Centurions in the Gospels & in the book of Acts

Okay, the first topic To cover is the one we've got here today, and this is centurions in the Gospels and in the book of Acts, okay Now centurions. I've got a picture of a Roman soldier up there one of the things that's interesting centurions Why do we have this name centurions?

What's that all about? Oh? Yeah, the basic idea is he was commander of a hundred men. In practice, they would sometimes have smaller groups and put them in charge. An example would be at the crucifixion of Christ, they'd have a hundred guys to do the crucifixion.

Typically, for a small crucifixion scene, you would have a squad of four, and they weren't allowed to sit down at any time. They'd have to sit there and watch. And make sure that nobody took the body down or gave them any relief that would keep them from dying. You could give them something that might dull the pain a little bit, but nobody was allowed to give any relief that would keep them from dying. Take them off, support them, anything like that.

So anyway, a centurion may have charge of smaller groups, and you see that a few times in the New Testament. But you're right, it's a hundred. It's like we have a word century. hundred years. So it's in charge of a hundred soldiers would be the kind of the maximum, although in practice there was oftentimes smaller groups. I'm picking on the centurions because while we have examples of other just Roman soldiers without given rank, and we also have an example earlier in Acts here of a commander of a larger group, right?

This is This is Claudius Lysias, the one who was in charge of Paul that sent him off to Caesarea, in command of 470 soldiers. But anyway, these centurions, I want to go through them, and we'll take a look at why. If we'll examine the centurions, I think it helps us to answer a few questions.

One question is, And this isn't going to be the complete answer, but what is to be the view of believers regarding military service? Some Christians, that appears to be no question, there are those over time and even now who will say, well, the Christian view is pacifism. And so it will be valuable to look at that and to answer that. Hi, my name is Vern. Steve, feel free to grab some of the handouts up here. One package of each. Each package is crisscrossed so that you'll find multiple pages. So you can grab one from each stack. Good to have you with us, Steve.

Okay. So that's one question. Another question here that's somewhat related and that is, Is Israel supposed to be under a foreign army? Yes? No? Marian's shaking her head, no. Not supposed to be. Why do you say it's not supposed to be under a foreign army? Yeah.

You can see it in various places, that places where that's concentrated is basically the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 28. The first 14 verses are, here are the blessings, and the rest of the chapter is, here are the curses. If you obey me, you get the blessings. If you don't, you get the curses. And you see the positive and the negative side of If you obey me, you will not be under any foreign army.

You will be in control. As a matter of fact, they will all be afraid of you. If you don't obey me, you will be overrun and overtaken and suppressed and you will wish you were doing something else. You will wish you were somewhere else. You will not be stable and secure in your land. So, anyway, yes. That's exactly right.

It's blessings and curses, and if Israel is obeying, then you will not have this oppression from another army. The issue comes up even before Christ, apart from many centurions. They came to Jesus and they said, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not? And so what does Jesus do?

It may come across subtly. Does he produce a coin and say here? Or what does he do? How does the coin get brought forward? He asks them to produce the coin. So they are the ones who produce the coin out of their pocket. He says show me the coin. And then he says, okay, you produce the coin, which obviously you acknowledge because you're carrying it.

Whose face is on it? Whose image? Caesar's. Okay. Now, here, this coin that you've produced, that you acknowledge, you know, is the one you've got, and you've produced it out of your pocket, and you've told me it's got Caesar's face on it, aside from the question, should I pay taxes to Caesar or not, what's that telling them? What's that? It's Caesar's coin. You're carrying it. You're acknowledging it as money. It's his image.

And by the way, were the Jews supposed to have an image? No. So here they've got rank paganism. They have a testimony in their pocket, carried around in precious metal. They have a testimony in their pocket that they are disobedient and they are not under God and they're not obeying Him.

But this helps answer the question in part because how did Jesus and how did the Apostles treat these centurions? They were kind of the officer level. How did Jesus and how did the Apostles treat them? And what does that say about should these centurions be there and should I acknowledge them?

You see, a lot of Jews, and it really came about Just a few years after the end of Acts, a lot of Jews were saying, we've got to throw the Romans out. But what is the issue? The issue is not, we've got to dig up arms and get the Romans out. The issue is, if you're obedient to me, the Lord says, they'll be afraid of you. So the issue is not, have we got enough arms and forces and swords and everything to pull us off? The issue is, are we obedient to the Lord? So, key thing. So the next point is kind of a testing point there. What's the response to these centurions? Do you see Jesus and the apostles opposing them? Or casting their presence in a bad light? See that? Now, the third question that comes up is this.

The Romans, starting about 64 AD, began carrying out an oppression towards the Christians. It was centered around Rome and kind of localized. That was the beginning of ten, ten waves of persecution that extended into the early 300s, fourth century. Ten waves of persecution started.

And so the centurions in the Church after the time of the Apostles or even in the late time of the Apostles would have been kind of cast as, you know, these guys are bad. They're out to, you know, come cut me up and stab me and, you know, take my children away and, you know, burn the scriptures and tear my house up and everything else.

One of the things we'll note is that we don't see any evidence of that flavor at all in these accounts, which is strong indication that the accounts were written early. If someone says, well, these things weren't written until long after the New Testament period, long after the time when they tried to appear to have been written, if someone says that, then what we should find in here is the centurions being officers of the Roman army should be painted in a bad light. We should see negative things. Is that what we find?

So we have three questions, and there may be more, but these are the ones that popped into my mind. As we look at these centurions, three questions that this helps answer. Now, that being the case, we've got several passages. Turn to page two here. Several passages to take a look at.

First one, here's Jesus. Okay, and someone could say, boy, I mean, here's a real test point. We're talking about Jesus, the Son of God. He is face-to-face with the Roman centurion. What's He going to say? If He's really ticked off that they're there, we ought to see that. Is that what we're going to see? Let's take a look at it. Here's Matthew 8, 5-13. You can see also in Luke 7, 2-10, Jesus entered Capernaum.

A centurion came to him, imploring him and saying, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented. Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. Now, is Jesus antagonistic? Is the fact that he is a centurion seem to be of any consideration? No. Interesting. But the centurion said, Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me, and I say to this one, Go, and he goes, and to another come, and he comes, and to my slave. Do this, and he does it.

Now when Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who were following, Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. I say to you that many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness, and in that place will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion, Go, it shall be done for you as you have believed.

And the servant was healed that very moment." Now, the three things to look at. Here's a guy, he's clearly a centurion. The fact that he's a centurion is not disguised in any way, is it? I mean, it says right out, he tells Jesus, I command a soldier to go, when he goes, I say when to come, when he comes, you know. This guy is clearly a Roman centurion. Three points we make here.

The centurion recognized that Jesus was able to heal, called him Lord, and he even recognized that he was unworthy of Christ's presence in his home. I mean, that's quite a bit, because really what's recorded is not that long, is it? But those are some potent things that the centurion recognized right out. Second point, centurion readily recognized and acknowledged Christ's absolute authority, giving an illustration, as an illustration, some examples of the centurion's own authority over his own military forces and personal slave.

So this guy has got a very clear idea, when he's talking to Jesus, he's not talking about somebody that might sort of have a little bit of, kind of, maybe, sort of, a little bit, some influence. Okay? Possibly influential. But he sees Jesus as one who has, he says it and that's what happens. See? And that's even the illustrations that he makes. The soldier says, I say go and they go. I say come and they come. And he says that's the same authority that I see you having over all creation.

No problem. And matter of fact, you don't even have to come to my house. I'm not even worthy to have you come to my house. Isn't that amazing? That's a phenomenal thing. Third point, the centurion, by the character of his request to Christ, exhibited extraordinary faith, even to the extent that Christ said, truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. Now, let's ask this question.

Was Jesus placing the Roman centurion within Israel? He was comparing. He hasn't found this faith with anyone in Israel. He didn't say with anyone else in Israel. So he says, this guy has faith, I haven't found any faith like that in all of Israel. No one in Israel has faith like I've seen with this Gentile pagan Roman centurion.

This was pretty early in Jesus' ministry, and so I guess one question, as we ask the questions, was Jesus at all antagonistic towards this fellow? Did he at any point in time rebuke him for his military dominance over Israel? Did he say, I will heal your child, just get out of the Roman military?

Isn't that interesting? Here is the Son of God with opportunity. If He wanted to, He could have made it conditional. I'll heal this one at home if... But you've got to pitch your Roman military participation. He could have done that. Did He? No. We don't see that. We don't see Him showing any resentment that this soldier was over Israel.

Furthermore, this also vouches for the early writing of this gospel. Christians later would have had a negative view of these events because of their view of the centurion. Okay, next page, page 3. We're jumping ahead a little bit here because this is the centurion in charge of Jesus' crucifixion. We talked about this, by the way, last Resurrection Sunday. We actually have a few events there, a few passages, rather, that are recorded of this event.

Mark 15, and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who was standing in front of him saw the way he breathed his last, he said, Truly, this man was the Son of God. Luke 23 records this, And now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, noon till about three. Because the sun was obscured, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. Now this says just torn in two, the other says top to bottom. Are those in conflict? No, they're just different descriptions. Okay.

And Jesus crying out with a loud voice said, Father, unto your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, certainly this man was innocent. So not just a recognition he was the son of God, but also that he was innocent. We've crucified somebody who did not deserve what we just gave him. Mark 15, 44 and 45 is simply Pilate calling the centurion in and confirming. Is he really dead? Why would they bother to say is he really dead? Why would he call the centurion in to vouch for that?

Typically it wasn't a bleeding to death situation. There was some bleeding, but bleeding to death was not the typical cause of a crucifixion. It was, as Josiah mentioned, a suffocation. And it was a fatiguing of the muscles that was kind of reciprocating, you know, push yourself up on the nails, get a breath. It was that syncopation where the muscles finally got to a place where they're just kind of twitching and exhaustion and people can't pull it off anymore, and so they finally die of suffocation, was the typical thing.

I know from my civil engineering classes that, you know, if you're like this, if you weigh 150 pounds and you've got a nail through each arm, you've got 75 pounds hanging on each nail, right? As you go out here, you have this huge increase in force on the arms. So what was 75 pounds per arm here becomes several hundred pounds pressure when you're out here. Okay. So massive increase in force. So you have this hundred, several hundred pounds pulling on each shoulder. Huge increase in force. So anyway, just huge stresses.

And the tendency with all that is to kind of collapse the lungs. So you push up to get some relief from the tension on the arms. push up on the nails, and then the thigh muscles get exhausted. Well, you do that, you know, this is like breathing, so you've got to keep doing that, doing that, so typically, yes, days, not hours, as in this case. But notice, what do we read in that middle passage in Luke?

Jesus breathed his last, but he went on the cross of his own will. He decided when the time was to die. Not what the Romans determined, that this is going to take days. So that's why Pilate would call the centurion in and say, hey, is he really dead? I want to get confirmation here before you go and take this body. And by the way, the English carries over from the Greek, it's not a centurion, it's the centurion.

So this is the same guy who said earlier, this is the Son of God and he is indeed innocent. James. Pardon? Yes, there was that as well, and we haven't extracted that from the passage, but that was the additional thing. Pierce him in the side to make sure he's dead, and we see that the blood and the water are separated, which is a sign that death has already come, and you begin to get a separation of the blood fluids. So, interesting here. We've got three points there as well.

Centurion standing right in front of Jesus, and like I said before, it was not allowed that they sit. So this is consistent. Right in front of Jesus, came to acknowledge and recognize that Jesus was the Son of God, that Jesus was innocent of the charges against him. The centurion, contrary to what was typical of pagan and polytheistic Roman soldiers, was praising and the Greek is the God. The one singular God. So this is significant. And the third point, the Saturnians both observed and testified before Pilate that Jesus had indeed died since it was before the usual time frame for crucifixion.

If you see 1st Corinthians 15, the first several verses there present the gospel. Paul says, I presented the gospel to you, and what is it? Do you believe that Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures? Do you believe that he was buried and raised? This is the gospel, the basics. And so what is the centurion?

He's testifying to the first one of the points, the other two he can't testify to yet because they haven't happened. So this guy is tracking with the gospel so far as by the hour it's available. Isn't that something? So amazing there. And again we come back to similar kinds of questions.

Do we see the centurion in any context there in a bad light? No. Interesting. And, of course, you don't have quite the same interaction with him that we did in the prior case with Jesus, or that we'll see later. But, you know, no Christian, nor Jesus, are sitting there rebuking him in this instance.

Very interesting. The centurion is again presented in a positive light. Let's take a look at the next one. This is on page four. Cornelius, the centurion at Caesarea. This is in Acts chapter 10, and we went through this sometime back. There's quite a bit of passage here, and I won't read it for the sake of our time here this morning. I won't read through it all. But to quickly outline it, remember this. Here is the centurion. He is posted in what was basically a Roman military base and port, Caesarea. It's Cornelius. He was reputed among the Jews for being a God-fearing man, although certainly Roman, they didn't deny that, and certainly a Roman centurion.

He also received a message from the Lord in which he was told, you know, you're going to have to send down to Joppa and get this guy Peter to come. Meanwhile, Peter has had these visions. Remember this is the one where the food comes down and then these visions and he's told eat. Oh, I don't eat that stuff.

Okay Yes, you will and and so The Lord has definitely orchestrated this event. We're here now. You have a centurion who? Not only is the centurion not Rebuked But he's giving basically a message directly from the Lord. You're going to go get Peter. And not only wait for him, but go send somebody to get him. And then Peter on the other end is getting this communication.

Now, by the cultural background, both of them, this would have been, you know, what are you doing? But the Lord was overriding what would have been the natural cultural thing to do, wasn't he? And explicitly doing so with the centurion. So that the centurion, here who would have been a pagan gentile, and yet the Lord is giving him a deliberate and specific message. Goes in for Peter. So, Peter has this bunch of messengers come down, and Peter's got six other guys with him.

And there at the house of Simon the Tanner, as we went through this passage, remember that tanning for the Jews because you're dealing with parts of a dead body was absolutely, you know, according to the Jewish traditions, a horrible trade. And it was so horrible that frequently tanners employed prostitutes to work with them because they were already rejected. Because they couldn't get anybody else to work with them. Here's Peter staying with Simon the Tanner.

And Peter has six other guys with him. They go to the house of Cornelius, and Peter begins laying down the gospel after Cornelius and Peter each exchange their accounts of what took place. And right as Peter's presenting the gospel, it's abundantly clear by evidence everyone can see that these people have become believers as a part of the church. And of course, Peter's about blasted out of his sandals, okay?

But they spent several days, the New Testament says, they spent several days at the house of Cornelius. So imagine it, here's this Roman centurion, and he's got his household, and he says he gathered friends and close relatives, and they were there. They invited Peter and six others, so seven Jews, who were believers, to stay with them for several days. And they ate all kinds of things they never let pass through their lips in their life.

Okay? And then Peter goes back with these six guys and has to explain because as soon as he gets back in Jerusalem, the guys say, hey, Peter, you got some explaining to do. Okay? So Peter explains. Says what happened there was just like what happened to us at the beginning. Acts 2. Alright, now, that's the quick summary.

What we see there, and this is on page 5, the points that I've got here, the centurion was named Cornelius. This was the first account of a centurion after the Church had been formed, so this is Acts 2, and it involves an apostle, Peter, who was also in the Acts 2 event. What Peter did in entering the house of Cornelius would not have been acceptable Jewish practice. He'd already stayed at the house of Simon the Tainer. Now he's stepped into the house of Cornelius and stayed there for several days. I mean, this guy's really gone beyond all bounds. I'm not sure what we would compare it to. It'd be like, I told you, could you help me move? I'm moving into a trash dumpster. It'd be just like, what? It just wouldn't work.

Cornelius was described as well regarded by the Jews, and we have both biblical and extra-biblical records that there were Jews in Caesarea. Philip the Deacon lived in Caesarea. We also have records from extra-biblical accounts that there were Jews there. So, definitely there were Jews there. Now, and number six there, Peter provided an account of his visit at Cornelius' household to the church leaders in Jerusalem with accompanying witness. How many witnesses would be required to verify Peter's story? Two or three. Mosaic law. He had six. I think he's got it covered. He's got it covered. Now one of the things that, as we look at that, I'm turning now to page six.

The points we have here is that both Peter and Cornelius were directed by the Lord specifically so as to bring about the events of Acts 10 at the house of Cornelius the Inferior. Isn't it interesting how the Lord just, you know, here, let's make sure this happens. We're going to put this together. We're going to make sure, this isn't just some sort of happy accident.

This is something deliberately designed by the Lord so that Cornelius and Peter both had revelations to bring about. Cornelius and the others present, who it says are close friends and relatives, both of them having revelation, Cornelius' household definitely became believers there. Cornelius was hospitable, we see that factor. Number four, in no wise was Cornelius, even giving ample opportunity, because he had several days, told to leave his post as a military officer.

But not the slightest evidence that he was told that. Now that you've become a Christian, we think that's wonderful, it's great, God's doing a wonderful thing, but you need to leave the Roman military. Is that what you heard? No. Not even the slightest hint of it.

Cornelius and his devout soldier, we don't have a name, but that's the description of his attendant that was sent down to Peter, a devout soldier. Portrayed in a positive light, there is not the slightest hint that they were fearful of becoming Christians, nor under any orders or inclination to persecute the Christians." Again, indication of early writing. This was written before, you know, worry about your Roman soldiers?

What do you mean? Not even the slightest hint. Okay, now we've got the centurions at Antonia Fortress, and here we have The centurions are not named, but we see that they go and they grab Paul up from this temple scene they They stop the Jews from beating up Paul the next Place we see is here's the commander had ordered Paul to be interrogated by torture basically they'd whip you and ask questions I'm not sure whether they ask questions while the whip was coming or I Ask the questions, give you a second, and then let the whip fly.

But just get ready to do that, ready to type Paul up. And Paul doesn't say, hey, I'm a Roman citizen, you're in trouble. He says, is it legal for you to beat a Roman citizen without trial? Because that's possible death penalty for these guys. So that's why Paul put it subtly.

Let me tell you, their adrenaline was pumping, their eyes real big, jaw dropping, all those extreme expressions, you know, because they're thinking, I'm about to whip this guy and that could be the death sentence for me. This guy's a Roman citizen, I'm in deep yogurt. Okay? So here's this thing.

When Paul asks the question, the centurion goes whoop, zoom, flying over to the commander and says, you know, hey, did you know this guy is a Roman citizen? No. And so then the commander tells the centurions, because remember we had 470 soldiers taking Paul out of Jerusalem over to Caesarea, and so there's definitely centurions, and you see him talking to the centurions. So in these several accounts, we don't know the names of any of the centurions, so it's kind of different from the previous one where we get lots of detail and we get names and household information and things like that. Here, we don't get that. We don't get much information about each one, but interestingly, The centurions do respond to Paul, regard him, take the message to the commander, protect him all the way to Caesarea.

So, I mean, it's not, there's not as much detail, it's not as positive, but it's certainly not negative. And you don't see Paul at any place, you know, saying, hey, you know, it's awful nice if you give me a place to stay like this, but you really ought to get out of the Roman military. You don't see that, right?

Okay, now, the last one we see here in the Book of Acts. Here's Julius the Centurion. Remember, he was the one who was assigned to take Paul to Rome. And one of the things we noted right off is Dr. Luke records with a word that we have carried over into English, but this is the only place it shows up in the whole New Testament.

Philanthropos. We would say, you know, like a philanthropist. Julius was philanthropist towards Paul. He treated him well. He treated him well. And so we see that Julius disregarded Paul's input early in this voyage by ship, but increasingly listened to Paul.

Especially at one point, the ship's crew was taking off and trying to sneak over by the little dinghy or lifeboat, and they were going to take off, and Paul said, if they go, we can't be saved. We'll have no way to run everything here and take care of it all. And so the commander listens to him instantly and gives orders for his soldiers, cut the rope. Cut that dinghy loose, they're not leaving.

So he actually responded to Paul's advice at that point, very quickly, very explicitly and then later on we see Julius Taking control of the ship and operating based on Paul's prediction that You know we're going to have a shipwreck and everybody's going to survive the soldiers were planning on killing all the prisoners Julius said no Remember why? Okay, the soldiers They were going to plan on killing the prisoners because they were going to shipwreck, and the Roman law said that if a Roman soldier allowed a prisoner to get away, that that soldier received whatever punishment the prisoner was due. So, the consequence was, if that prisoner was going to get killed, that the soldier who let him go would get killed. If that prisoner was going to, you know, pay out some money or spend a bunch of time in a Roman military prison or something of that sort, the soldier was going to get it. Okay? So the soldiers, their practice was, hey, you know, the safe thing to do for me is to kill everybody.

Julius says no, for the sake of Paul. For the sake of Paul. And Paul, why? One, he was favorably inclined towards Paul. Also, Paul was a Roman citizen, which put him in a unique spot. They get on the island. Here's Julius seeing Paul healing people Here's here's Julius seeing Paul. You know here's gathering wood for the fire things like that There's a lot here that saying hey this guy has no crazy criminal this fellow here is dead somebody out of trust and Look at all the good things. He's doing miraculous things.

He's I can't turn that away Now do we know? Whatever happened spiritually to Julius? No. We don't have the evidence like, for example, the centurion at the cross. This is the Son of God. He's innocent. The centurion who said to Jesus, I'm not worthy to have you come to my house, but do the healing right here and now. You can do it. I know you have authority to do so.

So we don't see those kinds of words, but we do see Julius increasingly, even though he started off favorable towards Paul, increasingly favoring Paul. So I would say a hint, an implication, that perhaps he became a believer, but we don't have a definitive answer on that. Again, though, we can ask the question, here's our last shot at centurions, and basically the rest of the New Testament does not mention centurions. So Julius is our last. Looking down this these accounts do we see anything? That says mr.. Centurion get out of service now We do not see that do we okay?

You're thinking Josiah I Thought I saw the gears turning sorry, okay We don't see any evidence of some outspoken resentment towards the centurions carrying out their duty by Jesus or by the Apostles. We know that there were two groups in Israel that were antagonistic towards them, and that was the Zealots, and remember Simon, one of Jesus' disciples, was one of the Zealots, and another more extreme Jewish group called the Sicarii. And the Sicarii we'd call like Jewish terrorists, okay? And their idea was, you know, I'm going to take out any centurion I can.

But you don't see any evidence of that in the New Testament, these accounts that we've seen here. So none of that whatsoever. Finally, because you don't see anything painted in a negative light about these guys, that would be indication that these books were written early, before there was any general persecution.

The first wave we talked about was with Nero, about 64 AD, so a few years after this, and it would be centered around Rome. The next wave would be Domitian. It was that wave of persecution where the Apostle John was, so far as we know, the only remaining Apostle.

And an extra-biblical account, so this does not have biblical authority or reliability, an extra-biblical account says that Domitian ordered that John be boiled in oil. And they threw him in the boiling oil, and it did nothing. And so he said, yes, that didn't work. So they put him on the Isle of Patmos. So that's the extra-biblical account.

Nonetheless, from then on, Christians were under more general persecution, a total of ten waves under the Roman Empire. And that being the case, If anyone wants to place the writing of these New Testament books later in the first century or in the first part of the second century, that would definitely put the Christians into a period of time where the view of the Roman government would be very negative. The evidence that we have here fits the facts, and that is that the Romans hardly took notice that there was anything such as Christianity. until later on in the first century, the very last part of the first century. It is certainly not the only, but it is one of the evidences, and we notice it's consistent, that the New Testament documents were written early by people who were eyewitnesses and not somebody a second or third generation down using names like Matthew and Luke and things like that as pseudepigrapha is the word, false writings.

Okay, we've covered a whole bunch, and in fact we didn't even cover it all, but we're out of time. So, that being the case, any questions, comments, observations? Anything you're exasperated with me about? Yes, good point. Her point here is that here's Cornelius, who had definite contact with the Jews.

He was called a God-fearing man, although among the Gentiles. A Gentile would be regarded well among the Jews, not by following all of the Mosaic law, but by following kind of basics. There was acknowledging the God of Israel as the one God, and the sort of things you see outlined in Acts 15. Remember they had the council in Jerusalem and they said, you know, avoid sexual immorality and eating animals that are strangled. And so for Gentiles that's good enough. So the Jews did not expect that these Gentiles who acknowledged God would follow the entire law of Moses. And one of the things we pointed out during the series on marriage a month or two ago here was that it was a daily Jewish prayer.

The Jews would say, thank you that I was not born a Gentile or a woman. And the reason was, is because if you were a Jewish male, you could obey more laws and that was better. And so Cornelius would have been considered a holy and righteous man, not because he followed the whole Jewish law, but because he acknowledged those basic things that were necessary for a Gentile, and not everything in the Jewish law.

He could not acknowledge everything in the Jewish law and be a Roman officer. Because what are they going to serve you for food? And what if you get orders to move on a Sabbath? You can't. Yeah, they would not follow it all, but they would still be acknowledged as righteous with those basic things. Good, anything else? Yes. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, the truth is that the evidence for early authorship is multiple. So it's not just this, but...

No. There were certain, for example, what Dr. Luke calls the people who were in charge at Philippi. was a title that was only used for a narrow window of time. If he had written some decades later, he would not even have known about that obscure and shortly lived title. But instead, as the archaeologists dig this up, here's this title that was only used for a few years in Philippi, and that's the one he uses. So that's not something that somebody a half century later is going to cook up. They're not even going to think of it or know about it. So yeah, and Paul is described there in the last part of Acts, and Dr. Luke is several places using us and we and providing some rather intensive detail in places. Okay, good. Other thoughts?

Alright, you've got the handouts for the next two weeks. With these two weeks, we're going to finish up ACTS. You've got another subject for this next week and the handout with it. That's got a lot of questions. And so what I will hope that you'll be able to do is to take a look through that material and think about the questions. Because the idea is rather than, you know, a lot of talking on the part of the leader, it's going to be more of a workshop. It means you'll need to take a look at it.

Otherwise, it'll be a real quiet hour. Okay? Yeah. Okay. The second one has to do with Timothy. And Timothy's spiritual growth, we chose Timothy because he is one, kind of the next generation after the Apostles, and obviously following principally Paul, about whom we have the most information. We know some about Titus, for example. We know some about Silas. But Timothy, we know from the place he shows up in Acts 16. It talks about him personally, where he came from, and Paul even started off, he had a Greek father, a Jewish mother and grandmother, a lot of details given. And the last letter we have from Paul in the whole New Testament is written to Timothy. And Timothy was sent to Ephesus, and we know a lot about Ephesus.

So there's lots of information. So anyway, take a look through that, review it so that you've got some some material to work with, because it can be much more of a workshop type thing than some of what we've had here, which is more, you know, let's read over the text and talk about it. So, anyway, I just encourage you to take a gander at that. Let's close our time in prayer.

Lord, we can look through this and these examples of centurions, a number of them here, and we see in it some clear indications from Scripture. as to what is true, and the pattern is consistent. And we thank you for that clarity and that consistency in the message that that sends to us. And thank you for your marvelous word, amply and multiply testified as to its truth. And we thank you for your dear son, and we acknowledge, along with the centurion, that you are indeed the Son of God. Thank you in Jesus' name.