Community Connect

0:01 Adonai, we come to you and we thank you for your goodness and your mercy from generation to generation. We thank you for your faithfulness and the way that you honor your word and keep your promises. Father, we see how you are so concerned with the connectivity of your children and how we come together to show your glory. As we end here, or as we're coming to the end of the Book of Acts, Father, we pray that you would open up our ears, that you would bless Rabbi Ari as he shows us how your word is faithful to your servants from generation to generation. Bless him as the speaker, bless us as the listeners, and may

0:49 we all be obedient to the hearing and the doing of your word. In the mighty name of Yeshua, we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Marcus. Shabbat Shalom. Shalom. We are getting closer to the end, but we're not quite there yet. I can say, though, that I'm now on the final page of the Book of Acts in my Bible. But we're going to be this way for a few weeks.

1:36 Today, we're going to cover Acts 28, verses 17 through 22. But before we get into it, and actually before I start that, if you didn't get a handout, there should be handouts in the foyer if you're needing a distraction to keep yourself awake while I speak. It's okay, I understand and can 100% empathize. But what I want to do is remind us the context of the book in which we're reading right now, the Book of Acts. We started Acts 28,

2:23 I think it was two weeks ago, two Shabbats ago. We talked about how Paul was shipwrecked in Malta. We talked about how Paul has several miraculous encounters while on the island. We talked about how he caught a boat from Alexandria, which had wintered in Malta, and that boat then sailed and then he took a land journey to finally end up in Rome. He traveled by sea first and then by land to end up in Rome, and after arrival in Rome, basically, they put Paul under house arrest. I don't know if you gathered that from the text, but we can actually make a few assumptions from the text.

3:12 Number one, Rome did not consider Paul to be a threat to the empire. Why can we take that as an assumption? Because he wasn't put in prison. He was put under house arrest with one soldier to guard him. A minimum detail was two soldiers, so they could swap out, which means that they considered Paul not even a minimal risk to the empire. It was just a formality, it seems now, that Paul has a soldier so that they can say, "Okay, well, he's under guard." So whatever has transpired from

3:58 Caesarea in Acts 26 and 27 to now Rome in Acts 28, something has changed, at least in Rome's perspective. I don't want to hold you in tension too long. There's really only one thing that has changed. His accusers are no longer present, and they no longer have influence over the court. So the court sees the, shall I call it, the lack of justice or the injustice that has been dealt out to Paul up until this point. And they're treating it now as it should have been from the beginning.

4:46 The problem was is there was some, how shall I say, politics going on while in Jerusalem, in Caesarea. So we come now to Acts 28:17 through 22. "And it happened that after three days, Paul called together those who were the prominent Jewish leaders. When they had gathered, he said to them, 'Brothers, although I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. When they examined me, they wanted to release me because there was no

5:32 basis for the death penalty. But when the Judean leaders protested, I was forced to appeal to Caesar, not that I had any charge to bring against my own nation. For this reason, therefore, I have requested to see you and to speak with you, since it is for the hope of Israel that I am bearing this chain.'" Apparently, he still is at least chained up, or at least proverbially in the house They said to him, these are the Jewish leaders in Rome. They said to him, "We've received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you. But we think it appropriate to hear from you about what you

6:19 think. For indeed it is known to us that regarding this sect it is spoken against everywhere." It was actually quite difficult to divide up this last section, but it was a necessity. Otherwise, we'd have been here all day. And we may still be here all day. No, I'm just playing. Paul here presents his defense to the Jewish leaders in Rome. You may read right through this and not notice several, what I would call, very important details concerning Paul

7:05 and the Jewish community. Number one, Paul's reputation is still good enough that he is able to call together the leaders of the Jewish community, and they come to him in house prison. He doesn't go to them in the synagogue or wherever they assemble as the Jewish leaders of the Jewish community in Rome. They come to him. So Paul's reputation is still extremely valuable, or he still is very well thought of in the Jewish community because they're willing to come to him, all of the Jewish leaders of the Jewish community in Rome. And he proceeds to present his defense to them.

7:53 He starts his defense, and he says, "Brothers." He doesn't say, "Those of you who are far off from the gospel, those of you who rejected Jesus." No, he says, "Brothers, listen. We have something to talk about." Paul is personally identifying with the Jewish people and the Jewish leaders at this moment when he says, "Brothers." And he says, "I've done nothing against the Jewish people. I've done nothing against the customs of the fathers." So here I want you to notice two things that he says, "I've done nothing against." I've done nothing against the Jewish people or who we are. That goes back to the Torah. Then he says, "I've done nothing against the customs of our fathers."

8:42 What are the customs of our fathers? Those are the things that are not written down but are passed down from generation to generation. And he declares himself, how shall I say? He declares himself faithful within that bracket at this moment. Not only at this moment, but up to this moment. He is indicating that he has remained faithful to both Jewish faith and Jewish lifestyle expression as they would accept it, both in Israel and outside of Israel, in the diaspora. In other words, let me just be very plain.

9:30 In other words, he has not left Judaism behind for a Christian lifestyle devoid of Jewish practice. Now, I want to make a note here, because for some people, that's a dramatic statement. Many people are under the misconception that Paul left Judaism when he became Paul and not Saul. When he left Saul behind and became Paul on the Damascus Road, that he left Judaism to become a Christian. Sometimes they cite that. Sometimes they'll cite 1 Corinthians 9, where Paul seems to present himself as a chameleon,

10:15 willing to change himself to better present the gospel in whatever given situation that is. Here in this context-- By the way, I want you to understand, by the time Paul gets to this point in his travels, the Book of 1 Corinthians has already been written and sent. The letter, I should say. The letter has already been sent. So whatever Paul writes in the letter of 1 Corinthians has to fall under what Paul says about himself here. And in this context, we can derive from the text, we can deduce from the text that Paul has remained an

11:02 influential person with the leadership of the Jewish community, and by his own verbiage here, he has done nothing against the Jewish people or the traditions. It doesn't seem like Paul is blending in, changing his chameleon coat to match whatever circumstance he's in. In fact, this is not the topic of the message. But let me just address the 1 Corinthians scripture for a moment. Paul's never saying be deceptive about who you are and change yourself in any given moment to be like everybody else. Paul's saying find what you can that is

11:48 Yeshua-centered in the context and bring it forth, call it forth, so that the community can understand what you're talking about. He's not saying when you go from Well, let's just put some modern words to it. He's not saying when you go from the Baptist church to the Presbyterian church to the synagogue, that you go and you change yourself every different time. He's saying there's something there, and you have to recognize it and find Yeshua in it so that everybody-- well, I would hope in those three contexts, you would find Yeshua. He's saying you have to find Yeshua there so that everybody understands what

12:35 Yeshua is and who he is, and what does he represent to them. When you go to the different nations of the world, it's really difficult for us to mentally grasp this because we live in a Western culture that has been heavily influenced by the spread of Christianity for 2,000 years. And we begin to think that this is how society outside of Israel always was. But it's not. Society outside of Israel was never like this. Society outside of Israel, there was

13:21 no six-day workweek, take a day off for the Shabbat. It was you work till you die. It was the oppressor and the oppressed. It was the master and the slave. It was Israel who introduced the idea of every one of us is created in the image of God. When you've gone outside of Israel, you had to find what was in the society and I'm going to harken back to, I can't remember what chapter in Acts, I think it was like 18, 19, somewhere right in there, 18, 19, when Paul goes to Athens and he's wandering around and he's seeing all

14:06 these gods, these statues or gods in the city of Athens. And he's a wandering tourist. He says, "Hmm, this is quite interesting. Look at these guys." And he gets to one, and there's a monument because they figure maybe we missed one. So we're just going to have one that's to the unknown God. And so Paul recognized it and says, "Listen, friends. You have a statue for the unknown God. Let me tell you about the unknown God. These other ones, they don't stand up to him at all."

14:52 What Paul is doing is he's identifying what is in the culture and drawing it out and recognizing that Yeshua is already there. The people just have to see it. So when Paul is telling us, when he says to the Jewish people, "I became like a Jew," and to the other people, "I became like them," he's not saying that he changed his own practice. He's saying he recognizes where Yeshua is at each given moment. And he says, "Let me show you how Yeshua is in that." Okay, my soapbox is done. Aw. Don't worry, we'll get on another one in a few minutes.

15:38 Paul here has declared himself, and he does it in one of his letters also. He says, "I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. I was blameless when it came to the Torah." I don't even want to ask the question because I don't think anybody in here would even dare to put their hand up. How many of us would say that we were blameless according to the Torah? It's something that we don't do, but Paul says-- I don't know if you ever considered that passage. Paul says, "I am blameless when it comes to the Torah." But then he finishes it and he says, "All of this is worth nothing when it comes to the Messiah."

16:24 Paul never changed his lifestyle. He just changed the way he presented it to people who could hear. There's nothing wrong with making something palatable to people's ears. In fact, in the Jewish world, we give kids candy and sweets and honey when they learn scripture. Why? Because it teaches them to love the word of God. And unfortunately, candy. So here Paul is explaining to them. He says, "Brothers,

17:10 I've done nothing against our people. I've done nothing against the customs of the fathers. In fact, even Rome found that I wasn't worthy of the death sentence." And he explains, he says, "I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans." I want you to notice Paul, and I say this every time Paul gives a defense. Paul is the best smooth talker I have ever heard in my entire life. Do you notice he holds off as long as he possibly can to identify who his accusers are? Because he doesn't want to alienate those who are listening to him. He says, "I was delivered from Jerusalem to the

17:55 Romans." You can infer what that means, but he doesn't spell it out yet. He says, "I was de- I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. Then the Romans investigated, and they found no basis for the death penalty. And when that happened, now he has no recourse but to identify who his accusers are. He says, "The Judean leaders protested this decision, and I was forced to appeal to Caesar, which is why I'm here today." And then he goes, "I didn't appeal to Caesar to bring charges against my own people. I was just trying to get out of their accusation in a legal way." Paul is trying

18:44 to help them keep an open mind concerning Paul and his message. And he says, "This is why I've invited you here today. I want you to hear it from my own lips. I've invited you so you can come, and I can speak with you at this time, and also tell you more about..." See, now, here Paul is beginning to lace it in. "I want to speak to you about the hope of Israel." You see, Paul just drops it in right there at the end. We spent, I think, two different messages talking about the hope of Israel in Acts 26. I'm not going to spend the time going back over it. If you want to go, you can go listen to it on the website.

19:32 But I will say this: The hope of Israel resides in the connection between the covenants and the promises of the Lord, and their future realization. So the covenants and the promises were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and yet there's also a future realization, and whatever connects those two is what the hope of Israel is. Their future realization can only come about through the resurrection of the dead. We are informed in 1 Corinthians that Yeshua is the first fruits of the resurrection of the dead, and that we find elsewhere that the resurrection of the dead is the sign that the foretold everlasting kingdom is finally at hand.

20:20 You see, Paul is slowly laying it out. Now, for our sake, why is resurrection so important? Because you can't have an everlasting kingdom without the resurrection of the dead. I don't know how many of you understand this, but we all die. I'm not trying to be morbid. I'm not trying to be fatalistic. But if you haven't figured it out yet, all of us will die at some point or another. There are three things certain in life: birth, death, and taxes.

21:08 And you can't get out of any of them, but the Lord does give us the resurrection of the dead. And I'm pretty sure there's no taxes in the kingdom of God. Amen. Yeshua paid it all. Yeah, that's right, Yeshua paid it all for us. That's fantastic. What a good one. Paul is here informing these Jewish community leaders that he wants to take the time to see them personally in their face, interact with them, not via letter, but in their face. He wants to have a conversation with them, a dialogue with them concerning the hope of Israel. By stating it in this manner, Paul is diffusing the situation before it

21:54 ever even becomes explosive. You see, when he was in Judea and in Jerusalem and in Caesarea, it was an explosive situation. There was really no way out of it. Everything that Paul did was by necessity, and it was at the last moment. But now he's trying to diffuse ahead of time so that everyone can hear the message that he has to share without explosion. Explosion? Yeah, without exploding. So we continue on in verses 21 and 22. These leaders, they said to him, "We've received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you.

22:40 But we think it's appropriate to hear from you about what you think. For indeed, it is known to us regarding this sect, it is spoken against everywhere." This is such a fascinating little section, which we'll spend a few minutes in. First of all, I'm going to divide their response up into different segments. Let's start with this: "We have received no letters from Judea about you." What does this indicate? It indicates that letters were a common way to send an exhortation or a warning to a community about something within the community or outside of the community that presented

23:28 danger to the community. We can compare this to the tradition that we have record of. I don't know if you ever really thought about this. These are not really books. Let's see, this area right here. These are not really books. We may call them books. They're bound in a book, fine. But they're actually letters. They're letters from someone to someone about something. And they're addressing specific issues, and not necessarily addressing all issues. In fact,

24:14 I would say probably the one that is the most all-encompassing is the one that's actually sent to Rome. Because Paul realizes, and he states it in the book, he says, "I didn't start you, but you need to understand that I am the apostle to the Gentiles. Therefore, I'm going to lay out everything about how it is that you should live as a community." By the way, that is sent and received before this moment. Understand the Messianic community that received the letter, what we call the Book of Romans, has already received it

25:00 and digested it by this moment. Because we have here the Judean leaders referencing letters, and we have our own record in the New Testament of letters, we can assume that it might have been a common practice to send letters to different communities or different people, in regards to situations like this. So that's number one. "We've received no letters from Judea about you." Then they go further and they say, "None of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you." So one

25:46 is a thing. I don't know how else to say it. It's a letter that's sent. But also, you will recall that in Acts 2 it says on the day of Shavuot that there were Romans, there were Jews from Rome. Actually, it says there were Jews and proselytites from Rome, specifically, who were there present when the disciples came out, and the Spirit of God was poured down and there was flames on their heads and they spoke, and then it says that every person from wherever they were from, and it lists off about a dozen different places

26:34 around the world, around the Mediterranean, that they all heard them in their own birth language. So it's likely that there's actually quite a bit of back and forth movement of people between different cities, different countries. And specifically, and I know I've said this before, but we would see it at a minimum of three times a year, at Passover, at Shavuot, and at Sukkot. Because those are the three times a year that in the Torah, the Jewish men are commanded to go up to Jerusalem. So at a minimum, we would see this kind of back and forth from Rome occurring.

27:19 I'm not saying everyone did it every year and, or every holiday, all three. In fact, there are extra-biblical sources that say something along the lines of, you would be lucky to go once in your life as a representative of the community where you were. Now, there were some, obviously, who did it more often. So here we have, they say that none of the brothers who have come there, or in other words, come to Rome, have reported or spoken anything evil about Paul. Which means that whatever Paul has been enduring, these other witnesses are not sharing, or they have a different view of it, or they didn't witness it.

28:08 One of those. They said, "Look, nobody here is speaking evil about you," or, "Nobody's reported any evil about you." It may be about just Paul that they haven't reported evil, or it may be even concerning Paul's message. Now, I think I've hit this a few times in Acts, and if I haven't, I'm pretty sure I have. But that being said, how many years have we been in Acts? Three? Almost three? We're coming up on three. Some of you haven't been here for three years, so maybe you haven't heard it yet. Paul has a very specific message concerning the Kingdom of God.

28:56 That message is an inclusion of remnants from the nations who have chosen to repent and to be grafted in to the commonwealth of Israel. In other words, I was very specific with my language. In other words, there are some in the nations who have come to recognize Yeshua as the promised Messiah. Again, I said this earlier, it's really difficult for us in the West to understand this because we live in a culture that's now 18, 1900 years old of being permeated with Christianity. But it wasn't always that way, again.

29:44 There are some from the nations who have come to repentance and recognition of the one true God in Yeshua as his visible image. And those have been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel. They're not made into Israel. I want to be very clear here. They're not made Israel. They're grafted into the commonwealth of Israel. What does that mean? You say, "I don't understand that. I don't know that language." The best modern picture I can describe is now probably 80 years old. The British Commonwealth

30:31 had a king. The king was the King of England, but he was also the king of the British Commonwealth. Now, at certain points in British history, England would unseat the king and he would flee into exile, but he would still be king of the Commonwealth. It was England who rejected him as their king. Now, that being said, you look 80 years ago, if England had a king who was the king of the Commonwealth, and Scotland, and Wales, and Ireland, and India, and

31:17 the British Isles, and Australia. Now I'm going back a while, and maybe even the United States for a little bit. Hong Kong. Hong Kong. Yeah, that's good one, Hong Kong. The British Commonwealth was so big that there was a saying, "The sun never set on the British Empire." But here's the thing, the people in Hong Kong, the people in Australia, the people in India, the people in Scotland, the people in Ireland, certainly the people in Ireland, they never became English. It was never an expectation to become English. But they were still underneath the

32:03 kingship of the king. This is the closest that we can come from a physical to the eternal kingdom of understanding what's happening. There is a King of Israel, and Israel has rejected the king. But it doesn't mean that the king is not king. It means that they haven't accepted his kingship, but now here's the crazy thing. There's all these other people in all these other countries who have come to recognize the King of Israel as the king. And therefore, they're underneath the commonwealth of Israel, but Israel still hasn't gotten it. So it's a king living in exile, continuing to rule his kingdom, waiting for his people

32:51 specifically to recognize him as king. But all of that, you may be like, "Yeah, Ari, we know all of that." That was all out of the package new with Paul. Nobody understood anything like this. Nobody thought that up until that point, if you wanted to recognize the God of Israel as the God of Israel, and you were a man, you had to go get some work done. Yeah. That's the only way in.

33:38 But here with Paul, we have this revelation of this idea of Gentiles and Jews continuing to live in their respective-- in the way in which they were created, yet continuing to live underneath the rule of the king himself. But still identifiably different in their own ways. Again, this is Paul. It seems they haven't heard any bad report about Paul. Maybe it is they haven't heard a bad report about Paul's theology either. We're not told explicitly. Now, we're coming to some very interesting things. How do these verses inform us concerning the

34:26 community of Yeshua followers that currently reside in Rome at this time? So I want you to understand, there is a group of people in Rome who recognize Yeshua as the Messiah, and Paul has already written a letter to them. So what do we know about this group? I've already mentioned this. The group was not planted by Paul. We're not actually necessarily told who it's planted by, but the group is not planted by Paul. But we also know that in Paul's writings to the Romans, the Roman community, call it the Roman Church if you want.

35:12 And in this way, I actually don't mind using church. Why? Because he's writing to them because they have no Jewish leaders anymore. All the Jewish leaders were kicked out of Rome by an edict of Claudius. So Claudius reigned from something around, let's see, 38 to 48, somewhere right in that range, and somewhere around 42, and we got into this, well, probably a year and a half ago at this point, or a year ago. We got into this earlier in the Book of Acts. Claudius expelled all the Jews from Rome and also Rome provincial cities.

36:01 So it would've applied to Philippi and to other Roman cities. All the Jews were expelled, which by the way, just to connect some different threads here, that's why Priscilla and Aquila are in Corinth when Paul gets to Corinth. They're there because they were expelled from Rome as Jews, and they've come to Corinth, and Paul connects with them at Corinth. Eventually, they then go to Ephesus, and at some point, they go back to Rome. But they were Jewish leaders in Rome before they were in Corinth, but they were expelled by Claudius. So this community that Paul writes the Book of Romans to,

36:49 what can we understand just from this text? What we understand is this community that Paul writes the Book of Romans to has no connection with the Jewish leaders that Paul summons. Why? Because they're not there. Now, I can derive a few reasons as to why they're not there. I wonder if they didn't listen to Paul's admonitions, and that they continued to drift away and to not appreciate the Jewish brothers. Paul wrote to that community because he wanted them to have a correct foundation since he didn't start them,

37:37 concerning the Jewish brothers, concerning Israel, the role of Israel in the plan of God. So it indicates to me in this text that whatever that community is that was the recipient of the Book of Romans or the Letter of Romans, are not actively involved in the Jewish community in Rome. Or at least the Jewish community that Paul calls the leaders to him. Secondarily, the Jewish followers of Yeshua that did exist in Rome were not influential enough to be in this group of Jewish leaders that Paul calls. We know this because in the group-- We'll get to this

38:23 when we finish out the chapter. But in that group, we see that some come to faith and some do not. But it doesn't say that any of them came already with the recognition of Yeshua as the Messiah. So let's continue on to verse 22. They say, "But we think it's appropriate for us to hear from you about what you think. For it is known to us that regarding this sect, it is spoken against everywhere." They have knowledge at least-- Well, they say everywhere. I suspect that they have knowledge of the Roman community

39:08 who's received this letter and it's spoken of against everywhere, but they don't actually interact with that community. And so they have this preconception about who they are and what they believe, but they said, "Listen, we want to hear it from you." Which I think is actually a noble expression because they don't want to assume anything about Paul or his teaching. They want to hear from Paul what it is that Paul believes, not from this community who they've heard everything against. In other words, they're asking for Paul to present the good news of Yeshua to

39:55 them. I don't know if you ever really thought about that. They said, "Yeah, we want to hear from you. What is it that you believe?" By the way, this is how an opportunity can be identified. In your own life, if someone ever comes to you and says, "I don't understand you, this. What is this?" It doesn't matter what kind of snarl or tone that they have. The moment they say, "What is this?" they have invited you to speak into their life. I don't know if you understand that. They have opened the door in their own life

40:42 to hear what it is that you believe, which means there's a certain level of openness. So when someone says to you, "Wait, what is this? I want to hear it from you," you better be ready, because that's your shot. When your faith and your lifestyle align, it will lead to people wanting to hear more about what makes you different. Maybe they heard about the shipwreck and the fact that everyone survived, which would seem to be an impossibility.

41:29 That everyone in a shipwreck survived, not one person perished? Maybe they heard about Paul's encounters with snakes. And they're like, "Man, in Texas, we got some rattlesnakes. I want to see this. I got to understand this a little bit more." Maybe they heard about the healing of a man with dysentery. We don't know what it is that they've heard, but we know what it is that they want to hear. They want to hear from Paul himself about what makes him different, and they now are inquiring about Paul, and they're inquiring about his thoughts concerning the coming kingdom of God.

42:15 And in this process, they even admit that the sect is known to them and that everybody speaks about it, but they don't want to- They don't want to color their view of Paul, and so they say, "We want to hear about it from you." So we're going to pause there in the text. We'll finish it up at some point, but not next week. So what does this mean for us, for our community today, for Brochim? My first question is: how is your reputation in the broader community outside of these four walls?

43:03 What does your reputation look like? That's a question you have to ask yourself. If you're like, "Hmm," then I suspect you should change a few things about your lifestyle so you better represent Yeshua outside of these walls. Does your faith in Yeshua force you to act in ways that are incompatible with Jewish life? I don't know if you understand the fullness of what that means.

43:51 In the past, in some situations... I'll say this, it hasn't happened to me, but it has happened to my father. It hasn't happened directly to me, but indirectly maybe. My father has shared with different people, "Oh, I'm a follower of Jesus, of Yeshua. He's the Messiah." And my father has had pastors. I'm not talking about... Pastors are supposed to be more informed. Maybe they're not always. But he has had pastors say, "You believe in Jesus? Great, prove it. Let me see you eat a ham sandwich." Those two don't equal each other.

44:40 And in fact, I think the text of Acts, when read correctly, actually indicates the other way. Wait a second, you're a Jewish follower of Yeshua? Let me see how you're living a Jewish lifestyle. Now, that's the question you get from the Jewish community. Do you eat kosher? Do you observe Shabbat? How much do you observe Shabbat? Do you drive on Shabbat? Do you have an oven that turns on by itself? Just because you have faith in Yeshua, it shouldn't force you to act in ways that are incompatible with

45:27 Jewish life. Why? Because Yeshua's Jewish. I'm sorry to pop the bubble or burst the illusion. He's Jewish. Not only is he Jewish, he's the most Jewy Jew that ever lived. He's so Jewish- How Jewish is he? He's so Jewish. He's so Jewish that he looks at other people who make up Jewish practices and says, "That disagrees with the Jewish that I taught from the beginning." That's how Jewish Yeshua is.

46:14 You see, Jewish practice has been taught since the Torah, but other practices have been brought along to prevent us from violating those practices, and in that process have caused us to violate those practices. And Yeshua says, "No, that's not what I meant. That's not Jewish. That's the other stuff. Don't do that. Stop that." Don't you ever have kids and you're like, "Stop doing that. That doesn't make any sense"? Yeshua is so Jewish, he can't make Jewish life incompatible. It's not possible. Okay, that's another soapbox. I'll get off of that one for a moment.

47:00 How do you respond or how do people respond when you attempt to share with them the good news? Here Paul is. Paul is in Rome for three days, y'all. It's less than a week. Paul is in Rome. He's under house arrest. He's got a soldier. And he's already starting to present the gospel, the good news of Yeshua, to the rest of the Jewish community. But not just that, Paul has enough weight in his reputation that the leaders of the Jewish community come to him. He doesn't go to the JCC.

47:45 They come to house prison. What an odd thing to think about. They're like, "Oh, this guy, he knows what he's talking about. We should go talk to him. He's got good stuff." They come and talk to him. Now, here, this one. This goes for all of us. What do we assume about the response of others to our message? I don't know about you, but let's have a confession moment for a moment. When I share about Yeshua to Jewish people, my expectation is that they'll turn and walk away.

48:31 That's the nice part of my expectation But if we walk into a conversation with that expectation, you're going to see that result every time. You got to stop expecting it. You got to stop forcing a yoke on someone else that doesn't exist. I think this is true. I'm going to say this is true. I'll say it this way, this is true. In my lifetime, the Jewish community has never been so open to the

49:16 message of Yeshua as it is today. Now, I can say that also would be, I think we can go back to Paul's day and say that. The Jewish community post-October 7th is looking for something, something that fills a God-sized hole, that fills a Yeshua-sized hole in their spirit. They're looking everywhere. I don't think it was a coincidence that there was this music festival going on in Israel on

50:01 October 7th. We are a spiritual people. We want the spiritual. Sometimes we grab the wrong one. Well, I guess that's just like the saying, "Jews are like everybody else, but more so." We all are spiritual people. We're created in the image of God. We want him in our lives. We don't necessarily know how to point to that, and so we grab whatever we find. But post-October 7th, it's even more. A few of you are still in here. When we went to Israel in February of '24, I've been going to Israel since I was

50:49 Max's age, and I have never seen Tel Aviv... Tel Aviv is basically the inlet to all Israel. Everyone comes through Tel Aviv because that's where the international airport is. I've never seen Tel Aviv so religious in expression. People wearing kippahs and not out on Shabbat. And I was just like, "Oh my goodness, what is this? Israel is turning."

51:37 I think about the struggles of the Jewish followers of Yeshua for 1,800 years, 1,900 years. By the way, there have been Jewish followers of Yeshua that's traceable since Paul. We've never gone away. We just might have been unheard of for a while. But the work, the ground that was broken through their blood, their sweat, and their tears is now

52:23 ground that can be cultivated. 1,800 years. And now, in my opinion, the people of Israel are hungry. Jewish people are hungry for the Messiah. You have to be ready with an answer. You have to study. Let me go back to one of Paul's, must've been in Acts 21. "Don't be anxious about what you're going to say. Just study." Because when you get into that moment

53:10 and someone asks you and you've prepped, you've studied, you've read, and you've done your diligence, guess what? The Holy Spirit will speak through you, will open ears so that they can hear in their birth tongue what it is that you're presenting. But you have to show yourself studied and prepared. That's your job. That's not the Holy Spirit's job. When I was in high school, I used to tell my parents, "Pray that I do well on the test." And my mom would say, "I'll pray that the Lord will recall to you what you already studied."

53:55 If you've already studied it, that's all that's necessary, because the Lord will recall it. But it's your job to study. It's our job to study and be shown ready. That's my final point. Okay, Avinu Shebashamayim, our Father in heaven. Lord, we thank you for this story, this book, this account of the book of Acts. Lord, we thank you for Paul's life and his diligence to follow you all of his days. Lord, we ask that you would create within us a heart that is submitted to you,

54:42 a heart that is prepared, that is studied, that is ready when you put us in the moment that we've prepared for. Lord, we thank you for your faithfulness to the covenants, the promises, and to the future coming of the Kingdom of God. We bless you in Yeshua's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

55:27 Yevarechecha Adonai ve'yishmerecha. Ya'er Adonai panav elecha vi'chunecha. Yis'ra Adonai panav elecha ve'yasem lecha shalom. B'shem Yeshua ha'Mashiach. In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua. Shabbat shalom.