Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Bible study. Glad you're here on this Thursday night. I love Thursday nights, don't you? When we gather together for Bible study, we got a full studio tonight, and maybe you got a full living room as well. We got Rich and Jody Withrow from Poco, West Virginia. We've got Sophie Hill from Bentonville, Arkansas. We have Madison Rascue from Green Bay, Wisconsin. But we're about to call her from Towson of Mexico. And we've got Corbin Jimenez from Spanaway, Washington. Of course, he's been here all the time with us. And we've got Nathan White from Towson of Mexico, all in a room the size of an extra large broom closet. But anyway, here we are. And we're glad you're here as well. Hope you've got maybe a living room full or a table full, or if it's just you that you have a heart full. And it is a blessing to have you tonight on this, our last session of the Book of Colossians. I would love for you to say good evening, as Linda has done, or hello, as Everett and Debbie have done, whatever it is you'd like to say and maybe say hey, here I am. Say Hi and name in town. How's that? If nothing else, just because it's always an encouragement at the end of the hour, I will say hello. By the way, hour for me means when I'm done. That's the definition of the Randy White hour. But I think tonight, actually, we probably will be about an hour. And as we finish up again, caution versus twelve through 18, we'll begin looking at that in just a moment. And there's an outline available for you at worship. I know it's at worship.com. It's also at the RWM Connect site. Where else is it? I don't know. Nathan will get it wherever it is, but it's at those two places at least. And let's be reminded that this coming Sunday, I have all the mysteries of the Bible is our sermon, because you ask sermon at 1045. And the mysteries we're talking about are things like, for example, when Paul says, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, if God had not revealed it, we would be ignorant. And so they are things that are revealed. We're going to look at these one Corinthians, chapter 15. Behold, I show you a mystery. So we'll look at all the mysteries of the Bible, that's this Sunday at 1045 will also be in the book of Philippians at 945. So feel free to join us live or on the archives, and we would be happy to have you for that. But tonight we come into Colossians. Rightly. Divided verse by verse, our last time here. And so already we are beginning to work on our commentary, the rightly. Divided Commentary series number one, volume number one, or the first edition to go out anyway will be Titus and Phi Lehman. We are well on our way that one's already layout it's in the final editing process be available early this summer. And I guess it is early this summer, isn't it? It'll be available soon, I should say. And perhaps you would like to get that when it comes out. And now we're working on Colossians, Rightly. Divided, going through the first editing process for that, and that is taking all these notes, cleaning them up a little bit, putting the blue letter edition in print and putting all that together into a book that you can buy and set on your shelf, which sometimes is easier than all the downloads. And keeping all that and certainly helps give it some longevity in Colossians. Rightly, Divided. And with that, we come to the last session of Colossians. Rightly, divided. And we will be here at Colossians, chapter four, beginning in verse twelve. We got the King James Bible that we're going to go mostly with, maybe exclusively with. We've got the new barrier linear. We've also got the Young's literal translation. And we'll take a look at all of these. And I'm just going to let's see, I'm going to make this a little bit bigger for us. Let's see what's happening, Nathan. There we go. Sorry. It was only working on one screen. Now it's working on both. I had some computer issues earlier today, but we'll see what happens. I think it'll make it work. If not, we'll do it the old fashioned way. We'll make it work one way or another in Bible study tonight. But Ephesians, chapter four, beginning in verse twelve, is where we will look for beginning in chapter four, verse seven. Where we started last week is Paul's. Oh, I called it Reports, Greetings and conclusion. And we continue, really, the reports we finished. And so now it's Greetings and conclusions that we've taken place. If you missed last week session twelve, I would encourage you to go back and check that, because there really were a couple of important things as we were closing, for example, these three men that he mentioned here, these only are my fellow workers unto the Kingdom of God. Paul dispensationally is still doing some Kingdom work, but he's not doing much Kingdom work. And he speaks of that. We talked about some of the names that are there. But tonight we go immediately to chapter four, verse twelve, and it says, Apatris, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers that Ye may stand perfect and complete in all of the will of God. Here is our friend EPA. We have seen him already in this book in Colossians, chapter one, verse seven. In that verse. You can go back to those notes if you'd like. But in Colossians, chapter one, verse seven, we speculated that there is a possibility that Epaphras is the pastor of the Church. Now, let me say that there are several people that could be the pastor of the Colossian Church. Epaphras may be a Deacon, the word used there as Diaconus, a servant of the Church in chapter one, verse seven. So he may be a Deacon of the Church. He may be the pastor of the Church. He may just be a faithful layman who's serving the Lord and carrying on the work there. This as well could have been the Church that Fileman was a part of. It could have been a Church, even meeting in Filament's home. And maybe a paphriz was the pastor archipus, maybe he was the pastor. Several things here, but he certainly was very prominent in the Colossian Church, whether he was the pastor or not. He certainly also was a Colossian and paprik who is one of you, and he is a servant of Christ. That is a due loss, and we've talked about that before. I think servant is the best translation there. So he's a Colossian, he's a servant of Christ. He saluteth you. And then it begins to describe or Paul begins to describe a paprius. And what does he say about a Paprik? He says he is laboring fervently for you in prayers that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. Now let's take this and let's speculate just a moment that perhaps a paphras is the pastor. If a paphris is the pastor, maybe we could use this in a fairly indirect way and say, hey, here's a little bit of a pastor's job description. Here's what pastor ought to do. And there's some things listed here that we'll see. Now you notice that these are in black letter, not green letter, not blue letter. Blue letter would be, hey, you can really take this home to the bank and you can build your theology on it. Your pastoral theology, for example. I don't think we want to build our pastoral theology on this because it's really specifically about EPA. I never met the guy. You never met the guy. We don't even know much about the guy. We don't even know if he is the pastor. We don't want to build any kind of doctrine here. I thought about, well, maybe you could make it green, because in a sense, I'm going to say, well, Incidentally, this would make a pretty decent job description, but I think that is probably even a bit of a stretch. I think that we ought to take the greatest degree of care and say what we've really got here is a guy, Opaphras. We don't know him except that he's from Colossey and he is a servant of Christ, and he is laboring there with Paul, but he's from Colossey and has served in Colossey might even be the pastor. Now what is he doing laboring fervently for you in prayers? As a matter of fact, let me back up. If we were to use this as a pastoral job description, here's a couple of things that I would point out. One of you. Epatris is one of you. I really as I have grown in Ministry and grown in age, I really have come to the conclusion that the best pastor a Church can have is one that is as much as possible. One of you, he came from you. Maybe he was that boy that was running around in Church and you all were telling him, quit run out in Church, and he grew up there in that and that Church sort of groomed him and called him out to be the pastor. I think that is ideal. I don't think it happens enough. In fact, in most churches across America, anyway, it's a fairly rare thing that a person pastors the Church that they grew up in that they were a part of. Now, I don't think necessarily you have to grow up in it. I doubt a paphriz grew up in this Church because the Church was a new thing, but paprik was certainly one of them. I think that in so many ways it helps. Now, obviously, there is missionary service in which you go out and you go to the Philippines or Papua New Guinea or Argentina or wherever it is, and you're not one of them, but you are there trying to explain to them this wonderful good news that we have. So there is certainly missionary service. Now, the best and most ideal pastor, I think, is one that really knows the people and the people know him. That speeds everything up. One of you, Incidentally, might I say even in missionary service that I think that American Christianity would do well to say, hey, in missionary service, our desire is to win people to faith in Jesus Christ, to share within the gospel. They accept the gospel, we train them and they become leaders. They're one of you in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, in Argentina, whatever it is, Epafris is one of you. He's a Colossian. He is then a servant of Christ. And in a lot of ways, those words right there, a servant of Christ kind of describe what a pastor is to do. Now, I know, of course, most of you are not pastors, and as you may go in one ear and out the other, but as I said a moment ago, I don't really even know if a PAFRAS was the pastor. I think there's some possibility he was a pastor, but if he's not the pastor, he's just a guy in the Church. Then this says, hey, Paul likes servants of Christ. He calls himself one, he honors others who are one. And you and I ought to look at that and say, okay, what am I? I'm a servant of Christ. We talk a lot about Butcher, Baker and candlestick maker. Well, what if you are a Butcher, a Christian Butcher, a Christian Baker, a Christian candlestick maker will be a servant of Christ. On top of that, I suspect that a Paprik probably had a job or a career somewhere as well or some way of making some support. But he was a servant of Christ. He saluted you. That's because he was with Paul at the moment. Always laboring fervently for you in prayers. Okay, here we see a couple of things. Now, I'm going to pull these apart a little bit, perhaps more even than it should be. Always laboring fervently for you. I happen to be a believer that a pastor ought to be always laboring fervently. This is just what a pastor does. He gets up and he studies the Word and study in the morning, study in the noon day, study when the sun goes down. This is what a pastor does. Always laboring fervently. And just to put the Ministry aside says, you're not really a servant of Christ. Being the servant of Christ ought to be something that is such a part of you that you're laboring fervently. Now, here always laboring fervently for you. He says in prayers and that is he's praying for the Colossian people. What's his prayer request for them? It is that Ye Colossians may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. Now, of course, we could put ourselves in Colossian shoes. If I were dividing this verse out, there's a possibility I could even put just this section right here into blue letters because we are in so many ways in the place of the Colossians. So what would we like for ourselves? Well, we would like to be perfect and complete in all the will of God. Now, to be perfect and complete in the will of God, we certainly would have to know the will of God. And if we're a pastor, we would say, Well, I want my Church to be perfect and complete in the will of God. I'm tired of them walking around in the dark. They're tired of walking around in the dark. We want to know the will of God and be perfect and complete in that. And I am convinced this can happen by the teaching of the Word of God. When we know the Word of God, we can be perfect and complete in the will of God because the will of God is expressed in the Word of God. And might I say it's the only place that's expressed through the Word of God. We come to know the will of God. And we then can become perfect and complete in all the will of God in our knowledge of the will of God, which obviously involves our knowledge of the mystery of what's going on and the dispensation today in the various matters that are ours. And on and on we could go. So here is his prayer. Now, that's the end of verse twelve. But it goes on in verse 13, continuing to tell what a paphorus is doing. And so as we're taking it here, as I'm taking it here, there's a pretty good description of what a pastor ought to be. And that continues. He says, for I bear him record that he has a great zeal for you and then that are in Laodicea and then that are in hireapolis. So this great zeal for you, I think that a pastor ought to have a great zeal for his Church, for the people that he is giving oversight to, spiritual oversight. And the sad thing is that I've been in the pastor long enough to know that there are a lot of pastors out there, that their zeal is to get another Church. Boy, I have a lot of zeal to get out of here. And the zeal is not for you, for their Church. As a Papua, he was one of you. His zeal is for you. The word zeal is basically a Greek word. Zelas is the word. And we get zealot, we get zealous, we get the word jealous also from here. And so a pastor ought to be zealous for his own Church and jealous for his own Church, protecting of his own Church, laboring fervently for his own Church, praying for them that they might be complete and perfect in the will of God. So he has a great deal for you. And it says them that are in Ladysea and Hierapolis. Now, if we were to pull up a map, let's just see. Maybe perhaps we will be able to get one here through Logos. Let's just see. Will we get a white screen through Logos. But right here is Hieropolis, as you can see. And actually right here is Colossey. Here is Hieropolis. Excuse me, I wasn't reading that correctly. Colosse. Hieropolis, Ladacea, right over here. You can see it's Ephesus, right on the coastline of the Aegean Sea. This is Turkey right here. Can you see it with your mind's eye? And so we've got Ephesus. We've got Pergamum up here, modern day Istanbul, if you will, is right over here in Turkey, which would then was called Asia Minor. We've got these three cities right here, Ladysea, Hierapolis and Colossey. Now, those particular cities there were kind of a Tri city area, if you will. Actually, Colosse was probably the least of these cities. So we're not exactly sure why Paul wrote to Colossey. To the Colossians. We don't think he had ever been to Colossal. He wanted to go. We don't know if he had ever made it to Leslie or Hieropolis either. But for whatever reason, Paul maybe because he knows the PAFRAS or one of the others filing, he seems to have some connections there. And so he writes to them. And layout of SIA. Of course, we know layout of SIA because we have read the Book of Revelation and that layout of sea in Church. I'd like to spew you out of my mouth. This is the same one that's going to be in the Revelation later on, the Church at Laodicea and the Church at Hieropolis. Interestingly enough, today, if you were to go to that part of Turkey, you would be able to have a tourist stop at Leia Vasilla and see what is there. You would be able to have a tourist stop at Hierapolis. You wouldn't have a tourist stop. I doubt you would. I don't know why you would at Colossey, because they never have excavated it. They have not excavated it, even though they do know and they can tell this from the topography and some of the tools, they have to be able to kind of see in the ground, if you know what I mean with Sonograms and those kinds of things. I don't know if that's the exactly right word for it, but nonetheless, they know that in Colossey, for example, there's a theater and some of these other things, but they also know there's a lot better one at Layout of SIA and at Hierapolis, with apologies to ancient Rome, to some degree, how many theaters can you stop and see? I mean, they all were built on the same architecture. They all look kind of the same. And all of them you look and say, oh, wow, that's spectacular. I can't believe what they built. Let's go see another one and then another one. Well, they're all the same. And you've seen one. You've seen them all, in a sense, other than maybe a little size difference. So the archaeologists have really kind of decided that let's not dig in and expose Colossey, because it's going to look like Le Odyssey and it's going to look like Hierapolis, except worse. Leo, C, and Hirepolis are a little better. Now here Epaphras has this zeal for those in Colossal, for those in latex for those in Hierapolis. It kind of makes you wonder again, there's enough evidence that it's not crazy speculation to say that Epaphras was perhaps the pastor at Colossey. Was he also the pastor at Laodicea or the pastor at Hireapolis, or did he just have some members that drove from ladies from Hierapolis, or was he kind of a circuit writing pastor? We know we'll see in a little bit that the churches were meeting in houses. So doubtful that he's the full time pastor earning all of his income from the Church at Colossey. So does he go from Colossey over to lay out of Hiropolis? Obviously, at one time that was a very prominent way of doing Ministry. I suspect, by the way, it will become a prominent way of doing Ministry as well. And let me add to that, I suspect that it probably would be the best way of doing Ministry for most right dividers. I say this because there are very few places that have much of a congregation of right dividers. Now, there certainly are some very strong ones across America, but for the most part, it's a house full of believers here, another house full of believers there. And it very well may be that some of these need to get together and say, hey, why don't we get a circuit writing preacher and put these together and make that work? So just a thought, an idea suggestion there. Okay, so here's a Paprik, verses twelve and 13. Then we come on to verse 14 and it speaks of Luke, the beloved physician, and demons who greet you. Okay, Luke, the beloved physician. Often, I think, all of us here, from what we've read so far tonight, maybe what we've read in the whole book of Colossians. I don't know if we were to give a little pre quiz on Colossians and include in that somewhere that Luke's profession was fill in the blank. A doctor, a physician. Everybody knows this doctor, Luke. We know this. He wrote the book of Luke, he wrote the Book of Acts and he was a doctor. Do you know that this is the only place in the scripture that we're told that Luke is a physician? He comes up, obviously, in a number of other places, but we wouldn't know if it wasn't for this one little line here, beloved physician. If it wasn't for that line of Paul in the Book of Colossians, we wouldn't know that he was a physician. So here it comes. And now we add to this. This is one of the things that I think that is important just in the general study of God's word that you would think, hey, I'm going to study the book of Luke. I need to read the book of Luke. Obviously that would be true. But reading the book of Luke, you would never know that Luke is a physician. And so there's always some of this background work that needs to be done. This is one of the reasons, I think, that a continual diet of verse by verse Bible study is going to help you more than anything else. I've talked about apologetics before and that I am not a fan of the field of apologetics. And the reason I'm not a fan of the field of apologetics is you just try to learn these strategies for defending the Christian faith and hope you remember the strategy when you need that particular strategy. I need strategy number 22. I can't remember what that is, but that's the one I need right there. Well, I think that if you just have a vast general knowledge of the word of God, you become a pretty good apologist. And so especially young people, especially, they like the field of apologetics and they like it because Christianity is attacked and they think, oh, I think somebody needs to stand up and defend Christianity. There's this field called apologetics. I think I'm going to go into that and I'm going to learn strategy one, strategy two, strategy 22, strategy 50, strategy 787. I'm going to know all these strategies for defending the faith. I think it's just better to say now I want to become a Bible expert. When I become a Bible expert, I'll be able to defend the faith. Now, I jumped away from that Luke the beloved physician, didn't I? But the point is that by reading and knowing the entirety of God's word, you get these little tidbits that become helpful in interpreting something else, in this case, interpreting Luke's background and Luke's writing in the Book of Luke in the Book of Acts. Now, Luke the beloved physician. Let's talk for just a moment about the state of medicine in first century Rome, because this will help us understand a little bit more about Luke. And again, you might be saying, well, I thought we were studying the Book of Colossians, not Luke the physician. And we are, except that the book of Colossians is the only place that tells us Luke is the beloved physician. So here he is, a physician. What did that mean in that day? Well, it meant that Luke was highly educated, for one, as we would not be surprised, but the state of medicine in first century Rome really was pretty high. I would not be surprised. Let's see, how shall I say this? I would not be surprised if we were able to take a time trip backward and come down into first century Rome. I would not be surprised if we were surprised how wonderful their medical system was. I think they actually knew quite a bit clearly. And you can find this from, for example, Pompeii, the remains of Pompeii, the hospitals that they had, the tools that they used that you find in museums, the medical tools that they use, honestly, were the same things we use today. They were scalpels and they were forceps, and there were all those kind of things. Now, so this meant that a physician really knew his stuff, as a matter of fact, because I'm a little suspicious of the medical world today, with apologies to our medical personnel, other than to say your field is going the wrong way, let me just say, in first century Rome, a physician was not only well educated in anatomy and physiology, and I would suspect once again that most of what Luke knew. Where are you, Luke? There we go. Most of what Luke knew in anatomy and physiology was very accurate and almost as full of the knowledge as we have today. We haven't learned that many things about anatomy and physiology because there's only so many things. The foot bone connects to the leg bone, the leg bone connects to the hip bone, and there's only so many bones to learn and only so many organs to learn and all this kind of stuff that is in there. And so they knew that thousands of years ago now. So he knew Luke as a physician, no doubt was highly educated. No doubt he knew anatomy and physiology. But in that day, and this is where I fear that the modern medical system is really failing us as a society is that in that day a physician was also well trained in philosophy. In the philosophy especially, they knew logic, the philosophy of logic, because so much of the way our body works is just kind of logic. If you do this, this is what you're going to get here. And so they needed to understand logic, and they knew it very well. But also they understood ethics and the philosophy of ethics. And so they spent a lot of time really working on this. And they practiced medicine. That is, they said, okay, here comes someone with a sniffly nose. What do we do? Well, if I give them this, it turns out that that happened. I'm going to write that down. I breathed on them and said, Abracadabra. And they went out, sniffling again. Okay, that one doesn't work, so scratch that. Let's try another one. Next guy comes in and I made him rolling catnip. Okay, well, that one didn't work. Scratch that one. Let's try something else. And they were practicing medicine and keeping meticulous records because we found these records. We know this. So all of this to say, Luke, he was a well respected, smart guy. Incidentally, many times physicians were of the Dulos class. This is why I don't like when the word Dulos is translated as slave. Because when you and I think slave, we don't think, oh, yeah, a doctor. But a doctor was of the Dulos class often. And accountants and teachers and others. They were this class of about 50% of Rome. That was many times for doctors employed by the government and in the army a lot of times. Speaking of just the medical state of the day, there is a five volume work that I put for you on the outline. Dementia Medica. That's Latin. And a doctor. Let's see, do I have his name? There a Roman physician. High regard. Let's see. His name starts with a G. It'll come to me after the program, and you could look it up. I've given you at least a Wikipedia article. And then you could go from there. Five volumes of medicines, natural based medicines, plant based medicines. That was written about the time that Luke the physician. A little bit after, but not 50 years after about the time that Luke the physician. And so here's this guy who writes the medical material and he's writing about plants and what plant you take for this ailment and that ailment. Natural remedies, I suppose we would use it. Do you know that it was the medical manual, if you will, for 1500 years, nothing came out that was better. I wouldn't be surprised if we went back to it today, we might find. So that's how I cure my sniffly nose. Anyway, this Luke, the beloved physician, really, I'm going to say, knew his stuff. Now, another question I want to ask about Luke while we're here. Just because he's brought up and that is Luke a Jew or a Gentile. If you go to the standard evangelical answer, is Luke a Jew or a Gentile? Well, he's a Gentile. How do we know he's a Gentile? Because I heard it from a parrot. That's how I know, because he's a Gentile. There's a few weak arguments. One of those weak arguments, I guess we could take from the context right here, and that is because he's mentioned already three workers of the Kingdom, three Jews that are with him, and he does not mention Luke here in that category. He separates Luke out. And so you can say, okay, I guess Luke is a Gentile. And there's a few other arguments, but I think Luke was a Jew. Why do I think Luke was a Jew? Let me give you three answers of why I think Luke was a Jew. Number one has to do with Romans chapter three, verses one and two, Romans, chapter three. Oh, Incidentally, have I told you we're going to teach the book of Romans in Branson this year? Would love to see a Labor Day weekend, but Romans chapter three, verse one, Paul asks a question. He says, what advantage hath the Jew? And then he says, oh, great, in every way. And the first advantage, he says to them, we're entrusted the oracles of God. Okay, Luke Acts together is a pretty significant chunk of the New Testament. So can you say to the Jews were entrusted the oracles of God? But the big portion of the New Testament, probably the largest portion in terms of number of pages, number of words, the largest portion there is of the New Testament, Luke axe that was entrusted to a Gentile. I don't know. It's hard for me to buy that. I would take that Jewish rule that from Romans, chapter three, verses one and two, that says, hey, the scriptures were written by or entrusted to Jews. Jews like Luke. Let me give you another piece of evidence. And that is to say that in Acts, chapter 21, Paul was arrested in the temple. He was arrested in the temple on a false charge that he was bringing Gentiles into the temple. Of course, Gentiles had to stop at the gate of the Gentiles. They could not come in. And there was a false charge that the Jews were giving that Paul had brought Trophumus into the temple. Now he hadn't, but they needed to arrest him on some reason. So they knew perhaps that Trophamus had traveled with Paul. Maybe they saw him come into town with Paul, and then they see Paul in the temple, and they say, we can't arrest him for anything legit. But let's say that Trophumus that Gentile he's been hanging out with. Let's say he brought them in here. And so it was a false charge. Well, Luke was with him on the same trip. So why would they not say, Luke, this beloved physician, who probably is known by a lot of people, why would they use Trophamus instead of Luke well, maybe because Luke's a Jew, and the argument didn't work. They needed a Gentile, and so they chose Trophimus. And then a third reason, and this and all these are a little bit circumstantial. But a third reason, I think Luke was a Jew is because he really does in his writing. He has a very close, intimate knowledge of the Temple. You see this when he's describing Simeon and Anna in the Temple, for example, and he gives some of the description there. It doesn't sound like someone who's asking who's having to go and say, hey, what's it look like in there? I've never been in there. I can't get in there. I want to write about it, but I don't know what it looks like. It looks to me like it's written by someone who's been there, who goes there, who knows the customs and the way that it works and the layout of the temple. And he describes it very well, like a Jew would. Okay, enough of that. Luke, the beloved physician. How in the world can you get ten or 15 or how long did we spend on Luke the physician there just in those words. But there's really a lot of interest in all that. So Luke the beloved physician, and Luke and Damas greet you. Okay, this fellow Demous, who does he happen to be demous is mentioned one other time. I believe it's one other time. Let's just double check this as we bring up. Okay. Two other times. So here Colossians 414, demons greet you now, not very long till two Timothy, chapter four, verse ten for Demos has forsaken me. Remember this passage over here? Demos has forsaken me, having loved this present world and departed under Tesla Mica. So the timing here, it's not that far apart from Deemas, who's there with Paul to Second Timothy. Demous hath forsaken me in Philemon, verse 24, it says there. And what did I. Okay, Phileman, verse 24, aristocus, Demous, Lucas, my fellow laborers. So Philemon is associated with Colossey. We think that Filimon might have been from Colossey. Demas, a lot of connection there, but here in Colossians, he's still a worthy and helpful servant, but soon, assuming it's the same Demos in one Timothy four. Excuse me, demous forsakes him before it's all over with, unfortunately. Now he goes on then. Now he's talking to the Colossians and he asked them to do something. Salute the brethren which are in layadacea. Can I stop right there in the middle of the verse? Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea. Now, this is one of the reasons again, I put this in black letter. I have never saluted the brethren and lay. Odyssea, this is not anything I've ever done. And I don't think it's been a sin that I have not saluted the brethren and lay out of the so we wouldn't build any kind of doctrine here, really, even sort of Incidentally, we wouldn't build a doctrine this is good black letter stuff, salute the brethren which are in La Audacia. Then it says and Nemphas and the Church which is in his house. Now it looks like Nymphas lives in Laodicea and there is a Church which is in his house. Doesn't have to be that way because it could be the brethren INLA OdysseyA. And now let's talk about something else. Memphis and the Church that is in his house and whatever town that is, I would probably put them together, which means then I probably would not say, as I hinted a moment ago, that there is a possibility that there was a local Church in Colossei and some members that drove in from Lay Odyssea and others that drove in from Hierapolis looks more like maybe kind of a connection, a circuit writing kind of thing, where they were joined together in some way, certainly in their faith. And so over in Layout Sea, a few miles away here is a felony, Memphis, and there is the Church which is in his house. Now what you ought to do is take a look at your Bible. And if you do not have a King James, I suppose probably the new King James will do the same. Let's check. Yes, it does. Yeah. We basically got the same thing over here, but let's switch this to the ESV, and it says, Greetings to my brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha and the Church in her house. Well, it's either a he or a her. Right. And all the modern translations have a her and the King James. The new King James, those things built upon the Texas receptus have his house, Nymphas versus Nympha. Nimfa is the feminine version of the word. Nymphos is the masculine version of the word. Now, granted, and Nympha are even in English, but even more so in Greek, very close to the same spelling. In fact, it's an accent different. So you say, okay, well, you get this mixed up. But the pronoun her versus his, they are spelled differently. And so if you change this, you got to change this, obviously. So Nemphas and the Church which is in his house, there are as you know, the underlying text is different here. It's not just a translation, some sort of translation principle or anything. It is they're translating something different. Over here we have the vast majority of texts are going to say Nemphas and the Church which is in his house. Then there are some scholars that came and pick and choose from a minority of texts and then keep revising it and changing it and changing it and revising it and revising it and changing it and changing it and revising it. And that's what this is built upon over here. And so it's Nympha, the Church at her house. Now, I think again, clearly, let me switch back over here to the young litter also that I don't upset any stomachs there with having to look at the ESP. But I think that obviously there's really not a doctrinal issue here because it's not even saying that Memphis is the pastor. And so just like you have Lydia, the seller Purple and the hospitality that she gave now, she hosted those who are Apostles and others, there wouldn't really be a doctrinal issue here at all. The doctrinal issue is you do have to decide which text you're going to take. Again, I just default to the text that the Church has always taken, the text that is in the vast majority, rather than some Liberal Professor from a Liberal background who doctored up the text and says, let's change it here. I looked in researching this, and I think when you come across the textual variant, especially if you're a full time pastor, you ought to say, okay, well, I should research this and try to figure out what it is. And sadly, I would say probably purposefully as well. Those who hold the keys to all this over here, that is, pardon me to the Youngs, which belongs over here. But those who hold the keys to the critical text, they make it very difficult for the average person to see and understand. I think that's on purpose, I think they want it up on the top shelf and say, we are the scholars. We the scholars believe that, and they use all these abbreviations and Greek letters and things like this to refer to or numbers. The P 39 text says, well, you don't know what the P 39 text is. You don't know if this is good, if this is bad, if it was written in black ink and a teacher put red all over it and red X's and everything else, you have no clue what the P 39 X is. Now, I think that if the scholars over here really want to do their text to service, then bring it down, make it very available, put all those texts there so that people can see and people can examine them. Seems to me like they've got something they want to hide. And most of what they want to hide is that all of these little text came from a trash can in the Vatican. And they pulled him out and said, oh, you know, here, that's the only thing in my trash can right now. Here's the P 39 text. Oh, look, it says she one of the articles I actually read said that likely some what do you call a man who doesn't like a woman, doesn't like women misogynist? Is that the word, or would you say chauvinist? Yeah, some misogynist chauvinist, whatever word you want to use. There some male supremacist that the scholars say some male supremacist came in. He changed this. He changed this. I just say he changed it a lot of times in a lot of different documents there's. We don't want a woman mentioned in the Bible. And you kind of wonder why he didn't go back and change Lydia and some of those others again. So I think Memphis is a man and a Church meets in his house. Now again, we see this three times, at least specifically, I put them on the outline for you. And I think then if you were to get earlier than that in the sect of the Nazarenes, you'd find it even more that the common practice was that the Church was going to meet in the house and this is what we see through there. So in that the Church meets in the house and greet him. Now verse 16, when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read in the Church of the Laodiceans, and that likewise that you likewise read the epistle from layout of SIA. Again, this helps us just a little bit. We believe that it was customary and it would seem customary that when you got a letter from Paul, you read it, you read it from everybody. I remember nobody gets letters today. Very few. We don't write many letters today. But back in the day youngsters people used to write on paper and fold it and stick it in an envelope. And of course every kid loves going to Grandma and Grandpa's house. And when we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, Cheyenne, Wyoming, it was kind of a treat in the midday to walk down the road of the country road and go to the mailbox. Do you know that string of about 15 of those mailboxes in the country road go out there to the mailbox and open up theirs and get their mail and walk back and bring it and we'd give it to Grandma and grandpa and they'd look and say, oh, a letter from, a letter from a letter from and then they would open it up and we would all gather around as they would read the letter here's, a letter from the aunt or the uncle or whatever it is. And there it is. Now I think like that custom, which we don't do much anymore, like that custom. Now we group text, right. But like that custom when you get a letter from Paul, first of all, probably just getting something handwritten like this. Again, it was not so common and every day it was an unusual thing and especially when it's from the Apostle Paul. So I think kind of customary that, hey, you read this, maybe it was customary. Any letter from anybody you're going to read, he assumes they're going to read it. And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read in the Church of the layout of Siens. Now again, it looks like not only from this instruction that's given, but when we read some other passages, it looks like they are first of all, recognizing Paul's Epistles are scripture. Peter uses that word to refer to Paul's Epistles. He calls them scripture or he uses the term along with the other scriptures. So he puts on the same category there. And so this epistle read it, cause that the layout of Siens read it as well. This is what they were doing right in Paul's day. I think they were accepting it as Scripture. Now it says then of interest, these layout of Siens that Ye likewise read the epistle from layout of SIA. Oh, wait. This seems to say Paul has written an epistle to the layout of Seans. And you should I hate Colossians. Make sure you get that letter from Lay out of SIA and read that. Just like they're going to read the one from Colossians. Actually, next week we will begin our verse by verse study of Paul's epistle to the layout of Seans. Wait a minute. We don't have Paul's epistle to the layout of CENs. It's gone. Where is it? I don't know where it is. I don't know what it said. I am not at all thinking that we don't have a complete word of God. Why? Because all scriptures inspired by God and profitable for doctrine, correction, reproduce, training and righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work we've got, what we need it's preserved for us, that we are thoroughly equipped for every good work. So we don't need this epistle from the layout of the scenes. Obviously, it would be interesting. What does it say? I don't know and probably won't until we arrive in heaven. One of the reasons why this is of interest, of course, is because of that revelation letter of the Church at layout of sea and neither cold nor hot. I wouldn't spew you out of my mouth. And it would be interesting that came, I don't know, 30, 40 years later. And we would love to see what Paul wrote about that Church earlier on. I don't see any indication here that he's upset with the Church at layoutacia or angry with the Church at Laodicea. So it looks to me like the Church at Laodicea was not in the state that it would later be in Paul's day. But that's not really surprising. I mean, you think in one sense it was only 30 years. Look what happened to them. But it's hard for you and I to remember 30 years ago, right? There was a different pastor, there was a different set of Church leadership. Things were a lot different 30 years ago in any Church. And so would not be surprising if it changed all that much during that time. Going on to verse 17, say to Octopus, take heed to the Ministry thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfill it. Now here is Archipus. We know that Archipus is the son of Phyleemon from the book of Phyleman. And we again speculate that this family was from Colossey. And all of our speculation is because of a few comments like this that there's enough dots to connect to say hey, it seems like to me they are from Colossey. So he instructs Archipus, take heed to the Ministry thou hast received in the Lord that thou fulfill it. Now, this could be taken negatively or positively, and I don't know which way it should be taken. It could be, hey, you guys, tell Archipus, get with it. He's got to take heed to fulfill the Ministry that he's received from the Lord. Looks like he's slacking off on the job. Could be taken negatively or it could be taken positively. Hey, you guys, when you see Archipus, tell him, keep on, man. Keep on keeping on. We're proud of you. We like the work that you're doing, man, fulfilled this Ministry that you have received in the Lord. So very hard to know how to take that. I think obviously those who are recipients of the letter knew Archipus and they knew the circumstances of the Ministry. They knew how to do that. Now, let's add one further thing to this verse here. There is a teaching in evangelicalism that comes from these words and words like this, the Ministry which thou hast received in the Lord. There is this idea that God calls young men like Archipus into the Ministry and he specifically calls them into a specific Ministry. Now, again, this is such common teaching that you're not even really supposed to question it. But what we do here is question the assumptions. So would this verse support this idea that God selects, maybe Randy, to have a certain Ministry to teach online on Thursday nights from Towers, New Mexico, and to pastor this Church here to this Ministry that I've got that God has called me and selected me to this one thing. Now when you understand it that way, of course. And I understood this way for many years because for many years I was a Southern Baptist. And so when you take it this way, then you begin to say, well, has God called me into Ministry? And you begin to look for some sort of mysterious call into Ministry rather than what Paul tells to Timothy, remember, is if a man desires the office of a Bishop, he desires a good thing. That's what I want to do. That's what I feel good about. That's what I like to do. And we used to talk about people who are the old preachers. They would talk about this in a kind of a negative light of men who were they called it. Mama called and Papa sent, Mama called and Papa sent. And that's the line they would throw in when they're talking about the call from God. Only God can call you into the Ministry. I know. I knew a young man who was Mama called and Papa sent. That is, his Mama wanted him to be a preacher and his Papa paid for it to send him off to College in the seminary. His Mama called and Papa sent rather than God called. Well, I dismiss all that. I don't really think that we have a mysterious call into Ministry. I think if a young man wants to be a preacher, God bless him, let's encourage that in every way. Let's try to train him in every way. Let's try to shape his thinking in every way. But does this promote the idea that you've got to have a calling from God so that you receive your Ministry from the Lord? Well, the Ministry which thou hast received. If we take this particular word right here, which thou hast received, we begin to look at this word here. It is parlambano, it is verb Airest, active, indicative, second person singular. Okay, so verb action errors. It takes place at the point in time. Active, active. That means that it is archipus received it actively received it. That is, you could say archipus this Ministry which you too were the subject doing the verb, you reached out and grabbed that thing, you received it actively, not just passively. I got up one day and I had been made by God, a Minister. It's not that passive kind of thing. You can use this verb in the passive manner. In fact, Matthew, Chapter 24, verses 40 and 41 would be an example of this, that's the passage that says two men are in the field and one is Para lombano taken, one is taken up or received received, the other remains is that in the passive tense. Now, if you take this particular word, for example, again, Para lombano, and let's just look at all the instances of it in the Bible and look at this take received, the word Para Lambano is literally Para to come alongside Lambano, grab hold of. So let's go back over here. Take heed to the Ministry which you came alongside and grabbed hold of, now, took it, received it. It's really two sides of the same coin, if you will. So I think that what you've got here, again in this particular passage of scripture is not anything that really supports the idea of some spiritual mystical calling on Archipus's life. Rather, he comes to Archipus and he says, in a sense, and I'll put this more in the negative way, even though again, it could be in the positive way. In a sense, he says, hey, Archipus, you started the job, finish it. You're the guy that decided to take the Ministry, fulfill it. And again, you could turn that around in a positive way. Say, hey, when you say octopus, you say, man, you took this thing. Run all the way to the finish line. Go for it, buddy. So it can be positive or negative either way. But I don't think it at all supports the idea of a mystical call or the call into Ministry that is often given. Now, again, it is actually against the evangelical rules to talk about not having a call from God. All the evangelicals out there would say, well, he's obviously not called. I used to hold to that. And the problem is when you hold to that, you start looking for, okay, when was my spiritual call? When did this happen? And then the pastor search committee says, Tell us about your call to the Ministry. And you begin to think, oh, you know, well, I was walking one night in the woods and I just felt this great warmth around me. And you begin to, I'm going to say, makeup, make up these spiritual experiences. Now, I can tell you from experience, you don't know you're making up, and it doesn't feel like you're making it up. It's just that the wish becomes the father of the thought. And so because you want to be a pastor, but I can't be a pastor until I have a call. And then one night, sure enough, you're driving through Kansas and, Whoa, I just knew, I knew. And I saw that tractor running through there in the middle of the night that the fields were wide under the harvest. And I was to be a preacher. And you begin to see something mystical that's actually not there. Instead of, why not just the freedom that we ought to give, especially in this dispensation, the freedom to say, hey, if you want a Ministry, take it, do it, and go all the way, fulfill it in the Lord. Ok, enough of that. Let's conclude with the last verse, the salutation by the hand of me, Paul. Paul said in second Thessalonians here, I'm closing this out with my own hands. This is how I close my Epistles. And he doesn't write that in every epistle, in every episode. But I'm convinced that in every epistle, if we were to find the original, we would find that it goes along and then it comes to the end. And all of a sudden, Paul starts writing with his own hand, and he gives his closing at the end. Now, did he do that to show that this is not a forgery? Maybe, but he might have done that just because that's what everybody did. You might have gone. And there was the word that's used is an Emmanuensis. And you would hire an emanuentsis and said, hey, write something for me, because, again, writing with Quill and parchment was not nearly so easy as writing with pen and paper as we would do today. So maybe the writing is not all that good. I want this to look good. You want it to look good. You would go down to the street corner, here's the Emmanuency. You say, hey, here's what I write, dear Colossians. And you begin to tell them. Then the Emmanuency says, okay, you're done? Yeah, I'm done. Would you like to write anything in your own hand? Yes, I would. And you write a few things in your own hand at the end. And that was just custom that almost anyone did, though it could be to prove that it's from Paul. I would also suspect that's probably just customary. That was a customary thing to do in writing any letter. And so he lays that down. And then he asked them, Remember my bonds? Of course, he's in his second imprisonment, as we understand, and he wants them to remember it. Obviously, I think we would say remember in prayer, remember my bonds. And then he closes with those familiar words, Grace B with you. Amen. And with that, we also close out the Book of Colossians. Rightly. Divided in these 13 sessions that we have gone through, I hope that it has been really a deep encouragement to you, as it has to me. About seven years ago, I think it was I did the Book of Colossians. And seven years ago, I was certainly was a dispensationalist and was a right divider. But I was much earlier in the process of understanding right division. And so I knew that I wanted to go through Colossians again. Now here in 2022, we have spent these weeks going through Colossians, and I updated all of my original notes. I'd say 80% of those notes ended up in the delete button, not because they were all so bad. It's just some I elaborated or changed and some of them just said, no, I don't agree with you. I like the bald headed preacher better than the one with hair from seven years ago. But anyway, we learn, we grow. And I hope that this has been a blessing to you as well as we've gone through Colossians. Rightly. Divided. Before I say some Greetings here, in just a moment, we say, well, what are we going to do next? We've got some choices here, don't we? What are we going to do next? You know, when you take the New Testament. I have gone through John is actually the only and this has been fairly recent. It's the only one of the Gospels that I have completely gone through. Obviously, I've done passages from other Gospels, but John is the only one verse by verse. We've done Acts twice, verse by verse. Now we're doing Romans. And this is really about the third time that I am doing Romans. That will be obviously, again in our retreat that I would love to see you at. We've done first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, first and second, Thessalonians first and second Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Hebrews. I would make Hebrews Blues. Take it over there with the Pauline Epistles. We've done all of those. Now, some of those we did not put in the blue letter edition because we came before I started that. I know that Romans is not blue letter, but it will be by the Labor Day conference. First and second Corinthians are not blue letter. Ephesians is not blue letter. First and second, Thessalonians are not blue letter. I think the rest of them let me say this differently. We've done Galatians in blue letter Colossians, First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus and Philemon, all in blue letter. So what comes next? There's a lot, obviously, in the Old Testament, these are not books, let's say one Samuel through Second Chronicles are not books that you normally go through verse by verse. But one of these days we're going to select some of those and go through them. We haven't. I've done Ruth verse by verse. It's been a long time for Nehemiah. I have done Esther. It's been a long time for Ezra. It has been forever on Song of Solomon. But I did do that. I did that when I was here. I know that songs we've largely done job we've done. Someday I'm going to hit Proverbs, but not today. Someday I'm going to hit Ecclesiastes, but not today. We've done Ezekiel and Daniel of the major profits. And let's see, I know we've done what Haggai and I've done Zechariah before. I think we did Jonah in those. So that's kind of where we are. Where are we going next? I tell you, I don't know. But I'll know by next week here's where I'm leaning right there to James. I have done James, but I did not rightly divide it. I think that James needs to be taken out of the Church realm and put onto the Jews. Last time I did it, I did it much like I had done first John before. And I went back and redid first John. Last time I did James, I would have taken it as a Fellowship issue within the local Church. And I need to redo James. So that's kind of what I'm thinking. But you have an opportunity to vote. The only problem is I don't have any system for you to vote. So the next few days you put it in the comments section and you can send me an email, all that kind of stuff. I'll take all those together. And by next Wednesday, I'll know what it is. How's that and look forward to all of that. And then I want to come and give Greetings here tonight and say hello, see who's with us before we close out tonight. I always appreciate you joining us on these Thursday nights and the blessing that we often, in fact, always have. So thank you very much. Donald Morgan, South Carolina, I'm glad you're here. Back with us. Donald, good to see you. And Darlene out in Chula Vista, California, thanks for being here. Dr. Mike and Lorna in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, thank you. And praying for you, too, again and your recovery. Crystal Springs, Mississippi, is here. Debbie and Darryl, thanks for being here. Jim and Piedmont, South Carolina, very good to see you. That gets two South Carolinians so far, doesn't it? Here tonight, Neil up in Vulcan, Alberta, Canada. You may be the only Volcanight with us tonight, so we are especially glad you're here. We have Roger in Maryland, Wabasha, Minnesota. You'll just never miss. I mean, all those Bible studies. Yes, I did that. I sure did. I sure did. I sure did do that and went through there and let's see. I lost my place. Yes, sir. Oh, we do have a pool option. Well, get it up and tell me at the end when you get there. Yes. I don't know what they are. So we'll put up the poll option later and see if we can get there things. Let's see. Roger in Maryland, thanks for being here all through all these studies. Jeff in Trinidad, Colorado, thank you for being here. He's going to preach for me one of these Sundays later on in the year. Everett and Debbie in Sholo, Arizona, God bless you. Thanks for being here. He's working on the editing Colossians for us. And thank you for the print version. Linda in Lexington, Kentucky, God bless you. And your right dividing cat. I got in trouble last week because there is more than one right dividing dog. And then I began to think, well, there are some cats that are always with us. They never miss the Bible study. Linda's got one of those little demons. So Linda and her right dividing cat. God bless you. Vina, West Australia, good morning to you on this Friday morning in Australia. Glad you're here with us. Roger and Carol in Fresno, California, thanks for being here today. And Jodi over here has been working on your bulletins all day. So she's cursing your name. No. Excuse me. They order bulletins from Dispensational Publishing for their Church, Hope Now Bible Church, Fresno, California. So we're working on filling that order. Kim in Kansas, good to see you today. I like that comment. Kansas can bring out the Ouija side of a person. No, it wasn't in Kansas. Where was the guy? If you build it, they will come. I only remember corn and so it seems like it should be Kansas. But Kim, thanks for joining us in Kansas. Scott down in excuse me, the Hill Country of Texas. Thank you. Listening on your phone tonight. And I appreciate that. And Susan in Katy, Texas, also listening on your phone looking for the speaker button. She said Chuck and the right dividing dog that Chuck has got in Weatherford, Oklahoma, that dog never listens and probably listens better than Chuck, who knows? But thanks. Sarasota, Florida, glad you're here tonight. Thanks for joining us. John and Bev up in Roberts, Wisconsin, thank you. And Hawthorne, California, Russ, isn't it? Mossy man, thanks for being here from Hawthorne, California. And Ridgecrest, California, coming in right there just before you because I'm going up the list. Ridgecrest, California. Shirley, thanks for joining us. Nancy, there it is. Ed, Nancy, Lisa. And you didn't put your right dividing dog on there, did you? It's because you knew I got in trouble. Forest got me in trouble last week for not including other right dividing dogs and cats. I've got a dog, but she's crazy. I don't know about my dog, I'll say no. But anyway, glad to have you, bill in Tupolo, Mississippi, right now. Thanks for being here. And let's see, Chris and family coming on my way to the Savage lands. That's right. He's on his way to Towson, New Mexico. And I'm glad you and your family will be here this weekend for graduation. Their son Corey is graduating from the John Nelson Derby Academy. During the service Sunday, we're going to have a little graduation presents a diploma. Congratulations to the Giles family, Phil and Dream in Lexington, Kentucky. Thanks for being here. And Jerry down in southwest Georgia, thank you. West Plains, Missouri, is here tonight. Thank you, Edith. I appreciate it. Auburn, Kentucky, the whole family. God bless you. Nicholas in Bolingbrook, Illinois, always with us again, Rodney and Denise as well in Memphis, Tennessee. Oh, good morning to Cambodia. Doctor Tom, good to see you. And thanks for the nice word there. Learning so much. Thank you for teaching us to rightly divide. Well, I appreciate it. And thanks for doing it at the International Baptist Church in always struggle with it. Panam Pen, did I get it right? Panam Pin, Cambodia. God bless you, Tom. And he's a medical doctor who obviously not only knows anatomy and physiology but also philosophy because he comes for some right dividing and putting some thinking into it. Good job. Bless you. And Herb and Cherry coming to us tonight from Houston, Texas, where they're at the MD Anderson complex because Herb has been dealing with an aggressive bladder cancer. We've been praying for him. And a good report here tonight. Let me just see. I read it quickly and I wanted to read it again. Had our first visit at MD Anderson. Really like the doctor, we will return in July or August after his current treatment is finished for Scopes, et cetera. The doctor thought the treatment plan Herb is getting was the best for now. That is comforting. We were reminded that this is a fast growing aggressive cancer, praying that cancer cells will be killed in the bladder and not go through it or spread. Thanks. See you in a few minutes in Bible study. And indeed we do. And thanks for that update that we have. And all of us again are praying for you. Thanks, Herb, for checking in tonight from Houston, Texas, named Anderson. And Eric in Ohio. Good to see you from the Queen City. God bless you. Alex in London. Good to see you. In the middle of the night in London. Thanks for being here. You and your wife as well. Very much a blessing. Let's see. Did I miss anybody? I think I got everybody there and I appreciate that. Let's see. So Nancy says I want to hear Proverbs, but then she says, when was it done? Perhaps I misspoke I have not done Proverbs verse by verse. I am going to do Proverbs one of these days, but I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready yet because it's too hard, that's why. And I got Romans to work on this summer Proverbs. I think there is a mystery in Proverbs that we're not quite getting that we're looking at Proverbs as a bunch of Proverbs. And I suspect that Proverbs is a bunch of prophecy. But I haven't made the connection yet, and that's my assumption, and I'm going to question my assumption. Maybe I'm wrong on it, but one of these days, I am going to dive into Proverbs. It doesn't matter if all of you vote for Proverbs. It's not going to happen right now, because that's going to be one that I've got to be able to say, okay, the other stuff I'm doing has to be easy in Romans. It takes a lot of study to get ready for that one and do the whole book of Romans in a weekend. So we won't do Proverbs yet. But thanks, Nancy. I appreciate that. Neil, have you gotten any comment on the recent worldwide gun grabs? Of course, Neil comes from Canada, and your Sissy over there at the capital has just done a gun grab. I don't know exactly what it was, but I know that he has come for your guns, and this is happening all over the place all the while in Yuval. If I got the story right and again, I haven't been completely on top of it. But if I got the story right, it was a civilian gun that brought down the shooter of the little kids. Looks to me like we need some more guns, not fewer guns. We need guns right on the spot. And honestly, and there has been, of course, I think, some worthy criticism of whatever it was the police were doing and why they were just waiting out there. But even if they had gone in, there's too much weight, when you got children being shot, there's too much weight. And I am one that thinks the safest place you could be is a place where there's a good number of people that are carrying a gun because they're good people and they are skilled people all around us with guns. Obviously, it's not for everybody. Not everybody would feel comfortable carrying a gun. But I tell you what, if a shooter comes into our Church, I want there to be gun carrying people there, and I want them to do their job quickly, because whether it's me or one of my family or one of my Church members that I'm zealous and jealous for, I don't want to have to say, hey, would somebody go called 911 and have them get over here in five or ten minutes, we would all be dead by then. But one man with one bullet can take out a shooter pretty quick. And Furthermore, the gun grab by governments has never ended well. It's always been a self protective thing for the government and in the United States. And we're getting way too far away from this. But in the United States, our forefathers said, never trust the government. And the reason we don't want to give anybody very much power under the US Constitution is because they're crooked and they'll be more crooked after a few years. So don't trust them with anything. That really was the format, and that's why they came first thing out of the bat said, let's make sure that gun ownership is not to be restricted in the United States. Now, I think in many ways the Second Amendment has not been abided by and they have taken away the rights to bear arms. That is such a broad amendment. The right to bear arms should not be infringed, period. It's simple as day. A third grader can understand it, and yet it's happening. Why? Because government wants more power. I don't want government to have more power, whether it's Canadian government or the US government or whatever government is. I think government having more power always means more people are going to die and we don't want more people to die. So I certainly don't need more power. I hope the United States holds true to the Second Amendment. I think it would be good for the world, honestly through that. Okay. Thanks for those questions and comments. Cheers and cheers and all that. Oh, Susan, good for you. Just watch The Rifleman today. What would The Rifleman say about a gun grab? I'm pretty sure I know what he'd say. And even Marshall Torn. Yeah. There was an episode of The Rifleman, which I knew it was. Sorry, I'm keeping everybody talking about all this stuff, but there's an episode of The Rifleman in which Marshall Torrence deputy, the Sheriff, is out of town and he deputizes some leftist Loon while he's out of town. And the leftist Loon says, hey, we got to have a safe town. I don't want to have to deal with any crime or corruption while I'm here. So the rule is everybody got to turn in their gun when they come into town. You can pick it up on your way out of town. And that was the episode. Guess how it ended? The bad guys came into town and nobody had a gun. That's how it ended. And isn't it amazing that Hollywood did that? Obviously, this was back in the Hollywood did that. And the clear message was you take in the guns, you're putting people in danger. That's why you should watch The Rifleman. Okay. And with that, though, Nathan, does my computer have sound or not? Yes, it does. It does. Okay, good. Oh, it's not connected to the Internet, though. Okay. That's the problem I was having. I was going to play The Rifleman theme song for you, but we won't be able to do it tonight. Sorry about that. Let me leave us in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for your watch. Care over us again for another opportunity to go through the book of Colossians again to understand it so much more this time to see the blessing of this book when we take it rightly divided and the richness that it has for us and the mystery that is ours under which we live. Dear heavenly Father and so many direct insights and incidental insights that we have pulled through this along the way. We look forward to next Thursday night when we begin a new study and pray for wisdom and making that decision. Dear heavenly father and in addition to all of the other studies that we're doing and broadcasting biblical and theological worldview questions that were answering and just pray that you would bless each one who's so faithful to come to Bible study whether it's here live on Thursday night or they're joining us later at another time through the archives. It's a blessing, dear heavenly Father, to be able to come once again study the word of God and learn the word of God with these who join around this great big electronic table that we sit around tonight and to be blessed by the fellowship we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I'll be back on ask the theologian in the morning 10:00 a.m. Mountain time. If you can join us then again Sunday morning 945 or 1045 for all the mysteries of the Bible, it's been good to be with you as we begin the month of June. God bless each one of you and thanks for pushing the donate button every now and then@randywhiteministries.org. But now it's time to go and so we will see you soon. You take care. God bless.