HOW DID WE GET IT SO WRONG?
by Bob Wickizer
Scripture: Acts 2:1-21, Psalms 104:25-35, Romans 8:22-27, John 15:26-27, John 16:4-15
Title: How Did We Get it so Wrong?
Author: Bob Wickizer
Text: Acts 2:1-21. Psalm 104:25-35, 37, Romans 8:22-27, John 15:26-27; 16:4-15
Good morning. Welcome to misunderstood Sunday. First a test. Raise your hand if you think being saved as we heard in the Book of Acts chapter 2, has anything to do with going to heaven.
I've got news for those of you hand raisers. It does not. Yes, I am going against the grain of a million preachers, mostly evangelical, but mostly uninformed. To understand what Jesus meant by the word "saved," we must get into the shoes of the average ancient near eastern peasant on the streets of Jerusalem in the first century.
Before we get to Jerusalem however, I want to take you on a first century trip to the Cyclades islands in the Agean Sea between Greece and Turkey. When I was on sabbatical there in 2017, I stayed on Paros Island and took a class learning modern Greek. I noticed that in this beautiful part of the world, you could paddle or sail a small boat from one island to the next. They are all within sight of each other. In antiquity, each island specialized in a particular product. Tin, copper, marble, wheat, cattle, wine was traded from island to island. This is why the Greek language spread as a means of facilitating trade. But the thing the residents of those islands feared the most was pirates.
Fair skinned, blue-eyed northern European barbarians, Mongols from east Asia, dark-skinned pirates from Africa all sailed from island to island looting, burning, destroying, causing chaos and fear. Most of these islands are big enough to have a central mountain or range of mountains rising up 2,000 feet from sea level. When the pirates arrived, all the inhabitants of the islands would flee to the top of the mountain. On many islands, you can see the entire island coastline from there. On many islands you will find a Greek Orthodox church always built on top of the ruins of a pre-Christian Greek temple
Farmers watched fr ...
Author: Bob Wickizer
Text: Acts 2:1-21. Psalm 104:25-35, 37, Romans 8:22-27, John 15:26-27; 16:4-15
Good morning. Welcome to misunderstood Sunday. First a test. Raise your hand if you think being saved as we heard in the Book of Acts chapter 2, has anything to do with going to heaven.
I've got news for those of you hand raisers. It does not. Yes, I am going against the grain of a million preachers, mostly evangelical, but mostly uninformed. To understand what Jesus meant by the word "saved," we must get into the shoes of the average ancient near eastern peasant on the streets of Jerusalem in the first century.
Before we get to Jerusalem however, I want to take you on a first century trip to the Cyclades islands in the Agean Sea between Greece and Turkey. When I was on sabbatical there in 2017, I stayed on Paros Island and took a class learning modern Greek. I noticed that in this beautiful part of the world, you could paddle or sail a small boat from one island to the next. They are all within sight of each other. In antiquity, each island specialized in a particular product. Tin, copper, marble, wheat, cattle, wine was traded from island to island. This is why the Greek language spread as a means of facilitating trade. But the thing the residents of those islands feared the most was pirates.
Fair skinned, blue-eyed northern European barbarians, Mongols from east Asia, dark-skinned pirates from Africa all sailed from island to island looting, burning, destroying, causing chaos and fear. Most of these islands are big enough to have a central mountain or range of mountains rising up 2,000 feet from sea level. When the pirates arrived, all the inhabitants of the islands would flee to the top of the mountain. On many islands, you can see the entire island coastline from there. On many islands you will find a Greek Orthodox church always built on top of the ruins of a pre-Christian Greek temple
Farmers watched fr ...
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