Look at the religious environment. We're going to look at the major themes in the Gospel of Luke and the relevance for today. So there there's a whole lot to cover a whole lot to cover. So we're going to start off with the literary background. I want to give a disclaimer when we when we do this. So the disclaimer is God wrote the book of Luke. OK, so we're going to talk about the author. Understand that we're speaking about this from a literary perspective, not from necessarily the the. Obviously we understand God wrote the Bible, every book of the Bible, every word of the Bible. It's God's word and so, but from a literary perspective, God used. and a human instrument, or we would say author. Does that make sense? All right. All right. So y'all stay with me. Don't fall asleep. I'll throw something at you. I'm kidding. So looking at the literary background first, and we wanna look at, When you look at a book of the Bible, now understand this is more of a Bible Institute type perspective here. So I'm trying to give you guys more than just a real simple Sunday school lesson. You guys are more advanced than that. Don't expect you to be like, well, a long time ago, this certain guy, and I want to go into some detail and give you some background and give you some info. So we recognize the book is titled the gospel according to Luke and. According to Saint Luke in your Bible, probably there. And so we're going to look at the author. We're going to look at the audience. We're going to look at the purpose of the writing that's important to recognize when you're studying a book of the Bible. Y'all want to know how to study books of the Bible, right? You want you want to know more than just. open up your Bible and start reading a random place. And, you know, you want to know some of the background, right? You want to understand what's going on before you open it up. So that's what we're going to spend the next few weeks covering. We want to make sure that we cover what's going on, who it is, who the parties are that are involved and all that. We're not going to name every person that's mentioned in the book during the introduction, but we are going to mention like groups of individuals and such. So but first, we're going to look at the author. The author is traditionally identified as Luke. Of course, as I said, our disclaimer, God is the author. He used Luke as the human instrument. So we're going to look a little bit about... I've got a whole extra write-up here about Luke. And in order to keep it on one page, I adjusted my margins. It's one page front and back. But I have an extra little write-up here on the writer, the author. Luke, it says the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostle. So you understand he wrote both. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. OK, a lot of the stuff we're going to be covering in our Sunday school and in our morning service. The Book of Acts is going to be kind of like your. How do I put it? Maybe table of contents. It's kind of like, like if you open a PDF and it's got a whole lot of information in it, sometimes you'll have like this thing over here on the side that'll have like an outline that you can click one spot and it takes you over to this place and you click another spot and take you down here click this spot take you up there so just different places in the in the document well the book of acts is kind of like you take the book of acts here and then you have all the other new testament books over here they all correspond somewhere in that place of the Book of Acts, with the exception of maybe a few, like John's books and some of those. But for the most part, they correspond somewhere in the Book of Acts, especially Paul's epistles, which we're going to look at the Book of Romans beginning here pretty soon. So the The on this concept here, Luke, we recognize he's a pretty fascinating figure in our. in our Bible in early Christianity. His identity and background and role as a historian and theologian has been the subject of many scholarly and traditional discussions. We're going to look at, we're going to kind of explore Luke here for just a little while. And so we may cover Luke and the audience, we may only cover Luke today. If we don't cover the audience, we'll cover the audience next week. So anybody know anything about Luke? A physician? Okay. Okay. Anybody know anything else about Luke? You guys want me to turn the heat up a little bit? Here we go. It's gonna get hot in here. All right. Anybody else know anything about Luke? Nobody knows anything about Luke. His name starts with the letter L. In English, anyways. It'd be what? Never mind. We'll stick with English for the most part here. So let's look at some biblical evidence. So Luke's profession, his profession as Pastor G said, a physician in Colossians chapter 4 verse number 14. Paul refers to Luke as the beloved physician. right the beloved physician luke here identified as a physician suggesting he was educated and possibly of a higher social class which we're going to look at when we talk about social and economic environment of the book of luke there so he would have been of a higher social class in general at least we would assume based upon the fact that he was a physician. Physicians have not always been in the same class that they're in today, though. You know, physicians would be very educated, but not always, back in the day, they would come to the person. They'd be more like a medic, kind of, you know, but then they created this, new thing in modern history we call paramedic. And so they go and handle the medical, low-level medical stuff. And if the patient needs more medical attention, then they'll take them to, the physician. And so, but Luke here, other than the mention that he is the beloved physician, we have no other information about his practice, so to speak. Yes, sir. The next, the next sub point here is Luke was a companion of Paul. So as a companion of Paul, Paul refers to him as a fellow laborer in Philemon. And he is in second, that's Philemon verse number 24. In 2 Timothy 4.11, Paul says, only Luke is with me. of the day I got ordained back back a long time ago. My cousin Luke was asked it was kind of funny they the way that they did our service they had like a I don't know, it seemed like kind of like a wedding ceremony or something. What's that? No, they didn't have a golden calf, no. But it seemed kind of like a, it was like, you know, everybody was all dressed up like it was a wedding or something and they had some ceremony type stuff. Well, very similar to what we did with Pastor G in that sense of the ordination and stuff. But then afterwards we had a lunch, but it was more of a formal, like not the food being formal, it was a normal pitch in. but like it was more of a formal environment like they had Luke there a few people stand and say things during our lunch and one of the things so Luke actually had a short sermon prepared and the the text for the sermon was 2nd Timothy 4 11 and uh you know the the emphasis there was the phrase only Luke is with me and so He went on to talk about, you know, others may run off and whatever, but I'll be there to help you out. And so, funny stuff. So he was a companion of Paul. You're going to find that in the book of Acts, if you want to jump over to the book of Acts here, I've got to kind of sift through because I didn't put it in my notes, but he shows up in the book of Acts. Oh, I would say somewhere, I'm looking here, I've got notes that I've written in the margin. Let's see. Now, if you'll notice in Acts 16, Acts chapter 16, you'll see the use of pronouns changes. Okay, so you've got at the beginning, he says, he, right, then came he to Derby. Okay, then you have down a little ways here, him would Paul have to go forth with him. So he's, he's got now, Oh, Timotheus, who who's joining with him here in Chapter 16. And then you see. He goes on, it says, as they went. Right there in verse four, and then so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. Now it says now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia after they were come to Missia they assayed to go into Bithynia and that assayed that means they desired to go but the spirit suffered them not. And they, passing by Mysia, came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. We have the Macedonian call, right? And then it goes on. Notice in verse number 10, it says, And after he had seen the vision, immediately... What's it say? We endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. So my theory, based upon the usage of the pronouns here, Luke joins Paul's party in Troas. because he then includes himself. You won't see himself included up to this point. Yes, sir. Uh huh. Right? Well, in Chapter 15 and verse number 40, it says Paul chose Silas. So he had Silas with him, and then he had Timotheus with him, and they didn't leave him. They stayed with him. Luke was added here, and he continues with him the whole time. Others will come and go, but Luke ends up staying with him, it looks like, from verse number 10 of 16 on. But Silas is with him. You'll see Silas mentioned along the way here. You'll see Timotheus mentioned along the way. Now, Timotheus ends up being left in Ephesus at some point. You'll see that Titus ends up... Well, Titus is another companion of Paul. Along the way, he ends up in Crete. And various people you'll see mentioned throughout. But... No, that was a different. So when Paul was blind on the road to Damascus, I was in chapter nine. It was just the people who were. Part of the part of his company to go get Christians to imprison them. I don't know what happened to those two people. It doesn't really. Mention what happened or I don't know if it was two or a company of, you know, a lot of them. But we don't really have information about what happened with them. We just know Paul ends up by himself in Damascus. And then Ananias shows up to, you know, greet him and then baptize him. And then, you know, Damascus. Yeah. And so did you say something else? About like the location. Macedonia, oh yeah, Macedonia, that's a whole region. It's the northern region, like Greece is like the southern region of the peninsula there, east of Italy, and Macedonia is the northern region of that peninsula up into, I'm trying to remember the, ah, I can't remember the geography. I remember Italy and Greece, but the northern Greece would be Macedonia, the Macedonian area. But they would have been near Galatia, which would have been east of there in Asia Minor. But you see that in Troas, and Troas is newer terminology for the name Troy. Y'all does Troy ring a bell to anybody? Troy. I don't mean the street down here. I mean, I mean, Troy, like in history. You had the Macedonians, you had the Trojans, yeah. You know, so there's history a few hundred years before this is written, a few hundred years before you have like the Trojan War, the Trojan Horse, all that you have. You have Sparta and Troy and all of these Macedonian and Western Asia Minor or Turkey regions, right? Or cities, towns, whatever. So if you'll remember, maybe you will, maybe you won't, but Philippi is named after Philip, who was the father of, does anybody know? Where's Brian, man? The backs. He's sick. OK, so Philip was the father of a man named Alexander, who many thought were was a great person. So he would have been Philip the Macedonian anyhow. So. Looking at some of the we're trying to. Talk about I know I'm getting into like some of the other things in the book of Acts Which which we'll we'll get into the book of Acts deeper when we cover the book of Acts I don't know exactly when that's going to be there are candidates for time on that so I'm I'm looking maybe at Wednesdays. I don't know. After we get done with our discipleship thing, the thing is, the Book of Acts is going to be similar to the Book of Luke. We're going to have a lot of introduction. We're going to have a whole lot of interaction. And so I may wait till we finish the Book of Luke, but that may be five years from now. So I don't know the timeline on that. But so. Understand he shows up he becomes a companion of Paul. We don't have a whole lot of information about how that started We just see that it says He he they they they we So there's that Evidently the Lord didn't want us to have all the details about you know Paul and Luke meeting We don't really know all that stuff. So anyhow, moving on here. The next sub point here, I'm trying not to give you like point letters and numbers because they don't all correspond because we've got like main points and then we have another page of points of, you know, supplementary points. So, and then the supplementary points have main points and sub points and all that. The next point, though, is his Gentile background. Luke is traditionally considered to be a Gentile. Now, understand we're going to refer a lot to like tradition or what we mean by that is that the traditional theory in relation to his the historical context. Does that make sense? So. Based on. Some I'm going to mention some extra biblical references to Luke and based on those quote unquote traditions, right? Some of them were people who were around. Toward the end of the 1st century, beginning of the 2nd century, you know, so they would have a little bit more knowledge about what was going on. Dan, we would today. Does that make sense? So like as far as history, it's kind of like, you know, if I'm telling my kids about my grandparents or my great grandparents, I don't really have much information about my great grandparents, a little bit about my great grandfather on my father's side, on my father's father's side, but just a little, I mean, I knew he was a coal miner. Now, you know, when my kids are old enough and they have kids and they're old enough to like hear stories about great, great, grandfather, they would basically be, probably be like, what's a coal miner? What's coal? You know, I don't know. We, it depends. There might be differences in the way things are as far as that goes. My, my dad, you know, a lot of stories I may tell my kids about my dad. Most of my kids, well, my daughter, can you remember grandpa, Ted, my dad? Yeah, so he passed when Isaac was one so. Some things that we I may be able to give you a better history because I was there. You know some of these guys they were there or their or or their not their parents, but their seniors were there so similar to like. Brother Travis could probably give a better history of our churches founding than Brother Ramsey could because he was here when we started the church and he could probably give more history about McGregor Road. Our sending church then and he would be for the most part not completely, but for the most part he'd be a secondary like Connection does that make sense? So like we were there and members there and then we were sent to start this church well for the Travis for a short time attended there with us while we were planting this church and And so he would have some memory and then the things that I've told him about that. So it would be a little closer. Tradition of what happened. Does that make sense? OK, so. Paul's distinction in go to Colossians 4 real quick. Yeah, we're. Flying through the time right now Colossians 4 I hope this is helpful to you guys It's it's my intention not to bore you with information, but to give you like just some some deep stuff like more than just your average like quick overview so Colossians chapter 4 notice here in Colossians 4 verses 10 through 14 you'll notice that There are some names mentioned now a lot of times. We just kind of like breeze through the names don't we? Who's guilty of that all of us? I think we just breeze through the names But these names these are people These are people right now. Let's read here verse number 10. It says Aristarchus my fellow prisoner saluted you and Marcus sister's son to Barnabas touching whom He received commandment I think it's commandments. There's a little spot. Yeah, there's a little spot in my Bible that that's missing right there. Like it's a hole. Don't know what happened. touching whom you received commandments if I come unto you receive him and Jesus which is called justice not not Jesus the Christ but Jesus which is called justice who are of the circumcision so all those names above he mentions he says these are Jews they're of the circumcision that's that's referring to those who are Jews these only are my fellow workers unto the kingdom of God which have been a comfort unto me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluted you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him record that he hath a great zeal for you and them that are in Laodicea and them in Hierapolis. Then he says in verse number 14 Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you salute the brethren now it is so the rest is talking about other people that are near near Colossi but it is typically recognize that because Luke and Demas are separately mentioned from they have the circumcision and they have Colossi that they are Gentiles. Does that make sense? They have Colossi could be either Jew or Gentile. He just says it. They're one of you. They're from Colossi. Y'all know Colossi was a city. So the letter to the Colossians is a letter to those who were in Colossi and actually at the very beginning it would refer to it says to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossi right. So that was verse two of the first chapter there in Colossians. Hmm. His Gentile background. There's also emphasis in the book of Luke and acts on Gentiles. In both of those. In both of those letters, if you will, so we we recognize that now I'm getting into purpose, but let's quickly move through this and maybe we'll cover or introduce the audience. So real quick, some extra biblical references to Luke now. Whenever I refer to things that are not in the Bible, understand that we cannot 100% stand behind those things. In other words, if I mention an author, I am not giving an endorsement of that author. Does that make sense? Alright. Because I'm just giving them credit, they wrote it, they said it, whatever. I'm not giving an endorsement. I'm not saying, hey, you can go find this author and read all of their writings and you're going to be finding all good stuff. I can't say that. In fact, some authors that we may reference, may have very very valid and and reliable historical information but really bad doctrinal information some of them are heretics but they've got good history right for example josephus flavius josephus he is a great historian But as far as we understand he did not believe the gospel. So you can't take his word for doctrinal things but on the history side you could so. So. Oh I skipped here before I talk about extra biblical. So Luke there is the author recognized to be the author of the book of Luke and the book of Acts. Both books are addressed to the same audience, which we'll talk about, and they share similar language and themes, strongly suggesting common authorship. Although your Bible titles will say that it was Luke, but it doesn't distinctly say in the text that it was Luke. Recognize that, okay? So, I'm not saying that it's not Luke. It's generally understood that it was Luke. And we're going to look at some of these historical references as well. That's why I mention these historical references, because the text doesn't say. Does that make sense? If you read the whole book of Luke, the whole book of Acts, It's not going to tell you who the author is. Not directly, anyhow. But Luke's prologue reflects a well-educated individual, familiar with Greek literary conventions. If you look at Luke chapter 1, the first four verses give, it's kind of like his prologue introduction, like, hey, you know, it says, for as much As many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed." And then, that's kind of our basic biblical evidence about Luke. So extra biblical references to him in early Christian writings, Eusebius of Caesarea in his book, Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, Chapter 4. He identifies Luke as the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, describing him as, quote, by race an Antiochian and a physician by profession. Irenius of Lyons. In his book against heresies Book 3 Chapter 14. He confirms Luke as the author of the gospel bearing his name and praises him for his careful careful investigation. The moratorium fragment late second century is the timeline there. Says this early canon list attributes which by the way Well I'll just read it and then I'll mention this. This early canon list attributes the third gospel and acts to Luke describing him as a physician and companion of Paul. Now notice. This second century you all know. Second century what what years was that. OK. 200 to 300 right. Wait a minute, no. First century was 0 to 100. 100 to 200 is the second century. You got me mixed up. 100 to 200 is the second century. A lot of people try to say this is just a little side note. A lot of people try to say that the canon. Was not confirmed or not officially there was no list of Bible books. Until like the 3rd and 4th century with Catholicism. The more a terror more I'm saying it wrong, it's. Muratorium. Muratorian fragment, it has a canon list. Of books of the Bible. And it was before 200 AD. So just for your information there. So it's, that's not, obviously you can look at manuscript evidence and those kinds of things. That's a whole other class that is much more boring than this. And I only say that because you're talking about Greek and Hebrew and this parchment and this document. I mean, it's all documental. I mean, it's, yeah, it's kind of hard to follow. Also, Jerome's commentary. It was in Latin, by the way. De Veris. Illustrious chapter 7, he said. And I'm going to say this in English. He reiterates Luke's identity as a physician and Paul's companion. He adds that Luke was unmarried and died at age 84 in Bowie Bowie Ochia. B-O-E-O-T-I-A. Alright, and then quote-unquote church tradition, early church tradition, whatever, holds that Luke was from Antioch, so as we saw with Irenaeus, right, or no, Eusebius, said he was Antiochan, that he was from Antioch, a major center of early Christian, or Christianity. Eusebius mentions this, and then it aligns with the focus on the city of Antioch in the Book of Acts, which you find in chapter 13. There now Luke's not mentioned in chapter 13, but it mentions the church that that ordained Paul and Barnabas So that makes sense Good. I don't think we're gonna be able to talk about the audience today We're just gonna talk about Luke talk about the audience next week, but because I I still have some more. What's that? Oh You all are the audience today. We'll talk about Theophilus, who is the audience of the Book of Luke and Acts next week, Lord willing. But number three here or the third thing about Luke's literary and theological contributions. He was a historian. You'll notice that he mentions, you know, he's meticulously putting things together, researching all that. That's what his prologue in Luke one versus one through four speaks about. It demonstrates his intention to write an orderly and accurate account. His method reflects the historical standards of like a Greco Roman historian, for example, Thucydides is a Greco-Roman historian. Now, the Book of Acts provides valuable historical details about the early churches there, Roman governance, and Paul's missionary journeys. So again, he was a historian. He was also a theologian. He emphasizes themes, which we're going to look at in more detail later, emphasizes themes of God's care for the marginalized, There there's a lot of emphasis on women the poor Gentiles in the book of Luke and in the book of Acts. The role of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus and in the church that he started there the disciples and such. And then also the universality of salvation. Now, please don't misunderstand that universality of salvation does not mean that everybody saved. It means that there's an opportunity for everyone to be saved, not only the Jew, but also the Gentile. And so it is a universal invitation to salvation. And Luke follows that theological perspective. In terms of his style, his Greek is among the most polished in the New Testament, reflecting his education and skill as a writer. When you compare Luke's writing with Paul's writing, for example, You'll notice Luke is similar, but there are some differences. You'll notice in English, the first four verses of the Gospel of Luke are one sentence. In English, in the letter to the Romans, Paul's first seven verses or one sentence. One sentence. That's what we're gonna talk about in the morning service, is the first seven verses, the first sentence in the Book of Romans. It's crazy, though, because I was like, wait a minute, that's a comma, that's not a period, that's not a period, that's not a period, that's not a, oh, there's the period. I'm like, wow! Yeah, in Luke, yeah, yeah, it's at the end of the fourth verse. So, Luke's death and legacy, so to speak, it is questioned that maybe he was martyred, maybe he wasn't. Tradition is divided on that. Some sources claim that he died peacefully at an advanced age, for example. Jerome says 84, which is a pretty advanced age for that time, while others suggest that he was martyred in Greece. So modern scholarship on Luke, and this is you got to be careful about modern scholarship y'all because modern scholars often question a lot of stuff that really. I mean. It's not necessarily wrong to ask questions. It's wrong to question the truth as to whether or not it is true. We hold that the Word of God is true. So, Gentile identity, it says some scholars question Luke's Gentile identity. noting his familiarity with Jewish customs and scripture. However, the consensus remains that he was likely a God-fearer, which would be like a Gentile who worshipped God, the God of Israel. Does that make sense? Kind of like Cornelius, right? The centurion of the Italian band. He was Italian. He was a Gentile, but he feared God and he gave to the poor and you know he he prayed to God and then God sent Peter to give him the gospel. But he was already following Judaism as a Gentile. So probably what was going on with Luke medical language. Interesting says studies have identified medical terminology in Luke's writings supporting his identification as a physician. For example his account of Peter's mother-in-law in Chapter 4 verse number 38 he refers to her condition as having a fever. The other Gospels don't do that. And it uses precise medical language there. Look at that real quick here since we're right there at the beginning of the book. Chapter 4, verse number 38. It says and he arose out of the synagogue entered into Simon's house and Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever and they besought him for her. I understand also that this was written in Greek originally and so there are some. some vocabulary choices that you'll find that will follow more of a higher education as opposed to a common speaker. Say again? Yes. So, for example, the other day we were texting back and forth. Melissa said she wanted to learn Spanish this year. And so I said, okay, we'll just make Spanish the secondary language and we'll use it, try to use it regularly. We haven't used it in a few days. We need to start, we need to have a Spanish afternoon maybe, I don't know. So I sent the family group text, like some stuff in Spanish, just using my conversational, probably third grade Spanish. I don't know. You know, like if you're talking to a third grader that speaks Spanish. And then AJ responds with like some formal stuff in Spanish. And I'm like, Where'd that come from? And he's like, Oh, it came from the, and he's in Spanish says, you know, it came from artificial intelligence translation. Like he typed out the text and then you, you select the highlight the text and then hit the arrow over until it says translate and then hit translate. And then you can just replace it with the translation. And I was like man, that was awful formal, you know, so, you know, some of Luke's writings are gonna be more formal in their vocabulary if that makes sense, so They weren't dumbed down in English, by the way Just giving you a heads up on that because some people say well you lost stuff when you know but when you look at Greek just like when you look at English you can tell that that the writer is using very simple terms or they're using more complex terms. You know, like Peter said about Paul, his writings are difficult to understand sometimes, maybe because of the run on sentences, maybe because he uses a lot of theology and they're deep, right? So anyhow, relationship to Paul, Luke's close relationship with Paul is evident in the book of Acts, which focuses heavily on Paul's ministry. Some scholars view Luke as Paul's biographer. And so his identity there as a physician, historian, and theologian makes him a unique and invaluable figure in early Christianity is writings provide a comprehensive account of Jesus's life and the early church emphasizing God's universal plan of salvation again universally available to all both biblical and extra biblical sources confirm the his role as the close companion of Paul the skilled author dedicated to preserving the truth of the gospel and so. That is the author of the book of Luke. See what I what I said before was that this introduction is going to take a while. Does that make sense why it's going to take a while. All we covered was the first sub point of the first point and the detail related to it. So next week Lord willing we will get into the audience. We'll talk about Theophilus. And so the sub title is Most Excellent Theophilus. We'll look at that next week. Any quick questions about Luke himself? I probably can't answer. I don't know what his favorite food was. Yes, sir. No, a Gentile is someone who's not a Jew. Circumcision was God's sign of Judaism with Abraham. God established that sign of his promise with Abraham in the book of Genesis. So Gentiles. So when you look at like genealogy. You have. So you have Noah. Everybody comes from Adam. But then the world's destroyed and you have Noah and his three sons. So everybody comes from Noah and his three sons. Shem, Ham and Japheth. Jews are going to come through Shem, but not every child of Shem was a Jew. Originally, they were called Hebrews. Hebrews are children of Eber, which was in our devotions a couple days ago. Hebrews are children of Eber, who was the first Hebrew. His name in Hebrew is Eber or Heber. And then. Abraham was the first separation off of that family and then of the children of Abraham God chose Isaac to continue that lineage and then from Isaac God chose Jacob Jacob later became known as Israel. The children of Israel were the twelve tribes those twelve tribes. Later, about 800, 900 years later, you know, after they spent their time in Egypt and then ended up in the promised land, they had the 12 tribes from the 12 children. And the first king, first official king was Saul. And then the second king was David. After David you had Solomon. Solomon had a whole bunch of wives. And he decided to go worship their gods. And God said that's not going to be okay. I'm not going to take the kingdom from you during your lifetime, but I'm going to take it from your son. And so Rehoboam, Solomon's son, lost most of the kingdom. And the northern kingdom of Israel, the northern split of the kingdom of Israel became Israel. and the southern split of the kingdom of Israel became Judah. Judah was obviously one of the children of Jacob, one of the last children, not the last, but anyhow, he was younger, one of the younger children. So Judah and Benjamin were the two tribes that were the southern kingdom. So when. Several hundred years later about seven hundred and twenty one B.C. The northern kingdom had been rebelling against God for a long time. So God took them had them had the Assyrians come and take them captive. They never returned. to occupy their land completely they returned as mixed from Assyrians and Israelites okay so they they're still the northern kingdom but they're they were kind of mixed so that became known as Samaria later but the southern kingdom they kept messing up and in 586 BC God allowed the Babylonians to come and take them captive but they were only captive for 70 years and then they went back as a nation and they kind of ended up taking over the area and so the area became known as Judea and and anyone who is a descendant of Israel was roughly referred to as a Jew because they lived in that region and because they were and then there was the the religious aspect of it and so that's where the term Jew came from and then everybody else All of the children of Japheth all of the children of Ham all of the children of Shem who were not of the line of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Became Gentiles or are recognized as Gentiles or non Jews so sometimes referred to as heathen or dogs in the Bible. So. Us. Yeah. And so when God made the promise to Abraham that he was going to give him a seed, children and a land and make him father of many nations and all that, the sign of that promise was circumcision. It didn't have anything to do with a physician necessarily. It had to do with the promise of God to Abraham. Yes, sir. So any other questions real quick? We're running a little bit behind schedule. Let's close in prayer and then we'll look at the audience next week. Lord willing, Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word. We thank you, Lord, for just how you the miracle of getting that to us and the people that you used. Lord, we just pray, Father, that You would help us to understand the background so that we can understand very thoroughly the text. And we pray Your blessing as we continue our services today. We look forward to all that You're going to do in Jesus' name. Amen.