Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you.
Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your host, Ben and Spencer.
Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love.
In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining
deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the
Bible intersect to transform our lives.
All right.
Happy last episode of season two.
It has been the season of mini series.
It has.
Yeah, it is.
We started with women in the Bible and we talked about kings and kingdoms, which is
this.
We talked about the covenants.
I'm not going to go through all of them because I want what you did fruit of the spirit and
James.
Yeah, a little bit of a big message.
It's been a long season and we are finishing up kings and kingdoms.
Yeah.
And tonight, today we're talking about salad.
We're talking about salad.
Yes.
Caesar, the Caesar salad of Augustus is.
Yes.
We'll be talking about Caesar Augustus.
Now this is not to be confused with a lot of other Caesars that were in charge of Rome
because Rome actually ruled for a very long time.
Right.
Yeah.
So let Caesar Augustus.
You remember when we were talking about and I said, Ossowara is this kind of this title
that they use for Persian kings and Pharaoh as a title they use for Egyptian kings.
It's very similar.
Caesar is a Roman title.
Yeah.
And then it's whatever their name is.
So Caesar Augustus is a Gaius Octavius Thornus.
By the way, some of you are going to be very familiar with this because you probably covered
world history in high school or in college or your history majors or whatever.
So if you don't like what I have to say, tough.
I got a podcast and you don't have to listen to it.
Start your own podcast and refute it.
You have your own podcast and you say, listen, this podcast I listened to, he said this thing
that was technically inaccurate.
Okay.
So he was born September 23rd, 63 BCE.
Okay.
You know what the difference is between that date of birth and every other date of birth
we've talked about so far?
What?
September 23rd.
Like we're getting real specific here.
We have some pretty good information now.
So he was born to a upper upper class wealthy equestrian family in Rome.
His father was a local magistrate.
His mother, Atea was the niece of Julius Caesar, connecting Octavian to Rome's most powerful
political figure.
If you don't know who Julius Caesar is, et tu Brute?
I don't know.
I'll tell you.
He was actually adopted by Julius Caesar.
He had no legitimate heir.
Julius didn't.
And so he adopted Octavius as a son and heir in his will.
And after Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44, he inherited this fortune and this political
legacy, then stepping into the role of Caesar eventually.
So when he rose to power, you're going to hear some things.
He did a lot of alliances and something called the Second Triumvirate.
Now if you're starting to have some neurons click from high school, you probably talked
about this in high school because we talk about a lot of Rome in world history.
So he formed the Second Triumvirate with a guy by the name of Mark Antony and Marcus
Lepidus.
And it was in 43 BCE to then go and fight Caesar's assassin Brutus and Cassius.
So Brutus and Cassius were the ones who were behind Julius Caesar's assassination.
He formed the Second Triumvirate to go after them.
They defeat Caesar's killers at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE.
Now immediately after that, Mark Antony and him get into it because after defeating them,
their tensions start to grow.
Antony goes in the lines with Cleopatra from Egypt, Queen of Egypt, where Octavian then
takes this move to portray Antony as a traitor to Rome.
So then he actually defeats Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Antietam in 31 BCE, securing
sole control of the Roman world.
Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, leaving Octavian as the undisputed ruler of Rome.
One of the craziest things, I think we talked about this in one of the podcast episodes.
Did you know we're closer to the life of Cleopatra than she was to when the pyramids were built?
It's so crazy.
It's just every time you try to think about how they built those pyramids, you know, 4,000
plus years ago.
So he consolidated power.
He started this transition.
So Rome had been a republic and had been largely driven by the republic.
Julius Caesar started to try to push against this, which by the way, what got him killed.
Part of what got him killed.
There's a lot of things that got him killed, but he starts to move them from a republic
to an empire in 27 BC.
Octavian presented himself as restoring the Roman Republic while actually consolidating
autocratic power.
So the Senate granted him the title Augustus, meaning revered one, marking the beginning
of the Roman Empire.
So he styled himself as a precepts.
Now remember we talked about precepts before.
So many who rules a region in Persian culture, but he redefines it first citizen making instead
of king or dictator.
So it maintains this illusion that he's serving the people.
He held titles such as imperator, which is commander, pontificate, Maximus, chief priest
and console consolidating his military, religious and political authority.
So Caesar Augustus has many, many titles and is wanting to be thought of as many different
things as like a priest and as a representative, as a king, as a ruler.
So what is he known for?
Well, beating Mark Anthony, which we already talked about consolidating power, consolidating
power, centralized power in the empire and restructuring the government, concentrating
power in the hands of the emperor while maintaining the Senate Senate as a symbolic body.
So the Senate still exists.
It just doesn't have any power.
It is your vacuum cleaner that's been unplugged from the mall.
Right?
Well, they, the, uh, Caesar's moving forward.
They use the Senate for advice, more like a political council.
Yeah.
Right.
And some Caesars would take it more seriously.
Others would not.
Um, but yeah, basically they did.
They held no authority to make any actual decisions at this point, but they did have
a lot of money.
Yeah.
Speaking, speaking of a lot of money, he actually reformed the taxation and governance in the
process process and he reduced the corruption and improved efficiency of actually, so more
money was actually supposed to come his way.
Because at that point there was a lot of money that was, let's just say leaking out of people's
pockets on the way to Rome.
He's like, Hey, that's not going to work.
Or cause I got this army here that'll have some words for you.
Yeah.
Um, he also established what was called the Praetorian guard.
Uh, think of them as like, um, I think when we talked about Persia, we talked about the,
the immortal soldiers.
Like, that's basically his elite, his elite force.
Right.
And, uh, um, the, the, probably the most familiar, if I say this, almost all of you should immediately
remember this is this thing called the Pax Romana.
This a Roman piece.
This is one of the biggest things that Caesar is known for.
Um, it was talking about stability, prosperity, and it's supposed to, it's like 200 years
of relative peace and stability across the Roman empire.
And the way that it's administered is through force.
Cause if you step out of line, they're going to basically wipe you off the face of the
planet.
Right.
Uh, and he ended decades of civil war and expended the empire's borders while maintaining
internal order through fear.
Right.
The Pax Romana, it's like, you know, like, Oh, enforced peace.
Yeah.
It's peace, but at the edge of a sword.
Right.
Um, it's more like the constituents were living in fear of death and fear of punishment.
Like if they were to step out of line at all, it was like, they knew the army was coming
in and coming fast to take care of the situation.
Last week you talked about Pontius pilot, right?
In the trial of Jesus, he is trying to wash his hands of it because he doesn't want them
to rebel.
He doesn't want Rome to come in because if they do and he quells a rebellion, what's
going to happen to pilot?
He's done.
Right.
He's, he's at the very least getting shipped off to Siberia and obviously not really Siberia,
though Siberia is a cold place.
That's why we mentioned it.
It's getting shipped out to Fairbanks just to pick on them again.
Yeah.
Um, so public works, uh, Augustus famously said, he made the statement.
He says, I found Rome, a city of bricks and I left it a city of marble.
Uh, he initiated these massive building projects, including temples, aqueducts, roads and mountains.
So we're coming into, uh, we've talked about multiple times, like these, these transits
all throughout, like, uh, Christian movement after Jesus dies are being put into place
by Rome.
Right.
Um, you have Herod developing ports and you have Caesar Augustus developing these roads
and connecting all these lands and having relative peace between the, between the countries
so that when Christianity begins to spread, Paul's actually able to do these missionary
journeys all over the place without much of an issue.
Yeah.
Uh, there is this thing called the arc passes that he commissioned.
It's called the altar of peace and it symbolizes the peace and prosperity of his reign.
So during this time, they call it golden age of literature.
Um, he has, uh, you, you have people like Virgil Horace Ovid producing works that celebrated
Roman ideals and Augustus achieve and Augustus achievements.
Right.
This is the beginning of like, Rome is awesome.
By the way, I don't, you know, that meme where they're like what my Roman empire is?
Yeah.
Like it's only a meme now because Rome was so transformative.
Right.
And um, he started to use propaganda in the form of like art, architecture and literature
to portray himself as the Rome's savior and to legitimize his rule.
Right.
He had a religious reforms.
He restoration of traditional religion and uh, he symbolized emphasize traditional Roman
values and religion, uh, presenting himself as a moral and religious leader.
By the way, I'm focusing on specific things here because we're about to talk about Jesus.
Yeah.
And that's the reason why I keep specifying these things.
Um, he was deified after his death and the imperial cult, the worship of the emperor
became a central element of Roman religion.
So uh, he rolled for 40 years and he died on August 19th, 14, um, 14 AD at the age of
75.
He was succeeded by his step son, Tiberius continuing this, uh, Julio Claudian, uh, dynasty.
Right.
After his death, August was declared a God by the Senate, by the way, which was a creative
move on their part to now try to get some power back for themselves.
And his legacy was celebrated as one of Rome's greatest leaders.
Uh, so where are we dealing with this in the Bible?
Last week we talked a lot about taxes.
Right.
So making sure that these taxes are actually being paid.
This is where we see a lot of Roman influence that's happening in here.
So um, there's, there's a famous question that Jesus takes about our, do you pay taxes
to Caesar or to God?
Right.
And, uh, Jesus, um, actually I want to talk about the story just real quick because I
think the story is fascinating to me.
So they're in the temple Mount.
Yeah.
You're not supposed to have Roman money there anyways.
And they're like, should you pay taxes to Caesar or should you use this to give money
to the temple?
Jesus says, give me one of the coins and somebody hands him the coin.
Now the funny thing is they've just told him where their allegiance lies because they're
not even supposed to have it there.
Um, I was, I was talking to a friend of mine and a good friend and he's like, it's like
you're having this conversation with somebody about, you know, is it, is it sin to look
at pornography or not?
As long as you don't act.
And you said, well, I don't know, hand me the magazine and they pull it out of their
back pocket.
They've already told you what they believe, right?
Like they've, they've like, it's, they pull it out of their back pocket.
Like they've already told you what they believe.
So you already know how to get into this conversation and have this conversation.
Right.
And, uh, and Jesus, the cover, he takes the thing and he says that with the name on head,
then he says, you give Caesar what is Caesar's.
Yeah.
The implication of that statement is you give Caesar what is Caesar's, but you never give
Caesar what is God's, which is you, your devotion, your, your life, your faith, your trust.
You can give Caesar his money, but you never give him the things that belong to God.
Yeah.
And then it's a, it's a brilliant move by Jesus.
It's almost like he had, like he's a God, right?
Like he knows what's going on that he had help from the Holy spirit and you know, and,
uh, and the father and that move, right?
And it's, it's really great.
So that, by the way, if you look at that story, that's Matthew 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 is
where they show up.
One of the other places that we see in the new Testament and kind of indirectly is this
movement of Roman authority.
So Augustus laid the groundwork for Roman political structure that continued during
Jesus life.
A good example, Pontius pilot, we talked about him, Roman governor who presided over Jesus
trial operated under the authority of the Imperial system established by Augustus.
So the most direct reference to Caesar Augustus is in Luke two, one, where it says in those
days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
Yeah.
Right.
Pretty direct reference right there.
Um, this, uh, this decree, this census is actually about taxation.
They need to know where the people live, where their hometown is, what their profession is
so that they're actually able to tax these people.
And also they have an accounting of, of their, uh, subjects.
Um, so that's actually, uh, and that plays into this, this, um, conversation about why
Jesus is actually born in Bethlehem as told by Micah is because that's where Joseph is
from.
That's where they go home to.
Yeah.
To be counted.
All right.
So this is, this is who Caesar is.
Um, he is, they're going from this thing of like having a Senate where they're advising
to really Julius Caesar moving more towards I'm an emperor, Caesar Augustus, um, Gaius
is moving into this even more.
And he's instituting this Roman rule at the, at the end of a, I'll smash it if you don't.
Yeah.
He is, uh, changing the taxation system to make sure the money is actually coming my
way.
He's making all things look like Rome.
He is, he is the chief priest.
He's the pro council.
He's the emperor.
He's the king.
And he sends his people out into all these places to bring his eunuch Gileon, his good
news, his good news to the entire empire of his packs from Anna and of his, of his peace
and of the prosperity of Rome and how everything's going to be good because of the might of Rome
and the power of Rome and the knowledge of Rome and, and all these different things.
And then you enter this guy born in a stable who ultimately he has his coronation event
is going to be crucified, beaten, buried and resurrected.
Yeah.
Right.
And Rome at the time, they're going to think it's nothing.
They're not going to think of it anything.
Yeah.
But if you're reading this, um, like here, here's some crazy thing.
Okay.
I'm just, I just to hear in Jesus and Caesar titles of divinity.
So you, you to play the play the side of Jesus here.
Caesar Augustus was often referred to as the son of God after being adopted by Julia Caesar,
who was possibly declared a God by the Roman Senate.
This gave Augustus the diva philis philis us.
Woof.
That's son of the divine.
He was also called savior and Lord in description and imperial propaganda, claiming that his
rule brought peace and salvation to the Roman world.
And you have Jesus called what?
Son of God, son of God and the son of man and Lord of all Lord of all savior, Lord of
Lords.
Right.
And he's also referred to as in Philippians, Philippians two 11 as Lord and as the one
who brings true peace and salvation, but their pieces are very different.
Right.
Speaking of pieces or Augustus celebrated for his passion on a period of period of stability
and safety.
This achieved through military conquest and political control.
And then Augustus hailed as a benefactor who ended civil wars and brought order to the
world, which by the way, the disciples thought Jesus was going to be.
They, this is who they thought he was going to be.
When are you going to rise up and take out Rome so that the kingdom can be restored?
And Jesus is like, I'm actually not just going to take them out.
He's like, we're going to spread this gospel to the whole world.
And at this, at this point in history, you have to remember that the, their knowledge
of what the whole world was, was limited.
Right?
Like they didn't have the Americas and weren't known right at the time.
I don't think Australia was really known at the time either.
Like there was, there was large chunks of the world that just were unknown.
Yeah.
You're just dealing with the known world at that point.
You're dealing with the known world.
So like what they're thinking of as a known world is a lot smaller than what we know now.
And so, but God has the whole world in his sights in this moment.
Yeah.
Right.
So he's saying, okay, Caesar can bring peace quote unquote to his kingdom, but peace is
not about military conquest.
It's about reconciliation with God.
Yes.
It's about spiritual wholeness.
And in fact, when Jesus is born in Luke two, two, one, it's our two 14, sorry.
He says, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased.
Well, and, and then, but the reality is, is that God does take back the Roman empire.
Yeah.
Right?
Like Rome, the emperor was 300 years later or so converts to Christianity and uses that
power to spread the gospel.
Yeah.
So we can have conversation about whether or not some of those things are good or bad.
Yes.
But regardless, it spreads.
Yes.
Uh, you, you could look at that and be like, well, how he did it wasn't really fulfilling
of how the gospel should have been spread.
I was like, okay, you could also say the same about maybe some of your local churches.
Okay.
Um, so we could, we could sit here and we could play judge or we could say, you know
what, God has a great track record of using broken people.
This man, his word, I love this idea of peace.
Jesus says in John 14, 27, now John writing, of course, after all the other gospels are
written, he's writing in response to some heresies and some different things about the
identity of Jesus and helping people really understand what he is, right?
Who he is that you can have faith in who he is.
He says, peace, I leave with you.
Yeah.
Okay, Pax Romana is where you think of peace, right?
My piece I give to you, not as the world gives you.
Do I give it to you?
Yeah.
My piece is different.
It's not about just civil unrest.
You can be in the middle of a gladiator den about to be mauled by lions and tigers or
killed by gladiators.
And my piece is right there in the middle of you.
Yeah.
Right.
Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.
Right.
My piece is something different with Jesus.
Caesar and Caesar was not the first one because like Alexander the great did this to and other
Kings, but they would have what is called the Ewan Gillian, right?
It's Greek for good news.
Gospel is how we translate it about his accomplishments, his divine status and the peace he brought.
So he'd spend these people around and they would, they would go and they would proclaim
this good news of the kingdom of Alexander or the kingdom of Caesar or the kingdom of
and this good news for the world in the beginning.
Like this is good news for you.
Right.
And Jesus in the new Testament repeated, uses the same term you on Gillian that they're
very familiar with because every conquering King has brought that in.
Every Caesar has their good news about their great things.
And his message is the kingdom of God is here and ready to interact with you.
Yeah.
Do you want to be a part of it?
You're welcome.
Mark one, one, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God, the good
news of Jesus Christ.
What is the good news of Jesus Christ?
That the kingdom of God is here and is accessible through the death, burial and resurrection
of Jesus.
Right.
Um, one of the things that the apostles before Jesus died, he says, go and preach the good
news to the lost sheep of Israel.
Yeah.
Go and preach the good news, uh, which you and I have had fun with people in the past
where they would say, what do you think that the gospel is that Jesus preached?
And I, and you know, what's, what's the answer we do usually yet?
Uh, that he came and died for her sins.
Yeah.
And I was like, so you think that's the gospel that Jesus preached when he was walking the
earth because we see the gospel, the gospel, the good news is.
Repent for the kingdom of heaven is here.
And uh, now the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus is the access point.
Yeah.
But the, the good news is that the kingdom of God is here and ready to interact with
you.
And we're not downplaying death, um, burial and resurrection.
I actually believe I'm elevating it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, uh, but you have to look at it and be like, what did Jesus actually preach when
he was here?
Yeah.
Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.
Come back to who you're supposed to be.
The kingdom of heaven is here and it wants you in it.
Yes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Yes.
Blessed are the meek.
Yes.
These people are being welcomed into this kingdom.
It looks different.
It's exactly opposed to everything you think is powerful.
You look at Rome and you see these things.
I'm going to tell you the exact opposite.
In fact, if you go through the blessed art, that list is almost a direct opposition of
Rome in general.
Yeah.
Right.
It's pure in heart peacemakers, right?
Meek.
Yeah.
It's sons, you know, sons of God, right?
Like all these different things.
Like it's not, um, it's not Rome there.
It's like the opposite of Rome.
Yeah.
In God's, or Jesus says that this right here, this is a light on a hill.
Yeah.
This is a salt in your food.
This is light in the dark, right?
Going this way is actually what's going to set the kingdom on fire.
Like in a positive sense.
Yep.
I think it's really hard because, um, a lot of times we're like, Oh, we got to do something.
We got to conquer.
And Jesus is like, actually you need to lay yourself down on behalf of others.
That's hard.
I was having a conversation with a guy I was at my office the other day and we were talking
about, I said, you know, Jesus went and he laid hands and he would hear you.
He would heal people and he would go and he would preach the good word and people would
respond.
Jesus also got whipped and crucified.
And if we're going to be followers of him and live in his step, it's me.
Sometimes we're going to go, we're going to be involved in people's healing.
Sometimes we're going to be involved in people hearing the good word.
And sometimes we're going to get whipped on behalf of the kingdom.
Well in, in following Jesus and Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow me.
Now I've as growing up in church, I always heard that I was like, yeah, like guy be ready
to follow Jesus wherever.
And then they would just kind of skip over the whole, like, what is the cross?
Yeah.
Like in Roman culture, what is a cross?
It's the, it's the most brutal, disrespectful way that you can kill somebody.
It's an instrument of death, right?
A super disrespectful instrument of death.
It's meant to humiliate and make you look like a fool.
So, so like in turn, like, would you actually look at this, pick up your cross and follow
me.
Jesus says, you're getting this message of like, Hey, if you're going to follow me, you're
going to look different.
You're going to look like a fool.
You're going to look just not like you're supposed to.
Yeah.
Quote unquote.
I do.
I do love, I'm going to quote from my good friend, Brian Qualls here because I think
it's great.
Don't suffer because you made bad choices.
Suffer because you're following Jesus.
Right?
Like, I mean, even if you suffer from making bad choices, God can use us.
Yeah.
But let's try to make the suffering because you follow Jesus, not because, and, and there's,
there's nothing wrong with suffering, but suffering has a purpose to bring the kingdom
of God to people.
Yeah.
Right.
And so like I would, I gladly suffer on behalf of Jesus because I know that when I do that,
when I'm part of his plan moving forward, that it brings the kingdom of God.
We were talking to, it may have in the last episode or this episode, we talked about Christians
all around the world who don't have freedom.
And when they disobey, they might get cut off from their family or their business or
their life.
Right.
And yet the kingdom flourishes there because their suffering isn't wasted.
It moves the kingdom forward.
Well, have you ever read the book, the hole in the gospel?
Who's that by?
It sounds super familiar.
I forget who wrote it, but we're just really on it.
We find it and put it in our notes in our, in our comments.
But anyways, the hole hole in the gospel is this guy.
He went, and I'm going to butcher a lot of this, but he went and he interviewed, uh,
people who were in prison because of the gospel and, and like a lot of the question and questions
that he would often ask would be like, how do you maintain your faith in, in these like
turbulent times of persecution?
And they're like, I don't understand the question.
Yeah.
They're like, this is part of the deal.
This is just part of the deal.
They're like, I don't, I don't get what you're saying.
Yeah.
And they're like, well, but you know, when like hard times come, like it can be easy
for our faith to waver.
And they're like, again, I don't understand what you're saying.
And, and I think one of the guys in the book study interview, he, it was, it was like,
I don't think, I think he phrased it like, I don't think that you follow the same Jesus
I do or something like that.
Um, I haven't read it in a while, so I might've butchered a lot of that.
So, so if some of you are like, actually, this is what it says, please let me know.
Yeah.
Also go read the book because it sounds fantastic.
Yeah.
And so it's, it's, it's just, it's just this series of interviews, but it's basically these
pastors in prison being like, what do you, what do you mean?
What do you mean?
I'm going to lose sight of my face in persecution.
Yeah.
Like I'm here because of it and I'll be here again because of it.
I think it's a, yeah, it's really, yeah, we lose sight of that a lot of times.
Well, and, and Jesus's message is just so counter everything.
So in a lot of ways, America is, is very Roman.
Like there's a lot of things in our culture that are very, very Roman.
Um, and, uh, and Jesus pushes against those things.
And so like, what I don't want you to hear is that everything in Jesus's life is narratively
put up against Rome.
It, it, there are things that are there because the writers are doing two things.
They're connecting the old Testament to who Jesus is, the God of the old Testament to
what Jesus is doing, but they're also giving a rebuff of culture in who Jesus calls him
to be like that.
That's both of those things are happening simultaneously as they're going through.
Um, like another place that, um, shows up is in the life of like Julius Caesar is like
his birth, right?
Uh, it's celebrated as a monumental event, uh, poets and historians at that time, like
they described it as his birth is divinely ordained, written in the stars, right?
And uh, is a turning point for the world.
Well now the story of Jesus, they, like when the writers are writing that, like they take,
like what happened, but then they also talk about this star, this specific star that goes
and dwells over Bethlehem, right?
That's not an accident that they emphasize those details because they're, they're pushing
back against this narrative and they're like, Hey, you, uh, you're talking about how Caesar
Augustus is all this.
Jesus is greater, right?
Um, you have in this idea of universal rule, like, uh, Augustus was celebrated as the ruler
of the known world and he's taking all the territories and uniting them and Jesus is,
how about we take every person, every tongue and every tribe and we combine them as, as
one follower, one body, Philippians two, nine through 11, all of this.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so
that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
So also a lot of times when you read that, we read that of like, Oh, it's just above
everything else.
Also, the name that is put above every name in Roman culture, Caesar.
Yeah.
One of the things that, uh, people really struggle with in, in the book of Romans, it
says, if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.
Now if I say Jesus is Lord, what am I saying?
Caesar isn't right.
It's not just a word or a phrase that you say you're actually, uh, you're actually turning
from something else too.
Like if Jesus is Lord, Caesar isn't.
And I think that's a really important thing.
Like when you were reading those types of things is because Paul's not saying if you
just say Jesus is Lord, you're saved.
It's a, it's a placing your faith in because you're saying, I don't care what it costs.
This is truth.
Yep.
I'm I, this is where my allegiance goes.
One of the things I, I was last pieces I was getting here was like, uh, a lot of the Roman
propaganda obvious size that Augustus has rise to power was part of a divine plan to
save the world.
His leadership was presented as a solution to chaos and division.
Galatians four, four through five here, here, Paul now in the middle of this, doing this,
right?
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman born under
the law to redeem those who were under the law.
Right?
Paul's not making an accident.
He's subverting what's going on out there.
I really wanted to go through and I wanted to really like contrast this idea of the kingdom
of God versus the kingdom of Rome.
Right?
And so Jesus proclaimed a spiritual eternal kingdom that was based on, based on love, humility,
reconciliation.
Right?
That wasn't Rome.
No, Rome was based on authority, dominion, and more so pressure than anything else.
Yeah.
Right.
So we want you to live and if you don't like that, well, we can just wipe you out.
That's okay.
And like Jesus comes and he brings what we call Shalom, which is like this piece, this
kind of a peace with God, peace with humanity that is built on reconciliation with God and
others.
Yeah.
And Rome actually brings in more fear and hatred than anything else.
Yeah.
And also just brings in the appearance of status because as Rome actually expanded further
north and further west, they actually would build these cities and put barely anybody
in them just to be like, Hey, look how powerful we are.
And then that's actually what began their downfalls of people being like, wait, you
say you're powerful, but there's like 30 people here.
We can take this.
Well, and so, and like that plays into like this whole idea of humility and pride because
Rome then they celebrate pride, self-glorification, deification of emperors.
Right?
And Caesar being called the son of God and like given all these titles and in the kingdom
of God, it's the opposite.
Yeah.
Right.
We're not celebrated for being prideful.
We're celebrated for being selfless.
We're not celebrated for being a boastful about how great and mighty we are.
We're celebrated for serving our servitude towards others.
One of the things that shows up in Paul's writing a lot, definitely dealing with Roman
culture and specifically in the book of Romans is this idea of they valued authority control
dominating over others.
Right?
Like having like even there, like there's these things where they're talking about, like they
talk about sexual dominance and like other types of things that Romans did right.
That were over other people.
And Paul's like, no, no, no, that's not who you are.
Well, you look at the kingdom of, you can look at the kingdom of God.
There's greater value put on serving the least of these, the imprisoned, the slave, the homeless,
the adulterers, so on and so forth.
Like you look at the conversations Jesus had, right?
Like when he's washing feet, right?
Takes on the least servant.
Yep.
Takes on the least of the servants.
You look at other people that he conversed with.
You have the woman at the well in John four, right?
You have the prostitute who was caught in the act of adultery.
Ironically, she was the only one who was going to be stoned.
Where is the guy?
We demand to know.
But she was caught in the act and they're like, we must kill her.
And Jesus is like, well, if you're sinless, go for it.
Yeah.
So you have this model of, I'm actually going to be there for the people, not just be, not
put them under my thumb.
Well, and what you're talking about there is God, Jesus is for the marginalized, the
women, the slaves, the Jews, the non-Jews, the tax collectors, the sinners.
He's for all of these people, even the Romans, right?
Whereas Rome has this very strict hierarchy, right?
If there's one thing you can say about Rome is they have a hierarchy.
Yeah.
Like they're a hierarchical system and like, you know, you're moving up or moving down.
And it's a lot of, a lot of problems.
And Rome, Rome, Roman ideals is all, is a lot of like self-preservation, conquest, personal
gain where we're actually the ideals of the family of God or, and this actually goes back
to Judaism ideals as well as more family centric.
Yeah.
Right.
A lot of times I've actually heard people do this and this is my quick like 15 second,
be careful with this.
I've heard people like take Roman societal structures and impose them into Judaism societal
structures and been like, well, but this is what the Jewish culture was like.
I was like, actually you just hybridized Roman culture and Jewish culture.
Yeah.
Which I mean can happen.
There's a place for that.
Yeah.
But, but like, for example, for example, in Jewish culture, if someone was getting married
back in that day, they usually just added onto the father's house, right?
That's not a thing in Roman culture.
Right.
So we'd often like kind of hybridize these things and be like, oh, well there's this
hierarchy in Jewish culture where they could work their way up, work their way down.
Yes and no.
Yeah.
But because there's so much more family centric, you, if you were, you either were educated
or part of the family business more or less.
Contextual analysis is always so difficult because people are like, well, you know, there's
this instance.
Okay, but is it an instance or is it a norm?
Yeah.
And those are the questions.
Yeah.
So that's why even like when I say there's like five major responses coming through the
silent periods to Jesus, there was more, but these are the five big ones.
Yeah.
Right.
And, and what more than we're trying to help see, like, how does the narrative move?
Yeah.
One of the things that I think is the big difference is that Rome is, is looking at
this, they're looking like the way they go through their packs from on and all these
different things.
It's, it's all about security in the, in the life now, right?
Security in, in like your house, your country, your community.
And that's not really what Jesus is talking about.
It's not a hope in earth.
No.
So they're talking about a temporary security, right?
Yeah.
And Jesus is talking about eternal security.
Yeah.
So it can be in the moment, but it's more about equality with God.
I would, I would say it starts in the moment.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Like when you say yes to Jesus, eternity starts now.
Yeah.
It doesn't start when you die.
It starts now.
But, but if you're not having Jesus in your life, everything is a temporary security.
Yeah.
So some of my takeaways, like when I look at Caesar Augustus, cause we could go hours
on everything that's going on in this culture.
But one of the things I want to, I want to pick on, like, especially for myself is, um,
am I trusting in this kingdom of God?
This one that lays down behind their self down on behalf of others.
This one that is self giving, self sacrificing this one that goes to coronation on a cross.
Yeah.
Right.
Or do I really trust my own packs for manas in my life, right?
Or I enforce peace at the, at the end of like effort or, uh, forcing things.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Because I think that's a really dangerous place that we don't recognize in our lives.
Like when we're trying to force things that God isn't actually bringing in our life.
Yeah.
And when looking again, every time I read these types of stories or look at these characters,
I have to remind myself that even if, even if this person's not following God, God is
still using them to advance his kingdom.
Yeah.
Right.
He's still, uh, he is still implementing things that allow his kingdom to advance further,
advance faster, advance far, like so on and so forth.
Like, uh, you look at the infrastructure that came from Rome.
Yeah.
Right.
And then you look at, uh, that allowed the gospel spread so fast.
Yeah.
Um, you, so, I mean, and then you look at how that gospel had an influence to where
Rome who's still the world's superpower, 300 years later had a Caesar who was like, I'm
actually going to follow Jesus.
I was thinking about when I, when I'm looking at Caesar at Gus, I love all that by the way.
Um, I'm actually jumping off of that.
Um, in case anybody listening didn't catch that.
I actually loved what Spencer had to say.
You can mark that down as one time out of a thousand.
I'm just kidding.
Three years in first time.
Um, with Augustus, he is, he is like, you think about like up to this point, maybe,
maybe Nebuchadnezzar, but like Rome was much bigger than Babylon.
He established as a vast, powerful earthly army.
Um, it's, you know, I took bricks and I made the marble and, but it was ultimately temporary.
Right.
It, despite everything it does, eventually it fell.
And his rule reminds us that there's this fleeting nature of human power and institutions
where, whereas when we're followers of Jesus, we're not investing in things that fade away.
We're investing in a kingdom that doesn't go away that we actually exist in and continues
beyond us.
And we prioritize the eternal over the temporary.
Like how often are we focused on the mess mess somebody makes today rather than who
will become over the next 80 years?
Right.
Uh, John 18, 36, my kingdom is not of this world.
Right.
Hebrews 12, 28, therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Yeah.
Cause it doesn't exist in this war.
Like it's here, but you can't touch it.
You can't shake it.
Right.
Uh, while we can engage and improve the world around us, our ultimate focus should remain
on God's kingdom moving forward.
Yep.
And that's what's called a shakeable.
It's cool.
Yep.
It's great.
Well, I think that concludes our Kings and kingdoms and season two.
Can you believe we got through season two?
I know you guys are going to be so excited.
Guess where we're going in season three.
Um, we are actually going to be talking about the dinosaurs.
Um, and I'm just joking.
If you're not on YouTube, you can't see the fact that I just closed my eyes and rolled
so hard at Spencer.
No we are actually, just so you know, I bet you pastor Nick would be super excited if
we randomly started talking about dinosaurs on this podcast.
Oh, I have a, I have a pastor friend who is huge into paleontology.
Yeah.
And if I texted him and was like, Hey, next season of the podcast, we're going to be talking
dinosaurs.
He'd be like, I'll, I'll be there.
And we would probably just have a list of questions and let him talk for 45 minutes
a shot because you and I know nothing.
Yeah.
So we'll just have a list of questions in the ground.
Uh, something with an asteroid maybe I would go chat GPT.
What questions should I ask a biblical paleontologist?
Uh, yeah.
Um, but, uh, we're going to be talking about the life of Jesus, life of Jesus and, uh,
trying to just have real conversations about what does it mean to follow Jesus understanding
of Torah, understanding everything that came before life of Jesus.
And then what does it actually mean for us Gentiles following today as, uh, not Jews,
but maybe Gentiles.
Yeah.
And as all followers.
We'll be looking at some of the nuances between one gospel count and another gospel count.
Cause sometimes it might seem like things don't line up quite as well as they should.
And we'll actually talk about some of that stuff.
So we have enjoyed it.
Thanks for being here with season two and hopefully we'll see you again in season three.
Well, actually we never see you.
You only see us, but we'll see you in season three.
Yep.
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