Welcome to Day 1381 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Mastering the Bible – Paul’s Letters in Context and The Tower of Babel Reversed – Worldview Wednesday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1381 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is essential to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, you must have a proper understanding of God and His Word. Our focus for the next several months on Worldview Wednesday is Mastering the Bible, through a series of brief insights. These insights are extracted from a book of the same title from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars, Dr. Micheal S. Heiser. This book is a collection of insights designed to help you understand the Bible better. When we let the Bible be what it is, we can understand it as the original readers did, and as its writers intended. Each week we will explore two insights.

Mastering The Bible – Paul’s Letters in Context and The Tower of Bable Reversed

Insight Sixty One: The Book of Acts Provides the Context for Many of Paul’s Letters

The book of Acts picks up the New Testament story after the resurrection of Jesus. The book opens with the resurrected Christ giving his disciples instructions on spreading the good news of the cross, and his resurrection in the familiar verse Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere-in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Jesus promises to send the Spirit after he ascends, something that happens on the Day of Pentecost (Acts2:1-13)  The events of Pentecost mark the birth of the early apostolic church in Jerusalem. The book of Acts follows the triumphs and travails of the followers of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit to advance the kingdom of God. The central characters through the first twelve chapters are Stephen, Peter, and James. That changes in Acts 13, when the Jerusalem church sends Paul and Barnabas to preach to the gentiles.

Paul’s conversion had been recorded earlier in Acts 9, but Acts 13 changes the focus of the early Jesus-movement to the journeys of Paul. While Acts includes other figures who traveled with Paul, such as Barnabas, Silas, John Mark, Luke, Timothy, Paul is the central figure of the book from that point on.

Anyone who reads through Acts will know that Paul traveled widely, preaching the gospel of Israel’s Messiah to people of all nations. Acts tells us Paul went on three “missionary journeys” to gentile nations. Acts 13:1-14:28 chronicles the first trek, during which Paul visited places like Antioch, Perga, Pisidian Antioch (which is in Phrygia), Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. His second journey is the focus of Acts 15:36-18:22. His itinerary included Philippi. Thessalonica, Berea. Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus. His third and final trip, one that ended in Jerusalem with his imprisonment, is described in Acts 18:23-21:14. Paul revisited places he’d previously ventured as well as new locales; Macedonia, Philippi, Troas, Rhodes, Tyre, and Ephesus are among them. Paul spent three years in this last city.

Experts in Paul’s life and ministry have been able to determine that these missionary trips spanned roughly ten years. If we restrict ourselves to the churches named in Acts 13-21, Paul started just over a dozen churches. Chances are good he started more since he visited regions during his journeys on which Acts offers no additional details. Many of the churches that are named received letters from Paul, a good number of which we possess in our New Testament. Understanding those letters (referred to as “epistles”) requires paying careful attention to Paul’s travels in the book of Acts. A specific occasion prompted every letter Paul wrote. Without keeping the original circumstances that led to his correspondences, we’ll fail to grasp the meaning of Paul’s words in many places.

Insight Sixty-Two: The Events of Acts 2 Launched the Reversal of What Happened at the Tower of Babel

The incredible events of Pentecost are something with which virtually all Christians are acquainted. As Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, enabling them to speak in the languages of the multitude of Jews who had come to Jerusalem from every nation. This miracle resulted in thousands of conversions to belief in Jesus as the risen Messiah, which in turn meant that new believers would return to every nation to spread the word. But while all this is familiar, its Old Testament context is habitually overlooked.

Earlier, we saw the events at Babel provided the context for most of what occurred thereafter, from the call of Abraham through the exile. Specifically, Deuteronomy 32:8-9 informed readers that God disinherited the nations when he dispersed them at Babel. Instead, they were put under the dominion of the sons of God, lesser divine beings. This incident was why God next called Abraham and started his own people, his “portion”’ as Deuteronomy 32:9 puts it. The list of disinherited nations is given to us in Genesis 10, the “table” of the known nations at the time. If you were to look at a map of those nations, they would extend from the Persian Gulf (the area of Babylon) in the east to Tarshish (modern-day Spain) in the west. At the time of the writing of Genesis 10, Tarshish was the westernmost landmass known.

Moving to Acts 2, the nations at Pentecost also stretch from east to west, this time from the Persian Gulf to Italy. The names can be different at times because the events of Acts occur in the first century AD, thousands of years removed from Babel.

If we read the nations listed in Acts 2 in the order they appear, they proceed from the east to the west. When the list hits the Mediterranean, the nations fork north and south and continue westward.

The point should not be missed. Jews from all nations were gathered at Pentecost and would be a new army of missionaries to spread the gospel to the disinherited nations. The reclamation of the nations begins in the regions where the Jews were exiled and proceeds westward, sweeping across the known world. But why does the list in Acts 2 not extend to Spain? Which was the westernmost region included in both Genesis 10 and the punishment of Babel? Because it didn’t need to. Paul would finish the job.

The apostle Paul, the apostle to the disinherited gentile nations, understood the symbolism of what happened in Acts. Twice in his letter to the Romans, he expressed confidence and urgency about getting to Spain (Acts 15:24, 28). The repatriation of Spain to the true God (Tarshish) had been prophesied by Isaiah (Isaiah 66:19). Paul believed it was his destiny to get there and to bring the rest of the gentiles into God’s family (Isaiah. 66:20-23).

That will conclude this week’s lesson on another two insights from Dr. Heiser’s book “Mastering The Bible.” Next Worldview Wednesday, we will continue with two additional insights. I believe you will find each Worldview Wednesday an interesting topic to consider as we build our Biblical Worldview.

Tomorrow we will continue with our 3-minute Humor nugget that will provide you with a bit of cheer, which will help you to lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along with us tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of our past 1380 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most of all, your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you Tomorrow!