Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Bible Study on this Thursday night. It's always so fun to say those words because is I know that we got people who love the word of God and love to come together and take it verse by verse and rightly divided. And that's what we do on Thursday nights. From Towers, New Mexico, to wherever you are across America and around the world. It is a joy to see you tonight. We gather around a great big electronic table. We open up our Bible and we study the word of God. It's what we've been doing for about ten years, all these Thursday nights and always having fun doing it. And many of you have been joining us right from the beginning, and that is certainly a blessing. And I will look forward at the end of the broadcast to greeting those of you who come on and join us. I see. Looks like WABA Shop, Minnesota, first in the room tonight, at least in my end of the chat box. Sometimes those don't always go straight on. But from WABA Shop to Ontario to Fresno to Cypress and all places in between, here we are ready for Bible study tonight. Looking forward to that. Go ahead and say Hi in the chat box. Wherever you're watching, you might be watching on YouTube. You might be watching on Worshippi. You might be watching on Randy White Ministries. If you're watching live, go ahead and put in a little chat. We appreciate that's. Always good to see you. Those of you again who watch later on the archives, we know you're there as well, and we appreciate you. As one person told me today, I'm always lurking. I don't always chat, but I'm always lurking on there, whether live or on the archives. We love the lurkers, too. And thanks for being with us here today for Bible Study as we come tonight, Colossians, chapter three, our 10th time through the Book of Colossians. And our 10th session, that is. And you have an outline available for you. It's at the RWM Connect site. It's there on Worship Eye and Randy White Ministries. Is it there? And yes, all the good places there and ready to go and tell you what, before we get into Bible study, which we will do in just a moment, we will have just a couple of announcements. Here we go. We've got here our newest project coming up soon. I'm going to say four to six weeks. It will be the rightly Divided commentary series. We will have volume one, which will be Titus and Phyleeman. You all were here with us on Thursday nights as we studied Titus and Philemon. Now what we have done in these commentaries is take notes like this and edited them, cleaned up any grammatical mistakes or spelling mistakes. I made anything like that and put it together. We printed at the beginning of Titus in the beginning of Philemon, printed the entire text of the book in the King James with the blue green black letter so that you can get it. That'll be the first time that you have in print. Now you notice, like here on the notes, it says blue tonight, blue all the way through. But many of you are like me, and you print that in black and white. And so it says that in black, but it's blue. But there it is. Titus and Pi layman together in one volume. Coming soon. Not here yet, but coming soon. It's in the layout Department then. We have coming this Sunday, Should Christians Fast? Because you ask series that we started about the beginning of the year. I noticed Nancy said this should be a 52 week series. I think it probably will be because you keep asking questions. They keep getting on there. And so it'll take us through the better part of the year, this kind of fun series we've been going through on various issues, a wide range of issues. This Sunday we're going to talk about fasting. Should you fast? That's May 15 16th. 15th. Let's go for the 15th. Thanks, Madison. May the 15th. If you're watching the archives, May 15, 1045 sermon, Should Christians Fast? We'll look at what the Bible has to say about that from a rightly divided perspective and come to understand that. But tonight we're here for Colossians, rightly. Divided verse by verse. And I appreciate you joining in with us here tonight. And we will look at our typical background of scripture as we've got right here with the King James and make that larger for us here. There we go with the King James in the middle. We've got King James on the right. We've got the Newberry interlinear of the Texas receptus in the middle and color coded for parts of speech. And we've got the Young's literal translation right here. I think we're mostly, if not exclusively, going to look at the King James night. We might have a Greek word or two thrown in there, but let's pick it up. Colossians, chapter three, beginning in verse 18. This is a section as I'm laying it out. It is a section that stands pretty well on its own. You could argue as almost you can anytime when you're talking a dividing scripture up into an outlineable form, which the author himself did not do, as those of you have been with us for a while now. I've been dealing with a little cough, but it's all better, except when it's not. But anyway, I'm feeling fine. All as well. This section, he talks about family and interpersonal relationships. He's going to talk about wives. He's going to talk about husbands. He's going to talk about children. He's going to talk about directly something to the fathers. And he's going to talk about servants in verses 18 through 25. So those we might call it household relationships, especially since servants were not always but very often within the household. So here's those who are under the roof from day to day, and he's going to talk about them. Now, I am setting this apart from the previous verses, verse 17, that we concluded last week where Paul had all the way back from Colossians chapter one and then into chapter two, he had been talking about being complete in Christ. And then as we closed out last week, he gave I think we had six parts of, well, if we're completing Christ, then act like this, act like this, act like this, and act like this, and act like this, and finally act like this. And how shall we respond to being complete in Christ? Now, you could continue that. And I would respect someone who believed that verse 18 is a continuation here. And wives who are completing Christ, act like this, husbands who are completing Christ. Here's how you should act. I have set this aside or set this separate, being certainly an instruction to wives and husbands, families, children, servants who are completing Christ. But I really think this is a truth for anyone, any wife, any husband, any child, any servant. And we'll look at that. Now, you could also argue that we should go on and next week, I may argue myself into this, that we should go on into Colossians chapter four, where he talks about Masters and really continues the wives, husbands, children, father, servants, Masters theme the relationships that go on there. Now all that said, let's jump right into it. He does begin with wives. Why does he begin with wives? Because he begins with wives. That's why he begins with wives. I don't know why he decided to begin with the wives and not the husbands, but he certainly does so and for whatever reason, we accept that and we'll just take it. I would not be surprised if there really is not some let me say this correctly. It's my position that there's no deep and hidden kind of spiritual message in the fact that he begins with the wives rather than the husbands. I think he's just writing. He's certainly under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but the way the inspiration of the Holy Spirit works allowed for the operation of Paul's mental state and capabilities and all that to express itself as well. And so he's writing, he just happens to write about wives first and husband second. I say this because sometimes as a preacher, people sometimes read more into what I said than what I actually ever thought about myself. And they may say, well, he talked about the women first. This is because he had a bad experience once when he was three. Whatever they begin to read so much into it. I'm just going to take the scripture for what it says and look at this and say, okay, this is what it says. So regardless of the order here, we have the instruction to wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband's as is fit in the Lord. A very simple instruction. Submit. The word is Huba Tas. Taso is the rank or the standing Hoopo is to be underneath Hopo TAS. I hate to put it this way because it's not very romantic, but it's kind of in the cement word. It's kind of the picture of an organizational chart. Hoopa Tasso. Here's the one at the top, here's the one under the top, here's the one Taso placed in this position. Here's the one Hoopo Taso underneath this. Submitting. So it's a little bit of an organizational chart. Submit yourself under your husband as it's faith in the Lord. There is nothing in the word submit that implies in any way some kind of inferior status. It only applies the organization. This is an.org chart matter. And so, wives, submit yourselves to your husband does not at all. I know some people try to make it typically Liberals who don't like the passage of scripture. The Liberals will try to take this and say, oh, the Bible looks at women in an inferior fashion. It tells them to submit themselves to their husband, looking at them as they're not a full human being. Well, that's stuff that Paul did not say, what Paul said is, wives, submit yourself unto your own husband's. We're not done yet. We'll get into it. But submit yourself unto your own husband's. That is, wives, the rank that we have in society is that the husband is the head of the household and the wife submits to the husband. And this is the order, the military rank, the organizational chart, whatever it is. Now, I think that even let's use a business organizational charge. There is, I don't know, the CEO. And then there might be the CFO and the COO and all those other letters that are given. There's the President, and then there's the vice President. Now, let's just take American history, for example. Our founding father said, hey, we should have an executive branch. We'll call that guy the President, and we should have a vice President in case the President is incapacitated or deceased. We'll have a vice President. And then every American immediately said, the vice President is an inferior person, right? I mean, that's the way we look at it, right? Well, no, we don't look at it that way. We just say it's a different position. It's not the position of the President or in a business organization. It's not the position of the CEO or in a military organization. It's not the position of the general. This is a different position. It says nothing about the value of the individual. It is simply an.org chart and.org charts tell you who submits to whom. And here it says, Wives, submit yourself to your own husbands. Now, I think that this came about with the fall of man and with the fall of man and the curse. If God doesn't give and we don't follow some kind of an organizational chart here's. What's going to happen. We're going to kill each other. What's going to happen? And I think we see this in society, by the way, take segments of society in which the husband has gone AWOL, he's absent without leave. The husband is gone. He's out there. I don't know if he plays video games, he goes fishing or whatever it is. He's not there. And the wives become the head of the family and the head of society. What happens? I promise you, every single time crime skyrockets. So literally, we'll kill ourselves if we don't take this. And it's because of the fall of man. And I don't like the Calvinist understanding of this, but the depravity that is ours in the world in which we live in, we just have to say, okay, somebody's got to be in charge. How many of you have ever said, there are too many cooks in the kitchen? Now, we say that when we're not even in the kitchen and we might be at the Church business meeting, we might be at the Lions Club or the Rotary or the Pansy Club or whatever it is and might say, hey, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. What we mean is, if we don't get some organization here, we're going to kill each other. Now because there's a Mayor, everybody else in town is inferior. No, because there's a governor. Everyone else in the state is inferior. No, because there's a President. Everyone in the cabinet is some inferior kind of person. They're less than a whole human. Absolutely not. It's just that we in our fallen world have to have some sort of organization. So, wives, Hughasso, put yourselves submit yourselves unto the husband. Now, something interesting. It doesn't just stop there. It says, as it is fit in the Lord. Now, the word as right here is as you will see here. Let's see if I think I can pull it up. It's an adverb. An adverb. Now, let's see if I can look at it in the Greek here. So, wives, Hoopo Tasso is the word here. Subject to yourself, to your own husband as hosts right here. It's an adverb. This modifies. An adverb modifies a verb. It modifies subjecting yourself or submitting yourself. The modification is as it is fit in the Lord. Now is a wife. If the husband says, Honey, I want you to go and jump off a bridge, a very tall bridge, is the wife supposed to say, yes, sir, you are in charge. God would be honored if I follow your lead, I will go and jump off the bridge. No, that is not fit in the Lord. So, wives, submit yourself to your husband's. When, when it is fit in the Lord. When your husband is under Christ, when your husband is walking in the word, when your husband is not calling for something evil. Is this a blanket submission? It would be if it ended right there. Wives, submit yourselves to your husband. We're going to see a blanket submission in a moment, but this is not it. So again, excuse me, this modifies submission that is this phrase right here as it is fit in the Lord does not describe why they're to submit. It describes how they are to submit. Why are they to submit? I guess because Paul said so. That's why. But how are they to submit there to submit in a way that is fitting to the Lord. So again, you've got to look at the various issues that are there. I think by the way, that this goes in all of the organizational charts that God has given us, God has said the husband is the head of the home. God has said the government is the one that draws the sword. The Bible says that the pastor is the Overseer of the Church. All these various things in which he says, hey, there's someone in charge here. But the pastor, for example, being the episcopus, he's the one with the overview, he's the Bishop, he's the Overseer of the Church. Does this mean that the pastor can tell you what you're going to have for supper tonight? No, not at all. And some pastors try to do it. They try to take their authority and overuse their authority, but they don't have that kind of authority. And are you to submit to the pastor when it's not his area of authority? No. Why do we sometimes rebel against the government? We rebel against the government as Christians, because we believe there is a role for the government to take. And when the government decides to take another role, I know that we only know about this through history. Nothing in those current examples. Of course, when the government decides to take another role, we who are good citizens say, too bad, I'm not following that. And there's civil disobedience that comes along. Now if that's true for the government and it may be true for the pastor or we talk in our society a lot about what happens when there's a bad cop out there, when someone from the government, of course, with the authority wielding the sword comes and misuses that we all as a society say, hey, we got to fix this, we got to do something about it. Now, just the same, he brings this how here as it is fit in the Lord. I think we could bring so many things into this, you know, submit unto the citizens, submit unto the government, Church family, submit to your pastor as is fit in the Lord. This tells again not why to do it, but how to do it. Submit as it's fit in the Lord. If the submission that is called for is not fit in the Lord, don't do it. Obey the Lord and not man. And the husband is a man too, right, obey the Lord and not man. As Peter said, to use that a little bit out of context. So here submit. It's just an.org chart thing. It's not a human value thing. It's almost sad that I had to spend so much time on this. But there has been the mischaracterization of this verse, again, typically by Liberals. And by that I mean down at the Southern Baptist Seminary telling you that, hey, this is a Neanderthal kind of position here, that they're just wanting to beat their wives into submission. And there is nothing of the sort here. They know there's nothing of the sort here and that they just want to play on human emotions. So does this say wives are second class? Absolutely not. Does this say that the vice President is second class? Absolutely not. This is an organizational thing in the home. You want a home that works well, why submit to your husband's as is fit in the Lord that takes care of so many things. Now he moves on to the husbands. Then in verse 19, husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them, period. You know, that's nine words in the Greek, I think ten words in the English. And do you know that there really is very little that the Bible gives in addition to this for the instruction of the husbands? I mean, you would think here the husband is the head of the household. You would think there would be at least a chapter on how to be the head of the household. There's ten words in English, husbands, love your wives. Be not bitter against them. Imagine. Well, before I go there, let me say you could add to this a little bit. Husbands love your wives. If you were to read Ephesians chapter five versus 25 through 31, 25 through 31 of Ephesians chapter five, there's about two, maybe three verses that deal with husbands loving your wife. Paul is really talking about the Church in Ephesians 525 to 31. But speaking about the Church, he said Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it. Husbands, you should love your wife the same way as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it. So you should love your wife. So there's a tiny bit of expansion on this. But as I've said before, the direct teaching for husbands or for wives, the direct teaching in the Scripture on how to be a good husband is like maybe one column in your two column Bible. That would be a quarter of a page on a two page layout. A quarter tiny. And do you know that many pastors preach marriage and family sermons over and over again week after week? After the year. We got a marriage and family series beginning now, it's Mother's Day. So the next six weeks, we'll be doing a marriage and family series. Now for the next three weeks, I'm going to be talking about a husband and his role of the husband. Week number one, we're going to talk about husbands, love your wives and don't be bitter. Well, never mind that's everything I got to say, except for the stuff I got from Oprah. So now that I'm done with the biblical stuff, let's do the Oprah stuff, or even worse than that, let's do the Ellen stuff. Right. Like she knows something about this and they begin to make up a bunch of psycho babble. Why? Because it fills the few when really a man and I'm sorry to say a Christian man, but I'll just say a man, a man needs to know this. Love your wives. Don't be bitter against her. That's your job. Love your wife. Don't be bitter against her. That would solve a lot of issues in marriages, wouldn't it? It also would absolutely destroy the whole marriage counseling thing. I hear a lot if you go down to the seminary today and you think they're preparing preachers. No, they got like 10% of their students that are going to be preachers. The rest of them. Well, I'm getting a marriage and family counseling degree. So you mean to tell me you're going to take a couple of years of master level work to learn this? You must be a special kind of stupid to need that much training. It would destroy the industry just to say, husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. There it is. What do you mean to love my wife? Go out and love her. That's what I mean. You need an example. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it. So do that. Just go out and do that. And every now and then puck her up and kiss her on the lips. There you go. Now you're done. Husbands love your wife and be not bitter against them. Now, I think that men this is kind of in the makeup of who they are. And then one of these, because you asked series. I am likely going to do a series on biblical manhood. But one of the things about men is they are sort of hardwired to be an Explorer, to go out there, to push the envelope a little bit, to be a risk taker and to be an adventurer and a discoverer. Then you get married and you find out that the wife is wired just exactly differently. The wife is wired to raise children, to care for the home, to make sure everybody is safe. So here's the husband who's wired to go out there and be dangerous, and the wife who's wired to make sure everybody's safe. And these things don't always work together. And so sometimes the husband is saying, man, I would rather be out there exploring the vast frontier, and here I got to take out the trash and the husband can become bitter. Maybe this might be why I'm not so sure that I won't get myself in trouble, but this might be why, at one point, Paul said, I wish all men could be like me, single, because it wouldn't tie you down, all those kind of things. Now, ladies, I should say it this way. If your husband's there, he doesn't know anything about this. He's not really even sure what that's talking about. Why, but maybe he's heard that after you're married awhile, you can be like, I could be out with the guys tonight. I could be out fishing tonight, I could be out hunting tonight. I could be out building tonight. But your husband, he doesn't know anything about this. I think this kind of gets into manhood and a little bit in the way in which manhood and marriage hood is that word don't always work perfectly together, but nonetheless, we're in a marriage and that marriage takes a priority, takes a priority in a President. And I promise I don't smoke it comes together. But again, a very simple ten word command, love your wives, be not bitter against them. Now, wives, submit yourself to your husband. This is fit in the Lord. Husbands love your wife. Be not bitter against them. I think that what we have here is one of these things that you would look at and you'd say, yeah, I think that pretty much summarizes what is needed right there. Then he goes on and he speaks to the children in verse 20, and he says, Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Now, in verse there's, this little, shall we say, a Disclaimer here submit when it's fitting. The Lord here obey your parents and all things. Now, I think that Paul obviously is assuming versus 18 and 19 to have taken place in a society in which wives submit to their husbands as fitting into the Lord. Husbands love their wives and they're not bitter against them. The children are safe. There's not going to be child abuse. There's not going to be overlording as a father, especially in the disciplinarian in the home, things are just going to be a safe environment for children. Now, if you think about this just a little bit, you've clearly got the husband, the head of the home, the wife under the husband, and the children under the parents. And if you were to look at one Corinthians chapter eleven, of course, this is the same picture that is given. The husband is the head of the household, he is under Christ and the wife is under him. And then the children come. Now, our society in so many ways has really inverted this, hasn't it? It has made this to be parents, obey your children, the children call the shots, the children make the demands upon the home. And this is what the devil always tries to do is flip things in society. Anything that God has said, he wants to turn that exactly opposite, and he wants to make that sound like a good thing. And so we have in our society today these child focused homes, which sounds like such a good thing. We're just all about the children. We just love the children. It's all about the children. And what would you like, little Johnny? How can I help you? How can I serve you, little Susie? What is it you need? And the parents are bowing down to the children. The parents are obeying the children. And children. They are pretty good at getting their parents to obey, aren't they? They know when to throw a temper tantrum. I mean exactly. By the time they're three, they know I need to be strategic at my temper tantrum timing. It's a pretty good line there, isn't it? And they time that temper tantrum boom exactly when it is going to serve them best because they didn't really lose their temper. They planned ahead to say, my smart little three year old brain has a strategy here. I know what I want and I know when I need to ask for it and they're just ingenious at getting what they want. Now, whether it's a temper tantrum or it's those big blue eyes looking at you like a sweet little puppy dog or something that you just can't resist, they know how to get the parents to obey the children. And the word here, unfortunately for children, is children obey your parents in all things. Your parents love you. They love each other. They understand order in our society. Now, again, you don't even have to teach Christianity necessarily to build this kind of a society. Just imagine the difference if our inner cities, for example, wherever you want to go, if our society had husbands who were strong in their understanding of themselves and gave some of that up without bitterness to love their wife and their wife understood, my husband loves me, he would give himself for me and she would say so. Sometimes I think it's the best thing just to let him decide a few things. And I submit to him in all things that are fitting for a wife to do, even leave the Lord out of it. And you could build a great society. The problem is you take, I don't know, Lyndon Johnson's great society and his great society was not to build this wife, husband, children kind of thing. His great society was to destroy all this and literally it's exactly what he's done. He's destroyed all this. And in destroying all that, he destroyed child's minds. He the great society plan destroyed the mind of the child, the future of the child, all these kind of things that we could talk about forever in our society or whatever society that you're in Canada or Belgium or whatever it may be, I imagine you have your own Lyndon Johnson to deal with. So children, obey your parents and all things. This is well pleasing unto the Lord. This is what the Lord likes to see going on. Fathers provoke not your children to anger unless they be discouraged. Now here he swings around just a little bit to say one thing I should say about children being obedient. I should talk to the disciplinarian of the home. Notice his assumption is that the father is the disciplinarian in the home. Now, fathers, he says, provoke not your children to anger. Now notice this little phrase right here to anger. It is italicized which means it's not actually there. If we were to look in the Greek right here, there it is right at the top. Fathers, do not provoke your children, that they'd be not disheartened, okay? The word here is just provoke, as it is in the Young's literal, Vex, Vex, not your children. Okay? Here, provoke not your children. The King James translators have said, you can stop right here if you want, but we think it has provoked them not to anger. Now, they didn't just come and say, let's stick that in there. Anger one. They looked at the context, no doubt, but also the very word provoke does have to do with provoking unto anger or provoking unto strife. And it's somewhat embedded in the word. In verse 21, the word heiress is the word, and if you looked it up in strong, it would say contention to provoke. The root word, excuse me, is contention or strife or wrangling. So erethico is the word which comes from contention. Strife, wrangling. So don't poke a bear. How's that provoke them not to anger, to strife. To contention. Why, lest they be discouraged. Now, this particular word discouraged here, it's one of those words that it does mean discouragement and so much more. The particular word here is, let's see, Mayo, o is or passion or courage. You put the Greek letter Alpha in front of it and it negates it without fierceness. Without passion, without courage. Now think about this. You, as the father, provoke your children. You get them to have strife when there is no need for strife. Contention when there is no need for contention, anger when there is no need for anger. And this just continues on what happens in the end. You take away all their courage. You take away all their fierceness. You take away all their passion. I think that this says something. If you flip the coin over, it says that we as any parent, but certainly as Christian parents, we are to raise children who have some thumbayo in them. They've got some courage in them. They've got some backbone in them. They've got some fierceness in them. They've got some passion in them. That's what we want. One of my fears in our society today and you could consider this in what I would call the feminization of society is we have tried to remove courage from boys. We don't want them to be courageous. We want them to sit in their chair and be quiet. We have tried to remove that passion and that fierceness that is in children. But boys in particular. And we've tried to make them at the Mayo. And there are a number of different ways that you can do it. Provoke, not your children to anger. Maybe one of the ways you can do it is to say, sit down in that chair and read literature all day. Now when that boy grows up, he probably wants to sit there and read literature all day. I'm okay with that. But you do that to the six year old boy, seven year old boy, 810 year old boy. You're going to take away all passion that they ever have. And that boy needs to get out there with some courage. And we're building a society of athumao boys without any thumbayo to them. They have no courage, no passion, no fierceness. I think it used to be. Now I picked this up a little bit, I suppose, more from watching The Rifleman than anything else. But even in my life, I know growing up mostly 70s, there was from time to time a fight that took place out on the playground, in the hallway, whatever. I also know I think we were talking about this at lunch the other day, weren't we? I also know that the teachers would kind of break it up. Madison the other day. Would they do nothing? I said it would depend on whether they like that boy that was getting beat up or not. If they didn't like him, they were kind of slow to make it over there. Stop it, boys. But even though the rule was no fighting, there was some fighting and real fist fights. Give somebody a bloody nose before all this is over. Kind of fighting. Now, I think if you go back even a few more years rather than let me back up, if today a boy gets sent home from fighting, the parents response is what fighting? I think you go back probably even to the even certainly in The Rifleman days. And the response was not what fighting, the response was you got in a fight. Why? I want to know why you got in a fight. Well, because he was treating that girl over there bad. Well, I hope you won, because he needed that lesson. Good for you, standing up for her. Now put some courage into the boys. Okay, so fathers provoked not your children's anger. Now, some of you no doubt lived under fathers who somehow provoked you to anger. My guess is I haven't talked to any of you specifically. But my guess is that if we were to allow somebody to give a testimony here, there's somebody in our audience that would say, you know what? My father provoked me to anger. It was needless kind of thing, a needless sparring that he provoked me to over and over again. And it ended up it took away my courage, it took away my fierceness, it took away my passion. I was so tired of fighting that I just decided, let the world go on. That's not my problem. I'm not going to deal with it and begin to struggle through with all of that. Now, I don't know the best answer to give to you. If you say, hey, that was my father right there, provoked me to rat, I'm sure we got those testimonies and probably some of you could give a very good testimony about what you should do. But I think that when this happens, the problem is have thumale you want to have through mail. I use the slippery Elm. Now I'm going to take the cough drop. The problem with all that is probably better than the coughing is that makes me mumble a little bit. Okay, the problem is at the mail, but you want some female. So if you're a grown adult, I'd say especially a young man. But I think this could be any of you, if you're a grown man and you just say, I got the courage beat out of me. I got the will, the passion, the fight. I left it a long time ago. I would say figure out some way to get it back in because the next generation needs it. You need it, and the next generation certainly needs it. Okay. Getting away from that scripture just a little bit there, then it goes on in verse 22, servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh. That's just what he said for the children. And he comes to it here and same word, obey your Masters according to the flesh. I think this is the recognition that, hey, we all live in this world in which in the flesh again, there is somebody that we're under and what are we supposed to do? Well, as the servants obey your Masters according to the flesh. The word servants there, by the way, the modern translations want to make it slaves. Most of the modern translations will put slaves there. It is the word due loss, and the word due loss certainly can be a slave. The problem I have with slaves and the reason I think that King James chose the word servant is because the European American version, modern version of slavery was not the first entry Roman version of slavery in first century Rome. They say somewhere probably 30% to 50% of the Roman population was a due loss. This would include teachers of high standards, philosophers, physicians, accountants, a lot of brain work. I mean, mental work was done by the Dulas, and it would include also household servant positions. And it would include often those in the military. And it would include even the more brutal kind of servanthood, which might even look a little more like slavery, where someone literally was sold at an auction and they went off and they had to work in the rock pit or whatever it is. That certainly was included. But that was really a kind of a small minority of it. So I think when we hear the word slave, we think 1850s America, and that probably is not what is included here, even though there may again have been a sliver of that. So due loss, what's a due loss a servant supposed to do? He's supposed to obey the master and all things the master according to the flesh, recognizing, hey, there is a captain of your soul who is not the master here of you as the servant master of the flesh, obey them. Again, it doesn't give any kind of Disclaimer here as it does for the wife. It does not for the children, it does not for the slave. It just says obey in all things Masters according to the flesh. In fact, it strengthens it saying, not with I service. If you look at this again, this is the word due loss. Notice that when I mouse over due loss that I service gets highlighted. It's because they've got the same root in them. Here is Dulos service. Let's come down here to I service right here. And the word I service is ophthalmodulia. Ophthalmodulia. Okay. Have you been to the optometrist Ophthalmo service? That is the most literal translation you could get. Not with eye service, that is that you're trying to look busy here. I am just the boss is here. I better move something. Not just with eye service as men, pleasers, but in a singleness of heart fearing God. Okay, here the instruction for the due loss is serve them. They've got the position. However, you got yourself into the due loss. And by the way, Jerry will be in the days of the son of man, they did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that no one entered in an Ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise. Also in the days of luck, they did eat, they drink, they bought, they sold, they planted and built it accidentally reached out and put a button, I pushed a button and some creatures started going on there. Anyway, he would shall be upon the house topping his stuff in the house. Let him not come down to take it away. Excuse me just a moment. There we go. Remember, somebody sent me this link to listen to this pastor right here. And I think they said that it is not something I would agree with. But anyway, so I pulled it up. I hadn't listened to it yet, but we were about to listen to them right here. Okay. Now, very few servants. What I was starting to say, very few servants, very few Dulos were in the kind of position in which you were a Dulos and your children were born into servanthood as well, like American slavery. If you were a slave, your children were born slaves. That very seldom happened in the Roman world. And so to come down here, have this singleness of heart fearing God, knowing however, I got myself into this position where I left off. There was to say, you didn't get yourself into this position by being born there. For the most part, you decided to go there and this will take care of me, whatever. But you got yourself into this position now, live it out, be the Dulos and do it with gusto, with everything you got. And then with that, we come into verse 23. Now, fearing God and whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men. You've got an interpretive matter here. You can put a period and start a new section. As a matter of fact, when I was making the outline tonight, I almost went chapter three, verses 18 through 22 was on instructions for relationships. And then I was going to take verses 23, 24 and 25 and title them something else about doing what you do under the Lord, receiving a reward for right or wrong. And I struggled with it for some reason. You can understand, I think, and then came to realize this is a continuation of the sentence. So beginning in 22 and going through 25, he's talking about the servants Interestingly more than he gives for the husbands. So servants actually beginning in verse 22, servants obey master in all things according to flesh, not with I servants as men pleasers, but with singleness of heart fear in God. And whatsoever Ye servants do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not to men. Now that again, I think I would have done the wrong thing to draw a line across here and separate verse 23 and make it just broad for anybody from verse 22, the very context is serving the Lord, not men. Doing it hardly unto the Lord is what you have here, not just as I servants, men pleasers do it. Hardly do it as unto the Lord, not unto men. Don't be men pleasers. So again, verse 23, I think even though we've memorized this without any context and certainly I think you could argue that verse 23 could be applied to whatsoever you do, whether you're the Butcher of the Baker, the candlestick maker, whatsoever you do, do it hardly unto the Lord. So there's certainly that yeah, okay, we agree with that. Whatever your profession is, do it hardly as unto the Lord. Now that said, however, sometimes by memorizing a verse outside of its context, we skip the context. And the context is servants obey your Masters in the flesh, not just eye service as men pleasers, but do it heartily as you're doing it under the Lord. There's the full context. It's this context of servanthood. Now, if you keep that context going, then versus 24 and 25 begin to make sense knowing who's knowing here. Now if you draw a line after verse 22 and make this just general for anybody, then we'd say, oh, hey, Christian, do what you do heartily Christian, as unto the Lord. Because guess what, Christian, you are knowing that of the Lord, you shall receive the reward of the inheritance. For you serve the Lord Jesus Christ. But he that do it wrong, Christian shall receive the wrong which he hath done. Now, immediately, anybody who knows anything about Grace and the Grace message says, wow, that doesn't sound like Grace. You better serve the Lord and everything you do wrong, you're going to meet up with it. What a Grace message is that? It's not a Grace message at all and it's a messed up message. If you apply it to Salvation. Now, you might look and say, well, why did you put it in blue? Because it's to servants in the body of Christ in the age of Grace. Servants living in the age of Grace. This is applied to them where we would get where we would go wrong with this is just applying this say to the Christian. This applies to the servant. So here's the servant knowing that of the Lord, you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for Ye serve the Lord Christ. Now, okay, you're going to receive this reward. What reward? The reward of the inheritance. Now, what is that? You could, of course, look at the word. Claire Snowmos, we've looked at it before. You could look at the word and say, well, this inheritance that it's talking about. This is the Abrahamic inheritance. God promised Abraham a land and a nation. And that's the inheritance. Certainly there are places and I've given you some scriptures there in Galatians, for example, there are places where the inheritance is in its context, the Abrahamic inheritance. Now, the Abrahamic inheritance, even when Paul argues about it in the book of Galatians, he says that that inheritance is one of promise, not of works. This is one of works. This cannot be the Abrahamic inheritance. Well, that's not works. Yes, it is. Look, he's telling servants to do what you do, knowing that you will receive the reward of the inheritance. That's not based on what you do. No, this is in that context. So what do you do here? What kind of inheritance is it talking about now? I think it's talking about a temporal reward, not a heavenly reward. You can take this out of Salvation. Some would say, well, the inheritance, a Covenant theologian would say the inheritance is the Abrahamic inheritance. And it means that you're going to be a Christian and then you got works based Salvation. You could take that and say, oh, no, this is not about being a Christian. This is about rewards. This is about rewards in heaven. Okay, so you work for rewards in heaven and you'll get those. But man, wait till we get down here. I'll tell you what happens if you don't work for those rewards you shall receive. You're going to get it. I'll show you that in a minute. So clearly you have some problems here. Now, one of the ways around this is you could take and this is thin ice, because I talk a lot about avoiding the etymological fallacy. Etymology is understanding a word based upon its roots, its origin, rather than its usage. The word clay Ross Nomas, its usage is inheritance. Like your mom and dad had something, they die. You got the inheritance of the clay Ross Nomas. The etymology of the word clay Ross Nomas is the lot, the clay Ross pull lots, the lot of the Nomads, the law, the lot of the law. And the judge says, Boom, the law falls down in your favor, the lot of the law is yours. Now, there is a possibility here that Claros Nomas is meant in its etymological form to say, hey, slave, you don't have much say out there, but the law actually is in your favor. Even in first century Rome, there were laws that protected the slaves. And could this be saying, hey, slave, obey your master. Do what's right. Do it for the Lord, not for men and the Lord. From the Lord you'll receive that which the law owes you. The Lord is going to watch over you, is what it says. The slave being obedient, the Lord is going to watch over you. You serve him. He's going to watch and care for you. Now, verse 25, then take that in that regard. Verse 25. But he that doth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he has done. And there is no respective persons. Now, again, if you begin to put this into our Salvation experience or even into our rewards experience and you begin to look at it, then you say, okay, so I think when they shared the gospel with me and I received it, they told me that Jesus Christ was going to forgive me of my sins. And you say, Preacher, is that right? Oh, yeah. He's going to forgive you of your sins. Is that just my past sins? No, it's your past, your present, your future sins. He forgives you of your sins. He removes those from you as far as the east is from the west. But I'm going to get what I deserve because of those sins, right? No, he forgave you of your sins. The word is forgive. He sent them away. Well, if he sent our sins away, how are we going to receive the wrong for which we've done something's wrong here, right. And so we begin to look at or we look at one of my favorite scriptures, two Corinthians, chapter five, verse 19. And we say, hey, preacher, I thought when you shared the gospel with me, you told me that he is not imputing our trespasses unto us. Is that right? Yes, absolutely right. Past, present and future. He's not imputing our sins unto us. Okay? Imputing an accounting word, right? Yeah. He's not counting it towards you. What? Until I get and stand before him and then I shall receive the wrong which I've done. This is the problem. If you get into this whole rewards thing, then it comes back to bite you by the time you get to verse 25. So somehow you have to say, hey, Christian, you have been forgiven of your sins. He has sent those sins away. He is not counting them. You talk to the Lord about the sins and he says, what sins? I died for those sins. I nailed them to the cross. I was done. Except when you get to heaven. And then we're opening up the list and you are going to receive the wrong which you have done. Now, how do you get that in heaven, by the way, you receive for the wrong. It looks to me like you'll receive the just punishment. You receive what you deserve for the wrong. Now, it's not saying sometimes these rewards people, they'll come and say, well, we're rewarded for good works and we receive a Crown. I'm going to have a dozen of them. Some of you are not going to have any at all. We receive a Crown, but there is no punishment for the only punishment is the lack of a Crown. Well, that doesn't say this. This says you shall receive for the wrong. Now, I think if you put this in Salvation in any way, you create a mess. But I don't think it's about Salvation. I think it's a message about, let's say, servants, servants, obey your Masters according to the flesh, not with high services men pleases, but in singleness of heart fear in God, whatever you do as servants do, it hardly unto the Lord, not unto men, knowing that the Lord of the Lord, you'll receive the claross. Nomas, the lot of the law, the inheritance. For you serve the Lord Christ. But he that do it wrong shall receive the wrong for which you have done. And there's no respect of persons in this. Again, this is a law kind of thing. Justice, just like Clay Ros. Nomos, up here, there's no respect to persons. I think what this is saying is the same thing that we see in, say, Galatians, chapter six, verse seven, be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man selleth, that all shall he reapest. And he's saying, Servants, here, God really is going to watch out for you. If you'll just go out there and say, okay, I am just going to be obedient. I'm going to serve my master. He's my master in the flesh. I'm going to serve him. Here I am. I'm in that. Now, by the way, one more thing that we ought to add is here in verse 22, servants, sometimes because we have this overwhelming desire for application, sometimes we like to change servants to employees and we change Masters to the boss. We put in a work situation because that's what we know. Now, there may be, again, some secondary application, but if you got a job that's asking you to do something which is unethical and Godly quit. There's a lot of jobs out there, especially today. Quit and get a new one. You can have a new one before the day is out. I go to a convenience store a lot and they were always known for being open 24/7. Now the sign on the door says no employees were open six to six. I don't think after 07:00, at least in our town. I don't think you can find a gas station that is open. You can't go buy you a Diet Coke, a gas station after sundown, even before sundown. Why no employees out there? Okay, that's an aside. I won't get into politics here, but I'll tell you, I got an email just in case anyone wants a job in Towson, New Mexico. I got an email today. They're looking for two full time employees to be custodians at the rest stop. It's a beautiful location out of Tows, the Rio Grand. George, look it up. It's very nice. And you get $1,000 bonus for being attended at the rest stop. Now all I say is, if you're an employee and you hate your job, quit it and get another one. There's so many out there. Just quit it and get another one. I hesitate to say, let's just try to make this relevant to today in doing that. And then, of course, the more important thing is be real careful drawing the line in making verses 23, 24 and 25 just to be a general statement about Christianity when they are not. Now, with that, we're out of time next week. We'll continue here. I have not done the color coding on this, so that's why it's black. I'm sure it's going to end up blue by next week when we pick up a week from today and we'll pick up here. Masters, give your service that which is just and ties in certainly with all those no respective persons here's the right thing to do and carry that out. So we will do that. And that is our Bible study for tonight. Colossians. Rightly. Divided verse by verse. I'll take a moment in just a moment and give Greetings to you and would love to do it if you haven't given us a chat. If you're watching live. But please do tell us who you are, where you're watching from. Always a joy to see who you are this Sunday, May the 15th at 10:45 A.m. After our Philippian study at 945. Should you fast? We'll look at that one and watch for the rightly Divided Commentary Series. First volume will be Titus and Phyleman. Why Titus and Thy Lemon? Because that's the first volume that I have finished. That's why. And with that now let's come in and give some Greetings and say hello to each one of you. The reason I was looking at my phone is because I got a call from Bob's Gank. Bob and Linda who live in Guadalupita. Many of you have met them because they come to our House Prophecy Conference and they come to our Branson conference, which, by the way, registration is open. And they are like literally right up against those forest fires, the big forest fire you've heard of in New Mexico that's burned like I think 260,000 acres, huge and literally their house is right up against flames there. So we've been praying for them and he called. So I was a little worried there, but I got a text there, says it looks like it missed us for now. So anyway, praying for them because the winds are not blown in a favorable direction for them. Fortunately for Shelley and I and for our Church and our Church family, the winds are in a favorable direction now. Keeping that away, really no telling if the fire has been going a month. I wouldn't be surprised if it's another month or two months before this thing is under control. Hopefully not. But anyway, not a good situation with that forest fire. The best thing we could do is keep it in territory where nobody lives and there's a lot of that out there. So it can burn hundreds of thousands of acres and not burn a barn down. And that's what we wanted to do. Okay. Now let's say Hi to those of you who are here tonight. I'm looking for my button here. There we go. Maybe I pushed the right one. We'll see. Roger in Maryland and Wabasha, Minnesota. Always good to see you. The Benner is excuse me, from Pittsdon. I got my P's and B's mixed up. The Benner is in Pittsdon, Pennsylvania. Always again with us. And Neil in Volcan, Alberta, Canada, always with us as well. Debbie and Darryl and Crystal Springs, Mississippi, good to see you tonight. Everett and Debbie in Sholo, Arizona, thanks for being here. You know a little bit about forest fires, don't you had a big one down there a few years ago. Linda in Lexington, what did you think about the Kentucky Derby the other day, Linda? I don't follow that really all that much, but I understand it was wow. One for the record books. And Linda, I imagine you were on the edge of your seat there. Jody and Rich in Poke, West Virginia, good to see you. Thanks always again for being here with us. Scott down in Rock Springs, Texas, thanks for being here. And we got Chris and family in Forney Texas, Roger and Carroll out in Fresno, California, and Shirley in Ridgecrest, California, thanks for being here. Robin. Indonesia in Memphis, Tennessee, thanks for being here. Eric in Southern Ohio, thanks for being here. I appreciate you. Thanks for the prayers. It's just praying for the fire situation out there. Dr. Tom, good morning to you. Good Friday morning from Cambodia. You're asked that theologian this morning was incredibly helpful. Why, thank you. I appreciate that. In case anyone did not find it incredibly helpful. I'll be back tomorrow. How's that? Alex and Terry in London. Good to see you. Hope things are going well for you in London. And there's Herb and Sherry's cataract surgery was today. See if I can read that. Speaking of cataract surgery, Sherry's cataract surgery and my first treatment procedure went well today. Excellent. I'm glad to read that. We've been praying for her with his bladder cancer treatments beginning and trying to get into Indy Anderson for more options. But that's been pushed off at June 8, I believe something like that. Sherry, glad you're recovered. Probably all patched up and everything tonight. Bill in Cypress, Texas, I always appreciate you. Thanks for being here. And we've got Cliff and Ivelas and Sons in Ontario. Thanks for being here. There we go. Thank you. Somberhardt. I've been wondering where you're from and I see it there. It's a long way across the room. Yakult. I think you all hang on right there. Yeah. If that's how you say it. Yacolt Yacolt. Am I pronouncing it right or is it Yakult? Nothing more embarrassing than not getting the town name right. I get it all the time here. House things out there in Payoff. So Yacolt. Yacolt. Glad you're here. From Washington State. Do you know how to say that? You live up in Spanaway, Jacob? You ever heard of that? Y-A-C-O-L-T. Okay. Washington. We got that part right. Jim in Piedmont, South Carolina. Thanks for being here again. Always isells checking in in Houston, Texas, and the Trasks. Lisa at. Lisa doesn't usually check in separately. Is your mom and dad here? I'll find out in Pueblo, West, Colorado. Thank you for being here. Hey, Bob. Good to see Pastor Bob up in Massachusetts. Made it in tonight. Got the mail delivered and here for Bible study. I appreciate that. Now an awesome place. Chuck Weatherford, Oklahoma, thanks for being here. I appreciate that. Gerard over there in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Grace to you. Glad to see you. Deb in the Ozarks. Hello to all the right dividers. Keith and family in Auburn, Kentucky. Appreciate you. Darlene out in Chula Vista, California. Phil and Dream, also in Lexington with those horses running. Good to see you. Let's see. Shirley, did I already say Hi? I think I did. In Ridge Crest. Edith in Missouri. Oh, no. Vacationing in Dolphin Island, Alabama. Beautiful Dolphin Island down on the Alabama Coast. Wonderful Enid in Longview, Washington. Bringing in the Washington today, aren't we? Let's see. Did I get everybody here now? I think maybe I did. If I didn't, I apologize for that. And thank you very much for putting your Greetings in. Thank you. Here's a question that came in tonight. Is there a tie to the doctrine of post tribulation with Colossians. 318 through 20 in regards to the family? Let's see if we can put that together for a single Ask the Theologian question here tonight. If I can't put it to together tonight. I'll do it by in the morning. How does that sound? Colossians 318 20. That's the passage we're reading. Is there a tie to the doctrine of post tribulation with Colossians 318 through 20 in regards to the family? I would say yes, especially in regards to the husband. Of course. This is the passage that we studied tonight. Post Tribe Christ comes at the end of the Millennium. Some kind of connection, especially as to the husband. I tell you what, Chris, send me a little note and tell me how you're seeing the connection. I'm not seeing the connection, but I have a feeling that you might be on to something. I need to get that missing link. How's that? Okay. I'm good to see you tonight. Thanks for joining in there at the last minute. I appreciate it and appreciate each one of you coming in tonight. Again, sorry about the cough. Eventually the cough drop worked. I guess I should take that earlier. Right. But thanks for being here again. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning and ask the theologian. And then Sunday, the book of Philippians and the book of. Well, excuse me fasting the Bible. Should we fast on Friday? I send out a weekly overview list. Every one of the questions we answered has a link to all the Bible studies. If you haven't been getting that on Fridays and I've done it about three weeks now, I'll do it again tomorrow afternoon. If you haven't been getting that, then just send me an email, Randy@randywhiteministries.org. Say, hey, sign me up for that weekly electronic newsletter. Sometimes it gets lost in spam or something like that, but I'll check and see if I've got you. Nathan's working on a brand new Randy White ministry's website. It'll have a very clear place to sign up for that. Right now, it's not clear where to go, so just send me an email, Randy@randywhiteministries.org, and we'll get you all taken care of. And with that, let me leave this in the word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for the friends and the fellowship that we've had here tonight. And just ask that you would watch over and encourage us and Bob and Linda, with their house in danger, especially that you would give them some extra strength and some protection. And as we in one of these categories, we found ourselves surely tonight. So as husbands, as wives, as children, as slaves, we pray that you would enable us to walk in a manner that gives glory to God, however it may be. And we do trust your heavenly Father, that even though there is an absence or a silence of the direct work of God in our world today, that does not mean that the Lord is not working. And he's working through other people, certainly, and carrying out his goodwill and his pleasure. And he's working in some of the natural laws that he has set in place that the lot of the law will come around. God is not mocked whatever man sows that also shall he reap and we pray, dear Heavenly Father, that even in these days we would be faithful. Knowing that what goes around comes around. And that the Lord has established this means as a way of caring for his children. We rejoice in this in Jesus name. Amen. Well, thank you again, ladies and gentlemen, for being here with us for Bible study tonight. A blessing to have you and hope that you will join us. Maybe tomorrow or Sunday or whenever it is next Thursday night. You take care and God bless you. Bye.