Transcription of the Video: The Very Word of God

Jesus said, "Come. Follow me." And they did until they were covered with the dust of his feet as the ancient saying goes. Then he said, "Go. Make disciples. Teach them to obey what I taught you." 

When rabbis teach their disciples to obey, it's about the Scripture, the Bible, or the text as I like to call it. Jesus was a teacher of the text. I heard once that rabbis want to learn the text, live the text, teach the text, pray the text, and die the text. Jesus did that. He learned the text. He said so. "Everything I learned from my father, I taught you." He lived the text; he obeyed it completely - even wearing tassels on his robe as the story of the woman who was healed of her bleeding indicates. 

He taught the text, he quoted it, he hinted at it, he taught his disciples how to interpret it. I think he prayed it. If you look at his prayers, there are echoes of Hebrew Bible themes - kingdom, evil one, daily bread. And he died the text. He hung there. He recited from the Psalms. 

And then, he said to his disciples, "Go teach them how to obey." And that meant that the text, the Scripture had to be important to those disciples too. They had an advantage. They grew up where they knew the text and learned to love it even before they met Jesus. But they had to take that text and bring it into a Greek world that didn't respect it - in fact, had never even heard of it. How would they teach the world how to obey Jesus' commands from their text (the Hebrew Bible) and as their text grew and they were inspired to add pieces to it? How would they bring that message to the world of the Greeks? Well, they did. Come. Let's see. 

Look back. We've been walking on a typical Roman road. I read somewhere 57,000 miles of road like that the Romans paved. But this is a special piece of road. This one comes from Miletus, about 24 kilometers - 15 miles away - leaves the city of Miletus and comes here to where there was simply a temple. Nobody lives out here. The whole 15 miles was colonnaded with shops on both sides, every 100 yards or so, a carved lion. Now, why such a special road 15 miles out into the countryside and with shops indicating a lot of people walked on the road. The answer is what's here. This is a place called Didyma. Just ahead is a huge temple of Apollo. The Miletus folks walked this far to worship their god. Why here? Come. Let's go see.

What do you think? You're in the second largest temple in the world. This is called the temple of Apollo at Didyma. Now I'd like to just have you experience a bit before we talk about what went on here and what can we learn from it. So just imagine now these columns, some of them more than six feet in diameter, standing 62 feet high (six stories high), and then on top of that an architrave, a frieze. And then the roof, probably of stone as well, which would have been another 30 feet or so to the peak. It would have felt like a stadium in here. It must have been absolutely stunning.

Now whatever they did here, it must have been a big deal. And here come the disciples of the disciples. Incredible. Come. Let's go look around the outside a moment. Let me show you what it looked like from the outside. 

Notice how the columns are decorated - some one way, some another. Now in this temple, the temple of Apollo, were 122 of those columns - 122. There were 10 across the front and 21 deep. Look at how far those columns went. Now here, you can begin to see where the temple was. Come. Walk with me just a bit. Notice the temple building itself. Do you see it? But the temple building is inside this forest of columns. So picture looking down this temple all the way to the end there by the trees, a row of columns like this one just enormous, like giants. And then here, the temple building itself. But look at the size of that temple building. And then you have to imagine that the walls of this temple building are not what they are now. That's what's been restored. Those walls were as high as the column. And the roof didn't cover this building. The roof covered all the way from the columns on the outside to the other side so that this building was kind of inside a roofed enclosure.

One hundred and twenty-two columns, each in drums, brought probably from miles away and assembled. Would you agree with me whatever went on here, it was a big deal? But imagine something this big, this powerful that you're working on for 800 plus years, how important this must have been to them. Walk under this just to get the feel of how huge these column drums are. Look. Impressed?

So what was the temple of Apollo? Well Apollo is the god of music, light. And Apollo is also the god of oracle. What's an oracle? An oracle is a message from the god, a word from the god. It came, it was believed, from the underworld. And since Apollo had connections in the underworld, he could figure out what would happen if you did something. Now that's an oracle. It's a word that comes in answer to a question. 

So you say to the oracle, "If I do this, what will happen?" 

And the oracle would respond, "If this, then this." He wouldn't tell you what the future held necessarily. But he would tell you what the result would be if you followed a certain course of action. 

"If I attack, what will happen?"

And the oracle would come back and say, "If you attack, an empire will fall," for example.

So imagine tens of thousands of people coming here to find out if I do this, will that happen? Now of course for the Jew, absolutely an abomination. For their Torah said, "Do not look for mediums. Do not seek spiritists for they will defile you. I am the Lord your God. I will turn my face against anyone who seeks." (Leviticus 19) God detested people who sought information from demonic or underworld sources.

But that's not our point. Because oracle itself is not necessarily bad. Eighteen times in the Old Testament, the Word of God is called an oracle. Malachi starts his book by saying an oracle - the Word of the Lord - through Malachi.

Twice in the New Testament, at least, the word is used - translated in your English Bible probably as "the very words of God". So God describes his own word as an oracle. The problem was not a word from God. The problem was which god you got the word from. But in this world, the oracle came from Apollo. Let me show you how. Come.

We're going to walk along with a group of people who came to hear an oracle so that I can show you what they would've done step by step. Please understand nobody left a rule book. We don't know exactly what they did here, but from the research I've been able to do - and others as well - we know things that happened at this oracle and at another oracle and at another oracle. So let's assume what I'm going to tell you is generally true whether every detail happened here or not. Okay?

Okay, we're standing out front. Take a look. The street level was down there in those days. They're showing the inside columns. Imagine the outside columns and then over the whole thing, a stone roof. Think of what your first impression would have been when you came over this hill. You had no doubt that whatever went on here was important, and it must have been something they were seeking or you wouldn't have a building like this. 

The oracle is the place-- that's the oracle of Apollo at Didyma. Oracle is the person who got the message from the underworld, from Apollo. And the oracle is the message. So you came to an oracle to hear an oracle tell you your oracle. Remember that for the Jew who believed in Torah, this was an abomination. No way you could be any part of this. God said, "Don't." 

And certainly, the believers and followers of Jesus who took the Hebrew text from the disciples would have said the same, "We cannot be part of this. This is not God's way." That we know clearly. That's not why we're here. What I'd like to do is to imagine that we're a group of observers who come to watch what happens to someone who seeks an oracle.

So imagine we've walked 500 miles to observe someone get their oracle so we'd know what they did. And then I think there's something we can learn from God after we've seen how they get an oracle. So your first impression, we've walked 500 miles. Look! Wow! Now let's go with those folks and find out how you would get an oracle. Come.

So we stop here because if someone sought their oracle-- let's imagine a whole family-- they would first come to the sacred well. That is actually documented here. And they would wash in the - I suppose we would call it holy water. Apollo remember is from the underworld or gets his messages from the underworld. So you want water that comes from below. So you would come here and wash. The group we're watching also brought a sheep for a sacrifice. So the sheep has to be washed. And a priest would probably scrub that sheep while the group stood and watched. So first, we're purified so now we can approach Apollo to discover if he will give us an oracle.

At some point, we would have to move here. Come with me a moment, please. And we would go this way. So they would slaughter the sheep. And based on something in the sheep, they would decide whether Apollo was saying yes or no. Let's imagine the sheep liver has been read, and these people that we're watching have gotten their answer. Apollo will hear your question. Now we go up to the temple. Come.

So this group that we're observing has found out Apollo will answer. So they come and stand here among this forest of columns. Look. The roof, eight, ten stories above us - gigantic and powerful. In front of us, the [cresmagraphion? 16:03], the oracle door. But the door is shut. Imagine how big - 10, 15 feet in the air, two doors. And so we stand with the group, and they wait. And they wait. And then one day, we hear the latch begin to be drawn, and the door creaks open. Huge - first one and then the other - boom. Then as we watch, coming up the stairs slowly through that door is the priest of Apollo dressed like the statue - maybe a shimmering gold robe. He walks maybe to drums or cymbals through the [cresmagraphion? 00:16:56]. "The great god, Apollo, will hear your request." 

And one of the group steps forward (this group we're observing) and there's a question. "Oh, mighty Apollo, we humble before you. We have found a deposit of fine marble on our land. But that would mean a change of trade and of guild and a change of god. Will our god be angry if we seek a new god? Oh, great Apollo, we don't know what to do. Tell us the oracle."

I don't know what Apollo's priest would say. Maybe something simply to the effect of, "Apollo will hear your question." And then the door, boom, boom. And we wait, and we wait - sometimes months - for Apollo to give us his word. You see the game board sometimes around on the floor where people would play games as they waited and they waited. Now wouldn't you like to know what was going on in there? We wouldn't have been allowed in there. No one but the priests of Apollo. So had we come to observe, we couldn't have entered.  But let's just go see and think about what was happening in there as that group waited. Come.

Now picture where we are. This is the place for priests. But our attention turns to this little building here. Come.

Right here was a small inner temple. In Greek, you call this naiskos. And there were stairs. You can still see some of them that allowed the priests to go down deep, as it were, into the underworld. Now the oracle was typically an old woman. She had disciples she trained, but she would sit suspended in a tripod in the middle of this temple of Apollo. We don't know exactly how it worked here. 

In Delphi, she was suspended over a hole in the earth, out of which fumes came. It turns out they're fairly close to what's in glue. So the effect of her sitting there was as if she were sniffing glue. The oracle would get the question from the priest who stood next to her. And then in her ecstasy, she would give the answer and he would jot it down. And eventually, a priest would put it to poetry.

Now, I don't know how it worked. I look at this building and I say it couldn't have been wrong every time or you wouldn't end up with this. Some have suggested she made it all up and was just lucky. Could be. Some have suggested it was evil, demonic powers giving her information. Well, the Bible teaches there are demonic powers. It could be. Maybe she was wise enough to know how to predict. I don't know. But I do know to the Greek world, this was an important part of their understanding of god or that wouldn't have been here.

To the Jew and the follower of Jesus that took the text seriously, an abomination. To them, the very life and breath of God. So now the oracle has been given in some kind of an ecstatic experience by some woman who spends her whole life suspended high over a pit. And the priest goes to bring it to us. As he comes out of the temple from the depths of the abyss, crosses the opening.

And then the day arrives. The word is the oracles will be spoken today. And you hear the latch and that door swings open, a huge boom, boom. "The words, the oracle of Apollo, it has been predestined. If you offer sacrifices to your other god, and if you give extra offerings to the new god you wish to take, and if you honor Apollo with a gift, your business will be blessed." Boom. Boom.

Now tell me, what do you feel? Do you feel the awe they must have felt? We just heard a word from god. You feel the fear in their hearts. What if the word is bad? Do you feel their passion as they left here to say, "We will do exactly what he..." 

Then here's my question. What on earth has happened to us? Do you understand that the oracles of God-- not the utterings of a woman high on something-- the oracles of the Creator of Heaven and earth have been given to you? You have them, all of them, the very words of God. You carry them around in your pack. No sheep livers, no washings. They're all yours. Put your hands on a column. Pick a column. Put your hands on a column, everybody. An archaeologist found an inscription here. One column - one of these columns - one cost 40,000 denarii - 40,000. The inscription also says a stone cutter earned two denarii a day. That means one column took 20,000 days to make.

Now assuming that most stone cutters stayed on the same stone as long as they lived or until it was finished, it took somebody 57 years to make one column counting their holidays and feast days. Fifty-seven years for what? To hear one word from god. And I can't get up 10 minutes early to read my Bible. What has happened, brothers and sisters, to discipleship?

How many passages could you recite today? How many chapters have you read in the last month? When is the last time you read through the whole oracles? 

Why? To be like the rabbi is to be a man or woman of the text. Fifty-seven years for somebody who was going to hear the utterings of a poor woman out of her mind. And we have the very words of God. 

Let me encourage you to memorize. You can do this. Read the text. Read through the Bible on a regular schedule for the rest of your life. Read one Gospel a month for the next three years and discover how much Jesus will mean to you. And if you say to me, "I don't have the time," then my question to you is, "How badly do you want to be a disciple?"

Jesus said, "Come. Follow me." And then he said, "Go. Teach them to obey everything I taught you." How can you teach anyone to obey if you don't know what he taught? Go teach them to obey. And that means be a man, a woman of the text.