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$: Acts 11-15; 2 Corinthiansedgemontscripturestudy.com/00 Acts of the Apostles S… · Web viewActs 11-15; 2 Corinthians \ What a pleasure it is to think about the Acts of the Apostles$
Transcript of Classes on The Acts of the Apostles by John W. Welch, Sept 2010 to Dec 2010

Acts 11-15; 2 Corinthians

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What a pleasure it is to think about the Acts of the Apostles as we are preparing to listen to the living apostles and prophets this coming weekend. I look forward to this conference season. I am not sure we will hear much about the Apostle Paul in conference, you never know, but when we were studying Peter, lots of passages from Peter showed up and it seems like when we do the Book of Mormon, every conference time there are lots of Book of Mormon passages. Pay attention this time and see if you run across any themes or scriptures that we have been talking about. My guess is that we are going to hear something about missionary work this time and we may even hear something about senior missionary work, if you noticed what is on the cover of the latest issue of the Ensign.

Paul’s Conversion Continued

Was Paul a senior missionary? Yes. How old was Paul when he was converted, for one thing? We do not know for sure, but late thirties. How long was Paul a missionary? Almost constantly for how many years? The rest of his life, which went quite a while. If you looked at the chart, there is a chart on the chronology of Paul’s life (we will mention it again in a few minutes), but the way I looked at that, almost constantly for 24 years that we know of, and after Rome, the legends are that Paul continued and traveled all through western Europe up into present-day France and Spain and all around, at least 24 years of missionary work. Now that is a record that is enviable indeed. That is what we are starting to turn our attention to today.

Last time, we did not take any time to compare the conversion of Paul with that of Alma the Younger. I did that on purpose because we are going to have two more accounts in the Book of Acts of Paul’s conversion. When he is arrested in Jerusalem and the Romans protect him, and people are about to stone him and take him away, he stands and does like all the apostles in those days did, used that opportunity. He has a whole audience, he has a crowd, and what is he going to talk to them about? His conversion. He tells the conversion story right there and then. Of course, the Romans have to protect him even more, and he is taken into protective custody for over a year down in Caesarea. Then, of course, while he is in custody there, King Agrippa II will come to consult with the Romans on what to do with Paul, and we do not know much about what Agrippa and the Romans talked about but we do know what Paul talked about. He again told his conversion story.

After we have looked at all three of these, we will be able to put them together and compare them, so bear that in mind. That gave me occasion to think back on our mission president, Steve, you remember, President Gunther in the South German Mission? When he would meet any member of the Church in our mission, and I traveled around enough with him to know that this was his constant question to them, he would always begin by saying, “Tell me your conversion story. How did you join the Church?” That is what he wanted to know about the members that were under his stewardship, and he wanted missionaries to tell the same thing as we were knocking on doors. “Tell people your conversion story.” Paul does that so you might think about that as an example. Go back to the moments of conversion that were important for you. Make that a point; every time the policeman stops you and gives you a ticket, tell him your conversion story. Do what Paul did and…

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(Student) Do you think he will listen?

I do not know but I will bet you will get his attention.

(Student) About 2 months ago, we had a missionary come in from Jordan that speaks only Arabic and so we had the interpreter ask him, “How did you find the Church? How were you converted?” He said, “When I was 15, my sister and I were walking down the street and we saw a piece of paper with a phone number on it and we picked it up and called the number, and the lady on the other end said, ‘This is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We would like to invite you to our meeting Sunday at such and such a place.’” So they went home and told their parents and they said, “You are not going there by yourself.” So the whole family went and they converted - two brothers and three sisters.

Was this in Jordan?

(Student) This was in Jordan. The brother left three months ago and the sister came in yesterday and is going to Temple Square. The father is going to church with them and wants to be baptized but he cannot give up smoking. The rest of the family has been baptized. Would you pick up a piece of paper and then call the phone number?

They will have a story to tell won’t they? What a great story. I think we all have stories. Let us cherish and use them.

People in the next 10 episodes

On your handout, if you have the questions and topics, we will run through these tonight. We have ten episodes that we will be talking about fairly briefly. Most of them have something to do with missionary work or establishing some other church precedents that are of great interest to us.

On the back, if you will fold your paper like this [in half vertically so the names are visible, but the descriptions are not]. I am going to give you a test, but I just want you to fold it like this so you can see the names of the people and places, and I have even given you a big hint by telling you what chapter it is in so, but look at the names! Just look at all the names of people and places that you have read about this week as you were looking at this part of the life of Paul.

One of the really wonderful things about the Book of Acts is that it does not just say, “Paul went on a mission and he went to a city and he talked to some people.” This history is rich because we know where he was, how long he was there, whom he talked to as well as what he said. These personal details allow us to even check up on some the places, go to some of these spots, and in some cases, find other historical records that talk about these same people. We can find out a lot about Claudius, the Emperor of Rome. There was a famine in the days of Claudius that we hear about here. So you go down this list.

[Does] everybody know who Agabus was? Brother Kepas does. Anyone else? Agabus was the prophet, right? What did he prophesy about? There is going to be a famine, and it came to pass and so Bar-Jesus?

(Student) Son of Joshua?

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Son of Joshua, that is how that would read in Hebrew. He is the same person as this Elimas, right, so he is the sorcerer that we run into in Cyprus. Blastus? Blastus is the chamberlain of Herod Agrippa I, the one who dies; we will hear about his death. What is a chamberlain?

(Student) Someone who takes care of the chamber pots.

That is right. The chamberlain. Does anybody know of a person named Chamberlain? Somebody in their background… It was a very important function in royal palaces to have a chamberlain, sort of like the butler but it is the one… sorry about the butlers, but we have Butlers, we have Chamberlains -

(Student) The butlers might go up a step higher than the chamberlain.

Yes. But the chamberlain is a very close, personal… he takes care of the bedroom for the king.

(Student) A quick anecdote. I was coaching some commonwealth games back in the 80s when we were in Edinburgh, Scotland and it was Lord Chamberlain, on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, that sent an invitation to come to the palace to go to a social that they were hosting for the games.

That is the real Chamberlain. There you go.

Paul Meets High-Level Officers: Sergius Paulus in Cyprus

I will not go through all of these, but I have given you…if you open it up, you can see the answers and (handing more out). Notice the high level of people that Paul was dealing with. Sergius Paulus is a Roman pro-consul. He is in charge of the Island of Cyprus. Now today in modern politics, Cyprus is hardly even a good tourist resort. If the Greeks and Turks could finally figure out who owns Cyprus, maybe someone would want to visit the place, but back in the Roman Empire, Cyprus was a critical island. [Does] anyone know what the word Cyprus comes from? Remember your chemistry? Cuprous Oxide, what does that mean? Copper Oxide, so the name Cyprus, the island is named Copper. Why do you think it is called Copper? Huge, huge, one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world is there, and it provided all of the copper for the Bronze Age, for all of the Roman weapons in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. There were a couple of other sources of copper in Italy and Spain, but Cyprus was the main one. This is the Kennecott mine of the Roman Empire. Without Cyprus, you would not have had a Roman army. So the Island of Cyprus was kept as a Senatorial Province, even though the population was very small and it was not likely to be attacked because it is an island, and as the Romans controlled all of the Mediterranean at this point, but it was still important enough that the production had to be guaranteed by the Senate.

Herod the Great got a lot of money to build his temple, the fortresses at Masada, the palace at Caesarea, his big Palm Springs desert home down in Jericho, roads, the world’s largest artificial harbor. Where did Herod get the money to build all of that? He had been a very good friend of a young man named Octavian Caesar who becomes Augustus Caesar, and because of that friendship, when Augustus and Marc Antony and Cleopatra went to war, Herod was smart enough, lucky enough, to throw his lot in with the underdog Augustus. When Augustus won, he rewarded Herod in a handsome way; he gave Herod half of the copper on the Island of Cyprus and the right to set the price for all of the copper. So why did the Romans do that? They wanted a strong ally on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to guard against any incursions from Acts 11-15, 3 Sept 2009 (file 100930)

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Mesopotamia from the Meads, the Persians and so on. Cyprus, then, is an important place and the Jews have a lot of connections there. When we see Paul going there, it is one of his first stops as he takes off on his mission, but showing up as a Jew in Cyprus is not going to be like somebody from outer space coming. These are people who would have had connections there at lots of different levels.

This is when Sergius Paulus has a problem with this Bar-Jesus or the sorcerer. Paul has been there for a year and a half, and Sergius Paulus calls him in and says, “What should I do with this guy?” He is apparently a Jewish sorcerer with a name like Bar-Jesus, which is a Hebrew name. The Romans did not really know quite what to make of this. Paul made quick work of him and after he [Bar-Jesus] was left blind to wander out of the governor’s palace, Paul had made a deep impression on a very high-ranking Roman.

Paul Goes to Capital Cities

Now, as you look down the cities that Paul goes to, look how many of them are capital cities. He goes to Antioch. Where is Antioch? Right here. This is the capital city of the Roman province of Syria, a much more important province than any of these other little Podunk provinces in the area. Damascus is not far from here. This was the Seleucid capital, had been the capital city of this area for 300 years. Antioch is the capital of the province, a big province. Of course, he goes to Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judea. You go down to other… [Are there] any other capital cities? Of course, Tarsus where Paul grew up, the capital city of Cilicia, a smaller province but still an important one, and we will see other capital cities. Philippi is the capital city of Macedonia. Athens is not the capital of anything at this time; Athens is a smallish town. The big capital of Corinth is the capital of the province of Achaia down here.

(Student) It is important for transportation.

The Romans needed to be able to get from the end of the Appian Way right here, you come down the Appian Way to Brundisi, and you sail across to Corinth, a little portage here across the Isthmus and then you can sail up into the Black Sea. This is where most of the people lived in the Eastern Mediterranean so Corinth was hugely important. So Paul, he spends his time in Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus, the capital of the Province of Asia, Pergamum is sort of a co-capital, but you get the point. Paul was very well-educated, a Greek, he had been trained in the Greek gymnasium, he had had the highest education that money could buy in Jerusalem studying with Gamaliel, the smartest guy in the Sanhedrin, and Paul was his star student. Paul was a Roman citizen and you talk about opening doors! Paul had some real talents to offer when he was called as a missionary.

(Student) I am trying to following in the back [the map in the back of the Bible], and I am not sure which missionary journeys we are talking about?

Today, the first one.

(Student) This is all the first one then.

(Student) The Jewish name for Paul is Saulos.

Saul? Saul is the name…

(Student) Saulos, Paulus -Acts 11-15, 3 Sept 2009 (file 100930)

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Then it becomes Paulus, changes his name and we do not know why he chooses to do that. Paulus may well have been his Roman citizen name. When you are a Roman citizen, you have to have a tripartite name, so Julius Caesar was not just Julius. His first name was Gaius, Gaius Julius Caesar. Everyone who had Roman citizenship had gotten it from someone; either from his father, being born a Roman citizen, which Paul was, or had been given that Roman citizenship. Sometimes a Roman who owned a slave would, when he died, leave enough money and a grant to give his slave freedom, and sometimes they would get citizenship that way, or they would buy citizenship. Your name would reflect where you got your citizenship from.

So it may just be that we do not know who gave Paul’s father Roman citizenship, but one of the Roman leaders in Cilicia, the generation before Paul would have been born, was from the Paulus family and so it could very well have been Paul’s Roman name. May not be a big change. As a Jew, he would have been called by either his circumcision name or his Bar Mitzvah name. At the Bar Mitzvah, they are given a new name, so it could have been any of these. Even still today, they get new names when they become a son of the covenant, and they are reborn at that point with a new name.

(Student) The word you used, tri-something?

Tripartite name, yes.

(Student) What does tripartite mean?

Three parts. You have a triple name. All of the Romans …it gave a personal name, a family name, and a tribal name. That is a little background. Let us dive in then with our episodes. Ask me questions and see what you think here.

Episode 16. The Title Christians.

Our first Episode deals with just the first few verses in chapter 11, where they are in Antioch and you all now know that there is some significance to Antioch as a major place and (pause) we have Paul escaping and we go to Antioch and, what verse are we on where they are called Christians, verse 26. “They found him, they brought him to Antioch, and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves there with the church and taught much of the people and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”

Now what is interesting here is that the word to be called in the Greek is not your normal word for being called a name. It is chrēmatisai, which is a technical term that means to be registered with this name. I think in the little handout that I have given you, this is just an odd little detail, but the word that is used here is the word that is used to describe taking or bearing an official name, issuing a decree or ordinance by a sovereign or public authority, rendering a decision in a case, or in response to a petition, executing a public document, a record or a title deed, especially referring to a slave, or having the name of God put upon oneself as in Numbers chapter 6 [verse 27]. In other words, it seems to me that there was something official that happened here where they became known as Christians.

In the Roman Empire, in order to be a church or a collegium, or some kind of a group…one of the main groups that was formed were funerary groups, funeral associations where you get all your friends together and you all agree that whoever dies first, the group will bury, and will take care of their tomb. However, the Roman Empire was very suspicious of any of these groups. Acts 11-15, 3 Sept 2009 (file 100930)

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They are meeting in private; they might be talking seditiously, so you had to register. You had to go and let the government know who you were. I wonder, we do not know for sure, but somebody may have gone and registered; Paul may have done this. Paul knows Roman law. He is there in Antioch, so he would be the logical one. Peter probably would not have thought of doing something like this or at least would not have felt that need, so Paul may well have been the one who registered and the governor there said, “Well, what do you guys call yourselves?” And Paul said, “We call ourselves Christians.” So the name was born and it stuck.

With that, just a couple of questions to reflect on. I asked you to think, how important is the name of the church.

(Student) Doesn’t the word Christian mean anointed?

To mean anointed one? Yes. In Greek, it would have signaled that. “We are the anointed ones.” Where was the anointing? Why would Paul or others have called themselves the anointed ones? It is obviously the followers of Christ, who was the anointed one. The word Christos is also the word they used for Messiah, so we are the Messians, or the followers of the Messiah. It can mean a lot of things. They saw the anointing with oil and this was done in ordinances, and the Holy Ghost, when the Holy Ghost was given to people by the laying on of hands, they saw that as a type of anointing by the spirit, and they could not call themselves the Saints, the Holy ones. Why not? Because the Essenes called themselves the Essenes, that means the Holy Ones or the Saints.

(Student) They could be the Former-day Saints.

They could, yes, or the Middle-day Saints, the Meridian of Time Saints. Lots of things. The name was chosen with, I think, some significance and certainly following Christ puts right up front what Paul stood for and who they were testifying about.

(Student) In the Book of Mormon, when Christ was organizing the church, he is very concerned how they call the church. He says if it is the church of Moses, you can call it the church of Moses but since it is my church, we are going to call it the Church of Jesus Christ.

Very good. Names are important for lots of reasons.

(Student) In the Book of Mormon, I looked it up in the Title of Liberty and, it talks about people who were not believers calling the believers Christians. It said they took upon them gladly the name of Christ, that they were called because of their belief, so the name was given them by people who did not actually believe.

Yes, may be true. Of course, they did not believe that Christ would come so this was more of a ridicule. It is a label.

(Student) The next question is what would they call themselves? I thought they could have been the Jesusites or they could have been the Baptists because they were baptized.

They could have been although that would have indicated a following of John the Baptist, because other people were baptizing. Yes, that question, of course, does not have an answer, what might they have called themselves. We do not have any idea. But when people ask you “Are you a Christian?” You know that has become a real hot issue. You kind of have to stop and

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wonder, before this time in Antioch, whenever that was, the mid 40s, it has been a dozen years since Jesus was crucified. Did they call themselves Christians? No, they were not called that, at least not officially. So at least it is possible to be a perfectly good follower of Christ and not be called a Christian. That happened for a while, so anyway, just something to think about.

(Student) If you are accused of being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you?

Yes. That is a good one. I guess I would just like to leave you with one thought on this because a big part of missionary work is saying, “Who are we?” You knock on the door and say, “We are the Mormon missionaries.” Is that what we say? No. We use the name of Jesus Christ. Of course, we have to use the name Mormon on some occasions but we try to limit that as much as possible.

(Student) What about Mormon.org?

Yes, but you know the church did not even want Mormon.org until it was taken originally by some anti-Mormons who were putting a lot of pornography on it and somebody finally was able to buy that from them. But the realities of the world are, we have to use those names, but I think we always explain that is not our real name. The name is sacred. When we talk about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even that name should be spoken with great reverence and if we speak of it that way, I think other people will recognize that we care about that, that we are true followers of Christ, so I think we need to be careful with that.

(Student) The enemies of the church never use the name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They call us Mormons, LDS, or sometimes Latter-day Saints. They never use the full name of the church.

(Student) When I was a missionary in Finland we would go door to door and they would say, “What church do you belong to?” And we tell them, and they say, “Well, yes, but what church do you belong to?” They thought there must be something else.

How do you help people understand that? You can think about that, but maybe you begin by saying, “Our church goes by a special name and let me share it with you.” Then explain where it comes from. Then you have their attention and it is a missionary opportunity to say, “What is imbedded in that name?”

You remember back in the early part of the Book of Acts, chapter 5, people prohibited Peter from performing miracles in the name of Jesus Christ. In the ancient world, and still today in a lot of what we might call more primitive cultures although that may be a bit of arrogance on the part of the more developed countries, but in the primitive cultures, people are still very reluctant to have their picture taken. They do not want their picture taken because their spirit may go somewhere else, or you may take their picture, put it on the wall, and throw darts at it or something.

(Student) It may show up on someone’s blog.

I know we are all afraid of it; they had it right, but the other thing they will not do with you if you are a stranger, they will not share their name because their name is too meaningful to them. You just do not tell your name to a stranger. You do not know what they might do. It is kind of like identity theft. Whatever else might happen, you might invoke curses or problems upon them because of their name. I am just saying we do not think of names quite that way, but when it

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mentions here, just kind of in passing, that they took upon themselves, that they were called for the first time Christians, that is a real notable thing.

Episode 17. A True Prophet.

Next one, Episode 17 about our prophet Agabus. Why do you think Luke tells us this little story?

(Student) They establish the identity of who it was that said there was a famine.

There was a famine. Why does the Book of Acts mention this?

(Student) I wonder if it maybe was because he wanted to report on the compassion of other members of the church giving service to the ones that needed it.

It does that, “Then the disciples, every man according to his ability determined to send relief” and we will come to that in the next little point.

(Student) I think for all of us it was to signify that there were prophets, and the prophets prophesied, and the prophecies were true.

Yes, the spirit of prophecy is alive and well in early Christianity. In a way, also, where did this famine hit the hardest? Jerusalem. In Judea. Might the Christians have thought that this was some kind of a warning? It was not too long ago that they had killed Jesus, and here you have a prophet of God saying, “You people have heard, you have had miracles performed by Peter, you have stoned Stephen, you are now creating problems, and there will be more problems to come and the Lord’s telling you, ‘If you do not shape up, you are going to have a famine.’” And did they listen? No. Of course, he does not go into all of those details. I think Luke would have just assumed that we would pick all of that up and not just pass over the famine. Somebody prophesied about it.

(Student) Did some of them still believe in their heathen god so they would still be praying to them about this famine? This man is saying not where it is coming from, but that there is going to be one.

No, I think these would be people in the Jewish community.

(Student) So they would believe that our God was going to cause a famine?

Yes. Jesus had prophesied as much in Matthew 24, that there would be pestilence and famines and eventually Jerusalem would be destroyed. Here is another prophet who is calling this shot saying, “It is not just going to happen sometime in the distant future.” He says, “There is going to be a famine and it will happen in the days of Claudius,” and sure enough, it did. We have an account from the book of Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews that also mentions this very famine, so it was not just Luke who was telling us some faith-promoting rumor here. In fact, Josephus goes on to talk about how the queen, Helena in Egypt, who may have had some connection with Jerusalem, we do not know, but she sent shiploads of figs and wheat to Jerusalem to try to relieve the starvation. Lots of people still died, but we know for historical fact, that this happened.

(Student) In the heading of chapter 11, at the end there it says that the church is guided by revelation, and we can see that it is.

Yes. They have true prophets.

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(Student) We do not know what this man’s calling was or anything.

Yes, we do not know more than that but we do know that the gift of prophecy was widely enjoyed in the first decades of Christianity. It will get a little bit out of hand, to say the least, by the end of the 1st Century after the disciples, the apostles are either gone or have spread out so much. We will see warnings written by some of the early Christian leaders that if a person comes and says they are a prophet, it is okay for them to stay with you for 3 days, and you can feed them for 3 days, and if they want to stay longer than that, they have got to earn their keep. So apparently, there were people who came and thought that this was going to become their occupation. Why? Remember again what we said about Simon Magus and about this Bar-Jesus. Being a soothsayer was a profession, but the Christians say “no.” Even Paul, Paul will make a big point in 2nd Corinthians, “I was no burden to anyone. I did not. Even though I stayed for a year and a half in Ephesus, I was not on the dole; I did not take money from anyone.” But in the first few decades, that problem had not emerged yet. We do know that it was widespread.

Episode 18. Payment of Money to the Churches in Jerusalem.

I like the next Episode, number 18. They all send money, everybody. I asked you a few questions. How important do you think it is that we have a strong central church, strong headquarters in Salt Lake City? Is that a good thing?

(Student) We would go into a state of apostasy if they did not have leaders.

We need spiritual leadership. How many churches have strong, central leadership? How about Islam? No. No central leadership whatsoever. How about the Baptists? No leadership above the minister level. You have conferences, but very little there in the way of organization or coordination of effort. Of course, you get some central organization with the Episcopalians. Why? It is the Church of England. So, of course, you have...

(Student) Even then…

Even then, they are still Protestant, right?

(Student) Even then the leadership, they offer is organizational. It is not really doctrinal anymore.

(Student) They have had some fracturing of their organization when they allowed women…

And lots of other problems. But my point is just, we are so blessed as Latter-day Saints to have leadership in Salt Lake City where they are united, where we can hear from them in General Conference in October and in April. This does not happen in other places around the world.

(Student) And everyone looks to it and recognizes it. I think if the other religions even tried to do it, it would not work because the faithful, the members just think, “oh, no, you do not...”

“You cannot tell me what to do.”

(Students) Yes.

They have really lost that.

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(Student) In many churches, it is not clear who owns the property, who gets to make the decisions? What happens when there is a problem? Does the congregation get to choose or does some other leadership get to choose?

Yes, exactly! Or when the attendance falls off, or the neighborhood or the demographics change, like you say, who owns that building, that property? You sell it off and what happens?

(Student) Being on temple square all the time it is amazing to see how the Baptists felt and the falsehoods that are out there! It is interesting to see the people that come and visit, especially when they walk in the Conference Center and see the Temple. They have had this other taught them all their lives and they come and see what we really are about, and it just changes their whole attitude.

Now, when we talk to those people, can we tell them that this is the way Christianity was intended to be from the very beginning? Does the Book of Acts help us in that? Does this passage here? I mean, what are they doing? They are sending all this money into headquarters. Was there a Jerusalem center of the church for the first fifteen years? When Paul is converted where does he finally go after he is let down in the basket on the walls of Damascus? He goes to Jerusalem and why? To spend time with the brethren who are there, all of them, or at least most of them. They might be going out on assignment, but they certainly began with that. Now they had a gathering point. They had Jerusalem as the center and Joseph Smith had to move the center of the church several times, from Kirtland. He tried it in Independence shortly but that never really got off the ground. Nauvoo for a while, but we always had a place where everyone knew this is the gathering point. The Christians had that at first. But what will happen here in just a couple more verses?

(Student) I lived around a lot of places in the country, around a lot of different religions, and so many of them just say they are not really interested in a big organization. They just want a pastor or a preacher that they can relate to and I thought that was really interesting. They did not really care which church it was that much as long as they liked the pastor …

Right, they even go pastor shopping. But my question to you is, “Is that the way the Bible tells us that the church of Jesus Christ of meridian days was established?” No. You sit down and you can talk to people and say, “Well you purport to be a Christian. What does your fine Baptist minister tell you about the way the church was organized?” There are prophets, there are apostles, and they have a center.

Now of course it does not continue this way, because why? Who is going to be killed by Herod Agrippa I? James, and who is James? He is the Bishop of Jerusalem, and there is persecution and the Christians, they have to leave. Now what does not happen, and I am not sure why, is that there was not then a place where Peter said, “All right everybody, the new center stake of Zion is in Antioch, Alexandria, or you name it. It did not happen that way, and so there was no gathering principle that continued. We had a very strong gathering principle for at least a hundred years, maybe even longer, where people were encouraged to leave England or wherever, Germany, “Come to build the center stake.” That is because we needed to build a strong base from which the gospel could then be preached, right? Once that was in place, then we could have lengthening the stakes of Zion, building the tent, the tabernacle so that it could still be securely…

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(Student) They did not make Jerusalem the center, because it was the Jews that persecuted them.

Certainly that pressure is there, but they could have found a place, say Alexandria in Egypt where persecution was minimal.

(Student) They could have let it develop in a better environment.

Anyway, we cannot look back and say what would have happened if something else…We can just say that this [central organization] was a crucial element. It was not there after about 50 - 55 AD, but it was there originally, and when Joseph Smith talked about restoring the church and saying, “We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church,” we can see that he knew what he was talking about.

(Student) It may have led to the apostasy earlier than it would have happened if they had …

(Student) One of the issues is that communication was not as easy for them then as it was even in the days of Joseph Smith…

That is right. No, they had their work cut out for them, but it was not as if Jesus had not told them. People say, "Why did he start a church only to let it go into apostasy so quickly?" The prophecies that we will see next week in 1st Thessalonians, the time line of things, events that were given by Jesus in Matthew 24 and elsewhere, I think they clearly understood that this was going to happen.

(Student) One thing too, is the temple was in Jerusalem, and even for the early Christians, the temple was still an important place, so as the church scattered out of Jerusalem, at least for some period of time, the apostles stayed there. So maybe it was the temple that kept Jerusalem as the center for as long as it did until the temple was destroyed.

Yes, I think that is right. The temple was a center and a very important place of spiritual strength and holiness. Paul makes a big point of wanting to bring his gentile converts into the temple. He will risk his life, so important it is that Christians have a presence in the temple, and not just Jewish, circumcised members, but Paul is willing to… He almost dies doing this, so as late as the late 50s; the temple was still not just some kind of insignificant thing of the past. It was still important to Christians and for us too. If the temple was that important in early Christianity in those first decades, they did not own a temple but they knew that the temple was a crucial part of the ordinances of salvation and of the plan of God for the perfection of the saints.

(Student) We still love the Kirtland temple even though we do not own it.

Yes, good point. We mentioned the death of the …, and how did they know how much to pay? Every man according to his ability. So I think that is still what we are asked to do, right?

Episode19. Death of Herod Agrippa.

Event 9, Herod Agrippa. What kind of a guy was Herod Agrippa? What is his relationship to Herod Antipas? He is a half-brother. They are both… no, wait a minute! The answer to all of the questions you will find on a chart somewhere, and if you go to Chart 2-2 you will find Herod’s genealogy, which is extremely complicated. So asking what is the relationship between anybody on this chart is not easy to say. Herod, Agrippa I is a grandson of Herod the Great, right? Through his, no wait a minute. [Herod the Great’s] son is Aristobulus, and Agrippa I is his son.

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Herod Antipas married Agrippa 1st’ sister, Herodius. This is the one that John the Baptist did not like because Antipas, as you see here is also a son of Herod the Great, so he is marrying his half-sister and the full sister of Agrippa I, for what it is worth! Herod the Great, was a brutal man and killed people that he did not like. When Herod died he left in his last wish to his guard, “I want you to kill (whatever the number was, 300, I think) Pharisees.” Herod did not like the Pharisees because the Pharisees did not like Herod’s temple, because Herod was the gentile sort of an Edomite. Why did Herod want these Pharisees killed? “So that there will be mourning and lamenting all over my kingdom.” “No one will care when I die.” But Herod regularly killed his own children if he was not pleased with them, and so the saying went abroad that it is better to be a pig than Herod’s son, a better chance of living.

Herod Agrippa came by some of these characteristics from his grandfather, and so he kills James, he puts Peter in prison, planning to kill Peter. This is the story about Peter kind of sleepwalking his way out of prison. Didn’t you love that story? The iron gate opening, Peter finally wakes up and says, “Where am I?” Goes and knocks on the door and Rhoda, she is on your list of Dramatis Personae here.

(Student) Token ditzy blonde!

She was not sure what was going on. Peter is out here banging on the door about to be arrested again. Anyway, when Peter got out, what does Herod Agrippa do to his guard? It is the same thing his grandfather would have done. He kills the guards.

(Student) Why does James get away and Peter not? I mean the other way around.

Why did Peter get away? Peter is the president of the church and …

(Student) I mean they are both righteous men, the Lord could have saved both of them.

I do not know. We do not know the sequence. James may have been arrested first. Peter had already been arrested and the Sanhedrin had kind of dealt with that and then decided to let it be, so Peter may have had a little more immunity. James was not involved in those earlier actions, but I do not know.

(Student) God will intervene when there is a purpose, and I think that is what happened. Who knows what the reason was, but there was a reason why the angel…”

In looking back on it, of course, Peter was the president of the church and his mission had not yet been fulfilled, and it may be that things are going to get worse in Jerusalem before they get better. In 25 years after this, Jerusalem will be totally obliterated, and if the Christians had hung on there, if they at least had not gotten out of town, they would have gone down with that ship. So having James, who was the Bishop of Jerusalem, killed, is a real signal that maybe they needed to leave Jerusalem.

(Student) Just for the sake of accuracy, I think number 19 is actually describing the death of Herod Agrippa because I read it fairly recently. It is the death of Agrippa in Acts 12 if I am right.

That is right. No, it is the same event. I put Antipas in one of the things that I mailed to you, but your handout tonight says Agrippa. Okay? Sorry about that. But it is Agrippa, Herod Agrippa I. Now I have given you this account from Josephus. Independent… [Did you] you find out who Josephus was?Acts 11-15, 3 Sept 2009 (file 100930)

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(Student) Oh yes, he was a prolific historian but he had a dubious character…

Yes. But he finds himself in Rome writing a very elaborate history of the Jews and of the destruction of Jerusalem. But, it is very interesting that we get a different account, slightly different from what we did in Acts.

(Student) He kind of makes the Bible seem a little bit more authentic…he is a good historian.

That is right and the account that I gave you, how is it different from what we have in Acts? It is a real historical corroboration, that the Book of Acts tells us about the death of Herod Agrippa. In Acts, are there any details that struck you as being…?

(Student) Acute appendicitis. He was five days with a belly ache.

Yes, in Acts, it says that he was eaten with worms and gave up the ghost.

(Student) It says that the angel of the Lord smote him explicitly, but…

Now in Acts it is an angel, an angelos, which means a messenger of God. Now for Josephus, what was it, an angel that came? An owl. But here he is speaking…it is broad daylight and you have an owl flying by. When was the last time any of you saw an owl flying during the day? These are nocturnal birds. Now if it was an owl, it was at least a very unusual owl and it would have been understood by people as something very much out of order, and therefore a very bad omen. But it may well have been an angel, that they looked and they say, “What is that?” Big wings, you know. Streams of glory. You got the idea. I think that is just a fun story.

Episode 20. Commissioning Barnabas and Paul.

How were these missionaries called? Next Episode, Barnabas and Paul are called on a mission. We go here to chapter 13, the first part of chapter 13; there were prophets and teachers, five of them who are named, in Antioch. And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, this means to - the word to separate means to call or to commission him with a particular calling, so separate me Barnabas and Paul for the work, so this calling was extended by fasting, by inspiration and then what did they do? Prayed and fasted, and they prayed and they laid their hands on them and sent them away - set them apart. Why do we set missionaries apart? Why do we set people apart? Are we following the order of the early church?

Episode 21. The Case of Bar-Jesus

We then go to Cyprus with Bar-Jesus. We have seen that there were several occasions where Jesus was confused and the Christians were confused with the people who were wonder workers, miracle workers, magic sorcerers, or whatever. You can understand how a person looking in on what was going on could confuse those two, and sometimes, people looking in on us from the outside, do not understand what we are doing; they misunderstand and we have to clarify who we are and what we are doing. I think we talked about that one.

Episode 22. Expulsion from Antioch

Now let us just look at Paul’s journey. He goes up here into this area…They sail from Cyprus and go through this area. There is a main Roman road that goes all through here. Paul knows this area; it is kind of his back yard. He grew up here in Tarsus. It is a long way, mind you, but

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Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, there is another Antioch so do not be confused, Syria and Pisidia and in these towns we have a pretty good idea of what Paul preaches.

What did you learn about Paul’s missionary service from reading these accounts? Did things go well in Antioch for him?

(Student) Why did he repeat that entire history of the Jews? Did he feel they had forgotten?

(Student) I honestly believe that he started where they were at by tying in the story of the Savior and connecting it to what they already have.

He is trying to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of that tradition. Now in your Bible it is a little hard to pick these up, but in chapter 13, Paul quotes from Psalm 2, Isaiah 55, Psalm 16, Psalm 16 is the one that was all about the crucifixion. They divided my raiment and My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? He quotes from Habakkuk chapter 1, Isaiah 29 and Isaiah 49. All of these are messianic scriptures so he is tying into their history the prophecies that Jesus would come. Then of course, he says, “Look, I do not blame you, you killed Jesus, you did not really know who he was, but now you do. If you will believe in him, all who will believe in him are justified from all things,” then there is a comma there, there should not be a comma there. “You are justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the Law of Moses.” You put a comma there, and the Greek does not want a comma there. All he is saying is, you are justified by all things, and you are justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the Law of Moses. Notice that there is a difference in that grammatical structure.

However, the Jews are not really too sure about what to do, so they dismiss, and Paul starts talking about this to the gentiles in town, and they show up the next Sabbath day, right? So they kind of take the week off, and then all these gentiles come and what happens? The Jews get pretty jealous, and they [Paul and Barnabas] will get driven out.

Episode 23. Evading Assault in Iconium.

Paul and Barnabas are pushed along to Iconium. The city there is divided. There is an assault made on them where they attempt to stone them and drive them out.

(Student) Do they walk or they ride animals?

Probably walking. This is very stony soil so you cannot ride a horse in this area and donkeys are not very comfortable. I would rather walk than ride a donkey. The other problem is that they do not have gas stations. When you take a horse, you have to have food for the horse. This, and water and it is more of a liability. Horses are a luxury, or military, I do not think they rode horses.

(Student) They were very rocky roads, so there is no way for wheels to roll.

Episode 24. Surviving Stoning in Lystra.

Yes. And then we have Lystra. They finally get up to Lystra and this is a wonderful story here where the people in Lystra - what do they think? That we have got gods. This is Jupiter and Mercury, Hermes. Barnabas must have been a pretty impressive man for them to say, “This must be Jupiter.” Now Paul was not a big man, and by his own description, he was not attractive, and his voice, if you read 2nd Corinthians, he is complaining all the time about how he has a thorn in

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the flesh and how he cannot talk very clearly. He likes to write because in writing he is powerful, but when he is there in person, he must be someone that they look at and say, “Scrawny guy, who are you?”

(Student) But you know he was so amazing because he was absolutely fearless.

That is right, and he was so eloquent. When they say this man is Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, they say, we recognize his verbal skills, his power. Now Barnabas was an older member of the church than Paul, was so he was probably the senior companion. So for him to be recognized as Jupiter makes some sense, but I see a lot of real interesting lessons here the way that Paul used the talents that he had, the way he overcame, even any weaknesses or infirmities. He did not let them get him down. He did not say, “You know, Jesus, if you would only make me big and strong like Barnabas, I would go where you want me to go.” He took the talents that he had and he really, really magnified them.

Now I asked you to read 2nd Corinthians. We will finish with that in just a minute, a couple of chapters there, but you know when Paul writes this troublesome letter to the Galatians,

Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians

I just want to mention a couple of things. If you tried to read that last time, you probably stumbled through that. Scholars think that Galatians was just one of many letters that Paul probably wrote back into this area. Galatia is usually thought of as being up in here, but you know Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, the borders were not very well defined in those days. They did not have passports. You did not even know when you had gone from one Province to another. It is not like there is a sign that says, “Welcome to the State of Pisidia where we hosted the Olympic Games.” They never had Olympics there, but they did have Olympics over here. It is quite possible. We do not know that Paul went up into this area. There were people there, but it may well be that when Paul is writing the letter to the Galatians, he is talking to these same obnoxious people who tried to stone him, who would not listen to him; to the people that he had told, if you will believe in him, you are justified from all things from which you cannot be justified by the Law of Moses. That is the message of the Book of Galatians.

I just wanted to say three things about Galatians.

First, if you go to the part of Charting the New Testament where you see these colored pages with these scrolls, you will find an outline of each of the letters in the New Testament. For next week, we are going to read Philippians. You may want to look at the outline of Philippians. If you just look at Galatians, you all know the reason that they are in the order in which they are in, first of all, all the letters to cities, so Rome, Corinth, Galatia, letters to places, those are all first; longest to shortest and then letters to people, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, longest to shortest. They are not chronological.

The first of these letters is 1Thessalonians, it is kind of back there in the middle somewhere, and then people did not know what to do with Hebrews. In the earliest collection, some of them, the letter to Hebrews was attributed to Paul, but it was not written to a city and it was not written to a person so it did not fit into their structure very well. Anyway, it floats. Sometimes it is the first letter, sometimes it is the last letter.

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However, if you look at the little outline of Galatians, and this is on Chart 14-4, these charts have been put more in chronological order than in book order, but you can see that Paul is arguing. This is a brief where he is giving all the reasons why the law is not enough. I think in his exuberance, Paul goes overboard a little bit, and he wants to prove that you are saved by grace and you are not saved by the law. We know we are saved by the grace of Christ.

At the time Paul is writing Galatians, this is my second point, the council had already happened in Acts chapter 15, where all of the brethren including Paul had agreed that everyone had to live certain laws - four of them right? You do not have to be circumcised but you do have to abstain from idols, eating meat offered to idols, blood, and fornication. Right? Everybody has to agree with that. So even Paul is bound by the council of the brethren to teach that you must be obedient to certain laws.

Now it is not the Law of Moses, and you do not have to be circumcised, we all agreed on that. That was the law of Abraham. But in the notes that I sent you, there were certain rules that all the Jews thought every human being had to abide by and the Jews called these the Noachide Laws because they traditionally go back to the covenant that God made with Noah. They are binding on all of the human race and they include no fornication, no eating meat offered to idols, no blood, and these items. So it appears to me that at this council, they could not decide what to do. They knew that the Law of Moses had been fulfilled and by deciding that they were not going to require circumcision, the Law of Abraham is not applicable but they say the Law of Noah is applicable to everyone so that is what we will require of people.

Now my point is just to ask, “Why did Paul say that to these Galatians?” Why does he not say to them, “We are saved by grace as long as you are obedient to the minimal requirements that the law of Christ and the church has imposed upon you.” The Protestants, and Luther especially, took this letter of the Galatians and beyond that, Romans chapter 3, and Luther, here is my Luther Bible, when he translated Romans chapter 3, which is almost the same as Galatians, he did not translate it this way. In Romans 3, we have Paul saying that you are saved by grace and not by the works of the law. The Greek just says you are saved not by the works of the law but by faith. Luther added the word only. It is not in the Greek. Now Paul left himself open to this because he seems to be arguing so vehemently that you are saved by grace or you are saved by faith, but Luther thought this is the sense of what Paul was saying. Now Luther wanted to read it that way. Why? Because he wanted to be sure that no ordinances of any kind, Catholic or otherwise, could be required. It was grace and faith only. But that word only is not in the New Testament. It is only in Luther. My point finally on this is if you had been stoned by these people, if you had argued with these people, you would not have even sent them a letter.

(Student) He really cuts them to the quick.

Yes. He really does…chapters 2 and 3 and 4. By the ends of Galatians, he is actually getting pretty friendly, you know. “I love you people. It was great. It is nice to see you again, and whatsoever you sow so shall you reap and there is some nice…” Yes, that has an edge to it doesn’t it? I think when you read these letters, you have to say, “Who is Paul talking to?” You cannot just read these in a vacuum. If he is over the top a little bit, I would be over the top too after what they did to me and maybe that helps to put it setting. Now I say this because for next week you are going to read the letter to the Philippians. Philippi was Paul’s favorite place. We

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will see pictures of Philippi. We will talk about why Paul loved Philippi, and this is his letter of love and friendship and I hope you will enjoy that.

(Student) Circumcision medically is done for just reasons.

That is right but when Paul brought Titus to Jerusalem, he was not asking for a medical opinion.

(Student) The reasons for the law are medically oriented. They do this to prevent disease, and circumcision is to prevent disease of this area. Because of the climate, it is easy to develop infection there, infection that would be transmitted also to the other sex.

Well said. But it is a religious law, Brother Kepas.

(Student) But the other thing is that when it is done, circumcision under the circumstances of that time is very dangerous. He had the experience of Timothy and Peter who as adults, they had circumcision.

That is an interesting point. If you are a Christian missionary and if we are saying we know that Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses, right? But the question then is, did he fulfill the promise in the covenant of Abraham? We still believe that we are heirs to the covenant of Abraham. You would think, and somebody did think, that if you are going to claim the blessings of Abraham, you must live the law of Abraham, which was clearly circumcision. Circumcision is not the Law of Moses. Your point is a good one, Brother Kepas, that if you are going to convert adults, who have not been circumcised as an infant, this would be a risky procedure and we do not have sterile, medical capabilities. Are you going to ask people to do that in order to join the church? Now we ask them to give up smoking and drinking beer. That is hard for some of them, but…

(Student) When it is done as a baby, by the Jewish people, is it easy for them to prevent complications.

Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians

I would like to end. If you have your scriptures, if you have read 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 especially. We have mentioned several of the things that Paul says here. He gets personal in the second letter that he writes to his friends in Corinth. He had spent a year and a half in Corinth and he writes back to them several times, but he gets kind of personal here about how he has suffered, and what he has done as a missionary. This is not at the end of his life. He is kind of still in the middle of it, and he is looking back on what he, the price he has paid to answer the call and to serve as a missionary. It was not easy.

If you start in verse 23, there are some people claiming, of course, to be ministers of Christ, and Paul says, “Are they ministers of Christ? Really? What does a minister of Christ do? Look at me.” He is very humble about this. He says, “I have suffered labors more abundant, in stripes more above measure.” Beatings, or stripes; he has been whipped, “in prisons more frequently,” and next week when we go to Philippi we will see him in prison more than once. “In death oft,” in Lystra he was stoned and miraculously revived. He had faced death more than once. “Of the Jews 5 times I received 40 stripes save one.” Now the law said you could only whip somebody 39 times. Five times Paul was lashed 39 times, and this was not with just a little nylon cord. Thrice I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned in Lystra. Thrice I suffered shipwreck.

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Now we know about the big shipwreck in Malta, but there were others too, and we will talk about why this was a perilous way to travel. “I spent a night and a day one of those times, floating in the sea, wondering whether I would be saved.” He was probably just floating on a piece of the broken up ship. Paul probably did not know how to swim. Most people in the ancient world did not. “In journeyings oft.” He traveled all over in perils of water, perils of robbers; out there on the highway, these people are vulnerable. “In perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils amongst false brethren, in weariness, in painfulness in watchings often in hunger and thirst, in fasting..” Hunger and thirst. There are no gas stations; there are no restaurants either. If you do not find someone who will take you in, how are you going to eat? “In fastings oft, in cold and nakedness.”

This is the man who we are studying. If any of you think being called on a mission today, “Well, that is too hard,” you may have something to answer to if you ever meet Paul. So brothers and sisters, are we a missionary church today? Were they a missionary church from day one? Do you see the point over and over again? We have a lot of Latter-day lessons that we can learn and relate to from this wonderful record. Great book, it is more than good stories. It is the heart and doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are blessed to have that, blessed to know that the Gospel is true, and that we too can sacrifice all that we have for its teaching, spreading for the benefit, for the unity that we can bring as we pool all of our abilities and resources in furthering the kingdom of God. I pray the blessing of the Lord to be with you and all of us as we put our shoulder to the wheel and push along in His name, Amen.Transcribed by Carol H. JonesEdited by Rita L. Spencer

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