Episode 30
What I Found When I Read the New Testament in Order | NT90
Have you ever wondered if the beliefs you’ve held about the New Testament are actually in the Bible? In this episode of Seek Go Create, host Tim Winders dives into the discoveries he made while reading the New Testament in the order it was written—not the order found in most Bibles. From redefining faith and salvation to uncovering surprising truths about church traditions and forgotten biblical characters, this overview sets the stage for a season dedicated to challenging assumptions and digging deeper into scripture. If you’re hungry for big questions, fresh perspectives, and honest exploration, this episode is for you.
“Faith was never really meant to be a belief system—it’s a Monday morning decision.” - Tim Winders
Access all show and episode resources HERE
Resources:
- NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 NT Reading Shockers
01:07 How To Follow Along
01:54 Episode Roadmap
04:09 Who This Series Is For
05:12 James Faith In Action
07:25 Hebrews Melchizedek Mystery
09:40 Hebrews 11 Patience Twist
10:45 Authority Without Study
12:49 Galatians Freedom Warning
14:06 God With Us Within Us
16:24 No Paid Clergy Class
19:14 Rethinking Being Saved
20:59 Divine Council Big Picture
23:17 Jesus Sat Down Rest
24:50 From Notes To Themes
30:16 Redefining Sinner
32:33 Eternal Life Reframed
33:53 Love Story Covenant Arc
36:08 What God Finished
37:46 Not Your Covenant
38:55 The Story Has An Ending
39:59 Traditions Not In Text
41:04 Where This Series Goes
42:44 Why I Started Digging
46:28 NT 90 Reading Plan
49:25 Three Big Shifts
50:26 Read It For Yourself
52:45 Final Challenge And Wrap
Transcript
I just finished reading the entire New Testament in order, and there are
Speaker:over 100 things I thought were in the Bible that were nowhere to be found.
Speaker:Welcome to Seek, go Create.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders.
Speaker:I just read the entire New Testament in 90 days in the order it was
Speaker:written, not the order in your Bible.
Speaker:We've talked about that in this 1990 reading plan.
Speaker:This is the order that we place the books in the way that we
Speaker:believe that they were written.
Speaker:The order, the letters actually went out to the audience in the first
Speaker:century, and what I found surprised me.
Speaker:In many ways, it challenged me and changed the way I understand scripture.
Speaker:This series somewhat of a follow up to the reading, the New Testament in order is
Speaker:where I share those discoveries with you.
Speaker:We're gonna be going through a number of things and this episode today is
Speaker:kinda like an overview of a lot of the things that I found and discovered.
Speaker:If you want to do what I did, read it in order.
Speaker:If you're just popping in on this episode and you haven't been following
Speaker:along, the reading plan is free.
Speaker:just go to K two M. DO foundation slash NT 90, that's K two M Foundation slash NT 90.
Speaker:You could download the plan, go through the reading plan, just
Speaker:like I have just finished up.
Speaker:You could read along, you could read it at your own pace.
Speaker:I kind of compressed it in 90 days.
Speaker:That's how I designed it.
Speaker:But I think you'll enjoy it.
Speaker:The link is down in the show notes.
Speaker:Make sure you do that and you can get caught up and kinda see some of these
Speaker:things that have been, just making me think, pressing me and challenging me.
Speaker:So here's what we're gonna do in this episode.
Speaker:It's kind of different and unique, but it's kind of a big
Speaker:picture of where we may be going.
Speaker:Like I said before, just finished reading the New Testament.
Speaker:In 90 days, you can go back and look at those episodes, you can review them, you
Speaker:could jump in and do the plan yourself.
Speaker:I highly, highly recommend that.
Speaker:But what I want to do is just, I'm gonna kind of go over the story of some things
Speaker:I discovered, but I'm gonna hit a bunch of the topics that came up or jumped out
Speaker:at me, or challenged me or pressed me.
Speaker:All along the way, my mind it was just going and going as I was doing this
Speaker:plan, and I would write down notes, think about things, come back to things.
Speaker:And so what I wanna do is I'm just going to sort of dump a lot of those in
Speaker:this episode with a few bullet points, letting you know that in the future,
Speaker:many of these are going to be standalone episodes or they'll be combined with
Speaker:some things where they fit together.
Speaker:But I'm just gonna give you a little taste of what's coming.
Speaker:Some of these are things I found buried in a single letter
Speaker:or gospel, others are threads.
Speaker:I started seeing things and hearing things that kind of connected some
Speaker:dots about the bigger story or about topics that kind of fit together.
Speaker:And they developed, across, like we talked about one generation of writing
Speaker:from James all the way to Revelation.
Speaker:And when you kinda read it like we just did in order.
Speaker:In context, I think things, at least for me, will jump out at
Speaker:you that you didn't see before.
Speaker:That's the way it was for me.
Speaker:I'm not gonna really go into a lot of explanation of these topics in this
Speaker:episode, but know that these are things that I've got on my list that we will
Speaker:attempt to address in whatever way.
Speaker:We can study them deeper in future episodes.
Speaker:I just want you to hear them.
Speaker:I just want you to hear all that.
Speaker:I found when I went through the reading of the New Testament in order and.
Speaker:In context.
Speaker:If one of these makes you kinda lean in and think more,
Speaker:then this series is for you.
Speaker:I'll, I'll just kind of be upfront.
Speaker:If you are looking for someone or something that just gives you all
Speaker:the answers and you don't have to spend a lot of time studying or
Speaker:thinking, this may not be for you.
Speaker:This is for the deeper thinkers.
Speaker:This is for the people that have had a lot of questions and they're looking for some
Speaker:answers about how things fit together.
Speaker:You love the scripture.
Speaker:Maybe you, you know, you love Jesus, you love everything about
Speaker:the Bible, but there's just pieces of it where you've gone, Hmm, some
Speaker:of that just doesn't make sense.
Speaker:To me, that was me years ago.
Speaker:And as I've been going through this process, I will tell you that I don't,
Speaker:I haven't gotten it all figured out.
Speaker:Don't pretend that I do and don't look to me as the guy that gives you the answers.
Speaker:But I will say this, it makes much more sense to me now than it did 90 days ago.
Speaker:So let's kind of jump in.
Speaker:this first list is kind of book specific discoveries, things.
Speaker:When I was reading a certain book or letter that just
Speaker:kinda like jumped out at me.
Speaker:And, first thing, first book right outta the gate.
Speaker:When I read James first before any gospel, it was really kind
Speaker:of cool putting that one first.
Speaker:I realized faith was never really meant to be a belief system.
Speaker:I grew up in the word of faith movement and it was really.
Speaker:Emphasized, I guess the aspect of faith and having faith, but it was really meant
Speaker:I think when you read James to be a Monday morning decision, James was the first
Speaker:thing written before Matthew, before Paul.
Speaker:It opens with stop talking about faith and start living it.
Speaker:And you know, that wasn't my mindset.
Speaker:I think when I first started this.
Speaker:It's not a theology lecture, it's just a decision.
Speaker:Live with faith.
Speaker:Faith without works is dead.
Speaker:Your speech, your patience, your Monday morning and the
Speaker:scriptures that, back that up.
Speaker:James 1 22 be doers of the word, not hearers only James two 14 through 17.
Speaker:The famous faith without works is.
Speaker:Dead.
Speaker:And, there is, kind of a Well, before I get to this next one, I do wanna say I've
Speaker:got this long list that I'm gonna be going through, and so I'm gonna be hitting it.
Speaker:I've got it pulled up in front of me here on my screen.
Speaker:And, and again, everything in me wants to dive into these deeper, but this
Speaker:episode is about hitting all these topics.
Speaker:I hope it doesn't frustrate you.
Speaker:I hope it, I hope it intrigues you where you want to hang out with me
Speaker:for the next month, two, three or more as we get into these topics.
Speaker:But all of these are probably almost standalone episodes or possibly
Speaker:multiple episodes here at Seek.
Speaker:Go create.
Speaker:Future and we've already got a few of these laid out.
Speaker:So anyway, so that's first right outta the gate.
Speaker:We started reading James back when I first started this plan, and that's the
Speaker:first thing that kinda jumped out at me.
Speaker:There's also something else that came to me when I was reading Hebrews and
Speaker:there's a character there that shows up once in Genesis, 'cause I remembered
Speaker:it when I was reading Hebrews.
Speaker:And then the entire argument of Hebrews is sort of built around this person.
Speaker:And that is Mel Hasek and an odd, weird character.
Speaker:No genealogy, no tribe, no beginning or end.
Speaker:He predates the entire Levitical system.
Speaker:Abraham, of course, went out and paid tithes to him.
Speaker:He Abraham, the father of the nation, bowed to a priest.
Speaker:Who was never part of any type system.
Speaker:The scriptures that you could look for.
Speaker:If you want to dig just a little greater Genesis 1418 through 20, Psalm
Speaker:one, ten four, Hebrews five and seven.
Speaker:That's what triggered me in Hebrews, and then especially seven three and
Speaker:seven, seven, where it talks about the lesser is blessed by the greater.
Speaker:And so that was just kinda really interesting thing to me and just
Speaker:kind of a little bit of a teaser on where my mind went with that topic.
Speaker:The phrase, captain Marvel came up when I was thinking about Melek
Speaker:Captain Marvel in the Marvel universe.
Speaker:And I'm not an expert in the Marvel universe, so no one get upset
Speaker:if I say something wrong here.
Speaker:But it seemed as if Captain Marvel had all these powers and you know, abilities
Speaker:beyond a lot of the characters that we saw in the Marvel Universe, the day-to-day on
Speaker:earth characters and Captain Marvel was always off doing something else, but would
Speaker:swoop in and help and then go off again.
Speaker:When I was reading about Mel Cek, I said to myself, sounds like Captain
Speaker:Marvel pops into the Bible three times.
Speaker:What was Mel Cek doing all the other times?
Speaker:Anyway, you could kind of get into my maybe creative, maybe twisted mind
Speaker:as I was thinking, as I was reading through the New Testament in order.
Speaker:Alright, next topic.
Speaker:Hebrews 11 is not necessarily the faith hall of fame that
Speaker:we've all been led to believe.
Speaker:It is really more of a lesson in patience.
Speaker:If you read it in context, the punchline or the punch is actually devastating.
Speaker:So this is from Hebrews.
Speaker:Every hero listed, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets.
Speaker:They died without receiving what was promised.
Speaker:And then the gut punch.
Speaker:The punchline is that since God had provided something better for
Speaker:us, that's the audience in the first century, that apart from us,
Speaker:they should not be made perfect.
Speaker:The audience of Hebrews was standing at the finish line that those heroes
Speaker:never saw scriptures to back that up.
Speaker:Hebrews 1139 through 40, and then 12 one, they were surrounded by, so.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:A cloud of witnesses.
Speaker:Alright, next big topic.
Speaker:This one was one that kept coming up time and time again and it really
Speaker:jumped out at me in first Timothy.
Speaker:And it is this, the desire to be seen as an authority can outrun the
Speaker:willingness to actually learn and study that was true in the first century.
Speaker:And it's true now today.
Speaker:And I got to be honest with you.
Speaker:I may have been guilty myself.
Speaker:I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be heard like a lot of preacher,
Speaker:teacher people that we have today.
Speaker:But I am not sure until hopefully now that I was really willing to dig
Speaker:in and do the work and do the study.
Speaker:I just wanted the fame and the celebrity didn't want to actually do the work.
Speaker:And, this was brought up in one Timothy.
Speaker:Some wanted the title without the formation, the teacher's
Speaker:platform without the students'.
Speaker:Posture, and again, honestly say the pull to be the one with the answers is real.
Speaker:I am so attempting not to do that.
Speaker:Even with this study and sharing the information, I am right here.
Speaker:I do not have the answers.
Speaker:The answers are in the scriptures.
Speaker:I want everything I say to drive you back to the scripture.
Speaker:If you disagree with me or agree, prove me right, prove me
Speaker:wrong, but get it for yourself.
Speaker:The berean that we all hear about, were commended not for being
Speaker:authorities, but for being willing to examine and learn the scripture.
Speaker:There is one Timothy one verse six through seven, desiring to be teachers of the law.
Speaker:Without understanding.
Speaker:They saw it in the first century.
Speaker:And of course we still see that today.
Speaker:Acts 1711 was the Berean that examined the scriptures daily.
Speaker:Okay, next big topic.
Speaker:In Galatians, Paul told an entire church that they were going backward.
Speaker:Freedom was the whole point, and they were trading it for a system
Speaker:that was putting them in bondage.
Speaker:Again, that was the message to the Galatians.
Speaker:People were adding rules back onto the gospel, circumcision, dietary laws.
Speaker:The old system rebuilt in new clothing.
Speaker:Paul's response was the most urgent letter he ever wrote.
Speaker:He did not even bother with the Thanksgiving section.
Speaker:In this letter, he went straight to you are deserting the gospel.
Speaker:That's in Galatians one, six and seven.
Speaker:I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting, and then in
Speaker:Galatians five, one for freedom.
Speaker:Christ has set you free stand firm and, hmm, I'll, I'll get to a bigger
Speaker:topic later, but this kept bothering me throughout books, but definitely in
Speaker:Galatians is when it first jumped out at me and my, I made notes about that.
Speaker:All right, next topic.
Speaker:From a book, Rome carried their gods on shelves.
Speaker:God carried his people on eagle's wings.
Speaker:That's from Colossians and Ephesians.
Speaker:Then he came to live.
Speaker:Inside them.
Speaker:So this is interesting.
Speaker:I've gotta share this.
Speaker:I'm actually in the process as I've gone through this reading
Speaker:plan of studying the Roman Empire.
Speaker:I also went back to, um, Alexander the Great, I've been just studying
Speaker:a lot of ancient history, primarily the empires that led up to the time
Speaker:that the scriptures were written.
Speaker:I'm just hanging out in a lot of.
Speaker:2000 plus years ago.
Speaker:So I am an exciting dude to hang around.
Speaker:No doubt about that.
Speaker:One of the things I noticed when I was reading about some of the culture
Speaker:of the early Roman Republic, 500, 400 BC was that they basically made
Speaker:their God's statues and they carried around with them, put 'em on shelves.
Speaker:They were portable, manageable.
Speaker:When they moved, they carried with them.
Speaker:Or when they went to war, sometimes they carried them with them, things like that.
Speaker:They were replaceable, they were statutory.
Speaker:They were, they were in these statues that they had, so
Speaker:they just carried them around.
Speaker:Israel's God reversed the direction and the quote, I bore you on Eagle's
Speaker:wings, and then in the new Covenant.
Speaker:This is so powerful.
Speaker:This is the difference between those that are believers and
Speaker:those that have the other gods.
Speaker:God moved in.
Speaker:You are the temple.
Speaker:We are the temple.
Speaker:The scripture that kind of gets that started.
Speaker:Exodus 19 four, I bore you on eagle's wings, and then in one Corinthians
Speaker:three 16, you are God's temple.
Speaker:And then Colossians 1 27 Christ.
Speaker:In you, the hope of glory.
Speaker:the church, the the God he is in you.
Speaker:Not some, not some statue that you carry around like the Romans dead.
Speaker:Alright, next big topic.
Speaker:The New Testament, when you read it in context, never
Speaker:created a paid clergy class.
Speaker:Paul made tents on purpose.
Speaker:This was in First Corinthians.
Speaker:Also, we saw it in Acts.
Speaker:Paul built a full argument in one Corinthians nine that he had
Speaker:the right to financial support, then he refused to use it.
Speaker:His reason we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in
Speaker:the way of the gospel, financial independence gave him theological.
Speaker:Freedom Scriptures on that one.
Speaker:Corinthians 9 12, 9 18, acts 18, three.
Speaker:He worked with them for, they were tent makers by trade.
Speaker:Also in Acts 2033 through 34.
Speaker:One Peter two nine.
Speaker:It's a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and we're gonna cover that a good
Speaker:bit because I wanna go through that.
Speaker:There were some things that I thought that I knew that I didn't, some things
Speaker:I had some strong ideas on that I found out I was wrong, that we're gonna
Speaker:talk about in some future episodes.
Speaker:Very important, and I think it directly relates to some things we're seeing
Speaker:in our church and churches today.
Speaker:All right, next topic.
Speaker:Hebrews 10 25 is not about church attendance.
Speaker:Read the rest of the sentence.
Speaker:So in Hebrews, the verse, everyone uses to guilt you into showing up
Speaker:on Sunday, but the sentence actually ends with all the more, as you see
Speaker:the day capital in many text drawing.
Speaker:Near the day is a specific event for a specific audience.
Speaker:The purpose of gathering was encouragement before what was coming,
Speaker:not filling a building every week, and I, I'll go into this more.
Speaker:There may not be anything wrong with going to a building every week.
Speaker:The point that I will make many times is that.
Speaker:Scriptures doesn't command us or tell us to do it again.
Speaker:May not be anything wrong with doing it.
Speaker:That may be incredible.
Speaker:Let's just don't say it's biblical and guilt people into doing it.
Speaker:Okay, the scripture for that.
Speaker:Hebrews 10 24 through 25.
Speaker:And, so anyway, that one's we're gonna talk more about that and, kind
Speaker:of how it fits to some of the things that I've seen and others have seen.
Speaker:All right, next topic.
Speaker:Getting saved.
Speaker:Did not mean what I was taught.
Speaker:The Greek word means rescued, healed, made whole.
Speaker:It was actually much bigger than I imagined.
Speaker:I first saw it, it jumped out at me when I was reading through Romans, but then
Speaker:you start seeing it throughout scripture.
Speaker:The word is soso and it appears over 100 times in the New Testament, and it means
Speaker:delivered, healed, restored, made whole.
Speaker:The modern version that we've had, that we've taken, it shrinks it
Speaker:down to one moment, one prayer, one transaction, and for many modern day
Speaker:believers, it's just kind of punching your ticket to go to heaven or.
Speaker:Worse, not go to hell.
Speaker:And it's, I guess it's not that simple when you actually read
Speaker:the New Testament in context, and it actually meant something very
Speaker:specific to the audience that was getting the message in the letters
Speaker:that was, that it was being sent to.
Speaker:So it was more of a whole life reality.
Speaker:Wholeness, perfected the scripture.
Speaker:Luke seven 50, your faith has saved you.
Speaker:Luke 8 48.
Speaker:Your faith has made you, well, that's the same Greek word soso.
Speaker:Acts 2 21, Romans 10, nine to 10.
Speaker:Romans was strong with this.
Speaker:Again, that's when it first jumped out at me as kind of
Speaker:this topic that I'm going, Hmm.
Speaker:I'm not sure that I totally grasp what that word saved means, especially in
Speaker:the context that we're trying to read.
Speaker:The New Testament
Speaker:Okay, next big topic.
Speaker:This one was odd.
Speaker:I've been kind of thinking about this one for a while, and some things in the
Speaker:New Testament just brought it to light.
Speaker:Psalm 82 opens with God standing in a divine counsel, judging
Speaker:the small g Elohim Gods.
Speaker:It's not a metaphor that is the structure, and it's Psalms 82.
Speaker:Deuteronomy 32.
Speaker:It's throughout the Hebrew Bible, describes the Council of Spiritual
Speaker:Beings, the Sons of God with Yahweh, presiding over them.
Speaker:Other nations were allotted to these beings.
Speaker:Israel was God's portion.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:When we hear Jesus say, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given
Speaker:to me, we could sort of connect the dots now and know that he was reclaiming
Speaker:authority over that entire council that had been divided up back in Psalm 82.
Speaker:It is cosmic.
Speaker:It's big.
Speaker:It's a big picture item, and it's gonna feed into a bigger topic of.
Speaker:There was probably more going on with what Jesus' mission was than just
Speaker:personal salvation for individuals.
Speaker:I am not taking away from personal salvation.
Speaker:I'm just saying in all likelihood, definitely there was much more that
Speaker:was going on with Jesus' mission.
Speaker:I already mentioned Psalms 82.
Speaker:One is a scripture God has taken his place in the Divine Council.
Speaker:Deuteronomy 32, 8 9 is the nations that were allotted to the Sons of God Job one.
Speaker:Six has always been fascinating to me.
Speaker:When, when God is meeting with the council and then the Satan, Satan
Speaker:comes and interacts with them, I'm always going, what is going on there?
Speaker:Well, when we hear what Jesus says in context in the New Testament,
Speaker:it makes much more sense.
Speaker:Matthew 28 18.
Speaker:Colossians two 15, John 10 34.
Speaker:That is in John 10 34 where Jesus is quoting Psalms 82.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Here, here's a big one that I am still working on, grasping, but it's important.
Speaker:No priest in the temple ever sat down.
Speaker:There was no furniture.
Speaker:There was no chair in the temple of Jerusalem or Israel.
Speaker:The work was never done.
Speaker:That is why in Hebrews when it says Jesus sat down, it is significant.
Speaker:The Levitical priest stood because the job was never finished.
Speaker:They rotated.
Speaker:It was 24 7.
Speaker:It was endless repetition.
Speaker:There was constant and endless sacrifice going on Jesus.
Speaker:Sacrificed once and then sat down at the right hand of God.
Speaker:The work is and was complete.
Speaker:The rest is, now we can stop performing.
Speaker:I need to hear that.
Speaker:Some of you need to hear that.
Speaker:The scripture is Hebrews one, three.
Speaker:He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high and then in Hebrews
Speaker:10, 11 through 12, every priest stands daily, but when Christ had offer for all
Speaker:time a single sacrifice, he sat down and then he Hebrews four, nine through 10.
Speaker:SMOs is the rest that remains now that he has sat down.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So those were some of the topics and there were a lot more.
Speaker:I, I actually have a page, a digital page that I started creating.
Speaker:Just things that came to my mind, and it is massive, but I wanted to show
Speaker:you, I actually printed out the reading plan as I was going through it, and
Speaker:what I did was, is on my reading plan in my morning, I would just like write
Speaker:down notes and topics that came to me.
Speaker:But these were just like things, and I would write them down, write them
Speaker:down, and then I would take time to go to the, The digital thing, and I
Speaker:just kept dumping things in there, and then I would organize them and all.
Speaker:So I've got a lot of these type items and I'm gonna rattle off a
Speaker:number of them here that are kind of bigger, interconnected themes.
Speaker:Some of the ones I just went through were that way.
Speaker:But I'm gonna go into some of the bigger ones here so that, I can kind of get
Speaker:these out and you can kind of get a glimpse of some of the future episodes
Speaker:and things that are rolling around in my head that I wanna dig in, even more.
Speaker:okay, so let's dive into these, and I'm gonna try to hit
Speaker:these as quickly as possible.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:First thing, the kingdom of God was most likely.
Speaker:The actual message of the New Testament personal salvation was part of it.
Speaker:Not getting to heaven when you die.
Speaker:That probably wasn't the message.
Speaker:But the thread that really runs through the entire New Testament
Speaker:is the Kingdom of God is at hand over 100 verses about the kingdom.
Speaker:71% of those, I've gone through every verse.
Speaker:This was a study I did about eight to 10 years ago.
Speaker:71% of the verses that bring up Kingdom of God.
Speaker:Kingdom of Heaven came from Jesus.
Speaker:It was the headline of almost everything He said.
Speaker:Somewhere along the way we change the subject to individual salvation.
Speaker:The New Testament never made that swap.
Speaker:It was about a new kingdom that had come on the scene.
Speaker:The kingdom of God.
Speaker:Amidst these.
Speaker:Two real big kingdoms that we had, the Kingdom of Rome or the kingdom that
Speaker:represented the world, and then the covenant of the kingdom of the Jewish
Speaker:system, and that was the other kingdom.
Speaker:The kingdom of God split those in two and basically said the kingdom is at hand.
Speaker:That is what Jesus ushered in the scripture, mark one 15 is when
Speaker:Jesus walked in and came in and said, the kingdom of God is at hand.
Speaker:Matthew four 17, Luke 4 43.
Speaker:I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God for I was sent for.
Speaker:This purpose and then Acts 28 31.
Speaker:Paul is still preaching the kingdom at the end of Acts.
Speaker:Alright, next big topic.
Speaker:This is probably what triggered me to even do this reading plan.
Speaker:This generation meant the people standing in front of Jesus every single time and
Speaker:then every writer in the New Testament.
Speaker:Knew that.
Speaker:The challenge is, many of us think that the New Testament was written to us.
Speaker:I do think it was written for us because of the kingdom that came
Speaker:in and is now thriving and growing.
Speaker:But it wasn't written to us.
Speaker:And I think when we think it's written to us, we twist it and sort
Speaker:of make a mess of it truthfully.
Speaker:So, but it was really spoken to this generation.
Speaker:That's Matthew 24 34, mark 1330, Luke 21, 32.
Speaker:It's the same phrase, same meeting, It is the people.
Speaker:In front of him.
Speaker:In front of them.
Speaker:Every workaround, every time people have tried to twist the generation,
Speaker:it, it just, it doesn't hold up to the scripture and the text.
Speaker:You have to redefine it.
Speaker:The generation that they spoke about a biblical generation is 40 years.
Speaker:Jesus ministry most likely ended around 80 30 and the 40
Speaker:years generation went to 80 70.
Speaker:That is when the New Testament was written.
Speaker:Uh, some scholars will disagree on some of the books, but.
Speaker:Almost all, I believe, all was written within that timeframe to that generation.
Speaker:When you get that or understand that or accept that, it just
Speaker:makes so much more sense.
Speaker:So anyway, this generation means this generation.
Speaker:All these things will come upon this generation and then Matthew
Speaker:1628, some standing here, who will not taste death until they see the
Speaker:son of man coming in his kingdom.
Speaker:That is really what triggered me to do this whole study, and when
Speaker:I really read it in that order, in 90 days, it jumped out even more.
Speaker:It is so clear that the New Testament was written to that generation.
Speaker:Alright, this is another big topic for me.
Speaker:The word center.
Speaker:Does not necessarily mean bad person.
Speaker:I think in modern culture we have kind of maybe, I don't wanna say misused,
Speaker:I guess the word sin, but it really at that time to that audience in that
Speaker:generation meant you are not in our group.
Speaker:A sinner spoken during the first century was someone who was unclean and they were
Speaker:not within that Jewish temple structure, and so a sinner was someone outside that.
Speaker:That's why tax collectors and people like that were called sinners.
Speaker:That redefinition changes.
Speaker:Everything from the gospels through Paul.
Speaker:It was almost more about occupation and stature, not behavior.
Speaker:Like I said, tax collectors, shepherds Tanners, the poor Gentiles.
Speaker:It was more social, not really a moral verdict.
Speaker:Jesus did not argue about where the line should be.
Speaker:This is what he did.
Speaker:This is part of what he did.
Speaker:He erased the line and unfortunately after Jesus left and after all that went
Speaker:on in the first century, we've spent 2000 years trying to draw those lines back
Speaker:again and create the in or out, laws.
Speaker:Definitions, things like that.
Speaker:The scriptures that, back that up.
Speaker:Luke five 30, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
Speaker:That was being asked?
Speaker:Of course, of Jesus.
Speaker:Luke 15, one through two, the sinners.
Speaker:The ones that were outside the group were drawing near to him.
Speaker:They were attracted to him.
Speaker:He was inviting them in.
Speaker:When that structure, that system that was there, the Jewish temple
Speaker:system repelled those people.
Speaker:It did not invite them in.
Speaker:It called them sinners and said, you are not welcome here.
Speaker:Jesus changed that.
Speaker:Galatians two 15 says, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not gentile sinners.
Speaker:Alright, another big topic, eternal life.
Speaker:You keep seeing this.
Speaker:It actually.
Speaker:Doesn't seem to mean living forever in heaven.
Speaker:It actually means more the life of the age to come and that age has already come.
Speaker:That's what came in the AD 70 event that the entire New Testament builds
Speaker:to that you find when you actually reading, read it in order and in context.
Speaker:The Greek Zoe Aios means life of the age that we have translated eternal life.
Speaker:It was about a realm, not necessarily duration.
Speaker:And and it kind of.
Speaker:Begs the question, which age are we?
Speaker:Are you living in?
Speaker:If the age has already come, then eternal life is not something
Speaker:you wait for after death.
Speaker:It is the life that we already inhabit and the scripture with that is John?
Speaker:17 three.
Speaker:This is eternal life that they know you.
Speaker:Present, tense, relational, not durational.
Speaker:John 5 24 Has past from death to life.
Speaker:Hebrews six, five tasted the powers of the age to come.
Speaker:Alright, fifth, big topic.
Speaker:The Bible it.
Speaker:It is a love story.
Speaker:Is it a love story to us and for us?
Speaker:Maybe.
Speaker:But it's a love story with specific characters, and oddly enough,
Speaker:there's a divorce in the middle.
Speaker:Once you see that arc, all the other letters make more sense.
Speaker:There's a betrothal at Sinai unfaithfulness that we saw throughout the
Speaker:prophets in most of the Old Testament.
Speaker:Jeremiah three eight said, God gives Israel a certificate of divorce.
Speaker:Then Jesus arrives as the bridegroom.
Speaker:The cross makes remarriage possible, and then Revelation
Speaker:ends with the wedding hits.
Speaker:A love story with the divorce in the middle.
Speaker:The whole story, Genesis to Revelation is one covenant relationship with a lot
Speaker:of things that go on in between, but it kind of fits all together once you see it.
Speaker:The theology textbook that we kind of pull and try to invent and come up
Speaker:with things, that reading really falls apart some scriptures to back that up.
Speaker:Exodus 19, five through eight, that's the Betrothal at Sinai.
Speaker:Jeremiah three, eight that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker:That's the divorce, Jeremiah 31, 31 to 32.
Speaker:That's the new covenant promise that we see when Jesus comes.
Speaker:Mark two 19 is Jesus as the bridegroom.
Speaker:Romans seven, one through four death frees things up for the remarriage to occur.
Speaker:There's a lot more to that that we'll dig into on future episodes.
Speaker:And then of course, revelation 19 seven and 21, 2, which is the wedding.
Speaker:Jeremiah three eight is interesting.
Speaker:Some people will, will probably push back on the divorce, but there is so many.
Speaker:Anyway, I'll just go ahead and give you the few things.
Speaker:King James version calls it a bill of divorce, new King James
Speaker:and NIVA, certificate of divorce.
Speaker:The ESV is a decree of divorce, N-A-S-B-A writ of divorce, all those words same.
Speaker:Hebrew.
Speaker:God put it in writing.
Speaker:Alright, next big topic.
Speaker:I found out some things that God has completed and moved on from, and many
Speaker:of those, most of what we practice today in our religions, in our churches
Speaker:and our denominations are things that are still in that category.
Speaker:One big one.
Speaker:The old covenant.
Speaker:It's been fulfilled, the sacrifice.
Speaker:It was finished, the priesthood replaced.
Speaker:The temple destroyed.
Speaker:These are not ongoing projects.
Speaker:They're not coming back.
Speaker:There's no reason for them.
Speaker:Jesus said, It is finished.
Speaker:The thing that's fascinating to me that I want us to do a little deeper
Speaker:dive into is why in many of our religious institutions, churches,
Speaker:things like that, we have this desire to bring as many of those things back.
Speaker:It's the question that changes everything.
Speaker:Is this something God completed in the first century or something that continues?
Speaker:Most of what we argue about is in the completed column.
Speaker:Some scriptures, John 1930.
Speaker:It is finished Hebrews eight 13 and speaking of a new covenant,
Speaker:he makes the first one obsolete.
Speaker:Hebrews 10 10.
Speaker:We have been sanctified through the offering of the
Speaker:body of Jesus Christ once for.
Speaker:All, not every week, not over and over again.
Speaker:Not repetitive once for all.
Speaker:Next topic, there are things in the Bible that are not your covenant.
Speaker:The New Testament is the announcement that the old contract is done
Speaker:related to the previous big topic, most of the church is still making
Speaker:payments on a paid off mortgage.
Speaker:Things like, we're gonna get into more details on these tithing.
Speaker:The Sabbath dietary laws priestly mediation.
Speaker:Animal sacrifice.
Speaker:All are in the Bible, all belong to a covenant that has been fulfilled.
Speaker:It's not necessarily wrong to practice some of those things, but when someone
Speaker:says, you must tithe, must keep the Sabbath, must go through a priest to
Speaker:reach God or preacher, teacher, whatever that is, rebuilding the old covenant
Speaker:inside the new one Scripture there.
Speaker:Hebrews eight 13.
Speaker:It is obsolete, ready to vanish away.
Speaker:Colossians two 16 through 17.
Speaker:Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or a Sabbath.
Speaker:These are now a shadow two Corinthians nine seven.
Speaker:Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not under compulsion.
Speaker:All right, this topic is cool.
Speaker:The New Testament is a story that actually has an ending.
Speaker:It finishes, but for 2000 years, many systems, denominations, belief
Speaker:structures, whatever we have just kept trying to add to a story that
Speaker:does not need a better ending.
Speaker:The old covenant story has a beginning, a middle and end.
Speaker:The temple fell, the system ended, the kingdom arrived.
Speaker:The systems built on waiting for the next chapter lose.
Speaker:Their reason to exist.
Speaker:Once you accept the story is complete.
Speaker:Hebrews 9 26.
Speaker:He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages, one Corinthians 10 11, on
Speaker:whom the ends of the ages have come, and then Revelation 21, 5 through six.
Speaker:It is done.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:This one's kind of a big one.
Speaker:I started making this long list of things that I was searching for in the
Speaker:Bible, and so kind of a big topic here.
Speaker:This probably is gonna be some fun episodes to do.
Speaker:I made a list of things that I was taught.
Speaker:But they're not actually in the Bible and it's currently over 100 items.
Speaker:And let me just spout a few of them here.
Speaker:The rapture, not in the Bible.
Speaker:Sinner's prayer, not in the Bible.
Speaker:Altar calls not in the Bible.
Speaker:The tithe as a New Testament command, not in the Bible.
Speaker:The pastor as CEO model, not in the Bible.
Speaker:God won't give you more than you can handle.
Speaker:Not in the Bible.
Speaker:None of those are actually in the text.
Speaker:Some of it might be harmless tradition or things that have developed over time
Speaker:or things that we just have in place.
Speaker:But some of it is used to judge, exclude and control.
Speaker:Knowing the difference is the point.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That was not an exhaustive list, but you can tell that my mind was
Speaker:twirling and coming up with all kinds of things as I read the New Testament.
Speaker:Those are just some of the items that I found and were triggered
Speaker:inside this brain of mind when I read the New Testament in 90 days.
Speaker:In the order it was written.
Speaker:And so here's where we're gonna go from here over the next several
Speaker:weeks, and I have no idea how long I'm going to spend in this season.
Speaker:To me, this is a continuation of what I'm calling the NT 90, reading the
Speaker:New Testament in order in context.
Speaker:It's just a continuation of that because it's things that spun off from that.
Speaker:If you may be listening in on this episode and haven't done the reading
Speaker:plan, I highly encourage you to, if you just wanna follow along
Speaker:with these episodes, do that, but.
Speaker:I am just going to take these topics and more that I've listed
Speaker:out and just spend more time with them week after week after week.
Speaker:And again, I don't know how long it's gonna be.
Speaker:I actually have a long list of people at Seek Go Create,
Speaker:that are wanting to be guests.
Speaker:And that is what we've done for the last five or six years.
Speaker:And I probably will start integrating guests back in and doing long form
Speaker:interviews, which I love to do.
Speaker:But these topics just won't, they won't let me leave them alone.
Speaker:I have to keep going deeper into them.
Speaker:So that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker:We're gonna walk through almost every one of them over the next few weeks
Speaker:and we're gonna have fun with those.
Speaker:So, Here's, here's what I want to do to kinda finish, finish this up.
Speaker:I, I want to kind of share, I've done this before, but I wanna do it again.
Speaker:I wanna share why I did this.
Speaker:I kept getting bothered.
Speaker:It kinda started way back 10 plus years ago when I was in Bible school.
Speaker:And it was somewhat related to people taking scriptures.
Speaker:What, what?
Speaker:Felt like they were outta context, but I didn't have enough information or
Speaker:ammunition to understand the context.
Speaker:And they would use them and build doctrines off of them and maybe beat
Speaker:people over the head with them or maybe just use them to try to do certain things.
Speaker:And I was just like, when it doesn't seem like that's what that scripture is saying.
Speaker:And then there was some theories or systems that started really bothering me.
Speaker:And for my personal story, it was related to the rapture theory
Speaker:dispensationalism, which never it, it always kind of bothered me.
Speaker:It never seemed to make sense and it really bothered me as we kind of headed
Speaker:into the COVID time when people were talking about the end of the world and
Speaker:setting dates and all this type stuff.
Speaker:And I'd kind of gotten the place in my life where I pretty
Speaker:much knew if someone were to.
Speaker:Setting a date for the end of the world, it was probably not gonna happen.
Speaker:So I became a little bit cynical about it, but I just wanted to kind of dig
Speaker:a little bit more and that led me getting into Revelation and some of what
Speaker:people call end times type theology.
Speaker:And then that kind of opened up this, hold on a second.
Speaker:What were all of these other letters of the New Testament about?
Speaker:Because there are more places that talk about the day of the
Speaker:Lord and end of the age and end times, and I'm not sure it all.
Speaker:Matches up to what we've been told or people are, you know,
Speaker:spouting, you know, oh, look at what's going on in the Middle East.
Speaker:It's the end of the world.
Speaker:Or this is going on with Israel and we've gotta build another temple.
Speaker:It's just none of that ever made sense to me.
Speaker:And when I actually began digging into the scripture, you know, I don't know
Speaker:everything, but I'll tell you I was right.
Speaker:There's a reason it doesn't make sense 'cause it's not in the Bible.
Speaker:It's not scriptural.
Speaker:It's not scriptural at all.
Speaker:And to be really blunt, most of it was made up like a lot of things that are,
Speaker:that we see in, I guess, modern or interpretations of things in the Bible.
Speaker:And the reason why is because many of us.
Speaker:Don't spend the time to dig into the scriptures and study them for ourselves.
Speaker:We just wanna plug into someone that's gonna explain it for us, get a
Speaker:quick, easy answer, and then move on.
Speaker:And so I purposed to not do that.
Speaker:And I encourage you to do the same thing.
Speaker:If you're listing in this long, you're probably in that category.
Speaker:And so I started digging and one of the things that kept nagging at me again was
Speaker:kind of how the books of the New Testament didn't, they didn't totally fit together.
Speaker:And then when I found out that Paul's letters were added in the New Testament.
Speaker:In the order of length.
Speaker:In other words, Romans is first, not because it's incredible and awesome.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:But it was first because it was the longest.
Speaker:And then the next one, next one, it gets to the shortest.
Speaker:And I'm like going, what else is like that?
Speaker:And many things were, so I started doing some deep research on when books of the
Speaker:New Testament were written, and some scholars had some disagreements on that.
Speaker:I'm not gonna get into that here, that's probably a topic for another day.
Speaker:But it really highlighted to me that most, if not all, of the New Testament
Speaker:books, letters, epistles, were written prior to that big event of 80, 70, the
Speaker:destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
Speaker:By Rome and, and so, and also I realized, hmm, as someone who's been
Speaker:studying scripture for so long, I don't really understand what the
Speaker:history of the first century was.
Speaker:All of that came together to a little over a year ago, and I said, you know what?
Speaker:I want to put the New Testament in order so that I can read it in order,
Speaker:and I want to dig in and read it as in context as I can and understand
Speaker:the writer, the author, and the audience that they were writing it to.
Speaker:And so that's what I did.
Speaker:And so the result of that is my, in Teen 90, I call it New Testament
Speaker:in 90 days reading Plan, 27 books.
Speaker:In order in context.
Speaker:And my subtitle is The Resurrection to the Revelation Generation, this Generation.
Speaker:And so that's really what happened.
Speaker:And so I put it all together and I love doing it.
Speaker:I learned so much.
Speaker:But what I've done over the last 90 days is I've been a consumer of what I created
Speaker:because I created it and shared it.
Speaker:You can kind of go to YouTube and podcast and my social medias and
Speaker:things like that at See Go Create and you could jump into the plan, get
Speaker:the reading plan, things like that.
Speaker:Like I said, here was my, here's my printed plan that I've got,
Speaker:that I, that I have is pretty long.
Speaker:A lot of details there.
Speaker:And so I actually just decided that I would go through it myself, and that's
Speaker:what I've done over the last 90 days.
Speaker:And all that we're doing here is a spinoff of that.
Speaker:It has been.
Speaker:Incredible.
Speaker:And I, and I mean this, not to discourage anyone, but I have literally spent
Speaker:hours every day going through it.
Speaker:You could do it in 10 or 15, don't be, discouraged by that.
Speaker:But the experience of reading it in sequence, it's kind of, it's just
Speaker:changed me, you know, going from James and then to Matthew and you know, then
Speaker:getting to, mark and Galatians before you get to Romans and, and, and then
Speaker:all of that builds up and then you get to John, in the mid sixties and then
Speaker:you, you finish up with Revelation.
Speaker:All of that just makes it explode.
Speaker:And if you have not felt as if you understand the New Testament,
Speaker:I don't make a lot of guarantees.
Speaker:I will almost guarantee that when you do that, when you read
Speaker:it in order, you're gonna go.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:Now there's gonna be a lot of questions like I've got, but so many things
Speaker:are gonna make more sense to you.
Speaker:You know, you're gonna get so many, hold on a second.
Speaker:Moments, kinda like I'm doing and sharing here.
Speaker:So these are the three biggest shifts that came out of it, and I'll wrap
Speaker:up with this, with this episode.
Speaker:And each one of these are gonna get, get episodes on their own.
Speaker:Really the macro, the big picture story changed.
Speaker:It's not a theology textbook or a prediction chart.
Speaker:It's a love story with a divorce in the middle that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker:A lot of words.
Speaker:Changed sinner saved eternal life.
Speaker:This generation, when you read them in context, they do not
Speaker:mean what you were taught.
Speaker:And then this is big.
Speaker:The systems denominations, a lot of things that I thought
Speaker:were biblical just fell apart.
Speaker:Like they have very little.
Speaker:Backing when you come to reading the scripture, the things I was taught, many
Speaker:of them are actually not in the Bible.
Speaker:The things in the are in Bible belong to a covenant that ended
Speaker:the entire structure I grew up in.
Speaker:Looked very, very.
Speaker:Different.
Speaker:So here's where we're going from here.
Speaker:A bunch of solo episodes.
Speaker:First, this month that we're going into April is gonna be a lot of solo episodes.
Speaker:I've got a list of about seven.
Speaker:I think they're going to be every week.
Speaker:I might get ambitious and do an extra one every few weeks.
Speaker:It's gonna be a little bit longer form, but, I'm gonna try to cover as much
Speaker:as I can that's going on in my mind.
Speaker:And, this is not a follow Tim to see what he says.
Speaker:This is really where I want you to be diving in and going along with me.
Speaker:I may start weaving in some guests again in May.
Speaker:I don't know, I'm hopeful that this is not like a seminary lecture.
Speaker:Not really debate.
Speaker:It's just what happens when you read the text in order and in
Speaker:context and let it speak to you.
Speaker:So, that's where we are headed here, and I am so excited you're a long.
Speaker:On this ride with me because I have just so enjoyed this and listen this big deal.
Speaker:I'm not asking you to agree with me.
Speaker:I'm not really asking you to follow me or make me some big deal.
Speaker:I'm asking you, I'm encouraging you to read this for yourself.
Speaker:I want this to get you thinking.
Speaker:I want you to go like, you know what I, this sounds right, but I'm gonna find it
Speaker:for myself or, and I'm okay with this.
Speaker:Tim's gotta be wrong on this.
Speaker:I'm gonna dig and prove him wrong.
Speaker:I welcome that.
Speaker:In fact, I love those kind of conversations.
Speaker:I believe that the text can handle your questions, and I've
Speaker:sat down quietly in the mornings many times and I've said, and.
Speaker:This is just my conversations.
Speaker:God, I've got a lot of questions and they're pretty, you know, they're pretty
Speaker:tough ones and they might seem, someone would call them heretical and all of that.
Speaker:But God, I gotta ask you about this.
Speaker:And I really believe deep in my soul and my spirit that God said, Tim,
Speaker:I love it when you ask questions.
Speaker:I can handle 'em.
Speaker:I'm God.
Speaker:And so ask away, give it a chance and just let these, let it speak to you.
Speaker:So, anyway, slow down and just enjoy, enjoy this process.
Speaker:So here's what I'm gonna leave you with.
Speaker:Don't take my word for it.
Speaker:Like I said, read it for yourself.
Speaker:The actual text in the order it was written.
Speaker:When you do that, the New Testament reads like one story that was told by one.
Speaker:Generation and it will change you.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Don't forget, if you're just following along, just getting started here with
Speaker:what's going on with this topic, please go get the free 90 day reading plan.
Speaker:You don't have to do it in 90 days.
Speaker:You could do it in shorter timeframe.
Speaker:You could do it in longer.
Speaker:I try not to make it legalistic or anything, but it is broken
Speaker:down in 90 days and it's at K two M Foundation slash NT 90.
Speaker:Download it.
Speaker:Start wherever you are, and if what you find does not match with what you
Speaker:were taught, pay attention to that.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders.
Speaker:This is Seek Go Create.
Speaker:Keep digging.
Speaker:See you on the next episode.
