herod Agrippa II, and Bernice, and Drusilla show up in the latter part of Acts. There's an interesting thing. A lot of the family of Herod is, you know, you've heard of that song, I'm My Own Grandpa? Kind of like that. Because Bernice is first married to her uncle, Herod, king of Chalcis, and then she breaks that off and gets married to her brother.

So that's what Paul has to deal with. Then we have Paul's missionary journeys, which we've catalogued on your handout there. And that provides more details, and we're not going to be able to take time. Initially, Paul goes into Galatia and establishes the churches there. He writes a letter to the Galatians, and then goes to the Galatians on each subsequent missionary journey. So on his first, second, and third missionary journeys, he always goes through the churches of Galatia. Then there is the council at Jerusalem. This is big.

Because remember, in Acts chapter 11, Peter had to explain, you know, hey guys, the Lord led me very explicitly to go preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Now you have the issue, are these Gentiles, do we hold them under the law? And many of today's churches would say, yes. But they said no. Right? They said no. And so you have, this is another one of your handout, supplement handouts there. Reaction of Jews to the Gospel.

Here what you have is initially Saul, who is most severely a man of the law, even to the point of all these other people These Christians, I voted for death, he said. So he was most severely for the law, and the Lord changed him so that he was the spokesman for grace. That's what that big red arrow is there. The Lord took him from here to here.

And you find those Christian Jews who are more legalistic in their expression, as we have a number of churches now, And then you also have non-Christian Jews that the Apostle Paul and others write about who try to force the law on believers and are in fact not even saved. So you find a spectrum of reaction and the Apostle Paul is this miraculous guy who goes all the way from the most extreme legalist to the most extreme grace person, right? The reigning principle is grace.

Romans 5.21. Alright, so we have that. Here's Paul's second missionary journey where he takes the decision from the Jerusalem Council. We are not placing the Gentiles under the law. Not even the Ten Commandments. We're not placing the Gentiles under the law.

So what does he do? He goes from Jerusalem up to Antioch. And then goes through, it's interesting, he goes through Tarsus, but doesn't spend any time there from what's recorded. Then goes to the churches at Galatia to let them know, look guys, we're not under law, okay? To let them know. And then goes on the rest of his second missionary journey where, but before he leaves Galatia, he picks up Timothy.

Oh, by the way, here he is telling people we're not under law, and then he circumcises Timothy. Is he crazy? What happened? Why is it that he can circumcise Timothy and go around and say we're not under law? That's not why he was doing it. Okay. He was not doing it because he was under law.

What was Timothy's ethnic standing? He was Greek. He had a Greek father and a Jewish mother, right? And so in order for him to be able to carry out ministry to the Jews, being half Jew, he was circumcised, not in order to comply with the law. When should Timothy have been circumcised if he was to comply with the law?

At the eighth day, right? So he goes and picks up Timothy, and then he goes up here, and he's originally wanting to go up this direction, and the Lord says, no, I want you over here, and he establishes a church at Philippi, the first church on the European continent. and then makes the loop around down into Macedonia and Greece, and then comes back.

Now, you also have this handout, it's another color printout, and it's on your supplement area there. And what this is, this is something like the forest on fire. How many of you have heard that Peter is the first bishop of Rome? Right? What this shows is that there is no evidence for that at all. Okay?

And in fact, when you chart it, and this is why this was done in color, when you chart it, these are the times when the Bible itself says, it's in red, the Bible itself says that he was in Jerusalem or thereabouts. And how long does it take to go between Jerusalem and Rome? Quite a while in those days, so you don't just hop back and forth. You can't just catch a plane, right? And then, here are these things marked in green.

We have other traditions that he was an Antioch. As a matter of fact, where did he come to the Jerusalem Council from? Antioch. That's consistent with the tradition that he spent years and years in Antioch. And the people in the Orthodox churches, that is, the Russian, Serbian, Greek Orthodox churches, their tradition is that Peter was not in Rome, but in Antioch. And in fact, it is held by some, debated by others, that during the last part of his life, he went to Rome for a little bit. But all the evidence up to that time is all that he never went to Rome.

Is this in this week's package? Yes, it should be. I'll look at it. Well, you have this week and last week and you're doing last week's over here. Oh, I'm sorry. Those got switched for whatever reason, I don't know. But anyway, it looks like this, just like what's on the screen. I followed the sign. Oh, okay. Alright.

Well, at any rate, so when you put that together, I've put all the footnotes and details and whatnot and all the references, but the bottom line is, it's debatable whether Peter ever went to Rome. And the evidence is, the evidence is that if he did, it was only for the last part of his life. Yeah, for some reason this week and last week signs got switched. Okay, so you can peruse the details on that one.

He went to Philippi. Here's Philippi from a shot up on the mountain up above it. There's a mountain up above it where two activities went on on the mountain above Philippi. gold mining and graves, burials. And then they look down, here is the Roman road that goes through it.

The Roman road was so well built, all they did to make a road, modern road, is just pave over the top, make it smooth. Here is the Agora, the marketplace where Paul and Silas were beaten. There's the bathhouse in the back, and in the foreground are some pagan temples. Here's a picture of Antioch, which at the time was one of the larger cities in the Roman Empire, and the first stop on the Silk Road coming from India and China.

Here's Ephesus, an aerial of Ephesus. Here's the theater where Paul was and where they shouted for two hours, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And right over here is the Agora, where the silversmith gathered everybody to run over to the theater. So that's the place. Here is Lystra, which is where Timothy was from.

Then in Paul's third missionary journey, what did he do? He started off from Antioch and went first on to the churches here of Galatia. those first places, and headed through there, went through Ephesus, and from there made a loop through some of the same churches where he'd been at before. It was at Miletus that he met the elders from Ephesus, Acts chapter 20, and talked to them for the last time. And then he stopped here on his way went to a couple of different places and then went back to Jerusalem. That's where he got into trouble, right? So Paul gets into trouble there. Here are the temple ruins at Corinth.

There's quite a bit there archaeologically still. Then Paul made the journey from Rome, which took a while, because he first went from Jerusalem, escorted by hundreds of Roman soldiers, to Caesarea. He was held in prison at Caesarea, and you can actually go to the place in Caesarea where he was held in prison. It's still visible. It's right along the coast. And he was held there for two years. That's where he stood before these relatives of Herod that I pointed out. And from there he was taken by the centurion by ship. He came through here and of course it was at Malta where they were shipwrecked. And there's still a place there called St. Paul's Bay. a place where they were shipwrecked, and they caught another ship and then went up here to Puteoli, which is the port city, and then up to Rome.

So here's the Apostle Paul, he's finally in Rome, and along the way, here's some pictures, Caesarea has been excavated, and there's been a good deal of archaeological study that's been going on for a number of years. By the way, the amphitheater at Caesarea has an inscription in one of the stones about Pontius Pilate, about his governorship. Here's Sidon, another one of the stops in ancient city. Cyprus, which is also where Barnabas was from. Here's Puteoli, which is the Italian port city. When they landed at Puteoli, they found some believers there. And so the Apostle Paul was allowed by the centurion to stay there for about a week before they traveled on.

Here's the interesting thing, is that when the Roman soldiers had an assignment to take a Roman citizen to be reviewed by Caesar, they had no legal time frame in which they had to do it. So the centurion says, you want to stay here and fellowship with these people for a week? That's fine. Because there was no legal requirement.

And here is Rome. So, interesting stops along the way. So now you have, here's Peter and Paul and some overlap between the time of the two. And so Paul is now in Rome. Here on the Roman Empire map, there's Rome. In Rome, now, once he gets to Rome and writes to Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, his prison letters, and then finally, he also writes to Titus and to Timothy, finally, tradition has it, and the closest letter we have is 2 Timothy, tradition has it that he was beheaded in Rome, the tradition also has it that he spent time in this prison, it's called the Mamertine prison, And that was the entrance. They just dropped you in. See that kind of opening in the ceiling? They just, you're going to spend time in this prison, they just plop. There you go. So they dropped you in.

And so that was the tradition. And then here's another extra biblical, that is outside of scripture, tradition. And that's that Peter was hung upside down and he refused to be crucified like his Lord. That, according to tradition, was in Rome. It's one of those that's debated. The evidence for it is not absolute. So whether it absolutely took place or might have taken place is one of those debatable, questionable points. Next we'll talk about the life and times of John. Here's one of the things, we're not going to go over it this time because we're going to postpone it until later. Here's one of the things, who was the first apostle to die? James, right. James, Acts chapter 12, the first apostle to die. Who was the last?

John, so far as we know. And they're brothers. Interesting. They're like bookends to the apostles. The first one to die, James, And the last one to die, John, are their brothers, and the others died at times in between. The only one whose death is actually recorded in scripture is James. We have some record of the death of others in varying degrees of reliability. We'll at some point later in our study talk about how those go home. But what happened between the time of the deaths of Peter and Paul and the time of John is what we'll cover next time. John, a real interesting fellow, probably one of the younger disciples and allowed to live a long time. He was the only one so far as we know that died a natural death. that the others all martyred from any record that we have.

Yes? Is there any biblical information on why Peter would leave Jerusalem to minister the gospel because he was actually an apostle to the Jews? Yes. Here's the interesting thing. While initially all the disciples hung around Jerusalem and Judea and stuck around there, And Paul was explicitly sent out to the Gentile lands. Eventually, all the disciples from any record we have ended up going into Gentile lands ultimately, and in some cases outliving the Apostle Paul. Here's an example. Matthew, the record has it, died in North Africa, screaming out the gospel while they were driving wooden stakes through his body. So, kind of amazing. But, you know, here we went to a Gentile land.

Several of them went into, went to the East, and Thomas, and this is again outside of Scripture, went to India. But what's interesting is both the records outside of Scripture and I've talked to a fellow from India, and he said, yep, that's our record too, that Thomas came and brought us the Gospel. There is a communist Chinese professor that says he has found gospel stories on some of the tombs in China from around the 80s AD, before the book of Revelation was written. So very interesting. It wouldn't necessarily be the apostles, but maybe one of the people that heard the gospel from the apostles went to China and spread the gospel there. So, fascinating.

Anyway, we'll be looking more at the life and times of John and what happened there towards the end of the New Testament era. What happened after the New Testament era, we're going to postpone that because we're going to have church history and also because we've got to cut something out because we took off New Year's Day. So, we'll postpone that into the church history part. So next time, Life and Times of John, and then we'll move to pre-flood culture. Think about it. Our new history in Christ is because God entered history through Christ. We were identified with Christ and his death here in time on this planet. His death, burial, resurrection, in a sense.

Questions? Comments? Inspirations? Exasperations? Perspiration. Anyway, okay. Anything? All right. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this. This is exciting stuff. This is neat stuff. Throughout the course of history, you are the God of history, who manages history to the end, that everything will be summed up in Christ. And we thank you that, though you didn't have to, You have determined to be involved in history, and in fact, you entered history and will do so again. And Lord, what a wondrous thing that is. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.