August 4, 2025 • 26 mins
Have you ever wondered if the Bible was actually written to you—or just for you? In this episode of Seek Go Create, host Tim Winders unpacks why understanding the original audience and first-century context of the New Testament is crucial for truly grasping its message. Dive into the cultural backdrop, real-life tensions, and urgent challenges faced by early believers, and discover how this perspective can transform your faith and bring scripture to life in powerful new ways. If you’ve ever felt confused or disconnected from what you read in the Bible, this eye-opening episode is one you don’t want to miss.
"If we ignore who the Bible was originally written to, we risk twisting what it actually means." - Tim Winders
Access all show and episode resources HERE
Reasons To Listen:
- Unlock the Bible’s Original Context: Discover why understanding who the Bible was originally written to in the first century completely changes its meaning—and how misreading this can lead to distorted theology.
- Expose Common Misinterpretations: Learn how applying ancient scriptures directly to modern life—especially politics and culture—can result in confusion, fear, and even push people away from the message of Jesus.
- Rediscover the Kingdom of God: Find out why the “Kingdom of God”—mentioned over a hundred times in the New Testament—is not a side topic, but the central theme often missed in Christian teaching today.
Key Lessons:
- Understanding Biblical Context Is Essential - The Bible was written for us, but not to us. It’s crucial to recognize that the original audience lived in a different time, place, and culture. When we ignore that, we risk misinterpreting or misapplying Scripture.
- Audience Matters More Than You Think - Every book, letter, and passage had a specific audience facing real issues of their day. Learning who these people were and what they were experiencing helps us better understand the true message behind the text.
- Most New Testament Writings Happened Within a Narrow Timeline - The bulk of the New Testament was written between AD 45 and AD 70, a period of massive change and tension for the early followers of Jesus—especially as the Old Covenant faded and the New Covenant took hold.
- Misapplying Scripture Causes Confusion and Harm - Trying to directly apply first-century issues or warnings to modern politics or culture leads to shallow, sometimes damaging theology. Instead, we should seek to understand principles that transcend time, not force-fit ancient texts into today’s headlines.
- The Kingdom of God Is the Core Message - The Kingdom isn’t a side topic—it’s central to Jesus’ teachings and to the mission of the early church. Recognizing this helps us connect all the threads of the New Testament in a powerful, life-giving way.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Introduction: Rethinking the Bible's Audience
00:59 The Problem with Modern Bible Interpretation
02:13 Understanding the First Century Context
03:12 My Journey with Biblical Context
07:30 The Importance of Audience in Interpretation
09:10 Misapplications and Their Consequences
13:53 The Timeline of the New Testament
17:47 The Significance of AD 70
25:08 The Kingdom of God: The Core Message
Resources for Leaders from Tim Winders & SGC:
🎙 Unlock Leadership Excellence with Tim
- Transform your leadership and align your career with your deepest values. Schedule your Free Discovery Call now to explore how you can reach new heights in personal and professional growth. Limited slots available each month –
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What if the Bible wasn't writtento you but it was written for you?
That one question changedeverything for me.
You see, I always thought the Bible waswritten to me, and in some areas it is.
But it really was written to a specificaudience in the first century, and if we
(00:21):
ignore who it was originally written to,we risk twisting what it actually means.
Hello there.
This is Tim Winders.
Welcome to Seek Go Create.
This is episode four of theseries that I've been calling.
(00:44):
Why the Bible doesn't make sense yet.
And in the other episodes we've beenbuilding up to some of the things we're
gonna discuss in this episode and in thefinal episode, which is episode five.
And let's go ahead right up fronthere in state what the problem is.
We read the Bible, we, those of us livinghere, this is recorded in the year 2025.
(01:09):
We read the Bible like it waswritten in 21st Century America.
And I emphasize the word America, notjust in the Middle East, in the 21st
century, or not just in the world, butwe actually like to narrow it down as.
If it was written to us here inAmerica, and I know some people
(01:31):
listen to this episode, these podcaststhat go create outside of the United
States, but I'm pretty sure you'llprobably know what I mean by that.
We assume it was written to our culture,our worldview, and our assumptions.
And that leads to misunderstanding,misuse, and truthfully, a very shallow
(01:53):
and sometimes jaded and warped theology.
We kind of have a skewed view of God.
We have a skewed view of Jesus Christ.
We have a skewed view of religion and itenters into a lot of areas such as our
politics and culture and other things.
But here's the reality.
(02:14):
there's no question about this.
The New Testament was written toreal people in the first century.
Does that make it anyless important to us?
No, it doesn't, but if we don't understandthat, then we can apply it to ourselves.
There were different authors,there were different churches,
different groups, different regions.
(02:36):
All dealing with specificissues and it's very helpful.
In fact, it's imperative that weunderstand as much of those things as we
possibly can, especially the issues andthe things that they were dealing with
if we don't understand them than we can'tfully understand what was said to them.
(02:58):
I'm gonna repeat that sentence.
If we don't truly understand them, wecan't fully understand what was said
to them, which are these scripturesthat we look at in the Bible.
Let me kind of go back as we'vebeen doing on these episodes
and talk about my journey.
I, early on in my study of theBible, I knew there was some
(03:24):
context, but truthfully, I don'tknow if I ignored it intentionally.
I don't know if the people I wa Iwas listening to or the preachers
and teachers that I was arounddidn't really apply it, but.
I never really consideredmuch the context.
And I know people throw statementsaround, like, context is everything
and you've gotta have the context.
(03:45):
But yet the more you talk tosome of those people, they really
don't fully grasp the context.
And so after years of devotion and studyand pulling out scriptures and reading
the Bible and maybe reading one bookof the Bible and trying to study that.
I think I still missed somuch like many people do.
(04:05):
And I shared before I went, I evenwent to Bible school for a few years.
We spent four hours a day and moreoutside of our classes studying the
Bible, I don't recall ever having aconversation in Bible school about the
group of people that certain scriptures,certain books, certain letters, certain
(04:27):
epistles, certain gospels were written to.
We sort of defined it a littlebit, but we didn't really
dive deep into understanding.
What was going on with that group,with that Ecclesia, with that church
group, with that body at the timethat letter arrived, at the time
that that epistle arrived, so thatwe knew what was going on with them.
(04:50):
When I started studying the firstcentury world, and this has only been
in the about the last 12 to 24 months.
I started studying things likeJosephus, who was a historian.
He actually has a Jewish backgroundthat spent some time with the Romans
and was with them at the time thatthey destroyed Jerusalem in 80 70.
(05:12):
When you start studying some of thatand then applying it and laying it over
what you've been reading in scripture,things become not really 2D, where you
start looking at how it applies to us,but it becomes 3D, four D and beyond
multidimensional because you startunderstanding really what was going on
(05:33):
at the time it was written, and whatwas going on with the audience that
it was written to, and that all of asudden makes things really powerful.
And really in my opinion, it gives memuch more clarity because you understand
the culture, the politics, the religion.
it opened my eyes to seeing whatall was going on then, and also
(05:57):
how we were twisting scriptures ifwe tried to take a scripture or a
group of scriptures and make it fit.
Just as an example, our politicalbelief system in 20 20, 25, et cetera.
So I saw the tension.
I felt the tension that wasgoing on between the Jews and the
(06:18):
Gentiles, between Rome and Israel.
Between the temple and the kingdom of God.
I saw that friction and all ofthat was what was happening.
When Paul would write one of his epistlesor John wrote the book of Revelation, or
the gospels were written to explain whatwas going on at the time that Jesus walked
(06:40):
and teach, and Jesus walked and talkedand shared, during the time of the gospels
and the time that he walked the earth.
I began to understand why Paul said whathe said, why James emphasized action
and why Revelation sounded so urgent.
(07:01):
And some of the other books of theBible, especially the New Testament,
there was an urgency when they mentionedsomething about the day of the Lord or
the end, or when Christ was coming back.
It was much more urgent.
During their time than I everunderstood or could grasp.
(07:22):
And so that's I thinkwhy it's so important.
Let's look at some key conceptsso that we can, understand it.
These are some things that ittook me a few years to grasp, but
it really began helping me whenI was reading Audience Matters.
(07:43):
It matters who something was written to.
All you have to do is consider what ifyou go out to your neighbor's mailbox
and pull their mail out and bring itinto your house and start reading it
and try to apply it exactly to yourself.
Yes, they have certain habits andthings like that, but there's thing,
(08:07):
there are things that are specific tothem that if you understand it better
and understand their situation, thenit'll help you understand that mail.
If you try to read something that waswritten to someone else, there's a
good chance you may misinterpret it.
you just have to askthings like, who wrote it?
(08:27):
Who were they writing to?
What was going on?
And if you begin asking thosequestions, much of it is available.
There's historical accounts,there are biblical accounts.
You start putting pieces together thatare in the Bible that you go, huh.
Paul wrote this before.
He wrote this, he wrotethis after he visited.
(08:49):
There were multiple lettersthat he wrote to this group.
What did the first letter say?
What did the second letter say?
Those things are important and theymatter, and they help us when we start
attempting to interpret and then pullforward what was written during those
times to then see how it applies to us.
(09:10):
Misapplications happen wheneveryou don't have the context.
We cannot treat letters writtento the church in the first century
as national policy in some of ourcountries and our nations today.
Can we use some of theprinciples to guide us?
(09:31):
Yes.
Can we take them as something thatwe must do in our world today?
Probably not.
I actually believe we're drivingpeople away from the gospel of
Jesus Christ by doing that, and Ithink it is causing some damage.
Some people might argue with that,but I really do believe we're
(09:52):
causing damage by pulling some ofthese things out of context when
we apply Jewish ceremonial law.
To the freedom that we have as Christians.
You know, one of the things that mostpeople don't grasp is that that timeframe
between let's say 30 ad, when I believeroughly that timeframe, was when Jesus
(10:20):
Christ Ministry on Earth was completed.
He went to the cross.
He died on the cross.
He was resurrected.
And then shortly after that, the HolySpirit came as the helper, the completer,
and what we know as the Ecclesia or theor the early church began forming at
that time, That timeframe up 40 yearslater that Jesus prophesied about in
(10:45):
Matthew 24, the 40 years when Jerusalemwas destroyed, the temple was destroyed.
That period of time is when I believesome people believe, at least a
majority of it, all of the New Testamentwas written during that timeframe.
When there was essentially two covenants.
The old covenant still existed.
It had not ended, but the new covenant.
(11:07):
The Messiah Covenant had been putin place because of what happened
at the cross and the resurrection,that tension people coming out of the
Jewish Church and becoming Christians.
That tension existed during that time,and we have to understand that that
was a big part of what the audienceof the New Testament of the letters.
(11:32):
Of the gospels of, of, that's a, abig part of who that was written to.
We have to be careful of using propheticwarnings written during that time as
personal promises for what's going on inour world today, 2000 plus years, and in
fact, I would venture to say that thatis a huge, huge mistake that is going
(11:56):
on right now where we're attemptingto take news stories or headlines from
our world today to take things thatwere being said to the audiences of
the first century about events thatwere about to occur to them, trying to
apply them to today is an incrediblemisuse of scripture and, and there's a
(12:19):
lot more that I could say about that.
We'll talk more about it in episodefive, but I think that's one of
the negatives or the drawbacks totaking the scripture out of context
and not understanding the audience.
Why does this matter?
It helps us avoid confusion.
Contradiction andfear-based interpretations.
I actually kinda went back and forthwith someone recently and they were
(12:43):
basically saying that this is my words,not exactly theirs, that we have to
use some of these items to scare peopleinto the Gospel of Christ, and I don't.
Believe that that is not my beliefsystem, not from reading the scriptures.
(13:03):
I don't believe we scare peoplewith the world is about to end.
You better get your act together now.
I. Do believe people needto get their hat together?
I think we need to be in rightstanding with our Heavenly Father.
I do believe we need to believe inChrist, but I don't believe we need
to scare people necessarily into doingthat, and especially scare them by
(13:23):
twisting scripture and making them thinkthat some event is about to happen.
That already happened 2000 years ago.
And when we do that, it honorsthe original message and it also
allows us to use that wisdomand apply it in our world today.
It lets the spirit apply it correctlyto our lives today instead of
(13:43):
twisting something around trying tomake something happen and trying to
either use fear or something that'sincorrect to get something to go on.
Let's look at, these aresome of the timeline items.
That really helped me understand.
Now I gotta remind everybody,some of you already know this,
but I am an engineer by training.
(14:06):
I'm an industrial engineer, so processand order are very important to me.
I like looking at A, B, C, D, howthings go in order, 1, 2, 3, 4.
I do love at times when stories aretold where there's flashbacks or,
um, this kind of funny, the ultimate.
Storytelling device, which is time travel.
(14:27):
but I really wanted to beginunderstanding, we talked about it in
a previous episode, the chronology.
what was the timing of some of thethings that I was reading about?
In these scriptures becauseI think that matters.
I think that helps us understandwhat's going on, and many, I would
(14:48):
dare say most don't realize that theNew Testament books were not written
in the order that we find them in.
The earliest letters are towards the end.
James was written roughly, we don'tknow the exact dates, but roughly around
80 45, about 15 years after the cross.
(15:11):
Galatians was shortly after that.
That was 80 49 ish.
And then first Thessalonians, anotherletter of Paul's was around 80, 50 or 51.
All of those.
Came before any of thegospels were written.
The gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke,in all likelihood were not written
(15:34):
until the mid to mid fifties toeven into the sixties, still before
the destruction of the temple anddestruction of Jerusalem in 80 70.
Which would've been such a significantevent, I can almost guarantee you
that had that a D 70 event, thatdestruction occurred, we would've
(15:57):
read about it in some of theeither the letters or the gospels.
I believe that most ofthe New Testament was.
A leading up to that event of 80, 70, itwould be similar to some of us reading
things today and there being no mentionat all about what happened in our country,
(16:18):
the United States, around September 11th.
Or you know, and these things pale incomparison to what went on in 80 70,
but you know, the downfall of 2008 orif you were reading something right
now, this is being recorded in 2025and no one says anything about the.
(16:39):
Two to four years event.
That was a worldwide pandemic of COVID.
It would, it, it would be like,that wouldn't make sense if someone
ignored that in writing to certaingroups and telling them things.
So, that's one of the reasons, in myopinion, we can, we can look at most
(16:59):
of these things and say, you know what?
They were written prior to that'cause they would've mentioned it if
it would've been written after that.
Revelation in John's Gospel.
Those things are questionable formany, but in my opinion, and from
the studies I've done and from theresearch done, I believe that those
were also written prior to 80 70.
Some like to date them later intothe nineties of the first century.
(17:24):
And truthfully, it justdoesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sensebased on what I just said.
It doesn't make sense based onsome of the historical evidence.
And, there's really only onething that people use to try
to say it was written in.
And that actually is, is pretty easylooked at in some different ways.
So let's just say for example's sake.
(17:47):
That all of the New Testament waswritten between AD 45, which is the
book of James, the first one that webelieve when that was written and the
Gospel of John and also the revelationof John was written prior to 80 70.
So everything was written within abouta 20 to 23 year period right in there.
(18:10):
So all of these itemswere written in then.
So wouldn't it make sense?
That if most or all were written duringthat timeframe, that I, and you would
want to learn as much as we could aboutthat so that we understood the audience,
we understood what was going on, weunderstood the mindset and the hopes
(18:30):
and the fears and the conflicts and thechallenges that they were going through.
And that is what I've been doing forthe last year or so is attempting
to learn as much as I can.
That means, like I said before, everythingwas written during that timeframe,
before the destruction of the templeand what we know was now the end of the
(18:51):
old covenant because we can say thatand, and there's a lot more to this.
I'll discuss this more later, but.
We know that the old Covenantended during that timeframe.
Jesus prophesied that that's what he didin Matthew 24, and he did say that it
would happen within a generation, which ageneration typically biblically speaking,
(19:12):
and even today is right at 40 years.
So it was almost exactly 40 years.
If there is no temple, thetemple was destroyed in 80 70.
That that means there is no sacrifice.
And the sacrifice was thefoundation of the old covenant.
If there's no sacrifice, thenthat means there's no covenant.
(19:33):
The old covenant ended at that timein 80, 70, and fortunately the new
covenant had already been in placeat the after the resurrection.
And so we went from a time of havingtwo covenants, which is when most of
the New Testament was written to a timeafter that where we're now living in it.
(19:53):
That is a time of the MessiahCovenant or the New Covenant.
That was a pivotal moment, that 80, 70moment that shaped so much of the New
Testament's urgency and its message
These books weren'twritten with hindsight.
They were written with foresight,with prophecy warning believers
(20:13):
about coming judgment and urgingthem to live faithfully in a season.
Of massive transition specifically many ofthe believers in Jesus Christ, the Messiah
that had come out of the Jewish faith,the Jewish system, the Old Covenant, they
were being threatened and much of whatwas written in the New Testament was an
(20:38):
urging to them not to go back, not togo back to the law, to stay faithful.
And to stay true because Christ wascoming and that judgment would occur.
And the Old Testament, the oldcovenant would end in just a few
years, depending on when the,when that scripture was written.
(20:59):
If you've ever felt like theBible was random or out of
sequence, this may be why.
If you didn't understand that, you'rereading it through a structure that hides
the real time tension, the urgency, andthe transformation that the early church.
Really experienced, all you have todo to kind of put this in the proper
(21:21):
context is just go to some of theepistles, the ones that Paul wrote.
First Corinthians starts.
To the Church of God in Corinth.
Now, first Corinthians may possiblyhave been the second letter.
This word gets a little bit complicated.
First Corinthians may actually havebeen the second letter that Paul wrote.
(21:42):
We don't have the first letter and thenwe believe that Paul May have written
another one after what we call FirstCorinthians, which was actually a second
letter that we do not have record of.
But our second Corinthians, whichwas actually Paul's fourth letter.
It's our second Corinthians,so don't get confused by that.
We could still, learn a great dealof the message that Paul had to
(22:07):
the Church of God in Corinth inGalatians to the churches in Galatia.
We know that Romans wasspecifically written.
To a group that Paulhad helped reestablish.
After the Jews were banned fromRome, they were allowed back in.
Paul saw that happening and he senta group of Christians into Rome to be
(22:31):
prepared for when the Jews would be.
He believed coming back intothe city, which they did.
One of the things that's stated intwo Timothy two 15 is that we are to
correctly handle the word of truth.
I believe that what we're talkingabout here is a foundation for
(22:52):
correctly handling the word of truth.
This Bible, this scripture, this66 books that we have that aren't.
Written in order, but we need to takethem and put them in the order so
that we can understand them better.
I needed that.
Some of you may not.
You may be so bright and soeducated and so good with scripture.
(23:14):
You can take it and it doesn't matterif it's in order for you or not.
I needed to put it in propercontext to understand that story.
Understanding the original audiencedoesn't make the Bible less relevant.
It doesn't take anything away fromwhat it does for us today in our
(23:36):
world to understand more who theBible was written to 2000 years ago.
In fact, it makes it morepowerful to understand what's been
happening the last 2000 years.
That's one thing we're gonnatalk about in the final episode
of this series, is what's beengoing on for the last 2000 years.
(23:57):
It becomes more powerful to us.
It becomes more personal to us, andit shows us more of the nature of
God and what he's doing to integrate.
He is drawing all of us to him so thathis kingdom and his family can be.
Finalized, fulfilled, created.
(24:19):
When you see what it meant to them,to those people, to receive a letter
from Paul to receive instructionsfrom John, when you really understand
what it was like, to receive thatscroll that arrived and it was opened
up and it was read to them, thenthe Bible will come alive to you.
(24:41):
It's come alive to me.
It'll come alive to youin ways then it never.
Has before.
That's what's been happening to me lately.
That's the journey that I've been on,and if it hasn't been your journey, I'm
just hopeful that these messages andthese episodes in this season is helping.
I've got a project or two I'm workingon that may be helpful, that I'll talk
(25:04):
possibly about in the next episode,but that's what's been going on with me
We are going to explore whatties all of this together, and
that is the Kingdom of God.
It's not an aside, it's not a sidetopic, it's not an, oh by the way,
that Jesus happened to mention, and ithappened to come up in the, in the New
Testament a hundred and something times.
(25:25):
By the way, I've studied it.
I've looked at every scripture.
It is not a side topic in many ways.
It is the core of Jesus' message andthat is the kingdom of God that arrived
with him and continued to spread,and it continues to spread today.
That was their mission.
(25:46):
That was the message of the New Testament,and if you've missed the kingdom, there's
a good chance you've probably missedthe point next week, episode five.
Let's fix that together.
See you next week on Seek.
Go create.
What if the Bible wasn't writtento you but it was written for you?
That one question changedeverything for me.
You see, I always thought the Bible waswritten to me, and in some areas it is.
But it really was written to a specificaudience in the first century, and if we
(00:21):
ignore who it was originally written to,we risk twisting what it actually means.
Hello there.
This is Tim Winders.
Welcome to Seek Go Create.
This is episode four of theseries that I've been calling.
(00:44):
Why the Bible doesn't make sense yet.
And in the other episodes we've beenbuilding up to some of the things we're
gonna discuss in this episode and in thefinal episode, which is episode five.
And let's go ahead right up fronthere in state what the problem is.
We read the Bible, we, those of us livinghere, this is recorded in the year 2025.
(01:09):
We read the Bible like it waswritten in 21st Century America.
And I emphasize the word America, notjust in the Middle East, in the 21st
century, or not just in the world, butwe actually like to narrow it down as.
If it was written to us here inAmerica, and I know some people
(01:31):
listen to this episode, these podcaststhat go create outside of the United
States, but I'm pretty sure you'llprobably know what I mean by that.
We assume it was written to our culture,our worldview, and our assumptions.
And that leads to misunderstanding,misuse, and truthfully, a very shallow
(01:53):
and sometimes jaded and warped theology.
We kind of have a skewed view of God.
We have a skewed view of Jesus Christ.
We have a skewed view of religion and itenters into a lot of areas such as our
politics and culture and other things.
But here's the reality.
(02:14):
there's no question about this.
The New Testament was written toreal people in the first century.
Does that make it anyless important to us?
No, it doesn't, but if we don't understandthat, then we can apply it to ourselves.
There were different authors,there were different churches,
different groups, different regions.
(02:36):
All dealing with specificissues and it's very helpful.
In fact, it's imperative that weunderstand as much of those things as we
possibly can, especially the issues andthe things that they were dealing with
if we don't understand them than we can'tfully understand what was said to them.
(02:58):
I'm gonna repeat that sentence.
If we don't truly understand them, wecan't fully understand what was said
to them, which are these scripturesthat we look at in the Bible.
Let me kind of go back as we'vebeen doing on these episodes
and talk about my journey.
I, early on in my study of theBible, I knew there was some
(03:24):
context, but truthfully, I don'tknow if I ignored it intentionally.
I don't know if the people I wa Iwas listening to or the preachers
and teachers that I was arounddidn't really apply it, but.
I never really consideredmuch the context.
And I know people throw statementsaround, like, context is everything
and you've gotta have the context.
(03:45):
But yet the more you talk tosome of those people, they really
don't fully grasp the context.
And so after years of devotion and studyand pulling out scriptures and reading
the Bible and maybe reading one bookof the Bible and trying to study that.
I think I still missed somuch like many people do.
(04:05):
And I shared before I went, I evenwent to Bible school for a few years.
We spent four hours a day and moreoutside of our classes studying the
Bible, I don't recall ever having aconversation in Bible school about the
group of people that certain scriptures,certain books, certain letters, certain
(04:27):
epistles, certain gospels were written to.
We sort of defined it a littlebit, but we didn't really
dive deep into understanding.
What was going on with that group,with that Ecclesia, with that church
group, with that body at the timethat letter arrived, at the time
that that epistle arrived, so thatwe knew what was going on with them.
(04:50):
When I started studying the firstcentury world, and this has only been
in the about the last 12 to 24 months.
I started studying things likeJosephus, who was a historian.
He actually has a Jewish backgroundthat spent some time with the Romans
and was with them at the time thatthey destroyed Jerusalem in 80 70.
(05:12):
When you start studying some of thatand then applying it and laying it over
what you've been reading in scripture,things become not really 2D, where you
start looking at how it applies to us,but it becomes 3D, four D and beyond
multidimensional because you startunderstanding really what was going on
(05:33):
at the time it was written, and whatwas going on with the audience that
it was written to, and that all of asudden makes things really powerful.
And really in my opinion, it gives memuch more clarity because you understand
the culture, the politics, the religion.
it opened my eyes to seeing whatall was going on then, and also
(05:57):
how we were twisting scriptures ifwe tried to take a scripture or a
group of scriptures and make it fit.
Just as an example, our politicalbelief system in 20 20, 25, et cetera.
So I saw the tension.
I felt the tension that wasgoing on between the Jews and the
(06:18):
Gentiles, between Rome and Israel.
Between the temple and the kingdom of God.
I saw that friction and all ofthat was what was happening.
When Paul would write one of his epistlesor John wrote the book of Revelation, or
the gospels were written to explain whatwas going on at the time that Jesus walked
(06:40):
and teach, and Jesus walked and talkedand shared, during the time of the gospels
and the time that he walked the earth.
I began to understand why Paul said whathe said, why James emphasized action
and why Revelation sounded so urgent.
(07:01):
And some of the other books of theBible, especially the New Testament,
there was an urgency when they mentionedsomething about the day of the Lord or
the end, or when Christ was coming back.
It was much more urgent.
During their time than I everunderstood or could grasp.
(07:22):
And so that's I thinkwhy it's so important.
Let's look at some key conceptsso that we can, understand it.
These are some things that ittook me a few years to grasp, but
it really began helping me whenI was reading Audience Matters.
(07:43):
It matters who something was written to.
All you have to do is consider what ifyou go out to your neighbor's mailbox
and pull their mail out and bring itinto your house and start reading it
and try to apply it exactly to yourself.
Yes, they have certain habits andthings like that, but there's thing,
(08:07):
there are things that are specific tothem that if you understand it better
and understand their situation, thenit'll help you understand that mail.
If you try to read something that waswritten to someone else, there's a
good chance you may misinterpret it.
you just have to askthings like, who wrote it?
(08:27):
Who were they writing to?
What was going on?
And if you begin asking thosequestions, much of it is available.
There's historical accounts,there are biblical accounts.
You start putting pieces together thatare in the Bible that you go, huh.
Paul wrote this before.
He wrote this, he wrotethis after he visited.
(08:49):
There were multiple lettersthat he wrote to this group.
What did the first letter say?
What did the second letter say?
Those things are important and theymatter, and they help us when we start
attempting to interpret and then pullforward what was written during those
times to then see how it applies to us.
(09:10):
Misapplications happen wheneveryou don't have the context.
We cannot treat letters writtento the church in the first century
as national policy in some of ourcountries and our nations today.
Can we use some of theprinciples to guide us?
(09:31):
Yes.
Can we take them as something thatwe must do in our world today?
Probably not.
I actually believe we're drivingpeople away from the gospel of
Jesus Christ by doing that, and Ithink it is causing some damage.
Some people might argue with that,but I really do believe we're
(09:52):
causing damage by pulling some ofthese things out of context when
we apply Jewish ceremonial law.
To the freedom that we have as Christians.
You know, one of the things that mostpeople don't grasp is that that timeframe
between let's say 30 ad, when I believeroughly that timeframe, was when Jesus
(10:20):
Christ Ministry on Earth was completed.
He went to the cross.
He died on the cross.
He was resurrected.
And then shortly after that, the HolySpirit came as the helper, the completer,
and what we know as the Ecclesia or theor the early church began forming at
that time, That timeframe up 40 yearslater that Jesus prophesied about in
(10:45):
Matthew 24, the 40 years when Jerusalemwas destroyed, the temple was destroyed.
That period of time is when I believesome people believe, at least a
majority of it, all of the New Testamentwas written during that timeframe.
When there was essentially two covenants.
The old covenant still existed.
It had not ended, but the new covenant.
(11:07):
The Messiah Covenant had been putin place because of what happened
at the cross and the resurrection,that tension people coming out of the
Jewish Church and becoming Christians.
That tension existed during that time,and we have to understand that that
was a big part of what the audienceof the New Testament of the letters.
(11:32):
Of the gospels of, of, that's a, abig part of who that was written to.
We have to be careful of using propheticwarnings written during that time as
personal promises for what's going on inour world today, 2000 plus years, and in
fact, I would venture to say that thatis a huge, huge mistake that is going
(11:56):
on right now where we're attemptingto take news stories or headlines from
our world today to take things thatwere being said to the audiences of
the first century about events thatwere about to occur to them, trying to
apply them to today is an incrediblemisuse of scripture and, and there's a
(12:19):
lot more that I could say about that.
We'll talk more about it in episodefive, but I think that's one of
the negatives or the drawbacks totaking the scripture out of context
and not understanding the audience.
Why does this matter?
It helps us avoid confusion.
Contradiction andfear-based interpretations.
I actually kinda went back and forthwith someone recently and they were
(12:43):
basically saying that this is my words,not exactly theirs, that we have to
use some of these items to scare peopleinto the Gospel of Christ, and I don't.
Believe that that is not my beliefsystem, not from reading the scriptures.
(13:03):
I don't believe we scare peoplewith the world is about to end.
You better get your act together now.
I. Do believe people needto get their hat together?
I think we need to be in rightstanding with our Heavenly Father.
I do believe we need to believe inChrist, but I don't believe we need
to scare people necessarily into doingthat, and especially scare them by
(13:23):
twisting scripture and making them thinkthat some event is about to happen.
That already happened 2000 years ago.
And when we do that, it honorsthe original message and it also
allows us to use that wisdomand apply it in our world today.
It lets the spirit apply it correctlyto our lives today instead of
(13:43):
twisting something around trying tomake something happen and trying to
either use fear or something that'sincorrect to get something to go on.
Let's look at, these aresome of the timeline items.
That really helped me understand.
Now I gotta remind everybody,some of you already know this,
but I am an engineer by training.
(14:06):
I'm an industrial engineer, so processand order are very important to me.
I like looking at A, B, C, D, howthings go in order, 1, 2, 3, 4.
I do love at times when stories aretold where there's flashbacks or,
um, this kind of funny, the ultimate.
Storytelling device, which is time travel.
(14:27):
but I really wanted to beginunderstanding, we talked about it in
a previous episode, the chronology.
what was the timing of some of thethings that I was reading about?
In these scriptures becauseI think that matters.
I think that helps us understandwhat's going on, and many, I would
(14:48):
dare say most don't realize that theNew Testament books were not written
in the order that we find them in.
The earliest letters are towards the end.
James was written roughly, we don'tknow the exact dates, but roughly around
80 45, about 15 years after the cross.
(15:11):
Galatians was shortly after that.
That was 80 49 ish.
And then first Thessalonians, anotherletter of Paul's was around 80, 50 or 51.
All of those.
Came before any of thegospels were written.
The gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke,in all likelihood were not written
(15:34):
until the mid to mid fifties toeven into the sixties, still before
the destruction of the temple anddestruction of Jerusalem in 80 70.
Which would've been such a significantevent, I can almost guarantee you
that had that a D 70 event, thatdestruction occurred, we would've
(15:57):
read about it in some of theeither the letters or the gospels.
I believe that most ofthe New Testament was.
A leading up to that event of 80, 70, itwould be similar to some of us reading
things today and there being no mentionat all about what happened in our country,
(16:18):
the United States, around September 11th.
Or you know, and these things pale incomparison to what went on in 80 70,
but you know, the downfall of 2008 orif you were reading something right
now, this is being recorded in 2025and no one says anything about the.
(16:39):
Two to four years event.
That was a worldwide pandemic of COVID.
It would, it, it would be like,that wouldn't make sense if someone
ignored that in writing to certaingroups and telling them things.
So, that's one of the reasons, in myopinion, we can, we can look at most
(16:59):
of these things and say, you know what?
They were written prior to that'cause they would've mentioned it if
it would've been written after that.
Revelation in John's Gospel.
Those things are questionable formany, but in my opinion, and from
the studies I've done and from theresearch done, I believe that those
were also written prior to 80 70.
Some like to date them later intothe nineties of the first century.
(17:24):
And truthfully, it justdoesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sensebased on what I just said.
It doesn't make sense based onsome of the historical evidence.
And, there's really only onething that people use to try
to say it was written in.
And that actually is, is pretty easylooked at in some different ways.
So let's just say for example's sake.
(17:47):
That all of the New Testament waswritten between AD 45, which is the
book of James, the first one that webelieve when that was written and the
Gospel of John and also the revelationof John was written prior to 80 70.
So everything was written within abouta 20 to 23 year period right in there.
(18:10):
So all of these itemswere written in then.
So wouldn't it make sense?
That if most or all were written duringthat timeframe, that I, and you would
want to learn as much as we could aboutthat so that we understood the audience,
we understood what was going on, weunderstood the mindset and the hopes
(18:30):
and the fears and the conflicts and thechallenges that they were going through.
And that is what I've been doing forthe last year or so is attempting
to learn as much as I can.
That means, like I said before, everythingwas written during that timeframe,
before the destruction of the templeand what we know was now the end of the
(18:51):
old covenant because we can say thatand, and there's a lot more to this.
I'll discuss this more later, but.
We know that the old Covenantended during that timeframe.
Jesus prophesied that that's what he didin Matthew 24, and he did say that it
would happen within a generation, which ageneration typically biblically speaking,
(19:12):
and even today is right at 40 years.
So it was almost exactly 40 years.
If there is no temple, thetemple was destroyed in 80 70.
That that means there is no sacrifice.
And the sacrifice was thefoundation of the old covenant.
If there's no sacrifice, thenthat means there's no covenant.
(19:33):
The old covenant ended at that timein 80, 70, and fortunately the new
covenant had already been in placeat the after the resurrection.
And so we went from a time of havingtwo covenants, which is when most of
the New Testament was written to a timeafter that where we're now living in it.
(19:53):
That is a time of the MessiahCovenant or the New Covenant.
That was a pivotal moment, that 80, 70moment that shaped so much of the New
Testament's urgency and its message
These books weren'twritten with hindsight.
They were written with foresight,with prophecy warning believers
(20:13):
about coming judgment and urgingthem to live faithfully in a season.
Of massive transition specifically many ofthe believers in Jesus Christ, the Messiah
that had come out of the Jewish faith,the Jewish system, the Old Covenant, they
were being threatened and much of whatwas written in the New Testament was an
(20:38):
urging to them not to go back, not togo back to the law, to stay faithful.
And to stay true because Christ wascoming and that judgment would occur.
And the Old Testament, the oldcovenant would end in just a few
years, depending on when the,when that scripture was written.
(20:59):
If you've ever felt like theBible was random or out of
sequence, this may be why.
If you didn't understand that, you'rereading it through a structure that hides
the real time tension, the urgency, andthe transformation that the early church.
Really experienced, all you have todo to kind of put this in the proper
(21:21):
context is just go to some of theepistles, the ones that Paul wrote.
First Corinthians starts.
To the Church of God in Corinth.
Now, first Corinthians may possiblyhave been the second letter.
This word gets a little bit complicated.
First Corinthians may actually havebeen the second letter that Paul wrote.
(21:42):
We don't have the first letter and thenwe believe that Paul May have written
another one after what we call FirstCorinthians, which was actually a second
letter that we do not have record of.
But our second Corinthians, whichwas actually Paul's fourth letter.
It's our second Corinthians,so don't get confused by that.
We could still, learn a great dealof the message that Paul had to
(22:07):
the Church of God in Corinth inGalatians to the churches in Galatia.
We know that Romans wasspecifically written.
To a group that Paulhad helped reestablish.
After the Jews were banned fromRome, they were allowed back in.
Paul saw that happening and he senta group of Christians into Rome to be
(22:31):
prepared for when the Jews would be.
He believed coming back intothe city, which they did.
One of the things that's stated intwo Timothy two 15 is that we are to
correctly handle the word of truth.
I believe that what we're talkingabout here is a foundation for
(22:52):
correctly handling the word of truth.
This Bible, this scripture, this66 books that we have that aren't.
Written in order, but we need to takethem and put them in the order so
that we can understand them better.
I needed that.
Some of you may not.
You may be so bright and soeducated and so good with scripture.
(23:14):
You can take it and it doesn't matterif it's in order for you or not.
I needed to put it in propercontext to understand that story.
Understanding the original audiencedoesn't make the Bible less relevant.
It doesn't take anything away fromwhat it does for us today in our
(23:36):
world to understand more who theBible was written to 2000 years ago.
In fact, it makes it morepowerful to understand what's been
happening the last 2000 years.
That's one thing we're gonnatalk about in the final episode
of this series, is what's beengoing on for the last 2000 years.
(23:57):
It becomes more powerful to us.
It becomes more personal to us, andit shows us more of the nature of
God and what he's doing to integrate.
He is drawing all of us to him so thathis kingdom and his family can be.
Finalized, fulfilled, created.
(24:19):
When you see what it meant to them,to those people, to receive a letter
from Paul to receive instructionsfrom John, when you really understand
what it was like, to receive thatscroll that arrived and it was opened
up and it was read to them, thenthe Bible will come alive to you.
(24:41):
It's come alive to me.
It'll come alive to youin ways then it never.
Has before.
That's what's been happening to me lately.
That's the journey that I've been on,and if it hasn't been your journey, I'm
just hopeful that these messages andthese episodes in this season is helping.
I've got a project or two I'm workingon that may be helpful, that I'll talk
(25:04):
possibly about in the next episode,but that's what's been going on with me
We are going to explore whatties all of this together, and
that is the Kingdom of God.
It's not an aside, it's not a sidetopic, it's not an, oh by the way,
that Jesus happened to mention, and ithappened to come up in the, in the New
Testament a hundred and something times.
(25:25):
By the way, I've studied it.
I've looked at every scripture.
It is not a side topic in many ways.
It is the core of Jesus' message andthat is the kingdom of God that arrived
with him and continued to spread,and it continues to spread today.
That was their mission.
(25:46):
That was the message of the New Testament,and if you've missed the kingdom, there's
a good chance you've probably missedthe point next week, episode five.
Let's fix that together.
See you next week on Seek.
Go create.
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