Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast. And when I was a young man, I went on a spontaneous overnight last-minute gas is cheap road trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. I'd never been there before. My two buddies who went with me had never been there before. We were very well-behaved young men, so we did not know how to comport ourselves in the American Capitol of booze and debauchery and gambling. But dang it, we were going to go anyway, even if we could only drive there, hang out for a few hours at night, and then turn around and drive back first thing the next morning, because that's the kind of thing we did at that age. And I honestly, I think we had just seen Oceans 11. And the whole reason we wanted to go to Vegas is because we wanted to stand where George Clooney and Brad Pitt stood and look at the fountains at the Bellagio. So we drove through the night and we got there. And sure enough, the Bellagio was awesome. I still think the Bellagio is awesome. But the one I really wanted to go to was the one that was based on ancient Rome. It was and still is called Caesar's Palace. You've probably heard of it before. They do boxing matches and events there and stuff. And in addition to the casino and hotel, Caesar's Palace, they also have a mall there, I think it's still there, called the Forum Shops. And I heard about that and I just thought, I think these people get it. You know, I had recently completed a very important undergraduate degree in history. I figured I know some stuff about some things. We should definitely go there. I want to see if it, you know, passes muster. And it was awesome. They had artistic and architectural flourishes that were pretty true to what Rome was about. The art, I recognized a lot of the art. I'm like, oh, you just copied legit pieces of Roman art. This is so cool. So my friends and I go in there, and I just started telling them about stuff. And interestingly, they seemed kind of into it, which was really fun for me. So we walked in and there's this huge colossus, this giant sculpture of this guy, a noble-looking Roman guy. And I asked my friends, do you know who that is? And they're like, I mean, it's Caesar's palace, so I'm gonna guess it's Caesar. I'm like, yes, it is. That is the man himself, Julius Caesar. And this is gonna sound real familiar to you because we just talked about it yesterday as we're getting ready to go through the Book of Philemon together and we're building out this historical background. We're trying to get a sense of the world in which the Book of Philemon occurred. So yesterday, you'll recall we were talking about a little bit of the history of Rome, some of the broad strokes, and Julius Caesar, and I told a little bit of the story to my friends that I was telling to you yesterday about how in 44 BC, the wildly popular, wildly powerful, wildly successful, and charismatic Julius Caesar got stabbed to death by his political friends and his political enemies alike in broad daylight. And upon Julius Caesar's death in 44 BC, the old Roman Republic went into total chaos mode. And I'm telling my friends this in a mall, right? And they're totally into it, totally interested. It was so fun. So I go on with the story because I'm feeling it. And I told them more of the same stuff I told you yesterday. You know, Caesar dies, and then there's a mad scramble for power. And on team one, you've got Mark Antony, who's the Friends Romans countryman, lend me your ears speech guy from Julius Caesar, and his exotic lover, Cleopatra, from Egypt. She's descended from one of Alexander's generals hundreds of years earlier, and they put up a good fight, but ultimately they realize they are defeated and they will not win the scramble for power over Rome. So they commit mutual lovers suicide by Cobra in Egypt. I mean, understandably, my friends, when I got to that point in the story, were like, this is really interesting. I mean, it's it's a suicide pact by Cobra. I mean, don't do that. That's very dark, but that's a good story. They're listening, right? So who did they lose to? Well, my friends here at the forum shop. I pointed to the next giant sculpture in there. I'm like, they lost to that guy right there. That is Caesar Augustus. And my friends were interested. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna keep going. Now, my these friends of mine, they went to church with me. So they're into, you know, church, Bible stuff. They've heard of Jesus. And it occurred to me in that moment, I'm like, hey, there's a connection here with the Bible, stuff they know. I'm gonna make this more interesting. I was like, hey, and as a matter of fact, you guys have heard of Caesar Augustus, whether you remember it or not. That guy right there, that sculpture, he's the one at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke who wants a census of his entire empire. So he makes everybody go to their hometowns, and Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem, and baby Jesus is born there. That's because of that guy right there, Caesar Augustus. And they were like, dang, that is really interesting. We went a little bit further into the place and they're still interested in asking questions about the art and everything. And we come across, I don't remember, is a sculpture or a bust or a piece of art on the wall, a painting, a fresco, something. But clearly it's the emperor Nero. And I point him out. I'm like, that guy right there with the telltale neck beard, because Nero, I guess he had a neckbeard. That's how he's always portrayed. That is the mad emperor Nero. Nero was the guy who was in charge of Rome at the time of the Apostle Paul, at the time that the book of Philemon was written, Nero was the emperor. And maybe you guys, I'm telling them, remember the story about the crazed emperor who dipped Christians in pitch and then lit them on fire to light his gardens. That is that guy right there, Nero. Nero is also the guy who executed the Apostle Paul and crucified St. Peter upside down. And my friends are like, this is interesting. History is interesting. We're having so much fun. Who would have thought that would happen on our last second spontaneous gases cheap road trip to Las Vegas? And then we came across something else. And the evening turned because I overplayed my hand. I butchered it socially. I still, this is so cringe-worthy. I'm going to tell you anyway. We got to the end of the mall and there was an FAO Schwartz, which is a famous toy store. Another FAO Schwartz was featured, I think, in Tom Hanks' Big, where Tom Hanks dances on the giant oversized keyboard and plays heart and soul or chopsticks or whatever he does there in that famous scene. To make it even cooler, out in front of the FAO Schwartz, from floor to ceiling of the forum shops, there is a giant wooden Trojan horse. Rather than being like, that is neat. Instead, I had to be Mr. I know everything, and I'm going to use knowledge bursts to compensate for my insecurity and feelings of not fitting in or belonging. I made a scoffing sound. I was like, Look at that, guys. And they were like, What? I mean, okay, cool. I'm like, uh, do you see anything wrong with that? And they were like, I don't know. Should it be bigger? I I don't know. It looks it looks pretty great to me. And I was like, Well, they're off by like a thousand years, and it's the wrong empire. And they're like, Wait, I have no idea what you're talking about. What do you even mean? And so then I had to explain, like, well, you the Trojan horse is from the Trojan Wars, and that's from like a thousand years before Caesar, then the Trojan Wars are Greek, and Caesar's palace is Roman, so like everything's wrong. And my friends were like, I don't know, I'm not really bothered by it. Like Greece and Rome, they kind of just lumped together, they were saying. Like, I don't know, they all wore helmets with like fuzzy stuff on the top, and they had short swords and they had little armor skirts where you could still see their knees, and they have temples and soothsayers, and like columns, like big white columns with grooves in them. I don't know, Greece, Rome, one or the other. You're being weird now. We're not having fun anymore. Dang it! I wish I'd learned my lesson right then, but unfortunately it took a few more humiliating events before I started to figure out how to navigate things like that. But interestingly, just this week I talked with a couple of my friends who listened to the podcast, and they they were so nice about it. They gave me really nice feedback here on the first week of Philemon and indicated to me that they are definitely up for some history stuff before we get into the actual letter of Philemon to kind of set the stage and get a sense of it. I'm like, great, that's so good to hear from you. And both of these people said the same thing, which is reminiscent of what my friends said in Caesar's Palace all those years ago. They were like, you know, truth to be told, I don't really have a clear sense of all these ancient empires. Like, I don't know what the difference is between Greece and Rome specifically. So this stuff's really helpful for me. Don't feel the need to rush. I'm like, okay, well, first of all, I'm definitely going to go straight to a microphone and tell everybody back at the podcast that, as my way of saying, ha ha, see, I got bonus permission to do more history stuff, so there will be more history. But also, it was just a great reminder that even if you did go to school for this, history is really big. And it's easy for things to lump together, and it's easy for things to feel a little overwhelming, and it's easy to feel pressure to nod along with history stuff and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, I totally know what you're talking about. When the truth is sometimes we don't remember it all, and we don't remember what everybody is talking about. So I need to pump the brakes just a little bit here. I kind of fast forwarded us the last couple of days, right to the Roman political framework that gets us into the era of the letter of Philemon, and I did kind of fast forward by all of the Greece stuff, and I think it's important to kind of separate the two out a little bit, and here is why. And we would have got to this anyway, but this is just, I'm glad we're getting to it today. When we talk about the world of the New Testament, we're really talking about three or four very different cultures and ideologies all mushing together. The world had never mushed the way it was mushing together at the time of the New Testament. This was a brand new era, and this era is an amalgamation of these handful of different things, especially when you're reading the New Testament. Thing number one we've already worked on a little bit, and we're going to work on more, and that is the political and legal realities of the Roman Empire. As I've been saying for a couple days, those political and legal realities hugely shape the Kobiyashimaru, the conundrum, the pickle that the book of Philemon is written to try to address. But the next thing that hugely shapes the world of the New Testament is the Greek mind. And the Greek mind is different than Roman culture and Roman law and Roman politics. The Greek influence on this time is more about the life of the mind. It's more about assumptions about people and ethics and morality and how the seen and unseen worlds work together. A lot of the pagan ideologies that are minglers of ancient philosophy and the cosmology of Greek gods, that all comes from the Greeks. And that is still heavily in place, especially when we consider where the book of Philemon is written, too. So we're talking about what makes the world of Philemon. Well, we got the Roman stuff. The world back then was very legally and politically Roman. We've also got the Greek stuff, the mind of the world back then was very Greek. The philosophy, the ethics of the world back then were very Greek. And then the third thing, or third and fourth thing, depending on how you want to count it, is Christianity and Judaism. The Romans were polytheists, they believed in a lot of gods. The Greeks were polytheists, they believed in a lot of gods. The Jews and the Christians, they believe in one God. The Christians believe in God three and one, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but God is one, one God. These are monotheists, not classical pagans. The Jews and the Christians, they don't necessarily have Greek ethics. They're doing something different. Their ethics are informed by the scriptures, by the character of God. And Judaism has a pretty big footprint at this point in history. There are Jewish people all over the ancient Roman world. Their ideas are mingling with the larger world, though they try to remain separate themselves. But Christianity experiences explosive growth during this time. And the teachings of Christ and the ideas of Christians come into stark conflict with the ideas and values of the Greek mind. And at times they come into stark conflict with the legal and political preferences of Rome. So kind of like that moment years ago when I was there with my buddies from Nebraska, standing in front of the giant model of the Trojan horse in Caesar's palace, there is a confluence of three things occurring. For us, it was a Roman mall with a monument to Greek lore being viewed by some Midwestern kids from Nebraska. Three cultures coming together to make a moment. In the New Testament, during the time of Philemon, it's Roman law and politics colliding with Greek philosophy and ethics, colliding with the teachings of Christ and Christian faith, all coming together to make this very diverse, very dynamic moment that right now we're in the process of trying to wrap our brains around and understand better as we run up to actually breaking down the text of Philemon. That's good for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.