Do you guys remember a while back when the big scuttle butt, the big news, big item of the day, the thing that was in all the headlines was the invasion of Europe by Attila the Hun. It's okay if you don't, because a lot of stuff has happened since then. The news cycle turns over really, really quickly. But it was a huge deal if you were there for it, because Rome, I mean, it was, you know, it's the eternal city, and the Roman Empire was really powerful. But in the 400s, Rome started to wobble a little bit. And people had a lot of assumptions about how great it was and how it was never going to go away, but it started to look like maybe it's going to go away. And so Attila the Hun, which it's kind of an odd mash-up people group there, the Huns. It's a whole bunch of tribes from Eastern Europe. Maybe the Ukrainians are descended from some of these folks. Maybe some of the Huns were descended from the Scythians. They kind of look like they're from almost Eastern Europe in terms of attire and military style. It was very foreign to Roman culture and it was very intimidating because what started out as a cute little invasion turned into a pretty big deal with a lot of looting and really prominent cities falling to flames and falling to the sword of Attila, including tons of fancy cities that you've heard of in modern day France. They called it Gaul back then. Well, you might be thinking, well, you got an army there in Rome, just send out the army and kill them. Those Roman soldiers, they were really, really good. But the thing is they didn't because a hundred years and change earlier, the Roman seat of government had moved east with Constantine to Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul. And so all the resources are over there, and there wasn't really any military maneuvering to be done. There weren't a lot of bargaining chips left with the old legacy capital of the Roman Empire, that being Rome itself, the beautiful and priceless, eternal city. And so eventually Attila turns his attention there. He goes by Venice, kind of up in the armpit of the boot of the Italian peninsula. And this is what causes the people to move out into the lagoon onto Little Islands to avoid Attila. I guess they never moved back. I've been there recently, and it seemed like they were still living out there on the lagoons. So then Attila presses further down toward Rome. And what do you do if you can't beat somebody militarily? You sue for peace, right? You beg them not to do it. So the Western Emperor sent out a delegation, which included the Pope, Leo I, also known as Leo the Great, to go and I guess ask very nicely if Attila could, for the first time ever in his life, be nice and just not attack Rome because it'd be so much nicer if you didn't. And what's wild is that famously somehow that worked. Nobody knows what was said. It drives me crazy that nobody knows what was said because it makes no sense for Attila to have turned around. Why are you invading Europe if you're not gonna go and get Rome? Everything else is a stepping stone to get to Rome. And now you've got it free and clear. It's dead to rights. Go do whatever you're gonna do, I guess, you big invader jerk. But instead, Leo I says something to him and he leaves. And man, I would like to know what that was. If you go to the Vatican Museum, there's a huge wall mural, uh fresco, I guess. I think it's by Raphael. That sounds right to me. I could I mean, I don't know, all the ninja turtles run together after a while. I think it was Raphael, and it depicts Attila, and he's kind of green and gross and like a goblin sort of character, and he's hideous and disfigured. He's wearing weird clothes and noble Leo I is out there. And in fairness, Leo I was a good pope. Leo I was a theologian, he was a scholar, he really liked the Bible, he was a competent administrator. I think, as popes go, I think he kind of did earn the title of the great, and I'm saying that as somebody who isn't Catholic, he was a pretty good one. But in this depiction by, I think Raphael, we'll call it Raphael, there's a bunch of angels and stuff behind Leo, and the invading hideous Attila is shrinking like a vampire exposed to a cross with the sun like he's backing away from it. He's like, fine, I'll retreat. I can't contend with this. And maybe some people think Attila had heard about the fate of the previous guy who tried to invade Rome. Well, he succeeded. There's a guy named Alaric who invaded Rome or Alaric, I don't know how you say it. Now he went into Rome in 410 AD and sacked everything for like three days, and that was pretty ugly, and that sent shockwaves through all of the Roman citizens and even Christians, and it was such a big deal that Augustine, like the Saint Augustine, had to write a whole gigantic, very long book to help people sort through the relationship between the affairs of the world and the state and the affairs of the kingdom of God. And I mean it was a big, big deal, but Alaric died right after that. And so maybe Attila was thinking I'll die after this, or heck, I don't know. In the Bible, miraculous things happen. Maybe it's the kind of thing where God, as he was directing and superintending history, was like, I don't want Attila the Hun to crush Rome right now. And further, I want this Christian leader to somehow get credit for him not crushing Rome. So I'm gonna do it this way. And maybe something crazy did happen there that I can't explain and it breaks the laws of time and space. I don't know. What I do know is that Attila voluntarily left and he died a year after that at a dinner, and that's the last we really meaningfully hear from the Huns in Western European history from there on out. That story was really fun, so I went on and on with it a little bit longer than I intended to, but here's the point. You want to know, don't you, what was said? Because what was said there would explain an otherwise very difficult to explain phenomenon. Did Leo I crack open the Bible and turn to the book of Acts and point to Ananias and Sapphira and be like, sometimes God kills people, man. You heard about what happened to Alaric. Do you really want to risk it? Could be. Maybe Leo I had no idea what to say, but God gave him words to say, like what Jesus said might happen at times when you confront worldly powers in Matthew chapter 10. Maybe Leo I had a whole elaborate, clever plan, and he was just a brilliant statesman and understood emotion really well, and he knew exactly how to work over, how to play this invader and play on his fears or his arrogance or who knows what, and just manipulated the guy into going away. I don't know, but I'm really, really curious because if I knew it would explain a really unusual historical fact that Attila had an empty net goal sitting there for him and it was Rome, and he just passed on it. Well, there's another very difficult to explain historical fact that we have been looking at in the Book of Acts, and that is why Christianity caught on. It seems like it shouldn't, and it seems like if it was going to, it would catch on as a subset of Judaism, and it would be like another denomination of Judaism or something like Kabbalah sort of is that was hot a while back. But instead, it immediately floods the banks of Judaism and expands all the way out, far afield, into everything, and every culture that Christianity goes to, not only in its early days, but all the way up until right now, as you and I are having this conversation, it seems to be able to adapt to very quickly, very neatly, the character and work of Christ, the values of his kingdom, the things that he teaches. It seems like it just plays in every imaginable culture. And for the first time ever, you have an expression of faith that seems to be unstoppable and infinitely translatable, and it isn't being advanced by the sword at all. In fact, it's being advanced in spite of the sword. So, same way you wonder what did Leo say to Attila? I would find myself wondering if I were looking at that from the outside looking in as a historical phenomenon. Well, what the heck did they say? Like what was it specifically? What were the words that they went around and said that made this thing make sense to people? And yesterday, I read you this whole big chunk of stuff from Acts chapter 13, where Paul and his companions sailed to Perga and Pamphylia, and then from Perga they went on to Poseidian Antioch, and then they went to the synagogue there in Poseidian Antioch in modern day Turkey. And they take a really interesting tack in explaining the whole Jewish thing. The conversation to get people to sign up to be followers of Jesus isn't exactly the one that you would expect. The highlights for me is that throughout the speech, which happens in a Jewish synagogue, Paul constantly frames his speech and assumes the presence of people who are not Jewish and who don't yet believe in Jesus as the Son of God is God in the flesh. Another thing that stands out to me is there's a lot of history. Paul is dealing with a lot of Old Testament, and he is talking about specific chunks of this that point to God's superintendence of the whole redemptive story of everything, and how that redemptive story moves from one land to the next and to the next and to the next, even in the Old Testament. I think you can see what he's doing. He's paralleling what's happening now. This story of God is also moving from one culture, one land to the next. And he takes that all the way up to David, and then he points to Jesus as a descendant of David. Everybody there is going to know that David is supposed to have a descendant who will reign on the throne of David forever. And then he alludes to John the Baptist, a recent religious revival phenomenon that occurred, and he's like, he links it clearly to the Jesus thing. That thing that you guys knew that you had heard about is true and is real. That's a part of this as well. It's all part of the work of God. And he brings it around through the Psalms and the art of the Old Testament, the wisdom literature. And then he points out that all the other great people from the past who were a part of this story who God used, they all died and their bodies decayed. But then he says, in contrast, Jesus is different because his body did not see decay. In the scriptures, it says you will not let your holy one see decay. Paul references that, and then he points out Jesus fulfills that. That's a really hard thing to be the fulfillment of. It would take a miracle. The miracle is the resurrection. Jesus is alive, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. And then he pivots from there right to this little tag at the end, which I think is the message that convinced these Galatian people who signed up and became Christians. I think this is what won them over. This is what made sense. I'm going to read it now. I'm going to read it again tomorrow. But this is our little peek behind the curtain to explain this incredible phenomenon of Christianity catching on in a place where you wouldn't think it would catch on at a scale you wouldn't think it would catch on at. What was said? Well, apparently this is what was said. Acts 13, 38. Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him, everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you. Quote, look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I'm going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you. Unquote. He speaks to something that everybody who's lived for even a minute knows that they need forgiveness. You can't go back in time and unmake things. If there is to be true forgiveness, true atonement, it has to come from outside the natural system. Paul says that I think a lot of ears, every honest person's ears, are going to perk up if they believe there's even a slight chance of it being true. Actual forgiveness, actual atonement, actual right standing with the universe, with God, with my maker. And then he says, and you're not going to find this through the ancient law. That isn't why that law exists. More on that tomorrow, but you will find this in Christ. I know it sounds unbelievable and difficult. Take care you don't make this mistake. That is also a quote from the scriptures. Something amazing is going to happen. Don't scoff at it. That's his point. Receive it. That might seem like it's not the most complicated thing, at least proportionately to the type of response that this brings about, but I'm just telling you, this worked. What he went and said in settings like this worked, you could tell two ways. One, it made certain people very mad. It's not even worth getting mad if the thing that was said isn't in any way effective. And two, a whole bunch of people believed and churches continued to exist here even after Paul and his buddies moved on. I would love to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation between Attila and Leo. Just out of sheer historical curiosity. What did that guy say that prompted such a historical anomaly? Here, you get to be a fly on the wall. We don't have to wonder. This is what Paul said that prompted this incredible response and this unprecedented historical anomaly that is a bunch of outsiders responding to Jesus en masse and it completely sticking and going global, seemingly historically, overnight. More on that next time around. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.