Acts, 9:1-31
Vern Peterman · Apr 3, 2005
Acts (2005), No. 14
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262323417932

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

We're going to look at the conversion of the Apostle Paul, and so that's Acts 9, 1-31. And we had left you with three questions there, and we want to take a look at those this morning, and then we'll move on to the next section, which is finishing up Chapter 9 and then beginning into Chapter 10.

Now, here's this guy Ananias, and it's You know, it's just like we have today where, you know, if you say Steve or, you know, Susan or something like that, you know, perfectly good names, but other people have the same name. And this is the same case here.

In those days, it would have been a number of people with that name. Incidentally, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, those are all names that have been found inscribed on funerary boxes, the ossuary boxes. in Jerusalem and It may have been the ones that are in scripture or somebody else again common names. This is another common name here, so so we find this fellow here and Ananias wasn't very significant right because we never see his name other than one reference show up for you know very much What do you think about that? Guy's name pops up and after that, other than one minor reference, disappears.

Yeah. And I think that's, as we look at the Book of Acts, that's I think one of the things we can look at. We'll see people like this pop up on the scene and their names may disappear entirely or only be mentioned incidentally later. And it may be a temptation to think, well, that's kind of a minor character in the whole picture of things. But one of the things we see is the Lord deliberately chose him, and the Lord took the initiative to do so and to reveal that. And then we see the impact of this minor character.

You have the person of the Apostle Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, writing 13 letters of the New Testament. And the last half of the Book of Acts, substantially about Paul and centering on the activities related to him. And you also have some unique truths that are taught only by the Apostle Paul. Only Paul writes significantly about spiritual gifts. Only Paul writes significantly about being in Christ, about the body of Christ, and Christ is the head. So, I mean, there are some unique things there. Paul is the one who writes most substantially about our identification with Christ.

And how did that come about? Because a guy named Ananias said, but Lord! And the Lord said, this is what I've chosen to do. And he said, okay. And off the straight street he went. Alright, how about our next question there? Ananias, after objections, goes ahead and does exactly what the Lord says. But not until the Lord has told him all the reasons that this Saul is one to be avoided. Why are all of Ananias' reasons for avoiding Saul to be set aside? What didn't Ananias know at this point? Are there times when all of our perfectly sane reasons to do or not do something should be set aside? How will we know when that is?

That's a whole bunch of questions. What did you come up with? Isn't it interesting that we may indeed be in a situation at one point in time where the Lord simply expects us to use reasonable judgments and decisions about things and yet there may in fact be times when the Lord says That's perfectly reasonable. I got something else in mind Yeah, and the Lord may in fact do just exactly that but then comes the question Okay We have scripture.

How are we going to know? Whether we've got a reasonable logical thing. We're supposed to do or something entirely different How do we know the difference? Now. So how do we know the difference? And it's very clear, you can say very clear, that they're speaking to you somehow. You know what you need to be, even if it doesn't fit with you. Even though it's contrary to what you've logiced out. I'm sure the Lord wants this. Any insights on that? How do we know the difference? Okay. You're kind of backing up her response, correct?

I think one of the things that, you know, as we look through circumstances like this, that the Lord will first, you know, lay out things in terms of Scripture. And we may encounter something, you know, a lot of times the Lord is expecting us to make just sane, reasonable, you know, sensible decisions. But there may, in fact, be principles of Scripture that are applicable, which are directing us to do something different. where the Lord is calling upon a higher principle or a higher authority than what we ordinarily might deduce as, okay, I'm going to do things this and this and this way because it's logical. The Lord does not say we should always be illogical, right?

Let's ask this question, what did Ananias not know? He had no idea that that was going to come about. And what's interesting in this context, there's a lot of things that Paul's going to do and say and have impact upon. What the Lord says is, he will suffer much for me. Isn't that interesting? The focus is going to be substantially upon his suffering in this passage. That's kind of amazing.

As we look at circumstances, Scripture will lay out what is important and critical and what is a higher priority principle than just what's sane and makes sense. Let's take a look at an earlier example that we had. Here are Peter and John, who are later on the apostles, and they're before the Sanhedrin.

And the safe and sane thing to do would be to say, hey, whatever you guys want, that's cool, we're fine with that. Perfectly logical, you don't want to get whipped all the time and get yanked out of the temple kind of in a rush and a hurry by these guys who don't really care for what you're saying. That gets downright uncomfortable and inconvenient. A logical thing to do is to keep your mouth shut about this stuff.

But what does Peter respond? You do whatever you have to do, but we're going to listen to the Lord. And there will be times when the Lord will have a higher principle spelled out. And there may in fact be those times, as a couple mentioned too, when there's something a little more subjective that takes place, but Scripture is defining the boundaries in terms of here's the objective truth, here's the objective revelation, and God's not going to run against that. Okay. How about question three here?

Paul in Acts chapter 9 was a very young believer, yet seemed almost immediately to be able to explain the scriptures, who put in quotes their Old Testament, with power and clarity. He also seemed not to be hindered by questions and doubts, as might be the case with young believers. How come? And should we expect that of young believers today?

Why do you think Paul's almost instant response was to turn around and say, this is what this scripture means, this is what this one means, this is what this one means. And it's entirely different from what he would have said days before. How come the difference? Why such a radical change so quickly? Yeah, I think that's one thing that may well be different. A lot of young believers don't have the exposure to the scriptures.

Paul was very familiar with them, but only understood them differently. Suddenly, encountering this overwhelming light upon the road and having the Lord Jesus Christ say, Paul, why are you persecuting me? Got a hold of him. Kind of changed his perspective on all the scriptures. He'd look at Psalm 22 and say, there's Jesus Christ being crucified. Yeah, did he? Do you think that encounter with the Lord kind of opened his eyes as to how he interpreted all the scriptures anymore? Oh, I think radically so, yeah. Because the bottom line is, he said, I know the Old Testament backwards and forwards. Before that event on the road to Damascus, his conclusion was, this is not talking about Jesus Christ. Not this guy from Nazareth. Not him. Once he encountered the Lord on the road, all of a sudden it was day and night difference.

He said, see this passage? This means this. It's talking about him. What did Stephen say? Yeah, and he heard Stephen say all the things that Stephen said, but he responded to it negatively and approved and supported those who killed Stephen. But it was there. Then when he met the Lord on the road, he said, ah, Stephen and others whose things we don't have recorded for us was right.

Yeah, Ruth? Rethinking this stuff. Yep Yeah, yeah thinking time thinking time yep good point Here's something else too, and that is something that's characteristic of the New Testament era is revelation of a kind that we don't see today because it's intended that we examine the scriptures as opposed to having the apostolic era gifts where the Lord would just simply tell people directly this, this, and this, and this. And that would happen with the apostles. That's one of the reasons we have the New Testament. The apostles would have the Lord revealing things to them.

We'll see, you know, various places where Paul writes, you know, he'll say something, you know, I tell you this, but it's not from the Lord. And it doesn't mean it isn't inspired. It means the Lord didn't, you know, say it directly. And yet these are, you know, you'll find other places where it makes reference.

The Lord revealed this to me. And he wrote that in certain places. He says, I have this by revelation of the Lord. And it appears that during this thinking time, that Ruth made reference to here, during this thinking time, the Lord may very well have begun that process. Isn't that something? Here you are on the road to Damascus to kill Christians, and there within hours, you're all of a sudden getting phenomenal understanding of passages you've looked at from the very earliest times you could read.

All of a sudden, light bulbs are going off left and right. We talk about a light bulb moment. Boy, he had a bunch of them. It would be interesting to know how much he slept. Maybe even as much as we did last night. Anyway, Art. Isn't that somewhat true of us too? Yes That's a very good point You know we may not go through a miraculous Damascus Road experience and yet have you not had this experience yourself you look at the same passage you looked at before and you have one of those aha moments and Ah, now I see. Man, how come I didn't see that before? Those kind of progressive cascading aha moments, light bulb moments, as we study scripture, can be of a similar kind. As things get progressively revealed to us about what's been there all the time. We just didn't see it. We just didn't see it. And that's a good point. Excellent. Okay, let's take a gander here. Oh, we didn't answer one question.

How about a young Christian today? Should we expect this kind of thing to happen with a young believer today? I see you shaking your head, Marian. No. Okay. Okay, one is you may not have prior understanding of Scripture. people will know the scripture intellectually. Let me give you a for instance, a modern for instance.

There was a European scholar, Etta Lineman. You may or may not have heard of her. She was among the forefront of liberal New Testament scholars in Europe, but skeptical, not a believer, and her doctorate degrees and journal articles and, you know, speaking in seminars and all these kinds of things among the elite intellectuals of Europe.

And had, you know, a thousand reasons why this was just, you know, writings out of the cultural background and not God's revelation. That all changed when she became a believer. And she wrote about her perspective looking back, how She looked at it this way and that, and it was really all presupposition, not here are the facts and therefore here is the logical conclusion. It was all presupposition. And once she became a believer, here's all these things with which she had intimate knowledge intellectually, suddenly became spiritually alive to her. And that would be kind of a case in point.

Someone may have intimate knowledge and yet not be a believer, having the knowledge will give them kind of a leap ahead, if you will, from the standpoint that they have it there intellectually. Now, the spiritual blanks begin to get filled in that weren't there before, because now they believe and now they see. It's kind of like the miracle of the blind man, you know, they're quizzing him with all kinds of questions, Jesus heals him, and he says, I don't know, but once I was blind and now I see. Say, yeah, Marian? Yeah Yeah It is amazing. You will hear some phenomenal stories a couple of very quick ones when I was in like junior high I was a a leader in the particular group I was with at church.

This fellow said, I'd been going to Peninsular Bible Church for four years and then I became a Christian. And all of a sudden there was this realization, hey, I'm coming here and I'm not saved. And that sudden realization just made a day and night difference. And lots of impacts in the lives of the whole family was radically changed as a result.

Another instance I read about was a guy wrote a tract he says I was a pastor for 50 years and then it became a believer So there are these aha moments people have you know various kinds of Exposures even think hey, I'm going to church every week. I must be a Christian right and then aha finally Yeah can be amazing all right now.

Let's Look to your new handout here. Yes. I'm sorry Yeah. Oh, my apologies. The fourth one, I had like an added question, right? What was it? I can't remember what it was. Ah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That was something I made reference to earlier, but forgot I'd laid that down as a question. Thank you. Let's ask that.

Why did the Lord Here's facing Paul. Paul's, you know, been persecuting Christians now, vigorously, with every breath he can take. The Lord says, Paul, why do you persecute? He didn't say, why do you persecute the church? He says, why do you persecute me?

What do you get from that? What do you take away from that? Yeah. There's a tendency for us to get real human-centered and it's all about me and what's happening to me and what I'm experiencing. The Lord just looks at it and says, hey, that's my body. Paul, why do you persecute me?

What else? Other insights from that? One of the passages we looked at some weeks ago, I think it was in Colossians, made reference to filling up the sufferings of Christ. And we say, well, wait a minute, you know, how about that's all done? Well, we're here, folks. And it fits very well with this question. The suffering to Christ going on through us. That's what's yet to happen until the Lord takes the church home. We're filling it up. Paul, why do you, or Saul, why do you persecute me? Thanks for bringing that up, Dave. I'm glad you remembered that. Let's take a look at this next one.

This is kind of a bridge passage, 932 through 1022. Before we do that, I want to run through some overheads. There's no graphics overheads in the handout here, but there are some slides here, a few of which you've seen before, but let's paste through them. One is we're going to read about a town called Lydda. And this is a colorized photo from 1890.

One of the things that, if you went through the Bible backgrounds class, I like to use really old photos if they're available. And there's a few reasons why. One is the more time goes on, the more things get gunked up with all kinds of paving and signs and big buildings. And I don't know why, and it's still even a problem with the old photos, Every time you have something happen, somebody wants to build a church over it, you know? And so it ends up being quite unlike what it originally was. Jacob's well now, you can hardly tell what it is, because they've got all these signs and places for the buses to park and everything else, whereas the old photos show something more like the way it was in biblical times. So anyway, that's my reason for preferring these. This one is colorized, but it's from over 100 years old. And no, those aren't missile silos in the back. Those are real palm trees.

So here's this site of Lydda, a small development there when this picture was taken. And it is in the Old Testament, Lod. And I think in our write-up we'll give the reference there on this one, First Chronicle references. So there's Lydda. We're going to read about that.

Joppa, modern Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv. You hear Tel Aviv frequently in news articles and things of that sort. And right along the Israeli coast. Joppa is an ancient city. We'll read about that here in not only the passage but in the background information. And so here we are right along the coast. It's the place where the Lord told Jonah. He says, Jonah, go to Nineveh. He says, I'm getting out of here. I'm going to Joppa. And then I'm going to take a ship. So here's the place.

Its roots go back to, first mentioned in the Bible, is in the times of Joshua. So roughly 1,500 years before the time that we're reading about here. It was first mentioned in scripture. This is Caesarea. We've seen some pictures, including this one previously. This is one you haven't seen, or we haven't shown. This is an aerial photo of Caesarea. What happened was this.

Roughly the same time as Herod, boy he was really something, as he started the temple, he also started building this city. So unlike a lot of these ancient cities that you have described in the Bible, this one was actually a fairly new one. It had been around for less than a century, for decades only. and was all fairly new construction. It was kind of a new city. And so Herod had this place called Caesarea built along the coastline.

You can see where there's sort of a filled-in branch that kind of comes along the right side there. And the water's clear enough. You can see underneath there and see down in the port area. There are some shipwrecks along in there. because what happened is not long after they built it, some of the port structures began to degrade and then ships couldn't see when they came in and so they'd crash into these degrading port structures and so they'd lost some ships there. So anyway, it's a real interesting area. This is kind of looking along the south. In other words, if I back up here, now if we get on this right end and then look towards the left, That's what you'll see out there, okay? And some of it's in pretty good shape. Some of it's fairly decent stuff. And it was well-designed, modern, you know, for the time, modern kind of port city.

Here's the amphitheater. It was large enough in the floor area that they could have kind of small horse races and things like that there. They'd have gladiator fights and theatrical performances, and they still do today, there in this amphitheater. This was the theater where they found, an Italian archaeologist went through it around 1960 and found one where it had an inscription of Pontius Pilate on one of the stones.

Here's another one. Interesting here, the amphitheater looks out over the Mediterranean, so a real nice view. There's a disadvantage to having it right next to the Mediterranean. Anybody guess what that is? What's that? Water. You got the water right there and so any storms, yep, that's a problem. You got another problem and that is you can't drink that stuff. Downright salty. A big glass of that stuff when you're thirsty just isn't the right thing.

Anyway, we'll take a look. Here, just a minute. Here's some of the structure that's left in there. Some pretty nice looking architecture. Boy, it popped me out of that. What happened here? Let me go back. There. Here's the Roman aqueduct. They built a substantial aqueduct to bring in fresh water because the saltwater obviously wasn't going to cut it.

And significant population, about 50,000 people, and about 3,000 of those were Roman soldiers. So the rest is all support population, just like we have in military bases. You've got the military people, and then you've got all the support people that go around it.

And it was also where the Roman governor's facilities were, the palace and his judging decisions and all that. Pontius Pilate, who was one of the Roman governors, started in AD 26 here. And he moved a major portion of the Roman soldiers to the fortress Antonia and made judgment decisions from fortress Antonia, not just here. Prior to that, this was the place.

So anyway, we'll read about Caesarea Philippi. We're not going to be done when we're through reading it today because Paul is going to spend two years in a Roman prison here at the end of Acts. He just doesn't know it yet. And here's the place, there's Caesarea, up on the coast there, and then down below is Joppa, and then Lydda.

Let me just point out a couple other things while we have this kind of focused map in front of us here. Up in here, here's Nazareth. This is Armageddon. This here is the valley. Where Armageddon is going to be that great battle and so Nazareth is just on one side on the north side of that valley Here's the Sea of Galilee and to the north of there is a little tiny lake called Lake Semititis Sounds like a disease, but it's a lake and then Down here.

Here's Jericho By the way, there was a Jewish Jericho and a Roman Jericho. Okay, so they had two of them So I read in one gospel account Jesus was going into Jericho when a certain thing happened. Another Gospel account says he was going out of Jericho.

Well, that can happen only if you're going from one side to the other. Okay, so you've got Jericho here. Here's what's called the Dead Sea now. And then, of course, you've got Jerusalem and then Bethlehem down here. So anyway, some orientation. Oh, here's Emmaus. Remember the disciples on the road to Emmaus the day the Lord was resurrected? There's Emmaus over here. So anyway, some quick orientation here.

Okay, now now it can pop out all at once All right, let's take a look at this Here's the deal You have basically three things go on in this passage starting from 932 to 1022 those three things are this one is that Peter in Lydda Heals, a man who had been a paralytic for eight years.

Aeneas, and by the way, that's another one of his common names. Then, Peter goes to Joppa, and so that's, again, right along the coast there. Modern Joppa, near Tel Aviv. And he goes to Joppa, and there was this lady named Tabitha. That's Tabitha as in the Aramaic, or Dorcas in the Greek. means a gazelle and she dies and he raises her to life.

We'll take a look at that here in a minute. And the final thing is a double vision. Here's Cornelius the Roman centurion in what would you expect, Caesarea. And a little interesting insight, I didn't make note of it here. Cornelius was a real common name and in trying to figure out why is it such a common name especially in this area in 82 BC there was a Roman general whose name was Cornelius and he had a whole bunch of slaves that he just decided to set free and they didn't have any significant names so a lot of them took on the name Cornelius and so this fellow may have been one descended let loose from Now, Cornelius, the Roman centurion, has a vision, and this vision points him to go get Peter, who is where? Down in Joppa, and have him come here.

Peter, at the same time, he's not getting a vision that says, hey, there's this guy named Cornelius, he's going to come to see you. What happens to Peter? He says, time to eat some matzo balls, right? No. What goes on with Peter? Remember, this is where Peter has a vision. And there's Campbell's soup there, right? Is that right? No. What's that? Yeah. Oink, oink, oink, you know. What was it?

Just a couple nights ago, you know, here's this guy who's eating a whole bunch of, you know, crawfish. There's a whole bunch of things that Jews weren't supposed to eat. Shellfish was one of them. You're not supposed to eat different kinds of animals, especially those that are scavengers. You're not supposed to eat pork. That's one that's well known. Camels were not supposed to be eaten. Things like that. So Peter gets this vision three times laid in front of him. Eat. No! I don't do that!

And then finally, this whole thing is done. He's wondering, what's all this about? And then three representatives from Cornelius knock on the door. We're staying there in Joppa. And they say, hey, we have a commander up in Caesarea who wants you to come visit. So off he goes. Oh, they spend the night there. Then they take off. All right, now, let's take a look at here. We got some background.

One of the things that we find is this thing of being paralyzed. Even today, paralysis is something with all the wonders of modern medicine, all our phenomenal billions in research and technological development, amazing machines, tremendous technology. Paralysis is still a challenge, isn't it?

Well, it was even more so back then. And so you can imagine for Peter to come up to this guy, because basically if you're paralyzed, you're done. You know, you better figure out how to live with it, because that's the way it's going to stay. So, amazing thing for Peter to come up and say, okay, you're healed. Phenomenal talent. So this is really remarkable.

Lydda was an almost entirely Jewish population. It was on the main highway that goes from Jerusalem to Joppa. So it was a kind of a stop, stopping point along the route. Then when you get to Joppa, here's, you know, Joppa is one that's been around for quite a while. We have references there at the bottom of the page there, the footnote, four different Old Testament references including, you know, Jonah, The Lord said to go to Nineveh. He decided I'm heading to Joppa instead. I'm going to get on a ship to Tarshish. By the way, Tarshish means tin smelting. We're not sure exactly what that means. It could be Spain or even Britain. Interesting.

Anyway, Jonah wanted to get away and he went to Joppa. Here he goes there, and he stays with whom? He stays with a guy named Simon the Tanner. Now something you've got to understand about tanners, remember one of the things that the Jews didn't want to do, especially if you were involved in anything like the sacrificial system or anything of that sort, you don't want to touch what? Yeah, dead bodies. And there were numerous, and I think we make reference to a couple of them, but there were numerous Old Testament references about don't touch the dead bodies. By the way, the story Jesus tells of the Good Samaritan, and basically it's on the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and the Levite goes by and he goes around.

What's the concern? You might touch something dead and become ceremonial unclean, and you're just like occupationally crippled, see? Well, that's the concern. Now a Tanner, what do they do? They're handling dead animal hides constantly. And so the Jews said, oh man, what a job. You're just continuously ceremonial and unclean. And these animals are not used for sacrifices or anything that could be justifiable. In terms of the Jews, you're just out of it. And the Jews of the time even wrote, woe unto he who is a tanner.

It was one of the inscriptions that was found. One other thing, because tanners were kind of rejected by the Jews because they were constantly dealing with these parts of animal carcasses, a lot of the Jews rejected them, and frequently the people who worked alongside the tanner were women of ill repute. Because they were also rejected, and they figured, If I'm going to be rejected socially, I might as well do something. And so, interestingly enough, women of ill repute were frequently associated with tanners. So, to say that Peter's staying day after day, overnight, even to the point of being able to invite, as if he were at some level of authority in the house, to invite these guests from Cornelius, that was phenomenal. So think about it.

Chapter 8. We're going to go to the Samaritans. Second half of chapter 8, we're going to go and talk to a eunuch. Now, disgusting of disgusting things. Here's Peter staying in the house of a tanner. So it's amazing. These Christians are pushing the social limits at every turn. At every turn. Kind of amazing. So here's Peter staying with Simon the tanner.

Japa and Then there's this lady named Tabitha and It's interesting they gave her name an Aramaic which is Tabitha or the Greek Dorcas English gazelle Her body it says have been washed because it had said she died and that was what they typically did with the body the first step is looking to wash it and they're going to go with the You know, aloes and frankincense and myrrh.

Put it all over and then wrap it up, you know, tight. Rigor mortis sets in about 12 hours. And one of the things that, you know, sometimes the body gets in all sorts of contorted positions. So they would start binding the body up fairly early. So she had not been dead long. They had just washed the body. And the rest of the preparations hadn't taken place. Okay? Now, they also put her in an upper room.

We don't know the size of the house. If it was a smaller house, what some of the smaller houses would do is they would build a smaller house on top of the roof, kind of off in a corner. But it was a place out of the normal path of people coming and going so that there would be some kind of privacy. If there was any odor starting to develop, it was away from everybody.

They mention that. That's where Peter goes. Oh, one other thing. And that's what usually happens as soon as somebody dies in this culture. You're gathering all kinds of people around and what do they do? What's that? Yeah, lots of loud wailing. They would even hire people to do it. People would hire out as mourners. They don't know the person, but they're just really good at wailing and screaming and looking really remorseful. And we see that kind of hired wailing going on.

I think it's Mark chapter 5. I think that's where it is. The remark is made, she's just asleep. Ha ha ha ha ha. So here's all these wailers that think that's funny. So that possibly was going on in this instance too. Tabitha's died. Lots of concern. It makes mention that she does lots of good things. You notice that. She's very benevolent, making things for people, and constantly serving people.

And that seems to be a particular point here. Now, then finally as we go through this, Peter does make his way, after raising Tabitha, Peter does make his way up to Caesarea, we saw those pictures of, and goes to the house of Cornelius, responds to the people that have been sent to bring him back here. Caesarea, they mentioned, would have a population of 50,000, possibly some more, about 3,000 Roman troops stationed there. So here's Peter having this vision. at the close of this passage here.

Real interesting. Let's take a look at the questions while we've got a couple minutes left. Alright, question number one. When Peter heals Aeneas, what does he say about the healing? Take a look at that. Read about that in the passage. He doesn't say a lot. Look at what he says. Then the question why was that important, which of course you have to take a look at what he says, How is that unlike a magical incantation? Take a look at that and see what you think. Next question on page three.

When Tabitha is raised to life, it would have been typical and customary for mourners to gather about and wail loudly. Why does not Peter simply join in and wail loudly as well? Everybody else is doing it, right? That would be the logical thing to do. I mean, that would have been empathetic, compassionate, to just join in and wail with them.

The passage also mentions that Tabitha had been very helpful and generous in the local community and church body. Dr. Luke doesn't make any comments about why she did these things, but are there some general biblical principles that we can use to kind of fill in the blanks there?

And then, question three, why would the Lord provide miraculous revelations to both Peter and Cornelius to bring the two together? I mention here, it's at least rare in scriptures, if not unique, if not singular. Why is this instance unlike any other that we've seen, or will see?

And why does Peter receive a vision that focuses upon food rather than directly on his interaction with the Gentiles with regards to the Gospel? Why did the Lord do this thing about the diet and not just say, hey, you know, you've got this Gentile, you've got to go to his house and, you know, give him something really focused on the issue? Why give him some sort of side issue, multiple visions about food?

Think about that. Yeah Well talk about like The like whether the pigs were there were 2,000 of them about the Sea of Galilee. Yeah good point They shouldn't have huh At 2,000 chose tremendous demand You don't have 2,000 pigs if you've got a few people that like to eat it. You've still got to do something with the pigs. That's a lot of pigs.

Yes. Pardon? Yeah, good marketing. Yes. One of the things you look at is that you have places, when you look at Israel at the time, you have places, and this is one of them, significant number of Gentiles. Obviously, Caesarea was built to be a Roman military base. It's centered around Gentiles. Herod had it designed, and of course he liked to curry favor with the Jews, but he also didn't mind currying favor with the Romans. Herod had it designed with pagan temples, in the original design. It was focused around the Romans. So here's a significant Roman installation.

There are other places where we find, in areas that should be Jewish, significant impacts from the Gentiles coming in. And to have as many pigs as were there that day on the instance, I think, that Art was making reference to, where there's 2,000 pigs that the demons rush into, that requires a lot of demand. And it's not from Orthodox Jews. Yeah, Joanne?

The Samaritans had a scroll of the first five books of the Bible, and it is very much like the Hebrew Old Testament first five books. The primary difference between the Hebrew and the Samaritan first five books of the Bible, is that the Samaritan version tells them to build a temple on the top of Mount Gerizim and to worship there. And that's the discussion between Jesus and the woman at the well. She said, you know, we worship on this mountain, this one you can see right here, but you worship in Jerusalem.

And that's the main difference. The Samaritans were likewise in their version of the Pentateuch, the first five books, They were likewise forbidden to eat pigs. Now, what they actually did may have been a different story, but they were also forbidden.

Alright, let's call it good. Lord, as we gather here, we see a massive, momentous transition beginning to take place. We see preparations here for bringing the Gentiles in. And Lord, we look at our own lives and we will oftentimes ask, Lord, why is this taking so long? Why doesn't this happen now? I sure hope this would hurry up and happen. And yet you had your time and your way of bringing things about. And we see that clearly here. And so we entrust our lives to you, Lord, including our times. All times are in your hands. Thank you for that, in Jesus' name, Amen.