Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast, and we are rabbit trailing. And there will be no apology. Because the rabbit trails, to me, this is part of the fun of this podcast, where what we normally do is pick a book of the Bible and we just go straight through it. We just chip away a little bit at a time until we're done with the whole thing. But every now and then a question comes up that takes us on a little journey through other parts of history or the Bible to answer obvious questions that the text puts in front of us. And that's what we're doing right now. There was a fight between Peter and Paul. And then it happened in Antioch. And I'm not even sure fight was the right term because I think Paul was right and Peter was wrong. And what I wanted to figure out and what we're investigating right now with this little rabbit trail is did they truly ever really patch it up? Or was it a for show patching it up? And they were actually kind of frustrated with each other forever. Did they ever truly get past this moment of very public, very awkward relational tension, or did it linger? And I think this is an answerable question. And right now we are in the middle of part one of my answer, which is to say that yes, I do think they patched it up. And reason number one is because by the end of their lives, they are fully hanging out with and invested in and partnering with the same crowd, the same group of people. And I think that if they had a fight at the end of their lives that was still lingering, it would have been too awkward to hang out with all the same people and partner so closely with them. So we started working through this point yesterday. If you didn't catch that one, you might want to, or whatever is fine. We're just going to pick it up where we left off from yesterday after my friend Jeffrey plays some music. Here we go. Colossians chapter four, toward the end of the book, and we just get this little personal note in this book that was written by Paul a little later on. He says, My fellow prisoner, he's writing to the church in Colossae, Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. Oh, well, that helps me understand the connection between Barnabas and Mark a little better and why Barnabas was patient. Okay, they're family. And uh you've received instructions about him. If he comes to you, welcome him. Ha! That's not just a trite, sweet little, hey, you know, say hey or whatever. That's not how that worked. If we read through the rest of the New Testament, we know that vouches and recommendations among the early Christians were very important for Paul to say by the time he's writing this letter to the Colossian church in Colossians 4 for him to be like, you know, hey, Mark has my approval. So does Barnabas. That isn't a fleeting thing, especially coming from Paul. It's a big deal. So we can check those two off the list. Looks like somewhere along the way, John Mark and Barnabas, they got everything patched up just fine with Paul, no hard feelings, moving forward, everything's great, to the point that Paul's enthusiastically willing to vouch for them. Now, the letter to the Colossian Church is probably written in the early 60s, but a little bit later on into the 60s, we find out that this wasn't just distant affection that Paul had come around to feeling toward John Mark, who again it looks like worked with Peter to produce the gospel of Mark. But as we move forward toward the end of Paul's life in the last letter that he writes, which is 2 Timothy, he's expressing even more interest and affection toward John Mark. Paul writes from a prison cell that would probably be his final home. Only Luke is with me. He's talking about being in Rome. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he's helpful to me in my ministry. Dang. Paul's alone, he's asking for the last people. He wants to be with them in Rome as he knows he's facing the end. And now John Mark is on the list. Dang, that's a huge swing from I can't trust you or take you with me. I'm even willing to lose a friend over it if I have to. That's how much I can't trust you with important things right now. To go from that all the way to, hey, I'm gonna die. I need that guy here. Please bring him. It's just amazing. And it's the tip of the iceberg of massive things that must have happened relationally between them. Well, John Mark ends up in Rome. Maybe he'd been there before, maybe not, but Peter is also in Rome during this time. Toward the end of his life, is it possible, even likely, that Mark, which seems to be written in a very Roman context under the tutelage, instruction, guidance, sourcing, storytelling of Peter? Is it possible that that gospel happened because of the reconciliation between Paul and John Mark that caused Paul to say, have Mark come over here? Is that why Mark ended up there in the first place? Is that why the gospel of Mark, which you can still read today, even happened? Well, seems fairly likely. So here's what I'm seeing. As we read the stuff about the end of Paul's life, it seems like the relationships are all patched up with all of the old team, all of the old people he ran with. You don't really get the impression that anybody who factored heavily into the entire story of Paul or New Testament, who was a fellow worker with him, who maybe he ended up parting ways with, you don't get the sense that there's anything outstanding there at all. Even one of his greatest reputational rivals, that being Apollos, who, you know, a lot of people seem to like Apollos more than they like Paul. Even with Apollos, Paul's ego doesn't seem to get in the way at all. He's excited about what Apollos has accomplished. No, it just seems like Paul is a dude at the end of his life in 2 Timothy who is at peace with what he's done, at peace with how God has used him, at peace with the race that he has run, ready to face the next thing. And he's leaving behind him a legacy of, yeah, maybe some bumps and bruises along the way, maybe some things he might like to take back that maybe he shouldn't have said years and years ago. But it's all right now. Everybody's pulling in the same direction. Everybody's excited about what God is doing. It's all in the past. I mean, it's all downstream. Mark's grown up, he's proven himself. Paul has proven that he has the ability to patch up relationships that got weird either for good reasons or otherwise. But then we go and look at the actual internal content of what Mark wrote, probably under the tutelage and instruction of Peter, and we go and look at what Peter wrote, and what we discover is that there's another reason to believe that these two probably completely patched it up, that being Peter and Paul. In addition to reason number one, which is they hung out with the same crowd and their relational circles overlapped beautifully without any tension. Reason number two is that they seem to have taught the same stuff and their message seemed to have been on the same page. And to suss that out, tomorrow, we're gonna look at a little bit of the gospel of Mark and see what Mark is relaying probably through the ears and eyes of Peter, through his recollections of what Jesus had said. And then we're gonna look at some of what Peter himself said as well. But for me, all things are pointing to there really was a reconciliation, not just interpersonally coming out of the incident in Antioch, but even more so than that. There is clearly a reconciliation in terms of what the message is, and that means Peter was wrong, he owned it, he came back online with what the message had always been. In the case of the Antioch situation, Paul was saying correctly. And from here on out, Peter faithfully preached this and lived it out, and eventually both Peter and Paul are gonna die vouching for the exact same thing. More on all of that next time around. On the way out the door here, there has been this ongoing adventure with the main means of support that most of you who support the program use around here is Patreon.com. Patreon's been, honestly, they've been a great partner. I know that over the years, especially during the age of madness when if you ever said or thought the wrong thing, everybody would descend on you like a circling pack of vultures and pick your flesh and cancel things. I know that Patreon had some goofy missteps during that time. I didn't agree with all of their policy decisions or what they did, but the world was insane back then and everything was a cancelable offense. But I know a bunch of people at Patreon. I think they've navigated that era as well as anyone else, and I think highly of the platform. It's been a good partner with me, but they've got a lot of considerations and a lot of things going on. So I don't want to give the impression ever that I'm all mad at Patreon or whatever, but it is on the Patreon side. Patreon is a funding model that people like me use to try to pay to make things like what we're doing here happen. They have had pressure from Apple and the Apple App Store that has caused all of them to make a decision together that they're not going to do any more per creation basis Patreon accounts, which is how we have it set up here. Instead, everything's gonna be on just a flat per month basis. If somebody supports anything through Patreon, it's just gonna be charged once a month, full stop. The numbers never change. And I see what they're getting at. It's simpler. However, the changeover is hard. I kind of had the impression that that changeover would happen. Like I would tell them, yes, we're doing it now, and then a day or two later it would be done. They are telling me that it is going to occur in about four weeks, early January is when they can complete that and when everybody will notice the changes. So I'm gonna keep you apprised on that. I know it's a bit of a goofy situation. Again, nobody on the internet's perfect, but I really do value their partnership. And I I'm coming around to seeing where they're coming from on this, and whether I come around or not, uh, this is what's happening. It's it's I don't have a choice. So, either way, uh, this is the direction it's headed. I'm gonna continue to keep you up to speed on that. Thank you so much to all of you who do support this program, who have ever supported this program. It doesn't have to be a forever thing, good heavens know. Or to any of you who might someday support this program. It happens because of you, and the internet's a dynamic place where things change from time to time. And I just want to say thank you again for your flexibility and understanding on Patreon's new terms and how all of this works. I'll keep you up to speed. All right, that's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.