The Naming of Christians

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Rachel Voytek, and we are in Acts 11.

It’s so nice when we leave off at a clean chapter break. I know they’re not inspired or in the original text or anything, but it still feels good. It’s like getting a round number at the grocery store, when your total is $94.00. It’s just nice.

You mean 7770 isn’t? Or 666?

That’s a different kind of nice.

So chapter 11 –

And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.

Did you catch what they were upset with? Honestly, I only caught it this time around.

Eating together?

Yeah. “It wasn’t that you went and preached to them. It isn’t that you baptized them exactly. You went in and you ate with these Gentile dogs.”

“Like you were friends or something.”

“Like there was some kind of communion going on here.”

But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning and expounded it by order unto them, saying, [and here we go again, because it’s important,] I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, a certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners, and it came even to me.

Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat. But I said, Not so, Lord, for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth.

But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. And this was done three times, and all were drawn up again into heaven.

And behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent from Caesarea unto me. And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house.

And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.

And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God?

That’s the same story.

A couple things stand out to me. I’ll just throw them out and you can do with them what you will. I love the “once I had put my eyes back in my head after seeing this extraordinary thing” but he could have skipped over his denial. It’s not all that important in the scope of things. “I had this vision and then these men came and told me to go with Cornelius to hear his vision,” but no, he includes that.

I think some of it’s probably because these men are having that same reaction.

He’s showing that he shares their hesitancy.

He’s saying, “I had this exact same thought/belief/conviction and the Lord very specifically addressed it and said, ‘You’re wrong,’ so this is why I did it, not because I thought this was a great idea.”

Very good.

When they heard these things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

Yeah. That wasn’t what you were complaining about though, is it? They’re putting it together. They’re getting that this salvation thing is a packet. Covenant life is a packet. If they have the same kind of relationship with God through exactly the same means – “Remember what we said earlier about eating with them? Obviously that’s irrelevant now. We never meant to…”

And you would think this would end it. No. Not going to end it.

I will add the comment that something I have thought on frequently but still have not spent as much time as I’d like to on is the amount of time food does come up in the Bible, and directions about food, and the connection of food to worship and the God that you serve.

As I said, I have this dream that someday I’m going to write this book because I’ve yet to find a Christian book on food. It’s very much diet, health, all these sorts of things, but not a deep dive into food in the Bible and how we should handle it. So it is interesting that to them eating with somebody is the same as essentially fellowshipping or worshipping with them. In their mind they have to be corrected on the primaries before they can understand, “Oh, eating has changed.” That’s going to become of the key issues when they come to the Council of Jerusalem, as it’s mostly about food, what you eat.

Even in the pagan religions of the time, feasting and fasting are the two most common forms of engagement in worship. Even among the pagan religions it wasn’t like, “Ah, going to the temple. Ah, committing horrible sins and orgies and what-not.” No, feasting and fasting is the “bread and butter” as it were of worship.

In pagan religions the gods actually ate the food that you gave them. I couldn’t see why else you would be doing this.

One of my students years back was struggling with some of the implications of the new covenant on food and such. He talked to his pastor, who’s a good man, and I think his pastor was just afraid he was kind of going off the deep end, but he asked him a question that he obviously had not thought about. “What does the Bible have to say about food anyway?”

Now, I assume he was thinking about the end of the Jewish dietary laws and thinking that’s out of the way, but I think as you just pointed out, Rachel, there’s a whole lot more going on with food than, “Here’s a list of things not to eat for one reason or another.” We will see that blood is still off the table when we get to the Council of Jerusalem, but whatever you eat and drink, do all for the glory of God – those verses are in the context of eating. “Well yeah, you eat for the glory of God,” but He picked food. He picked eating. He could have picked a lot of things.

In I Corinthians 10 we see the dangers of going to idol feasts.

I was thinking of that here very much, where they’re seeing it like going to an idol feast.

Yes, very much so. But in I Corinthians 10 the order he presents it is interesting. He’s trying to teach the Corinthians not to go to idol feasts.

I would add as we turn there that there are multiple places where one of the core ways we show Christian love to fellow brethren is by not judging on food, and showing kindness to the weaker brother. Whether we hold all things the same or not, that we don’t think ourselves better than the other person. That comes up multiple times in the New Testament as a primary way that we both worship the Lord, but also how we care for one another.

It reminds me also of how they were called in the ancient world to bring food to their brothers and sisters in prison, because it wasn’t like their prisons provided three squares a day.

Yes. Jesus on the last day says, “Did you come to prison?” and not just to say hi and shoot the breeze, but to bring things that we would need like food, to feed those in need. Forget for the moment the judging one another. How about just food? Poor people need food. Hungry people need food. It’s not a minor thing.

In I Corinthians 10 he’s telling the Corinthians to flee from idolatry. To buttress his argument he says –

I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices and partakers of the altar?

He’s trying to get them to get them to say, “Oh, you mean I shouldn’t go sit down and have this meal with these pagans under these conditions? They’re just guys, and the food is just food. The building is just a building, and that block of wood over there that they think is some kind of god is just a block of wood. What’s the big deal?” and he has to explain what’s wrong.

If you walk up to a 21st century Christian and say, “Brother, I don’t think you should be going to a satanic mass,” I don’t think anyone is going to say, “Oh, I never thought about that. Maybe you’re right.” I think they’ll say, “Who would do that?” But if you say, “You know, maybe you should come to the Lord’s Supper,” you might get, “Why? It’s not that big a deal.”

Paul is writing the other way. “You know that the Lord’s Supper is communion with Jesus Christ and with his body. You know that under the old covenant that eating the peace offerings brought you into fellowship with the altar and the God who’s served there. You know that food can have spiritual connotations and connections, so think it through.”

What he says is –

What say I then? That the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

He just called the Lord’s Supper a jealousy ceremony.

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s welfare. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no questions for conscience sake.

Food can have a spiritual connection, and in the church it most certainly does, but American Christianity has so fallen under the influence of nominalism – “A kiss is just a kiss, a hug is just a hug, and the grape juice and crackers are just grape juice and crackers. As long as I’m thinking good thoughts, that’s all that’s really going on here, so I don’t really need them. I can just remember Jesus, and if we celebrate the Lord’s Supper once a year and I miss it, well, it doesn’t mean anything. There’s no power here. And if I just visited a prostitute last night and then come to the Lord’s Supper, what’s the big deal? I’m just remembering Jesus and remembering that I probably shouldn’t do that anymore.”

I believe Paul addresses that specifically in I Corinthians, actually – the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah, it’s a lot more complicated than that. The book of Daniel, of course, begins with Daniel deciding what he’s going to eat, and generally it’s pushed off as well that he doesn’t want to violate the Levitical dietary laws. But there’s no indication that that’s what’s going on. Surely the king had some deer and some chicken, probably some fish, some beef. There would be nothing that would force that. What would be an issue, and the only thing the text mentions over and over again, is that it’s the king’s table. You’re going to have fellowship with the antichrist.

In stupid things one does when one has a second to kill, I read “How dating has changed from then till now,” and ‘then’ was like the 1950s. This was not a Christian web article but it was just comparing how things used to be. Asking a young woman out to dinner was a huge thing. You got all sweaty on your palms, and shaky, and if she said no then your world was destroyed. Now you just text a couple lines like “Meet me in Starbucks?” and if you get a yes back or a thumbs up icon you’re great.

That’s not how it used to be. If you were going to take somebody’s daughter out you went and talked to her dad first because it was such an important thing. Getting all dressed up for the senior banquet – it wasn’t just outward symbolism. There’s something real there.

Of course, in the ancient world it meant if you came to a peace table and sat down with your enemy and he’s eating, it means he doesn’t have his knife or sword in his hand. There were practical dimensions as well.

And if you’re eating the same food, you know he hasn’t poisoned you.

Yes, exactly. Speaking of eating the same food, you’re both taking something that was outside you and you’re incorporating it into each of you in corpus – same body. You’re both being incorporated into one another, as it were.

You are becoming fellows – thus fellowship.

And thus the imagery. “Rise and eat. Peter, you’re an evangelist. You’re an apostle. Here are these Gentiles. They need to be incorporated into my body. What’s going on here? Get with it. Slay them with the sword of the Spirit and start ‘eating’ them into the body of Christ. Start incorporating them into Christian community. Make them good Christian fellows.”

“No, Lord – common and unclean.”

As casual readers who treat Acts like a novel or a travel dialogue, it is kind of annoying to hit the account over and over and over again. We hear Cornelius being told, “Go do this.” Then we have Peter’s vision. Then we have Cornelius’ servants saying, “This is what the boss said and this is what happened to him.” Then Peter shows up and Cornelius says, “This is what happened to me.” Then here again now Peter says it all.

We keep getting it over and over again because this is not a travelogue. This is theology. This is history changing history. These historical events are going to shape the course of the world, starting with the course of the Roman world and of the ancient west.

Can we sit down at a table with someone who’s not from around these parts, who’s from the other side of the tracks, the other side of the ocean, who has different colored skin and speaks a language we don’t know, whose eye shape or nose shape is different from ours and not what we’re used to seeing, who wear clothes that look a little outlandish?

It took divine revelation over and over here to get Jewish Christians to say, “Maybe.” We’re still not done. Acts 15 still lies ahead of us.

Anyway, the Jews or circumcised Christians are happy at this point, so let’s give them that. It didn’t take a long theological debate. It took, “Oh, they got the Holy Spirit and they’ve been baptized and there was divine revelation.”

“Alright, we won’t fight that then.”

Notice what they don’t say. “Well, you’re an apostle. We should listen to you.” It is interesting how little play the apostles get for being apostles, and how many times they’re just written off.

When we get to the Council of Jerusalem it’s, “Paul is an apostle.” How does the church at Antioch say, “Well, we’ve heard your opinion, Paul, but we’re not sure. Let’s ask some other apostles.” We are slow to hear the word of God – we being Christians of all ages and times. They’re like us. We have the same lessons to learn.

Also there’s a balance between trusting the teaching of your pastor and elders and also examining everything they say. The apostles don’t play the apostle card, and I wonder if part of that is because no one after them is going to be able to play that card.

This is so. We can think of Berea, where Luke commends them for not simply believing Paul, but they searched the scriptures daily. Of course, they didn’t know who Paul was. An apostle didn’t mean a whole lot to them.

Then there’s the church at Corinth where apostles should have meant a lot, and Paul has to spend basically two epistles defending his apostleship. Galatia, same thing. “I was the one who brought you to Christ. That may not be everything, but shouldn’t that be counting for something? Why are you so easily moved from faith in Christ to another gospel?”

Well, we are moved easily because we are children of the flesh, and the flesh appeals to us, and we want to know what we can do. “How are we better than other people? What could we do? A mix is better, or failing that what’s in our genes and our DNA that makes us better?”

I was just getting ready for school and I was skimming through Ken Ham’s book, One Race, One Blood, and just some of the horrors that attended the early acceptance of nominalism. An African-American gentleman who was small and, from European standards, a savage, ended up in a zoo as “the missing link.” People came and poked at him and gawked at him and stared at him and made fun of him.

When a few black pastors in the United States objected, the New York Times said, “Don’t they get that evolution is a proven fact, as proven as the multiplication tables? What’s the big deal here?” And this was not that long ago.

Then of course the wonderful news that Hitler got his eugenics program from us, because of some of the things he saw in America, particularly with regard to Planned Parenthood.

It is an ongoing struggle, and as a schoolteacher I still see it. And it’s coming out of families that would be horrified if anyone said, “Hey, you’re not like the people who settled this country. You’re second-rate,” and yet they’ll turn and say all kinds of horrible things to people with different-clored skin, because it is the flesh. “We need to be better. We have to be better than everyone else, because we’ve got this sneaking feeling we’re not that good. But if I can find someone then I’m better than then it’s okay. I’m safe.”

One of the old saws is that at revival meetings and such, half-converted drunks would always point out, “Well, I was pretty bad but I was never as bad as Brother Johnny over there, or Brother Bill or Brother Phil…”

Anyway, back to this.

Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.

These, like Caesarea, were all cities that technically had Phoenician influence or Phoenician territory. Thinking back to the Old Testament – Tyre and Sidon, Jezebel, all that – these are cities that Joshua never conquered. In the book of Judges they’re never addressed, and yet God is going to use them because He’s got people there. Israel screwed up, but God had purposes that were greater. There were people yet to be born that had to come to Christ, and some interesting things happened there.

These people who are traveling are “preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only” because it’s still a Jewish thing. This is a hard contrast to what we just saw.

And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.

Antioch means it was one of the cities founded by one of the Antiochus kings of the Syrian or Seleucid dynasty back in the time between the testaments. Antioch will have a long history in the church and be a very important and influential city, eventually a bad influence, but for now a very good one. They were preaching the Lord Jesus, not Jesus the Messiah because that might not mean a whole lot to the Greeks, but “Lord Jesus? Oh, you mean like Caesar?”

It’s interesting too that they don’t say “the God Jesus,” because god was such a generic term for the Greeks. “The Lord” actually spoke to Jesus’ deity more clearly.

Good point, absolutely. “God? Which god? What block does he own?” rather than Lord. Caesar owned the whole empire. “You’re talking about a world emperor named Jesus?”

And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch.

He was also from Cyprus, so maybe that had something to do with it, and he’s a guy who brings people to Christ and brings Christians to other Christians. They don’t send Peter and John this time.

Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, and much people were added unto the Lord.

So we have a little revival going on. Lots of people are coming, and it’s so successful that Barnabas decides he needs help. He needs somebody else who knows the gospel and knows the Christian faith. And since it’s a largely Gentile church he can’t fall back as easily on all those Jewish elders.

When synagogues were converted you had a lot of people who already knew the Old Testament very well, and they could make the transition from being Jewish elders to being Christian elders. He needs help, so what occurs to him? “Oh yeah, Saul.” “He went home.” “Well, maybe it’s time for him to get to work.”

Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that for a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

Usually what I’ve heard, and I can count on one hand with fingers left over how many people have said something else, that this was a disparaging name, sort of like Christ-er or, in another generation, Puritans.

Jesus freak.

Or Bible thumper.

Yes, all of those things, that this was a name slapped on them by their enemies. The problem is that Peter picks it up and commends it… “If any man suffer as a Christian...” If it was something like those other examples we just gave, that seems unlikely.

The verb here – and I was told this years ago and I went back and checked last week – most commonly means “to call by oracle,” that is it is something that God has said. It seems to me likely that one of the prophets there had a revelation that said, “Okay, it’s time for you to have a unified name that’s going to go with everybody from here on out. Here it is. You ready? Write this down. It’s Christian – Christ one.”

“Why are you called a Christian?” “Because I’m a member of Christ and thus a partaker of his anointing,” the catechism says.

The Holy Ghost who is without measure in Jesus is given in measure to each of us so that we share that single anointing and that we too are prophets, kings and priests in Christ and under Christ. We’re members of the second Adam. We’re a new creation. It’s a fitting appropriate name.

We could have been called Jesus people, but that’s not the name God chose. It’s been called the sect of the Nazarenes, it’s been called The Way, it’s been called a sect a couple times, like it’s a sect of Judaism, but this seems to be God saying, “It’s time. We’re going to start distinguishing. Here’s the name. You are Christians.”

It’s clear that as Jesus makes it clear to the church that they are not primarily Jews – that’s not their first identity – he then reveals in a congregation that is mostly Gentile a new name. That again shows the way that he’s bringing them all together.

“You are neither Jew nor Gentile, bond or free. Those are not your primary or essential identity now that you’re in the church and part of His kingdom. This is your name. Its core is Christ, not anything else.”

Which is one reason I have a mild problem with Messianic Jew. I understand what they’re saying. I’m not sure they understand what they’re saying. The noun is the definition. The adjective colors it. That’s why the word ‘reformed’ as a mere adjective describing someone’s beliefs is always going to take back seat to the noun it follows. “Reformed what? Primarily you’re the noun thing and you are colored to some extent by being reformed.”

There are Reformed Jews, Reformed Christians. It’s simply an adjective that describes your desire to follow that religion in a certain way.

Yes.

And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus [we’ll run into him again later], and signified by the Spirit [that is, he spoke by divine inspiration] that there should be a great dearth [that’s famine] throughout all the world, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.

The word for ‘world’ – I can never pronounce it. You both know more Greek than I do. Would one of you look it up and see what it is? Anyway, it’s not cosmos. It’s not ‘the universe’ or planet.

Oikoumene.

Yes. I assume it’s ‘household.’ I don’t know what the rest of it is. It’s the word that’s used when “There went out a decree that all the world should be taxed,” and it’s used in some of the prophecies concerning the fall of Jerusalem. This is going to be heard throughout the world.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that the gospel reached the Americas before Jerusalem fell. It’s talking about the Roman world because it’s the Roman world that is the subject of prophecy. It was the Babylonian world, then the Persian world, the Greek world, the Roman world, and it’s about to become the kingdom of Christ. It’s the world where God’s people were.

At that point most Jews lived within the bounds of that empire, and therefore it’s important that the gospel reach all of those lands before Jerusalem falls, as a testimony as to why this is happening and what’s going on. It’s the world that’s used here. It doesn’t mean there was a famine in Alaska at that time, but the whole Roman empire is about to suffer, and it comes to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.

Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea, which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

Notice the famine hadn’t come yet and Antioch itself was not known for being particularly wealthy. I’m sure there were wealthy people there. It was a trade city on the coast, but the description I saw was more like crowded, over-populated, filthy, confusion, chaotic, and often suffering from lack of food. It’s under these circumstances that these believers say, “Those poor people. They must be helped,” to borrow a line. They’re going to be poor.

Judea was already known for being very poor, and we’ll see this similar kind of thinking later on in Paul’s epistles. In fact, when Paul first meets Peter, James, and John, the one thing they say is, “We would that you remember the poor.” That’s Poor with a capital P, the poor of Judea. These people here need help. Paul was always trying to organize offerings for the poor saints in Judea.

Here, these people are not told to do it. They hear that this is coming and their first thought is, “Oh wow, how is that going to impact Judea and all of our poor brothers and sisters there? We need to start doing something now,” and they send the money as best they can. They determined to send relief, every man according to his ability. This isn’t a tithe, it’s an offering.

And they determined for themselves, according to their ability. Somebody else didn’t decree what they were capable of.

“Come over here. Let’s poke your tummy. That’s a lot of fat there. We think you can manage 500 shekels. You? You’re looking a little lean. Maybe 10.”

To each according to his need.

On to chapter 12.

Now about that time Herod the king…

This is not Herod the Great who tried to kill the baby Jesus. This is not Herod Antipas who killed John the Baptist. This is Herod Agrippa. Yes, there’s another Herod Agrippa later. We find him at the end of Acts where he’s simply called Agrippa.

Why are there so many Herods in the Bible?

It’s hinted at in the book of Daniel, but the background goes all the way back to Genesis. They’re Edomites. They’re Idumeans. They’re descended from Esau. They’re the brother that, when it’s convenient poses as a Jew, and when it’s not he turns on them in a most bloody manner. Here they have become the face of Rome, as it were a human face, to borrow an image from Daniel. They obviously all adored their granddaddy, so everybody gets named Herod.

…Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.

Before we move on from that thought, should we clarify this idea that their belief or disbelief is not determined by them being Edomites, but in scripture these examples of people who are Edomites are to make a literary point of the seed warring against the serpent.

Oh, you just opened a can of worms.

Did I? I didn’t mean to. I thought it was straightforward.

“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Does that mean that no Idumean or Edomite can ever come to faith? No, but it does mean that as a whole the prophets say that God has set his face against Edom. It’s not really where you want to be, and if you’re there you need to repent and get out from among that type of people.

It’s not racial determinism.

No, it’s divine determinism. God has organized the nations so that they best serve their purposes for the gospel, and some nations he raises up and smacks down hard, some he smacks and raises back up again, some he is incredibly gracious to seemingly from the beginning, at least from our knowledge of him.

Without going back on everything we already said about the open call of the gospel, the Gentiles being welcome no matter what branch of Gentile-ishness you’re from, on the other hand national covenantal boundaries actually do matter. Who your king is, who your authorities are, what position they take against the gospel or for the gospel, it really does matter.

On the one hand we need to insist that any of Esau’s children humanly speaking could come to faith in Messiah. I can only think of one or two where that may actually have been the case, and we’re judging mostly by names more than anything.

In the scriptures you mean?

Yes, in the scriptures. On the other hand, God does have plans for nations as nations as well. Nations as nations need to repent. The Great Commission is not simply to call individuals within nations, but to call nations, because God will judge nations. All the nations that rebel against God will be turned into hell, the psalmist says.

So if you are a believing Gentile in the midst of an unbelieving nation that has a political agenda to exterminate the Church, 1) you can leave and that might be the best thing to do, especially in this age, or 2) you can at least show some kind of protest, or 3) you can help the underground church, but you need to un-identify yourself with that nation’s policies. You need to dis-covenant yourself from the civil covenant and make it clear that you have another King, Jesus.

These are not things the American church thinks about, first of all because for so long America was “Federal government? What? I’m out here on the frontier doing my own thing and no one’s telling me what to do. I go to church and maybe God tells me what to do, but aside from that it’s every man for himself. We all do what’s right in our own eyes, even theologically,” but that’s not the way of the ancient world. Who your ruler was mattered. Who you were covenanted with mattered. What people you belonged to mattered.

Even in the book of Revelation we see people still organized by covenant grouping – nations and people and tongues and kindreds. This rampant American individualism doesn’t play well in heaven or in eternity.

Maybe it just opened up a can of worms for me, but it’s probably a good thing. The Herod family particularly are represented as a manifestation of this violent hatred. The prophet that addresses Idumea is Obadiah.

It’s interesting that this is all coming up because this morning when we went out for our morning walk David and I were discussing the fact that he is preparing a sermon on Esau’s genealogy in Genesis right now. So we were talking back and forth about what blessings and then what other things have come to Esau and to his descendants.

One of the questions I asked was, “Were the Edomites ever repentant? From Esau forward were they ever repentant? Did they ever submit to what Isaac said about Esau?” At that point we said no. They did have certain blessings though where you see Esau as closer to the covenant line, and he has more of that immediate blessing, which we often see among the unbelieving sons where they accelerate progress.

Later David came back and said, “Actually, in Mark 3 it talks about the Idumeans coming to faith in Jesus.” So even as we have Herod, we also have a comment that some of them did come to faith. He also says there’s a possibility that Caleb’s ancestors could be from Esau because Kenaz is a grandson of Esau. So it potentially could be the same Kenaz who makes the Kenazites.

Then we have all the characters in the book of Job who live in Uz or have family connections. Uz was the original name of Idumea before the Edomites took it, and some of those friends seem to have names that resonate with Esau’s genealogy.

God can save you out of anything, out of anyone, out of any family line. Still, you need to make the disassociation. You need to break it.

We were talking about Isaac’s prophecy. It said, “You’re going to submit to your brother until you throw off his yoke,” or something like that. That’s not a blessing. That’s bad, because when you throw off the Messiah’s yoke that’s destruction. So even that was tinged with a bit of horror. I doubt Esau got it. “Ah, free from Jacob, finally.”

That’s Psalm 2 as well, isn’t it – “Let us break their bands asunder.”

So this Herod kills James. Now, let’s talk about James. This is James the brother of John. They were the sons of Zebedee and Salome. Jesus nicknamed them the Sons of Thunder because they were a bit tempestuous and quick to want to call fire down from heaven on people. They were apparently close relatives of Jesus, maybe cousins, so there was that connection and so they came to Jesus and, with their mom’s help, asked if they could sit at his right hand and his left in his kingdom.

But Jesus warned them, “You’re going to pass through the same baptism I’m going to pass through. You’re going to drink the same cup that I’m going to drink of.” And here, at least in part, James drinks to the bottom. He suffers martyrdom.

James, John, and Peter had been Jesus’ wingmen, as it were. David had his three men who were over his mighty men. This is the corresponding thing – David the cornerstone, then the other three corners – so James was really important, and he dies very young, very early in the ministry.

This no doubt sent a shock throughout the church because although the church had suffered a good deal of persecution, it’s something else when someone takes out that guy you’re all looking up to, the guy who has it all together, the guy you go to for answers, the guy who’s led us again, he’s been a rock and stable, and he just got killed, apparently beheaded, which is what Romans generally did with a sword to people, which was considered a very demeaning sort of death.

We can do one more verse before we sign off. When I said we should go further I did not anticipate the Edomite tangent.

Alright, verse 3 –

And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also.

“Hey, that played well to the polls. Let’s get the next guy,” and he lays hands on Peter, planning on doing the same thing once Passover is over. We’ll find out what happens next time.

That’s a cliffhanger fit for TV.

TV, is that still a thing?

They’ve sort of made certain apps into TV-ish channels because a) you can’t get rid of the ads, and b) some things I think they do show live now, so there’s a type of TV.

I watched the TV when I was in the hospital. I guess that’s when people watch TV.

Was it broadcast media or was it cable?

It was cable-ish, some proprietary thing that the hospital had, because there were hospital-specific channels, which is weird.

Anyway, that’s all we have time for tonight. Let’s wrap up with some recommendations.

Alright, I’ll go first. Interestingly enough, one of our guest pastors was talking about being romantic, and I’m sorry but I completely forget the scriptural basis for why he was talking like this but it made biblical sense in the context. He said, “So you know, get a picnic basket and drive to the coast and sit there on one of the cliffs and watch the sun go down. How much more romantic can you be?”

And Kate and I looked at each other and said, “We did that last weekend. Praise God.” So grab your spouse, get her out of the house, find a babysitter, and go watch the sunset over the Pacific and imagine you’re looking toward Valinor and the Far West. Somewhere out there there’s something more than this. That’s my recommendation.

Awesome. I’m going to tangent off of that recommendation because the last time David and I went out on a date without the children – I think that was the last time – we went to Napa. A friend watched our kids overnight and we picked up a volume of poetry, so here comes my poetry recommendation for this week. It’s a volume of poems by Billy Collins called Water, Water.

The title of the poem that I especially liked from this book was called “Adam Names the Fish,” based on Genesis 2:20. It’s not very long. Would you like me to read it? I could just read it.

As long as you’re not violating copyright, go for it.

Who’s to say? This is an educational podcast.

Adam Names the Fish (Genesis 2:20)

Exhausted,

after coming up with giraffe,

buffalo, and butterfly,

then ocelot and kangaroo

he begs the sky for a breather.

But there is nothing

but the silence

of the low clouds,

then a trace of wind,

the tweet of a wren,

the moo of a cow,

two of the many

he is most proud of

for their simplicity,

and the hint of onomatopoeia.

Cow. Wren.

He likes snake and canary too.

But the silence says

he has more work to do.

So, with nary an Eve to impress,

he takes the deepest breath

known to man,

and holding it, dives in.

We’ll assume it was into the river that ran through Eden, because it can’t be the ocean. I was wondering how he was going to pull that off. That’s great.

My recommendation is actually another one from our friend Talitha. She recommended a podcast to me and I just listened to it today while I was driving Titus somewhere. It’s from the Jeremy Boreing show, and I had not listened to him before. I looked him up and he apparently was the former CEO of The Daily Wire. He has more recently started his own podcast.

He has one, Episode 49, “Hasan Piker and Candace Owens are Selling You Third-World Thinking.” He makes a very interesting discussion about the concept in the West that is unique compared to the rest of the world, that we have an innocent/guilty culture. It’s about the truth, and what the truth says is whether you are innocent or you are guilty. Our whole justice system is built on this fact.

He particularly is bringing up the ongoing conflict over who shot Charlie Kirk, and was pointing out that the justice system actually went through the whole process of gathering real evidence, even though it seems like it’s an obvious case. They actually went through that process, and even the killer’s own parents turned him because they believed that there should be a trial and justice.

In contrast, though, to what those who like Candace Owens are doing – he said they’re falling into more of an honor/shame culture and it’s really what the social media world is. Whoever yells the loudest is dominant. If you can’t answer an insult, you have lost the argument. He does a really interesting job of showing how the third-world honor/shame cultures are creeping back into our society.

I was going to have a criticism of him because it seemed like he was just speaking generically of, “Yay, we’ve made people have dignity,” and then at the end he finally went for the, “And this is because of the church. This is because of the Bible. All of this is coming from Old Testament and New Testament influences in the world that have slowly built over time.”

The thing I thought was most interesting, and perhaps Greg you might even like it for economics or something, is he talks about how the price tag is a Western phenomenon. The price is set, no matter who you are. It’s not that this hamburger is $2 for you, but it’s $5 for you. It’s whoever walks in the door pays $5. I have not thought about that before.

Or it’s negotiable.

Yes, everything is negotiable. Everything is based on who you know, and everything is dependent on protecting your clan, your tribe, your family. Everybody who is outside, you can treat them however you want and it doesn’t matter.

I had never thought of the price tag particularly as something that was Western, so it’s a fascinating discussion, both of our justice system but then also our overall economics and how that is dependent upon a Christian worldview to understand the idea of treating everyone the same. That is not normal around the rest of the world. I think it ties in a lot with The Book that Made Your World. He’s making a lot of the same arguments.

Cool. Thank you both for this conversation. It’s been a delight, as always. I look forward to next time. Thank you also to David, our producer and my lawfully wedded husband, and to our financial supporters for keeping the show rolling. If you’d like to join their number, Dear Listener, you can visit patreon.com/haltingtowardzion.

Give us a holler if you’d like at [email protected]. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you next time.