Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

Script:

Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome … Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!

Acts, chapter 2, verses 9 through 11, New Living Translation

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you today as we begin a new series on Anchored by Truth. So, to announce the series and tell us why we are doing it, we have RD Fierro back in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, you’ve entitled this series “Paul’s Places.” By “Paul” I’m sure you’re referring to the Apostle Paul not the last name of lady who produces frozen fish products. The Apostle Paul, of course, started out life named “Saul.” But sometime after Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, Luke tells us in Acts, chapter 13, verse 9, that “Saul” was also called “Paul.” So, RD, maybe the first thing we should tackle is this rather-famous name change.

RD: Well, before I comment on that I would like to add to your thanks to the listeners for tuning in today – whether they’re listening on the broadcast or podcast. We’re grateful for anyone who devotes part of their day or week with us. And since we are going to be spending a lot of time in this series talking about names perhaps it is appropriate to spend just a minute talking about one of – as you put it – the most famous name changes in the Bible. The Apostle Paul started out life with the name Saul and all of the initial references to Paul in the book of Acts use the name “Saul.” Chapter 13 in Acts is the first time we hear him called Paul and thereafter in Acts only the name Paul is used for the Apostle.

VK: And maybe we should point out that name changes are common in the Bible. Abraham’s original name was “Abrahm.” Abrahm means “the father is exalted.” Abraham means “father of multitudes.” Abraham’s wife was initially called “Sarai” but her name was changed to “Sarah.” Sarai means “Jehovah is prince.” Sarah means “princess.” Obviously, God gave them these name changes to indicate the change he brought about in their lives. They went from being an elderly, childless couple to being, quite literally, the father of multitudes and his princess. But the Bible does not tell us that God gave Paul the name change does it.

RD: No. In the case of Saul/Paul it seems likely that Paul himself decided to change how he was called. Saul is a distinctly Hebrew name. Remember that the first king of Israel was called Saul and even though he didn’t do the best job as king, King Saul still held the distinction of being the first king of Israel. And also remember that King Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. Paul’s father was also from the tribe of Benjamin. So, it’s possible that when Paul was born his parents named him “Saul” to harken back to Israel’s first king. In certain respects, it would have been a matter of pride.

VK: Just as today people will often name their kids after famous people of the day –though in America it’s rarely royalty. In America it will more often be a famous entertainment celebrity or sports figure, but in England the names of kings and queens are still commonly used.

RD: Right. The name “Saul” means “asked” but likely that was less important to Paul’s parents than the fact that they were naming their son after the first king of Israel who had come from their tribe. The name “Paul” is not a Hebrew name. It’s Roman and it means “little.” So, it’s possible that as Paul began his ministry largely within the gentile world Paul thought using a Roman name would create fewer barriers to the receptivity of his message. Also, it’s possible that after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul was less likely to think so highly of himself that he wanted to continue to allow a link to be drawn between himself and a former king. Using the name Paul may have just been a natural expression of the humility that characterized Paul’s life after his conversion.

VK: And that’s not a bad lesson for us today. Any of those of us who have an encounter with the living God should certainly recognize that humility when we think about ourselves is in order.

RD: Agreed. At any rate, even though Paul began to think about himself far differently after his encounter with Jesus, it is consistent with God’s pattern that God used this newly humbled man to write about half of the New Testament.

VK: Well, Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14, verse 11, “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” That’s the New International Version. So, Jesus humbled Paul considerably. Before his conversion Acts, chapter 9, verse 1 says, “Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.” Someone who is breathing out “murderous threats” doesn’t sound very humble.

RD: No he doesn’t.

VK: But afterward, that same man thinks so differently about himself that he starts using a name that means “little” rather than a name he shared with a king – quite a transformation. Yet, God then uses that humbled man to write 13 or 14 of the books of the New Testament. We say 13 or 14 because many commentators think the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Hebrews but that isn’t certain.

RD: No. The author of Hebrews does not name themselves. There is evidence within the book that Paul was a good candidate to be the author but there are scholars who think it might have been someone else like Apollos, Barnabas, or even Luke. The generally accepted opinion today is that Paul likely wrote Hebrews but we cannot be dogmatic about it. But we are confident that Paul wrote at least 13 other books of the New Testament which in most Bibles are arranged after Acts. These books are commonly referred to as the “Pauline epistles.” Epistle is just another word for “letter” in the sense of one person sending a letter to another. And 9 of the 13 epistles or letters are designated by geographic names.

VK: And those names include the names of 6 different cities and one name of a Roman province which is roughly equivalent to a modern state. There are only 6 different cities because two of the cities received two different letters.

RD: Right. The cities of Corinth and Thessalonica each received two different letters. So, those letters are designated 1 and 2 Corinthians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The other cities are Rome, Ephesus, Philippi, and Colossae. And while it’s hard to translate ancient locations precisely with current boundaries, roughly 3 of those cities are in Greece, 2 in “Asia” which is modern day Turkey, and Rome, of course, is in Italy.

VK: At least Rome hasn’t moved and we all have a pretty good idea of where it’s located today.

RD: And it was in the same place in the times when the New Testament was written.

VK: So, given that this series is going to be largely about “Paul’s Places” why did you select that passage from the book of Acts as our opening scripture? Only one of the places that was mentioned in that section corresponds to a city to which Paul sent one of his epistles.

RD: Well, that section from Acts is a nice example of the big point that I want to get to in this introductory episode of Paul’s Places. It’s true that, of the locations mentioned in that passage from Acts, only one of one location was ultimately the destination for one of Paul’s epistles. But the series of places that is mentioned in that passage gives a great overview of what the eastern half of the Roman Empire looked like during Paul’s day. And therefore, it helps us begin to see how the gospel began its spread from Jerusalem – a spread that is continuing even to this day.

VK: Our opening scripture is part of the description of Pentecost – when the Holy Spirit began empowering Jesus’ disciples for their upcoming message to take the gospel, the good news, to all tribes, nations, and tongues. We have to remember that in the 24th chapter of Luke Jesus told his disciples, “It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ... And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” That’s from the New Living Translation. Jesus gave that message to his disciples after his resurrection.

RD: Right. So, Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came and filled them with power. The Holy Spirit did that on the Pentecost that followed Jesus’ resurrection. Pentecost was actually one of the Jews’ 3 primary festivals so every year on Pentecost Jerusalem was filled with Jews and proselytes from a wide variety of places literally from around the empire. So, we heard in our opening scripture that at that Pentecost there were “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, [and] people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, [etc.] …” Well, if you step back and listen carefully you find out that the person who was doing the speaking is very familiar with the layout of the Roman Empire. And when the speaker was describing their wonder that humble fishermen from a backward part of the empire could speak in so many foreign languages they actually gave a description of the empire in a very coherent way beginning with the extreme eastern edge of the empire.

VK: Parthia, in the mind of the writer of the Acts, would designate this empire, which extended from India to the Tigris River and from the Persian desert to the shores of the Southern Ocean. One of the reasons Parthia was listed first was not only because it was on the extreme eastern edge of the Roman Empire but also because Parthia was a power almost rivalling Rome. Parthia was the only existing power which had resisted Rome and not been defeated. The Parthian dominion lasted for nearly five centuries. The Parthians spoke the Persian language as did the Medes who were listed next. So, Parthia was the very edge of the territory that formed the Roman Empire.

RD: Right. And proceeding westward from Parthia the speaker mentions the Medes and Elamites. The Medes and the Elamites were essentially from the territory that today we would call Iran. Elam was bounded on the North by Media, on the East by Persia and on the West by Babylonia which could also be called Mesopotamia. And next in the list in Acts comes people from Mesopotamia or modern day Iraq which is adjacent to Iran but west of it. So, the person talking was actually performing a sort-of geographic inventory of the eastern part of the Roman Empire. They started with the east and moved west until they mentioned “Judea” – that’ s modern day Israel – and continued west in a straight line through what today would be Turkey. Then they switched down to the northern edge of Africa, which had also been conquered by the Romans. They finished up by mentioning Rome itself and a couple of widely separated areas – the island of Crete and “Arabs” who would have been from what today is Saudi Arabia.

VK: But here is the major point that we want to make – at least for this episode. All of the places mentioned during the description of the Holy Spirit’s activity at Pentecost are places that are easy to locate on both modern maps and maps that were current at that time. In other words, the geography we hear about is real geography. And it’s not just geography that is familiar to Biblical scholars but to anyone who is familiar with the Roman Empire as it existed in the first century A.D. We often mention on Anchored by Truth that one of the four lines of evidence that supports the inspiration of scripture is that scripture contains reliable history. Well, history consists not just of names and dates but also of places. And as a quick reference to just one of the lists of places named in the New Testament shows the places the Bible mentions are real places. This is illustrated very well by the Pentecost episode but we will continually reinforce this point as we move through this “Paul’s Places” series.

RD: Well said. One criticism that is often hurled at the Bible is that it is just a collection of myth and fairy tales – descriptions of supernatural spirits, angels coming and going, or people rising from the dead. But what the critic fails to recognize is that those descriptions of supernatural activity are firmly embedded in a framework of historical details that can be easily tested and confirmed. So, the critic asks us to believe that writers, like Luke who wrote Acts, sweated and strained to get minute details of history and geography right but then just sort of gratuitously tossed in supernatural events in an attempt to create some kind of a pious fraud.

VK: And one of the things that greatly militates against that being a reasonable position is that the “pious fraud” that Luke and other New Testament writers were creating was the description of a brand new religious faith. And to create a brand new religious faith in the Roman Empire was essentially illegal and therefore anyone who did so risked being put to death.

RD: And many Christians in the first and second century were put to death for exactly that reason. People living within the first and second century in the Roman Empire were expected to be willing to state “Kaiser kurios” which means “Caesar is lord.” But after coming to faith in Jesus the Christians couldn’t say that. The Christians said “Christos kurios” or “Jesus kurios” – Christ is Lord or Jesus is Lord. Christians can only confess one person as Lord as that is our Lord and Master Christ Jesus. So, essentially the first and second century Christians within the Roman Empire were considered to be disloyal and unpatriotic because they wouldn’t affirm what the Romans considered the most fundamental test of loyalty to the state – to declare the head of state, Caesar, as lord.

VK: A great example of someone who paid the ultimate price because he wouldn’t declare Caesar to be lord was Polycarp. Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John. Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna. He was born in 69AD and died as a martyr in 155AD. After he was arrested, Polycarp was brought into the inner city region of Rome. The proconsul pressed him and encouraged him to denounce Christ. He refused time and time again. He was threatened in every way imaginable, yet he remained steadfast in his confession of Christ. Eventually the Romans asked Polycarp, “what harm is there in declaring Caesar as lord?” His response was “eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?” After that the proconsul who was interrogating him realized that Polycarp was not going to deny his faith and that constituted rebellion in the minds of the Romans. They had to make an example of Polycarp so he was martyred.

RD: Right. Sad but right. So, when critics blithely tell us that the gospel writers and other New Testament writers like Paul weren’t risking anything when they included their supernatural assertions alongside their seemingly-mundane details of history and geography they couldn’t be any more mistaken. The New Testament writers were not only risking their livelihoods and reputations they were risking their lives. They knew this so they took extra care to get everything right. That’s one of the reasons it’s important for us to take a little time and study a little about the details of the history and geography of the New Testament. If a writer sweated over the details of “little things” we can certainly have confidence that they also were reporting truthfully when they described supernatural events like the ascension of Jesus or Paul’s resurrection of Eutychus from the dead at Troas.

VK: And that’s why we want to do this series on “Paul’s Places.” Taking the time to investigate how the New Testament treats geography helps people see clearly that the Bible is faithful and accurate. It is even faithful and accurate in those areas where many people might think accuracy isn’t that important. But as we often point out because the Bible is the Word of God we must be able to see that it is consistent with what we can observe about the world and universe around us and what we can know from human history. If the Bible were not accurate with what our ordinary observations tell us we would have little reason to insist that it came from an omniscient and omnipotent God.

RD: Right. So, as we’ve seen today the opening verses of the book of Acts contain details about geography that we can investigate. When we do we can confirm that the geographic references contained in the text, though they are incidental to the primary point – the arrival of the Holy Spirit – are still accurate and relevant. And the geographic details in Acts are not only accurate with respect to place and orientation but they are also accurate with respect to historical dating.

VK: What are you thinking about?

RD: For example, several of the places named - Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia – are all located in the nation that we call Turkey today. Cappadocia for instance was a province of Persia and was eventually incorporated in the Roman Empire, 17 A.D. But in the 4th century AD because of shifts in the political landscape the Roman province of Cappadocia began to undergo boundary changes and realignments. The same was true of all of these named regions. Phrygia essentially disappeared entirely in the 7th century AD. So, in Acts these regions were named as they were was true in the 1st century AD Roman Empire but they didn’t remain that way. Again, this supports our confidence in the accuracy of the report receive in Acts.

VK: And as we proceed through this study of “Paul’s Places” we will continue to see that pattern repeated. The Pauline epistles were written to particular groups of people in particular places. But they were also written at a particular point of time. If the time and the place don’t correspond then we would have no reason to trust the contents of the letter because we would have evidence the letter was fake. Fake documents are not reliable even if they were created for an ostensibly good purpose. But we will see that the Pauline epistles are consistent historically. They match places we know about from secular history as well as Biblical history. And we will see that many of the concerns the letters address are consistent with what we know about the culture and conditions of the recipients.

RD: Yes. We will also see that the book of Acts almost serves as a “guide map” – no pun intended – to putting the epistles into their historical context, both the context of secular and redemptive history.

VK: And for anyone who would like to get a preview of how the book of Acts has been validated as a source of accurate history we would recommend that listeners go to our website, crystalseabooks.com, and check out our “Facts in Acts” series. “Facts in Acts” like all our Anchored by Truth series are available there under the Anchored by Truth link. So, do you have any final thoughts before we close today?

RD: I do. In our day and time a lot of people have moved away from regularly reading and studying the Bible, its history, and context. This is a shame and a problem for a variety of reasons but not the least of which is that it steals glory from God and power from God’s people.

VK: How so?

RD: I often hear people say, even ministers, that we can receive power and victory through our Christian faith.

VK: And we often hear of people praying that they might receive power and victory from God and the Holy Spirit. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

RD: No there’s not. We should all desire to receive power from our faith, power from God, power from the Holy Spirit. But how can we expect to receive the Spirit’s power if we don’t embrace the Spirit’s word? The principle way the Holy Spirit communicates to us is through the Word of God, the Bible. If we want to experience the best that God has for us we must give our best to absorbing the Word that He has already provided.

VK: I think most Christians believe the Bible and believe in the Bible. But it is also true that in our day we are seeing far too many Christians not putting their faith into action by immersing themselves in the Bible which they claim to believe. I guess it would be fair to ask in what manner they can demonstrate their belief in the Bible if they do not diligently apply themselves to its reading and study.

RD: Exactly. And this implies that we must do some amount of investigation into the times, places, and cultures that produced the content of the Bible. As we’ve said the Pauline epistles were written to specific people in specific places at specific times. The more we know about the people, places, and times the better we are able to understand references that we might otherwise miss.

VK: Just as people today exchange information through memes and allusions that require cultural context to be understood.

RD: Right. So, we know that people are super-busy today and that’s why we dig out a lot of the information that can give people a head start on doing their own investigation. We strongly believe that when people show an interest in God’s word God will honor that intention and will provide blessings in return. It’s not that we should study the Bible just to be blessed. We should study the Bible because the Bible is the way God has used to bring us His truth – a truth we all need. But we should also not be surprised when God provides us a harvest when we were willing to sow our time and attention.

VK: Isaiah, chapter 55, verses 10 and 11 say, “The rain and snow come down from the heavens …They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.” That’s from the New Living Translation. When we set our hearts on glorifying God, seek to understand Him through His word, and trust him to guide and provide, the more He will endow us with His Spirit and His power. This sounds like a great time for a prayer. Today, let’s listen to a prayer that all of our lives will be illuminated by the ineffable wisdom that comes only from the Holy Spirit.

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quote from the New Living Translation)

Acts, chapter 2, verses 9 through 11, New Living Translation