00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:06 Kelly's Surgery Update

00:49 Sunday's Sermon: Strong Wives

02:07 Promoting the Church

04:05 Daily Bible Reading: Acts 15-16

08:28 Paul and Barnabas' Disagreement

11:39 Timothy's Circumcision and Missionary Journey

13:23 Lydia and the Philippian Jailer

16:21 Warnings Against Divination

17:25 Closing Prayer and Farewell

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

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Introduction and Welcome

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. And a special shout out.

Kelly's Surgery Update

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She's actually within earshot now Kelly is back in office. Wow. Yeah, she's, yeah, her scar looks amazing. It's, three cuts around the shoulder. Amazing. What they can do today. I think you called her Robocop when Several times we got back.

Yeah. So if you guys aren't aware, and I think a lot of you are, but Kelly had surgery and on her arm and it was successful. She's recovering faster than anybody could have imagined. They replaced her whole arm. They did? Yeah. With a synthetic something. Yeah. Can't even tell. And it's like three times the size of her other one now.

So, yeah. But no, she's back in office, which is always good. I know Ally was super thankful for that Ally pinch hit as the acting admin for the church while Kelly was out, and she did a great job. She did. But Ally said she's super thankful that Kelly's back in office. Glad it's over. She said.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sunday's Sermon: Strong Wives

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Be what you would expect. What does that mean? Well, I'm just saying we're in a culture that talks a lot about strong women and strong women being independent and strong women asserting themselves and strong women being those that have a voice and everything else. And the biblical model is actually a woman who's gonna submit herself to her husband's leadership because of her.

Immense trust in the Lord. And that's what's key there is because she's doing this more because of her relationship with the Lord than she is her relationship with her husband even. So, we'll talk about what feminine strength looks like in God's eyes as we gather together as the church today. Are you gonna do a walk up to the song by Helen Reddy?

I don't know, man, wouldn't good press. We'd get on the radar, people would see the corpus of what we do and say, oh, they're just speaking of the press and the radar.

Promoting the Church

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Hey we'd love for you to wear our stuff. Out in public and we've got some things cooking right now. That stuff we'll make you some more stuff.

We're gonna get out to you. But one of the things that you can do that we have available every single weekend is you can put a bumper sticker on the back of your car that says, Hey, compass Bible Church. That's right. And I love driving around town and seeing him. I've seen a handful out in the wild and been able to say, I wonder who that is.

And sometimes the car's recognizable. You know when Pastor Mark's driving his Ferrari around town, it's like, oh, there's Pastor Mark. Right. It's Ferrari. Right? But we'd love for you to put yours, our church logo on your car. That's not something that we see a lot out here. I think there's a couple other churches in the area that have stickers but by and large it's not something you see very much.

And there have been testimonies from people even that have come to our church already, but also people that we knew back in, in California who would. See the bumper stickers out there, who would actually come and visit our church because they saw it on a bumper sticker and said, oh, I'll go check that church out.

And our invite cards. We're gonna be, I don't wanna spoil the challenge just, we're spilling all the beans early, man. We're gonna be pushing people to really get out and invite people to church. You just can't hold these things quietly. I just, I want people to come to our church. I wanna see people show up.

Well, yeah, of course. We're on the same page with them. Yeah. We wanna spill the beans. I'm not spilling any beans. All right. Well, I sure feels I have No beans have been spilled. It smells like beans in here, by the way, the phrase hilla beans. Do you know what it refers to Jack and the bean stuff? It doesn't.

No. It doesn't, my family makes a lot of beans. I used to think it was a pile of beans, like a hill of beans. It doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Okay. A hill is actually the plot of land in which bean plants are pla planted. So a hill would hold two or three bean plants, which won't feed anyone. It doesn't produce enough beans to make a hill of beans.

Daily Bible Reading: Acts 15-16

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Hey, acts 15 and 16 is our DBR for today, acts chapter 15.

We are dealing with something that has been present in the background and even sometimes the forefront here in Acts. So far, that is the relationship of the Jews and the Gentiles. Now, it's helpful in the chronological plan here that we're reading this today, and then tomorrow we're gonna read.

Galatians, Galatians one through three, and then also the next day, Galatians four through six. And this is super helpful, not just because Paul's gonna be dealing with the territory of Galatia, but because the issue that he's gonna be dealing with in Galatians, the letter there has a lot to do with what the Jerusalem Church is deciding here in Acts chapter.

15. And that is what do we do with the gentiles and the law? So it starts out with a dissension. It says, in fact, no small dissension arose between some of the men that came down from Judea who were there with Paul and Barnabas, and they were trying to say, Hey, you know what? You need to take these gentiles who have come to faith in Jesus, and you need to have them circumcised to obey the law.

Do they have to abide by the law? How much of the law. And through this process of consulting a plurality of wisdom here, they're gonna get to the place of saying, you know what, here's what we need to commend for them. Here's what we need to write to them. And it's gonna say there in verse 28 that it had seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to them to lay on them no greater requirements.

So they're actually putting God's authority on these statements here that they're gonna send to the Gentiles by the hand of Paul and Barnabas. And that is that they were to act in a way that is. That is godly, that they should turn to God, that they should be kept from things that, that would be polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from what had been strangled and from blood.

Debate and they go back and forth and they finally reach a decision and make a unanimous decision, or at least a decision that everybody could get behind together. Seems like this church is making a decision on behalf of all of Christiandom at this time. What do we do with people who suggest that this still has to take place today?

That there has to be a definitive authority making judgments on behalf of the church and for the church to say this is permissible and this is. Unadvisable or Ill inadvisable for whatever reason, they might point to a text like this and say, see the Jerusalem Church? Everybody submitted to them. They might have sent their delegates to make a decision on these things, but the Jerusalem Church made the decision, and so some might say, as they did in yesteryear.

And so a lot of these things were new issues that were coming up, that were popping up in different areas as the gospel was continuing to spread. So they had to go to the source where there was the greatest experience and greatest wisdom and greatest knowledge, and that was those that were the eyewitnesses of Christ, the apostles.

Then also some of the elders that were there in Jerusalem, and that's why they're going there to find out the answers to these things. As the church grew though, and this is one of the things that Paul's gonna tell Timothy later on, he's gonna say, look, I want you to stay in Ephesus and put things in order there, and I want you to put elders in order there and install people.

Men who are gonna be able to faithfully lead the church and be the ones that defend the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth. And that's the local church there. And so the pattern that. That's already being set up because Paul's been establishing elders in the churches, is that the leadership of the church would shift to be that autonomous leadership of the local plurality of elders as they meet together to lead the church.

But what we know to be true during this period, there was. Genuine, true apostolic authority. James was the half brother of Christ, and you had Paul, and you had others. You had Peter, you had the actual apostles that were there with Jesus and they were weighing in on these decisions, and that's why I would say it's different.

Helpful from here into Acts chapter 16.

Paul and Barnabas' Disagreement

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Then we find, well, I guess at the end of chapter 15, we have a separation between Paul and Barnabas. And you alluded to this. I did in yesterday's episode I did. So I did wanna unpack a little bit more what happens here with John Mark. This is the first time that you see in the church as the church begins to get planted and get going, where you see friction between two brothers.

Decision that is John Mark's decision in return, and Barnabas is far more forgiving for it. He either Barnabas understands John Mark's rationale, or John Mark is saying, let's forgive him and let's try to bring him back again. Whatever the case, they disagree and here's what happens. Instead of fighting it out and coming to some conclusion, they actually end up separating, which shows us that there is a time to separate.

There is a time when it makes more sense for us to part ways. Now here's, I guess, a little bit of interpretive. Action on my part, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. PPJI, I don't think that was a sin. I think it would've been good for them to figure it out, but they decided it's better for us to disagree in part ways rather than to try to figure this out in one fell swoop.

So they separated and in fact, John John Mark and Barnabas go on their own missionary journey and Paul goes on another one. And we don't follow Pa Barnabas and John Mark, but we do follow Paul. He's gonna go on a second missionary journey. He's gonna expand his territory, go further. He's gonna find Timothy on this territory on this up.

Yeah, sharply divided. But there's ambiguity there to know what that disagreement looked like, how it worked itself out. Could there have been sin in that, that arguing, that debate back and forth? Sure. But on the other hand, there, there could have been just, Hey, you know what? We disagree on this. Why don't you go your way?

We'll go our way. If nothing else, we can say the result of this is that the. The impact, the efforts are multiplied because now you're, to your point, you've got two missionary journeys going out here. Yep. As Paul and Timothy are gonna launch their second, the second missionary journey here in, in chapter 16.

Yeah. Barnabas is gonna take John Mark and he's gonna go on his own and there's gonna be reconciliation later on down the road. That's right. What we know. Right. Maybe at that point they weren't sure about it, but verse 38 tells us here, Paul thought it best. This is a matter of judgment, and then that's where I'm leaning on here.

I see that. I see that point, and they decide it's best for us just to go our separate ways and do this in different ways. And that's okay. We can disagree as Christians and still walk away as friends, but we can have different political persuasions about this particular thing or that particular thing now.

But I, I still think it's critical here that we see what's happening. They're still brothers. They're not saying You're anathema, you're going to the you're going to the bad place and I'm gonna, the good place. I think this is a really good example of what it looks like to disagree amicably, charitably, and ultimately to do it in a way that leaves room for restoration.

Yeah, I can see that.

Timothy's Circumcision and Missionary Journey

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Yeah, chapter 16 does launch this second missionary journey, and it's gonna be Paul and Timothy and, oh, I mentioned earlier that the Jerusalem Council was gonna say, this is what we're gonna hold you to. And outside of that, there was gonna be some freedom there. And the freedom is that if there were gonna be some that wanted to subject themselves to some of the greater restrictions of the law for various purposes, they could do that.

He was still going to go to the Jewish people from time to time. And knowing that Timothy had at least a half Gentile blood in him he wanted to make sure that Timothy wouldn't be a stumbling block to those Jews from hearing the gospel. And so with Timothy's agreement, I'm sure Paul had Timothy circumcised Timothy, come over here, drink this.

Come over here buddy. Trust me, don't pay attention to the knife in my hand. Just come over here anyways, hopefully he was agree to that. Hopefully he was agreeable, but he does it for the sake of the gospel, so that's amazing. And so Timothy has my respect. Yeah, for sure. When later on when Paul s saying, I became all things to all men, Timothy's probably sitting there with his arms crossed, tapping his foot in the corner being like, did you really, did you Paul?

Which by the way, one Peter is written to the exiles who are in Bethia, that's one of the towns there, or one of the regions there that Peter's writing to. But instead. God wanted them in Macedonia, specifically in Philippi, and that's what the rest of chapter 16 is about.

Lydia and the Philippian Jailer

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And while they're in Philippi, they encounter some various people here that each have their own kind of unique role.

And this always reminds me of the fact that when we read the letter of the church to the Philippians of Paul to the church of the Philippians, he's writing to Lydia and he's writing to this Philippian jailer and his family there. And so it's cool that we get acts to give us some people and faces or we may not.

And Paul and Timothy are going to encounter her. They're gonna share the gospel with her. She's gonna be saved. My argument is she and her whole household are gonna be saved because they are all gonna be baptized, which. It's probably worth talking about because some will point at this passage and say, look, her whole household was baptized.

Surely Lydia had some children at home, and so this is evidence for Pato baptism. That's right. We would agree with that. We would not agree with that for two reasons. Number one, this is an argument from silence. It doesn't say anything about who was in her household there. And then number two, what we look at later in the same chapter.

So if you'll jump down, the Philippian jailer is gonna be converted. So real quick there Paul and Silas are, Paul and Timothy are gonna be. Arrested. And they're arrested because of this incident with the servant girl that they cast a demon out of. And her masters are upset 'cause now they can't get money from her fortune telling.

And so Paul then takes him and. After the jailer brings 'em out and cleans him up and everything like that. It says this. It says he took them the same hour that night and washed their wounds and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. But if you look right above that, he says, sir, what must I do to be saved?

And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and you household. So there. Paul's preaching the gospel not to the jailer alone, but also to his household. So then down the road there in this passage, when it says that the jailer and all his household were baptized, the assumption is because they all responded to the gospel.

They all did believe, as Paul instructed them to there. So when we go back to the beginning of chapter 16 and we see the conversion of Lydia and it says that Lydia was saved and she was baptized along with her whole household. It's consistent for us to believe that Paul preached the gospel to them as well.

Yeah. Lemme just point out to you in verse six, it says that they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And then in verse seven, the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Are these two separate entities. My argument would be, no, they're not. They're the same entity. They're the same second member of the Trinity, but in one place it's, he's called the Holy Spirit.

In another place, he's called the Spirit of Jesus. They're the same person.

Warnings Against Divination

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Secondly, I wanna make notice here that the spirit of divination, that the slave girl has, this seems to me to be a real spirit. I think she was operat. Sincerely, that is, she wasn't faking it. It wasn't a fake gift where she's reading, the person instead of reading an actual spirit entity, it looks like she's operating sincerely, which is why she's bringing much gain to her slave owners who are in the business of fortune telling and notice here that God is not okay, particularly Paul.

And again, I just wanna warn you, when you see these. Hand readers or whatever else, these fortune tellers, many of them are crooks and they're fakes and they know how to read you as opposed to read the actual future. But some of them, I would imagine a large percentage of them have a real spirit of divination.

So beware and be mindful of the fact that if you play with these things, you might get burned. Yeah. You're exposing yourself to the demonic world. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that.

Closing Prayer and Farewell

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Weird agree. Well, let's pray and they'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. God, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the Church of Philippi. We thank you for people like Lydia and the Philippian jailer, their families, who one day when we are in eternity, we will get the chance to meet them and to talk with them and to find out what this was like and the whole situation. There's just a reminder to us of the breadth of the family of God and how it stretched not just across different contexts and cultures, but it stretches eons.

If we've repented and believed in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, then we will be with them one day. And I pray that that message would go out further, that you'd save more people and even use our church in that process. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keep your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

Merry Christmas. Bye.

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Bernard: Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.

PJ: Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said