In this enlightening episode, Aaron Budgen delves into the intricate relationship between religion and economics during the time of the apostle Paul. He explores how financial motivations often influenced religious teachings and practices, revealing the economic undercurrents that shaped Pharisaical Judaism and early Christianity in Ephesus. By drawing parallels to modern times, he offers insights into how financial interests have historically driven the propagation of religious beliefs, often overshadowing spiritual truth.
Shema Yisrael Welcome to the broadcast outreach of Living God Ministries with Aaron Budgen. Aaron discovered Jesus is his Messiah while preparing to be a rabbi. He now teaches for several organizations and is the teaching pastor for Living God Ministries. Strongly distinguishing between the Old and New Covenants, Aaron presents the scriptures from a Judaic and historical frame of reference. Join Aaron now as he reveals the reality foreshadowed and the new life we can now experience because of what the Lord Jesus accomplished for us.
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Thank you for tuning in to today’s program. This is Aaron Budgen and I recently released a book titled Building Life. This is for young people who are starting out into adulthood and it is also for those who have found themselves in a circumstance where they are starting their lives over. I have put a lot of effort into writing this book. It is a short read of about two and a half hours. It is only available directly from me. So if you would like a copy, go to the Living God Ministries website and you will see a link there that says, inform me of Aaron’s books. Fill out the form and I will get back with you as soon as I can. do take the time to go to the Living God Ministries radio archive at livinggodministries.net. The archive is divided up into three sections. The first section is more of the life of Christ, and I provide a lot of historical content there in those programs. And I have made a lot of important contributions from a historical perspective to better understand what was taking place during Jesus’ ministry. In the second section of the archive, I speak about our life in Christ. And in the third section, you will find the verse-by-verse studies. If you would like some recommendations on what to listen to and in what order, do just send us an email to staff at livinggodministries.net. You will find that email on the Contact Us page. And after a conversation with me, I’ll give you a list of programs that I would recommend and in what order. I’m presenting a verse-by-verse study through Ephesians, and in the previous message, I was in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 14, and I’m going to spend a little bit more time in verse 14 in this program. In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 14, it says that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, but we should no longer be children by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. And what I’ve been focusing on in the previous program, and I’m going to continue a little bit more in this one, is the idea that there are people who are intentionally being deceitful, being dishonest with others, taking advantage of them, by telling them things about God that are not true. It is intended to be something that they do for their own personal benefit, that they are deceiving, manipulating, lying to other people intentionally for their own personal benefit. And this, of course, will be measured by the benefit that they experience in their flesh, which can be recognized as a sense of influence or power, But in general, it really just comes down to money. And of course, there is a lot of money available in religion. If you haven’t noticed, there is a tremendous amount of wealth that can be obtained through religion. And so it will, of course, attract people who have an interest in the wealth for their own personal benefit, to indulge their flesh, or just simply because they would prefer to have a job that doesn’t seem to require as much effort as they would probably have to put into another form of employment if they were to pursue that. And that, of course, is related to the topic of employment. I spoke a little bit about this in the previous message. In this program, though, I’d like to consider what Paul was dealing with. when he wrote this letter there were some things that he was dealing with during his ministry that would certainly inspire him to write something like this this would be coming from two different categories that i will call the religious and the non-religious although the non-religious could be classified as religious but it’s just different enough that i can call it something different all right i’m going to start with the idea of the religious the religious persuasion, what Paul was dealing with when it came to others who were intentionally deceitful, dishonest, plotting, telling people things that were not true, and they knew that these things were simply not true. I’m going to start with an understanding of Pharisaical Judaism and the connection between teaching Pharisaical Judaism and being able to acquire wealth. This was never done directly. The wealth that was acquired by a Pharisee who was teaching, a rabbi, was never directly connected to him teaching other people about the Mosaic Law. A rabbi would never receive compensation for teaching the Scriptures. That was a very important part of Pharisaical Judaism, which of course is very different when you compare that with today and the modern church where you will see that in general pastors and priests and ministers are very much compensated for teaching the Scriptures. And I don’t think there’s anything evil about that at all. I think that there is a good place for that as long as it is managed well and the effectiveness is measured appropriately. There certainly can be a place for people to be directly compensated. So I’m not saying that the Pharisaical model is the way to go. I’m saying that there can be a place, of course, where the gospel can be perpetuated in our civilization much more effectively and in a bigger way if people are directly compensated for doing that. But during the time when Paul wrote this letter, the Pharisees were very active in people’s lives, and they were very active when it came to teaching people about the Scriptures and about living in accordance with the Mosaic Law. They were very active in people’s lives, encouraging them to do that which is good and never do that which is evil, which you could consider to be a good thing, you know, that they want people to obey God, to repent from their sins and obey the commands of God. There’s nothing inherently evil about that. But in this case, I want you to notice that they were not compensated for doing that, not directly. The way that they benefited from being a rabbi, from being someone who spoke to others about the scriptures, the way they benefited was indirectly. And this is how it worked. Everybody had a job. You know, I mean, everybody had some kind of skill. that they made available to the people who were around them. Nicodemus, for example, who was recognized as the rabbi of rabbis there in Jerusalem. He was the head of the rabbinical school in Jerusalem. How did he make a living? He was a well digger. He made his living digging holes and repairing wells. That’s what he did. He spent his life behind a shovel. And every Pharisee had some kind of employment or business of some kind that they engaged in. But this is how they were compensated indirectly. Whenever anybody needed any of these services or any of the goods that the Pharisees produced, If they needed something that one of the Pharisees had, or one of the rabbis had, or they needed a service that one of the rabbis could provide, then who would they ask to perform the service or provide the good, right? The goods and services. They would look to make their agreements with those rabbis who had a good reputation. those who they would expect would be honest and who would fulfill their part of an agreement that would be made, and that they would do good quality work that they would be proud of and that the person would be thankful to receive. You can consider the situations in our lives today. It can be very difficult sometimes to find someone who will do good quality work when you need to find somebody to do that. perhaps you’ve noticed that that sometimes people do not fulfill what they agreed to do they don’t do their part of an agreement or they do work a very poor quality perhaps just the absolute bare minimum just to say that it was done and no more than that you know and yet a little more would have really made a big difference and it would not have cost them too much effort to do that but you just notice that you know it can be very hard to find someone who has a strong amount of integrity to make an agreement with so that you can both mutually benefit from the arrangement. And so people would look for those who were recognized as being honorable people. And of course, a rabbi, right? A rabbi is most likely going to be reliable and they’re gonna be honest. And when they agree to do something, they’re probably going to do it. This is what people were thinking. So if you were a rabbi and you had a handful of disciples, you would have a reputation. You would have a set of credentials concerning your integrity. And so people would be more willing to do business with you rather than somebody else who was not a rabbi, who did not have disciples, who was not well-respected, who was not a man of God. And this is what was going on. This is what it meant to be a Pharisee, especially a rabbi, during the time when Paul was conducting his ministry. Now, in the midst of spreading the gospel and talking with people about Jesus being the Messiah, there is a high probability that there were a lot of rabbis who knew that Jesus really was the Messiah, but they were intentionally deceiving people and telling them things that were not true because it would have caused a disruption in their business you know it would cause a disruption in their lifestyle Nicodemus for example he spent his life behind a shovel but as soon as he publicly announced that he believed that Jesus was the Messiah there weren’t very many people who were willing to hire him to do work that often anymore. He wasn’t able to get a lot of work and he died in poverty. I have read this myself in the history of the Jews. This was placed in the historical writings as a warning not to believe that Jesus is the Messiah or you are going to be economically targeted and you are not going to prosper. And we’re going to say that God is cursing you because you are clearly in violation of the Mosaic law, and you are also violating God, and he will intervene in your life, and this is how we will know, because you will die in poverty, being cursed by God. Whereas the fact is, is that we’re just not going to advertise your business anymore, and we’re not going to do any business with you, we’re not going to trade with you. You’re not going to get any jobs, and that’s just the way it’s going to be. It was an economic issue. It had to do with the money. And so, of course, you know, people have to make a choice. Are you willing to suffer financially? Is that what you’re going to do? Are you really willing to suffer financially, probably in a big way? Or are you going to tell people things that you know are not true in order to make sure that you can continue to get the income that you want? And if you don’t think that people would be willing to give up the truth in favor of their income, then you are quite naive and very inexperienced when it comes to people and the issues of life. Because this does happen a lot. It really does. And it’s always been like that. And this is something that was going on during the time when Paul wrote this letter. And it’s important to understand that the financial motivation was a huge motivation, enough that people would be willing to lie, enough that people would be willing to exercise cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting just in order to maintain their lifestyle, the one that they would like to have. Now, this is the category that I would call the religious. But there was another category of people, and these people were predominant in Ephesus. These are the people who I think Paul was probably thinking about more than the Pharisees, although there were Pharisees who were in Ephesus, and they were teaching. You can read about them in Acts chapter 19. You have the Jewish exorcists as an example. But there were other people who were there. And those were people who I would call non-religious. However, from the perspective of the people, they could perhaps fit into a religious kind of category. And in that way, they would be participants in the religious discussion and perhaps try to tell people things that they know are not true in order to deceive others. intentionally and as a matter of plotting and cunning, yes, there certainly would be a lot of people who would do that as participants in the somewhat religious activities and yet not be so religious as you could compare them with a Pharisee, as an example. So compared to a Pharisee, they’re not religious at all. But when you look at the Gentile world, you could put them into a type of religious category. A really good example of this is found in Acts chapter 19 in verse 24, just to give you an example. In verse 24, Acts chapter 19, verse 24, a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Diana, wrote, brought no small profit to the craftsmen and then he goes on from there and he talks about what happened with the conflict between paul and these guys who were making a lot of money who were making a lot of wealth who were profiting very well had a lot of business a lot of work to do because of their relationship with the people who worshipped diana now the worship of diana was not the same as the worship that was expressed by the Pharisees. You know, with the people of the Pharisees, you’ve got Jews and Gentiles who converted to Judaism, who are most likely going to be quite sincere, very much devoted to the living God. Most of them would probably have true, sincere beliefs with regards to the law and about their God, but the people who are worshiping Diana are not necessarily going to be people who are religiously devoted in the same way as the people who believed in the Bible, believed in the Scriptures, the God who is spoken of in the Scriptures. those who worshiped other gods would do so, not necessarily out of conviction, but because those gods represent philosophies that are important to these people. And so the religious nature of the people was different enough that you could say that this still kind of fits into the category of being kind of non-religious, especially when you compare them with the Pharisees. It was not so much about believing whether or not these gods were real. It was about the philosophical principles that they represented that the people already believed in. The gods were a representation of the beliefs the people already held to, as opposed to the God of Israel who presented himself and their beliefs were based on his existence. Not the other way around. In the Gentile world, the paganistic gods, these gods were gods who just simply were representations of what other people already kind of sort of believed. And so people did participate in these different religious systems, But in general, you didn’t have the same kind of religious conviction as you had in the Judaic world. This was about something else. It was about the philosophical principles. It was about the social participation in people’s lives. It was about the festivities. And it was, of course, about the business. And there was a tremendous amount of business. In this example with Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Diana, he Now people would buy these shrines, right? This is a direct way of benefiting from people who believe certain things, all right? Now if there were doctrines and teachings that were connected to this, just to give you an example, if there were doctrines and teachings that people were presenting, trying to recruit more people into the philosophy of Diana, into the observance of some festivals, that kind of thing, to try to embrace some kind of religious persuasion, you could probably find a lot of folks who just make things up, make up stories, make up teachings and doctrines, just trying to recruit people into the observances, in a sense, or to reject the faith that Paul was expressing, that Paul was speaking to people about, which is what this commotion was about in Acts chapter 19. It was about the fact that people were believing the gospel and they were abandoning paganism. Consider verse 19 in Acts chapter 19, verse 19. There was a big book burning that took place and all the books that were destroyed totaled up to about 50,000 pieces of silver. That was a lot of wealth. Obviously, that was a lot of books on magic and other things that were brought together and set on fire. So there was a huge economic disruption that was taking place. It would be in the interest of these people who benefit from the economic activity, it would be in their interest to compete with what Paul was telling people about Jesus. To compete, to get involved and tell those people things that are not true, to disrupt the conversations to try to find a way to convince people to not believe in Jesus. This would be intentional. It would be a plot. It would be deceit, cunning, craftiness from the craftsmen, you know, stuff like that. These are the kinds of things that they were dealing with. But again, it’s not necessarily because of some religious conviction. It’s about the money. Follow the money and you’ll learn a lot about why people do the things that they do and why people promote the ideologies that they promote, even though they don’t believe them at all. They do it because if you follow the money, they profit from these deceitful manipulations that they engage in. These shrines, for example, the silver shrines that Demetrius and the other craftsmen were making, people would not buy those just so that they could put them up on a shelf and say, look, I have a shrine and now I can worship Diana and be religious. That’s not what they were doing. I mean, you could probably find a few people who were doing that. I’m sure a few. But no, in general, what this is is a form of coinage. That’s what this is. A silver shrine manufactured by the craftsmen in that area would have a certain amount of weight, would of course have some artistry to it, but it would be a form of coinage in order to say that this is silver of a certain alloy or a certain grade that the silversmiths determined through through their labor, through their refining capacity, they would determine a certain amount of purity of the silver, of the weight of the silver, and the artistry would be recognized by everyone in the community as something that was made by these craftsmen. It was a form of coinage in order to allow people to trade a large amount of silver at one time a large amount of wealth, having confidence in the quality, in the purity of the metal, of the silver. It has nothing to do with some kind of religious worship. It has to do with a form of coinage. so that people could preserve their wealth in a large amount of silver that they could have available for trade at any time that they would need to use it, which would in general be a large expense of some kind, and they would easily be able to trade these shrines because they were recognized by people as real silver according to the purity of the craftsmen in that area. That’s what this kind of craftsmanship would be about. But people are not going to buy these or use these as their store of wealth if they’re Christians, because we have something that is a representation of another God. And so there would be a reduction of trade, a reduction of purchases, a reduction of manufacturing, competition, economic disruption. They’re going to take a financial hit. And so, of course, they’re going to intervene. and do something about what people are believing. They’re going to intervene and throw out teachings and doctrines that will disrupt the spread of Christianity and so that they can profit economically so that they don’t have to suffer from a lack of sales and a lack of use and a lack of trade of these important forms of silver that were being used by the people. It was a form of coinage. Okay, now let me give you a modern example of the things that I described in this program. A good modern example is when you consider that one of the reasons why people become religious or why they will participate or become a member of a church is so that they can have business contacts. This is a very important part of our society, of our civilization, that if you want to be a person who is known as someone who can be trusted, someone who can be relied on, someone who has a measure of integrity, If you need help with something, if you need a service of some kind, you will have a tendency to look for people in your church who provide those kinds of services. This is similar to the pharisaical model of be a righteous and holy person so that you will be someone that others will choose to make agreements with, to do business with. it’s a financial motive all right and when you understand this then you can also understand why people would want to donate why they would want to tithe why they would want to financially contribute to a church it’s a form of advertising it’s a form of marketing instead of it being a direct expense for advertising their services It is considered to be a tax deduction instead of a direct tax deduction for a business expense. It’s another kind of deduction. It’s just simply written up on a different line on your tax forms as a donation for a nonprofit, as a charitable contribution. contribution, which in fact is a way of supporting the organization that provides you with business contacts, with sales opportunities. This is the synergism that often exists with professionals and churches. And I will continue in the next program. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this program. Do also go to our website, livinggodministries.net, and read through the recent testimonials page that we have there. There you will see the effectiveness of this ministry and discover how we have cleared away many of the common barriers that keep them from knowing their God, growing and maturing in their faith. Again, you can find this page at livinggodministries.net. And know that as you listen to these programs, you will likely find something that will be significant for you to grow and mature in your relationship with your God.
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