Hey. You're listening to Cut for Time, a podcast from Faith Church located on the North Side Of Indianapolis. My name is Claire Kingsley. Each week, I'll sit down with one of our preaching pastors to discuss their Sunday sermon. Cut for time is a look behind the scenes of sermon preparation, and they'll share with us a few things that we didn't hear from the sermon on Sunday.

Thanks for listening. Oh, look at that. We're jumping right in. It's cut for time. It is.

It is cut for time. And this week, to make cut for time even shorter, we cut out the introduction. Boom. Boom. Also, we know exactly what you need to talk about because you announced it during second service.

That's true. That's true. Yeah. If if for the rare person that went to both services, they noticed a difference between the two sermons. So we can get into it.

Yeah. Alright, Joey. Give us a rundown from Sunday. Sure. So we're in Acts 24.

Mhmm. And, this is verses one through 21. It's this great situation we've got where, Paul's on trial. Great situation. I mean, great telling of it.

You know? It's it's like a dramatic courtroom scene. But it's told in some reform, like Luke is telling everything in some reform. You know? So, the the words that are here in quotes are direct quotes or summaries of direct quotes.

Because, you know, one of the things we know about Roman, judicial system is they took notes, and those notes stayed with the prisoner until he was ultimately executed or whatever happened. But, anyway, verses one through 21, this is Paul's defense in front of, Felix, the governor of this whole area of Judea, you know, where Jerusalem, Israel is part of. And it's Paul speaking up in his own defense. And the question that had kinda captured me as I was reading and studying and all of that is, Paul is very much like a follower of Jesus and sees himself as his own life being patterned off of Jesus's life. Not in, like, some, you know, arrogant way of, like, I'm just like Jesus, but more like, okay.

If you're a follower of the crucified Messiah, you should expect that ministry of the crucified Messiah is gonna follow a similar storyline. So just how Jesus saw himself as a fulfillment of Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant, You know, if you are a Christian, a Christ one, or a Messiah person, your life is gonna be substantively similar to the life of the one that you follow. Right? That's what disciples that you follow so closely that your life looks so much the same. So anyway, the question that had grabbed me was, well, why did Paul speak in his own defense if Jesus didn't?

And I wanted to wrestle with that a little bit and then raise for us the question of, you know, Luke is telling the story in a real specific parallel way. Like, he's paralleling Jesus' story and Paul's story. He does the same thing with Stephen earlier, you know, Stephen's martyrdom and all of that. So the question that kept coming to mind to me, which isn't really a question, like, in the text or dealt with in the text, it's the question kind of surrounding the characters the characters, Paul's motivation. How do you know when you're supposed to talk, and how do you know when you're not?

You know, how do you know when faithfulness to God means do something and trust him for the results, and when it means don't do something and trust him for the results? And, you know, part of the reason that that's a a tough question and a question that that we all wrestle with is because it'd be it'd be so much easier to just say it's always one Yeah. Or it's always the other. No. You always wait for God's timing.

Or no. You always act and let God redirect. And then the other problem the other reason it's a real wrestle is because usually when we have one like, we always wanna do one or always wanna do the other. It's not be it's not usually out of, like, real spiritual reasons. It's actually hiding, other reasons that are pretty self serving.

And so, like, I I started, you know, with this, some stories from my own life of, like, hey. The I tend to be like a I'm gonna step back and let god do his thing. But it's not out of any sort of spirituality. It's mostly because, like, I'm I'm afraid if I do this, I'm gonna screw it up. Or people aren't gonna like me.

Or they're gonna be offended. Or, you know, they're not gonna, give me the answer I want, or I'm gonna make it worse. Right? And others I know are very much like, no. Do something.

Just do something and let god deal with the results. And it also isn't necessarily a spiritual thing. It's a well, if I don't do something, how do I know God will? I have to do something. I have to be in control.

I have to be doing something. So as we were looking at Paul and his observation or his his, his dialogue, what he said, and then coming to the end of the story and we're like, I still don't know if God actually showed up for him because nothing happens. I mean, he's not killed, but he's also not released. And it's like, should he have talked, should he have not talked? We don't know.

That it doesn't tell us. That's not the point of the story. The point is Paul made a decision and trusted God for the results. And and that's kinda what I was hope you know, hopefully calling us to. It's like, you get you make a decision.

You trust god with the results. You go one way or the other. And if you want help making the decision, it's usually do the one that you desperately don't wanna do. Because the desperately wanting to do the the other one is probably a cover for pride. Like, I'm too special to need to do this.

Or and here's here's the word I wanted to use in the sermon, but I didn't wanna take the time to define it. But I wanted to use the alliteration of pride and pusillanimity. What is anyone with fear, I think. I went with fear. Yeah.

Because pride pusillanimity means means cowardice. It means you got a small soul. Oh. But, you know, pride and pusillanimity, it's like it sounds so good. Mhmm.

So I went, yeah, pride or fear. When it's you know? That's communication. So I did also hear you say, like, sometimes it feels like it seems like we think that waiting is, like, the holier option. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Like, everybody knows the right answer. Of course. Wait. Wait on God's timing.

Yeah. Why are you trying to rush ahead of God? Yeah. But then I've also I've had plenty of conversations with friends who, feel the opposite that, like, jumping or taking the chance Take a leap. Mhmm.

Is actually demonstrating more faith because you're like, he's gonna catch me. Yeah. You know what? Leap of faith. I think Yeah.

I think we can oh, yeah. We can certainly whichever one we prefer, we can make it sound like that's the more spiritual option. Yeah. No. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here scared.

I'm gonna take a leap of faith and trust that god is big enough to work even if I make the wrong decision. Right? You unspiritual people who wait, come on. I mean, I can I obviously, we've both experienced being pulled in either direction? Yeah.

So I shouldn't just out my friends and be like, yeah. My friends have said because I'm like, I'm sure I've been that person. So Oh, yeah. I mean, we we work on staff together, so you know me. I'm like, let's try it.

You know? Let's just see what happens. Wait. Yeah. And you're like, maybe we should think this through.

You know? Anyway Yeah. You know what? Then it's good to have friends feel differently than you. You know what I mean?

Balance us out. Right. Right. Liberal community. As long as we don't demonize each other.

So Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Joey, you had somebody ask you a good question about it's like setting the context for us of what's when this is taking place. Can you give us more information there?

For sure. So as we're going through acts, like, time is passing, and sometimes it's hard to tell how much time is passing. Luke doesn't give us, you know, clues in the sense of, like, in the year, a d '57, mostly because the numbering system wasn't around back then. But, he doesn't give us those kind of time markers. So how much time has really passed?

I made a offhand comment, that, you know, when the lawyer was accusing Paul, he refers to him being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. And that's referring back to Jesus, you know, that guy we killed almost thirty years ago. And so someone asked me, they're like, it's been thirty years? Like so quick set, the timeline. I've got a really good timeline here in a book in front of me.

So, here's the rough timeline. Around April, we're not exactly sure when, Jesus was born. Somewhere between '5 and October, so fifteen years later, ten to fifteen years later, Paul was born. Saul of Tarsus was born. Alright.

Around thirty AD, Jesus was crucified. Probably around '33 or so was when Jesus showed up to to Paul, Saul, on the road to Damascus. And then Paul went away for three years. He went down into, Damascus and Arabia and back he went all the way down to Arabia, kind of did this three years going back to the the center of Israel, Israelite culture, like, into the wilderness. Thirty in '36, Paul went to Jerusalem for ten that's when they he he immediately started arguing with people, and the other apostles were like, dude, you are making ministry here so tough.

Go home. And he's back in Tarsus for a decade. So this is a hot headed Paul still. I mean, he's found the truth, and he wants everyone to know. Right?

So he's back in Tarsus from '36 to '46. In 4647, there's a famine visit. He goes to Jerusalem that's talked about in Acts 11. When we get to 4748, Paul and Barnabas are on their first missionary journey. Meantime, Peter's in Antioch, in '48.

Paul writes Galatians real quick and then goes to the Jerusalem Conference that's in Acts 15. That's in AD forty eight, forty nine. Side note, the Jews are all kicked out of Rome around the same time, AD forty nine. That was relevant because Priscilla and Aquila were followers of Jesus in Rome and they were kicked out when Claudius kicked everyone out. That's around the same time Paul and Silas now are on Paul's second missionary journey.

So he's in Greece this at this point. Fifty fifty one or so, he writes the letters to the Thessalonians, to the churches in Thessalonica. And then he's in Corinth for a good amount of time in early fifty one to about late fifty two. Fifty '2, '50 '3, Paul's back in Jerusalem, then Antioch. And then on the third missionary journey, that's the one where he spent just time in Ephesus.

Three Years in Ephesus from '53 to '56. Probably wrote the letter to the Corinthians, first Corinthians around that time. In the middle of that, there was while he was in Ephesus, there was a short visit to Corinth. Super painful. This is the one where he goes and they're like, we don't even know you, man.

We don't know you anymore. He's like, I planted this church. Like, how did this all go sideways so fast? That's when they write back to him and they tell him, like, the next time you come, why don't you bring a letter of recommendation from someone we actually trust? He's like, ugh.

Can you imagine, you know, your church telling you that? Yeah. Yeah. Fifty five, fifty six, probably wrote Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, possibly. Some people put those later when he's imprisoned in Rome.

This particular time I'm I'm looking at thinks that Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus for a short amount of time, which there's pretty good case for both directions. But either way, '56, he goes from Ephesus to Corinth again, writes second Corinthians, then he writes his letter to the Romans in around 8057 and takes off, leaves Corinth, and heads to Jerusalem. So that's where we've picked up the story. Remember he's trying to get there before, the holidays, before the big sacrifices. So, that's where we are in '57, kinda probably May, you know, early fifty seven where all of this stuff is happening that we just read about.

So twenty seven years after Jesus was crucified. And then he's gonna be in prison for two years in Caesarea that we'll get to in the next couple of weeks before in the fall of fifty nine, begins to go to Rome. He gets shipwrecked on the island of Malta, gets to Rome maybe early sixty, and then we don't particularly know from there. Okay. Thank you.

That's helpful. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So a related question. Somebody texted in.

Since we have a pretty good idea of the order of Paul's letters, as you just kind of described for us, Do these show mellowing and less confrontation in Paul as Luke tells a story in Acts? Right. Yeah. They do. And, actually, a really good resource on just the whole I don't wanna say psychology of Paul, but just Paul as a person is a biography of Paul written by NT Wright.

It's called Paul a Biography, so it's it's easy to find. That's great. Yep. It's it's really good because it goes through in chronological order. But think about the difference between Galatians.

Who has bewitched you, you foolish Galatians? How could you have so quickly walked away from the gospel service where Paul says, hey. When I was the first time I gave my defense, everyone abandoned me, but don't hold it against them. Jesus was with me, and he strengthened me and encouraged me. So do your best to come if you can.

I could use the company. Right? So just from those two, like, there's a huge shift and a change, I think. And as you read them and you see the stuff that happened in Ephesus, and he goes from from saying and I'm I'm forgetting exactly which letters this is in. But he goes from saying things like, you know, I was contending with dogs and enemies to I despaired of life itself, you know, over the course of of the letters.

So it's like, yeah, man. This guy went through a lot. And the whole knockdown drag out with Barnabas over John Mark. And then John Mark, you know, eventually kinda redeeming himself, at least in Paul's eyes, or Paul realizing it's it's it's about the mission. Yes.

But it's also about the people. And so, you know, obviously, we're reading we're only hearing one side. It's like hearing one side of a telephone conversation. But his attitude, his language, his tone definitely softens and mellow mellows over those fifteen, twenty years. Mhmm.

Okay. So we know that you have some stuff about the judicial system, or the True. Branches share with us that you cut from between first service and second service because you said you saw eyes glaze over. I did. I did.

This is the point in the podcast where if people are like, and I'm out. You know? This is a safe space. You can leave. You know?

Yeah. But if you're the three people that Joey said this would find this interesting. Yeah. So the history nerds and the lawyers might find this interesting. I thought it was fascinating.

But so we've found more than 250 different papyri that are, you know, ancient documents recording the way trials work, or their notes from trials, or things like that. So people have been able to reconstruct how the Roman judicial system worked. And there's different types of trials. This is a trial extraordinary, which means out of the ordinary. And so it followed a different pattern.

But what would generally happen, is the accusers would show up in court, make their accusation before the judge or the governor. Now one thing to keep in mind, the governor is also the judge. There is no difference. The the executive branch and the judicial branch and the legislative branch in our system are all separate. They're just altogether.

It's all one, in this system. Lawyers also are not required in this system. They're allowed if you can afford one, but they're not required. And the state doesn't prosecute criminal offenders like we do. You know, it's the state versus so and so.

It's the person versus the person. And the crime isn't established ahead of time of I'm, you know, I'm I'm accusing you of murder or whatever, murder in the third degree. It's here's my accusation and the the judge decides what crime this was and what fits. And so the way then a a normal proceeding would go is first, the accusers would show up. They would make their accusation.

The guy would decide, am I gonna hear this or not? In other words, do you have standing in this case? You have standing. Okay. I'm gonna hear the case.

Then you bring in the accused, who, by the way, is likely already in prison. There was no right to a speedy trial. He could be in prison for fifteen years before the trial even started. So then they bring him in. And then with him there, the accusers again repeat their accusation, and that's we get that all spelled out for us.

And then the accused respond. The defendant responds. And this isn't a back and forth. There's no cross examination. There's no, objection or any of this.

It's just you say your piece, you say your piece, and then you you rely on the the intelligence of the judge, his his wisdom to actually make the judgment. So the judge gives his verdict and then, goes on from there to to punishment. And it's just, you know, judge, jury, executioner, all in one. So there's no jury or your peers. There's no right to a speedy trial.

There's no right to legal representation. You gotta know what you're doing. And, yeah, it's very different. It's kind of like an amalgamation of military prison where you can be held without being charged with a crime, plus civil suits where you represent yourself, plus criminal with the three branches of government all smashed together into one. And if I got any of that wrong, the lawyers listening can write in and correct us, and we'll we'll read it next week on air.

Okay. Well, no one corrected you about monism. So No. Hey. There we go.

So Yeah. Didn't get anything about that. Yeah. Okay. So, like, I think what was interesting, something you said earlier on is just that in this system, Paul has the opportunity to defend himself or speak.

Mhmm. But this is also be being paralleled after Jesus and his journey to the cross, and he chose to not speak. And so Right. Yeah. Like, did, Paul have the the knowledge of, like, constructing a really strong argument just because of, like, his history?

And so do you think he felt really confident? Like, when we read his argument, we're like, that was really strong, or did he, like I I doubt he was, like, blabbing. But Yeah. Well, the notes we have are kind of meandering a little bit. Like, this is probably a summary of what he said, but he does seem to kinda, like, weave around a little bit.

Now he's an accomplished rhetorician. Like, he knows how to hold a crowd. He knows how to make make a point. So I think he's doing way better than I would have in this situation. But we do get the the sense it's like it's not quite as polished.

It's not quite as point for point. These aren't point for point rebuttals. He's more trying to set up a character argument. He's like, this is what I'm like. Do you really think I could have done this?

Okay. And also I didn't have time. And, you know, there wouldn't have been time to actually pull this off. And then, and then he jumps into a, an argument about, you know, who should be bringing this case. It should be the Jews from Asia who are accusing me.

They were the ones who are actually there. These guys aren't eyewitnesses. And then he tries to shift the topic again to and by the way, the only thing I've ever done wrong that these guys could complain about is we started arguing theology in the Sanhedrin. So, like, I I it's it's all good arguments, but, yeah, we do kinda get the sense of it's like he's he's just fumbling for a defense. Like, what what's gonna stick?

Interesting. Yeah. So so I cut that whole page. There is one other thing I cut, though, that I haven't brought up yet. Yeah.

Okay. Pull up acts twenty four seven. See what I did there? Yeah. Mhmm.

I was just about to ask which version I can read it in because I already have it in CSV when I was like, wait a second. Alright. You have to explain for everyone who didn't didn't pull out a bible at home what just happened. Yeah. There's a verse this thing.

It goes from six to eight, which this has happened before. Yep. Yeah. Because we had you and I had to talk about a missing verse months ago. Yeah.

I I now I can't remember where that was. I don't know either, but I know we'd it feels like deja vu. I'm like, someone is cranking me. Verse seven, Luke cut it for time. He didn't have time to include verse seven.

I have a joke. So what's going on here is, we've talked about text criticism. Right? Yes. And that's a technical phrase.

It is One of the favorite things he learned. I know. We should get Nathan on here. I think he and and another one of our elders almost taught a whole class on it before, I think, COVID shut it down. Yep.

Yeah, back in 2020. So text criticism is the science of and a little bit of art, but it's the science of determining, based on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of copies of a document, what did the original document say? Mhmm. The what what the text critics call the the autograph. And by the way, text criticism and text it doesn't mean you, like, make fun of the text and tell it how dumb it is and everything it did wrong.

It's just you're approaching it critically, with your critical faculties intact. So it's basically, okay. If I have this copy and it says this in this verse, you know, an older copy is more likely to be closer to the original, like, with the original autograph, the very first copy of the very first one written down. And but I have this one, and this one came from this part of the world, and this one came from this part of the world. And how are they different?

All the ones from this part of the world have this same change in them that this these ones from this part of the world don't, and the later ones and the earlier ones, and figuring all of that out. Mhmm. Anyway, so some of our later manuscripts, like tenth century, eighth century, ninth century, have a verse seven that includes Tertullus going on and saying, where he even tried to profane the temple. But we seized him and we would have charged him ourselves, but the Roman he goes on to say, then the Roman tribune showed up and forcibly took him from us or something along those lines. I I didn't pull it out in front of me, so I'm paraphrasing off the top of my head.

Kinda adds some some extra stuff that's a little antagonistic. And so the the question is, okay, is that true or not true? Was it there originally or not? I mean, by true, I mean, is it a true statement? Sure.

We we could definitely see Tertullus saying that. Yeah. Because he's already kinda flexing the truth a little bit to be like, he tried to profane the temple, but we grabbed him. It's like, no. Some other guys started a riot, and the Romans stepped in and grabbed him.

You you guys weren't involved. Anyway Mhmm. But then the real question is or the big question is, if that's original, how did it get dropped? How did it get missed? And there doesn't seem to really be a really good explanation for it.

It's easier to understand a scribe or someone later on kind of adding to something to add a little bit of clarity than removing something that makes it more confusing. Mhmm. So, those are some of the questions and and a whole bunch more. And, you know, we could get Nathan on, and he could tell us more about text criticism. But since our earliest and best manuscripts don't have verse seven, it's not included here in this one.

Though study bibles will probably have a note that say some older man or some, newer manuscripts contain additional information or, you know, another verse that says and then list it for you. Yeah. It's fascinating. Yeah. It's really interesting, but I did not have time to go into all of that.

Yeah. It wasn't essential to the to the sermon. But, I like you got me. So Exactly. And I thought, you know what?

Said anything to you. I was like, I could get Claire. No one brought it up to you? No. No one's brought it up.

And I thought about saying in in the sermon and if you're wondering what verse seven is all about, I'll talk about it and cut for time, but I wanted to be able to, like, have the gotcha moment on the podcast with you. So I was really just I was thinking of you the whole time. Thank you. It is so fun to play jokes on me because I'm You're so earnest. People I know who set people up so easily.

That's the same, gratification Nathan feels when he played jokes on Jenna. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yep.

%. So, I pulled off my textual commentary on the Greek New Testament second edition. Now, basically, it's saying, like, when you read it, you're like, one of the verbs feels like there should be more coming after it, but it makes more sense to think somebody finished the sentence than that somebody accidentally deleted the sentence. Mhmm. Yeah.

So there are there are lots of differences between copies of things. Even when you're, like, trying to hand handwrite copy a note, you know, of something or to hand type something from a book, you can make mistakes. Right? It happens all the time. And there are some particular types of mistakes that happen all the time.

Your eyes will jump a line or you'll you'll be reading along and you'll get to a word and then your eyes will jump to the same word three sentences down and you'll keep going or, you know, accidentally stuff. Or you'll go back up and repeat stuff. And and we see all these kinds of of little additions and changes have crept into the the various copies, especially as they got older and older. And so there are scholars who have spent their lives studying these manuscripts and figuring out how to say, okay. The most likely this and I should mention most of the changes, errors, if you wanna call them that, that show up in the various copies are things like spelling differences or putting the words in a different order.

Mhmm. Like, instead of it saying Jesus loves you, it says you Jesus loves. Right? Or loves you does Jesus or whatever. It says things like that.

Spellings of place names and stuff like that or, very little, tiny little changes. So, anyway, it's a fun topic, and people should, grab Nathan on a Sunday when he has other things he's responsible for and get him talking. It'd be great. Yeah. Okay.

I also did a quick search. Yeah. Oh, okay. Cool. Thanks.

I did a quick search, and, I mean, this was really quick. So don't say this is absolute truth, but it says other commonly cited omitted verses are acts eight thirty seven, acts fifteen thirty four. It mentions twenty four seven, and then it's gonna happen again in twenty eight twenty nine. 20 eight verse 29. Okay.

So, actually, it happens way more often than I realize. It just actually is proving to me I need to pay better attention to To diverse numbers, diversification. Yeah. I miss a lot, honestly. We all miss a lot.

Most most everything goes by us. In fact, everything behind me, I can't see, so don't worry about it. Alright. Well, Joey, thanks for your time on Cut for Time. Yeah.

You're welcome. Turned out to be a long one, but that's because we had to cut a lot. And we'll just cut the intro and the outro. And And it'll just end abruptly in the middle of a sentence. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Cut for Time.

If you wish to submit questions to our pastors following their sermon, you can email them to podcast@faithliveitout.org or text them into our faith church texting number. And we'll do our best to cover it in the week's episode. If this conversation blessed you in any way, we encourage you to share it with others. Thanks for listening. We'll be back again next week.