How to Study the Bible III - Cultural changes between the Old & New Testaments
Craig Kaes · Jun 19, 2016
How to Study Bible (2016), No. 24
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49265352182

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

Today we're going to be going through Roman culture and also Jewish culture. Remember that the Word of God was written in a place, in a language, in a culture, in a point in time. So understanding all of these different things helps us understand the Word of God, which is great because then we're able to build a more meaningful and honest relationship with our Creator.

This is the turtle formation. So you can imagine how well protected everybody is. They're taking care of one another. The Romans were a pretty impressive military force. They worked very effectively together. They had the right equipment to work very effectively together. Interesting fun fact.

So right about the time Alexander the Great was going through and making his ginormous kingdom, Rome was already starting to grow. It was a teeny tiny little thing, but little did Alexander the Great know that the thing that was going to eat much of what he had accomplished had already been born.

In terms of timeline, We are now focused on about 63 BC to about 70 AD. That's the most interesting time period for the Roman Empire. Interesting other bit is that at this point in time, though, the Roman Empire was becoming more and more and more dominant.

And the de facto standard, Greek is still our primary language. An idea of how darned big the Roman Empire was, you have to get well out into space to be able to visualize it all, cast your mind back maybe 2,000 years and envision, oh my goodness, when we talk about global economy and we look at something like this 2,000 years ago, it's just somewhat staggering in terms of just the breadth of it. a little bit about that Roman culture. Like I said, it was a military culture. So people were incredibly well trained, very well equipped to go out and conquer for Rome.

Until we get to the time period of Augustus, it's all about expansion. And when we get to Augustus Caesar, so think from about 35 BC to about 14 AD, so just overlapping Christ's earth, that's the first point in time where folks are thinking, you know what? We've probably expanded a pretty good amount. Let's start putting things in place so that this empire is sustainable, so that it's something that's going to last over time.

Let's try to bring some stability One aspect of that stability is to make sure that they had complete and total control so that folks saw a constant presence. And we'll go into the details of exactly why that makes sense, but you can imagine if you're taxing a bunch of people a lot. It would be very good for them to understand just how mighty you are. We can think back to our own country a couple hundred years ago, what taxation did in those circumstances. So having a constant show of force It was great.

And so very orderly folk, they're going to go marching. They'll march a whole mess. They have a set of colonies around. And it's probably a great idea just to march through town a lot so that you've got a constant presence. Not only were folks marching from town to town, but to be able to have some sort of conquest, you have to be able to get these large machines of war from one place to another. So the Romans had just amazing catapults, amazing siege ramps. So if you've got a big walled fortress like, say, Jerusalem, That walled fortress is less effective when they can just push a big ramp up to the edge of the wall and just run up the ramp and now they're on top of the wall shooting inward. So they've got to be able to get all of this big equipment around. So you can imagine there'd be need for some sort of road system.

You're not going to push something like this creation through the grass, through the trees, through the marshes. That just isn't going to happen. I love this thing in the bottom right. This is a Roman minefield. So they wanted to protect certain areas. Obviously, they don't have advanced explosives at this point in time. So they would dig pits, put sharpened stakes at the bottom of those pits. You don't want to fall into one of those because you're goner.

Nice thing about this particular minefield is that in our modern minefields you step on a mine, it goes boom, now the area is safe because the mine has been exploded. Of course with a Roman minefield, less so because you can A whole mess of people can fall on top of sharpened stakes before they pile up enough that it doesn't become a problem. So very, very effective minefield.

So again, military mindset. I told you about the roads. So last week, we talked about this some. Glad that we've got repeat, because we have probably three times as many people here today as last week. So the road system was extensive that was built by the Roman Empire. I think the cited fun fact here is that if you laid out the roads in the end, you'd go around the globe twice. So a lot of activity building those. The manner in which they were built was pretty doggone interesting.

And that is they dug down three feet everywhere that they were going to build a road. Roads were typically 23 feet wide, so quite wide. They would dig down three feet, then layer in sand. And then above the sand, they would layer in pea gravel. And above the pea gravel, bigger gravel. And then above that, big stones.

These roads have survived quite some time. Last week, I showed a picture from a market in Jerusalem where the road is just, looks perfect. It's still there. It's just nicely polished stone. And I think that there are areas where The easiest way to build a road in more modern times was just to pour asphalt on top of those Roman roads, because they're still there and still stable.

Huge feat of engineering involved in putting these together, but also a lot of brutally hard work. So somebody's got to pick up all those stones, move all those stones, and drop them into the right places and set them. Somebody's got to be doing all of the digging.

That's why you have soldiers. So I guess it serves two purposes. Number one, when they're not fighting, you've got to have something to do with them. You're paying them. But number two, as they're moving all of these heavy, heavy stones and stuff around, they're getting pretty strong. which is probably something that you want for your military force, so it's good activity for them.

But they absolutely would have understood in Romans 6.23 when it said, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So the wages that are paid are those wages for hard labor, Hard labor, like picking up and moving rocks. So soldiers were paid that same type of wages. They understand what that word means.

The free gift of God, when a new emperor would come into power, would often lavishly reward the soldiers that were currently there with some sort of free gift. Kind of makes sense. They'd do that. Wouldn't you want all of the soldiers thinking, you are absolutely amazing if you're going to be ordering them around to move stone? So they absolutely understood the analogy.

So having a little bit of understanding of how the culture worked, now we know exactly why Paul picked the words they picked in Romans 6.23. OK. So we've got to shift at this point from the way that the Grecian system worked to the Roman system. In Greece, the Jews were encouraged to relocate to specific areas, and the focus was on consistency in language and culture everywhere.

Of course, last week we talked about how when Alexander the Great came down, the chief priest met him and said, We were forewarned about you in Daniel. You're in our scriptures. He thought, that's pretty all right. Your holy texts are talking about me. I like you, so what do you want? And what they said was, we'd like to keep doing the thing we do, which is worship our Lord in the manner that we do. And can you please give us a break on taxes every seven years?

It's like, you got it. So while culture and language had been spread, Everywhere it was ubiquitous. People had a common frame of reference. The Jews did get exceptions to be able to keep their culture. Well, we make it into the Roman era. They love everybody to have their own culture.

They don't care. You guys do what you want to do. Do the same thing that you've always done. Live where you've always lived. We're totally okay with that. Just pay us lots of money. And so they did not try to discourage free trade. They didn't try to discourage anything that was going on in the marketplaces. In fact, they encouraged it, because the more an economy thrives, the more opportunity there is to tax. And so the Romans liked that, because Romans liked money.

Jews were given special exemptions So some of those exemptions that they received, for example, one of the exceptions that they received was that under Roman law you had to worship the Caesar as deity. It's not going to go over super well with the Jewish population. The Romans would rather tax them than fight with them, if at all possible. They recognize this is a hill to die on for the Jews. And so they're like, that's fine. You don't have to worship our Caesar as deity. That's not an issue for us. You just keep paying us. So that was a bargain.

When, later on, The Christians broke out of that Jewish group when they officially got recognized as something different than the Jews. It worked out that wasn't so great for them under Roman rule, because they didn't have that exemption. And so that caused a fair amount of contention. So talking about taxation, apologies for the coloring and general ugliness of this particular map, but I totally understand why you chose this map, because it shows all the relevant bits.

So something to point out, you see, perhaps you can, perhaps you can't, right on the border of purple and red there is Antioch. And so Antioch ends up being the terminus for the Silk Road that goes all the way over into China. The church at Antioch is an interesting one.

I'm going to read from Acts 11.19-26.

So then, those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch. speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus.

And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord, for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord. And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

So you have a number of these different empires along the Silk Road. We learned last week that the reason why Herod was put in place in Jerusalem was because the Parthians had come down and conquered Jerusalem and had to be pushed back, and Caesar did not want the Parthians to come back.

So he put just an absolutely cruel and pretty wicked guy in charge of the area so that the Parthians would stay away. So Romans, Parthians, not best buddies. Romans, money, very much best buddies. And so having a trade route that goes through that Parthian empire, that's A-OK. So even though they don't get along, the Romans like money and so establishing trade that goes across all these different empires, that's just fine.

So God plants the first Gentile church in Antioch right on the Silk Road establishes Paul there for a full year to teach. Barnabas is up there teaching. This is where disciples are first called Christians, terminus of the Silk Road. And so is it any wonder why the gospel made its way over into China in the first century? Because of Roman greed. God uses all things, so that's cool.

OK. New Testament books where Roman background is important. All of them. OK. But more specifically, Mark acts Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians. Why? Well, it turns out Galatia, Philippi, where Roman colonies, Ephesus, was that trade route. So Mark was written to a Roman audience.

The Romans are very much about just the facts now. So they want the details. They want to know the timeline. They don't care about poetry. Mark is all about just the facts. This happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. Like, cool. Tick, tick, tick. So the Romans are happy with Mark. Acts appears to have been a legal submittal by Dr. Luke, uses a number of legal terms, perhaps in defense of Paul.

So most excellent Theophilus, that is how one would address somebody in a court system within Rome. And so it appears to be written in that way. And then the churches. that had a strong Roman influence. So the churches up in Galatia, Corinth, Philippi were established as Roman callings. So they're seeing Romans all the time marching through town. They're seeing Romans all the time hanging out in town. Romans like taxes. Boy, did they like taxes. So the entire system was built on top of taxes.

When Verne taught this before, he talked about how we have so many documents from this time period, just oodles and oodles and oodles of documents that have been preserved from this time period. It's shocking how many of those documents are receipts for taxes. We issue a lot of receipts at this particular time. And what could be taxed was whatever. It was pretty creative in terms of what could be taxed.

So you've got to have schoolwork that's a tax. We have that. But peering over your fence, it looks like you've got a garden. We tax gardens, because that's produce. Oh, and you've got a pig that you're throwing slop to. We tax pigs. And I see that you've got him fenced in so that he can't get away. You need to pay the fence tax.

Lots and lots and lots of highly creative taxes. And the way that taxes were set up is it was privatized. So yay, capitalism in this day and age. So it wasn't directly enforced by the government. It was backed by the government. But private bidders would submit their bids. This particular city is about this big, about this many people. I think I can squeeze this much juice out of them. And somebody else says, well, I can actually squeeze about 50% more than that. And so there's this bidding. And somebody eventually gets to, OK, you're the high bidder. Guess what? You're the tax collector. You are the chief tax collector of that region. And then how did the tax collectors get paid?

Well, they had just committed, I'm going to provide this much money to you Romans And so they had to provide that much money. But what if they actually raised more than that money? So they were highly incented just to absolutely extort the people. So you can understand why we've got to have troops marching through town all the time, because with that sort of extortion, we get things like the American Revolution.

The first direct observation about the tax system in the New Testament era is when Mary and Joseph have to go to Bethany because there's a census. Why do you take a census? So that you can count the people. Why do you count the people? So that you know how many people you can tax.

You would also be interested in knowing any declarations that they may have. So this is an example from a census declaration. From Peturius, son of Poros, a resident of the village of Bacchias, there belongs to me in the village three quarters of a house in which I dwell. So census says, OK, we've got a person we can tax. They own three quarters of a house. Got a good sense of how much that's worth. And so the whole reason Mary and Joseph had to go back to Bethlehem was taxes. OK, next time it comes up, we've got Levi, the tax collector. What this amounted to, we have something similar today. So Levi would populate kind of a toll booth.

And so here, we're going to count how many wheels there are on your car. We're going to say, oh, well, if you've got two axles, then you need to pay this much at a toll booth. But if you've got four axles, then you pay this other amount at the toll booth.

Very much like that. Pretty much everything going through the toll booth was taxed because of creativity. So, oh, you want to be on the road? That's fine. That's this amount. And I see that you've got two donkeys with you. And so here's the charge per donkey. And so we're just collecting fees. And then, of course, I'm going to issue you a receipt so that if you get seen further down the road, you can say, ah, I already paid my taxes. So benefit to you.

Matthew, i.e. Levi, was doing. Now imagine along comes Christ, who's extremely charismatic and certainly has some power and authority in the way that he addresses folks. And he says, hey, fella who has been sitting in a toll booth for years doing nothing but extorting money from people who are angry and crumble about it, how would you like to follow me? please, I'm out of here. Much better deal.

Another example of historical document, like I said, there were oodles and oodles and oodles of these tax receipts. Consequently, it would make a lot of sense, understanding the way that the tax system works, why tax collectors and sinners would be lumped together so many times in the New Testament. Some of these vary a little bit. Some will be tax collectors and sinners, some will be prostitutes and tax collectors, but they're not lumped together with the good guys. You don't see Pharisees and tax collectors lumped together. So another example. In Luke, the passage that Vern just covered a few weeks ago at this point, You've got the chief tax collector.

This is the guy who's running all of the lower level extortionists and collecting that up into one big mound and sending that off. So he could not be more hated. The fact that he's also a Jew and is extorting that amount of money from the Jewish population truly reviled. He was completely reviled. When he ends up getting to go and eat with Christ, what a profound thing given how negatively viewed this population of people had.

Another one. So taxes had to be paid with something. In Luke 20, the Pharisees try to trick Jesus. I'm going to read a passage. Here's what you should observe from the passage. Number one, the Pharisees are not asking an innocent question. They have mal-intent. Number two, Jesus does not answer them directly, but as we dig into this a little bit, we're going to see what's actually going on.

So, this is that Luke 20, 22 passage. The scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on him that very hour. And they feared the people, for they understood that he spoke this parable against them. So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be righteous in order that they might catch him in some statement so that they could deliver him to the rule and the authority of the governor. They questioned him, saying, teacher, We know that you speak and teach correctly, and you are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

Not an innocent question, right? So what's the conundrum? What is the trap that they have laid? Well, think about it. If he says, no, it's not lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, what can they do? They can get him in trouble with Caesar. Hey, Roman authorities, there's this guy over here that says we don't have to pay taxes to you. You think that would be interesting to the Romans? OK, well, now let's say, yes, you've got to pay taxes to Caesar. He says that.

Well, there are groups within the Sicarii and the Zealots, of which Simon was one. So you've got these 4,000 assassins that are going out in the desert that are pretty much pro Jew, not so much loving the Romans. And so if he says, yeah, you absolutely need to be paying taxes to the Romans, the Pharisees can just come over here and go, hey, Securia, he thinks that this is all cool, what's going down. And so they've got him either way.

Ha! Good one. So his response is, but he detected their trickery. and said to them, show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have? They said, Caesar's. And he said to them, then tendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they were unable to catch him in a saying in the presence of the people. And being amazed at his answer, they became silent. So he asks them to reach into their own pockets and pull out a coin. So they are in possession of this coin. They reach in their pocket and they pull it out. A number of problems with this. Number one, they have this coin.

It's granted to them by the Romans under whose rule they currently are. If you go back and you read Deuteronomy 28, you've got the, you know, if you do what I say, then you'll get these blessings, and if you don't, then you'll get all these curses. What are those curses? Well, one of them is another nation will rule over you.

They reach in their pocket and they say, we have been sinned. Number one. Number two, it's got a picture of Caesar on it. Are they supposed to be having graven images? Is that a good thing for them? Not so much. Okay, number one is, ooh, we've been doing poorly. Number two is, oh, and here's a very specific example. That's embarrassing.

And number three, Caesar claimed divinity on that coin. It was complete and total blasphemy. So we can look at this. Here is Denarius, and the convention, if you look on the right side of our Caesar's face over here, the first two letters, TI, that's for Tiberius, then you get Caesar, so now we've got Tiberius Caesar, and then the four letters above it are DI, or divine. So the coin says, Caesar is God.

So they pull this out of their pocket, and they say, look, we're under rule by somebody else because we were not obedient. Here's a manner in which we were not obedient. And by the way, this thing that's got a graven image on it claims somebody else's deity. So they whip this out, they look at it, Christ calls them on it, and they're like, I'm going to skip over a few of these.

I'm looking at how much time we've got available. Let's talk about crucifixion, because that's a fun topic. Crucifixion could not have been more cruel to just highlight some of the issues. Totally OK to abuse people before the crucifixion. You get the crown of thorns and all of that sort of thing. That was not abnormal. It's totally OK. There's nothing legally wrong with abusing somebody who's going to go get crucified anyway, because they're rotten and they're going to die. So just do what you want to with them.

They were typically strict, so all of those images of Christ on the cross with the loincloth are probably not accurate and are being very modest. It did not matter gender or anything. People were typically stark naked simply as a means of one additional humiliation.

The nailing was not done in an orderly fashion. Sometimes folks were tied. Typically, the nails would go through the wrist because that's going to hold better than the hands, which would just tear off. But it didn't have to go that way. Basically, the task was get that person affixed to the material so that they don't come back down. So that was primary.

You see here a picture of a man's heel bone with the spike going through it. So if you go through bone, that's fine. It doesn't matter if it's super painful because they're dying anyway. Just get the job done. Blood loss was minimal because whatever punctures is going to plug up that hole. So blood loss was almost never the reason for death. The most typical reason for death was slow suffocation. And then when somebody didn't come to claim the body, they'd just chuck it in a big pile. So this was not a great way to die.

And so when the Lord Jesus Christ was put through this, one can see how, from a Roman perspective, that would not be something glorifying. That would be a bad thing. To frame a little bit more context around this, the word for crucifixion was so offensive that it was not used in polite conversation. It was so offensive that it was typically not used in impolite conversation. And so even those who were handing down a sentence of crucifixion often avoid the word crucifixion. And so this horrible, horrible, shameful, awful, rotten, lengthy, painful death process Here comes Paul, and he says, I have been crucified with Christ.

Can you imagine the impact writing to Galatia, a Roman colony, I've been crucified with Christ, would have been just absolutely shocking. What? By the way, interesting notes. Because of the nature of the times, perhaps I shouldn't note this, but I will. The Bible is absolutely littered with profanity at the time, so it just had to be a super shocking book. Fascinating.

Skip over citizenship, and we will go into adoption as sons. So just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him, In love he predestined us to adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will. By Roman law, the adopted son had all the rights of the natural-born son plus. So it turns out that adopted as a son, you would be the heir to everything, even if there were natural-born sons.

So it puts you right up at the top. It was something that couldn't ever be taken away. And it was something that took somebody completely out of the familial system that they had been in before. All of that is completely invalidated and completely placed inside of a new familial system forever. And so we have been adopted as such. That's awesome. A couple examples, a couple famous examples.

So Augustus Caesar was adopted. So it was set up such that the reason why adoption of sons was so critical is because the Roman emperors needed heirs. They needed to be able to insure heirs, and so that's why it was put into place. So Augustus Caesar was adopted as son. Then along comes Tiberius, adopted as son. And so we've got this emperor succession that happens as a result of it. All right. Ephesians 6, the whole passage about the full armor of God, makes sense in the context of the Roman military outfit that everybody's familiar with. and look at all the things.

Jewish culture. So the point of this slide is we have a lot of culture over a really long time. Consequently, given our 15 minutes remaining, we're not going to go over the entire culture of the Jewish population. We'll focus on the Jewish culture during this particular time period that the New Testament is being written. So Jews are dispersed, but largely in four places. We talked about how Alexander the Great encouraged them to go down to Alexandria. Obviously, they're in Jerusalem. There's a population centered around Babylon, from when the Babylonians came and plucked them and put them down.

And there's this sect that's up by Galatia and Antioch, where we had 2,000 families that were told, hey, you get a ginormous tax break if you just move up there. Like, sign me up for that. I don't like giving you money. And so you've got this, I guess, population of parsimonious Jews up in around Ephesus. So we talked a little bit last week about the various groups that came out of the Positum.

The key ones that we'll focus on today are the Pharisees and the Sadducees. who again is burned with note, are not Sadducees. So the Sadducees held to only the first five books of the Bible. They did not believe in resurrection. They did not believe in angels. Kind of a really tragic thing. So I guess they figured when they kicked the bucket, that was it. That's all she wrote. They were very temple-centered. So their focus is entirely within the temple. And very few Sadducees, lots of Pharisees. And so the Pharisees made up most of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body. But the Sadducees typically had the leader. So Caiaphas is an example of that. Interesting point.

When the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, you've got the Sadducees who were 100% focused on temple life. They just kind of disappeared. That was it for them. The Pharisees helped to the entire Old Testament. They also believed in the oral tradition that had been passed down. We think of them as horrible. The Jews of the day would have thought of them as the good guys. They know what's going on. They're pretty good at keeping the law. We like the law. So yay Pharisees.

They did focus on the temple, but they were also more missionary oriented. And so they would go out and spread the word. And so when that temple got destroyed, They carried on, and they carried on with the Jewish traditions. As a point of difference between these two groups, you've got the Pharisees who are setting up all of the, as people die, they've got this burial ground that's facing the Mount of Olives. Bernice talked about this a ton, so I won't toss the question out there. The reason why they're all facing the Mount of Olives is because when the Messiah comes, that's where he's going to touch down.

They want a front row seat. They want to be able to see that stuff. So that was the Pharisees. Sadducees, there's no resurrection. So that's weird to them and just not OK. They worked together as a governing body. They had grossly different views. And so they would band together to come and go after Jesus. So, let's see, here's the Matthew passage.

So the Pharisees and Sadducees came up and testing Jesus, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. But he replied to them, when it is evening, you say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red, and in the morning, da, da, da. And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread. And Jesus said to them, watch out, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So they come to him together. Both of them can agree, we don't like you.

And Jesus, when he's talking about That group has got no problem lumping them together, Pharisees and Sadducees. But so that you can see the excitement in the differences, Paul is brought before the Jewish leadership in Acts 23. And he knows exactly what button to push, because he's very familiar with these groups. And so he decides, you know what?

Rather than having the focus be on me, let's just stir up the hornet's nest. And so he says, but perceiving that one group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the council, Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead. Pretty inflammatory statement, right?

How did it go over? As he said this, there occurred a dissension between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor a spirit. But the Pharisees acknowledged them all. And there occurred a great uproar. And some of the scribes of the Pharisaic party stood up and began to argue heatedly, saying, we find nothing wrong with this man.

Suppose a spirit or an angel has spoken to him. And a great dissension was developing. The commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them and ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks. So Paul knew how to plan against each other. So little understanding about those different people groups. All of a sudden, oh.

The word of God gets way more interesting. Outside of Israel. So inside Israel, you've got these groups fighting with one another. Outside of Israel, we have folks up in Galatia. We've got folks over in Babylon. We've got folks down in Alexandria. Let's focus on the folks up in the northwest area. You've got Jews and you've got Gentiles side by side.

What's wrong with that? I think we'll run late by about five minutes to compensate for the late start. What's wrong with that? Well, turns out everything. Because the Gentiles do nothing right. The Jews do everything perfectly. And so this can't go well. So the Jews, they have the law. The Gentiles, they have no part in it. They eat the wrong things. Their clothing is wrong. It mixes the fibers. It's not OK. They weren't circumcised. So lots and lots and lots of stuff that's wrong. But they have to be together. Right?

So as a Jew, you've got to buy things in a marketplace. Well, in a marketplace, you've got people selling idols. That's not cool. As a Jew, you might be inclined to go to the theater. But the actresses are prostitutes. That's not cool. You can't do that. And so this passage that's quoted up here, you've got a whole rushing of people into the theater to chastise Paul, more or less, because he's messed with their idols. And there are Jews present that want to address the crowd.

They're hanging out in this theater that's affiliated with prostitution. So there's already some blending going on. That passage ends with, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So speaking of the temple of Artemis, this is where one would worship somebody else. That's not OK. There are over 1,000 temple prostitutes. Also not OK. That's where you store your money. That's problematic.

So there's this blending that's starting to happen and this contention between these two groups. So here's an example of a magic text from this time period that has a combination of both Jewish and pagan magic spells. So you can see they're starting to stray because of what's going on here. Deal with these passages up. They're super interesting.

In the first one, you've got Simon doing Jewish voodoo magic and then becoming a believer, which, how cool is that? So when we get to Timothy, who is from a mixed marriage, How can that even begin to be OK, that you've got this mixed marriage? And so just simply the sight of him and his lack of circumcision because of a Gentile father would prevent Jews from being able to hear his message. And so rather than have his message ignored by people who can't hear it, Paul decides, the same Paul who continually talks about circumcision not being what matters, has to circumcise Timothy just so that people can hear his message. Because of this blending and the confusion and the conflict that's going on, it had to happen.

Make sense? So bottom line, understanding culture of the time periods can help us pull out more meaning from scripture, and in some cases makes it way more interesting than any trash novel you would find on any shelf. Just fascinating stuff as a backdrop for what's going on in scripture. So I have taken my extra five minutes. We should probably close.

Father, thank you so much for your love and for how you use absolutely everything, just greed and hate and all of these just what seem like horrible things to bring your message to anybody who would choose to believe because you love them. Thank you so much for that. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.