1 00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:07,720 One phrase that I've often heard is that Christianity was born 2 00:00:07,720 --> 00:00:10,600 with a Bible and its cradle, which is really unusual. 3 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:16,120 And so from its very beginning, Christians had texts that they 4 00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:18,840 considered to be sacred and important, and they knew from 5 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:20,840 those texts what God was doing in the world. 6 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:24,200 And they also used those texts to think about what God is now 7 00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:26,400 doing in the world through the figure of Jesus. 8 00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:32,720 Hey friends and welcome back to the Grace Church Podcast. 9 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:35,800 I'm your host Whitney Manus and I'm here with my Co host Scott 10 00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:37,600 Mozingo. Everyone say hey Scott. 11 00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:39,000 Hey, Whitney. Good to see you. 12 00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:43,600 And in the studio today we have a returning alumnus of the 13 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:45,960 podcast. He knows a lot of really cool 14 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:48,960 things and explains them very well and sometimes gets paid for 15 00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:51,240 it. He is a phenomenal tour guide 16 00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:55,000 and he has a voice made for podcasting and might put Scott 17 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,040 and I out of a job anytime, anytime, anytime. 18 00:00:58,400 --> 00:01:00,120 That's right. He is. 19 00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:02,480 Doctor Tim Wardle, welcome back. We're glad to have you. 20 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:04,560 Thanks. Thanks for asking me back. 21 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:07,400 Absolutely. And just for the people who 22 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:10,320 haven't met you yet, will you just do a quick intro of 23 00:01:10,320 --> 00:01:12,960 yourself? You are a member here at Grace, 24 00:01:12,960 --> 00:01:16,040 so where are you a member, how long you've been a member, and 25 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:17,920 anything else you'd like to tell us about yourself? 26 00:01:18,160 --> 00:01:20,160 Yeah. So my wife Sherry and I moved 27 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:23,200 here 14 years ago and we quickly settled on Grace. 28 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:25,560 We've been attending Grace for 1314 years. 29 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:29,680 I have three daughters. They've all grown up here, and 30 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:32,640 I'm currently an RTS leader, reading through scripture leader 31 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:36,480 here at Pelham, and my day job as I teach at Furman University. 32 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:38,000 I'm a professor of New Testament. 33 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:42,520 And because of that job, I get to travel to the Middle East now 34 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:46,560 and again and take people to Israel and Jordan and other 35 00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:49,520 Middle East countries. And it's a pleasure to both work 36 00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:51,640 there and attend. Grace, That's awesome. 37 00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:54,640 So Tim, this is spring semester. We're getting close to the end. 38 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:56,120 Just give us a taste. What? 39 00:01:56,160 --> 00:01:58,640 What classes are you teaching right now? 40 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:02,640 I just finished teaching before I drove over here this 41 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:06,200 afternoon, a class called Paul's Life and Thought, So I think we 42 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:08,120 just finished looking at the letter to the Romans. 43 00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:11,240 And then I'm also teaching a class called Jerusalem, One 44 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:13,920 City, 3 Face. So looking at the historical 45 00:02:13,920 --> 00:02:16,640 development of the city through the lens of Jews, Christians and 46 00:02:16,640 --> 00:02:19,280 Muslims. OK, you also teach a good bit of 47 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:21,960 CS Lewis. I do teach a class on CS Lewis. 48 00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:25,120 It's the first year writing seminar, so for incoming first 49 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:28,520 year students, for freshmen, I get to read CS Lewis with them 50 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:30,040 and they get to write about it. Fantastic. 51 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:35,000 So cool, all the fun stuff. I will throw my roll dens in 52 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:39,640 here, just I feel obligated to. And Tim, you were last on this 53 00:02:39,640 --> 00:02:43,240 podcast 2 1/2 years ago and really did an incredible job 54 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:46,720 just summarizing some of the more recent history of Israel in 55 00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:49,160 under an hour. And we, we encourage y'all to go 56 00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,520 back and listen to that if you haven't already. 57 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:54,080 But at least for today, we'll try to give you an easier topic 58 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:56,480 if we can. Tim gets to pop around our 59 00:02:56,480 --> 00:02:59,560 campuses and guests teach just on various topics. 60 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:04,040 And he recently got to teach in RTS about how we came to have 61 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:08,040 the Bible that we read today. So we really just wanted to have 62 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:09,720 you share some of that on the podcast. 63 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:14,240 But before we dive deeper into that, you, you do just spend a 64 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:16,440 lot of time with Scripture, hopefully in your personal 65 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:20,280 reading, but also for your job as a teacher, as a professor. 66 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:25,560 And I would love to know, just as you spend time in the word, 67 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:29,560 does it ever get wrote or tedious for you? 68 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:33,280 And just if so, like, how do you keep coming back to Scripture 69 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,480 with fresh eyes and looking to learn something new when you 70 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:38,440 already do know so much about it? 71 00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:42,200 Yeah, that's a great question. And so, I mean, the honest 72 00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:44,880 answer is yes, sometimes it does get wrote and tedious. 73 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:49,680 And so I do have to sometimes take a step back and think this 74 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:52,760 is the word of the word of God that he has for me right now. 75 00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:58,440 And to come sit down, open my Bible and think, I am not a 76 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:00,640 professor right now. I'm not AI mean. 77 00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:02,320 I am these things. So I'm not a father right now. 78 00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:07,760 I'm not like I am here to hear to hear what what God has to 79 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:09,680 speak to me, what he got to speaking to me through these 80 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:13,000 words on the page. And I have found that I just 81 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:14,600 have to be humble. Really. 82 00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:16,440 There are there are lots of times when I have to kind of 83 00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:19,839 take my professor hat off when I'm reading because when I read 84 00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:21,760 the Bible, sometimes I think, how would I teach this? 85 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:24,040 And that's the wrong question to be asking if I'm not teaching 86 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:27,040 it, if I want to know like what does God have for me? 87 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:29,120 And so I have to consciously kind of say, I'm going to put 88 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:32,200 those questions to the side and I'm going to open this up and 89 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:34,360 I'm going to see what what God has for me today. 90 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:38,600 It's a really helpful practice for me to be reading through the 91 00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:41,280 Bible, which is why I've signed up to do RTS for the second time 92 00:04:41,280 --> 00:04:45,000 right now because even though I do teach the Bible, I sometimes 93 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:49,320 struggle to daily read the Bible devotionally or, or for myself. 94 00:04:49,400 --> 00:04:51,720 And so it's I just need these habits and I need the 95 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:55,280 accountability to do it. Yeah, and I love that our RTS 96 00:04:55,280 --> 00:04:57,840 groups have been, I've just heard so many great things. 97 00:04:57,840 --> 00:05:02,480 And it is the the doing it in community and having a little 98 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:05,480 bit of that extra accountability, but just to take 99 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:08,280 it in its entirety is so impactful. 100 00:05:08,280 --> 00:05:12,000 So y'all heard it here first. Tim Wardle has to go to RTS too, 101 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:13,960 so there's no excuse for y'all not to do it. 102 00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:19,760 OK, let's take a dive into this idea of where we got the Bible. 103 00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:22,560 I mean, big topic, lots of things we could talk about. 104 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:28,800 There are around 40 different authors over the span of 1600 105 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,280 years that it was written in. And so I mean, where would you 106 00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:34,440 like to start? Like how we have a physical 107 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,720 Bible in front of us today. Our church uses the NLT 108 00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:42,280 translation, but where did all of that even begin to start 109 00:05:42,280 --> 00:05:45,800 coming together? One phrase that I've often heard 110 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:48,680 is that Christianity was born with a Bible and its cradle, 111 00:05:48,920 --> 00:05:52,800 which is really unusual. And so from its very beginning, 112 00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:56,960 Christians had texts that they considered to be sacred and 113 00:05:56,960 --> 00:05:59,840 important, and they knew from those texts what God was doing 114 00:05:59,840 --> 00:06:02,320 in the world. And they also used those texts 115 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:05,040 to think about what God is now doing in the world through the 116 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:09,000 figure of Jesus. So the biblical authors are 117 00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:12,880 describing events that they either saw in person or that 118 00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:16,120 they heard about. And so the Old Testament will be 119 00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:18,920 what Christians call the Old Testament, Jews call their Bible 120 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:21,120 because they don't have a New Testament. 121 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:24,280 It's it's a long period of time that the biblic authors are 122 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:26,880 talking about. So if you were to start with 123 00:06:26,920 --> 00:06:29,360 Abraham, because that's dateable, at least in my mind. 124 00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:33,080 So 1800 BC before that you've got Adam and Eve, you've got 125 00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:35,120 Noah. Those are important stories, but 126 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:38,200 they're hard to date because it's so, so long ago. 127 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:42,720 So starting with if I start with Abraham and Genesis 11 and then 128 00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:47,360 moving forward, you're 1800, Abraham about 400, you got Ezra, 129 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:48,840 Nehemiah. And that's kind of the, the 130 00:06:48,840 --> 00:06:51,960 range for the Old Testament. So a long time, right? 131 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:54,600 Yeah, centuries and centuries. People are not writing that 132 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:57,280 whole time, but by the middle of that time here, they're starting 133 00:06:57,280 --> 00:07:00,720 to write down their history and. Before that, just oral history. 134 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:03,600 The stories around. Fireplace everyone's. 135 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:05,600 That's right. It's being passed on orally 136 00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:10,320 mostly because, well, early on, writing wasn't really even 137 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:12,800 invented. It wasn't the thing, but even 138 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:14,480 when it was, most people were illiterate. 139 00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:16,880 Even in the time of Jesus, most people were illiterate. 140 00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:19,920 And so the way people learned in the ancient world was by 141 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:22,520 hearing. And so they got really good at 142 00:07:22,520 --> 00:07:24,920 hearing and remembering and passing on those stories. 143 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:27,760 So when I think of passing on stories, I think of the 144 00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:29,960 telephone game and I'm, you know, you're bad at it. 145 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:32,040 Just around a circle in 2 minutes. 146 00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:33,840 It's awful, right? But that's not how the ancient 147 00:07:33,840 --> 00:07:34,600 world worked. They were. 148 00:07:34,640 --> 00:07:36,440 They're really good at remembering and passing things 149 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:37,960 on because that's what they had. Yeah. 150 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:41,520 Like our attention span is so short and we talked about that 151 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:44,760 whether it's the Internet or social media or, you know, we 152 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,600 try to get our podcast into 30 minutes so that people will sit 153 00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:49,720 and listen to it. I don't. 154 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:51,920 Know take away your phone and think about how much more time 155 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:54,520 you would have to remember to learn. 156 00:07:54,640 --> 00:07:56,520 And if that was your entertainment, too, like, we 157 00:07:56,520 --> 00:08:00,200 have so many entertainment options now, but back then, you, 158 00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:02,960 at the end of your day, everyone got together and just hung out. 159 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:04,640 And Grandpa, tell us a story. Yeah. 160 00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:08,080 So at a certain point, and it's hard to know exactly when people 161 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:09,240 started writing down the stories. 162 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:13,040 And so there are multiple authors over a long period of 163 00:08:13,040 --> 00:08:14,560 time still. But I think of like maybe the 164 00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:17,920 year 1000 with King David, it's the writing started before that, 165 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:19,840 but it's really accelerating time. 166 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:22,840 And in the time of the kings of Israel and then in the time of 167 00:08:22,880 --> 00:08:28,640 exile, so like in the five hundreds BC, seems a lot more 168 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:30,760 was written. And so there's just periods of 169 00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:32,760 time where there's writing their stories are happening all along. 170 00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:37,559 And so by the time you get to like 403 hundred BC, the books 171 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:41,200 of the Old Testament are written, OK, but it spans, yeah, 172 00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:45,360 you like you said, thirteen, 1400 years, multiple authors, 173 00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:48,280 but it's the same God who is behind all of it, right? 174 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:51,160 So God is prompting people to write things down. 175 00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:54,760 And then when it is written down, then people are copying 176 00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:56,280 it. But most, most of the time 177 00:08:56,280 --> 00:08:57,640 they're hearing it and passing it on. 178 00:08:57,640 --> 00:08:59,960 But there are written records. So it's being passed on in 179 00:08:59,960 --> 00:09:05,200 written form as well. And was there any need to, like, 180 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:07,920 decide what was included at that point? 181 00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:10,440 Were there lots of other different stories that we've 182 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:13,320 just kind of left out from the Old Testament specifically? 183 00:09:13,600 --> 00:09:16,720 Or was everyone pretty clear? Like this is just our history, 184 00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:18,560 it's obvious what should be in here. 185 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:20,960 You know, that is a great question that's really hard to 186 00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:23,360 answer. So I'm reading in RTS right now. 187 00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:25,200 We're reading through, we just finished reading through Second 188 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:29,120 Kings and at the end of every King's life, it'll say, and if 189 00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:31,720 you want to know more about this king, you can read the Annals of 190 00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:35,000 the Kings of Judah or Israel. Like we don't have those books 191 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:36,720 anymore. So there were things that were 192 00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:39,640 written that we don't have, but there are a lot of things are 193 00:09:39,640 --> 00:09:42,000 written that we do have, right? So the things that we read in 194 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:45,320 our Old Testament are really pretty much all of the Jewish 195 00:09:45,320 --> 00:09:47,240 texts that were written in that time period. 196 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:50,360 Jewish is anyway Israelite or Jewish texts. 197 00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:54,080 Sure. After the year of 400 or between 198 00:09:54,080 --> 00:09:57,920 like say the year 4 to 300 BC and, and the time of Jesus, like 199 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:01,880 0 zero. There are a lot of other Jewish 200 00:10:01,880 --> 00:10:04,160 texts that are written that are not included in our Bible. 201 00:10:05,320 --> 00:10:09,520 And so part of that is they're not as old, but also a lot of 202 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:12,360 those texts are reflection upon what we now call the Old 203 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:14,960 Testament books. So they're reading those books, 204 00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:17,280 they're thinking about it, they're maybe rewriting the 205 00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:19,600 story in different way or they're like they're reflecting 206 00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:22,360 in different ways. And that was never seen as quite 207 00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:25,320 the same level of authority as the books that we now call the 208 00:10:25,320 --> 00:10:26,680 Old Testament. OK. 209 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:31,000 Tim, when you think about manuscripts of Old Testament 210 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:34,920 writings, what do we have? A lot. 211 00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:40,320 We have a lot, but not old a lot like not a lot of the old ones. 212 00:10:40,320 --> 00:10:44,360 So the earliest ancient texts that we have of the Bible are 213 00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:47,840 from the Dead Sea Scrolls. So these are written between the 214 00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:52,160 year, say 200 BC and like the year or 50AD. 215 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:55,840 So they they're pretty well all the Qumran or Dead Sea Scroll 216 00:10:55,840 --> 00:10:57,240 texts, they're all pre Christian. 217 00:10:57,440 --> 00:10:58,720 Yeah. So there's nothing Christian in 218 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:00,880 them. But every Old Testament book, 219 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:03,000 there's evidence of every Old Testament book in the Dead Sea 220 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:05,160 Scrolls, except for Esther. That's the only one that was 221 00:11:05,160 --> 00:11:07,440 never like no portion of Esther was ever found. 222 00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:09,920 But everything else that you can tell that these texts are 223 00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:12,080 important because they're preserving them, they're copying 224 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:13,800 them. And that's why the discovery of 225 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:16,920 the Dead Sea Scrolls is maybe the greatest archaeological 226 00:11:17,320 --> 00:11:19,320 discovery. It was so important because 227 00:11:19,360 --> 00:11:22,640 before, prior to the discover the Dead Sea Scrolls, so texts 228 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:27,840 from say let's say 100 BC, the earliest Old Testament text that 229 00:11:27,840 --> 00:11:32,200 we had were from like the year 1080 roughly, right? 230 00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:36,400 And so you could move 1000 years backwards and you can say, oh, 231 00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:38,600 this is what they're reading in the year 100. 232 00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:40,480 This is what the text said in the year 1000. 233 00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:42,120 And that's really, really close, right? 234 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:44,400 So you, you get the sense that there's continuity. 235 00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:46,720 The scribes are doing their work very faithfully and carefully. 236 00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:50,440 Yeah. Can you describe that process 237 00:11:50,560 --> 00:11:52,760 for us just a little bit? So how scribes worked? 238 00:11:52,760 --> 00:11:56,280 Yeah. So the scribal process is such 239 00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:59,560 that like it, we live in a day and age when we have a printing 240 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:02,160 press, right? And so if you want to get a copy 241 00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:05,240 of a book, you just print 500 copies and you know you're good 242 00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:06,120 to go. And they're all going to be 243 00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:08,960 exactly the same. When scribes worked, they had to 244 00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:13,200 be really careful to see the text that's in front of them and 245 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:16,080 then copy it. And so they have their ink, 246 00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:20,000 they've got a quill, and they are writing, but they have to 247 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:21,800 look up, they have to look down. They have to look up, they look 248 00:12:21,800 --> 00:12:23,640 down because they're looking at the text they're looking, 249 00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:25,040 they're writing. They're looking at the text 250 00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:27,720 they're writing. And so there are small 251 00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:30,680 differences among every text that we have from anything in 252 00:12:30,680 --> 00:12:32,160 nature. Well, not just biblical, any 253 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:34,000 ancient text, there going to be small differences. 254 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:35,920 Most of them are just like articles here and there. 255 00:12:35,920 --> 00:12:39,320 There's a missing and the isn't there, like some of a few 256 00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:40,880 differences are a little more important. 257 00:12:42,080 --> 00:12:44,360 But by and large, scribes are really good at what they did. 258 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:46,320 I always do this assignment with my students. 259 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:49,440 A New Testament, Whitney did this where I gave them a 5 260 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:51,680 minute assignment where they had to copy something that was on 261 00:12:51,680 --> 00:12:53,600 the on the screen. They had to copy it down in 262 00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:56,600 front of them and half the class gets it wrong every single time. 263 00:12:57,160 --> 00:13:00,000 And it's just to show how difficult scribal work was. 264 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:02,400 But they're trained at it, they're good at it. 265 00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:06,680 And then, so let's say like Scott, you, you write a text and 266 00:13:06,680 --> 00:13:10,320 then you, you write it and then I come along and I'm copying 267 00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:12,040 what you wrote. And then Whitney comes along and 268 00:13:12,040 --> 00:13:14,440 she copies what I wrote, right. And then you can, I mean, if 269 00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:16,480 you're lucky, you have all three texts and you can compare them. 270 00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:19,320 Sometimes you don't have them. And so the scribe then just test 271 00:13:19,320 --> 00:13:20,720 is like, OK, this is what it was. 272 00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:23,240 And you just keep going. But it's, it's copying and 273 00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:27,200 copying and copying and copying. So then for the New Testament, 274 00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:28,920 we really got a New Testament. But the New Testament, we have 275 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:31,920 5000, more than 5000 Greek manuscripts. 276 00:13:31,920 --> 00:13:34,440 The New Testament exist just because so much copying went on 277 00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:37,080 and then the New Testament translated into so many 278 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:41,800 different languages that there's there's just so many copies of 279 00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:44,360 the New Testament, more than any other book in the in the world. 280 00:13:45,160 --> 00:13:48,120 We have so many copies of the New Testament because Christians 281 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:50,600 cared about it so much that they were copying it and preserving 282 00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:51,520 it. Wow. 283 00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:55,680 So then let's jump back then to the New Testament and just kind 284 00:13:55,680 --> 00:14:00,000 of take us through how we arrived at those those books. 285 00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:04,000 Sure. So by the time Jesus is around 286 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:09,200 in the 1st century, so let's say roughly the year 30 AD, when 287 00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:11,960 Jesus is teaching, he assumes I'm going to start with the Old 288 00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:13,160 Testament, then move to New Testament. 289 00:14:13,160 --> 00:14:17,440 He assumes that what we now call the Old Testament, they could 290 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:19,240 call scriptures. They had different terms for it. 291 00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:22,960 He just assumed this was a given, that everyone agreed that 292 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:24,400 these are the authoritative words of God. 293 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:27,760 So in John seven, he will say, as the Scripture says, and then 294 00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:33,560 he'll quote, or in Luke 24, after his race from the dead, he 295 00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:36,600 is walking with two other disciples on the way to Emmaus, 296 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:38,680 the road to Emmaus. And he begins to explain to 297 00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:42,240 them, he says from the law or Luke says from the law, the 298 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:44,760 prophets and the Psalms, everything that was written 299 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:47,000 about himself, but everything's written about Jesus. 300 00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:50,600 And in that statement of the law, the prophets and the 301 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:53,600 writings of the Psalms, those are the three sections of the 302 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:56,000 Jewish Bible. And so by the time with Jesus, 303 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:58,840 by the time in the 1st century, like, I think Jews just agreed 304 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:01,640 that these are the word, these are the texts. 305 00:15:01,640 --> 00:15:04,160 These are the books that are important for us, for our faith, 306 00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:06,600 for our history, for how to live. 307 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:09,120 And it was, it was not a discussion. 308 00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:11,080 Like, do we believe this book? Do we not do this book? 309 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:13,160 Like they all agreed on what it was. 310 00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:16,880 So then after Jesus is raised from the dead and he ascends to 311 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:20,600 heaven, early followers of Jesus are starting to want to do 312 00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:22,320 things like record his words, right? 313 00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:24,520 And they're, they're reflecting about what he said. 314 00:15:24,920 --> 00:15:27,680 And Paul's going around teaching and he's writing letters. 315 00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:32,840 And so in a very brief period of time between 50 and 100 AD, all 316 00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:34,720 the books, the New Testament are written, right? 317 00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:37,120 So it's very close in time to the time of Jesus. 318 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:40,440 And it's kind of this, this burst of energy almost. 319 00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:42,920 Other New Testament, other Christian texts are written 320 00:15:42,920 --> 00:15:44,600 after that. 9 New Testament, other Christian books are 321 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:47,960 written after that. But it's this period of time 322 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,640 that later Christians look back. They said these texts that were 323 00:15:50,640 --> 00:15:54,120 written now are the ones that we need in addition to the Old 324 00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:56,920 Testament. We need these books as well that 325 00:15:56,920 --> 00:16:00,480 can teach us about who Jesus is, why God sent Jesus, how we 326 00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:03,600 should live as Christians and a whole bunch of other, you know, 327 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:06,320 reasons why they they accepted these texts as important and 328 00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:09,600 authoritative. Should I keep going? 329 00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:12,640 No, I think that's great. I mean, that's super helpful. 330 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:15,080 So we've got Old Testament, we have New Testament. 331 00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:18,200 Old Testament is a little bit more straightforward and clear. 332 00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:21,960 In the New Testament, we have a lot of writing that's happening 333 00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:25,920 in a very short amount of time, and then a lot of writing that 334 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:29,760 happens after that. Can you just explain a little 335 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:31,240 bit? I mean, you mentioned that you 336 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:36,960 have Christians who are reading all of these different texts and 337 00:16:36,960 --> 00:16:39,200 you mentioned some of the criteria that they're thinking 338 00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:41,880 about of why these need to be added into the Bible. 339 00:16:42,680 --> 00:16:45,800 Who were some of those people? Like, how do we, how did they 340 00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:49,480 decide? Who gets to decide what goes in 341 00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:52,400 the Bible? So for the new, this is easier 342 00:16:52,400 --> 00:16:54,320 for the New Testament than the Old Testament to think about 343 00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:56,880 these questions. So for the New Testament, 344 00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:00,640 there's nothing called a New Testament that that phrase or 345 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,320 that it didn't mean any, that wouldn't mean anything until the 346 00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,560 end of the 4th century. And so I'll jump to the end and 347 00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:10,839 then I'll work backwards, right. So in the years 393 and 397 AD, 348 00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:15,119 two different councils got together and said this is the 349 00:17:15,119 --> 00:17:18,040 New Testament. So they decided these 27 books 350 00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:20,240 are the 27 books that we are going to read in church. 351 00:17:20,240 --> 00:17:22,160 We're going to consider them authoritative. 352 00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:24,560 We're not going to add anything to this. 353 00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:26,280 We're not going to take away from this, right? 354 00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:29,400 So those are the 27 books. One of the reasons it took so 355 00:17:29,400 --> 00:17:31,680 long, right? If you think between the year 50 356 00:17:31,680 --> 00:17:34,000 and the year 393, that's a long time. 357 00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:37,880 It's partly because Christianity was an illegal religion for most 358 00:17:37,880 --> 00:17:39,880 of that time. So there was not a time when 359 00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,480 like Christian bishops or elders or pastors could get together 360 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:46,200 and make these decisions because they would have been in danger 361 00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:48,960 of arrest. And so it's only after the 362 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:52,080 Empire becomes Christian, the Roman Empire becomes Christian, 363 00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:54,520 that these councils are even possible. 364 00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:58,240 So the most famous council is Council of Nicaea and 3:25. 365 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:01,120 That's the earliest Christian council where bishops from all 366 00:18:01,120 --> 00:18:03,680 over the world are getting together and discussing things 367 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:06,240 that are important for church doctrine and church life. 368 00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:09,320 And so some of the big issues there were like, how do we talk 369 00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:12,440 about Jesus, right, which is an important question, right, 370 00:18:12,440 --> 00:18:14,320 because they were they were issue there. 371 00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:18,240 There was controversy over was Jesus always existent? 372 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:19,840 That was he created a certain point in time. 373 00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:21,680 And so they had to like wrestle with those issues. 374 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:25,520 And then several decades later, then they get around to saying, 375 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:27,800 OK, like we've been using these, what we now call the new test. 376 00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:31,240 We use these texts all along, but now let's actually define it 377 00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,040 and say, what are the texts that we are going to be using and and 378 00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:36,960 call authoritative? But looking backwards, you can 379 00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:38,960 say so two things. You can look at like certain 380 00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:41,320 periods of time when certain collections, what we now call 381 00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:43,880 the New Testament, seem to be rise to the level of Scripture. 382 00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:47,600 And then you can also look at kind of criteria for like how 383 00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:51,200 are they choosing? And so Paul's writing in the 50s 384 00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:55,280 and 60s of the 1st 1st century. By the middle of the 2nd 385 00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:57,920 century, there's already a collection of Paul's letters 386 00:18:57,920 --> 00:18:59,840 that's circulating together, right? 387 00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:02,840 So you know that even though Paul wrote a couple letters to 388 00:19:02,840 --> 00:19:05,240 Corinth and one to Rome and a couple episodes like he's 389 00:19:05,240 --> 00:19:08,160 writing these letters, somehow we don't know how someone went 390 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:11,320 and collected them all. And then they're all circulating 391 00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:13,920 together as a collection. By the middle of 2nd century. 392 00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:15,440 It's clear that that's happening. 393 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:19,280 And so that tells you that early Christians think what Paul said 394 00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:21,080 is important, right? And they're collecting it, 395 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:22,360 they're preserving it, they're copying. 396 00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:24,360 It how'd you be? How'd you like to be the guy or 397 00:19:24,360 --> 00:19:26,440 gal hanging on to that collection? 398 00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:27,440 Oh gosh. Carry. 399 00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:29,360 Carry it with you. Of course, they probably just 400 00:19:29,360 --> 00:19:31,160 thought it was another book that they had. 401 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:33,200 You know, they're just like, oh, that's, that's funny. 402 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:35,640 They're like, hey, don't give it to Johnny, he loses stuff at the 403 00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:37,760 time. You can't even remember to keep 404 00:19:37,760 --> 00:19:38,840 his lunch with them. That's right. 405 00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:42,440 That's great. Is is interesting to think about 406 00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:45,640 how or why someone decided it was important to collect Paul's 407 00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:47,280 letters because it was not centralized, right? 408 00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:49,120 He's sending letters to different places, sure. 409 00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:52,880 And one theory that makes the most sense to me is that after 410 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:56,840 Luke wrote the book of Acts and it details Paul's itinerary and 411 00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:01,040 where he went, someone said, I know he wrote a letter to us and 412 00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:03,400 we are in Thessalonica. But I get apparently he went 413 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:05,800 other places too. Like let's go around and see if 414 00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:07,960 he wrote letters to other places too and someone collected them. 415 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:11,280 Which would have been a really cool, unifying thing for the 416 00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:12,400 early church. It would have. 417 00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:15,840 I mean, it's not like people are, they're not travelling like 418 00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:17,200 we are today. You're right. 419 00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,560 But people who did travel from city to city for trade and for 420 00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:22,400 different things. Not everyone travelled, but. 421 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:26,440 Which like can you put into context like from Thessalonica 422 00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:29,920 to Jerusalem, like if you put that over the United States, 423 00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:32,360 like about what is that distance for us? 424 00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:36,320 OK, so I want to say 1000 miles but I don't know why I think 425 00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:39,800 that. I can tell you that in Paul's 426 00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:42,800 like 3 missionary journeys in the book of Acts, if you were to 427 00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:46,600 add up all the I can use walking most for these sailing songs, 428 00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:49,960 but if you're to add U all that, it's the equivalent of going 429 00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:53,800 from Boston to San Francisco to Boston to San Francisco and 430 00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:55,200 halfway back. OK. 431 00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:57,960 Wow, it's a long ways. Yeah, I might have had one too 432 00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:00,280 many lengths in there, but it's like it's like 2 1/2 times 433 00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:02,600 across the country. Yeah, and it's a, it's a lot of 434 00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:07,080 travel, but also it would have been customary for, especially 435 00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:10,160 in such an area of trade in the Mediterranean Sea. 436 00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:12,320 People are moving around all the time. 437 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:14,440 They are. There's the Roman Rd. system is 438 00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:16,800 world class. There are shipping lanes that 439 00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:19,600 everyone there's, you know, everyone's knows the route from 440 00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:21,480 A to B and so, yeah, you could do it. 441 00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:23,640 Yeah, for sure. So you have to your point, 442 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:27,520 Scott, I mean, like as those things are becoming shared and 443 00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:31,080 people start to realize, I think we've mentioned as we're going 444 00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:34,560 through First Corinthians, Blake had said, like they have to 445 00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:37,560 figure out their issues because that's the only church around. 446 00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,360 And then at some point they realize, oh, there's all these 447 00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:44,680 other churches around and we all have to work together and figure 448 00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:47,200 this thing out, especially when you're undergoing persecution 449 00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:49,040 and try to find friends where you can. 450 00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,480 So when do you think church churches would have had copies 451 00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:55,120 of multiple letters? When would that have been a 452 00:21:55,120 --> 00:21:56,280 reality? Any idea? 453 00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:59,920 I don't really know, but I would think end of 1st century being a 454 00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:03,600 second century that someone has. So someone must have said, yes, 455 00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,880 he wrote a letter to us in Thessalonica, but if he also 456 00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:09,920 went to Corinth, maybe what he said to Corinth applies to us 457 00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:11,760 too, right? Because they're specific. 458 00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:13,240 Like Paul writes to Thessalonica what he says there. 459 00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:14,760 He does not writing other people right. 460 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:17,120 But it didn't take long for Christians to say, well, what 461 00:22:17,120 --> 00:22:20,400 Paul said to us, he probably met more broadly for everyone too. 462 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,160 Like it's it becomes more universal. 463 00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:24,200 Yeah. And you do have the the the 464 00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:28,160 notion of many circular letters that were hitting very, yes, 465 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,640 very many churches. Yeah, and some of Paul's, like 466 00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,080 the letter the Galatians is a circular letter because Galatia 467 00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:35,280 is a region, not a city. And so Paul's writing it and 468 00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:37,440 probably assuming that it's going to go from church to 469 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:40,800 church in the region of Galatia. Yeah, the Gospels are also kind 470 00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:44,640 of mid 2nd century at first. I, I think Mark was the first 471 00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:46,320 gospel written. People have different opinions 472 00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:47,320 on which gospel is written first. 473 00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:50,680 I think Mark was written first, but I, I'm convinced it was not 474 00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:51,960 called the gospel according to Mark. 475 00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,640 It was just called the gospel because it's the only one, 476 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,520 right, right. You don't need to call them the 477 00:22:57,520 --> 00:22:59,600 gospel according to Mark, according to Matthew, according 478 00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,440 until you have more than one, right, until you have to 479 00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:03,760 differentiate. I mean, they could have done by 480 00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:05,960 colors like the yellow gospel, the blue Gospel, right? 481 00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,080 But what they did is they named them according to the author, 482 00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:12,120 and you don't have to do that until you have more than one. 483 00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:17,040 And so they, they started to call differentiate the Gospels 484 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:21,920 from each other by the early 2nd century, by the mid to late 2nd 485 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:25,080 century, there are lists that are mentioned and they they talk 486 00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:27,040 about the Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel according to 487 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:28,480 Matthew. Like so they're collected. 488 00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:33,680 There's so all they say Paul and the Gospels are probably seen as 489 00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:37,720 authoritative easily by the first, by the 2nd century, not 490 00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:39,440 far removed from the time of their writing. 491 00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:45,240 And they are kind of, I mean, still to this day, I think many 492 00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:47,000 Christians say those are the most important parts of the New 493 00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,320 Testament. But it's all important, right? 494 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:51,960 But those seem to have been the ones that were the important, 495 00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:53,200 the earliest. They're seen as authoritative 496 00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,880 the earliest. OK, so we have the councils that 497 00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:57,960 have picked out all of our books. 498 00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:01,720 How do we get the order that they're currently in? 499 00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,960 Because it's it's not chronological and we have kind 500 00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:09,640 of some different genres. But how did they decide when do 501 00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:11,560 Genesis and Exodus and and so on? 502 00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:13,920 Yeah. So for the Old Testament there 503 00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:17,800 is this kind of three or tripartite division, the 1st 2 504 00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:19,960 are easy. So the law, the first five 505 00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,960 books, that was the oldest part and soon as the most important 506 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:25,680 part for Jews. OK partly it was the most 507 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,040 important because it was the oldest. 508 00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:30,600 It was also like this is what God is telling us to do and how 509 00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,720 to live. The prophets is the next 510 00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:35,480 section. There's I think 8 prophetic 511 00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:39,840 books in the Jewish Bible and some of the books that we would 512 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,120 not consider prophetic books are considered prophetic books in 513 00:24:42,120 --> 00:24:45,920 the Hebrew Bible. So Joshua is a prophetic book. 514 00:24:47,120 --> 00:24:48,960 The 1st and 2nd kings first like Samuel. 515 00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:51,080 Those are prophetic books because there are prophets in 516 00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:52,120 them. Right, OK. 517 00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,320 And so that was a collection. It was pretty well defined 518 00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:57,320 pretty early on to the last section. 519 00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,120 Is this called the writings? It's not the miscellaneous 520 00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:02,800 section, but it's kind of like there's like the other stuff. 521 00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,480 Yeah, the rest of the story. And so things we would consider 522 00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:10,520 like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, like those books are 523 00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,800 all in there Ester. But then there's also we might 524 00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:16,360 call historical books like First and Second Chronicles. 525 00:25:16,360 --> 00:25:20,000 Isn't that collection Ezra and Nehemiah is in that collection? 526 00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:21,880 So it's so it's kind of it kind of goes. 527 00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,560 They were organized chronologically in the Jewish 528 00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,080 Bible. But when Christians use the same 529 00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,240 text, right? So Jewish Bible, Christian 530 00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,880 Bible, in terms of the Old Testament, it's the same texts, 531 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:34,800 but they're arranged differently, right? 532 00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,640 So Jews have this three-part, this three-part division. 533 00:25:38,120 --> 00:25:40,560 Christians arranged it more like they're still the law, still 534 00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,920 first, Torah still first. And then you have what are 535 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,320 called historical books, kind of sketching the history of ancient 536 00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:50,120 Israel. And then you get to some of the 537 00:25:50,120 --> 00:25:54,320 more, some of the poetry, some of the writing, and then the 538 00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,120 prophets as well. They're kind of thrown in at the 539 00:25:56,120 --> 00:25:58,280 end. So it's not chronological. 540 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,120 Like if you're reading chronological, you should be 541 00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,680 like this past week we were reading in Second Kings. 542 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:07,240 And when you get to Hezekiah and 2nd Kings, you should put a 543 00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:10,160 pause there and then go and read Isaiah because it's happening at 544 00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:12,760 the same time, right? And so it's easy to miss the way 545 00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:15,280 the Christians arrange their Bible, but you have to arrange 546 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,160 it somehow, right? And so they just the Christians 547 00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,800 put all the prophets at the end. But the function of that is 548 00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,000 Malachi is the last book of the Christian ordering of the of the 549 00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,160 Old Testament. And Malachi, the last chapter is 550 00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,560 looking forward to a figure that would come. 551 00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,800 So when you open up the pages, the first page of Matthew in the 552 00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:34,000 New Testament, it's like, oh, here's the figure who would 553 00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,200 come, right. So it's it leads in very 554 00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:38,680 organically in the New Testament. 555 00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:40,560 So the Christians are very intentional on how they arrange 556 00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:41,840 their Bible. For sure. 557 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:43,560 Yeah. And that, that's something I've 558 00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,480 learned over time, that's someone didn't just throw all 559 00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,600 these together and say good luck, figure it out. 560 00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,520 And it is OK to have a chronological Bible and to use 561 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:53,080 it on the regular. Right. 562 00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,120 I mean, I think about, whenever I think of chronology, I think 563 00:26:56,120 --> 00:26:58,840 of the Marvel movies and how, you know, you can find all of 564 00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,040 these lists where people have taken the movies and putting 565 00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,800 them in chronological order and that actually can't help you. 566 00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,840 It does track with the story. So it's not that one is right 567 00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:10,480 over the other, but it's allowed. 568 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:12,920 You know you want to go that way and it can be helpful. 569 00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:15,600 Whitney, to your original question to me about how do I 570 00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,440 keep the Bible alive to me and how do I keep it personal? 571 00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:23,440 I mean, one way is maybe reading it one way first time, like I 572 00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:25,480 read through the way it is in the Bible and then the next time 573 00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:27,680 I might read it chronologically. So the books might be in a 574 00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:30,320 different order, but I start to make connections that I hadn't 575 00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:32,200 made before and like, oh, that's why, right? 576 00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:34,160 Because this prophet is saying this and this is what's 577 00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:36,880 happening. So just to go it's Scott was 578 00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:38,480 saying like you can read chronologically. 579 00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:40,480 It's different. You know, there's no one way 580 00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:41,920 that you have to read the Bible. That's. 581 00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,120 Right. So going back to these councils, 582 00:27:45,360 --> 00:27:48,040 I'm sure there was like they lasted like 15 minutes, right? 583 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,440 Everybody was in super easy agreement. 584 00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:53,800 What what is what is that like we having days, long weeks, long 585 00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:57,040 months, long discussions. Are there some books that are 586 00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:00,800 we're skeptical about? Like take us into that a little 587 00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,080 bit? So different councils lasted for 588 00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,040 different amounts of time. Something like Council Nicaea, I 589 00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:10,360 think it lasted months. The Emperor Constantine brings 590 00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:12,640 in everyone. He sets them up at his palace 591 00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,080 and they're they're just talking for a long time. 592 00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:16,560 Other councils, I think we're shorter. 593 00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:20,200 So it just kind of depend on what the topics were, how many 594 00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,320 came, how international since it was like sometimes these 595 00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,960 councils are more regional so they would come in for a shorter 596 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,560 period of time. There is no, there's not a list 597 00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:31,240 from the ancient world to say this is the criteria by which we 598 00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:33,640 use to decide what was in the Bible and what was not right. 599 00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,200 That doesn't exist. But it seemed looking back where 600 00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:40,840 there's like 4 different criteria that they probably use 601 00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:43,360 to determine like what's authoritative and we should be 602 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,000 reading in church and what is just good for us to read. 603 00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:48,880 But it's not it doesn't rise to the same level. 604 00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:52,200 And so one of them is a they want it to be written by an 605 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,000 apostle, someone who is in touch with Jesus. 606 00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,760 So the fancy were to be apostolicity, right? 607 00:28:57,760 --> 00:28:59,560 So does it go back to an apostle? 608 00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:06,880 Another one is Catholicity meaning not Catholic Church, but 609 00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:08,600 Catholic in the meaning of its universal. 610 00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,440 So it doesn't have universal application because that's what 611 00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,240 the word Catholic means. And so this is where actually 612 00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,040 Paul's letters might have had a little trouble because Paul 613 00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,000 writes to Thessalonica something very specific. 614 00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,280 Is it universal enough that everyone can read it, or is it 615 00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:23,880 just good advice for a Thessalonica? 616 00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:26,640 And so at least by the 2nd century, it seems that early 617 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:28,680 Christians are saying, no, what Paul said at Thessalonica, he 618 00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:30,800 actually is really saying to all of us, right? 619 00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:34,240 So it's universal in scope. Is it orthodox? 620 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,080 That's the third one. So does that line up with what 621 00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,720 the Church is teaching? So there were a number of early 622 00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:43,400 Christian texts that did not make a New Testament that failed 623 00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,320 on this count. So early Christians are writing, 624 00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:48,840 they're reflecting upon their faith and what they believe, but 625 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,480 it didn't seem like it really. And then lined up with what the 626 00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:53,200 church thought was really important. 627 00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:57,840 The technical term is that it does it line up with the regular 628 00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,720 fide or the rule of faith. This is, it's kind of a circular 629 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,840 argument because the church is teaching what the texts are 630 00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:09,200 saying and then they're, they're judging the text by what the 631 00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:10,920 church is saying. So it's kind of like it's, but 632 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:12,120 it's, you could say it's a census. 633 00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:14,120 Like it's, it's a, it's a synergy. 634 00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,400 Like it's, it's a useful thing. Like the texts are saying this, 635 00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,560 we're preaching this. And so the texting texting a 636 00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,280 line of what we're saying, but we're getting what we're saying 637 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,120 from the texts. So is it Orthodox? 638 00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,440 Does it line up with what? That's right. 639 00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:31,320 So Orthodoxy, Catholicity, apostolicity and the other one 640 00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:36,000 doesn't have a good city at the end, but I know and it's 641 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,280 probably the most important category and it's just called 642 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:40,880 like basically what what are people reading in church? 643 00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:43,520 Traditional usage is sometimes what people say. 644 00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:46,840 So they're probably reading things that an apostle wrote 645 00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:49,600 that is Orthodox, that is Catholic and orientation. 646 00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:53,360 And so that really, they probably just went, they didn't 647 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:56,000 go out and say, oh, we haven't heard of this book before, but 648 00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:57,760 let's read it and see if we think it's important now that 649 00:30:57,760 --> 00:30:59,400 what they're doing is they're saying what they're already 650 00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,080 reading in church. Is it helpful for us? 651 00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,280 And since it's stood the test of several centuries, this is the 652 00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:06,360 stuff that we need to keep reading. 653 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:12,000 So is that idea where Canon or like a measuring stick comes 654 00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:12,720 from? Yeah. 655 00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:14,920 So you talk about an you can talk about an Old Testament 656 00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,920 Canon, a New Testament Canon, which just means like these 657 00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,600 texts have to measure up. They have to meet a standard, 658 00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,200 but they have to measure up to a certain standard. 659 00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:26,800 And then if it does meet that standard, then it's in. 660 00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:28,080 If it doesn't meet the standard, it's out. 661 00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,320 Got it right. One one other thing, the word 662 00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:34,160 inspiration is also an important one does not seem to have been a 663 00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:37,680 criteria that they used. And the reason is because so 664 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,760 many texts were thought to be inspired that it couldn't weed 665 00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:43,480 out much because all early Christian authors that talk 666 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,920 about inspiration or that they, you know, they had that the Holy 667 00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:49,000 Spirit was helping them write or guiding them. 668 00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,680 And so all the texts that made in the New Testament are thought 669 00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,480 to be inspired. Sure, right? 670 00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:56,000 It would not have been considered if it wasn't thought 671 00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:57,760 to be inspired. But in and of itself, I can't 672 00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,360 weed out things because early Christians thought that God was 673 00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:03,480 inspiring lots of people. Yeah, for sure. 674 00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:05,760 Yeah, your recent newsletter was inspired. 675 00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,120 That's right. If you say so, we'll let you be 676 00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,320 the judge. So. 677 00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:16,440 So this sounds like the most intense work conference ever and 678 00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:18,520 the longest one ever potentially. 679 00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:23,840 So if something does not meet those criteria and was not 680 00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:27,520 entered into the club, we still have a lot of those around. 681 00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,920 We have them available to us. Would you like encourage us to 682 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:35,000 still read those? Like is there still benefit for 683 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,320 us or just like stick to your Bible? 684 00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:39,160 What you got? That's that's the best stuff. 685 00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:44,520 I mean, if you're, if you are modus, your reason for reading 686 00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:48,480 is to say, I want to know what God has for me, then the Bible 687 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,400 is a great thing to read, right. But if you want to know more 688 00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:53,720 about the world in which the Bible was written, if you want 689 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,920 to know more like what are other people thinking, what kind of 690 00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,840 history is happening, then I think it's really, really useful 691 00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:02,240 to read some of these other texts. 692 00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:05,760 And so some of them would be Jewish texts that are written 693 00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:07,120 between the Old and New Testament. 694 00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,400 So First Enoch was a hugely influential book. 695 00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:15,480 Jude mentions it. And so like, you know that some 696 00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,480 of the Testament authors, they know what first, they're 697 00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:24,120 familiar with Jubilees, the Testament of Moses, the wisdom 698 00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:25,520 of salmon. There's a bunch of texts that 699 00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:27,760 are written that are you really, really useful for understanding 700 00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:31,480 Judaism in the time of Jesus, but they're not in your Bible 701 00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,080 because they didn't quite meet the criteria of the Old for Old 702 00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:37,360 or New Testament. They're also a bunch of 703 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,280 Christian texts that are written after the New Testament and some 704 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:41,200 of them probably in the same time. 705 00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,080 Like First Climate is really old. 706 00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:45,720 The Epistle of Barnabas is really old. 707 00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,120 So there's a whole collection called the Apostolic Fathers. 708 00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:51,160 It's really early to mid 2nd century Christian texts. 709 00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:54,440 Really useful for reading if you want to know what Christians are 710 00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,360 saying and doing and thinking really early on. 711 00:33:57,840 --> 00:33:59,920 There's a bunch of texts too that Christians said no, you 712 00:33:59,920 --> 00:34:04,240 probably shouldn't read these. So an example that hits some of 713 00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,440 the criteria but not the others. So the Gospel of Peter was a 714 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,760 gospel that was written 2nd century text. 715 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,320 So when an early Christian went to his Bishop, Bishop Serapian 716 00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,600 and Antioch and said, I just I found this Gospel Peter, can I 717 00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,719 read it? And the Bishop said it's by 718 00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:19,480 Peter. Sure. 719 00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,480 And then we're told like a couple months later Serapian 720 00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,840 reads the Gospel Peter and he sends a note to the guy saying 721 00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:26,040 don't read it. Yeah. 722 00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,800 Because although it claims to be by Peter, it's not by Peter and 723 00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:31,679 it does not meet the standard of orthodoxy. 724 00:34:31,679 --> 00:34:33,719 It is not teaching what we're teaching in church. 725 00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:35,320 So there were certain things that ruled out of bounds. 726 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,040 Even if Apostle was said to have written, in this case E Peter 727 00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:39,760 didn't write it, but it carried the name of Peter OK. 728 00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,560 And so real quick, the a lot of the intertestamental books are 729 00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:47,159 included in the Catholic Bible. So yes. 730 00:34:47,199 --> 00:34:49,600 What we know is the the. Apocrypha. 731 00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:52,480 So some of them are. Not all of them are, but some of 732 00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:53,840 them are. There's a collection of what? 733 00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,640 Like it's 10:00-ish, I forget the exact #10 to 12 books that 734 00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,280 are in the Catholic Bible, not in the Protestant Bible. 735 00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:05,480 Reason for that most likely is the Old Testament is written in 736 00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:10,720 Hebrew and about the year 200 ish BC it was translated into 737 00:35:10,720 --> 00:35:12,520 Greek. So now there's two versions of 738 00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,120 the Old Testament. We call it the Old Testament, 739 00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:16,520 right? There's a Hebrew version and a 740 00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,400 Greek version. And then all the 741 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:21,360 intertestamental books, like the, some of the apocryphal 742 00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:23,080 books, they're written in Greek. They're not written in Hebrew. 743 00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,200 So some of them are just added to the Septuagint. 744 00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:28,280 They become part of that. And so as people later on are 745 00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,560 reading the Greek version of the Old Testament, not the Hebrew 746 00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,840 version, they are seeing these texts in there. 747 00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,640 And so like, oh, these are, these are part of the Bible as 748 00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,800 well. And so up until the Reformation, 749 00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:42,440 those, some of those books like First and 2nd Maccabees and 750 00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:46,040 Tobit and Judith and a number of others, they're seen as biblical 751 00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,560 books. But then in the Reformation, 752 00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:51,360 some of the Protestants went, they learned Hebrew, they went 753 00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:53,120 back and run. They're like, oh, but these 754 00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:54,400 books are not in the Hebrew Bible. 755 00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:55,480 They're not in what Jews are reading. 756 00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:56,880 So we probably shouldn't read them either. 757 00:35:57,240 --> 00:35:59,880 And so then Protestants kind of remove those from their Bible. 758 00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:01,200 So they're in the Catholic Bible, but not in the. 759 00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:02,520 Protestants. So it really has more to do with 760 00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,400 language, which is the Greek language and the you mentioned 761 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,920 Septuagint, that is the Greek version of the Old Testament, 762 00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:11,680 yes. So there's some extra credit 763 00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:14,800 reading if if you want to put it that way, but you know, the 764 00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:18,120 Bible is the Bible and that's definitely where to start. 765 00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:21,040 That's definitely where we want to be getting just our daily 766 00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:23,520 reading, our daily mana from. Do you want to say it that way? 767 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:27,840 But last kind of question, just to see if we can bring this 768 00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:30,600 home. I mean, I, I kind of love to ask 769 00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,480 this question a little bluntly, like why, why do we Care now? 770 00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,920 You know, if, if y'all love history, I know you are in this 771 00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:38,760 and, and loving every minute of it. 772 00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:43,360 But for someone who is like, OK, I, I'll read my Bible, I'm good. 773 00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:46,760 I don't know that I really need all the history, all the 774 00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:47,760 background. Thanks though. 775 00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:52,280 But I do think that having some of this context is valuable for 776 00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,560 us. So how does just having this 777 00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,320 information, some of this history, how do you think it 778 00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,840 impacts our faith now and to start our current spiritual 779 00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:03,880 formation? So one way to answer that is, is 780 00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,960 to say that it's helpful for me to know that the books that I am 781 00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,960 reading, that I call the Bible, that I am told it's the word of 782 00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,480 God. That this is something that it's 783 00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:18,040 not just for me that Christians for 2000 years have also agreed 784 00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,320 with this. And they have said these are the 785 00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:23,560 texts that are important. They are the things that put us 786 00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,920 most directly in touch with Jesus, most directly in touch 787 00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:29,280 with what God did in sending Jesus to the world. 788 00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:33,440 And so I want to be able to learn and grow in my faith and 789 00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,040 knowing more about God and what God is doing in the world. 790 00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:37,840 These are the texts that I need to read. 791 00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,320 And it didn't just drop from the sky 50 years ago. 792 00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,480 Like this is a long history here, right? 793 00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:47,040 And so that for part of it, or that's for part for me, that's 794 00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,960 part of it is to say that there's a long history here and 795 00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:54,080 that much smarter Christians than I made decisions a long 796 00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:55,800 time ago. And I can just trust that they 797 00:37:55,800 --> 00:38:00,200 made the right decisions. I also find it helpful to think 798 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:02,680 that we have so many copies of the New Testament. 799 00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,280 There's just just so much evidence that early Christians 800 00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:08,920 thought this is important. They copied and copied and 801 00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:10,360 copied that. I think we can be pretty 802 00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:15,160 confident that what we have in our Bible today is what Matthew 803 00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,560 intended for us to have, or Mark intended for having what the 804 00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:18,960 biblical writers were trying to say. 805 00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,480 Yeah, I think growing up, depending on your tradition or 806 00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,520 background, you were handed a Bible and told this is the word 807 00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:27,360 of God. And we believe it. 808 00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,920 And on one hand, like that is important and that's super true. 809 00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,160 But it is super valuable to ask why do we, why do we trust it? 810 00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:36,800 You know, let me let me just check how do we get what we 811 00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,320 have? And so I think that's important. 812 00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:43,440 And then just exactly what you said that this is Bible is not 813 00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:45,480 just for me. It's so easy to come to 814 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:50,640 Scripture with my life and say God has given this to me and 815 00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:54,560 it's all about me and my life. God has also written it to 816 00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:58,000 thousands of believers that through the Holy Spirit we are 817 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:02,800 connected to, we are a part of, and we will see in the end, you 818 00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,880 know, we will be reunited with Christ together. 819 00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:11,040 And so it just it, it's helping me expand my imagination beyond 820 00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:17,000 sitting down with my Bible and God, please fix my work problem 821 00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:20,600 that I have today, you know, and it becomes part of this deep, 822 00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:25,600 rich history that is for me and includes me, but was not 823 00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:31,280 necessarily to me initially. And that's just, that's 824 00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,800 incredible to think about. Yeah, no, it is. 825 00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:40,160 It's it's helpful to be, we talked about not just being 826 00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:42,960 upstate Christians or great church Christians. 827 00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:45,200 We talked about being world Christians and understanding 828 00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:46,400 what's happening around the world. 829 00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,560 It's also important to be historical Christians and 830 00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:53,280 understand where you know these thousands of years of believers, 831 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:59,320 how God has cared for, protected His Word, passed down His word. 832 00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:03,360 Yeah, it's we're standing in a long line of of faith and that 833 00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:05,040 is that is an important heritage. 834 00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,160 Yeah, absolutely. Well, 10, thank you so much for 835 00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:10,800 just being with us today and and walking us through all that. 836 00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,400 And you're just, you're teaching as a gift to our church and, and 837 00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:14,920 we're grateful for your time for sure. 838 00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,520 Any parting words, Tim? You should join RTS. 839 00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:21,800 My parting words. There you go, the best promo you 840 00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,240 can ever get. Thank you all for listening. 841 00:40:24,240 --> 00:40:29,080 If you have any questions or you want to learn more in this kind 842 00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,720 of category of church history, definitely let us know. 843 00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:35,280 And we can, I'm sure, dig up some more voices and some more 844 00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:37,440 perspectives. I'm sure we could have Tim back. 845 00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,880 So please give us your feedback and we'll see you guys next time 846 00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:42,040 on the Grace Church Podcast.