Sam it and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome tonight to Bible study. Glad that you are able to join us from Taos, New Mexico, to across America and around the world, wherever it is you are. We're going to do some Bible study tonight and I'm excited about that. Always fun to open up the word of God, here we come to, what is it? Session number 34 in the book of Romans. You've got an outline at Randy White Ministries and Worship. I right below the video there if you'd like to take access to that. Or it is now just by the hair of my chinny chin chin. Just barely got up to the connect site and it is on there and you can follow along. This is surprising. We've got verse four through 21. That's a lot of verses for us and only two pages of outline. You'll find out why later. But some good stuff in Romans chapter twelve as we jump in and begin to look at it tonight. Hey, let me just give a little word of announcement before we get and that is that Branson is just around the corner and we are going to be talking about right division issues and answers. I'm excited about how right division solves the Calvinist dilemma and it solves the charismatic dilemma, the prophetic dilemma, the mystical dilemma, some of these dilemmas that are out there, they're real things in the Christian faith. How do you harmonize this thing is what we're going to be talking about. And a right division is the way and we're going to talk about what right division is, how it solves these dilemmas. And then we're going to look into all of the word. That right dividers are hyper dispensationalists, they're ultra dispensationalist and they are heretics. We're going to hear what they have to say and take it to heart, see if it's right, wrong, indifferent, whatever it is. We'll make a good working definition of right division. We'll talk about some of the different forms of right division, like mid acts or acts 28. Take a look at some of those, compare them to acts two. It'll be fun. It will be broadcast, but you'd rather be there and have the fellowship. But if you can't, I understand. So we'll broadcast it. You can watch live or archived, but there is still room to sign up. As long as I can get a hotel room, I'll get you in there. And right now they still have hotel rooms. So hey, Randywhiteministries.org slash Branson is where you find out about that and that'll be good. Okay, why don't we just switch cameras and get right over here to Romans, rightly divided verse by verse. That's what we will be doing tonight, what we have been doing over again, these 34 sessions. And I guess I said I was going to stop with announcements, but let's see. There we I got one more right here. Got a brand new book coming out for you. You can't get it yet. It will be available at Branson and it will most likely and probably be available online before that. It just depends. We're in crunch time. I got it. It's being printed right now, but getting it on the website and then getting it where we can actually ship it to you and all that kind of stuff may take. But here it is the rightly divided gospel understanding biblical salvation in context. There's yours truly. What do you think? Did we do okay? I don't know. I mean, the only difference is he didn't have a tie because we couldn't find a cartoon with a tie on it there. But the Rightly Divided gospel, I have a series on it online. You can check this out, but it's about the fact that there really is more than one gospel. Check that out. It will be available soon. You can't get it yet, but just around the corner. Now let's get into our scripture tonight. Romans, chapter twelve. We'll begin in verse four in just a moment. We've got the King James right here. We got a little interlinear on this side. We got Young's Literal over this side. I just noticed before I went on that there's something not syncing here. So those verses normally scroll with us. They might not do it tonight. We'll get that fixed on the little bug that is there, but no bug in you. We're going to study. Let's actually just start out here and get that a little bigger for us. Let's start out in verse three, which was the subject last time. It was actually two weeks ago because of the wedding of the interns Madison and Trent that we did not broadcast last week. But here we go. Paul, last time we were together we were in verse three. And in verse three, let me just go ahead and say I had verses one, two and three in green in our right division, color coding. That means that I said this is not actually directly for just the body of Christ. It's actually for the Roman Jews and yet wouldn't do us any harm to apply this. And so he concluded that saying, I say through the grace given to me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. Now I want to just highlight on this because it's going to come up here in just a moment in a different manner. He's going to segue from there into something else. So here we go. God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. What that says is you ought not to think too highly of yourself because God hasn't chosen you from before the foundation of the world made you any special. God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. He's poured this out, he's given it. Now, this is used however you want to interpret it. The words do say that. Every man now, some might say every man from among you doesn't actually say that, but some might say that. But what I want you to really hit is this right here, the measure of faith. He's given the measure, we talked about this last week. Some people got two cups of faith, other people got a cup, other people got a half a cup, other people got a quarter. That's not the way it worked, the measure. That's how he scooped it out and dumped it down, the measure. Now, that is going to apply here in just a moment. And I wanted to give that little review to say, okay, I had this in green, but as soon as we get here into verse four, verses four through eight, I have left in black. Now, black is what I'm thinking. This is stuff that does not directly apply to the body of Christ. Now, in this particular case, it does not apply because it if I can reach down here and get my poster and not lose my microphone there we go. It really only applies in this transition period right here. It doesn't have to do exclusively with this issue over here, but it really is related to a kingdom issue. These individuals are Roman Jews. They are being offered the kingdom, and it's going to apply there. Now, these individual Roman Jews are now part of the body of Christ as well. And so there are some things in verses four and five especially, which are true of the body of Christ. But I would say don't apply it here, apply it in other places where you can find these truths. And there is a clear distinction. Now that's a lot of theology sort of up front. Let me dig in and get into what I'm talking about, and I think that you will understand it as we do. So he comes into verse four, and I want to get that a little bigger. There we go. Comes into verse four. As we have many members in one body, all members have not the same office. Let's put five together. So we, being many, are one body in Christ and everyone members of another. Now, if we just had verses four and five, I would make those blue. But verses four and five are introductory to six, seven and eight. And six, seven and eight, I think, only refers to a particular time period in the body of Christ. And that is, I guess we could call it the apostolic era of the body of Christ, the Pentecostal era of the body of Christ. Now, as we have many members in one body, all members have not the same office. This idea of many members, one body, one head, you can find it in Galatians, you can find it in Ephesians. I think you can find it in the corinthians that is not foreign to the body of Christ. In fact, here we being many are one body in Christ. He doesn't talk about the body of Christ. But this is so close here, I think we would have to say, yeah, that really is descriptive of the body of Christ. But again, the reason I have gone black on it is because I think here, in this instance, it is descriptive of the body of Christ in that day. And something is going to change from that day to this day. So argue with me. Whichever way you want to go, you make this blue because you can find it in Ephesians. And in Ephesians it's definitely talking about us, the body of Christ. I would be good with it and I would go there if it wasn't attached to verse six. So I'm really sort of lumping all of this together here. Incidentally, I should have gone and did not at the beginning, before we even got there. To show that we're in chapters 1212, one through 1514 is the segment here, the overall segment through 1627. And we're talking about Jewish life beyond the temple. And specifically here we are looking at three through 21 in Romans twelve, one through 21. He's talking about daily interpersonal engagement after the temple temple is going to be destroyed. With the foresight of that coming, what shall we, the Jewish believer now do? And he gives some general instructions to be Godly, some specific instructions be your best. How's that? So that is again what we're looking at tonight. Now, to get back over here, here we are descriptive of us today, but I'm lumping it together with what is about to come. So certainly we are many members, not the same office. I don't want you to get confused by the word office here. The Greek word is from praxis. Praxis is a pragmatic word. In fact, we get pragmatism from it. And it is not using the term office in terms of an official position, like an official. It's not using it as in the sense of the office of a bishop, the office of the pastor, the office of the deacon. It is not using it in terms of an official position. Actually, if you look up in the Oxford English Dictionary and study a little bit about the word office, you will discover that in the 17th century, the word office had a much broader meaning than it does now. Now it's kind of used as official business. Remember there was a little bit of scuttle in the last election, I don't know if you remember that or not the last presidential election. And one of the things of the little scuttle that went on is that Joe Biden, before he was inaugurated president, he went about and he would give speeches and press conferences with a little presidential looking podium and a seal on that that said the office of the president elect. And people pointed out there's no such thing as the office of the presidential of the president elect. The president elect is a common citizen. He doesn't have an office. Now here maybe if Joe Biden had known the King James Bible he could have said, well, I'm using it in the sense of Romans, chapter twelve, verse four, where many members have the same office. This is a very pragmatic role. He could have said that if he'd have known his Bible, but that wouldn't take place. So this is using it in the broad 17th century use of the term, not in the official sense of the term that we use it today. So he's not saying, hey, in the body of Christ there are various offices and officers. If you got an office, you got an officer. He's saying different roles, pragmatically. We do different things. Now I think that stands today, you could almost say that's sort of a human condition. There's a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, different pragmatically, different things that we do. So we being many, one body in Christ, everyone are members of one another. Then he comes into verse six having then gifts, the word gifts here. Are we cooperating? There we are. Charisma. Charisma. Catch that. In fact right here you can see it. Charisma. Make that a little bigger for you and you'll be able to see it in verse six. Having then I don't know if I can just highlight that or not. Charisma gifts according to the well, fortunately it's right under there according to the Carisse. Now obviously that's the exact same word, gifts, grace, having the manifestation of grace, having then gifts. Let's come back right over here to the King James again and having then gifts differing. Differing how? Okay, different pragmatic things that you do. These are these gifts, they're differing. But what I want you to catch, having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Now if we were to analyze the Greek here, we would say this is saying there is a grace, one grace given to this individual, another grace given to that individual and the different grace that they have determines the gift or the office that is theirs. Now, I want to contend that this is not the case in today's body of Christ. It very much was the case among Jews who were beginning at the day of Pentecost receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost was coming and giving a different gift, this one to that, another one to this one. And it was a differing gift. Gifts differing a few weeks ago. And you can check this out if you want more information on this. But a few weeks ago in our Unlearn It series, I preached two weeks, I think it's the only topic on the Unlearn It that I spent two weeks on. I spent two weeks talking about unlearning spiritual gifts and I'm going to spend a little more time tonight talking about it because this is the concept here. And it is my contention, has been my contention now for a few years, my contention that we in the body of Christ do not have spiritual gifts today, that we have a singular gift of grace. We have a singular Carisse and the charisma that goes with that, that's it. I don't have a different grace than you have a grace that enables me to preach the word and enables you to be hospitable, whatever it is. We've got the same grace. We're better at some things, we spend more time at some things, no doubt about it. But we do not have these spiritual manifestations according to a grace gift that we have been given. That was part of the Holy Spirit's role in the age of the law. I shouldn't say the age of the law, they certainly were under the law, but let's call it the age of the kingdom offer. That's a sub dispensation, if you will. It was the closing end until the last seven years. But the closing end of the dispensation of the law where God was offering the kingdom to Israel. During this time of the offer of the kingdom of Israel, as Joel chapter two, verse 28 had been fulfilled and the Holy Ghost had come down upon him, the Spirit of promise had come down upon them, and the Spirit of promise gave them gifts that were manifestations, gave it to every single one of those believers. Now, it is again my proposition to you that those spiritual gifts were given to Israel prior to the body of Christ here. He's speaking of these because he's speaking to Israel in the body of Christ. But there's an overlap. So it's the body of Christ portion that he is talking about, that is to say, in a different way, I think spiritual gifts belong to the kingdom. They are manifestations that the kingdom offer is real and is valid. And so he's speaking to these over here at the time that the body of Christ exists. He's talking if we could zoom in on this, you would be able to see this little transition where both exist at the same time. In this time of transition. He is talking to those here on the top side, that is, the Jewish side, the Israel side. So there are these differing gifts. And then he speaks of some of these gifts. He speaks of some of the gifts in other places too. And that's a little bit different list but what about prophecy? If there is a grace given to you to prophesy, he says, then prophesy according to the proportion of faith, the proportion of faith that's been given. You go for it. If you've got the gift of prophecy, prophesy. And he goes on. What about ministry? The word here is Diaconos and has to do with service. Sometimes we've talked about at the waiting of tables? And whatnot if ministry is how God has manifested his grace within you? Then let us wait on our ministering. Now that wait there is used in terms of like waiting tables, not waiting patiently, but serving diligently as a table server because Diaconos very much did have to do with the serving of tables. So if I can say this just a little bit differently, and we would use this more broadly, but if our spiritual gift is waiting tables, then wait like the best waiter there is what he says so you got the Roman Jew, you got the gift of prophesying. Prophesy, you got the gift of ministering. Minister, you have the gift of teaching. Teach pretty basic. Nothing here about how to know if they have the gift of prophecy, how to know if they have the gift of ministry, how to know if they have the gift of teaching goes on. Those that exhort, exhortation them that give, let them do it with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness, he's going through there's about seven here, seven spiritual gifts, spiritual manifestations. Again, nothing about how to know it. And this was one of my in the sermon, if you heard it. The first part of the sermon, one of my bones to pick with evangelicalism is that they have adapted Carl Jung's view of mankind and Carl Jung's view of humanity and of the psyche in order to figure out a spiritual gift. Can you imagine that God gives some sort of spiritual gift that you have to have a pagan psychologist for in order to figure out what your spiritual gift is? And yet all through evangelicalism, if you say, well, how do I know that I have the gift of ruling or that I have the gift of mercy or I have the gift of giving or exhorting or ministry or teaching or prophecy, whatever it is, how do I know I can't figure it out? Well, you need to bow down and kiss the big toe of Carl Jung and then that'll help you to know. Can you imagine such a scenario? I believe, and I think there's evidence in one corinthians that every man hath a manifestation of the spirit. Everyone and he's talking again to Jews. There kingdom people there says, hey, if you are a believer in the Messiah, the Holy Ghost came upon you and gave you a manifestation. Now, I am convinced that those manifestations were displayed immediately, unbelievably, miraculously, unquestionably. Boom. They knew instantly, this is my gift. It wasn't something they had to dig out and study. It was a manifestation. Paul even calls in one corinthians. He calls these gifts manifestations. Manifestations really means made visible. Why is it that in the church today that which is made visible is so impossible to find? I can't see it again. I think many of you, I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't take most of you, if you hadn't been with me a few years and already learned a little bit about spiritual gifts, let me say this a different way. If we were just to plop ourselves down into First Evangelical Church on the corner and say, let's make it a pop quiz that they write down we got secret ballots here. We don't want to raise hands because we know what Evangelicals will do. They'll look spiritual. But let's give everybody out in the First Evangelical Church on the corner a piece of paper. Stand up there and say, now you know how important spiritual gifts are. I want you to take that piece of paper and write down your spiritual gift. Probably be one word. There are very few that are more than one word, so just write that word down. Okay, that didn't take very long. Obviously. Fold the paper up, stick it in the offering plate as it goes by. We're going to see what gifts God has given. How many people would not even turn it in, or how many people would say, wait, I need more time. Or how many people would write a paragraph saying, well, I think I'm good at singing, but I don't really know how many people would say, hey, can you give me like a multiple choice quiz on this? It's a manifestation which means it has been made visible and yet we can't see it. Maybe the reason is because there is no manifestation today because we don't have gifts. That group in the overlap, they had gifts. These are those that have this gift. So I would not apply. Romans chapter twelve, verses four through eight directly to us or even indirectly to us. Now if you want something kind of like this that you can apply, you just say, I got to have application everywhere. Then how about whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. That'd be good enough for me. As they used to say, find a need and meet it. Find a hurt and heal it. Go for it. So he goes through this particular list of manifestations that I don't think we need to look at and say, okay, do I have the gift of exhaustation? What is the gift? If you look at this, let's consider what I have said tonight is really very rare in Christianity. The Catholics for the most part believe that there are spiritual gifts and manifestations today. The Orthodox Christians believe that Eastern Orthodox, the Protestants believe there's in spiritual giftedness. The Evangelicals believe in spiritual giftedness. I think most of my fundamentalist friends believe in giftedness. So it's only a sliver from within the Christian community, this sliver called right division that has any people at all. And I doubt it's even exclusive or uniform here among right division. But those of us who are right dividers, that's about the only place I would venture to say you are going to find someone who does not believe in spiritual gifts today. So if you're out there and someone you just overhear a conversation of someone saying, no, I don't believe in spiritual gifts, then you might say, are you a right divider? Because that's about the only ones there are that divide this out and even I would say again, not even those. So if you agree with me, let me say we are a lonely crowd out here of people who don't believe in spiritual gifts today. We believe God has given one singular grace to all of us and we just got to figure out how it's done, figure out how to do it. We can make those up somehow. Go along. Now another sign that the Christian community is not settled on manifestations of all things is that they change the meaning of them. I have given you I wrote this from my experience as an evangelical, just standard evangelical understanding of these various gifts. I think I've got let's see here. Yeah, here's the outline that I can bring up for you and see if I can get it up a little bit bigger there and turn off all the blue dots. There we go. Again, this is standard evangelical. You look up and say, what is prophecy? They would say, well, prophecy is the ability to speak forth the mind and counsel of God, often seeing as proclaiming truth in a way that builds up, encourages and comforts believers. A really dumb view of prophecy. Ministry serving others within the church, teaching the ability to instruct others in the faith, exhortation, encouraging and urging others to apply spiritual truths, giving a willingness to share material resources generously, okay, ruling the ability to lead or govern within a church with care, showing mercy, extending compassion and kindness especially to those of need. And you get into these various definitions and it would go one after the other in a various change here. On some of them obviously we can figure out. But others you look and say, okay, what is that? So again, my point of view is that we don't have them, that these are black letters, that these are not blue letters, that there are no physical manifestations, miraculous instantaneous. Here it is. And so trying to find our spiritual gift is just going on a wild goose chase. And these verses six, seven and eight especially have sent a lot of people on a wild goose chase just over and over, forever and ever. Here they go on this wild goose chase. And let me say that one of the evidences you don't have spiritual gifts is that by the time you get to the closing epistles of Paul, sometimes called the prison epistles, he doesn't talk about spiritual gifts anymore. He doesn't talk about you've got this grace and I've got another grace. In fact, in Ephesians chapter four, verse seven, he says unto every one of us, we are given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. The measure of the gift of Christ is the same for everyone. The gift of Christ is the measure and we're giving grace according to that measure. We just all have this gift. It is the same gift that we have. So probably we ought to find a kind of pithy way of saying when someone says, what is your spiritual gift? We who are right dividers ought to say something like, my spiritual gift was the gift of salvation that God has given to me by grace through faith, not of myself. That's my gift. Oh no, that's the gift God is giving. But I mean, what's your spiritual gift? No, that's my gift. He gave me this gift. He gave you this gift. We have the same gift. How about that? Isn't this wonderful? In the age of grace outside of the kingdom issues. There we have it. Now, I'll leave it at that because we've had those two sermons on it. We don't want to go on it forever in a day. But as we do think through here, if you're struggling with this, what I would do is take the teachings about spiritual gifts, look at them as manifestations. Ask why it's so difficult for them to be manifest now. Ask why they're only coming up in Jewish contexts. Ask how it is that these amazing and miraculous gifts, even by the time you close out the New Testament, they appear to be gone. And ask why it is that really? It's a very unique and small sliver of time in which there is any discussion of gifts. And it was the time of the kingdom offer from Acts, chapter two, really up until, I suppose you could say, the destruction of Jerusalem, and it's always in a Jewish context, I'm convinced that spiritual gifts are matters of the kingdom. They are, if you will, manifestations of the kingdom for those who are proclaiming the kingdom to their country of Israel. And so they don't apply to us today. Now, beginning in verse nine, there is what I have just called on the outline here, a general set of instructions, nine through 21. And we're going to walk down through this and look at this. But it's not going to take us nearly as long as it would take to go through other verses. And the reason it's not going to take us that long is because these really are very simple, not complex instructions. There's a little bit of a Pauline tradition here that when he writes somewhere in his letters, not all of them, but often you see this somewhere in his letters towards the end, typically, he just stops and gives this bullet list, as I call it, bullet list of things. It's like, hey, I'd love to write a book about this, but I can't. Boom. Let me just give it two, three, four words and he spills it out. And this, in the book of. Romans is that little section. Now, this segment, I think, here's where we have to be careful, beginning in verse nine, again, going down through verse 21, we are people of grace, right? And Paul is the minister of the age of grace. And Paul, as the minister of the age of grace, the recipient of the mystery about the age of grace, he is the one that was given the mystery that now we by grace through faith, are freed from works of the law. As a matter of fact, we are free from the law altogether, wholly and completely, we are free from the law. But here's what we want to be careful with. Would Paul, who is so strong about being free from the law, release us from one set of commandments and put us under another set of commandments? Doesn't really make sense, does it? Doesn't make logical sense. Would you want to argue, hey, Paul, paul, who says we're free from the law, he's given us the Pauline commandments in Romans, chapter four, verses nine through 21. And you could look at this and say, here's Paul's list of commandments. I didn't count them to see how many there were. There's more than ten. I know, but could you come and say, okay, the Pauline commandments are let love be without dissimulation. Well, really the problem here, there is only one that barely, but not really, I think, has an exception here. The entire list of what we've got here is not exclusively Pauline. What he is going to say here, I think you could say, is let's call it Judeo Christian values. These are things that would be accepted as the right way to live under Judaism. They would be accepted as the right way to live under Christianity today in the body of Christ. So these are not exclusive to the mystery. For example, again, right at the beginning, let love be without dissimulation. Now, dissimulation means to hide something or cover it up. So just love, boldly love, clearly. Don't let your love have what do they say over here? Yeah, it uses dissimulation there as well. Don't let it be excuse me, I think I think maybe yeah, youngs. That's what I was thinking. Young's used the word unfeigned. The love unfeigned is literally what it says. It's not camouflaged. It's just plain clear as day there. It a is that new to Paul? No, this is almost Paul saying, let me tell you how to be a good human. This is the foundation of Western society in terms of the social order, if you will, social behavior. This is what you ought to be. And so we ought to look at these things not as some sort of legal list, because as soon as we get legalistic with this, I think we've then gone to here's how we earn our salvation, or here's how we earn our sanctification, or here's how we earn our crowns. All the various things that could be given and instructed on this. And what he's saying is the same thing you would read in the Torah, the same thing you would read in the prophets, the same thing you would read in the Gospels, the same know he and James could get together and they could say this. So this when we come here again, this segment should not be seen as here is the Pauline commands to the way of life. No rather this is Paul saying let me tell you how you ought to live your life and this is how we ought to live our lives. Love without dissimulation. As we think through these, let's try to figure out how we could do them in our lives. How could my love be more obvious? And the other day I probably shouldn't tell the story. How many times do I tell a story saying I probably shouldn't tell the story. Got my tie crooked. The other day I was pulling in the church driveway and there was this old man standing in the driveway kind of a coot. That's a Hebrew word. He is an old cout. Standing there you could tell he is an old cout. I had my window down because I like to drive with the window down when I'm in town anyway and I kind of sort of pulled up. I was waiting for him to move but there was no place to go. I just had to you got to kind of go there and he got over just a little bit and turned around and said a few choice words to me. Honestly, I didn't really say anything because he was out of the way and I could get in where I wanted to get. But I sort of thought fella, you're going to give yourself a heart attack. Don't you all know that if we would quit getting so frustrated and we just start saying I'm just going to start loving people doesn't red, yellow, black and white, I don't care. I'm going to kind of love, let love be without dissimulation. That's not a bad way to live. Abhor that which is evil. Strong words. What we're going to find here other than maybe the word dissimulation there's really no need to dig deep into the Hebrew and do this word studies and the cross references because we know exactly what it means. Paul is shortened to the point on this and we get it. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. That would make a big difference in a lot of people's life, wouldn't it? And that Moses would have said that the prophets say that, jesus would have said that all through the gospels would have said that Peter would have said that Paul says it, James would say it. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Not really Pauline. It is just a general statement. Hey, this is a good way to live. Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love here. Probably unlike maybe the love here it's talking about in your interpersonal relationships, right more within the group. Have a kindly affection one to another. Have some brotherly love. Affection is kind of a visible word. Do something. It's tangible. Do something. Show them you love them. Good thing in honor, preferring one another. This again is talking about hey, right in the group why don't you all take care of each other? I think you all would agree that if you could find a church that preached good doctrine this is one of the things you also want a church that sort of says hey, he could use the money and I could use the worker. I think I'll go for him, whatever it is. In honor you prefer one another. It's a little bit of a natural tendency in life. Just do that. Not slothful in business. Well, I like that one. The word here, by the way, is not just referring to commerce, it's a more general sense of business here and it is, it's actually there. It is one big old gigant word and basically it's not it's two two different words. They've just run together. Spuday is is the we get the word speed, diligent in diligence, not sloth. Basically it says don't be a sloth, get something done, get up and get at it. That's a good way to live. Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. I think you and I agree that we set our attitude towards some things. He says hey, don't be lazy, work hard and be excited about it as you serve the Lord. Good way to live. Again. Not the Pauline commandments. It's just that this is the biblical anytime, anywhere, any dispensation. That's why by the way, beginning in verse nine I put it all in blue. I think we can take it. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. Don't give up, go at it distributing to the necessity of the saints. This is the only thing and this would be shaky ground to try to say this that's the only thing I could get that maybe is kind of Pauline but not really. I mean I think that even the gleaning laws in the Old Testament are a little distributing to the necessity of the saints. Leave some of it there for them here. Probably he is talking about the believing messianic Jews who me at this point being persecuted because they believed in Jesus as Messiah and they had sold everything and given it and the Lord didn't come back and now they were in dire need and Paul was very diligent at taking up offerings for them. If it's specific it would be that but the general idea certainly would be there. And I don't think just because you well, I do I hope I've convinced you because we have a narrow view of the identity of saints doesn't really get us off here. We're off scot free. We don't have to be distributing any to the necessity of the saints. I think you and I would sell them. Well, in humility. We honor one another. If somebody's got a need, we take care of it. We reach out, we try. Given to hospitality. Open your heart up, open your home up. Go to lunch with somebody, be a blessing to someone, give someone a ride. Whatever it is, be hospitable. Pretty good. Decent way to live, isn't it? Bless them which persecute you. Bless and curse not. Okay, you got a little harder here. But once again, isn't this stuff that sounds like the Sermon on the Mount, doesn't it? It's not Pauline. It's not the law. It's not oral tradition. It's just you want some good advice here? You know, I don't know if any of you got a junior high student at home, this would be some pretty good stuff to talk through with them and just say, hey, let me tell you what to do when there's somebody out there who's just out to get you for whatever reason. Why don't you see what you can do? See if you can be a blessing to them. See how this turns out. He's going to speak more to that in a moment. Rejoice with them that rejoice, weep with them that weep. We could put one word here, empathy. To rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep mean care about somebody other than yourself, which is not always easy to do because, man, I got a lot of stuff to do. To stop and rejoice with you, or stop and weep with you. None of these are as easy as they sound, right? And yet they're all easy to understand. We haven't had to really explain any of it. Verse 16 be of the same mind, one towards another mind, not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceit. A whole humility thing here. Verse 17. Recompense no man evil for evil provide the things honest in the sight of all men. Again, that's sort of a love your neighbor as yourself. You don't have to pay them back, but make sure you pay your bills. Be honest in the sight of all men, if it be possible, as much as lith in you, live peaceably with all men. I do kind of like the way he says, if it be possible. And the reason I like that is because even Paul knows that sometimes you try your hardest. It takes two to tango. You can't live peaceably there. But he wants us to try. And then he goes on personal note. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourself, rather give place unto wrath, for it is written he uses an Old Testament phrase here. Normally, an Old Testament phrase, I would say, okay, that doesn't apply to us. And yet here again, this is just general virtue, general humanity philanthropy philanthropy is phylosanthropos loving your fellow man humanitarianism you don't have to pay everybody back just remember vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Okay, give it up to him. Verse 20 therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink. In doing so, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. That's an interesting little phrase. This is probably the one verse in the whole bullet list of good things to do that we might need to say. What? Wait a minute. I mean, the first part is uncomfortably clear. Your enemy hungry, feed them. Remember last night we had that passage if you were in the Mark study? I had a passage from Exodus, and it talked about I'll use the NASB word. It said, if your neighbor's donkey is pressed under a burden, get up and help the donkey. Actually, it wasn't the neighbor's donkey, it was your enemy's donkey. The donkey needs help. Get up there and help. It. Exodus 17. Five. I think I may be wrong. Now, if your enemy's hungry, feed him. He's human, take care of him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. And then he's got this little phrase. And of course, this is a phrase that has made itself into the English world, into the English language. And you could go just about anywhere, I think, and talk about heap coals of fire on his head. The interesting thing is we don't know what that means. If you do it, you will heap coals of fire on his head. There's five or six fairly common interpretations of what this means. There are some who say it's actually a good thing. They say, I don't know that. In fact, I don't think on any of these you really have any robust argument. But there are some who say that in the ancient world, people used to have to gather coals of fire and they would carry them around and that they actually would carry them on their head in some sort of safe way. So basically, it's saying, hey, you're helping them light the fire. If I could put it in a different idiom, you're helping them feed the fish. Excuse me, I got that wrong. You're helping him learn to fish. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Give him a fish, you feed him for a day. So basically, hey, if he's hungry, help him light his fire so he can cook something. Take care of that. I like it. There's others who say, no, this is putting judgment upon them. Which one is it? The truth is, we don't know. We don't have anything to compare it. It's some kind of saying that they were familiar with. And finally, be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good, difficult things to do. But again, wouldn't you agree get to the right screen there. Wouldn't you agree that, hey, it's not a Pauline list part of the mystery. It's just part of humanity. Be a good human. That is what he says. How's that? And that is our Bible study for tonight. And that takes us through chapter twelve. What do we got? 1314, 1516. Four more chapters to go. And these, I might say, we won't breeze through them, but these are the practical chapters and practical chapters tend to be easier for a number of reasons. Like this we didn't have to, again, do the word studies and the cross references, all that. He's just boom. Here it is. The hard part is doing it. I'd love to say hello if you haven't put in a chat, just go ahead and do that now if you don't mind, tell us who you are, where you're from, all that kind of stuff and we will take that. Hey, I just saw Nicholas's question. I'm going to check this because he told me that in the book those verses are shown as green. Well, sure enough they are on mine too. Green, you know, probably yeah, I see when I get into chapter 13, verse one. Probably we should go with green. I'm sorry, I need to correct that. And the only reason is it's obvious in chapter twelve that he is talking to those Roman Jews. I'm going to go blue in chapter 13, verse one. But in chapter 13 he begins chapter 13 saying, let every soul. Well, that's got to be us. I have a soul. You have a soul. I'm a soul. You're a soul. Let every soul. So the word is actually specifically to the Roman Jews. Thank you. I don't know why I didn't catch that earlier, but yeah, make that green. Thanks for catching that. Nicholas in Bowling Brook and want to say thank know I just see another roger said Coles is anthrax. Is that right? Let's see if we can find that fire. Here we go. It may have cut off Thrax. Let's heap Thrax, I suspect. Again, I don't know. It may have the ann in front of it. Somebody confirmed that. Or here, I'll get over here and get where I can confirm that. And let's let's check that out. Let me see here. That is verse yes, anthrachas. Okay. So puts anthracas pueros. We get like pyro pyro pyrotechnics fire coals. Yeah. Anthrax of uncertain derivation. Here, I'm just going to show you what I'm looking at. If I can get it where I can show you what I'm looking at, eventually I can't I am going to turn on Strong's right here and coles strong's. Greek word, number 440. Oh, no, I actually need to okay, I got it right here. I need to go here and hover over that anthrax alive. A cola fire. Okay, there's more. Let me get to the right screen as I go through 500 screens that I've got open. Here we go. The rest of strongs we just have this is Strong's enhanced. Okay. Additional a proverbial expression signifying to call up by favors you confer on your enemy the memory of him, of the wrong he has done to you, which shall pain him as if live coals were heaped on his head. That he may the more readily repent the Arabians call things that cause very acute mental pain burning coals of the heart and fire of the liver. Okay. I'm not sure that I agree with Strong's on that, but all of these every one of the interpretations of heap coals on the fire, one talks about the Arabians, the other one talks about the Egyptians and the various things that they were said, I think it's hard to do. But anyway, yeah, put anthrax on his head. I have to do a word study of anthrax, see how that came from there to here. Okay. Let me say hi. If you haven't said hi, put your name in town. In would love to do so. Like Jim in Piedmont, South Carolina. We got Everett in Sholo, Arizona. Thanks for being here. Oak buffalo. Excuse me. Ozark, Buffalo River. Keith and Deb, thanks for being here. Marilyn and Roger Wabashaw, Tennessee. Thank you for being here. Neil in Vulcan, Alberta. Always good to see you. Debbie in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. Jody and Rich back home tonight. Pensacola, Florida. They've been spending their time here and flight got missed, so they got home a day late, but glad you made it in time for Bible study anyway. Teresa, Jack and Teresa says good evening to all the other Taos Theological Seminary satellite campuses. From Houston, thanks for being here. Bill, good to see you tonight. Cypress, Texas. And Chuck, glad to see you. Thanks for being with us. Out in the panhandle of Oklahoma tonight, I think. Sylvia, good to see you. From Indiana. God bless you. Scott down in the hill country of Texas. We appreciate that. Nicholas, again, in Bowling Brook, appreciate you being here. Lafayette, Louisiana. Thanks for being you know, Herb, I missed your first email. Thanks for sending it again today. And any of you who sent an email, I didn't respond to it's probably because when I get behind on emails, it just is like Katie by the door. So I'm going to respond to yours tonight. The answer is yes. Eric in Ohio, thanks for being here. And Roger, as I mentioned already, the Dispensational Times Bible class online, helping those in Cambodia and others, good to see you. Rodney and Denise in Memphis, Tennessee, look forward to seeing you all and so many others in Branson. Carol in Fresno, California. God bless you. And toby, good to see you tonight from hot hot, oklahoma. I wish you all lived in Taos where it's just so nice. Today was a little hotter. I think we hit 80. Lourdes, good to see you. Our sister from Puerto Rico. Shirley in Ridgecrest, California, always good to see you. Thank you. Cliff in Kitchener, Ontario. Probably not. Hot hot. Hot up there. Is it? Oh, let's see. Jones, I sort of remember where you're from and I sort of forgot too. But glad you're here. Alex in London. Good to see Alex and Terry. Hope you're doing well. Sorry. As I go through Gerard in the kingdom of the Netherlands. God bless you. And Charlie, the keyboard ripper is here. I've never met Charlie the Keyboard ripper, but would you move to Taos? This is what I want to know. I know it's piano playing because I see the little icon and I want a piano player, a good one. A keyboard ripper. God bless you. Mike Smithville, Missouri. Glad you're here. Sorry, it's supposed to show me, like, highlight the first time you say something. But for some reason it didn't tonight. So I got to go through and pull these out and figure them. Rosemary, thank you for being here. That may be a first with us. I'm not sure, maybe not. I get some of those mixed up. But. Rosemary. Glad you're here. Annie P. Good to see you. Thanks also for being here. And Jerry down in Georgia. God bless you. Scott and Georgiana in Jefferson, Texas. They're going to meet us in Branson. Thank you. I agree. Annie P. What is Anthrax? That's super so she says here bore anthrax fire on their head. This is probably one of those cases in which we don't want to commit the etymological fallacy. Anthrax. What it means today is what? Some sort of powdery poison, isn't it? And anthrax then meant a live coal, it looks like. But it's interesting. Lourdes. Yeah, I mentioned that, didn't I? San Juan, Puerto Rico. Oh, Benjamin from Muskegon. Did I do it right? I struggled with that and asked theologian, was it today? I answered Benjamin's question or yesterday? Glad to have muskegon. I think I'm pronouncing muskegon, right? You'll tell me if I'm not pronouncing muskegon, right? I think I started out like muskogen or something like that. I guess you could go with muskagon. But I'm pretty sure it's not muscagon. I'm going with muskegon. I should I should hurry up, shouldn't I? I think I got to the end of the list. I'm sorry if I missed you. Thanks for being here tonight. And we'll be back tomorrow for Ask the Theologian. And on Sunday, both of our Samson and our Unlearned, it series 945 and 1045. Be back. And I'm staying up late getting ready for Branson. Looking forward to seeing all of you there or many of you. All that can get there be a blessing. Oh, God bless you. Benjamin in muskegon. Who says I'm busy helping my Baptist church try to see right division. You are busy. You are busy. But a Baptist church can see right division. I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen on a number of occasions. It really can happen. It's not the easiest. Depending on if it's a fundamentalist Baptist church. It's a little bit easier if it's a denominational Baptist church depends on which denomination. But those are a little bit harder. But it can happen. Among a conservative Baptist, there's enough desire to understand the Word literally that it can happen. But it's baby steps. Baby steps. You can get there. Maybe I'll write a book someday. How to make a Baptist, right? Divider. Let me lead us in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we're most grateful for your blessings and watch care over us and the blessing especially we have of the gift that is ours in Jesus Christ and then the various blessings that are ours, like being able to study the Word as we have now for over ten years on these Thursday nights, gathering together in this great big electronic table. It's always a blessing to see people who gather from around the world and encourage us and take part in Bible study and so many others who join in later in the Bible study watch the archives at another time. And that's an encouragement to us. We pray your blessings upon each one. Pray that I got the word right, and that if not, you would so quickly point out the error using someone who says something or some scripture that we would read or whatever it may be, dear Heavenly Father that we figured out and we instantly change our opinion on it and get it right according to the word of God and the things that we did get right. We pray that we would take those to heart. We ask this asking for encouragement through the Word as we've received tonight. In Jesus name, amen. Thanks again, ladies and gentlemen. I do appreciate you being here and it is a blessing. Yeah, Cliff, you're right. Baptist hardly means anything all over the map. And you are right, so very right. And God bless each one of you. We shall see you soon. Randywhiteministries.org, thanks for those who click the Donate button every now and then. God bless.