Updates, Changes, and Mandymonium

For the past several years I’ve mostly used this space to post, organize, and keep track of lessons I made for the Middle School Sunday School class I taught. With the curriculum completed, I really didn’t post much outside of updates. I’m hoping to revitalize this space. I’m working on updates for the website and perhaps biggest of all: a new podcast to be hosted from this website!

Mandymonium will be my new podcast, coming later summer! The idea is that on the first of each month I’ll post an episode, just me, where I review all the books movies, TV shows, comics, and other story-based media that I read/watched that month. On the 15th I will post an episode where I talk with a friend or fellow podcaster out there about a story they love. I love talking to people about things they love, and I’m always interested in reading/watching other people’s favorite things! I have a few episodes already lined up, but may be opening it to guest spots soon. Be on the look out for that if you are interested!

Watch this space! At least a new podcast is coming, and hopefully soon more!

Christianity and Politics 2020 Edition

Once every four years our nation becomes overrun with politics. That’s all anyone talks about in the build up to the presidential election. Every political buzzword is floating in the air, adults are arguing—sometimes for fun, often these days angrily—and even to the most political savvy adult it can be overwhelming. There is just so much to keep track of, so many insults being hurled, so many causes we need to care about. Overwhelming is really the only word for it.

So today we’re going to talk about politics. Just to set this up, we’re not going to talk about specific political candidates or even specific ideological causes. We’re going to talk higher level than that—we’re going to talk about what it means to be a Christian in a world of politics, how we can do our best to navigate all of this.

Because the thing about being a Christian in America is that politicians are always trying to use your faith to get you to vote for them. They are always going to try to say “look I’m a Christian too” or “look I support your values vote for me.” I mean I just did a quick google and here are some headlines I found in like five minutes about candidates and faith—and of course the clincher “How would Jesus vote?”

When I was a kid there was a big saying “What would Jesus do?” People wore bracelets. Our pastors encouraged us to ask this question about everything we did—what would Jesus do in our situation. And that’s not bad advice at all! But it gets weird and hard sometimes, because it can be an abstract question. Jesus was a Jewish man in the first century. We are American Christians in the twenty-first century. So it’s not that we can’t look at Jesus words and think about them and come up with an opinion of what we think Jesus would do—we can certainly do that. No, what’s hard, is that we do have to use our imagination and come up with an opinion—not a fact—which means two different Christians can come up with two different answers to the question of “how would Jesus vote?”

That’s not to say that Jesus was completely silent on the matter of politics. Let’s open our Bibles to Matthew 22:15-22. While you flip there, a reminder of the political world that Jesus lived in.

Jesus was a Jewish man living in Israel during the Roman Empire. Once upon a time the Romans had a Republic, but not during Jesus’s time. Jesus was born after Caesar Augustus became the first Emperor of Rome. Rome still had a Senate, but it didn’t work like our Senate, you didn’t get to vote for Senators, and the Senate’s power was extremely diminished during the Empire.

Jesus wasn’t considered a citizen of the Roman empire. He had no say in how things went in his government. He couldn’t vote for a Senator; he had no choice in who became emperor. Israel—or rather Judea as it was known—wasn’t considered a firmly Roman area. Rather Judea was a hot bed of dissension. Most Jewish people didn’t like that they had been conquered by the Romans. They didn’t want to be part of the empire. They wanted to be free.

Jesus would have had no right to vote, no say in his government, no ability to control any part of anything. The Romans ruled, and the Jewish people in Judea were just trying to survive it.

So one day Jesus is out and about and the religious leaders of his time ask him a question—a political and religious question. So someone read Matthew 22:15-22.

15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” 18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20 Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 21 They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

So these Pharisees don’t like Jesus and they’re trying to trap him, to get him in trouble. The Herodians that are there too? They are basically a political party who support Rome. So here we have a religious group and a political group, Jesus, and some of his followers. And the Pharisees ask Jesus a tricky question. They’re like “Hey, we know you’re sincere and want to follow God to the best of your ability. So tell us, do you think we should pay taxes?”

A lot of people at the time felt like they shouldn’t be paying taxes to Rome, for a lot of reasons, some religious and some political. The Pharisees view Jesus as a radical, they expect him to say something radical. And if Jesus had, if he said they shouldn’t pay taxes, the Herodians would have told on him to the political leaders of the time—said that Jesus was defying Rome and trying to start a revolution. They could have gotten Jesus arrested for sure.

But what does Jesus say? He says “Give unto Caesar what is Caesars.”

That verse is quoted quite a lot, sometimes even outside of the context of the Bible and Christianity. But what does it mean? What do you guys think Jesus was saying?

[Let them answer]

Jesus tells them that Caesar’s face is on the coin and therefore it belongs to Caesar, and because it belongs to Caesar they should pay it back to Caesar, obey his laws. Just is basically saying “Obey the law of the land.” These laws are Caesars and they don’t interfere with any of God’s laws, so they should pay their taxes.

So if there is one political point that Jesus is super clear on, it’s we should pay our taxes.

But this idea of us obeying the law of the land, it is something that is reiterated later in the Bible, something that Paul also speaks on. Paul writes about it in his letter to the Roman church, the church in Rome, the seat of the Roman Empire. Rome is like Washington DC to us, except it’s even more powerful-it’s like if you took Washington DC, New York, LA, and Chicago, and rolled them into one city, and if you didn’t live there you wouldn’t really have any political voice. It’s not just A city, it’s THE city. So let’s see what Paul says in Romans 13:1-7.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4 for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

Remember that Paul is a subject of the Roman government. He is a citizen, but that didn’t give him the ability to vote, it just gave him a few more rights.

This entire section here, Paul is talking about how you need to obey your government. You need to understand that back then, just like now, tax money was taken from people and put into things they didn’t believe in. The emperor could use tax money to build a temple to the Roman gods if he wanted, and that was definitely not something Christians were cool with. But taxes also went to good things like roads, like they do now.

Paul is also writing during a time when the Roman emperors were a little off their rockers. The Roman emperors of this era did things like put their favorite horse in the Senate—yes a horse. They also actively jailed and persecuted Christians.

So Paul is telling people here to obey their government…but the government has also told them that Christianity is illegal, so…how can I obey my government and be part of an illegal religions. Isn’t that a logical fallacy?

Well Paul’s underlying assumption in all of his words—the underlying assumption of every Biblical writer—is that faith in Jesus and practices of the church come first, come before the government. Always, always God first.

We see this in Acts. Remember the book of Acts is basically the history of the early church as written by Luke, the same guy who wrote the gospel of Luke. In this section, Peter and some of the other apostles are jailed by the high priest and the Senate of Israel for preaching about Jesus and they're told not to preach anymore. But an angel comes and releases Peter et al in the night and tells them to go and continue spreading the word. The high priest then demands them to be recaptured and brought before him. Okay someone read Acts 5:27-32

27 When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.” 29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. 30 The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

So is Peter obeying his government here? The high priest and if you look back even the Senate of Israel told them NOT to preach anymore, but he's still doing it. Why?

"We must obey God rather than men."

Boom. There it is.

It's one thing to give tax money to your government and then they use it against your conscious. It's another thing entirely for you yourself to personally do an act that goes against God.

There's several Old Testament story that exemplifies this. The most famous is probably Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow to a false idol—even though that is the law of the land. Because bowing to false idols goes against God’s law. And because of that they get punished, thrown in a fiery furnace.

If you know the story, you know God saves them from the furnace, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes we have to stand against our government and we get fed to the lions, as it the case of the Christians during the early church.

But first, backing up, to this is America! We do get to vote! We’re not like Paul, or Jesus, or Shadrach Meshach, and Abednego, trapped in a government where we get no voice!

We do get a voice! We have a constitutionally protected right to speak our voice, the first amendment. We also get to vote! We get to choose our leaders! Welcome to the twenty-first century and America! Welcome to democracy!

Democracy. We live in a democracy right? We get to vote and have a voice and make decisions, right?

Well sort of. We don’t live in a direct democracy. In a direct democracy the people vote on every single law, every single item there is. The people directly govern. Direct democracies are very hard to have on a large scale. There hasn’t really been any outside of city sized places, I think, like ancient Athens, and even then one of the ways they controlled it was by limited who was a citizen, who was actually allowed to vote. Trying to arrange a direct democracy in the USA where we have 300 million people, it would be a lot!

We don’t have a direct democracy, we have a Republic. It’s right there in the pledge of allegiance. So what does it mean that we live in a Republic? It means we vote for people to represent us in governing. We vote for senators and congressmen who then vote for us on laws. Their job is to represent us, and sometimes they do it well and sometimes they don’t.

So I’m going to tell you something contradictory: you should always vote. You should always use your chance to affect our government and who represents you, but you also have very little control over what your government does.

There is a song about this in the musical Hamilton, it’s called “The Room Where it Happens.” In the song, Aaron Burr talks about how politicians do a lot of work we don’t see, behind the scenes. They make deals, and trade things away, and other than the ability to elect them, we have no control over what they do.

So you can elect someone you think will be great, but once they’re in office they could do something completely crazy and against everything you stand for. That is the nature of Republics, the nature of our government, and the politicians know that.

Politicians want to be elected. I’m not saying they don’t have personal beliefs and values, things they want to see enacted or passed, but they know to stay in the place of power—the place where they can enact things—they need to be re-elected, or elected in the first place.

Most politicians will say anything to secure your vote. They will promise things that never come to pass. They will play on your fears and appeal to your beliefs, because what they want from you is your vote. And often we take them at face value and we vote for them, and then they get in office and do nothing that they said they would. Because all they needed from us was our vote.

That’s why you need to take everything a politician says with a grain of salt. That’s why you need to be skeptical of them, and above all—never, ever put your faith in a politician. We want our leaders to save the day, but they won’t. They can’t save us.

Only Jesus can.

This means that sometimes your government, even your elected government, can go off the rails. It can do things you don’t want it to do. And we can feel helpless, because who are we? We are just people. Not powerful people. At best we’re average people. Sometimes we’re just small people. We can feel completely powerless.

We can’t control what the government does, but we can control what we do. In Micah 6:8 it says God requires three things of us: (a) do justice, (b) love kindness, and (c) walk humbly.

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly. How can we do this?

Most of you guys know about World War II, about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. How Hitler rose to power, how he oppressed people, how he rounded up the Jewish people, put them in camps and killed them. What you may not know is that Hitler and the Nazis were elected. They were put into power by voting people, by people who claimed to be Christians.

And terrible things happened. Some people applauded it, some people—people who claimed to be Christians loved it—and others didn’t, but they also didn’t know how to fight it, what to do about it.

Some people who disagreed, who were powerful and brave men and women were able to save dozens, hundreds of people. But the average person isn’t very powerful. The average person isn’t very brave. What does the average, scared person do in these scenarios?

Do justice.

Love kindness.

Walk humbly.

How do we do that?

I know two stories of average people in Nazi Germany: a janitor and a bus driver. About as unpowerful and low on the pecking order as a person can be.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Sophie Scholl. She attended the University of Munich in Nazi Germany, during the heart of the war. She was an anti-Nazi activist. As part of her activism, she created anti-Nazi pamphlets and handed them out at her school.

One day the school janitor—his name was Jakob Schmid—saw her handing out the pamphlets. Jakob Schmid was an average man. He didn’t know or care what was on her pamphlets, he just knew it was against school rules. So he reported her.

Sophie Scholl was arrested by the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, tried for treason, and put to death. She was 21 years old.

So a janitor saw a student break the rules, and because of that the student died.

Once upon a time there was a woman named Irena Sendler. She was a Polish woman who worked to smuggle thousands of Jewish children to safety. She was a hero who did great work.

One day she was on a bus with a little Jewish child. She was moving the child to a new location via the bus. Then in the middle of the bus ride the child spoke to her in Yiddish. A whole hush fell over the bus, suddenly everyone knew she was with a Jewish child, doing something illegal.

The bus driver stopped and made everyone get out of the bus, except Irena and the child. And Irena thought to herself, this is it. This is the moment I am caught. We are about to die. She surely thought the bus driver was going to take her to the authorities, and that is surely what the people who got off the bus thought as well.

Instead the bus driver turned to her and asked her where she wanted to go, said he would take her anywhere, anywhere she needed.

A janitor and a bus driver—two people who had no control over the actions of their government. Two small people in a large world. Two people who made small, but very different choices.

In a world where you have no control over the big picture, all you do have affect on is the small, the things around you. All you can really ask yourself is “how can I bring justice to this moment?” “how can I bring love to this moment?” “how can I bring Jesus to this moment?”

Am I the janitor, enforcing the rules with no understanding of them, and getting a girl killed? Or am I the bus driver, risking everything to help a woman and a little girl?

America isn’t Nazi Germany. We use Nazi Germany as an example in these sorts of discussions because it is extreme. But we have injustices here, things we don’t agree with that we can’t control. We need to work to bring love to our friend groups, to spread love and justice in our circles. To affect what we can.

Because in the end, you guys are kids. You have zero control over who get elected to be the next President. And that can make you worry about it quite a bit. That can make you anxious. Let’s look at Matthew 6:35-34.

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,[j] or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

This is Jesus talking in the Sermon on the Mount. In this sermon he talks about many things, but here he tells us not to worry, that God will take care of us.

Now you may be like “Mandy you just told us about Nazi Germany. How can we not worry? What if that happens again here or somewhere else? That would be concerning!”

Yes, that would! Jesus says a lot here about not worrying—that God takes care of the birds and the lilies, surely he will take care of us. Sometimes people use these verses to say you should never ever worry or be anxious about anything and to do so shows a lack of faith. I do not agree with that. I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying. I want to focus on the last verse, verse 34.

“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

I think what Jesus is saying here is “don’t borrow worry.” What does that mean? It means focus on today, today is problem enough. Don’t borrow worry about things that haven’t come to be yet. You have a test tomorrow? Fine! Worry about that! That’s today’s worry as you study for it! But don’t let that worry run away from you. I used to do this when I was kid where I would worry that if I failed a test, I might fail out of school, and then never find a job, and then die homeless. That is borrowing worry. None of that is even close to stuff that I should worry about.

Just focus on the next thing. Don’t worry about the hypotheticals. Focus on what you can do, on your actions, and how you can affect things.

So yes, when you’re old enough, vote. Because that is one small step we can take. Vote on who you think is the best candidate. But you can’t control their actions. You can only control yours.

Remember politicians will try to woo you, to bring you to their side, but your faith is not in them, it’s in Jesus. Don’t believe what they say on face value. Look them up, do your research, look at their records. And remember we do not belong to a “team.” Being a Christian does not mean you should automatically be a Democrat or a Republic. Our team is Christian. One of the biggest traps Christians fall into is thinking that one party is God’s party.

Neither party is God’s party. Both parties are human parties, full of human corruption and human failings. And even the parties aren’t monoliths. Look up each individual candidate for yourself, and never let anyone feel bad if you vote a certain way, as long as you did your research and feel confident.

Know what you believe. Know why you picked a person. That’s the important thing.

And lastly, I want to come back to Micah 6:8. I want to talk about walking humbly. You guys are middle schoolers and there is a lot of emphasis on being mature. There are two mistakes kids make when it comes to what it means to be mature in politics.

The first is thinking that maturity means agreeing with the adults around you—parents, teachers, grandparents, whoever. Adults will sometimes accidentally encourage this—because sometimes when you say something that parrots back their beliefs, they say “oh you’re so mature for your age.” And sometimes when you say something that disagrees they say, “you only think that because you’re an immature child.” The reality is agreeing just to agree is not maturity. Disagreeing just to disagree is not maturity. Look things up for yourself. Listen to the adult sin your life for their thoughts and wisdom, but in the end you are responsible for your believes.

Knowing why you believe what you believe, and coming to it yourself is maturity.

Secondly, it’s mature to hold your own opinions and beliefs with humbleness. Teenagers and young adults often go through a phase where because you’ve done your research on why you believe what you believe—because you accomplished step one—you think only idiots wouldn’t believe as you believe. This is what causes people to treat everyone else with disdain, treat people without love, and to yell angrily at people for disagreeing with you. Maturity is holding your own opinion humbly, and being open to the fact that maybe you might be wrong. Listening to other people to try to understand why they believe what they believe.

That doesn’t mean you have to change your beliefs. Not at all. In the end after listening to them humbly, you might be like “I don’t believe that, and I think you’re incorrect to believe that.” But the mature thing is to then either state that respectfully or walk away from the conversation. Often these days, I just don’t even engage with people.

I will only discuss politics with someone if I know them personally, and I always couch my thoughts in understanding language. Coming in guns blazing, argumentative, and treating everyone like their stupid has never won anyone to another side, and certainly never won anyone to Jesus.

Now its true, there are some beliefs that shouldn’t be tolerated—but it takes wisdom and understanding and research to know which believes those are. Racism shouldn’t be tolerated, for example. But even with these horrible sorts of beliefs, there are ways to engage people that will bring them to your side, or just walk away.

Politics is a fraught subject. It can be difficult and hard, because so much of it can be tied up in what we believe. We want to believe the best in our politicians. We want to believe the ones we voted for are the good ones. But sometimes they’re not. Maturity is being able to admit when we’re wrong, being willing to change our minds, and knowing which beliefs are the foundational ones.

Wisdom is understanding what we can control and what we can’t, and acting within that. And most of all it’s remembering that our hope is never in a politician. It’s in Jesus.

The world may be dark. Things may seem anxious and fraught, and sometimes things go horrible wrong. God is ultimately sovereign over all, but it doesn’t mean that sometimes he doesn’t let us make our own terrible and bad decisions.

So be the light in the dark. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly. Love.

And don’t borrow worry from the future. Focus on today. Tomorrow will figure itself out in time.

Moses and the Plagues (full lesson)

Last week we talked about Moses’s return to Egypt. Despite his many excuses on why he couldn’t do the job—why he couldn’t be God’s servant—Moses did in fact return to Egypt. God sent Aaron to meet Moses, so that Aaron could help Moses out. Remember Aaron is Moses’s brother, and a better speaker than Moses. So God’s plan is that the two of them together can take on Pharaoh.

Aaron gathers all the elders for Moses’ to speak to and Moses is like “We’re going to be free” and everyone is like yay! But Moses first tests the waters by going to Pharaoh and asking if he’ll let the Israelites free for a three-day holiday. Pharaoh basically responds by laughing in his face. And then he doubles the Israelites work load.

This makes the Israelites mad at Moses! Their lives were already hard, and then Moses shows up, gives them hope, and then makes their lives even harder. They have given up, lost faith that God is more powerful than Pharaoh and they just want Moses to leave them alone. So now what is Moses to do? He wants to free a people who don’t want to be freed, from a man who doesn’t want to let them go.

Alright someone please read Exodus 7:8-13.

8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a wonder,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, and it will become a snake.’” 10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as the Lord had commanded; Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts. 12 Each one threw down his staff, and they became snakes; but Aaron’s staff swallowed up theirs. 13 Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

First God wants Moses to tackle the problem of Pharaoh. So Moses and Aaron go before Pharaoh. And as God predicted Pharaoh is like “Well if your God is so powerful perform a miracle!” So Aaron takes his staff and throws it on the ground and becomes a snake!

But then Pharaoh gathers his magicians and they perform the very same act! So Pharaoh is like “hah, your God isn’t any more powerful than ours. We can do this too.” But Moses’s God is more powerful. Aaron’s snake eats the other snakes. But Pharaoh pays no attention to that, it doesn’t convince him of anything. His heart is hardened.

We talked about what that meant last week—for his heart to be hardened. Whether it’s God creating the stubbornness within him or it’s his own natural stubbornness really isn’t important to this lesson. What’s important is that Pharaoh is not going to be easily persuaded. He has too much to lose here. The Hebrews are his slaves, his free labor, one of the pillars of his power, and he is not going to let them go.

Someone please read Exodus 7:20-25.

20 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and of his officials he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the river, and all the water in the river was turned into blood, 21 and the fish in the river died. The river stank so that the Egyptians could not drink its water, and there was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt. 22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. 23 Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians had to dig along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the river.

25 Seven days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile.

Moses and Aaron aren’t done, turning a staff into a snake is not the last of what they can do on God’s behalf. God sends them with another sign—another plague. Moses turns the river into blood. The fish in the river die, no one can drink the water, and it lasts for seven days.

A few things here. If you’ve studied Egypt in school, you know that the Nile is the source of life in Egypt. Not only is it the primary highway, as we discussed when Moses’s mother put him in a basket in the river, but is literally the reason why this otherwise desert area is fertile land, good for planting and living on. The Nile flows through the center of Egypt, ancient Egypt was built around it, and every year it would flood, bringing nutrients to the soil. The Nile is the foundation of all of Egypt, and without the Nile, there is no Egypt.

So threatening the Nile, is threatening Egypt.

Moses turns the river to blood—undrinkable, probably stinky, not useful. Pharaoh’s magicians apparently “do the same.” Whether they really turn some water to blood or whether they turn it red with dye, who knows! But because they do something similar, Pharaoh is like “psh, this is no big deal, I’m going to ignore this.”

He may ignore it, but I’m sure the people of Egypt are completely freaking out. The have to dig new wells to even have water to drink. Because the river is like this for seven days. And the longest you can live without water is three days. A lack of water is a big big deal.

But pharaoh is unmoved.

Someone please read Exodus 8:6-15.

6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 7 But the magicians did the same by their secret arts, and brought frogs up on the land of Egypt.

8 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron, and said, “Pray to the Lord to take away the frogs from me and my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” 9 Moses said to Pharaoh, “Kindly tell me when I am to pray for you and for your officials and for your people, that the frogs may be removed from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.” 10 And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “As you say! So that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God, 11 the frogs shall leave you and your houses and your officials and your people; they shall be left only in the Nile.” 12 Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh; and Moses cried out to the Lord concerning the frogs that he had brought upon Pharaoh. 13 And the Lord did as Moses requested: the frogs died in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. 14 And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

The next plague is frogs. Aaron stretches out his hand and suddenly there are frogs everywhere. Frogs on their bed, frogs in the bathroom, you can’t step out of a room without stepping on frogs. Sitting in your seat and suddenly there is a frog in your lap. Frogs everywhere. So while not particularly scary? It is extremely annoying and probably disconcerting.

Pharaoh’s magicians pull off the same trick, but this time Pharaoh is super annoyed. And he gathers Moses and Aaron and is like “Fine fine. I’ll let you go just make it stop. Get rid of these annoying frogs!”

Moses is like “awesome, let me tell God!” So God stops the frogs, but not exactly in the best way. The frogs don’t just disappear or go back to the river .Nope. They die where they are, and people have to gather them up, and their dead bodies make the land stink. Eww.

But as soon as the frogs are taken care of Pharaoh is like, “Psyche! I didn’t mean it. I’m not letting you go.” And so the people still are not free.

Can someone please read Exodus 8:16-19.

16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats throughout the whole land of Egypt.’” 17 And they did so; Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, and gnats came on humans and animals alike; all the dust of the earth turned into gnats throughout the whole land of Egypt. 18 The magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, but they could not. There were gnats on both humans and animals. 19 And the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God!” But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

This time they call forth gnats. Another annoying but not super harmful plague. Just bugs flying around everything. I hate it when I go on walks and walk into a cloud of bugs accidentally. And this is like that times a million. You can’t escape the gnats. They’re just like everywhere you go, unescapable, buzzing around your head forever.

This time the pharaoh’s magicians *can’t* pull off the same trick. They are alarmed and tell Pharaoh that this is Moses’s God, and that he is powerful. You would think that this would alarm Pharaoh, and he would be upset and let the Hebrews go. But newp. His heart is still hardened.

Someone please read Exodus 8:25-32.

25 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” 26 But Moses said, “It would not be right to do so; for the sacrifices that we offer to the Lord our God are offensive to the Egyptians. If we offer in the sight of the Egyptians sacrifices that are offensive to them, will they not stone us? 27 We must go a three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he commands us.” 28 So Pharaoh said, “I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness, provided you do not go very far away. Pray for me.” 29 Then Moses said, “As soon as I leave you, I will pray to the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart tomorrow from Pharaoh, from his officials, and from his people; only do not let Pharaoh again deal falsely by not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.”

30 So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord. 31 And the Lord did as Moses asked: he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his officials, and from his people; not one remained. 32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and would not let the people go.

So this time a plague of flies is sent, which is very similar to the plague of livestock. And Pharaoh is like, “Fine I guess we can compromise, you can sacrifice to your God, but only here in our land. I’m not going to let you leave.” And Moses is like, “That’s a bad idea. Our sacrifices would be offensive to you, and we don’t want to offend the Egyptians. We need to go three days journey and then we’ll come back.” Moses isn’t even asking for his people to be freed at this point. He’s still just asking for this journey.

Pharaoh is like, “I guess. As long as you don’t go too far.”

Moses is like, “Deal! And stops the flies.” But once again Pharaoh changes his mind and doesn’t let them go, not even for this short holiday. So the plagues continue!

Someone read Exodus 9:6-7.

6 And on the next day the Lord did so; all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but of the livestock of the Israelites not one died. 7 Pharaoh inquired and found that not one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the people go.

So before this point all of the plagues have been really annoying but not necessarily threatening—other than turning the river to blood. But the river to blood was a warning, a shot across the bow, and the rest of the plagues have been a classic example of trying to annoy someone to death. But now God is pulling out the big guns. In this plague the livestock die, but just the Egyptian livestock. Verse 9:3 specifies this means horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and any flocks. So anything you are raising to eat or to work for you. There are lasting consequences to this, the animals are dead. But Pharaoh is still like no. I’m not letting you go.

Someone read Exodus 9:8-12.

8 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw it in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. 9 It shall become fine dust all over the land of Egypt, and shall cause festering boils on humans and animals throughout the whole land of Egypt.” 10 So they took soot from the kiln, and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses threw it in the air, and it caused festering boils on humans and animals. 11 The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils afflicted the magicians as well as all the Egyptians. 12 But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses.

This time we have a plague of boils. A boil is basically an infected hair follicle or oil gland. It gets all red, turns into a lump, and gets pussy. So like big pimples, but all over your body and they can be accompanied by fever or swollen lymph nodes. It’s basically a staph infection in your hair follicles. It is very unpleasant. This could also lead to sores which are also unpleasant and can be like blisters. So basically you have skin infections all over your body. And they had no medicine back then. No Tylenol to bring down your fever, no skin cremes to sooth your skin. Nothing.

This time the magicians don’t even show up when Pharaoh calls because it’s so freaking awful and painful, but still Pharaoh will not let the people go.

Someone please read Exodus 9:22-35.

22 The Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that hail may fall on the whole land of Egypt, on humans and animals and all the plants of the field in the land of Egypt.” 23 Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire came down on the earth. And the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt; 24 there was hail with fire flashing continually in the midst of it, such heavy hail as had never fallen in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. 25 The hail struck down everything that was in the open field throughout all the land of Egypt, both human and animal; the hail also struck down all the plants of the field, and shattered every tree in the field. 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were, there was no hail.

27 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Pray to the Lord! Enough of God’s thunder and hail! I will let you go; you need stay no longer.” 29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord; the thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s. 30 But as for you and your officials, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.” 31 (Now the flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud. 32 But the wheat and the spelt were not ruined, for they are late in coming up.) 33 So Moses left Pharaoh, went out of the city, and stretched out his hands to the Lord; then the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured down on the earth. 34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned once more and hardened his heart, he and his officials. 35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses.

This time Moses calls down hail. Hail is something you guys are familiar with, we get hail here a lot, but usually it’s tiny. This would be large hail, large enough to seriously hurt someone. When hail is big it can be deadly. What’s interesting about this plague, is that Moses warned everyone in advance, everyone not just the Israelites, and some of the Egyptians listened and moved their stuff inside and stayed inside, because they were like “We get it. God is powerful!” But not all the Egyptians listened.

The hail is so bad that anyone who was out in it died and it destroyed the crops, but not all of them, just a lot of them. That’s important because it’s important for the next plague. The Egyptians still have something to lose.

Pharaoh once again does his whole “if you stop it, I’ll let you go.” So Moses stops it, and then Pharaoh is like “Psyche” once again.

Someone please read Exodus 10:3-11.

3 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 4 For if you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country. 5 They shall cover the surface of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land. They shall devour the last remnant left you after the hail, and they shall devour every tree of yours that grows in the field. 6 They shall fill your houses, and the houses of all your officials and of all the Egyptians—something that neither your parents nor your grandparents have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’” Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh.

7 Pharaoh’s officials said to him, “How long shall this fellow be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the Lord their God; do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” 8 So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, worship the Lord your God! But which ones are to go?” 9 Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, because we have the Lord’s festival to celebrate.” 10 He said to them, “The Lord indeed will be with you, if ever I let your little ones go with you! Plainly, you have some evil purpose in mind. 11 No, never! Your men may go and worship the Lord, for that is what you are asking.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.

So Locusts are bugs that come in and eat everything. They come in big swarms, and swarms like this are still something that modern farmers fear. Because they will eat all of your crop and leave nothing behind.

Moses warns them. He’s like “This is going to happen. You will literally have nothing left. The food that remains will be gone.” And Pharaoh is like, “Fine, I guess you can go instead of us getting hail, but wait. Before I agree to this, who are you taking?”

And Moses is like, “um, Everyone?”

And then Pharaoh is like “uh, no then. No deal. I would rather have locusts then let you all go.”

Someone please read Exodus 10:21-29.

21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be felt.” 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. 23 People could not see one another, and for three days they could not move from where they were; but all the Israelites had light where they lived. 24 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses, and said, “Go, worship the Lord. Only your flocks and your herds shall remain behind. Even your children may go with you.” 25 But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings to sacrifice to the Lord our God. 26 Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must choose some of them for the worship of the Lord our God, and we will not know what to use to worship the Lord until we arrive there.” 27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was unwilling to let them go. 28 Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me! Take care that you do not see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.” 29 Moses said, “Just as you say! I will never see your face again.”

This time we get darkness for three days.

Not night. Darkness. No light—no sun, no moon, no stars. It seemed like even their lights didn’t work for them, illuminating the area. I imagine this like a dense black fog. If you’ve ever been in fog then you know that light doesn’t always help you. But the Israelites had light where they were. This would be extremely scary.

So Pharaoh is like, “Fine, you can go, but leave your livestock.” Probably because he needs the livestock after all of these plagues. But Moses is like, “No deal. We need it.”

And Pharaoh is like, “FINE. THEN YOU STAY. AND NO ONE LEAVES.”

This is not the last of the plagues but this is the last one we’ll cover. Next week we’re going to talk about the last plague and the why of it, and how it’s commemorated to this day. Because there is a lot to be discussed there.

Middle School Sunday School Curriculum (Summer 2020 - Spring 2023)

After three and a half years, I finally have a three year cycle curriculum for Middle School Sunday School. At my church, sixth through eighth graders are combined, so this gives us a chance to get through the People of the Bible, from Genesis to Acts, in three years.

I focused the big lessons on the school year, as that’s when things are generally more rigid and structured, with more regular attendance. Summers tend to be a bit crazy, so I’m trying to keep those as topical or summary lessons.

Most of these lessons are done and posted on this website! There are a handful that I need to finish and post still, and definitely a few I need to clean up. I’ll probably be adding more to a few of the early lessons, since lessons like Abraham and Sarah were written well before I was in the groove of lesson writing and understood how much material really corresponded to an hour lesson. So expect things will update as I go, I’ll try to do written updates about a week in advance of the actual lesson, in case any one wants to use these and teach along!

I’m also going to try to make YouTube videos for all of the lessons, not just the ones we are doing during this time of Social Distancing. So I’ll add links to the videos as I go!

Anyway, I hope some people find this a useful resources! Enjoy!

What is the Law? (Acts Edition)

Today we’re going to revisit a subject we discussed last summer. However, I think it’s good to reiterate on this now as we have new faces in Sunday School but also we’re reaching a point in Acts where it is important to remind ourselves about some important fundamentals. So this week we’re going to discuss what people in the Bible mean when they’re talking about the Law.

What is the “Law?” This is something referenced all over the place in the Bible—not just the Old Testament, but Jesus is constantly talking about the Law—and we’re going to talk about Jesus and his relationship to the Law next week. The apostles also argued constantly about the law, who should obey it, who shouldn’t. Jewish people today even have long discussions and disagreements about to what extent they are required to follow the law: which one of the big divisions between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed Jews. So this discussion of “What is the Law and who must follow it” is something that has been debated since Moses all the way until today. For over three thousand years people have been discussing this very topic.

So today we’re going to talk about it. Obviously we can’t get through all the nuances in an hour, but I want to give you guys a decent understanding of what people in Jesus time would have understood the law as.

Please go get your Bibles.

Before we open to anything who can remind us what God’s covenant with Abraham is? [Let them answer.]

That’s right, God made a covenant with Abraham to be his God and the God of his people and to make him the father of many people. At this point we’ve seen how Abraham’s descendants have become many people. You have Ishmael whose descendants formed their own people group. You have Esau, whose descendants became the Edomites. We didn’t study this—but after Sarah died, Abraham remarried and had more children who went on to become different people’s. Also now we have the Israelites who are descended from Jacob, Abraham’s grandson.

God made the initial covenant with Abraham—to be his God—and then renewed it with Isaac, Abraham’s son, and then Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. After all those years in Egypt—over four hundred—it’s possible the Israelites may have worried that the covenant no longer held. But obviously, God went to great lengths and performed many miraculous acts to free them from Egypt. In case that wasn’t enough, God also re-established the covenant in words. Please turn in your Bibles to Exodus 19:3-6.

3 Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: 4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”

God reiterates that the Israelites are his people—that they are the children of the covenant. And that he will make them a “priestly kingdom,” they are to be the example of God in the world. For their end of the deal? They just have to obey his voice and keep the covenant. So the men must be circumcised, and all of them must listen to God.

For Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God basically had a one-on-one relationship with them. God could tell them what they should do or what they were doing wrong, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob needed to listen to that voice. But now we’re talking about thousands of Israelites. God could talk to each of them individually, he certainly has that power, but instead he is choosing to make himself known through a single prophet—in this case Moses. That’s a set up we’re going to see go on for a while in the history of Israel. There is one single prophet who talks to God and relays God’s thoughts to the people. This prophet is then the leader of the people—in both a religious and government sense. Israel is the definition of a theocracy at this time—it is both a nation and a religion. The idea of separation of church and state is completely foreign to them.

To underscore this, we have the Law. God gives Moses Laws which are both religious and civil laws. These are the laws of the nation of Israel. And it covers everything from their relationship with God, to what do you do if an animal you own accidentally hurts another person, to what sort of crimes merit the death penalty. So for the Israelites to keep the covenant, in addition to circumcision they must obey the law.

The initial revelation of the law is also the most famous: The ten commandments. Let’s turn to Exodus 20:1-17.

20 Then God spoke all these words:

2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me.

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 You shall not murder.

14 You shall not commit adultery.

15 You shall not steal.

16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

You can look at the Ten Commandments and break them into two parts. The first four are all commandments that are related to our relationship with God. Number one is don’t have any other gods before God, meaning don’t place anything on a level above God in your heart. The second one is “don’t make any idols.” This is very similar to the first and is basically don’t worship anything that is not God. The third is don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. Mostly this is viewed as being applied to the sacred name of Yahweh, which is why even in the Bible when the Hebrew is actually Yahweh, we usually translate it instead to “God” or “Lord.” But it also means don’t use the name of God in inappropriate contexts. This can be using the name “God” as an exclamation/curse—which people basically do all the time—and probably most importantly saying things like “I swear to God.” Christians shouldn’t make such vows or oaths lightly, and usually when people say that they don’t mean it at all. They’re just using it as a turn phrase. Now personally this is something I struggle with. I say “oh my God” all the time. This is a really easy one to overlook or break in our modern world.

The fourth one is about keeping the sabbath, basically having one day off a week to rest and refocus on God. All four of these laws are very God focused. They are about our relationship with the creator of the universe.

But the rest of the ten commandments aren’t like that. They don’t really mention God at all. Instead they’re: Honor your parents. Don’t murder. Don’t have an affair. Don’t steal. Don’t lie or gossip about your neighbor. Don’t covet other people’s stuff.

These laws are not about us and God at all, but rather our relationship with each other. Everyone has parents, and it’s important to honor and respect them. We’ve talked about before how that doesn’t always mean to obey them—there are definitely scenarios where parents can be wrong, hurtful, and abusive. But that doesn’t mean we should not treat them with the respect they deserve as humans and the people who brought us into this world. The other laws seem even more obvious. Yes it’s bad to kill people! It’s bad to cheat on people! Stealing is bad. Telling lies or gossip about your friends and neighbors is bad. Don’t be jealous of your friend’s stuff. All of these will cause you bad relationship with other people.

These all seem pretty basic how to lead a good life while following God rules. And most Christians, to be honest, read the Ten Commandments and stop there, as if that is the entire law. But there is way more Law in the Bible. The entire book of Leviticus is basically laws, as is most of Deuteronomy, a good portion of Exodus, and some of Numbers. That’s why we call the first five books of the Bible the Torah or Law. Because they contain the Law God gave down to Moses and it way more than just the 10 commandments. And to our modern eyes, it can be some really random stuff.

Someone read Leviticus 2:11.

11 No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you must not turn any leaven or honey into smoke as an offering by fire to the Lord.

This is one verse from a whole section on offering grain to God. And it basically says that any bread offering made to God can’t have yeast in it. It needs to be flatbread. That’s super specific right? And definitely a religious law—a law dictating an appropriate sacrifice to God.

Someone read Leviticus 13:3-4

3 The priest shall examine the disease on the skin of his body, and if the hair in the diseased area has turned white and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous disease; after the priest has examined him he shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean. 4 But if the spot is white in the skin of his body, and appears no deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall confine the diseased person for seven days.

This section? This is a leprosy test. Leprosy is a skin disease that could be very contagious and detrimental. So this section basically tells people that if they think they have leprosy to go before a priest. It then tells the priest what to do to determine if it is or is not leprosy and then what to do with the person in either case.

Someone read Leviticus 19:23.

23 When you come into the land and plant all kinds of trees for food, then you shall regard their fruit as forbidden; three years it shall be forbidden to you, it must not be eaten.

This is a law about when it’s cool to eat the fruit from a tree after you plant it. Literally a law about agriculture and farming.

What I’m getting at here is these are a lot of laws that cover a lot of topics. Laws on how exactly to celebrate specific holidays. Not just like “Christmas is cool, you should celebrate it.” But like “here are the very exact things you must do to celebrate Passover.” There are laws on who you are and are not allowed to marry. There are laws about how to treat a poor man and laws about how to treat strangers. There are laws about what they’re allowed to eat and what they’re allowed to wear. The Israelites couldn’t eat—still don’t eat—pig, and they couldn’t wear mixed material clothes. And there are very specific laws on how to treat and worship God. These are a lot of laws.

There were even laws on who is allowed to be a priest. And I don’t just mean like now how we have church bi-laws about how to select a pastor and what sort of education one does or does not need to be a pastor and whether or not women are allowed to be pastors. I mean only people of the house of Levi where allowed to be priests at all, and of those, there were a few very critical things that only people directly descended from Aaron were allowed to do as like High Priest.

And if you went against these laws, there were punishments, and some of those punishments were you would die. If the wrong person touched the wrong holy object? They would be struck down dead instantly.

Let’s look at a law with that sort of repercussion.

Someone read Exodus 21: 28-29.

28 When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. 29 If the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not restrained it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.

This is the law about what to do if your ox kills someone. Male oxen—bulls—can especially be dangerous, and so things like this did happen. Laws like this can seem like they don’t apply at all today. Most of us don’t own oxen—and the people who do own cattle generally own just modern cows which are pretty docile and don’t hurt people.

For people who still follow the law today, they often look at these sorts of laws and extrapolate them to more modern day things. People don’t own oxen as much, but they do own dogs. So what if your dog bites someone? Perhaps this law can be extrapolated to that scenario. If your dog bites someone and it’s the first offense then it’s not your fault as the owner. However, if it’s bitten people in the past and you didn’t do anything about it, perhaps you owe some sort of reparation to the person bitten—though most modern Jewish people wouldn’t go as far as saying the owner should be put to death.

However, there are many states where the local law is that if your dog bites someone it does have to be put down, so that might be in line with this sort of law. 

For modern Jewish people—whether Orthodox, Conservative, or Reformed—understanding the law and how to extrapolate it to modern lives is very important. To Jewish people following the law is of the utmost importance—because this is God’s law, which in accordance to the Old Testament they are supposed to follow.

However times change, and so the applications of the law can change—as we discussed in the bull vs. dog scenario. The big differences in the branches of modern Judaism is how they interpret the law and how they chose to follow it.

When we studied Jesus we saw that Jesus had some radical ideas about the law. The people in Jesus’s time lived in a very different world from the world in which the law was first introduced. They no longer had their own country, they were subject to Roman rule. Since some of the laws in the Bible are civil laws about how a country should be run, it was harder for them to follow those laws, since now Rome ruled their country.

The Pharisees loved to debate the law, because Pharisees were super concerned about following the law. They believed following the law was the way to live a Godly life—which to be fair to them that was correct as far as they knew in their time period. But Jesus came along with different ideas.

Next week we’re going to look at how Jesus interpreted laws, and why sometimes that got him in trouble with the Pharisees.

Someone read Matthew 12:9-14.

9 He left that place and entered their synagogue; 10 a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?” so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

After the incident in the field Jesus goes to the synagogue—not the temple but whatever local place of worship where he lives. It seems the Pharisees follow him here because once they are in the synagogue, they see a man with a withered hand—that could be a hand broken by something in life, a hand that has been burned by a fire, or a hand that naturally from birth seemed broken. They all see this man—Jesus and the Pharisees and the Pharisees ask him a question “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?”

They know Jesus’s reputation for being a great healer, and they view this as a test—will he heal this guy on the Sabbath and break the law? Clearly healing is work! Or so they say. Jesus responds with a hypothetical situation. Imagine you own only one sheep and on the sabbath it falls in a pit. Would you leave it in the pit—where it might struggle and get sick and die?—or do you rescue it? Of course you rescue it! And he says how much more valuable is a human than a sheep!

So yes you are not supposed to work on the Sabbath, but it is not unlawful to *do good* on the Sabbath. And then Jesus heals the man.

The Pharisees don’t like this. They don’t like that Jesus is making himself the authority on the law and who is and who is not following. Jesus is setting himself up as an authority greater than them—greater than the religious leaders and they don’t like that.

But back to the Law and Jesus’s thoughts on it—I want to be clear that following the Law was supposed to be the Godly thing to do. To be close to God, to be a good follower of God, you were supposed to follow the Law. Which is why to others, it seemed like Jesus was going against God here. And it can be confusing to us. If God laid down the law, if God gave the law to Moses, how can Jesus come along and change the rules? How can Jesus just say “it’s all good, you can heal people on the Sabbath.”

Well there are a couple of things to unpack here, but I think there is one really important one that comes up in Matthew 22:34-40.

34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

We’ve studied this text before. A lawyer tries to test Jesus. He asks Jesus which law out of all the law is the greatest and Jesus responds with “love the Lord your God wil all your heart and with all your soul and with you all your mind.” And then he says the second is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And he says something critical, all of the law, every law about the Sabbath and whether you can pick apples and how much to pay when your animal hurts someone can be boiled down to these two laws: love God and love each other.

This view of the law is important when you look at Jesus’s answers to the Pharisees about whether he could heal on the synagogue. Jesus views the two most important things as God and people.

Sometimes we as people can get wrapped up in institutions or traditions or ways of doing things as important. But Jesus is saying none of those things is more important than an actual person. The rules around work on the Sabbath is important because it’s important for people to take a break—to rest—it’s also important for people to have a day to focus on God, to love God. But you should not be so committed to the rule of “no work whatsoever” that you are willing to let people suffer.

Serving God and serving people is always more important than the rules. Always.

So Jesus kind of had these radical idea of how to follow the law, and since he was God he was great at looking at the Scriptures and explaining his intent and making everything make sense.

But where we are in Acts, Jesus is gone. The apostles and disciples have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit isn’t the same as having a teacher you can go to.

This new Christian movement had a lot of questions to answer about how they were going to operate with respect to the Law! After all, most Christians were Jews first—like Peter, like John, like Saul/Paul—so it makes sense that they would follow the Law. But soon enough a lot of people who weren’t Jewish were going to start becoming Christians, and they were going to have to ask themselves if non-Jewish Christians were required to follow the Law.

This is a debate that rages in Acts—over multiple chapters and sections. This debate is one of the crucial parts of Acts, and we’re going to start looking at that debate in the next few lessons.

Peter and Herod

Note: This lesson was the first lesson we did virtually because of COVID-19. Therefore, there is a YouTube recording of me doing the video, which you can find here!

Last week we didn’t talk about Acts—we talked about what it means to have faith in a time of fear. We talked about Gideon, Job, and Paul. But today we’re going to get back into Acts, which is what we’re studying this semester in our class: the people of Acts. I’m going to recap a little more than I usually do because there might be some parents on the line. And we don’t want them to be lost do we ;)

We were recently talking about Philip and Peter, two apostles. As a reminder, “apostle” is what we call the remaining eleven disciples after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Why? Well before, they were those silly guys who followed Jesus’s around and only got a fraction of what he said. Now, without Jesus around, they are the leaders of the early church. They are no longer disciples, they are the teachers, teaching others to be disciples. So now when Acts uses the phrase “disciples” it means all the new followers of Jesus, and the original eleven disciples are the Apostles, the leaders.

We did a lesson a few weeks ago about Philip, who was breaking boundaries and reaching people on the fringes of society. He didn’t care who was considered okay or fine by societies standards. He was like “God wants everyone”, so he would talk to anyone who would listen. Philip was busy going all over Israel talking to everyone.

Peter, meanwhile, had this extra pressure. In a lot of ways he was the head apostle. People expected things from him. They were looking to him to help define what it meant to be a Christian, and more importantly who was allowed to be a Christian. Were non Jewish people allowed to be Christians? Or was Christianity just for Jewish people? After all Jesus and the twelve disciples were all Jewish.

But then one day Peter has a vision about all kinds of animals on a blanket, and in the dream God tells him to eat all of them, what God has made clean, Peter cannot declare unclean. Peter doesn’t get the vision. Eating kosher, eating according the law is very important to Jewish people. Why would God change this? Why does God care if Peter eats bacon or not?

At the same time, a Roman Centurion had a vision and sent for Peter to come to his house. Peter does go, and the Roman Centurion wants to know everything about Jesus. This man, who is not Jewish, who is Roman, who is part of the group oppressing the Jewish people, becomes a Christian right then and there. And Peter realizes the vision is not about bacon.

Sure, Christians can eat bacon, whatever, but the vision is about people. It’s about how the old rules don’t apply anymore. Anyone can be a Christian. And it’s not Peter’s right to look at people and declare them unclean.

God cares about people not rules.

We talked about how this can be confusing, it can seem like God changed. But it’s not God who changed. It’s people who changed. Just like how your rules change as you age. It’s not your parents who are changing, it’s you changing, by growing up. A kid needs an earlier bed time than a teen or an adult. You change and therefore the rules must change with you. That’s what’s happening here.

It was never really the rules that mattered. Just like it’s not a bedtime that matters. What matters is getting enough sleep, a bedtime is just a tool to help you get that. In this case, it’s not the rules, it’s about loving God and loving your neighbor. It’s people who mattered.

So what happens after this? What does Peter do after this? Well he keeps on keeping on. Let’s open our Bibles to Acts chapter 12. We’re going to read Acts 12:1-5.

About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. 2 He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. 3 After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.) 4 When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. 5 While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him.

Okay so the Herod mentioned here is Herod Antipas. He is not the same Herod as when Jesus was born. This is that Herod’s son. He is the Jewish ruler of Judea—as opposed to the Roman governor. Remember, Romans tended to be pretty hands off as far as government went. Sure they sent in their own overseeing governors for regions, but they often raised a ruler of the same nationality or ethnicity of the land they were occupying, because they knew that person would understand the people more. And they delegated some authority to them—not all authority, as you’ll remember for them to crucify Jesus that decision had to go to a Roman, Pilate.

All the Romans really cared about was that you didn’t make trouble and you that you paid your taxes. If your people did those two things, they pretty much left you alone. But Herod sees this new group forming, these Christians, and he knows they are trouble. This is exactly what they were trying to stop by killing Jesus—they were trying to stop this group and movement from forming. Christians looked like a threat to Rome, with all their talk of Jesus being the true king, the true ruler, etc etc.

So Herod is trying to stamp out this Christian threat. He has James the brother of John killed. James was one of the twelve disciples, one of the sons of Thunder they were called. He was loud and boisterous for Jesus. And now he’s dead.

Then he has Peter arrested during Passover. Arresting someone during Passover is a bit of low blow, just like they did with Jesus. They knew that all Jewish men who are able returned to Jerusalem for Passover, during this time period. They knew Peter would be there. So they found him and arrested him.

And after the past shenanigans with Peter mysteriously breaking out of prison—aka being freed by God—Herod assigns four squads of soldiers to guard him. That’s a lot of people to guard one dude.

And the church—the other believers—do the only thing they can. They pray.

Next we’ll read Acts 12:6-11

6 The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. 7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. 8 The angel said to him, “Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.” He did so. Then he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” 9 Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10 After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. 11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”

Not only does Peter have four squads guarding him, but they also chained him between two soldiers, presumably so that if he even moved they would feel it. But that night, while they’re all watching them an angel appears to Peter and is like “Get up.”

The chains fall off and the angel is basically like “Get dressed, we gotta go!” Peter is like “Whatevs man.”

I don’t know if low pants for boys are still in fashion but if they are, next time they’re too low you can be like “As it says in the Bible, “Fasten your belt!”

Anyway, Peter follows the angel, but basically he thinks the entire thing isn’t real and a dream. He’s like “lol whatever angel. This isn’t real anyway, so I’ll do whatever!”

He follows the angel past a bunch of sleeping guards, and then he follows the angel out the gate and into the city. The gate opens like it’s an automatic door—a completely foreign concept to Peter. And it’s when he’s walking down the city streets and the angel suddenly disappears, that Peter is like, “Wait, maybe this was real? Oh man, I just escaped!” And then if I was Peter, I would probably just straight up run all the way home.

Now we’ll read Acts 12:12-17.

12 As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying. 13 When he knocked at the outer gate, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. 14 On recognizing Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the gate, she ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gate. 15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she insisted that it was so. They said, “It is his angel.” 17 He motioned to them with his hand to be silent, and described for them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he added, “Tell this to James and to the believers.” Then he left and went to another place.

So as soon as Peter realizes it’s real, he goes to the nearest house he can think of, which is the house of Mary—not the mother of Jesus, not the mother of James and John, not Mary Magdalene, no a completely different Mary. Mary the mother of John who was also called Mark, because it’s not the New Testament if we’re not using the same name like twelve times.

Actually fun fact: do you guys know why the name Mary is so popular in the New Testament? I’m going to be hones this is something I just learned in the past like two years, and not something I ever knew.

Mary is a shortening of the name “Miriam” sometimes basically spelled “Maryam.” Miriam was Moses’s sister and a prophet in her own right. She is one of the biggest female characters in the Old Testament. That’s why the name is so popular. John meanwhile is just a shortening of the name Jonathan. If you’ll remember Jonathan was also an Old Testament character, he was king David’s BFF forever.

So this Mary is the mother of a guy we often call “John Mark.” John Mark is the writer of the book of Mark, that’s why it’s called Mark. That name was used to distinguish it from the Gospel of John, which was written by the disciple John. Basically if the Bible just says John, it means the disciple. Because he was the first John he gets that right. Whereas John Mark was much younger, so to differentiate him we call him John Mark. Just like all my life I was called Mandy P to avoid confusion with the twelve thousand other Amandas and Mandys in my class.

Anyway, back to the story. Peter runs to her house and knocks on the outer gate. A maid named Rhoda answers this door. I would like us to just pause for a moment at the amazement that a Biblical writer recorded the name of this woman. He could have just called her a maid, or a slave, or a servant. But no, he actually gives her name. I wish I knew more about this Rhoda, that Luke—the writer of Acts—thought she was important enough to record her name. Because that is unusual. Usually the men thought women’s names were not important.

Anyway, Rhoda hears him and instead of opening the gate she runs inside and tells everyone he’s there. Why doesn’t she open the gate? I don’t know. Perhaps that’s not her job. Perhaps as a mere maid she’s not allowed to be opening the gate in the middle of the night. Or perhaps its just an oversight and she’s so excited she forgets to do the obvious thing before her. I don’t know. All I know is she runs in and tells everyone Peter’s at the gate.

And they all respond like, “This woman is insane and hysterical.” Remember, this is the sexism of the ancient world. They often didn’t trust women, and they would often belittle anything they had to say. So they don’t believe her. And they think if it is Peter, well it must mean he’s dead and that’s his ghost like out there talking to them.

While they’re disbelieving this woman and arguing about it, Peter is still knocking like, “Hey guys? Someone gonna let me in?”

Finally the other people come to the gate and see Peter for themselves. They are shocked, and probably about to make a loud racket about it, but Peter is like, “Hush, let me in, and let me tell ou what happened.” So he tells them what happens and then tells them to tell James.

Did he mean the James who just died at the beginning of this chapter? Maybe? Maybe he forgot James, the son of Zebedee was dead. But James was also another really popular name. James it just the English form of the name Jacob, and Jacob was literally the guy the nation of Israel was named after, so everyone in their mother liked to name their child Jacob or James. It’s more likely he means James, Jesus’s brother.

After Peter tells them everything, he then goes on his way. Peter isn’t going to sit and dwell. He’s got work that needs to be done, a gospel that needs to be spread, a growing movement to wrangle.

Now we’ll read Acts 12:18-19

18 When morning came, there was no small commotion among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. 19 When Herod had searched for him and could not find him, he examined the guards and ordered them to be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.

The next morning the soldiers discover Peter is gone, and well, it doesn’t go well for them. Herod has them search everywhere, but when they can’t be found, he blames the guards. He says they must have failed at their jobs, and he has them all put to death. He can’t believe it’s divine. Remember Herod doesn’t believe in this Christianity business. He thinks it’s all dangerous nonsense.

Herod just wants to keep the peace with Rome, and he does not view Christianity as a good way to do that.

Unfortunately for Herod, none of this works out well for him.

Unrelated to the Christians, Herod was having political troubles with the costal cities of Tyre and Sidon. These are coastal cities. Tyre and Sidon are right on the Meditarrean, pretty far north of Jerusalem, so I’m not certain what Herod’s political pull is up there, they were part of a different region and therefore had a different ruler, as far as I know. However, political squabbling is as old as time and politicians always find ways to try to stretch their power. And in this scenario, it seems that Tyre and Sidon are dependent on Herod’s kingdom for food—probably food like wheats and grains, since Tyre and Sidon would be able to get a ton of seafood but maybe not have a lot of farmland.

So Herod goes there to deal with it, and while he is there he falls down dead.

The Bible says he was struck down by God, and that’s definitely how the Christians of the time viewed it. They viewed it as divine retribution for all the harm that Herod had done to the church.

And so with Herod out of the way, the church continues to advance and grow, and flourish. Barnabas and Saul are spreading the word, and bringing along the young John Mark about them, but we’ll discuss that more next week!

Peter and Cornelius

We recently talked about how Philip, one of the apostles, was crossing lines and reaching people that normally were left on the fringes. He brought people to Christ that normally others would ignore or view as not acceptable for the Temple or society. Philip didn’t stop and question whether or not he should bring these people to Jesus. Instead he just said, “These people want to know Jesus and I want to bring them to him.”

This week, we’re going to see Peter come into contact with the same dilemma, the question of “Who.” Who is worthy to be a follower of Jesus. Who should they be reaching. Who should they be focusing on.

Remember up to this point, their main focus had been reaching other Jewish people. Jesus was Jewish. Peter is Jewish. Philip is Jewish. Saul/Paul is Jewish. Even the Samaritans are within a stone’s throw of being Jewish. But what about people who aren’t Jewish? What about people who don’t even know the Temple exists? What about the Gentiles?

Please open your Bibles to Acts. Someone please read Acts 10:1-8.

10 In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. 2 He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. 3 One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” 4 He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; 6 he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” 7 When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, 8 and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.

Here we meet a man named Cornelius, a centurion. From this sentence it’s very clear that Cornelius is a Roman. He’s part of the Italian cohort—so he’s from Italy. His name is Cornelius—which is a super traditional Roman name. As a centurion he’s a leader in the army, in charge of one hundred men. He’s not just a foot soldier. He’s a leader in the group that is occupying Israel, literally participating in the oppression of Israel.

This is not the kind of person that a Jewish person would really socialize with.

But in the next section we read that he was a devout man who constantly prayed to God—meaning the Jewish God. Perhaps in his time in Israel, he had learned from the people he was in charge of, and somehow he found God.

One afternoon, Cornelius is just hanging about when an angel comes to him. This angel tells him to send for a man named Simon who is called Peter to come to him. The angel doesn’t explain why, he just says to do it. And so immediately Cornelius sends out two of his slaves and one of his solders to go fetch Peter, who is staying in another city.

Someone please read Acts 10:9-16.

9 About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” 15 The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

So at noon the next day, the slaves and soldier are on their way to get Peter. Meanwhile, Peter is on his roof praying. They would have had flat roofs like we have here in New Mexico, and you would be able to go up there and just chill if you wanted to. So he’s up there praying when he gets hungry. He asks for some food to be prepared, and then while it’s being made, he has a vision.

In the vision, heaven opens up and a large sheet comes down—like a large blanket, being carried down by it’s four corners. And on the blanket is every kind of animal: pigs, goats, reptiles, birds, all of it, including the animals that the law expressly forbids from being eaten.

For a reminder, the law dictates what is and is not okay for Jewish people to eat. Someone please flip back and read Leviticus 11:1-8.

11 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: 2 Speak to the people of Israel, saying:

From among all the land animals, these are the creatures that you may eat. 3 Any animal that has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed and chews the cud—such you may eat. 4 But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following: the camel, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 5 The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 6 The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 7 The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. 8 Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you.

In Leviticus 11, God lays out what is and is not okay to eat. They can eat cows but not pigs. But even the cows they eat have to be killed a very certain way or else they can’t eat them. They can’t eat snakes or reptiles. There are some birds they can eat and others they can’t. Today these laws have been interpreted into what we call “kosher.”

Jewish people take this very seriously. Almost every practicing Jewish person follows some version of kosher. It’s part of their identity of what makes them Jewish, part of what makes them who they are.

So when Peter has this vision, there are all kinds of animals on the blanket: kosher and non kosher. Cows and pigs. Reptiles and birds. Every kind of animal Peter knows of is on that blanket.

Then in his vision Peter hears a voice tell him to kill and eat the animals. And Peter is like, “What? No God! I would never eat anything unclean.”

Peter seems to think this is a test, that’s why he answers as he does. He’s like “of course I would never go against you and eat anything I’m not supposed to God! I’m Jewish!”

But God doesn’t answer in the way Peter might expect. Instead God says, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

What does this mean? What God has made clean, we must not call profane. What does profane mean? Sometimes people use the word “unclean” instead, but this isn’t really a clean verses dirty situation. It’s about what is religiously okay and religiously not okay. So profane in this situation means “religiously not okay.”

Peter, like all Jewish people of his time, thinks that eating certain animals is not religiously okay. And it’s not for no reason he thinks this! It’s directly called out in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But here God is like, “I’m saying this is okay, Peter. I am declaring this clean. And you as a human have no right to call something unclean that I have declared clean.”

This vision happens three times. Someone please read Acts 10:17-23.

17 Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. 18 They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. 19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Look, three men are searching for you. 20 Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” 21 So Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?” 22 They answered, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” 23 So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging.

The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him. 

Peter is really confused by his vision. He saw it three times, and he honestly doesn’t know what to make of it. Was it just a dream caused by hunger? What is God? If it was God, why is God reaching out to Peter about food? Does the food he chooses really matter that much? Why is God choosing now to reach out to him about this? Peter doesn’t know, and he’s really confused.

While Peter is confused, the men sent by Cornelius appear at that house and start asking about Peter. God tells Peter to go down and go with the men without hesitation. So Peter goes down to the men and is like, “I’m Peter, what’s up?”

And the men tell them they work for Cornelius, a Roman centurion who is God fearing, and that an angel told Cornelius to get Peter.

Peter invites them in and let’s them stay the night and then the first thing the next day, he gets up and goes with them to where Cornelius lives.

Someone read Acts 10:24-33.

 24 The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him. 26 But Peter made him get up, saying, “Stand up; I am only a mortal.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled; 28 and he said to them, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”

30 Cornelius replied, “Four days ago at this very hour, at three o’clock, I was praying in my house when suddenly a man in dazzling clothes stood before me. 31 He said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter; he is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 Therefore I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. So now all of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say.”

Peter gets to Caesarea, and of course Cornelius as expecting him. Cornelius had called his whole family to be there, in order that they would all be able to see Peter and hear what he has to say. For Cornelius, the good news isn’t just for himself. It’s for everyone.

When Peter arrives, Cornelius falls to his feet, but Peter stops him, all like, “I’m only a man. I’m not God.” And then Peter sees everyone who is assembled, and is like, “You guys know it’s unlawful for a Jewish person like myself to associate or visit a Gentile.

So I want to discuss this thought of Peter’s briefly. There is not actually a law that says Jewish people can’t visit with or associate with Gentiles. It’s almost impossible for Jewish people to never socialize with Gentiles. There are laws about Jewish people marrying Gentiles, but even in the Old Testament, we see those laws are set aside for certain people—like Ruth, Gentiles who chose to follow God.

However, because the Jewish people are God’s chosen people, and sometimes association with Gentiles would lead to the temptation of Idolatry—worshiping other Gods—the Jewish people made themselves more standoffish to Gentiles, trying to set themselves apart so they wouldn’t be tempted. This is another example of people going beyond the Law, interpreting the Law more extreme than it’s actually written.  

And this is the moment of seeing this Roman who wants to follow God, this is the moment that Peter realizes what the vision was about. Because God showed him a vision—showed him all these animals and told him to eat. And while, fine, it cane be about food, it’s more importantly about people. It’s about the Gentiles. Peter doesn’t have the right to call these Gentiles profane or unclean, to say that they are not worthy of God.

Jewish tradition and law may say that Peter shouldn’t socialize or hang out with Gentiles. It may say that Jewish people are supposed to be a people apart. But God told Peter not to call profane what he has called clean. And this is about Cornelius, it’s about the Gentiles, it’s about us.

God is saying all people can come to him. That God wants to reach all people, and the apostles should not stop themselves from reaching anyone because they are afraid those people are unclean.

God is for all of us.

Someone please read Acts 10:34-43.

34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Here Peter is just speaking what he finally understands. That Jesus did not just come for Jewish people. He came for all of us. And that anyone can receive forgiveness of sins through him. Jewish people, Romans, Ethiopians, everyone. That any excuse anyone may make for racial, ethnic, or national reasons to not share the Gospel with someone is wrong. Jesus came for everyone.

Someone please read Acts 10:44-48.

44 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46 for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47 “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

And Peter didn’t just speechify about his new found conviction that Jesus is for everyone. He acted on it. He baptized everyone who wanted to be baptized in Jesus’s name. After this Peter basically uses his authority as an apostle to open up the ministry of Jesus to all nations, to all peoples, not just Jewish people, but even this is not an easy transition.

Sure non-Jewish people can follow Jesus now, but there is another important question related to this that the apostles needed to deal with. Did Gentiles need to convert to Judaism in order to become Christians?  And who is going to travel to take the word to the Gentiles? Most of the apostles are based in Jerusalem, and that’s the area they are familiar with. So how are they going to reach these people?

Well that’s pretty much what the rest of Acts is about! So we’ll continue to cover this next w

Philip and the Unexpected Believers

Last week we took another look at the Law—the rules laid out in the first five books of the Bible. We talked about how the Law was something that Jewish people take very seriously—that following the Law is believed to be the way a believer follows God. Therefore, it’s very important to understand the Law and it’s impacts on your own life. We also took another look at Jesus’ complicated relationship with the Law. The Law was not exactly straight forward, it was something to be debated; however, there were some laws that people viewed as very clear cut. Jesus on the other hand even called into question those supposedly clear cut Laws.

Which brings us to Acts. Peter and the other apostles are spreading the word of Jesus with reckless abandon! They want to bring everyone to him—or do they? So far the stories have mostly been focusing on their efforts with other Jewish people—whether Greek Jews or Aramaic Jews. Peter and the apostles are pretty specifically spreading the word to other Jewish people. But things don’t stay that way for long, and it brings up a lot of questions of the Law.

Someone please read Acts 8:4-8.

4 Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word. 5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. 6 The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, 7 for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured. 8 So there was great joy in that city.

Philip is one of the twelve disciples, who is now one of the Apostles leading this early Christian movement. Like Peter, he is out spreading the word with reckless abandon—going wherever God would have him go. Here Philip goes to Samaria.

We’ve talked about Samaria before, when we studied the story of the Good Samaritan and the story of the Woman at the Well. But to remind us: Samaria is the Northern Region, what was once known as the kingdom of Israel, or what we sometimes referred to as the Northern Kingdom in our studies. This is the area of land that fell long before Judah—to the Assyrians. While Judah later fell to the Babylonians. While the people of Judah were able to retain their identity and their Jewishness, and if anything stick closer to the law during their exile, the Northern Kingdom was different.  They were completely conquered and subjugated. Most of them were even moved out of Israel. And most of them lost their identity, they forgot they were Jewish.

However there were some people who remained. These people probably intermarried with the people brought in by the Assyrians. And to the Jewish people in the south, that would be unacceptable, a tainting of God’s chosen people and tradition. According to the Law, Jewish people were supposed to marry other Jewish people, not marry outsiders. But worst of all, the Samaritans and Jewish people constantly fought and had been fighting—not just wars, though that too, but over a question of identity.

The Samaritans said they were God’s chosen people, they were the ones worshipping God correctly in the high places of the mountains in Northern Israel, and that the entire temple system set up in Judah was a fraud. So to a Jewish person not only are Samaritans questionable because they married into other people groups, but now they’re claiming they are the God’s chosen people, the Children of Abraham via Joseph, and that the people of Judah are wrong.

This at the core a question of the Law, a question of the interpretation of the Law, what it means to be Jewish and what it means to follow God. The way the Jewish people followed the Law in Jerusalem, the Samaritans could never be accepted.

This isn’t like today, where you can be Presbyterian, your friend can be Baptist, and your cousin Catholic and everyone agrees to disagree. This is more like the Irish troubles of the 70s, where the Catholics and Protestants were at such a disagreement that they wanted to murder each other.

Romans might be the oppressor who overtook Israel, but Samaritans were the Jewish’s people’s personal nemesis. They hated Samaritans more than anyone else on the planet.

But Philip still goes there, he still preaches to them, and they come to Christianity in droves. They would never be accepted in Judaism, but the message of Jesus is that these delineations no longer matter. That they can worship Jesus anywhere, not just in a Temple. And they can let go of their past lives, their past sins, and come to God anew.

Someone please read Acts 8:9-13.

9 Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. 10 All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11 And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. 12 But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.

In Samaria, there is a guy named Simon. He was a practioner of magic. This isn’t like Harry Potter magic. He was more likely some sort of illusionist, like modern magicians, using tricks to bamboozle people. Whereas today, we know that magicians aren’t actually doing magic—that they have the cards in the sleeves or the dove in a special compartment of their hat, back then people would have taken this very seriously, and thought he was a serious magician. They would have thought he was using spirits to do magic—and maybe even sometimes he thought that too.

The people of Samaria were super impressed with him. They thought he had the power of God, because he could do these things.

Then comes along Philip, bringing everyone to Jesus—even Simon! This is a big deal and once again a question of the Law. Because the law is very clear what should happen to people who practice magic. Magic is a capital offense. In Leviticus it directly says that people who practice magic should be put to death—this is the sort of rational people used during the Salem witch trials to kill the people they thought were witches.

But Philip doesn’t use that interpretation of the Law to make everyone riot against Simon and kill him. No! Instead he spreads the good news to Simon too, and in the end Simon also becomes a Christian!

I’m sure that means he turned from his charlatan ways, because that’s the thing about following Jesus, you no longer want to do the sinful things were doing before. But Philip didn’t necessarily know if that would happen. If he knew the Law, he would know Simon was someone he was supposed to stay away from. But instead, Philip offered Simon the chance to follow Jesus, and Simon took it.

Because Jesus is for everyone.

This isn’t the only time Philip brings Jesus to someone the Law doesn’t necessarily welcome.

Someone please read Acts 8:26-28.

26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south[g] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 

Once again, Philip is going where his God tells him to go. In this case, an angel tells Philip to go to a random road in the middle of the wilderness.

If I was Philip I’d probably be like, “lol—what? You want me to go where?” It would be like God asking you to go to a random country road in the middle of nowhere New Mexico where you would probably be unlikely to meet anyone. It just seems random! But Philip has faith in scads, so he goes to the place where God has asked him.

Lo and behold, while he is there, an Ethiopian eunuch is traveling down this road.

As an Ethiopian, this person is clearly not born Jewish. He is from another country, and not born of Jewish heritage it would seem. However, somehow this guy came to want to be a follower of God, so he went to Jerusalem to worship.

I wonder what kind of reception this guy received in Jerusalem, at the temple. It’s possible it did not go well at all. He’s an outsider—probably easily marked by the color of his skin, his accent, and probably even his clothes. But he’s also a eunuch.

For those of you who don’t know what a eunuch is: it’s basically when you take a boy and have them neutered—as often do to our dogs or cats or horses. We do this to animals so they can’t have puppies, or kittens, or whatever. But in the ancient world, rulers used to do this to boys.  This is not really a practice that exists anymore; however, in the ancient world there were many reasons rulers used to do such a thing. Sometimes they would do it to their enemies, so they could never bear children. But often, they would do this to children, so that those boys would grow up, different. Eunuch children wouldn’t go through puberty like a normal boy, they wouldn’t develop like a normal boy. They could often look different. Their voices were certainly different—their voices never dropped. Many eunuchs were treasured for their singing voices.

But rulers did this to boys, so they could have a class of people who were not quite men or women—who they could then trust to go between the realms of men or women. You could trust these men amongst your wives, because they could not “accidentally” get your wives pregnant, and therefore bring into question your entire royal line.

The Bible uses male pronouns for the eunuch, but the truth is that eunuchs were viewed not quite as full men, not quite granted the privileges and rights of a regular man. They were viewed a bit like a class to themselves.

And since they were often visibly and definitely audibly different, you could tell when you met a eunuch that they were a eunuch.

Why is this important? Well, because depending on your interpretation of the Law, it’s highly likely that when the eunuch came to the Temple, he wasn’t allowed in because of his status as a eunuch. It’s highly likely that they used the Law as written in Deuteronomy 23:1—which seems to address men in his situation—to refuse him entry.

Imagine traveling all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem, just to be rejected at his destination.

So it’s entirely possible that this Ethiopian is leaving Jerusalem a bit defeated, a bit dejected, a bit on the outside.

Someone read Acts: 8:29-34.

29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
    and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
        so he does not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
    Who can describe his generation?
        For his life is taken away from the earth.”

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 

Philip is on this road, when the eunuch goes by, and God is like, “Hey Philip, join this guy in his charios.” And Philip is like, “Okay God” and literally runs up to the chariot—which takes some guts. Chariots have been known to trample people on occasion. But perhaps the chariot was stopped, I’m not sure.

Anyway, Philip runs up and hears the eunuch reading from the prophet Isaiah. Why does this eunuch have a copy of Isaiah? Who knows! It’s not like the Bible and its books were something you could buy at any bookstore, like today. There were no bookstores bake then, and there was no compiled Bible. Every synagogue would have a copy of the Law, the torah, and I’m sure the scholars and religious leaders all had copies of the other books of the Bible, but it’s unlikely that they were something super circulated.

However, this eunuch was a court official, so he probably had some political reach. Eunuchs were also generally very educated, courts and rulers viewed them as an investment in their court, people who could act as scribes and secretaries.

It’s possible that the eunuch found the copy of Isaiah first, somewhere in Ethiopia, and that’s what drove him to Jerusalem, the scripture he read there. Or it’s possible that once in Jerusalem—despairing about how he wasn’t being allowed to worship—someone gave him a copy of Isaiah to comfort him. Because despite what the Law says, or seems to say, about eunuchs not being able to worship in the temple, Isaiah had some very comforting words for eunuchs.

Someone read Isaiah 56:3-8.

Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
    “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and do not let the eunuch say,
    “I am just a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
    who choose the things that please me
    and hold fast my covenant,
5 I will give, in my house and within my walls,
    a monument and a name
    better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
    that shall not be cut off.

6 And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,
    and hold fast my covenant—
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
    for all peoples.
8 Thus says the Lord God,
    who gathers the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them
    besides those already gathered.

These verses seem to directly address the eunuchs situation. He is a foreigner. He is a eunuch. I’m sure as he read this, he thought “This Jewish God is speaking to me.” That’s probably the draw of Isaiah to him, the draw of the Jewish God. God is saying, “Hey eunuch, it doesn’t matter that you can’t have children. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t born as one of my chosen people. All can come to me. No one should stop you from coming to me. You too can be holy, you too can be complete, you too can be part of all of this.”

In the last verses it says God gathers the outcasts of Israel. He takes the people that Israelite society has said, “No, you’re not good enough for us” and God says, “it’s doesn’t matter, they are good enough for me.”

I like to think those are the verses the eunuch found comfort in, even as society told him he was less than—less than a man, less than worthy.

But that’s not the section of Isaiah he’s reading when Philip pops up! He’s reading another section, about a lamb led to the slaughter. And he’s reading it like, “Dude, I have no idea what this means. Why is this Isaiah guy talking in riddles.”

So when Philip pops up, the eunuch is like, “Hey, you’re Jewish. What does this mean?” Lucky for him—or rather as God planned—Philip has the answer.

Someone read Acts 8:35-40.

35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36 As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

When the eunuch asks Philip about these verses, he’s like, “Oh boy, do I have good news for you! That innocent lamb led to slaughter? I met him! His name was totally Jesus!!! Let me tell you all about him.”

And the eunuch is like, “THAT IS AMAZING!” In fact he’s so amazed that at one point he sees water and he’s like, “Can I get baptized right now?” Remember baptism is a symbol—a symbol that you are choosing to follow Jesus, that you are becoming part of his family, and this eunuch doesn’t want to waste any time. He wants to be baptized, to become a follower ASAP.

But I imagine after his experience at the Temple, there is a part of him who is expecting Philip to be like, “Oh no, we can’t do that—there are all these rules surrounding baptism, and we have to wait” or to say that people like eunuchs can’t be baptized. That’s probably why he asks, “Is there anything to prevent me from being baptized?”

But Philip is like, “No! Let’s do it right now! This is so exciting!” And they stop the chariot, they both hop out, and Philip baptizes him in the water. Is it a pond? A river? A lake? I have no idea. But they don’t care. They just care that it’s enough water to perform a baptism so that this eunuch can start his new life, as an accepted follower of Jesus, a child of God.

The Bible says as soon as the Baptism is completed, that God snatches Philip away, to send him somewhere else. The eunuch sees this, he is amazed, and he starts rejoicing. He is a follower of a real, powerful God, who cares about people like him—a mere eunuch. Society may not value him as much as a normal man, but God does. And the eunuch is going to spend his days rejoicing.

Meanwhile, Philip just keeps preaching wherever God takes him.

This story can seem random—it’s after Stephen’s stoning and before Saul’s conversion. It’s just a little story in the Bible, but I wanted to stop and talk about it a few reasons. One—this is just another example of how the apostles and early disciples are spreading the word with reckless abandon. But two—and more importantly—it’s about how God loves the people on the fringes of society and wants them as part of his crew as well.

We as a society often make up a bunch of rules about what makes someone acceptable to socialize with us, to be a part of us. Sometimes we—as a church or a culture—make up rules and we try to attribute them to God. We try to say it’s God who cares how you dress on Sunday. God who cares what color your skin is. That we’re just following God when we discriminate or enforce a rule.

This was seen a lot during the times of slavery, but also during the Jim Crow era in the South. We tried to say it was God who said that a white person and a black person marrying was wrong. When really it was just us, and our racism.

The eunuch probably came across a lot of people in life who told him he didn’t fit in societal boxes enough to join them. He certainly would have at the Temple. Like I said, it’s highly likely they wouldn’t let him worship at the Temple because of his status as a eunuch.

But God doesn’t care about these man-made things. God doesn’t view rules or institutions as more important than people. He wants all people to come to him, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their status as a foreigner, regardless of their questionable gender. He wants them all.

Don’t ever let anything stop you from coming to God.