Ep 79 What the Fishers of Men Heard: The Real Calling of Jesus’ Disciples

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories.
Join us as we deep dive intothe historic, religious,
cultural, political andemotional context surrounding
the real lives of real people inthe Bible and the stories we've
all run to life.
Hello and welcome to Real BibleStories.

(00:25):
I'm your host, emma and Ward,and we are joined by my wife,
selena, and our teacher, pastorRyan Brown.
Hello everyone.
So we spent the last 40 minutesalready catching up, so we
don't have any pick-up things totalk about here, necessarily.
But in that 40 minutes I knowRyan told me what we were going
to talk about, but I actuallydefinitely didn't ask him again.

(00:50):
So what are we going to hitthis week?
So?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
we're going to talk about the calling of Jesus'
disciples in a broader sense,Really kind of anchored more on
what Jesus calls Peter andAndrew, James and John and we'll
have Selena read it here in asecond, but it's like what it
means to be called is what we'refolks know.
Yes, so on the forefront, rightwhen Jesus comes to his

(01:15):
disciples and he says you know,come and follow me.
Right On the front, weobviously know what that means.
Like okay, and we take that acertain way.
Like okay, we need to go andfollow Jesus.
And in the general sense thatis correct, right.
So don't think that if you readit that way, you know

(01:36):
previously that you'vecompletely been off base on that
.
But there's a lot more loaded tothat statement that we miss and
there's a lot of beauty thatkind of underlays that one
statement alone and it's goingto.
We're going to dive, likehistorically, within the context
of what is it like for a Jewishboy growing up in Israel and

(02:00):
what?
Or a Jewish boy, what is thesupreme ideal?
Like you know, I asked my.
You know you always ask yourchildren, especially when
they're little, like what do youwant to be when you grow up?
Right, and it's reallyinteresting.
Boys are always kind of thesame I want to be police officer
, I want to be a firefighter, Iwant to be an astronaut, like.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think I want to be a pilot.
No, not.
I think I know I actuallydressed up as a pilot, got a
whole uniform.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
So an astronaut right , same kind of idea Like you
kind of get the same sense,right.
Yeah, my daughter, you know shewas more.
I want to be a teacher, I wantto be a nurse, right?

Speaker 1 (02:28):
What do you want to be, Selena, when you grew up?

Speaker 4 (02:32):
I don't know.
I usually say I want to be youwhen I grow up.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
You want to be what I want to be you, you want to be
me, when people ask you what youwant to be when you grow up.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
No, I just realized I comment like man.
I want to be you when I grow up.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Oh my gosh.
What am I?
What does?

Speaker 3 (02:49):
that mean, I just want to be me when I grow up.
Who else can I other be, youknow, other than me, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Oh, okay, all right, selena, I appreciate that.
I guess that was, I think, acompliment.
I think it was a compliment Ifit wasn't.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
We're just going to move on because we can't have a
mineral counseling.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Oh, we can always pause, but no, so An hour back.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
But the point is is, like you know, you ask little
boys now kind of like what'stheir ideal right?
What's the ideal of what youwould want to be when you grow
up and Jewish boys were nodifferent right.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Oh my gosh, I thought you were going to say like kids
today say something differentthan that.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
No, no, no, I'm talking about Jewish boys in the
first century.
Oh okay, there was no different.
They had that ideal of whatthey wanted to be, but it was
different in terms of what theywere wanting.
So what I want to do first,before we really dive into all
of that, is just have Selenaactually read to begin with, so
we have a context of what we'retalking about to kind of help
set us up here Before we jump in.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
I do want to give like a one sentence like actual
welcome.
So happy to be back in this newepisode.
If this is your first time here, this is a deep Bible study
podcast.
So kind of the expectation isyou're you have a basic
understanding of the faith andnow you're looking for that deep
nuance, look at the Bible, andso that's what we're going to be
looking into as we go into thisstudy.

(04:08):
Sermon notes, or notes for theBible study, are on the church
website and all the links thatyou need to be able to get all
that information can be found inthe description.
So I hope you enjoy thisdiscussion with us as we jump
into what it means to be called.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah, and because it's a podcast, you can always
pause and take notes andre-listen and rewind Absolutely,
and that's one of the greatthings about it.
Yeah, so we're reading fromMatthew, chapter four, versus 18
to 22.
As Jesus was walking beside theSea of Galilee, he saw two
brothers, simon called Peter,and his brother Andrew.

(04:44):
They were casting a net intothe lake, where they were
fishermen.
Come follow me, jesus said, andI will send you out to fish for
people.
And once they left their netsand followed him, going on from
there, he saw two other brothers, james, son of Zebedee, and his
brother John.
They were in a boat with theirfather, zebedee, preparing their

(05:06):
nets.
Jesus called them andimmediately they left the boat
and their father and followedhim.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
All right, Before we keep going.
Where was that?
Did you read from?

Speaker 4 (05:18):
This is Matthew chapter four, versus 18 to 22.
And today I read from the NIVversion so, matthew four, yeah,
all right, I'm here.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Okay, so one of the things about these kind of
stories.
You know, I've been in ministryfor a bit and I've learned a
lot.
I certainly haven't learnedeverything, but I've kind of
narrowed it down to this Ready.
So there are two types ofpeople in the world, those who

(05:50):
like musicals and those who hatethem.
Oh my gosh, and those twopeople generally marry each
other.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Oh my gosh, it's true .

Speaker 3 (05:58):
I wasn't ready for that.
Okay, so you can learn so muchabout somebody by asking them
that question Do you likemusicals?
Because I do and Selena doesnot, right.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
So what's funny about ?

Speaker 3 (06:09):
it is that, like you find, like people who like
musicals, it's like they almostit's just like a microcosm or an
extension of the way they kindof view life and scripture and
all that as a whole.
Right, it's interesting they'rechasing the musical of life,
right, Like we want.
And I guess I would say thisfor the people who don't like
musicals that the very thingthat makes somebody who likes a

(06:33):
musical like it is the samething that makes a person who
doesn't like musicals not likeit.
Okay.
So, like I am somebody who doesnot like musicals, and the
reason why is because that's notreality.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
That's not life, that that is not.
You're telling me the birdsdon't burst into song with me as
I sing what I am saying is thatI've never once in the history
of my entire existence on thisplanet which admittedly is
pretty short in the wholecontext of humanity, but I've
never seen somebody in a casualconversation talking about some
life problem or boy or girlproblem.

(07:09):
Just all of a sudden, break outinto song and a choreographed
dance in public where everybodyis like, yeah, this is
completely normal.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know it makes me cringe it just.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
it bothers me because it's like have you ever been in
band?

Speaker 1 (07:22):
No, I've been in a band but not like band like high
school band, high school band,high school jazz band.
These were things that happened.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Okay, maybe I'm just saying my experience.
I'm like that's not reality,right, yeah, and so the thing
that people who like musicalslike about it is because it's
that way, right, and that's whatthey kind of look for, even
when it comes to, like, studyingthe Bible.
It's like they're looking forthe musical experience, for it
to break out and sound and dance, artistic interpretation of
real pain and real emotion.

(07:51):
But it's not real Pain is realenough for me.
I don't need it to beArtistically interpreted
Artistically interpreted.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
You mean you don't want to sing about your pain,
right?

Speaker 3 (08:02):
And people who don't like musicals.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
it's like my life in two pieces, because that is not,
it is not.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
I'm not saying music, I'm saying musicals.
Okay yeah, sound of music.
High school musical.
High school musical.
What's the show they had?
Yeah, high school musical,right.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, they just brought the show.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, you had that generation that kind of grew up
with that, Like I didn't.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
I did enjoy Hamilton, though.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
All of the Renaissance Disney movies of the
90s.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
So the Disney movies are different because they're a
cartoon, so you're already goinginto it with.
This is Imagination.
Yeah, this is not reality.
Right Interesting, but like you, my wife's favorite movie is
Greece, right, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
And I'm looking at, I'm like what, what?

Speaker 3 (08:38):
This is not how people act right how biker gangs
act.
So my point is this by largerextensions, sometimes when I
read Sort of the narratives inthe Bible.
It's like I'm tracking along thenarrative.
It's not that I'm losing thenarrative, but what I read in
terms of details and way peoplereact and respond, I'm like that

(09:00):
doesn't seem to be reality,like people don't respond that
way.
You know what I mean In thisparticular story.
Right Is when I had felt withfor a while.
Is that okay?
So there's this strangerwalking along the shoreline.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, I'm fishing, I'm working, and this person
says hey, particularly with,like Peter, I mean Peter's
married right.
And with his brother Andrew.
They obviously have a business.
They're trying to make endsmeet, yeah, obligations.
And then he says some strangercomes along and says, hey, come,
follow me and I'll make you afisher of men.
And they're like okay.
And then you just dropeverything they're doing and go.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
You go to John and James they're with their father,
right?

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Imagine ever doing this to your father growing up
where you're working the boat,you're doing a chore, and some
stranger again comes and says,hey, come, follow me.
And they're like, okay,immediately, and then like
there's no repercussions, likeimagine if I came back from the
gym and I looked at my wife andI said, hey, I met this guy in

(10:02):
the gym and he told me to comefollow him and I'll be able to
lift the world, right?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, I'll be able to bench press the earth.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I'm packing up and I'm leaving for a couple of
months to go follow this guy.
My wife would be like let'sstart my training no you're
packing your things to either goto an insane asylum, or you're
packing your things to go find adifferent apartment, or you
know what I mean.
Like you're not staying here.
That's what do you think you'redoing, right?
Yeah, but apparently this youknow, peter and Andrew and James
and John, like that doesn'tseem to be the case and I always

(10:34):
just kind of had thisdisconnect of the reality, right
?
Why, like?
How does this make sense?
You know what I'm saying?
It's like reading a musical andmusical.
Loving people read that.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
No problem with it, cause they're like yeah, this is
that's a musical.
Oh my.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
God, it's an example of a musical where people who
don't like musicals read thatand like we you're right, it
gives like pitch perfect vibes,right Musical people it's about
it.
Does it feel right when I thinknon-musical loving people?
It's like does it make sense,like logically right, and just
kind of where people's minds goright and how they are.

(11:08):
So this is kind of that text.
But what we're going to do iswe're going to kind of dive in a
lot of the context that we tointo this so that by the end for
the non-musical loving peoplewho listen, they're going to be
like, oh okay, that makes sense,right.
For the musical loving peoplethey're going to be like, yep,
that absolutely feels completelyright.
So with that, let's kind of getinto it.
So I like that.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
I like that.
I can't wait for that.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah.
So for those that are listeningnow, go ahead and write a
comment on if you're a musicallover or a musical hater, and
how this podcast episode madeyou react.
I'm interested.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's a, so let's kind of talk about so
the ideal for a Jewish boy inthe first century AD.
Okay, so, just as my son, bothmy sons actually wanted to be
firemen and astronauts, and nowit's scientists.
They want to be scientists.
That's something you matureinto, though they eventually
want to get there.
My youngest is still kind of Iwant to be an astronaut.
I kind of want to be ascientist.

(12:00):
I'm like, well, an astronaut isa scientist but it's also a
pilot, so that's why it's socool, right?
Like?
Besides the point, what wastheir ideal?
Okay, so, a Jewish boy in thefirst century, their supreme
ideal that they wanted to growup to be was a rabbi.
That was the top tier, that wasthe most respected thing that
you can be in that society as arabbi.

(12:22):
Much in the Middle East is thesame way to be a religious
leader.
I can have gas in Iraq.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, it's the same thing, but that's equated to
with real power too.
It's like political influenceand power are very much tied to
religious influence and power.
Well, that would be the samefor their time too, is that?

Speaker 3 (12:37):
if you were a rabbi, particularly a predominant,
well-known rabbi, one to whichyou're part of the Sanhedrin,
that's giving you politicalpower as well.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
It's like those kids that say I want to be president.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean it's kind of thesame, but they're kind of meshed
together, right.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, because in those societies.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
It is meshed together , right.
So like, for example, the highpriest of Israel because they
were under Roman occupation,almost acted as the senior
political leader for Israelwithin that occupation.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Okay, right so but for everybody were they, the
ones who organized, like theJewish exception and all that
that we talked about in priorepisodes.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
They would be the ones who are essentially
lobbying on the half of theRoman prefix.
Who are in charge?
It depends on the kingdom,Because, remember, in Jesus's
day, northern Galilee wasactually there, was a king.
It was the kingdom of Galilee,with that particular time, King
Herod of Antioch, the son ofKing Herod the Great, and Judah,

(13:37):
the kingdom of Judah.
There was another king, butright before, like essentially
before Jesus was born, this dudewas a maniac psycho, was not
effective.
So Rome came in and said we'regoing to put a Roman governor
over that kingdom.
So you gotta remember, when itkeeps talking about Israel
that's actually in the contextof the time when they're writing

(13:57):
the Gospels is actually a verypowerful political statement,
because at the time there wasn'ta united Israel, right, it was
two different kingdoms.
So using the term Israel ismeshing two kingdoms together.
Talking about sovereignty,right, that's a whole different
thing.
But the primary thing was to bea rabbi.

(14:21):
Now, from the ages of six yearsold to 10, all Jewish boys
would go to, essentially,synagogue and they would go to
what you'd call the school ofthe book, school of the book or
the school of Torah, and whatthey would learn there and this
blows of many of our Westernminds what was sorry, what were
the ages that they were going tothe school Six?
years old to 10.
Six to 10.

(14:41):
So, from six to 10, you'regoing to the school of Torah,
school of the book, and in thattime, because most people
couldn't read or write, therewas no printing press yet.
Some Jewish families maybe hada scroll of, maybe a book of the
Old Testament in their home,but generally nobody had that

(15:04):
right.
So the big emphasis was on whatyou'd call the oral tradition,
and what they would do is theywould memorize the entire Torah
in memory, verse by verse, theentire Torah.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, because they read it throughout the year.
They would read a couple versesfrom it, and so by the end of
the year they read the wholething, right From the ages of
six years old to 10 years oldyeah, so by the time.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
But even at synagogue they would be reading it, right
, Sure, but for this particularschool, like B Cendar, kids at
school every day when they dideverything else, they were just
learning Torah but they'rememorizing it, so it was from
start of Genesis 1-1, all theway through at the end of the
Deuteronomy verse by verse,going through the entire Torah.
It was all ingrained in memory,so a 10-year-old right coming

(15:49):
out of that school would be ableto recite the entire Torah,
start to finish right.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
That makes a lot of sense from the perspective of a
lot of the stories in the NewTestament where people seem to
recognize the references thatJesus would be making.
Average people recognize thesereferences whereas, like most of
us today, wouldn't recognizethem without deep study into.
It's like how does this averageperson know that he's quoting
Isaiah?
It's like, well, because theywent to these schools and

(16:15):
everyone had it.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Isaiah is not.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Torah.
Oh, you're right, isaiah is notTorah.
We'll get to it, okay, becausethey were building blocks in
their society, okay.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
So, from six years old to 10 years old.
By the time you graduate theschool of the book at 10 years
old, you had memorized Genesis,Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus
and Numbers, right, the fivebooks, the books of Moses, the
Torah, and it was just memory.
It was.
This is what it says, becausethat was the foundation.
You just need to understandwhat God said as the law is what

(16:43):
you need to do, right?
So, coming out of the school ofthe book at 10 years old, if
you were one of the top students, like the rabbis who are there
observing, would say, yeah,Imran has a brain for this.
He did really well, Like he hadthis all memorized by the time
he was eight.
You know what?
I mean when you're like all,you're the best of the best
within your class.
You would then get selected tocontinue studies into what they

(17:07):
would call the school of Talmud.
Now, the school of Talmud iswhen you go now, memorize all
the history books, so FirstKings, second Kings, first
Annual, second Samuel, firstChronicles, second Chronicles,
the prophets, so all your majorand minor prophet books and your
books of wisdom.
So that's like Ecclesiastes.
You know all the books ofSolomon, proverbs, psalms, etc.

(17:29):
Right, so it's essentiallymemorizing the rest of the Old
Testament.
If you were selected and you'reshown you're proved yourself to
be a good student, right,interesting.
So that would go from the timethat you were about 10 to 13.
Now, at 13, you would have aBar Mitzvah.
This is with the, essentially,you are graduating, you know,

(17:53):
from the school of Talmud andyou're becoming a man.
Now, if you didn't graduate,weren't going to the school of
Talmud you would still have aBar Mitzvah.
But if you were in the school ofTalmud, that Bar Mitzvah took
place in the temple or with aprominent rabbi, if you couldn't
make it there.
So if you think about when, thestory of when Jesus' parents

(18:17):
left him at the temple, well,notice how it was saying that he
was.
Well, he was being questionedand answering and they were
amazed by his answers Jesus.
That is the reason they'rethere is for his Bar Mitzvah.
He's becoming a man in theirculture.
But what that tells you is thatat that time, jesus was in the

(18:37):
school, was graduating theschool of Talmud.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay, so I guess my question is why were his parents
then like confused as to wherehe was?

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Okay, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on
this, but okay, because it wasdangerous to walk the trails
from, like they're coming upfrom Galilee right in the north,
going down into Jerusalem.
You had robbers, you hadthere's danger, right?
Yeah, so the way they wouldmove into caravan is with a
group of people.
You'd have children and womenin the middle, and then the men

(19:06):
would pretty much walk on theflanks and in the front.
Okay, okay.
So Jesus on his way to his BarMitzvah would have been riding
with his mother in the middle ofthe caravan, with the children
and the women.
After his Bar Mitzvah, he's nowconsidered a man, right?
So mama was probably like well,he's not with me because he's a

(19:27):
man.
Now that's Bar Mitzvah.
He's probably with dadsomewhere, walking on the flanks
with the men.
Does that make sense.
Dad was probably like well,yeah, he just had his Bar
Mitzvah, but he's still 13.
Like there's some practicalityof that right.
He's still probably just withhis mother in the caravan.
It was still close enough.
You know what I mean.
We were not like all right,you're 13.
Here's your spear, here's yoursword.
Go join the military, right?

(19:48):
Yeah, it wasn't like that, sothat's why that confusion
happened.
It was that mama was like yeah,he's probably on the flanks with
dad.
Dad's like no, he's still withthe primary caravan with mama.
Does that make sense?
And then they were like three.
That's why it says they getdown there like where is he?
He's still at the temple, right,oh my gosh.
Okay, so I say that becausethat what that tells you is that

(20:09):
because of where Jesus was inthe interaction of that, at his
age you knew that he wasgraduating the School of Talmud.
Okay, and notice how it alsostated that they were amazed by
his answers in that text.
Yeah, that's important becauseafter the School of Talmud so
you remember you already kind ofskimmed off the top.
You know probably 25% of topperformers at the School of

(20:34):
Torah.
Okay, To go to the School ofTalmud.
Yeah.
You're in the School of Talmud,you're graduating.
They then skim off the topagain the top you know 2015% of
high performing students fromthat to go into the next school,
which is the School of Midrash.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
So so your, your level of education was totally
based on your ability to do yourfirst level of education.
Keep going up, yeah Right.
So it's like if you were goodhere, then you keep going up.
If you weren't good, it's likewell off to the fields there.
Well, it gets even worse thanthat.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
So we'll talk about that in a second.
So just track with me for a bit, okay.
But I guess what I'm saying isone of the central pieces, that
when you see Jesus in the templeinteracting with the rabbis and
the priest, and how they'reamazed with them.
that's the author givingcredence to Jesus' intellectual
acumen for Torah.
It is making a rabbinicalstatement about him.

(21:28):
Is that because they were soamazed?
There's an assumption thatbecause they were so amazed that
he was going to move on to theschool of Midrash.
Okay Now, the school of Midrashis from about the ages of 13 to
15 or 16, kind of depending.
But the school of Midrash isyou again oral tradition, by
memory, memorizing thecommentaries of essentially the

(21:50):
entire Old Testament and theTorah.
So it's no longer by memory.
The first five books is theentire Old Testament.
I've memorized in my head.
But now I've also memorized, bythe time that you're graduating
, that you've memorized all thecommentaries of all the
different rabbis throughout theyears.
Wow, and their commentary onthat entire thing.

(22:10):
Just think about this.
You could also say that most 10year olds in that culture
probably knew more Torah thanmost pastors do now.
Yeah.
Right, and by the time you areabout 15 years old in the school
of Midrash.
That's like equivalent tosaying that level is essentially
a master's of divinity, what wecall a master's of divinity now

(22:31):
.
But even now I couldn't quoteto you.
I have notes, I have general, Ican remember Generally the
theology of Carl Barth and TomSequinus and John Calvin and
Martin Luther and Augustine.
I could tell you generallyright, but I can't quote to you
Specifically.
What Augustine says as acommentary on Genesis 3.5.

(22:54):
Yeah, right, that's like thekind of depth that they were at,
right, and of course they're ina culture where that's a
natural thing to in terms ofmemories, that they had,
mnemonics and obviously ways toteach this well, that we're not
used to.
So that's what I'm saying.
It blows our mind, right, yeah,but by the time you're about 15
or 16 years old, you're If youwere selected for all these
schools, right?

(23:14):
So if you make it to the schoolof Midrash, which is the Bible
makes a point that Jesus did, orassumes that because of the
response of the priests and therabbis, at his bar mitzvah, he
was most likely selected forMidrash.
Okay, now at the end of Midrashyou have again there's a
skimming, but it's not the way.

(23:35):
The other previous schools havebeen kind of skimmed.
What happens is all thestudents in Midrash, the rabbis
come down and they intervieweach student and the interviews
were kind of crazy.
Like this is going to soundcomplicated and that's because
it was.
Okay.
So I'm going to just kind ofgive you a couple of examples.
Okay, one of the things thatwere implicit with it was that

(23:57):
they would ask you a questionabout scripture or commentary or
whatever, and you needed torespond to any question.
So, as an example, if I were toask you, emron, what's two plus
two, four, you would say four.
Right yeah, they would beexpected to respond what's two
plus two.
Well, what's the square root of16?

(24:19):
Oh man.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Four, yeah, that's.
The answer is four, yeah, yousee what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, but that's how they would.
That's how you need to respond.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
You respond with a question, so that's why, when
you see a lot of the teachingsof Jesus or interactions.
They can do the jeopardy likewhat is four?

Speaker 3 (24:34):
I don't know.
I feel like that'd be kind ofcheating the well, you probably
just want to get selected, yeahthat's true.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
You're right, I'm talking to a point.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
When you see Jesus use like you, when you see a lot
of his interactions with people, they come and ask him a
question.
You'll often find Jesusresponds with a question.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's.
That's what he probably learnedin Midrash school.
Like that's what you weretrained to do, like that right
you were you respond with aquestion.
That's how rabbis would respondto questions, because they've
gone through all that Does thatmake sense.
That's one.
They would also ask you kind oftrick questions.
So an example what are thethree references to the book of

(25:16):
Deuteronomy in the prophetObadiah's book?

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Okay, so when you're expected to know that okay, but
that's a trick question.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
It's not really a trick question, but it is kind
of a trick question because whatyou would respond, the expected
response to that, would be well, which three references are you
referring to?
Cause, there's actually fourreferences to Deuteronomy and
Obadiah, oh wow.
You see what I'm saying Likehe's testing, does he know that
there's four?
Or is he only?
Just going to give me three.
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
So it's testing their their act for this yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
I failed that SAT test and most did.
Right Now, this is what we'releading to.
Okay, this is this is going tobe what makes what Jesus says
here so impactful.
Okay, in that interview, with abunch of different rabbis
getting interviewed and the theperspective disciple, the

(26:08):
student would go find a rabbi,cause the next step of this,
after you graduate mid rushschool is to go find a rabbi to
be their disciple that you gostudy under you learn a mean
student.
I'm going to go essentially bean apprentice under you and
you're going to teach me.
So you would go to these rabbisand like, well, you know, can I
be your disciple?
And they get.

(26:29):
They get this, have thisinterview process, right?
If they found you unworthy,we'll get to that.
We'll get to that in a second.
What's first actually talkedabout?
If you were accepted?
This is what they would say.
If you were accepted, okay, andthis is well documented, this
is pretty standard phrase, right?
If you were accepted, theywould say come follow me and

(26:52):
spread my yoke.
Okay.
So that was a very common theyoke.
What they meant by yoke is thatthat's like the doctrine, the
teachings, the position of thatrabbi.
Yeah.
So the rabbi's goal was tospread his yoke, to spread his
theology, to spread histeachings.
Right, the disciple were tocome in and learn from him, and

(27:16):
with the understanding that youare here to spread my yoke, okay
.
So I want you to kind ofremember that, because I have a
question, though.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Why?
Why was why?
Did each rabbi have a differentyoke, I guess, slightly
different interpretation?
Once you reached that level ofnuance with the faith and
they're like, why want to spreadmy interpretation of it?
Like, why?
Why was that accepted withinthe culture?
There wasn't like a.
This is the.
It sounds like denominationswithin.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, it could be a little bit of fractionalism, if
you remember, not fraction,faction, faction.
If you remember when we weredoing the Galatians, study right
how Paul warns against factions.
Yeah.
And that's the kind of stuffhe's talking about, but I mean,
I would also say, though, evenin today's Christianity, you

(28:07):
have a bunch of differenttheological systems and camps,
and you have people who arealmost champions for them.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Right.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Like you, there's no shorter podcast that you can go
find.
Talking about by Calvinism isthe proper theological system,
and then another podcast thatsays why the Calvinism is not
the appropriate theologicalsystem.
You still see the same thing, aslong as you're remaining united
under the same Lord.
For us, right?
Yeah, so you still get a littlebit of that, and then that

(28:36):
debate's good, because one ofthe things I think that's
assumed behind all this is onedisciple means student, so I'm
here to learn, right, I'm hereto learn from my rabbi.
I am a disciple, I'm a studentof this rabbi.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
And does rabbi mean teacher?

Speaker 3 (28:50):
I mean more or less.
Yeah, I mean it was obviouslyeluded.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Political stuff Right , but yes, and it's basic
essence.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Yes, it's your teacher, it's your religious
teacher.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Right, okay.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
But I think so.
One of the pieces with that,though, is you would choose that
rabbi, and what he is seeing isessentially are you good enough
, are you worthy enough to be mydisciple, represent me and
spread my yoke across, you know,when you go on to your ministry

(29:25):
.
Essentially, right, that's whatthey were concerned with.
So I want to.
This is Matthew, chapter 11,verse 28 to 30.
So I want you to kind of keepthis in mind, right, remember,
they would say come, follow meand spread my yoke.
Okay, here's an example ofJesus using kind of the same
term.
This is in verse 28, chapter 11, and he says come to me all you

(29:46):
who are weary and burdened, andI will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learnfrom me.
I am a gentle and humble andheart, and you will find rest
for your souls, for my yoke iseasy and my burden is light.
Okay, so you notice how theseare where you find that the
devian sees devian sees as proud.

(30:09):
I mean deviations, deviations,thank you, not deviants, yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
The deviation of Christ.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Okay when you would say come follow me, spread my
yoke, what he instead says comefollow me.
Then he says I will give youRight.
There's all these, there's thisemphasis of what he will give
in the relationship.
Previously, your relationshipbetween a rabbi and a disciple
wasn't that way.
Essentially, what's in it forthe disciple, the disciple.

(30:36):
What's in it for the disciplesthey get to be my student.
Yeah, they're accepted to be mystudent, the fact that you're
here Right, that you get to comestudy and my presence, is my
presence Essentially right, whathe emphasizes instead of so
when he says come follow me andspread my yoke.
He says come follow me, it's toyour benefit, you'll find rest
with me, tired souls will findrest with me.

(30:57):
But then he goes into the yokeportion, right.
So he's following the samemodel, right.
But he says take my yoke uponyou and learn from me.
Take my yoke, take my, mydoctrine, take my teachings,
take my theology and learn fromme.
I am gentle and humble andheart and you will find rest for
your souls in his yoke.
Right, for my yoke, myteachings, my doctrine, my

(31:19):
theology is easy and my burdenfor it is light.
Okay, so you see Jesusfollowing that kind of that same
model, right, how he's callingout to them.
It's a rabbinical saying.
It is a very Jewish rabbinicalsaying that he's giving in that
moment.
So the whole like goal rightFor this rabbi interviewing a

(31:43):
student to come be a potentialdisciple is they're looking at.
Is this individual good enoughto be my disciple or do they
have the ability to beessentially like the?

Speaker 1 (31:56):
rabbi.
I have a question Was Jesusactually?
I don't know if it's anordination process, but Jesus,
was Jesus like an actual rabbiby the state at this point?

Speaker 3 (32:07):
I thought you were going to ask this question
because I taught this to theyouth a couple of weeks ago and
they didn't pick up on this andthey didn't ask this question,
but I did when I was doing mystudy.
So right, what's the quick,good question?
Right, if Jesus was arecognized rabbi, which he was
so.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
He was a recognized rabbi by this point.
So when he walked up on thesemen fishing, they would have
like was he wearing somethingthat would have made it known.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
It would have been known.
I am a rabbi.
That guy's a pick up on some ofthe context behind the story.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah, of this, it was just some dude, some stranger
walking on the shore, Apolitical this is a rabbi leader
Essentially in your communitythat you would have been aware
of.
That you may have, they mayhave in some way like seen him
in some of the school processbefore they fell off this is
happening in Capernaum.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Jesus was from Nazareth.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Oh, but they would have known him.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
I don't think they would have known, necessarily
known him.
I don't think they would haveknown that he was necessarily
supposed to be the king ofIsrael.
Yet, right Cause there's twoelements kind of playing behind
this.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
But they knew he was a rabbi, he would have been
dressed in that way.
Very, very obvious.
It's been recognizable that hewas a rabbi, very very obvious.
And the other question is alsokind of assumes he was alone.
Would he even have been alone?

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Well, this is kind of talking about you.
I think he would have had acouple of disciples by this
point, just based off the factof he was spending time down by
the Jordan with John the Baptist.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
We'll get all of that in a second.
I'm sorry, okay.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
But you do raise up an interesting thing, right?
So if Jesus went to the and Iwas going to say this that Luke
makes the point to talk aboutwhen Jesus's ministry started at
30 years old, right?
Why does that matter?
Because 30 was the age that youwould start your ministry as a
rabbi.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
It would take 10 more years for their school to be
completely complete.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Yeah, so essentially what would happen is because so
the whole idea of theintermittent rabbi like Jesus
was that wasn't unique to Jesus.
Most rabbis were traveling likehe did.
So when you see him movingaround everywhere, traveling and
preaching the gospel, I meanhe's preaching his yoke, right,
he's spreading his yoke, justlike other rabbis were traveling

(34:10):
around spreading their yoke,their teachings, right.
So when it makes a point thatit started when he was 30, that
again is a rabbinical statementthat makes the jealousy that
some of those competing factionsof the society.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
You're the new kid on the block.
Yeah, it makes a lot moreinteresting, right.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
So, when Jesus goes up and starts teaching in the
temple for example, one thatalso is a play that you in order
for you to teach in the temple,you also had to be from the
line of Aaron.
So you know that's story, likewe did it when the adulterous
woman, right.
But then there's also the storywhen he's in their teaching.
He's flipping tables because ofthe money changers.

(34:51):
How is he in there teachingother rabbis and priests in the
temple?
To begin with, you weren'tallowed to do that unless you
were from the line of Aaron.
So why does that matter?
Because Luke and Matthew followtwo different genealogies.
One goes through Joseph, whichis to show royalty, right.

(35:12):
The other goes through Mary andeveryone's like oh, that's him
trying to trace the bloodlineright by blood, because he came
through Mary.
He wasn't a blood child ofJoseph.
He was the only blood he sharedwith anybody was Mary.
I don't think that's the rightanswer.
I think what he's reallyshowing is his rabbinical line
to Aaron, because, aaron beingthe brother of Moses, right the

(35:35):
Levites, he was over the chargeof the temple.
So in order for you to teach inthe temple, you had to be of
the line of Aaron, and thatwould be verified before you
even entered the temple to teach.
So, they would have had toverify Jesus's lineage back to
Aaron, that's absolutely wild,right.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
So that level of nuance.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
But but yeah.
So then he shows up, he's thenew kid on the block.
Okay, yeah, you can teach here,because you're of the line.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
We suck at tracking stuff now, like the level of
accuracy that they had to track.
That stuff is incredible, right.
How they still did it, andthat's why you see it in the
scriptures Like I don't know howto go back 15 generations of in
my family.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
I barely go back three, when Rome destroyed the
temple and 70 AD.
That's why that was such a bigdeal, because all those records
were kept in the temple.
So, the fact that, because thegospel of Matthew in particular,
is in the context of that, sothe fact that he records Jesus's
genealogy was for the, becausethe temple had been destroyed.

(36:31):
Those records were lost.
He says we need to record this,so they understand future
generations, understand hislineage back to not only Aaron
but also Aaron, but also ofDavid to prove that he's a
Messiah, because that was partof the messianic proof.
Right, and I get a questionfrom modern day.

(36:52):
Non believing Jew is okay, sayJesus wasn't a Messiah.
You're waiting.
So waiting for the Messiah.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
How are?

Speaker 3 (37:00):
you going to verify he's a Messiah, because all the
proof that the Bible gives youfor the Messiah has been
destroyed.
So, like that's a whole otherelement.
But my point being is that, orthe other question to this was
then who would have been Jesus'srabbi?
Because if he goes from theschool of the book to the school

(37:21):
of Talmud, to the school ofMidrash, for him to be made a
rabbi, he would have had to havebeen a disciple of somebody.
You see what I'm saying.
Like very quickly, I'll justgive you three options.
There's one that I kind of leantowards.
Okay, one there also could havejust been an unnamed rabbi that
we just don't know wasn'tdocumented.

(37:42):
It didn't matter who his rabbiwas, because Jesus was the
ultimate the rabbi, so it didn'treally matter.
So they don't bother to mentionhis name.
That's one option.
Second option would be John theBaptist, because, if you
remember, john the Baptist was arabbi who was also a priestly
rabbi because he was of hisfather.

(38:03):
Zachariah was one of the prieststhe day of Atonement, that's
when, all right, he had hisfollowing of disciples with him
and by the Jordan.
How much older was John theBaptist?
Six months.
Yeah, you're talking about Johnthe Baptist collecting all of
those followers within about sixmonths ahead of Jesus.
Wow.
Like, not a lot of time.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
Then that doesn't really bring in that case for
John the Baptist, exactly.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
That's exactly it.
Yeah, right so.
But some of the counterarguments to that would be well,
why was Jesus down in theJordan to begin with?
You know, john knew he was like, yeah, they were cousins, yeah,
they had Thanksgiving turkeytogether growing up.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Yeah, thanksgiving, then.
But you know what I'm saying,right, yeah, but they had plenty
of these.
They would have known eachother, right?
But John had all his disciplestoo right?
The third, which is the onethat I tend to lean towards,
that I can be swayed on, but Ithink it was his father, joseph.
Really.
I think his father, Joseph wasthe, ended up being his rabbi.

(39:05):
His father was a stone maser.
So here's the thing with that.
That's true, but because therabbis were intermittent
teachers and they would travel,they would still have to work.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
They would still have to work Jesus also worked Right
.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
So most rabbis had a trade, was like woodworker or
something Mason, it's masonry,carpentry, masonry one of the
two most likely masonry, eventhough everybody associated to
wood but um, like Jesus,probably grew up even in certain
like areas along Galilee.
Yeah.
Like you will see a lot of.
There was a big economic boomthere in Rome, where they were

(39:39):
building a lot of things, a lotof Gentile towns.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
This is fascinating too, because it really kind of
brings in the tithing portion aswell, because if you didn't
have disciples to help fund yourministry, then now you're a
rabbi that's trying to go outand spread your yoke but also
have.
You have to work, and so untilyou have the disciples that are
willing to help fund yourministry, you're out here

(40:02):
working to just eat and stufflike that and then also trying
to teach.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
So it's actually and that's why Paul talks about,
like in Galatians 6, that youneed to pay these teachers, the
rabbis, what you want, becauseif you're not going to be able
to financially support them,they have to work their trade to
make ends meet to be able tofeed themselves.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
And then they can't focus on studying the Word so
that they can teach you.
So if you want to be taught,then you should be and spreading
the hope right.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
So, and that's why I, said Jesus had a.
So generally in this time, likewith the men in particular.
So if this is the supreme ideal, right?
What happens then?
If somebody like Peter who'smarried, who's a becoming a
disciple, or the rabbithemselves are married, or you
know how does that workGenerally?

(40:51):
What would happen?
Because that was the supremeideal?
Men would go commit themselvesto study.
Women would actually run theand do the management of the
business.
They controlled the money.
They controlled, like, theday-to-day operations.
Everyone's like oh, theday-to-day operations are the
home, that's true, but also theday-to-day operations of the
business.
So the men could go committhemselves to study, to be their

(41:12):
ally right.
So the whole point is that, yes,jesus was.
Jesus knew the trade of masonryor carpentry to probably
sustain himself for a bit.
But I don't make any mistakeabout it, because I think this
is a misnomer when you ask whatwas Jesus's occupation.

(41:32):
It was not a carpenter, it wasa rabbi.
There's only two references toJesus being a carpenter or a
mason in Scripture.
One of them is actually inreference to his father.
Isn't this the carpenter's son?
The other one is when he's inNazareth.
They're like isn't this thecarpenter?

(41:52):
But that's also within thecontext of people not knowing
anything about Jesus right, butyou were bringing up, but over
54 times, hold on over 54 times.
it calls Jesus' teacher a rabbi.
Jesus' occupation was a rabbi.
That's who he was.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
That's what he was known as he was a rabbi, but you
were referencing that Josephmay have also been a rabbi, so
gone through all these schools.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
He was probably the rabbi to Jesus.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
That's why we also see what's really the proof text
you're pulling from to makethat argument that Joseph was
also a rabbi?

Speaker 3 (42:29):
It's more, I guess, inferred, particularly because
we don't know a whole lot aboutJoseph, to be honest.
Yeah, I know.
In the very beginning, the wayhe handled Mary in that whole
piece.
Because, mary, being of theline of Aaron, they generally,
if you weren't going to marrywithin the tribe, the Levitical

(42:49):
tribe, from that lineage it hadto be some sort of spiritual
lineage back to it, so a rabbior somebody like that.
So when?
But probably in terms of thecourse of events, joseph
probably just finished hisapprenticeship, as with the
rabbi, and then after that point, because there's that wall

(43:11):
right, there's about a decadebefore you can start being a
practicing rabbi.
So you're still kind of, you'restill a I guess you would say,
an associate pastor.
In a sense You're still doingministry but you don't have yoke
yet.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
You don't get to spread your yoke.
That's for a long time, right.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
That's why, when Jesus is in Nazareth and he
makes that big claim in thesynagogue, when he opens up to
Isaiah 61, he says on this dayit's been fulfilled, and there's
this big uproar and they triedto kill him, right, well, why
was he?
If they're reading the prophetsanyways, that's because he was
already had been identified,before he started his active
rabbinical ministry, as beingprobably somebody who had

(43:54):
already passed apprenticeshipand he was active in the
synagogue in that role untilthat.
Yeah, it does.
But to their they're like well,yeah, isn't this our homegrown
rabbi from Nazareth?
And he's telling us you knowwhat I'm saying.
So that's a lot of the contextof that.
But you see these all throughout, right, I don't want to spend a
whole lot of time on Joseph,because, but Jesus certainly

(44:15):
probably had a rabbi, because hehad to be accepted culturally
as somebody who has a rabbi.
Yeah, right, and not only that,but you also see a lot of Jesus
in his oral tradition.
So there's the written law,then there's the oral law.
Right, jesus held pretty tight.
It's called halakha.
He held pretty tight to orallaw too.

(44:37):
You get that in things likethere's small subtleties, right,
that we miss.
But when he, for example, whenhe blesses the food before he
eats that's oral law.
That's not written law.
That's not Leviticus.
What Leviticus actually says isthat you're supposed to bless
God and give him thanks afteryou eat.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Oh, what you say.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
You're essentially supposed to bless God and say
thank you for giving me a fullbelly.
Thank you for providing for me.
Right, that's written law, orallaw.
Had it that you pray beforeyour meal?
Oh, interesting, and you seeJesus doing that, right?
So there's these smallsubtleties like that that show
him that he is followingrabbinical oral law.
So he's not deviating.

(45:19):
He's not as rogue as I think wetend to think he may be in
terms of.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
The Pharisees make him seem like he's pretty rogue.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
They do because there are certain, Like I said, there
are times where you see himdiverting them.
But the big context for us inthis passage, though, is that,
to the point that you alreadybrought up right, jesus would
have been recognized as a rabbi.
He was dressed as a rabbi.
We completely misrepresent himLike have you guys ever seen the

(45:49):
show the Chosen?
So the way he dressed isprobably not how he looked at
all.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
That's exactly what I was thinking Like in the show
the rabbis are like super.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
I was going to say he probably looked closer to
Nicodemus in that representationthan he did, as the way he's
being portrayed.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Like that's what he would have looked like With the
stones and all that, and wow,well, that's not necessarily the
stones, because those werepriests.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
The priests had the stones, the breastplate, but the
rabbis had the pershaw with thetassels and often the tassels
would be different color ordifferent length you would have
the, so they could like off thestreets like that's a rabbi.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Yeah, oh yeah, you knew a rabbi.
That makes sense too, becausepeople would walk up to Jesus
and just refer to him as rabbi,knowing nothing about him.
He would say something to themand it'd be like rabbi, and it's
like that would make sense,that he would look like a rabbi
of the day, right.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
And nobody's going to give the highest honor in their
culture To just some randomperson.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
To just some guy who's teaching.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, you know what I mean, and we even do that today
.
Right, you could be talkingBible with somebody, and whoever
you're talking Bible with couldbe absolutely brilliant man,
you know your stuff.
Yeah, this is very insightfuland it's good, right, but if
they're not an ordained pastor,you're still not going to refer
to them pastor.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
You're not just going to call them pastor.
Right, it was the same thingfor them Highest ideal right.
I think that the biggest thingI've gathered.
Sorry, go ahead, selena.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
I had a question.
You brought up a priest, sowhat's the difference between a
priest and a rabbi?

Speaker 3 (47:16):
So a priest had to be of the line of Aaron.
They're in Jerusalem with thetemple, right.
Because they were the workersof the ground for the temple,
they handled everything in thetemple, the Levitical rituals,
right.
So Passover, Slaughtering ofthe land.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
How do you become a priest versus a rabbi, though?
If rabbi was this, you gothrough all these schools and
you're selected a few years.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
If you were, of the tribe of Levi.
You were part of the priestlyLevitical line.
Does that necessarily meaneverybody was a priest?
Not necessarily.
I don't know if you guysremember when Pastor David was
doing the episode with John Mark, remember what they called him

(47:59):
Stubby fingers.
He was the stubby fingers andthe way tradition went, because
he was at the tribe of Levi aswas his cousin Barnabas.
So the reason I remember this.
Why was he stubby fingers?
That he chopped off a couple ofhis fingers because of that
deformity that would mean he wasexempt from serving priestly
duties because he didn't want todo that.

(48:20):
It's kind of what thatannotates.
Did that answer your question?

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Billy.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Yeah, and priests, it seems like they stay more local
than they get a specific area.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
They would live throughout the entire land, but
at certain times of the yearthey would all have to go to
Jerusalem and what they would dois for certain duties they
would cast lots of who got to dowhat?
So when you look back and forexample, zachariah in the very
beginning in Luke, when it'stalking about the birth of John
the Baptist and how God comes tohim in the temple because his

(48:56):
wife is also very old, it's kindof like an Abraham-Sara story
and he doesn't believe it, so hegets muted until John the
Baptist is born.
Why is he in the Holy of Holies?
To begin with?
Because he's a priest, but onlyone priest would be selected to
go into the Holy of Holies onthe day of atonement.
They would cast lots.

(49:16):
So essentially they're castinglots.
Who gets to go in the templeand do that duty?

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Draws the shortest straw because you could die if
you did it wrong, but in thiscase.
Plenty of examples in the OldTestament.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
Are they also teaching, though, like rabbis,
or is it more practices ortraditions?
Yes, they would teach too.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
They would teach too, Because it was more on the
synagogue system.
So to understand politically,most of your priests belong to
the Sadducee line of theology.
Most of your rabbis belong tothe Pharisee line, so this is
always.
What's kind of interesting isJesus?

(49:53):
He's always going toe-to-toewith Pharisees, but he was
probably from a Phariseetradition.
He was probably following theteachings of either, like Haleil
, for example, was a big one inhis day.
But you see, he deviates.
Sometimes he gives his owncommentary because he's Jesus.
Right, but Jesus had influence,you've got to remember.
Jesus surrendered allcapacities in his incarnation,

(50:16):
so he had to grow, he had tolearn, just like we do.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
He had to do all the same things that we did, and so
I was going to say that I thinkthe biggest thing that I've
gathered from this is becausewhenever I read the Bible and
Jesus would make these likequippy remarks when the
Philistines would ask somequestion of him or the people
would ask a question or someone,and he'd make all these
references in the Bible, I waslike, oh well, he just knows.

(50:40):
Because he's God.
But then, at the same time, Ialso knew that well, it's like.
Well, he surrendered all hislike godly capabilities so that
he could die on the cross, but Ididn't really think about them.
So why does he know all thisstuff?
Like now, as you're explaining,like this whole system, that he
would have gone throughsomething like 10 plus years of

(51:02):
school.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
It's just not that he knew it, but people he was
talking to knew it.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, so it's like also the general population had
a good understanding.
So you could even have theselevel of discussions with just
the general populace and thenhim going through all the
schools and he would have beenrecognized as someone that had
gone through all these schoolsbecause he would have been
wearing the appropriate attireand people would have recognized
him and that's why they alwaysrefer to him as Teacher or Rabbi

(51:26):
, like off the cuff.
It's not Like even if theydon't know anything about him,
they were because they alreadyknew from what he was wearing.
So it's like this just providesso much, just like a whole other
window being opened of like howto see Jesus, and also it just
kind of spits in the face of allthese like paintings we've got
for summaries.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
On top of them, just making him like a white man with
long hair being that wholething.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
And then on top of that he's usually just wearing
like a white gown, when thatdoesn't make any sense for the
day either, because like, whowas just wearing a white gown
and yet all ever?

Speaker 3 (51:59):
No, he looked more like the Pharisees, as Pharisees
are depicted in a lot of thoseyou know like.
In terms of the media, Jesusprobably looked closer to that
than he did.
And you're right, he wasn't awhite man, right, yeah, At best
maybe Wolf's skin Wearing awhite sheet Right he doesn't?
He also wasn't like he wasMiddle Eastern right, yeah, but

(52:20):
that's like kind of indifferentto me when I'm, it's more of his
robe, his attire.
Yeah would have identified himwith authority in terms of
religious authority, alreadybefore he even reveals himself
to be the Son of God.
They already would have.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
That's the part that like no one in my life has
talked to me about that piecethat like he would have been
recognized as a religiousauthority because of the
schooling he would have gonethrough to be a rabbi.
And we know he was a rabbibecause he was referred to
without prompting or withoutsomeone having prior knowledge
of him as a rabbi.
So that means you know he wasalready kind of dressed in that

(52:57):
garb and that attire it's like.
But people don't talk like that, they like play down.
Jesus is just like a common manunderdog going against the big
guy Right, the Pharisees, theSadducees that are just trying
to put him down.
But he's.
He's here to pick us all up andcarry us to the finish line.
I understand the world he's in.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
He was the underdog, the new guy coming onto the
scene of ministry.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
So when he starts sparring with a high priest and
we talked about that- but it'snot like a guy coming off the
street and then trying to debatesomeone who's a Harvard
graduate.
It's two Harvard graduatesdebating yeah.
No, this is elite schools.
Yeah, because I always look atit as like some guy off the
street.
No, no coming and debating aHarvard graduate.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
like the Pharisees, the Sadducees, but no, it's like
it's two graduates debating andand and and having that there
were certain things right, soJohn the Baptist was the same
way.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
This is an interesting fact but his, and
then also the average person isalso a college graduate, just
maybe not Harvard.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
At least community college Right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
At least community college Bible and knowledge
Right, but they.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
But like John the Baptist, who was also a rabbi,
you know he had this hugefollowing in historically
speaking, like Josephus, forexample, the Roman he was, he
was a Jew, but he was hired onthe behalf of Rome to record the
history of the Jews, his peoplefor Rome.
Right.
So Josephus is always a kind ofa go to historian that people
go to for this stuff.

(54:24):
But speaking of that time, hespeaks more about John the
Baptist than he does.
Jesus, yeah, as a rabbi,because he was, John the Baptist
was well well, well known.
So when it starts talking about, like there's this guy named
John, he was baptizing, his yokeWas the message.
But what was John the Baptist'syoke?

(54:44):
Repent.
The kingdom of heaven is here.
Yeah.
He's spreading his yoke.
Repent.
The kingdom of heaven is here,right, okay, but he was famous
Like he.
Everybody knew John the Baptist, but he was new.
He was just like Jesus, he justgot on the scene.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Was he doing baptism in a new way or was the way he
did baptism he was still in linewith like Levitical, levitical
Lawns?

Speaker 3 (55:06):
I mean a baptism of.
They'd had multiple baptisms.
Yeah, the Miquva's and all, butI'm like it was unique, the
baptism in in the Jordan,baptizing was significant and it
was a baptism of repentance,which is a little different than
that.
Or say like when you were to goin and do a Miquva or a baptism
, or like a sin or a guiltoffering, like you show up to

(55:28):
the temple, you do a baptism andyou go provide a sin or guilt
offering here, he has them allthe way out in the Jordan and
he's having them do these repentbaptism repentance.
Right, without the offeringseparate from the temple, cause
he probably came from theascending community.
We thought the temple was allcorrupt and which they kind of
were yeah, um, but yeah.
So there's this whole thing.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
But my point is, like with John the Baptist, it's
just like just like the temple'snot the point, the repentance
is the point, and he's trying tomake that.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Right, but he he was.
He became popular and he becamethis like rock star rabbi, but
he was new.
So when he spoke out againstKing Herod and that atrocious
situation and Herod goes andtakes his head off, why didn't
again the political authority ofof Israel at the time high
priest and all them step in andsay you don't want to do that,

(56:16):
right, cause even when you seethe kind of behind the scenes
when they go to kill Jesus,they're like this is politically
kind of devastating.
Why didn't he have any of thatcover?
It wasn't just what he wassaying, yeah, it was also kind
of the fact that there wasprobably some jealousy in the
sense of this new guy shows up,everybody's following him.
He doesn't know nothing, right?

Speaker 5 (56:36):
And they let her take , you know, behead him
essentially, but so that's awhole another thing.

Speaker 4 (56:40):
I we can't get into that Um but I think I know where
my conflicting views come from.
Or just growing up and seeingJesus in a different light
Because we read like he hisparents don't really have much
like they're offering is a doveto doves.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Yeah, yeah, poor man's offering poor man.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
So to me it's like, oh, like he didn't grow up with
much.
You know, he was born andraised in a barn, and so when I
think of a he was born.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
Um, but when I think of a Pharisee, I think of like
wealth and power and influence,and I don't see Jesus that way.
I didn't, didn't really thinkof Jesus.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
Well he.
So just keep in mind likeeverybody went to the school of
the book.

Speaker 4 (57:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
Everybody went.
It didn't matter.
If you're poor, rich, whoever.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
So you didn't have to have money in order to continue
past the school age of like 10.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
The point was to carry on the oral tradition.
They wanted everyone to know it.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
The rabbi wanted disciples who were going to
spread his yoke to the best ofhis ability.
I'm sorry.
What was your question?

Speaker 4 (57:44):
Was that school being paid for?

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Well, how did that?
It was through the synagogue.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
So it's a state.
It's like public school, likepaying tithes, it's like going
to church.
Like the poorest of us go topublic school still, and the
richest of us can also go topublic school, or you can go to
fancy private school, but yougot guys like Paul.
That's the only way I can makeit make sense in my head.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
So Paul, um, his rabbi, right, you know, like
when we were talking about thathe studied under a gamma wheel,
but he was.
He was probably the most famousrabbi in the entire world, and
Paul?

Speaker 1 (58:14):
he said they were contemporaries, right Like they
were alive at the same time.
Gamas Gamasleil and Paul Gamawill yes.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
No, gama, that was someone who says that he studied
under gamma wheel, paul.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
That means Paul for his apprenticeship.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
When Paul graduated the school of mid rock his
disciple the highest, like mostfamous rabbi, looked at Paul and
said you are good enough tocome be my disciple and spread
my yoke, which is a big deal forPaul.
That's why you see such a zealfor him.
That's why he's guarding theclothes when they stone Steven,
right, because you're nottalking about just a Pharisee.
You're talking about Paul, whowas like the valid Victorian of

(58:54):
Harvard or Yale or you know whatI mean Going and studying under
the most famous rabbi to spreadthat most famous rabbi's yoke.
That's why, when Paul talksabout Galatians, I was advanced
beyond my years.
What's he talking about?
He's talking about the factthat, coming out of the school
of mid rush, the most famousrabbi that existed decided yeah,
you can come be my disciple.
That's a big deal.

(59:15):
Yeah, that's a huge deal forsomebody like Paul.
But again to the previous point, though, about trade.
Even says that Paul was a tentmaker, right, so they all had a
trade to sustain themselves inministry.
There was a common thing withrabbis, right?
Yeah, and then Paul also wouldlive with different disciples as
he traveled like he would kindof bounce between the disciples.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Well, there was an expectation.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
If you weren't a rabbi, you would have to be a
disciple.
Yeah, you would have to be arabbi.
We're going to get into this ina little bit, when we get into
the rejection.
Okay, but if you were rejectedfrom a rabbi but a piece of this
is that, okay, I'm not a rabbi,you're a rabbi.
You come into town.
Essentially, you accomplish tobe the ideal I wanted.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Yeah, you were able to do what I was not good enough
to do so.
When you come in saying I needto, place this Because
everyone's going down that path.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Right, this association there.
So if you're like I needsomewhere to sleep tonight, come
into my home.
The expectation is that youwould go and bring them in and
let them sleep right, becausethey're the ideal that makes
sense, that's cool, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Ryan if you said you needed a place to crash because
your wife kicked you out orsomething, Because I decided to
follow the stranger in the gym.
Yeah, then you could stay here,that's fine.
Thank you, I would not denythat.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Well, so here's the other thing about the disciples.
There are other importantthings, though.
Faster.
If you were accepted to besomeone's disciple, the idea is
that you would emulate yourteacher, your rabbi, in every
way possible.
So this is how intense.
It got right.
You would not just learn how tostudy their way to follow the

(01:00:57):
same spiritual habits.
So the way Jesus prayed is theway they're going to pray right.
The way your rabbi prayed is theway you would pray.
When your rabbi prayed is whenyou would pray when it says
spreading the yoke.
You are emulating that rabbi tothe T, to the point that when
that rabbi goes and uses thebathroom, all his disciples will

(01:01:17):
follow him behind him.
Oh, my goodness Little minions,and they will go use the
restroom too.
They want to emulate him to thevery T of everything to include
bowel movements, right?
Wow, they wanted to be like himin absolutely every single way.
That's why the rabbi was likeare you good enough to be me?
That's essentially what they'resaying.

(01:01:38):
Are you good enough to spread myyoke to be me, and if you get
accepted, then you're going tobe like I'm going to do all I
can to be you.
Wow, when are you going to thebathroom?
That's when I'm going to thebathroom.
Wow, If you picked up a strawof string and put it in your
mouth, if your rabbi did thatI'm picking up a straw and I'm
putting it in my mouth.
You're playing copycatessentially the entire way.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
It's the same way we do stars today.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
So also there's another thing.
If you were well, two otherthings.
If you were accepted a commonsaying that people would give to
you as a congratulationsbecause that's a big deal they
would say may you be covered inthe dust of your rabbi.
And the idea is that you followthis rabbi so closely, you do
such a good job that as youfollow him along the dirt road,

(01:02:26):
all the dust he kicks up fromhis sandals covers you with that
dust.
May you be covered in the dustof your rabbi is kind of the
expression.
Wow, so it was a big deal.
If you got accepted, likethat's celebrations.
You couldn't make a mom or dadmore proud.
You probably couldn't make yourwife more proud.
You know what?
I'm saying so.

(01:02:46):
The other thing, too.
I think it was also interesting, though, is that disciples also
weren't allowed.
And this is oral law.
This isn't Levitical writtenlaw.
This is oral law.
But just as you memorize all ofTorah, you memorize all of the
Old Testament.
Memorize, commentary you wereto press within memory the

(01:03:07):
teachings of your rabbi.
Yeah, you were not allowed towrite it down.
Okay, so that's why the gospelof Mark they call Peter's gospel
.
Well, why didn't Peter justwrite the gospel?
Because Peter's probablyfollowing the tradition of oral
law.
No, that's my rabbi.
I'm not going to write down,I'm committing to memory
Everything he said, theteachings of Jesus Wow.

(01:03:28):
So you have Mark, who islistening to Peter preach what
Jesus preached in the way Jesuspreached, because he was a
disciple, right?
Yeah, so you see Miniceverything about everything he
does, and he writes it downbecause yes, we are all
disciples of Christ, right.
Mark was a disciple of Christ inthe modern sense of the word.
Yeah, in the technical sense ofthe word, in the way Mark would

(01:03:50):
have viewed that he would havebeen like.
No Christ is my.
Jesus is my Lord.
He's my Messiah, he's my king.
He wasn't my rabbi.
Yeah, I'm not his disciple.
So he would have been finewriting that down when Peter was
like no, that was my rabbi.
I can't write that down, it'sall committed to memory.
That's why, when you get toLuke, the gospel of Luke, it's

(01:04:14):
really him probably just doinginterviews with all of Jesus'
disciples, Right, but he'swriting it down because Luke was
a disciple of Jesus, Right.
When you look at the gospel ofMatthew, there's a lot of debate
around that book whether it wasat the disciple of Matthew or
different rabbi Matthew, who wasa believer, obviously, but he

(01:04:34):
was probably, maybe discipled,or it's a rabbi who was
discipled by the apostle Matthew, so it's so.
It may be a more appropriateway to write those realistically
would have been the gospelaccording to the gospel, the
gospel according to you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
See some of those the gospel, according to John.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
But it's not necessarily the gospel written
by John or the gospel written by.
But besides the point, but theyweren't allowed to write it, so
it's just kind of how itinfluenced the gospels and the
way they were written, becausethey're just by memory
Committing everything,Committing everything of what
Jesus taught.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
I think that that's really good in a way, because I
mean how I want to explain this.
So when I write things down,it's so I don't have to think
about it and I can just referback to it when I need it.
But if I have to, if I commitsomething to memory, it's like
every few minutes I have toforce myself to remember it so

(01:05:32):
that I don't forget to do itlater.
Like those like where, momentswhere I don't have like an
internal ticker.
Yeah, it's like where I don'thave note taking gear physically
on me and I like have to talkto my boss about something and
he like gives me a task.
It sucks if he gives it to me inthe middle of the discussion
because now I'm just going to berepeating that task to myself
until I leave his office and Ican write it down, because I
don't want to forget how he gavethe task and how he expressed

(01:05:55):
his intent so that I cancomplete the task accurately.
Now, if I have the note-takinggear on me, I just write it down
, close my little notebook andnow I'm fully back engaged with
the conversation with him.
I'm not trying to rememberexactly how he said the thing,
but if I knew that one,everything that came out of his
mouth I needed to remember and Ineed to remember how he said it
and what his intent was behindwhat he said, and I need to

(01:06:17):
commit all of that to memory allof the time.
And I couldn't write it down.
That is a totally different way.
Well, I'm completely involvedmentally in how they're engaged
and you even see this now, likeyou were to go to Israel.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
You see guys kind of pacing back and forth on the
street and it just kind ofalmost looks like they're crazy.
But what they're really doingis they're reciting Torah or
Bible, trying to memorize itright, like young men, older
it's like oh, they probably havea rabbi, we just gave them a
teaching and they are repeatingthe teaching over and over.
So what was the life of thedisciples like when?

(01:06:50):
So you have all the stories andinteractions, the crazy right
Like the good ones, with Jesushealing people and things like
that.
But most of that day to day ofhim just teaching, the day to
day life of the disciples wasprobably follow Jesus, hear what
he says and then study memorize, memorize, memorize, yeah it
goes and does something and theyare there memorizing,

(01:07:11):
memorizing Wow, to putting it inthe brain.
And guys like me, like I, haveto write things down if I wanted
to be long lasting memory justthe way my brain works right,
the way I've trained my brainright, Like different culture
may have been different.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Yeah, if you started at eight with memorizing like
large books.
Six, yeah, six, it's amemorizing large books.
Like you, probably would beable to just memorize stuff, get
those narrow pathways.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Good for it, right, but so anyways, that's like.
So the concept of being broughtin to be a disciple of Jesus,
like even the idea of droppingeverything you have to follow
the disciple or to follow arabbi, like that wasn't even
unique to Jesus, in the sensethat Jesus wasn't the only one
who was demanding.
In fact, like what we just read, you'll find a rest for your

(01:07:56):
souls from my yoke is easy andmy burden is light.
So, in other words, my teaching, my doctrine, what I demand of
you, is much lighter than whatall the other rabbis are
demanding, you know what I'msaying Like, we look at it as
like, oh, it's so demanding tofollow, it's like, comparatively
, no, it's not.
There was such an enslavement ofa lot of the, the yokes of what
a lot of other rabbis in thatday that he's like I'm freeing

(01:08:20):
you right.
Like my burden is light, myyoke is light.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
I could see that, because even to have depravity
knows no limits, even amongstthe best of humans.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
So let's talk about, though.
Then what if you were rejected?
Okay, because this gets into alot of what we're talking about,
right, if you were rejected,this is what you would hear.
This is what the rabbi wouldtell you.
If you if you're at mid rushyou got to the school and like,
hey, I'm graduating Harvard, canI go be part of your big law

(01:08:50):
firm, right, or whatever.
Can I?
Be a fellow they ask youquestions.
You get interviewed.
It's all complicated, right,and if you do not do well, and
this would have you would havebeen told this like if, say, you
graduated the the school of thebook, right, learning just
Torah, but you weren't even atthat level as like a 10 year old

(01:09:10):
good enough to go into theschool of Talmud.
Or if you're made into theschool of Talmud but not going
to have to go to the school ofmidrash right At any level.
This is what you were told ifyou were rejected.
Okay, you were told.
Essentially told this son, youknow Torah, but you cannot be my
disciple.
Go home, have children and praythat they may become a rabbi

(01:09:31):
and be better men than you.
Go home and ply your trade, inother words, go home and learn
the family business.
Yeah, okay, so understandingthat that was the rejection that
most Jewish boys heard at somepoint in their life.
Yeah, yeah, okay, essentiallyyou're not good enough.
You're not smart enough.

(01:09:51):
There's no way that you wouldbe able to emulate me.
You're not capable of doingthis.
Go home, have children.
Raise your sons to be a betterman than you.
Raise them to be better thanyou so that maybe they could go
be a rabbi, but you can't yeah,right, sorry, go learn your
trade, go learn a trade right so.
Be fruitful and multiply Withall that understood right and

(01:10:13):
that kind of rejection.
By the way, I was thinkingabout this how much the fear of
rejection runs the world Rightnow, or Just in general?
Okay, like people, say the toptwo fears people have are fear
of rejection.
People say the top two fearspeople have is the fear of death
and the fear of public speaking.
Okay, why are people afraid ofpublic speaking?

(01:10:35):
Because they're afraid of massrejection.
They're afraid that you're upthere and they're like this is
really scary.
This is nerve-wracking and if Idon't do well, I'm going to get
rejected by all these people atonce or increase probability.
Maybe they don't all reject me,but there's enough of them out
there that maybe one of themdoes Right and our fear of

(01:10:57):
rejection is deep.
I would even argue.
The fear of death plays intothe same intrinsic understanding
that we have in ourselves thatthere's accountability for our
lives.
So when I die, I have a validfear of being rejected.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
By my God.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
In my judgment, right .
So I would even say the primaryfear most people have is
rejection.
I taught a study with men thefive things men struggle with.
One of them is fear of failure.
Why are men so afraid to fail?
Well, because if a man fails,right, and this is more like the

(01:11:35):
realities of men in society,but if a man fails, he's largely
rejected by society.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Women reject you, bosses reject you, families have
expectations for you, and itbecomes like a downward spiral
as well, it's very hard to resetonce, like if that relationship
fails, and then you then thenlet's say that emotional kind of
spirals into like your job, andthen your job fails, and then
you take that anger and then youtake it out on your family, and

(01:12:05):
now your family's.
It's like it kind of justbecomes this like unfortunate
spiral if you don't stop it,right.
But it's.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
That's why there's such a fear for men to fail,
though right, it's rejectionbased, and if you even look at
the deepest hurts that peopleexperience from people, they're
generally rejection based.
Why is adultery so painful?
The spouse cheats Right Like.
Why does that?
Why does that cut so deep?
You know what I'm?

(01:12:32):
saying Because it's not justlike, well, because they were
unfaithful.
Yeah, but why does that hurt?
Right, because there's almost asense of rejection that's felt
there.
Yeah, right, this is why menwho have such a hard time
understanding by their wivesdon't like them watching porn,
because it's well from theirperspective.

(01:12:52):
You're rejecting me and what Ican give you and you have to go
find it somewhere else.
Yeah, it's a sense of rejection.
You know what I'm saying?
Like all these things, likeparents leaving kids right, even
in the sense of divorce, right,but with the kids that are kind
of caught in the middle, likethere's a sense of rejection.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
They feel in that because, because they're not
good enough to stay together forright, like there's all these
things and the kids end upblaming themselves and like well
, like mom, love dad becausebecause of me, and it's like no,
please, that's why there's likea very deliberate conversation
People who are going through adivorce with children have.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
This isn't your fault .
We're not rejecting you.
Right, Like it's a very.
I guess my point is is thatrejection is a undergirding
principle of the reality and thesuffering of life.
Yeah, that that generate mostpeople their fears, their
anxieties, their stresses A lotof that is this rejection.
Right, Then you looked at in aculture of of first century AD

(01:13:49):
with the Jewish boy and if Iwasn't good enough to go be a
rabbi at some point, I wouldhave heard you know, Torah, good
job, but you can't be mydisciple.
You need to go raise better menthan you.
Yeah, Cause you're not goodenough.
That's, that's the rejection.
So I guess what I'm saying is,when Jesus is walking along the
shoreline, he looks over what?

(01:14:10):
Why are Peter and Andrew andJohn and James fishing?
Well, why is the son of Zebedee, or why is Zebedee that James
and John are the son of?
Why are they fishermen?
Because they were told at somepoint you're not good enough to
continue on, go learn a tradeinstead and raise better men.
Yeah, Right, that's what theywere told.
That's why they're fishing tobegin with, Right?

(01:14:30):
So with all that said, right,what's kind of reread the target
text here, because I think nowit's going to start.
It's no longer a musical right.
This now makes sense, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
I do want to highlight the difference between
their schooling then and ourschooling now, because our
schooling now is very focused ongeneral education that will
make you the best worker in theeconomy, and so it's like we're
teaching you this a wide varietyof things over time so that you
can find a trade that you'reinterested in, so that you can
participate in the economy Likethat's the general purpose of
public education right, get youout into the workforce so that

(01:15:08):
you can participate in theeconomy, but back then and which
allows you to have verydifferent ideals and kind of
things that you're being driventowards.
But here it's like everyone isgoing into the school with the
same end in mind I need to do asgood as I can to hopefully make
it all the way to the end to bea rabbi, and if I fail at any
point, it's the same rejection,and then you can do anything

(01:15:29):
else with your life, but youknow that you failed at the
ultimate ideal that you were theultimate ideal.
Yeah, you were going for it andeveryone has that same kind of
in the back of their head.
I'm doing this because I wasn'tgood enough to be a rabbi.

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
So imagine, just imagine, right, and this like
imagine a boy who gets rejectedjust after Torah school, right?
They didn't have IEPs andspecial education back then.
Like they didn't understandthat kids have learning
disabilities, right?
Like imagine even a 10 year oldwho may be struggling with a
learning disability.

(01:16:01):
Who wants to go be the ideal,yeah, and instead like imagine a
10 year old, but take our ideal, right?
Take a 10 year old.
Like what do you want to be?
I want to be a scientist.
Well, son, you know math, butyou are not good enough to be a
scientist At 10.
Go learn a trade, go learn tobe an electrician, go do HVAC.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Have kids Right, raise better men, but you need
to raise better men than you,because you are not good enough,
right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:28):
That's essentially what they were doing to these
kids, right?
So, with that said, let's readit, okay.
Absolutely Back at Matthew 4,verse 18.
But as rabbi Jesus was walkingbeside, I added the rabbi just
for everybody.
But as rabbi Jesus was walkingbeside the Sea of Galley, he saw
two brothers, simon calledPeter, and his brother Andrew.
They were casting a net intothe lake, for they were

(01:16:49):
fishermen.
Come follow me, jesus said, andI will send you out to fish for
people.
At once they left their netsand followed him.
Going on from there, he saw twoother brothers, james, son of
Zebedee, and his brother John.
They were in a boat with theirfather's, zebedee, preparing
their nets.
Jesus called them andimmediately they left the boat
and their father and followedhim.

(01:17:11):
So, now you understand.
You got these boys.
They're men.
They're men now.
But these men who are fishermenbecause they were told they're
not good enough to be a discipleof a rabbi.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
I'm fishing because I'm not good enough to be a
rabbi.
Right here it comes, and so istheir father.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
So here comes a rabbi .
I'm a tax clerk.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
I'm not good enough to be a rabbi.
Any job that they're doing,they're doing it because they
weren't good enough to be arabbi, so they went and learned
to trade.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
This also makes it a little more so.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
So this is going to lead to crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:45):
We're some of the context.
We always look at what theradical part of Jesus' ministry
was in terms of calling was dropeverything you're doing, come
follow me.
We're like oh my gosh, I can'tbelieve you.
That standard, all rabbis didthat.
What's different, what'sradical that we don't appreciate
as much is who he was callingto be disciples.
Yeah, so when it talks aboutthe tax collectors, when it

(01:18:06):
talks about right, the lowest ofsociety, he's saying they were
rejected.
My disciple?

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
they probably didn't make it past the 10 year old.
What is he saying?

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
to them.
You are good enough, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Right, so when the I will make you, he's saying I
will make you good enough, I'llmake you fishes of men.
So when you're saying they'regood enough.
He's saying I will make yougood enough.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
No, no, no, no, no.
So what's backup?
When Peter and Andrew are therefishing and they see this rabbi
give him the rabbinicalaffirmation essentially have
come follow me, spread my yoke.
I'm going to talk a little moreabout in a second.
When he says come, follow me,spread my yoke.
What every Jewish boy wants tohear, right, yeah, that they
were rejected and they neverheard.
Here comes the rabbi and sayshey, come follow me, spread my

(01:18:45):
yoke.
Right, what they are hearing isnot just go follow right this
path, but they're hearingaffirmatively.
This is the beauty that we miss.
But they're hearing initiallyyou are good enough, you are
able, you can be like me, you'recapable to do what I need you
to do.
You are good enough to be mydisciple.

(01:19:07):
So then you increase that witha knowledge of, then, who Jesus
ultimately proves himself to be,over the course of his ministry
, over the course of hiscrucifixion his resurrection,
his ascension, hearing thatrabbi tell you you are good
enough, you are able, you can belike me.

(01:19:29):
You see that underlying beautythat we miss just in that one
statement that they hear.
And what's even cooler is whenit says come, follow me.
Jesus said Now what a rabbiwould generally say come follow
me and spread my yoke, as he didin the previous one, right and
Matthew 11 that we went over.
But hold on, yeah, go ahead.
Notice what he says here.

(01:19:49):
He says I'm going to say spreadmy yoke.
What he says come follow me andspread my yoke, no.
And he says and I will send youout to fish for people.
I'll make you fishers of men.
In other words what he issaying.
He's assigning mission andpurpose to his yoke.
He's like you're coming in notjust to spread my yoke.
Here's what my yoke is, and myyoke is that I'm going to be

(01:20:12):
sending you out right to spreadmy yoke, but you're going to be
fishers of men.
You're going to be bringing meninto this.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
That's what you're going to do.
I really feel like I'm kind oflike experiencing the epilogue
of a like a who made Lord of theRings Because I told him See
the musical right.
I told you the musical and themarriage is going back to the
fifth.
Well, it's because it's it'sit's interesting, and I'll just

(01:20:39):
like kind of walk througheverything that I'm thinking
right now.
So you have a society that'sbuilt where this ideal is to be
a rabbi.
This is the highest ideal youcan achieve.
And you have these men thathave gone and through the
process to hopefully one day bethat ideal and you can you can
like place plenty of like showsand movies into this kind of

(01:21:00):
like structure.
Um, and they weren't good enough, they didn't reach that ideal
and they basically were kickedout or dropped out of the school
.
And then you have a someone whohas mastered the craft at the
school and graduated now comesto them and says I will it's
like, you are good enough,follow me and I will make you
that ideal.

(01:21:20):
And then you go through theentire, you know, arc of Jesus's
life and he has killed and hegoes off, and he gives the, the
final call to the disciples togo out and be witnesses.
And then you see Peter now ithe's just the example I'm using,
but all the disciples are nowfulfilling that ideal that they

(01:21:41):
were rejected from.
So if this is like, let's saythis like a 12 episode series,
like on the end of the 12thepisode is Peter telling this
this story of how he wasrejected and then called and now
he's fulfilling the ideal thathe was, that feel he was born
into Not just the ideal but, yes, feeling the ideal.
The ideal that the society toldhim he was born to do.

(01:22:02):
But he was rejected from thesociety rejected him from.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
So it's not just that the world rejected.
So I think a part of the storyright.
It's not just that the worldrejected Jesus, it's that the
world also rejected thedisciples of Jesus.
And now the people that wererejected and said you aren't
good enough are now the ones,like in the book of acts, we're
now spreading the God's, hisyoke, yeah, who are the most

(01:22:26):
respected, the most sought after, the most?

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
It's like, oh my God.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
On the baptist.
His yoke was repent.
Kingdom of heaven is here.
Jesus's yoke was the gospelright, proven by the
resurrection, which was veryradical, message right, and the
whole book of acts now is themspreading the yoke of Jesus, of
rabbi Jesus.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
That is.
That is awesome, Like playedout, Like it's such a oh my gosh
.
I see it's like a paintedtapestry, I can see.

Speaker 3 (01:22:52):
I think the beauty of it is this is that, because the
same call that Christ had forthem, it's the same call he has
for everyone of us, and I thinkmany people, either through a
sense of self rejection, a fear,that of that same rejection,
like, okay, I feel I'm beingcalled to do anything, anything

(01:23:16):
ministry, maybe it's startserving in the nursery on
Sundays to going to be a pastor,or even just talking to someone
, whatever, or in your family,whatever, maybe but whatever
that calling that they'refeeling, there's almost the same
fear of well, what if theyreject me?
Yeah, right, and I think, likethe thing we miss when Jesus?

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
what if they reject me?
It's like I've been rejectedand I don't want to be rejected
again.

Speaker 3 (01:23:40):
And what people need to remember is that when Jesus
gives you the call, come followme wherever he leads you to
follow him, whatever ministry,whatever right that may look
like, he is telling you, butwhen I'm calling you to do, you
are enough, you are enough toserve me in that position.
You are capable, you are ableto do this right, you're a firm.

(01:24:04):
He is affirming them Right.
So when the rest of the worldmay say no, he's affirming them.
It says I don't really carewhat they say.
What I am telling you is you'reenough, right, that's what
they're hearing.
That is the words are comefollow me.
The messages, come follow himbecause you are capable and
enough.
And I think that's the samemessage.

(01:24:25):
I know I don't want to soundlike Joel Olstein here, right,
like that is the met.
That is what they would haveheard as a young Jewish boy at
some point.
I don't know how far Peter went.
Yeah, right, he's alreadymarried at this point, so he's
probably been out of this for abit.
So I got this particular point.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
And I was also known as generally it's the oldest he
was all the disciples.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):
Most the other disciples were teenagers.
Yeah.
For the most, by our standards,like they were probably between
the ages of 16 and probably 20.
Peter was the only one whocould have been anywhere between
22 up into his 30s, maybearound the same age as Jesus.
But my point is is that I thinkthe message for people, if
you're struggling with answeringa call, whatever those next

(01:25:07):
steps may be, because you'refeeling maybe insufficient, I'm
not smart enough, I'm notbiblically literate enough,
maybe I'm not you know, I'm notgoing to quote spiritual enough
If you're feeling, that callwhat he's not just calling you
to purpose, he's telling you,he's calling you to worth.
Yeah, like you're being calledto purpose at the same time

(01:25:29):
being called to worth to carrythe title disciple carries the
sense of worth that you areenough, you are good enough,
you're capable to emulate Christand all that he does.
So that's the other thing.
Okay Is that.
It's not just that.
He's showing us the way Right.
So, just as the rabbi wouldnotice, when Jesus is on the

(01:25:50):
night, he's arrested, he's inthe garden of the sentiment,
he's praying.
What is his?
What are his disciples doing?
Sleeping?
They're praying with.
Well, they go there to praywith him.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
Yeah, then they fell asleep.
They fall asleep, right.
Sorry, because they'reemulating him, right.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
And then they just kind of got deficient and he
gets angry with them.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
Right, he comes back.
He's like you can't you guyscan't stay awake, like of all
the times that you were going toemulate me, like you were
following me when I went poop,but you can't stay here and pray
with me now.
Yeah, right, like he gets upset.
Right, if you're going toemulate me, emulate me in things
that actually matter, Right,and he's getting kind of because
he's stressed, he's about toget arrested.
Right, because he's angry.

(01:26:28):
Because they were capable andthey were worthy enough to be
there with him in the firstplace.

Speaker 1 (01:26:32):
You, know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:26:34):
So for us, the calling comes with a sense of
purpose, a sense of worth, butalso an understanding that we
can do this.
But the life Jesus lived, wecan live.
We're going to mess up,obviously, right, but you just
follow his example of what didhe do?
He prayed a lot, yeah, he did alot of time in fellowship.

(01:26:54):
He served people.
He loved people humbly.
When people, as a rabbi, rightMay the may, you be covered by
the dust of your rabbi, rightLike.
That's why the whole sense ofwashing of the feet who's
washing whose feet?
If you're following a rabbiinto someone's home, right Like,
generally it would be theservants or the women of the

(01:27:15):
home, but they would go wash therabbi's feet.
Yeah Right, disciples arewatching he's getting his feet
washed.
How did he do it?
How did he respond?
Okay, my turn.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Yeah, right, oh my gosh, you can do the exact same
thing right.

Speaker 3 (01:27:27):
Yeah, Right.
So when Jesus comes and turnsaround and says no, no, no, I'm
going to wash your feet.
The rabbi is going to wash yourfeet as an example.
Yeah, that is what isculturally completely different.
The people he's calling taxcollectors, all those who are
rejected, not in a general sense, right, but like any, because

(01:27:48):
remember, the calling was youknow, torah, you're not going to
have to be my disciple.
Go home, raise better men.
The rejection was Right, yeah.
So for you to go be a taxcollector is now to go be a
worse man than you were when youwere rejected.
Yeah, right.
So it is almost a completely,it is a full on rejection back,

(01:28:10):
right.
I think a lot of what some ofthose tax collectors like I'm
rejecting them back because of,maybe, their initial rejection
with Torah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
They're like fine, well, I'll do this.

Speaker 4 (01:28:18):
I mean I can see why they were so.
The disciples were sodevastated too when Jesus died,
and we read that they just goback well hiding but also go
back to do their trade becausethey lost their rabbi.
Right so.
I yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
Yeah, and it's so.
That's piece one.
The second thing I want to kindof point out, though, that
there were some disciples whowere already disciples of John,
and disciples of John theBaptist, I mean it.
It talks about how a lot wereweaving John to go be disciples

(01:28:58):
of Jesus.

Speaker 1 (01:28:59):
For John the Baptist leaving John the Baptist to go,
to Jesus to go to Jesus right.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
That was almost never heard of.
That would have been absolutelyhumiliating for.
John the Baptist that as arabbi, I have all my disciples
and all my disciples have nowleft me for another rabbi.
If you remember, like thisbecomes a thing, but John
responds with great humility.
He says I must become lesser sohe could become greater.

(01:29:26):
Right, because that you'retalking massive humiliation on
the sense of a rabbi, on interms of a ministry sense, like
that's like essentially saying,like I'm handing over my entire
church, over to this otherchurch down the street for the
sake that they can grow and bebetter than we are right, yeah.
Based off whatever.
Like that is a humiliatingthing for for a rabbi to do.

(01:29:48):
And that's why you start seeinga little bit of John the
Baptist out later when he's likehe's in prison.
He's kind of filling down onhimself.
Jesus says like nobody born ofa woman is greater than John,
which also is an argument forwhy maybe John the Baptist was
his rabbi, because of how highlyhe speaks of John.
But besides the point.

(01:30:11):
But when John's down on himselfand he says that he sends some
of his disciples to go to Jesusyeah, so John still had a group
of people who were following himhe says well, go tell them what
you've seen and heard, right,and and and.
Because I think part of whatJohn's in prison is like I just
gave up all my disciples and I'mhere in prison Like I don't see

(01:30:32):
any, like did I just do thisfor no reason?
Is this an ultimate humiliation?
You know what I mean?
Yeah, so there's a lot ofemotions loaded behind.

Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
Yeah, because you don't know how.
You don't know how you're goingto be remembered, you don't
know how people truly see younever really get that.
And he was in prison, not ableto see what Jesus was doing.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
Yeah, he wasn't seeing the healings, he wasn't
even I'm saying so, but my pointis this is, though is that
there's a couple, if youremember the calling of Nathan,
we did that one episode, yeah,and he goes back and he says,
well, I saw you under the figtree and he's like surely you're
the son of God?
Right, I was like, well, whatwas it?
And we're like, but you realizethat what Jesus was doing was

(01:31:09):
anchoring at a Zachariah Right,so he was tying a personal
situation of Nathan, but alsotying it to Zachariah, also
tying it to it, right, likethere was this layered approach
of scripture.
Yeah, well, that, that that'sschool midrash.
What Jesus did when hepresented that to Nathan was a

(01:31:30):
technique of midrash.
That that was a technique thatsomebody who went to the school
of midrash would understandNathan did.
Well, why did Nathan understandit?
Cause he had also graduatedfrom the school of midrash,
cause he had found his rabbi inJohn the Baptist.
Oh, okay, so he already has arabbi.
He too has gone to midrash, and, if you remember, when he,
jesus, shows up, hey, we foundthe Messiah.

(01:31:50):
Remember, we said that, at best, he was kind of like an
intellectual snob.
He's an intellectual snobbecause he has a rabbi already.

Speaker 1 (01:31:57):
Yeah, you see what I'm saying, and he's gone
through all these schools aswell, so he knew he's also a
Harvard graduate, exactly, andhe already has his rabbi.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
I'm not going to leave my rabbi for so, so he is
less apt.
So the reason you see Peter andAndrew immediately drop go
follow him.
Well, they didn't have a rabbi.
They were rejected.
And Nathan and Phillips casethey already had a rabbi.
And now you start seeing thishesitancy of well, let's have a

(01:32:25):
debate about this, let's have amidrash about this Right, and
Jesus gives them a midrash.
Yeah.
Here we go.
He's like, but he tied it to apersonal thing that could only
be revealed by the spirit.
So that's what gets Nathan tobe like.
You are this.
You are the Messiah.
Yeah.
Not only that, you were able totie that, he used a midrash
rabbinical technique, tied to apersonal situation, to penetrate

(01:32:49):
the heart of Nathan.
Right, I guess I would say acouple of things is one being
called to be a disciple ofChrist is one one.
You're expected to be a student.
Let's just start there.
Yeah, the reason a rabbi wasconsidered the highest of
society was because study wasconsidered the highest form of

(01:33:13):
worship, right?
So, okay, that is the highestform of worship.
So, if you're going to beserious about being a disciple,
a follower of Jesus, you have tobe a student, you have to study
, you have to be engaged Right,like we don't even memorize, but
they were memorizing to be adisciple, right?

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
But we do At least you can do.

Speaker 3 (01:33:35):
And they didn't even have bibles, like they didn't
know.
Yeah, you know.
I mean they had to go to thesynagogue to be able to pull out
scrolls to memorize.
You have it at your fingertips,you can have it on your phone.
Yeah, at the very least, startstudying.
Don't just read, but study itRight, go to Bible studies, go,
get engaged deeper into the wordand be a good student, right?

(01:33:57):
The second thing I would saythis is understand that whatever
that calling is, whatever selfdoubts you may have about
yourself, the very fact that youare called means that you are
already considered enough.
You're considered a birdie, youare considered able to be a
disciple, yeah, right.

(01:34:18):
The third thing, which kind ofgoes in I don't want to say a
deviated point, but a disciplein those days chose their rabbi
and, just like the second set ofdisciples who already had a
teacher, who already had a rabbi, john, who was good, he was the
most famous rabbi, probably inIsrael at that time, yeah, and

(01:34:39):
Gamalil was up in.
I mean, he was in like Turkey,right, like in Israel, in that
area, john, they had the mostfamous rabbi as their teacher.
They had to make a decision whothe supreme teacher in their
life was going to be?
Who were they going to be adisciple of?
And beyond just being encouragedby the fact that you are enough

(01:35:03):
, that you are worthy and thatyou do have an obligation to
study, but also making theconscious choice that Jesus is
the supreme teacher of your life, what that means is that when
you hear all this stuff comingfrom the world, when you have
very smart other modern dayHarvard elites right, pushing

(01:35:24):
forward all these ideas, whetherit's gender ideology, sexual
ideology, any of that stuff thatyou want to maybe believe,
right when that conflicts withwhat Jesus teaches, who is your
teacher?
Who is your supreme teacher?
Are you taking the modernHarvard elite?
Are you taking Simeon Freud?
Are you taking the philosophyof Nietzsche or Kant or whoever?

(01:35:47):
Or are you taking the teachingsof Christ?
Who is the supreme?
Who are you a disciple of?
Because one thing that wouldhave been absolutely ridiculous,
right why Nathan was sohesitant to initially jump ship,
was that you can't have twoteachers.
You can't be a disciple of twodifferent, two different
philosophies, two differentteachers.
You cannot spread the yoke oftwo different teachers or two

(01:36:09):
different rabbis.
You have to choose a yoke.
So what is the yoke?
The worldly yoke, whatever thatmay be, or the yoke of Christ,
which is the gospel Absolutely?
And what yoke do you choose tospread in the circles in your
life?
Right, and many peopleassociate themselves to Christ,

(01:36:30):
but they spread the yoke ofsomeone else, another teacher of
the world and you need toreally understand to be called a
disciple.
you're capable, you're worthy,all those things, but you also
have to make a choice of whoseyoke are you fully, 100%, bought
in to spread across the circlesof your life?

(01:36:50):
So I'll leave it with this lastthing my hope for everybody,
myself included, for thisupcoming week.
I mean we all be covered by thedust of our rabbi, who is Jesus
right.

Speaker 1 (01:37:03):
Yeah, I love that point.
I just wanted to say thank youfor painting that tapestry for
me, because I think this is oneof your best examples of kind of
building the society andexplaining the foundation of the
world and the rules and allthat and then explaining the

(01:37:24):
characters.
Explaining like this is likeclassic world building, like you
did a fantastic job with likereally good, like classic world
building, like if you were goingto write a novel.
Like this is a good foundationof how to write good novels,
because you laid out this is thestructure of society, this is
how it's different than thesociety that we're in now, this
is the rules that they wereplaying by and this is why that
rejection would have hurt somuch and why that call would

(01:37:46):
have meant so much.
And so I hope that as you gointo the week, you feel that
call and when you do feel likeyou are called, that you
understand how much it reallymeans.
So thank you so much for that,ryan People.
I still love this week.
Amen.

Speaker 4 (01:38:04):
Thank you for tuning in to Real Bible Stories.
If you enjoyed this podcast, besure to leave a review, share
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Real Bible Stories is producedin partnership with Palm Church
in 29 Palms, california.
If you would like moreinformation or want to check out
archive sermons and Biblestudies, please check out the

(01:38:26):
church website atpalmsbaptistchurchcom or check
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Thank you again and we will seeyou next week.

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