210925 - Introduction to The 1st Century Church

Yes, yes. Yes. Shabbat shalom. Hog sameach. Shabbat shalom, peace of the Sabbath day with you and hugs to Mayock, joyous holiday. Beast. Welcome.

Apologize for not having a good JC studies logo, but that's the best I could do. I should have asked you for one.

it's a Is the Feast of Tabernacles in, it might rain today, but even if it doesn't, I decided I'd bring some. Because this is, this is a symbol of the infilling presence of the Holy Spirit when it rains. That's a good sign. And that we've had a lot of rain lately, and that's good. Because we like, crops. We like to eat and we like to be

The way you have to be when you have things like that. So before I start, I want to praise God for bringing James and Tamara and their family to us when they Years ago, when Dwight was thinking about bringing them out. He had a collection of Elders and leaders and a whole bunch of people who had a whole lot of questions for James and Tamara and if I've been them and I got asked all those questions in that living room by all those very Interested people. I just said, I'm never going back there.

The Story Goes, they went back to to Washington State and Tamara said that's where we need to go. And if they hadn't the center would have died.

And that's it, but it didn't die. Dwight live many. Are you a few years after that? And I praise God that you guys came your brothers and sisters. Lord. Real family.

I'm an elder Church, the Messiah? But today, I'm not an elder. I am a representative of the center for today, Christian Studies. And that's hard to say, I know, and I remember the first time I said, so who do I make this out to? And Jeanette, said just a center?

That'll work. Okay. I've called at the center ever since sick. Is it easier to remember?

Years ago, I was talking with Dwight and he told me he was going to do a JC studies hovering School. Romans, and I said to him, you're out of your mind. That's very hard. That's too hard. You're not going to be able to do it and he said I know and I said then why are you going to do it? And he said it's the most important thing for the church to hear today. He's right. He was right. And shortly after that. He had an email conversation going with Boaz Michael from first Fruits of Zion and Tim Hague and probably others Tim heading out or Resource Center in near. I think it's in Tacoma actually, but it's near 5th and pine trees.

Anyway, they were all discussing this and shortly after that. They all came out with either a study on Romans or Galatians or books on Romans in Galatians because they all felt. This is the most important thing in the church today will today, I have this different passion and it's about knowing the early church getting as close as I can, to the early church. We have a lot of people in the world. Who claimed wolf, we're Children of the Reformation. Yeah, you are your children, the Reformation, but you're also children of that synagogue in Jerusalem for the Galilee.

You're, you're not just Children of the Reformation. Your roots go way back before that. so, I want to know the early church. I want to sit at Jesus feet. I want to hear him teach in the synagogue and that's why I want to know as much as I can't. You can't do anything about it. It's all gone. It's all old history. It's not important anymore. We can get close. Let's try to get as close as we can to the early church if we can get as close as we can to the early church and Jesus. He'll honor our attempt to honor him. I believe that with all my heart. The Lord. We pray that you will guide us in this lesson. I know that you poured it through me and I pray. Not only for, for me, and for the people present here today, but for people who will come long after us. Please help. What is discussed here, benefit the body of Christ for a long. Time to come in. Jesus name. Amen. And amen.

And this is the beautiful church year. A thing that Christine Weibel did for the center of few years. Back will be talking about it later. I just felt I should put it up before I do anything else. The early church knew about this stuff. Introduction to the first century church and introductory visit. I one more thing and I dedicate this teaching to all who've gone before all who are here today and Beyond here today and all those who are going to come after. And there are many, I hope that will come after.

To instructor. Learn from any culture. We need to experience that culture or we impose our own unreal expectations on the culture. If you want to learn what it is to be. Like in Italy, you need to be in Italy. If you want to learn what it's like to be in Germany. You need to like be in Germany. If you want to understand a little bit about Israel, you need to go to Israel. You can learn from books. You can learn from podcast, you can learn from other things, but it's good to visit the culture and try to learn from it in the presence of the culture. We must avoid being crippled by the enemy within us our own ethnocentrism. So there's a guy named Charles craft. He was a Bible students at Wheaton and 19th in the 1950s, Charles crafty wrote a book many years later called anthropology for Christian Witness. And that's that, where this idea comes from. He he was a rookie freshman. He didn't know what he wanted to do. What major he wanted to have, and he asked his roommate who was apparently more senior than him and the roommate said, there's only one once subject, you can major in that's going to be relevant for Christian witness. And he said, what's that? And he listed you don't have Knology the different things you could do as a Christian because of all those things are majors in college at Wheaton, but but he said no no answer Pieology. And he thought that was the stupidest thing you've ever heard, but after he got into the idea of it because you're right. You're right, if if I want to instruct at a culture in the truth that I know, I need to know who they are, first. I can't I can't pour Christianity down their throat and let them get it. Well, yeah, many. Many years later. The church missionary world knows. This is absolutely true. You have to speak to the culture that you're in, so that's Charles craft. The Lord's presence and power. So the topic learning to walk with the Lord's presence. Title of the series learning to walk with or in the Lord's presence. Our world today is experiencing conflict and traditions and many different worldviews. We almost can't get into a conversation without having some kind of a polarity, and opposition, a shattering of a bonds lining up on two sides of an aisle of putting people in boxes. So we don't have to deal with them etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's something it's just really part of us. So what can we learn from the church of the what? What do we know about the church WIll? These are things. We know about the church so I can send out slides. If you want. I'll copies you can write down your email address on a sheet of paper and I'll send them out after the fact. I started to try to make a hand. But it's got two big two quick. So I gave up on it. These are the things we can learn. These are the things we know kind of about the church. The, a United with worshiping Community if the church isn't worshiping together. If they're not United, it's not about the holy spirit. It's not about the Lord Jesus. It's not about the energy of the body. It's divisive in some form. So unified worshiping, the one true Lord. Misora, we learn about traditions. We have many Traditions. Each one of us has any traditions, Mister is a missionary awkward for tradition of some of the synagogue and Temple, tequila prayer. It's not just prayer but it's communication. It's conversation. It's flipping up needs asking begging God. Mizmor Shir, Tom, my skills. So these are these are four words, four songs in the New Testament. We say songs, hymns, and spiritual songs and everyone thinks. Well, what's the difference? They're all the same. Well, even in the Old Testament, they knew they weren't quite the same. They had different words with different nuances and these are some of those words. Amuse. Maurice a song. A Shear. It's like I like shears is or sheer. Make Atomic Tom is apparently a rhythmic kind of thing going on and my skill is apparently something that the goal of it is to teacher instructed wisdom, but they're all names for Psalms there. Aren't that many songs named? Psalms.

There are other things. There are a hundred fifty songs, but I only only a few of them actually recalled songs theme. Appraised and confessions. So maybe this is a Yad. These are two yadim or these are yadim. It's a dual dual plural like and what do hands do? They lift up praise? They also confess. So there's no difference between praising. God and confessing to God. Praising is confessing confessing is praising. Are we get them kind of confused in English, but in Hebrew, they're not confusing at all. It's the same thing. But Surah taubah good news. So what's the good news? All the scriptures, good news, prayer and praise is good. News is what's a good news? We share, good news all the time. With each other. It could be a pregnancy. Could be a mother moving from Washington State all the way to Ohio. Praise the Lord, that's good news.

Sarit Hadad of our ministry or service of the word. What's the word, its Torah? The five books of Moses hot, for off the prophets, Brit hadasha, the New Testament, it comes from Jeremiah. 31:31 says, I will I will put a new covenant in their hearts, New Covenant. And prayer and praise. And me is more songs. If you, if you think about first-century worshiping, you're not including songs, you're missing part of it, cuz they actually sang songs every week and they were well-known the songs and it's it's we're learning that today. Set a car collection for the Saints missions as a Rheem veteran, Covenant of the pieces of Neil. So this is talking about the Covenant between Abraham and God. Wait a minute. There were two parties that went through the pieces of flaming fire and a smoking fire pot flaming torch in the smoking fire pot to where was Abraham. He was asleep. God said, on this day, I made a covenant with Abraham. Going to scratch your head. Who passed between the fire who passed between the pieces. Flaming torch smoking, fire pot.

Let your mind. Go images. Images, images. Flaming torch. Over the holy of holies. Smoking, fire, pot Ultra sacrifice.

God, the Father.

Sacrificial son.

God made a covenant with himself. But he made a covenant with himself, my view and the person of your shoe.

Great image. That's the Covenant of the pieces of the pieces is key to understanding what we do every week. We receive communion. We receive the Eucharist, whatever we want to call it. We receive the Lord's body and blood. We, we enter into a covenant. We we, we We join an existing Covenant every week.

It's important to realize that goes back to God, making a covenant with Abraham. Covenant biblical principle to parties reconcile ruach hakodesh. The Holy Spirit. We're learning about the Holy Spirit and fellowship. This is an interesting word because there's no Hebrew word for Fellowship. Is that interesting? Not one. Koinonia. Koinonia.

Fellowship.

Interesting. It is interesting. They're like four or five different words that can come from it. But Koinonia is a fellowship. So what's fellowship mean? It means helping one another sharing with one another doing things together celebrating lies together. That kind of stuff. There's a favorite story. Do I used to tell of this suborn? I think it's in Iowa, I think, and the barn was in a floodplain. And it's a, it's a like a hundred-year-old 200 year old barn. And it's the love Barn in the community, but the waters, come up every year and fled, the barn. And they've got all these repairs to make. And And they're thinking about tearing down the barn and building a new one. And the father goes. No, this is a wonderful Old Barn. There's got to be a way to get this Barn moved from here up there to the higher faster. And so he says son, you're an engineer. A hopeless Nerd Like Me. Can you figure out how to do this? So that son got out of slide rule or whatever in his pencil and he started Computing and he figured out how to put boards around the barn and steals things and everything else. And and I got the whole Community together and they picked up the whole Barn. They picked up the whole barn and carried it up to the upper fields and put it on the foundation if they pour in place for it. And so, do I like to say? He he doesn't call it Fellowship. He calls it fellow chip chip in. Help out. Do your part. Let's all do this together. So, that's not an Old Testament word. It is a concept. It's in the Old Testament, but it's not not not, not a big deal in the New Testament. It's a big deal. This Fellowship part is a big deal. So that's something we can learn from the early church by studying the Bible. so, To instruct, or learn from any culture. We need to experience the culture or we impose our own unreal expectations. Charles craft wrote to avoid being crippled by the enemy within us. Our own ethnocentrism. Andrew's ruinous, and he was at one of the contributing authors for Paul within Judaism. He wrote. This is interesting. We must decolonize the past when we read about the early church. If we're putting our idea of what the early church was on the early church were colonizing it. We're treating it like a superior power, where the power and they're the peons that have to obey our whatever's. You with me. We have to decolonize the past and Liberate the Dead. Who can't speak unless we liberate them so they can say what they have to say from the Yoke of a hermeneutical burden. That's theirs. Not theirs to carry as weedy familiarize ourselves with the New Testament, culture are being in a place. That's not our own is a twenty-first-century, not a first-century problem to solve and I agree with that 100%, These are two similar ideas from different points of view. But the whole idea is we need to visit the early church if we can't get as close to it as we can. So we're going to try. We can't get there, but we can try and we can get as close as we can and we can get closer than any other people since the destruction of the temple and more every year. We know more every year. We it's amazing. How did we get here? How did we get here today? Simple God, brought us here.

If you're here today, God brought you here. I don't have a better explanation.

Our stories. I started this 27 years ago. someone said, you know, if you're going to do to read Jesus Bible.

What do you mean? Well, you know, they read Torah and after every week.

If Jesus did it, if it's good enough for Jesus. Maybe it's good enough for me. So I started attending a Torah study at the White's house. So study and worship near Jesus feet study. What worship? How, how close can we get, what's known? Well, like James said, we live in an incredible time, each year, brings us more information and more access. I mean, a lot more information and a lot more access. And it's real years ago. When I was a kid, people would say archaeological evidence has proved, and they pull out something, and then you'd read like a year later that that has been completely disproved. And I hate it when Christians put forward something, proving something that finally gets disproved and discredits Christianity and worse. Discredits God. But today we have more real evidence than any other people on the face of the Earth. And when we have more real evidence than any other people have on the face of the Earth since 70 AD the world says,

it's old news. The world doesn't know its new news more everyday. Here's a couple examples. This is one of my favorite pieces of paper Papyrus. This is John. This is Mark. News of only been discovered in the last 50 years and the early late second early. Third. This is early 2nd Century. John. The Apostle may have scrote scribe this piece of part of a Papyrus. It's entirely possible that he wrote it.

Here's another one. This is Solomon Schechter. They they, they found a Cairo, a geneza in Cairo, Egypt and Tunisia. Schecter later on it, but they found over I think it's over four thousand pieces of paper and they go. Well, this is really cool. We better check this out and let her figure out what's going on here. So he went to Egypt 400,000 fragments. Fx-890. Say to Reem 891 connections between the Torah and the half through were found in this room from those scraps of paper. Mostly in in London now.

He began the work. That others began and other people continued after him and other people continue in after him. And today we have the best knowledge of what the readings were between the Torah and the after a than anyone has since probably since I don't know long time ago. This is a 1950s. These Are Dead Sea Scrolls Scholars. They're studying the Scrolls and they didn't know what they were doing when they were doing that. They did as well as they could. So they took the Dead Sea Scrolls, and tape them together with Scott. Anyone ever see what Scotch tape does to paper after 30 years. How about if you leave it out in the sunlight? That really helps. It doesn't it? And putting it under glass, really protects it. I know it doesn't a lot of these Scrolls were destroyed because they didn't know how to protect them. This was in the fifties, but they found them and they did work and I'm not criticizing him. They did the best they could and now we know a whole lot better and they're more Protected Their better protected today than ever before. So we're we praise God. That we have these. But it's recent. These are both relatively recent in the in the history of the church. Amazing. So that's enough on that. I'm going to just start this off with a few sayings of Jesus because maybe it's good to get back to Jesus, huh? Yep. Have you ever heard this one? I am the light of the world.

Or this one, you're the light of the world. Or this one. I am the vine. You are the branches. Or this one into your hands. I commend my spirit. All familiar sings. We kind of all know where they come from. And if you don't their reference there. So this is something you maybe don't know. This is the temple herod's temple, and they had Artisans craft golden Vines. Didn't know that. Did you most of you didn't see these golden Vines all the way up to there and then go all the way down? With grape clusters. The grape clusters are about as tall as I am. About this big gold. If you were a first-century Judea and you worshipped in the temple, and you heard Jesus say, I am the vine. You are the branches.

Would that happen?

I think it would, I think you'd go. Yeah. The entrance to the Holy Temple. Yeah. Right. Is anyone not getting this?

Are you just too embarrassed to say schnectady? I hope that's clear enough. Here's another one. I am the light of the world. You are the light of the world. What if you were there at Tabernacle and saw this?

Would that?

Would it would to me you're the light of the world?

And this one? Bedtime prayer. And your hands is life and breath and the breath of man. Into your hands. I commend my spirit. I'm going to translate this into English. I know it's already English.

Say it with me. Now. I lay me down to sleep. I pray, the Lord. My soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord, my soul to take and to your hands. I commend my spirit. It's written in the JPS guide to Jewish translations. That this is commonly said as a bedtime prayer around the time of the first century. And it meant, I'm going to go to sleep now. But God's going to race me in the morning.

Get it. That's something you didn't know about the, your first century church. I think. I think it's important. We need to get closer as close as we can. Without this, these Jewish references. We wouldn't know any of this stuff. Without the recordings of how this stuff was lit. How that stuff was made. We would know any of it, but we know more of it today, then we've known since the destruction of the Temple.

Praise You. Lord Caso first-century Church, simple. We all know all about the first century Church. Right. We all know about the First Baptist Church at the corner of

no. What do we know about the first century Church? Not as much as we think. Let's try to think about it. And in my opinion, I go. Okay. So, how do you break this down? How do you break this gun? I broke it into three main pieces. First of all, the early Jewish believers. That's key that without that nothing else could happen. Then you have the the the incoming of the of the new Gentile Believers, the ethnos the the other nations, you got those people and then you have I called the increased Latin expansion and dominance face. Now, you can get real negative about any one of these and say they're all messed up. But if you're doing that, what you're doing, is you're saying these guys don't know what to doing and you're taking them and you're throwing them in a box. You got them in a box. You not even thinking about who they are anymore. You've zeroed out the relevance in your life. You canceled them a new term that we use. Don't be canceling. These people. These are early first chance that the first century Believers. So these are these are all important few dates. Jesus, resurrection early. Believers Peter, Holy Spirit and Cornelius roughly seven years later, Paul in Syria, roughly 10 years later, the Jerusalem Council. Finally had the deal with what was going on because there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. All these Gentiles are receiving the Holy Spirit, which had never happened before. And the other thing that we don't yet is these Jews had received the Holy Spirit. And we cancel that out we go, huh? No, the Holy Spirit. Not well, maybe the Holy Spirit was active then but he's not active. Now. You see what we do. We put people and things in boxes, we cancel it. No. Let's see what we can learn. So that's why we're doing this.

Around 50, c, e, Christian era, 50 bad. The Jerusalem Council met and martyrdom kind of kicked in Full Tilt around, 50. Constantine had a weird dream in 312. Banner.

In this conquer, we'll talk about that later. But that's an overview of the three major sections phases, of 1st Century, Christianity expansion. And dominance is like 160. But it starts before that. So that's why I'm including it in the breakdown. Jewish believers. They did a lot of things. They were tour, observant and Temple in synagogue, liturgies. They had feasts. Roughly nine, roast roast meme machine. Fast daily and seasonal worship Community prayers Nazarite vows offering sacrifices confessions Simeon, prayed for Israel's consolation is a whole lot of stuff. We know about the early Jewish believers.

One thing we aren't realizing is they all came from one sect, right?

Not likely. So was what was Peter? Was he a Pharisee or said you see? He was a regular Jew.

I want of the average, Joe juice. Sorry, Joe.

So, we're going to visit the first-century Jews. I love imagining myself being there. And when I imagine myself being there, it changes my view of what the place is like and what the fellowship is like and what the people like these are pictures of.

How do I remember his name?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is Cesar. It's Leon rittmeyer, took pictures of the temple put together by.

A retired teacher in England. He got a, a great Fascination for the temple. I remember it later. Anyway, Leon rittmeyer was very impressed with this man's work and he decided he take really, really good photographs of it and they're the most beautiful pictures of the temple and the most representative of what it probably looked like in the day that we have available. And when I was a kid, I wouldn't have imagined it looked like this at all.

This is the

okay. So the East is that way. That's the Mount of Olives over there. This is the Royal store. It's three stories high. It's on this end. And this is the Pinnacle of the Temple. This is where the trumpeters woods would stand and blow the shofar or the trumpets, and they blow them out in this direction cuz this is where almost all the population live. You can kind of imagine all the people hearing it from.

Where you're at?

Can you hear it?

So the wall, we just looked at the corner. We just looked at down there.

This is the Southern Wall from the southwest Southern Wall from the southeast.

This is the double gate. This is the triple gate. This is a council house. The bathhouse.

This is the original.

Eastern Gate. When you go to Jerusalem today, you won't see the skate. You see the Golden Gate looks like that. The thing you don't realize is the Golden Gate which is a Byzantine gate was constructed using these massive lentils. From the original Golden Gate. From the original Eastern Gate. So, when you look at the Golden Gate today? Some food. Some say he watches Ben Byzantine. That's not real. It's real. It's the same gate.

Just a little bit fancier built by the byzantines. The Muslims did a curious thing. They knew that no self-respecting Jew Jewish Messiah would ever cross a graveyard to enter the city.

The thing they didn't realize is if your risen from the dead. Fraternal life for judgement. You're no longer dead.

It's not a cemetery.

You got to study your Bible.

This is Deanna tonyia Fortress. This is where a lot of the things that happened in the New Testament around the around the Crucifixion took place and this is where Paul got into all this trouble. Probably in this Courtyard up here. This is a beautiful picture. These are the candelabras. Something like 70 ft tall. I think each, huh? Well, I'll tell you. They had a priest, a young priest, not an old priest like me. Climb up there with 8 gallons of olive oil.

This, this is Kyle right there.

Hahaha, good morning, year old.

Yeah, he was doing, he can't carry eight gallons of oil and, and, and they took the priest's clothing and made the wicks for the Candelabra out of the priest's clothing. So, it wasn't a regular where it was wholly as a wholly Wick. And so, they let these things up at night and you already saw a picture what it look like at night, right? So, this is, this is pretty incredible. And this is the great Improvement that they say, was made to the women's court. And the reason they made this Improvement in the women's court, is the women wanted to see what was going on. They didn't want to be stuck down below. They wanted to go, that's pretty cool. And so they made this great Improvement to the women's court and they could observe what was going on at Tabernacles. And these lights were LIT All Night Long. And this is the Feast of Tabernacles.

Is there another Feast when they let these? There's at least one more. Do you know what it is? Hanukkah, yeah, so at one of these two feasts, Jesus said, I'm the light of the world, you're the light of the world and it Hanukkah, they said,

They wanted him dead and he knew, they wanted him dead and he said. So which of the Miracles? Have I performed that you? You want me dead for and I go out. No. No, you can do as many miracles as you want. That's not a problem.

Claiming to be the Son of God is a problem. That's why we want. You did. Go ahead before miracles. Weird. Lisa, these steps right here. There, 15 Steps. From this court up to that Court. And all these 15 Steps. They sang, the 15 Psalms of ascent. Psalm 1. 19 through 130 Forest think, 124 u15. Got it, right. And the talmud says that on the steps they had musicians without number. More musicians than you can imagine. We're praising God on a steps. And this is the early church. Yeah, it's juice to but the early church were Jews. So they're celebrating in the Tabernacle in the temple. there's more to this, but that's enough for now. Synagogues Vespasian destroyed around 70 CE Jerusalem's. I couldn't believe this. I thought they can't be right 480. Synagogues in Jerusalem.

The Romans destroyed 480, synagogues in Jerusalem and then make a big deal out of the idea that it's not just a synagogue. Each synagogue has a school house, a house for learning, a house for scripture and a house for learning mishna, so Wow. That's kind of like this church. We have different classrooms. It's kind of like that. I think, but 489, how many different groups of synagogues? Do you think there are, you think they all got along with each other or that they were all a little bit unique and how they viewed things.

They may have been a little bit unique. They may have had big differences. And the New Testament Believers came from and attended these synagogues. With all kinds of differences. So they weren't like unified together and what they believed and thought except for one thing. Jesus is Lord. That's pretty much it. The rest of the stuff we can talk about.

An Apostolic scriptures list, 24 cities with synagogue. So they were pretty pretty common. This is the synagogue in Capernaum. Where Jesus taught. This is a guy, you know what he's doing.

Huh? The guy with the cart.

That's a better. Guess than what I was going to guess. No, that's what's in it. The Scrolls. So they're not going to keep the Scrolls in a synagogue are going to keep him someplace, really, really safe and they're going to bring him to the synagogue to be red and they're going to protect him. It's going to be a very special card. This is not the donut Ministry. Bagels, and lox.

That's Moses, eat an example of Moses. Eat in a different synagogue. This is how it worked out. This is capernum. Again. This is Leon written Mars, best architectural sketches that we can find and so they would bring the Scrolls and you can see the scroll cart over here. They bring the scroll out to the reading platform. The guy who's the attendant would have people come up to read their B7 readers, 7th, reader would read from there from the Torah and then he would read from the prophets and then he would sit down. And he did sit down over here. He sat down here. And this is where the guest lecture for the weak spot from from the state of Moses. So Jesus stood up right from the scroll of Isaiah, it was assigned. That the guy gave him the scroll, and he read from it. He didn't say, let me see if I can find that. You know how hard it is for us to find a verse in the Bible with numbers? A little harder in a scruple, right? No numbers, no spaces, no valma. No chapter heading to go to scroll with it.

I call it scrolling.

So the attendant would bring it in and take it up to the reader. The reader would read read, read seven, different readers. The last one read from the scripture from Torah, and then he'd read from the prophets. Jesus read from the prophets, and then he sat down to teach our Bible. Still stayed sat down to teach, but that's clearly what it means. So, that's one synagogue, Burnham one that we identify with cuz Jesus actually taught there. Now, we found Capernaum, synagogue. And a lot of people say, well, that was much later. Jesus didn't teaching. This synagogue, will the thing you don't realize it is, if you go down to the foundation of the synagogue in Capernaum, it's Basalt and the basalt Foundation. Under the synagogue in Capernaum is from the time of Jesus. So we know and we didn't know this before, but we know it now. The basalt foundation of the synagogue at Capernaum, is the synagogue in Capernaum that Jesus taught in. That's really cool. I think this is gamla. There's other synagogues. Those are the ones that we have. Found it that are well-documented. We personally been in the one in Masada. I think Kyle's been in gamla and maybe magdala. I'm not sure. Yep.

Jewish Believers, so this is first century, Jewish believers. Very diverse team for just about every background in Judaism. It came to Faith In Jesus, but they still have their cultural baggage that they're carrying with them.

Takes awhile to get that bag of sort it out. In my life, anyway.

Within Judaism, they were not separatists. They were not, they were Jews. We're here together. We're in the family of Jews. We're, we're not going to do our own thing over there in the Dead Sea, or, or go somewhere else and do our own thing. We're not going to be separate us. We're going to be in the community. We're going to. We're going to communicate in the community doesn't matter. If we agree on everything, we can discuss it. We can are good. We can study it. We can debate it, but we don't have to be separate. We can stay in the community. That's an important thing. I very important thing in the first century. Does it matter how much disagreement you are with everyone else? You're in community.

Apostles teaching in-depth Torah studies. So in the Jewish community in Jerusalem, these guys were used to hearing. Torah explicated in a very detailed way and they got to be very smart about it. They got to they got to actually

The challenge would be. Where is he going to go with this today? And, and when I'm teaching at church the Messiah, I know there are people sitting the congregation going. We're going to go with this today.

That's what Jesus did. And that's another whole session. Not going to go there. In-depth or study? So the Jewish Believers initially were really in-depth, they met in the temple. Courts. They studied with the great sages. They brought that home. They talked about what they learned under great teachers, and it was very in-depth. The first century Jews were Torah, observant, and we get kind of I freaked out on what that might mean. David plooster said that doesn't mean what you think. It means first-century torah-observant. Not in the way that some of the supercilious Pharisees were, but in a, in a first-century Biblical Torah observance. That's how Jesus was tore. Observant will talk more about the Sabbath breaking in the eating grain and stuff like that. Jesus was tore up servant. He didn't violate tore up. The New Testament Believers were tour. Observant in that sense. I called it. They were Jesus observant. So they heard The Sermon on the Mount. They understood that it's deeper than the simple minutiae of the law. The weightier matters so to speak. Church growth, the church expanded blue, just blew up basically huge growth powerful culture within a more powerful culture, but it continued to explode because of this teaching in the temple courts and house-to-house. I think I think these two elements were critical to the early church to the very very early church. They met in the temple courts daily. They studied with the top stages in the world. And they brought it home, and they talked about what they learned today. The dads are the maybe women maybe women were there. I don't know. I don't have a thing of it against women studying Torah. Do you know, I don't

some shirts cultures do Not here. And then and then home fellowship. So what they learned in the temple courts in depth tour study. They brought home and Sheridan, home fellowships bread, kneading bread and and so on and so forth. And the Lord added to the numbers being saved daily and, and the early Church of the Jewish, Believers grew and grew and grew new ethnos Believers. So, this is, this is the first new ethnos Believers Greeks. Greek, not great.

Jewish. Peter's in Jerusalem. Here's Jerusalem. and he goes out on his regular thing and it goes here to Lida. And heals a man and then he's called here and he goes to Joppa. Any he raised Dorcas or Tabitha? And then he's staying he's staying out at the Simon. The Tanner's house in Joppa and drop is near the sea and Simon is a Tanner and you know what Tanner is used to tan their stuff.

Spray urine.

And other stuff.

It was actually considered legitimate for a woman who had married, a Tanner to request a writ of divorce. Without argument.

That was the one profession that if a woman came in and said, I want a divorce, the guy would go. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

I could do that either.

Here. Queen Jew. Hanging out in the Tanners house. Not surprising is on the roof.

With the wind blowing in from the sea.

I guess this guy who tells him, you got to go to Cornelius house because Dirty. Romans house. I'm going to hang out here with my clean Tanner friend.

It's a Nuance in the text that you wouldn't get if you didn't think about it. But when you think about it, you go.

I thought it was. Nope. Nope.

School really cool. So he goes all the way up to cornelia's house and sister, you know, so sorry. It was a very nice place. Nice place. Nice digs. Who wants to live there?

Yeah. Yeah, they got this. Unbelievable aqueduct. About nine miles long. That's because they didn't have freshwater here. They actually had 3, aquaducks. This just happens to be the biggest one and this Aqueduct actually delivered water. Sufficient water to the homes. In Cesery that exceed. What we do with water every day in America.

The average Roman citizen in Cesery. I had more fresh water than we do today. Wow, that's upper crust.

That's amazing. Annette. Nice neighborhood. How do you think this compared with Peter's house?

Not quite the same. Roman neighborhood. Nice place, nice neighborhood. I'd actually prefer to live with Peter. Okay, so that's enough on the Roman new believer, right? Okay. Okay. So here's the Antioch. So up here is Antioch in Syria. There's another one up here, but we're going to talk to him about that one right here. So from Jerusalem up to Antioch, they heard. That people are coming to Faith.

Holy Spirit was being given. People are being healed.

So they called for Barnabas to check it out to Barnabas goes up. Many people came to Faith in Antioch and Barnabas needed help. He goes over to Tarsus and gets brings him back to Antioch and they hang out there for a year teaching people and they didn't know what they call these guys, their syrians.

No, they decided to call them something. They never called anyone before. Christian. It may have been a derogatory comment. I don't know, but they decided to call him Christian. This is the first place that we were that people were called Christians, not Jerusalem Antioch, so they called Christians there. And they taught him for a year. And then Paul decides. It's going to take a journey and he goes from Antioch over to this place salamis and it goes from salamis to Panthers, then up the Peugeot and then up to Antioch of pisidia the other Antioch to antioch's. And then there were three other cities. He went to and then he came back and it goes back. And then he came to Faith. So, these are a lot of different kinds of Gentiles. Galatians Iconium Lister Derby, but would they had many many, many new Believers that came to safe. Gentiles. Let's take a brief. Look at the Nations involved. That we're talkin about here. Armenia a serious Cypress. Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, india-iran, Italy, Persia Spain and turkey. And not all the nations. All the nations were included. Not just Jewish. They eventually established and Apostolic Church structure early on in the church. They begin saying, well. Let's find where John is and let's look at John's letters. Let's have John read his letters. Let's have the apostles read their original letters. And so the, the the original places where people would go as a major centers for church or where these apostles were at, but they were going kind of all over the place. We'll talk about more of that later. Eventually, this established into an Apostolic Church structure, teachers tour intro. Now to the Gentiles, they worth so much into this detailed in-depth Torah study. They were more involved in the fellowship and the teaching that you could get from a guy who came in for a weekend. Not quite Temple, courts daily. Little bit less expectations academically.

How did they grow? They grow through the Holy Spirit primarily through teaching and also through persecution. If you want to read about the Holy Spirit, read Gordon fees book. He wrote three wonderful books and I'll highly recommend this one. He wrote a great book called God's empowering presence, which is about this dick about that big and it kind of goes along with Pauline christology about this thick about that big and going to see was really smart or is that it or was someone decided he needed to write a book that regular people could read.

This is that book, Paul the spirit and the people of God. If you want to read about the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, this is the first place I would recommend you go and all the way through this book. You'll see parentheses. Gep 324. God's empowering presence, so he's giving you references to the other books. Dwight. And I talked about this a lot. And I've taught it three times.

Gordon b. F e, e.

Paul the spirit. And the people of God, is the first go to book. Are Gordon C. Interesting enough? He's a

Comes to the Pentecostal background. but when he went to Seminary, his Pentecostal congregation friends said, when you rather be a believer on fire than a scholar on ice. And he said, I don't know why it's caller. Can't be on fire.

Yeah. So, there's a lot of horses and I can send out slides. Roman Church introduction. When did it start? Well, it started 161 BC. One 61 BC. Why? Well, the Greek Solutions were running amok against the Jewish people, and the Jewish people decided. We better find some friends. So they sent a delegation to Rome. It was not an Empire yet. It was not an Empire until 27 BC. It was a republic 161 BCE and that those are the references. Matt First Maccabees 8 and Josephus Antiquities, and they made friends with Rome and from that point forward. They were friends with Rome. Israel was friends with Rome from 161 BC. The relationship with Rome was ancient and Rome was the largest and still is, I think Jewish population in Europe. Going back that far. And it's the largest one of the largest in the world going back that far. So these are the major dates Shavuot. We've got lots of things going on and we imagined some Romans were involved in this event in for free. According to the Catholic Church Peter founded, the Roman Church in Rome in 49. There was some tension rising over this and we don't know what it means but it's called the Christos Affair as a Christian. What would you think Cristos if there is