Monday Morning Coffee With Mark Intro

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Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special Monday Morning Company Podcast. On this podcast, our preacher, Mark Roberts, will help you get your week started right with a look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through each other and better work the applications into our daily life. Mark will then look forward into this week's final reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday morning coffee with Mark.

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Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for the week of October 4th through the 10th. It is Monday, October the 5th. I'm Mark and I have a great cup of Colombian coffee. This was coffee brought to me, and I just really appreciated it brewed up really nicely today. And I should tell you that if everything is according to plan, going like it's supposed to, then I am, Dean and I are in Athens boarding a cruise ship as we head to the Med Sea with 110 folks who are part of our group and we're headed out to see Thessalonica and Eastern Bull and Ephesus and Mekonis and a bunch of other Mediterranean ports. Should be a wonderful, wonderful trip. And that does mean, of course, that this is pre-recorded. I can't talk to you live from the ship. That would be complicated with the time zones and everything else that goes on with there. But whether I'm here, whether I'm there, you know what to do. Grab your coffee, grab your Bible. Let's grow together. So we're

Monday 2 Peter 1

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going to head straight to daily Bible reading, of course, because I was not at Westside yesterday. So I can't talk about the preaching. I'm sure it was wonderful. We just have some very capable men who fill in when I'm not there. We're going straight to 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter is the reading. 2 Peter 1 is the reading for Monday. We're beginning Peter's second epistle. What is this epistle about? That's probably the most important question to ask anytime we open any of the letters in the New Testament. Nobody just sat down and said, I'm not doing anything this afternoon. I think I'll jot off some theology here, write some doctrinal stuff, and kind of send it somewhere. The letters in the New Testament are all dealing with a specific occasion, a specific problem or commendation. Something's going on, and the writer says, I need to write these people and talk to them about this. And we saw that, of course, in 1 Peter. In 1 Peter, it's all about suffering, persecution, just all the things that go with that, how to suffer, what to do. And this second letter is dealing with something that in some ways is even worse than persecution. And that may make you spit your coffee all over your screen or over your phone and as you're driving down the road. I hope you didn't swerve in the ditch. What's worse than persecution, Mark? I'll tell you what's worse than persecution, false teachers, fake Christians, fake spiritual leaders. Second Peter is concerned extensively with that. And this book would be dated, if you look at verse 14, Peter is saying he expects to die very soon. And so as there's some good evidence that that happened during Nero's persecution somewhere in 62, 64. So that puts this book somewhere, obviously right around maybe 63, 64, somewhere in there. And the book does sound, you should know this, the book sounds a ton like Jude. But no one has ever been able to settle the debate whether Jude read 2 Peter or Peter read Jude and did one color the other. Who came first, the chicken or the egg? No one's ever been able to settle that controversy with 2 Peter and Jude. And there is lots of discussion about the convert the vocabulary here. Need a little bit of coffee here. Let's get the discussion in Peter, the vocabulary is very different than what's in 1 Peter. And so there is a lot of conversation among scholars and others about whether 2 Peter was really written by Peter and the canonical debate, all the things that go with that. We'll have to leave that to the scholars and maybe some other opportunities to think about that further. Our purpose is to read 2 Peter. I believe it is written by Peter. I believe it is part of the canon, of course. And we need to read it and benefit from it, particularly with its focus on false teaching. So Peter begins, 2 Peter chapter 1, Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I love that he says he's just the servant. And he is saying our faith of equal standing to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours. Think about your faith being on equal par with the apostles. By the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. The deity of Jesus is consistently established in Peter's writings, and it is here. May the grace, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Knowledge is a basic theme. We'll read that 11 times. You might want to underline that in your Bible. It'll help that idea jump off the page for you because true knowledge, knowing the truth, really matters to Peter, and that is a huge antidote to false teaching. Then you get a little sermon in verses three and four. His divine power is granted to us all things pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge, there it is, of him who's called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he's granted to us his precious and very great promises. So you get there what God has done, and then you get what you need to do. And then we're being called to his own glory and excellence with the idea of where all that will lead. That's leading to salvation. And again, that idea of what we need to do, we're becoming partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that's in this world because of sinful desire. The promises have an effect on our lives. Now, taking the divine nature does not mean being absorbed into the deity. This idea being part of the divine nature is found in other places in the New Testament, like Romans 8 and verse 9. I think the idea here is that we become one with God, united in purpose and action. We share with heaven the immortality that is to be gained there. Maybe that's a secondary idea. I really like the idea of being united with God. And then we have the famous Christian graces, and some translations have the word add, and that's really not strong enough. It's the idea of supplement. Keep building these things, and they're not a stair step. This isn't, okay, I'm going to work on faith and then I'll work on virtue. We work on all of these. We need all of these to have the character of Christ. And usually we go through these lists here and we work with a lot of definitions and Greek words and English words. I'm going to guess that you know what faith and self-control and steadfastness. I don't think I need to define that for you, do I? Virtue, maybe. Virtue is moral courage, the courage here to do the right thing. And so in time of false teaching, just keep relating this to false teaching, the answer is to grow in the true ways of discipleship. And verse 10 tells us we need to be diligent in that. Diligent here is a word that means to be eager, to hurry, make haste, make a real effort here. And then Peter gives us a purpose statement in verses 12 to 15. This really does set up the whole letter. Truth does, by the way, need to be repeated. Don't get upset when I'm preaching something in the pulpit and you think, I think Mark has talked about that before. I hope so, because I want to preach the whole counsel of God. And that will mean from time to time that you will hear something again. And then a real answer here to false teaching, verses 16 to 21, is to get more and more trust in Jesus and in God's Word, and in some ways, even in the apostles, because verse 16, we didn't follow cleverly devised myths. We're telling you the truth here. And I'll call attention to a passage or two that is a little more difficult. Look at verse 19. You need to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts. That last phrase is a little complicated, a little difficult. Morning star usually is a reference to Jesus. Think about Numbers 24, 17, for example. That's a passage that's taken as very messianic in the times of the New Testament. In your hearts, what does that mean? Jesus rises in our hearts. Maybe this is the idea of our faith growing, and when Jesus comes again, our faith will become sight. And then verse 20, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, some have taken that to mean that we can't ever study the Bible and reach a conclusion. We should never do that. And some have even used that to bolster the idea that there should be the church, for example, that gives the authorized interpretation because no scripture comes from your own interpretation. That's not what Peter's saying. That's not what Peter is saying at all. He's saying that the authors didn't speak on their own, that God spoke through them. Because look at the context, verse 21. No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The reading for Monday, Second Peter chapter one, hello from Athens. Second Peter chapter one is what we're reading today. It's

Tuesday 2nd Peter 2

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Tuesday. It is Tuesday. And today our reading is 2 Peter chapter 2. The reading for Tuesday is 2 Peter the second chapter. And this, of course, is tied very closely to chapter 1. There's no chapter divisions when Peter is writing this. True teachers, the apostles, for example, chapter 1, verses 16 and 8, 17 and 18, and then the Old Testament prophets, the true prophets, verses 19 and 21, are there. Now Peter turns his attention to the false prophets, to one, but false prophets also arose among the people. And this really is the heart of the epistle. This is why Peter is writing. Because there is false teaching going on. We need to take that very seriously today. We need to be aware of that. Understand the threat that false teachers provide. And I should say this. I'm aware, and you probably are aware, that 2 Peter chapter 2 sounds a great deal like Jude. But nobody, when 2 Peter was read in the assembly, is getting to run over and make comparisons to Jude and use that as a commentary to better understand. That's not happening. And as I said yesterday, no one is even sure which came first, Jude or 2 Peter. I just think that's a fruitless discussion. We're not going to go there. Instead, let's pay attention to the problem of false teachers. The problem is they come secretly, verse 1, they don't wear a label. By the way, all of this, working all the way through here, will just show the possibility of apostasy. The reason Peter writes is because you can be lost. And so 2 Peter chapter 2 just destroys the Calvinistic doctrine of once saved, always saved. If once saved, always saved is true, then Peter does not need to write any of this kind of business. One commentator actually wrote that this does seem, I'm quoting here, to raise questions about the Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. In my judgment, verse 2 asserts that Christ bought the false teachers, but this does not necessarily mean that they were saved. How is that even possible? That Jesus, that's just foolishness. That's just foolishness. And so Peter goes on to talk about how their judgment is coming soon or swift, is the ESV there. And the idea there is not that it happens quickly, but that it is imminent. And we don't know what God did about these false teachers. But the irony here is in chapter three, we will see that the false teachers deny that judgment and destruction is ever coming. And what Peter says is it is coming and it is coming for them. So that sets up the idea in chapter four, in chapter two, verses four to ten, about how God has dealt with the false teachers in the past. God knows what to do with that, and God knows how to preserve the righteous. And I know verse four, that's going to trigger a lot of questions. When, where, how, all of that. We don't know. We don't know the backstory here, and we should not try to speculate. It just means what it says. Angels did wrong, they sinned, they were judged. And then in Noah's world, verse five, nothing said in Genesis about him preaching, but how could he keep silent about any of that? And then, of course, Sodom and Gomorrah. The good news for that, verse 7, if he rescued the righteous, if he rescued righteous Lot, then the Lord knows how, verse 9, to rescue the righteous. I've never been very impressed with Lot. And I'm not sure if Peter didn't say he was righteous, have you read the story of Lot? Not a fan. Not a fan. But if God will rescue somebody who is that on the fence with righteousness, then Peter's point absolutely stands. God cares for his people. And so then verse 10, there are those who indulge in the lust of defiling passions and they despise authority. There is much, much debate about that. And what exactly, who exactly are these authorities? It could be angelic authorities, it could be the elders in the local church. I wonder here if we're not seeing some false teachers strutting around claiming to have power over devils and demons, and they're making a great show of rebuking them. I've seen that on the satellite channel, the TV networks with the false teachers. Well, that's a good cup of coffee. And, you know, devil I rebuke you. I remember a pretty famous clip that circulated during COVID of a false teacher, and he was on stage and he was rebuking COVID. And of course, that did absolutely nothing and had no effect whatsoever. But there are false teachers who will try to put on a big show like that. There's a lack of humility and arrogance here. Angels don't even, verse 11, act that way. Peter goes on then to discuss the case of Balaam. If you're not familiar with Balaam, you should go back in Numbers and read about Balaam. He is a prophet. He is a prophet, but he is a rascal. He is an ornery, terrible person who ultimately undermines Israel. He teaches the Moabites in Numbers 31, 16 how to lead Israel into error. So he is a wonderful illustration in the New Testament of a false prophet. In verse 17, there are waterless springs. Please be mindful. In an agricultural society, there aren't many things worse than a waterless spring. You show up, you're thinking you're going to get to water your flock, they're thirsty, they really need water. You arrive at the spring and it is empty. That is terrible. The promise is there, and then there's nothing. Finally, 20, 21, 22. Once again, great passages here to just do in the idea of once saved, always saved, entangled again and overcome, verse 20. The word picture there is of a hunted animal caught in the trap. And someone will say, How can it be worse? It's worse because they were Christians and they knew what they should do to be saved, and now they spend an eternity without God. And verse 22 then quotes from the book of Proverbs. The first Proverb is drawn from Proverbs 26, 11. And there's the dog returning to its vomit as the fool repeats its folly. That's what the wise man says there. And as much as I love dogs, you know that I love dogs. In the world of the New Testament, dogs are not often pets. And while we think of them as man's best friend, in that world, they run in wild packs. They are feared. They're a problem. They're a problem. And pigs, remember, Jews don't keep pigs at all. They're unclean. And they are not thought of in the New Testament world by anybody as being cute or intelligent or anything like that. So verse 22 is saying some things very clearly to false teachers and reminding all of us, false teaching matters because we don't want to be lost. The reading for Tuesday, 2 Peter chapter 2. It's

Wednesday 2 Peter 3

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Wednesday. It is Wednesday, and today we're reading 2 Peter, the third chapter, completing 2 Peter, the reading for Wednesday, 2 Peter chapter 3. This is not a hard chapter to outline. Peter uses break words like for and therefore and sense. So that helps us know exactly where he is. So this breaks into the false teaching, verses 1 to 7, the sure return of Jesus, verses 8, 9, and 10, and then the implications of this teaching, verses 11 to 18. And what we get here is a chance to hear what the false teachers are saying. They are arguing that Jesus isn't coming again. All things remain static. It's been a long, long, long, long, long time, and Jesus hasn't come yet. So what would make you think he's ever going to come? All things remain as they are. And Peter uses the term beloved. Look at verse 1. He uses that a number of times, verse 8, verse 14, and verse 17. He loves these people and he wants them to think. I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder. There's nothing wrong with thinking, brethren. We need to be ready to think and to use our minds. That's becoming increasingly difficult, I think, in a world with artificial intelligence. Sometimes we need to use some human intelligence. And so Peter is talking, verse 3, about these scoffers in the Bible. Scoffers are those who ridicule the teachings of God, and they are coming in these last days. The last days is the time of Christ, the last epoch, the last chapter of human history. And the false teacher's argument is given in verse 4. What happened yesterday we'll repeat tomorrow, and that just goes on and on and on and on. I guess God's never going to intervene in human history because he has not done so at this time. And there is some evidence both in scripture and outside of scripture that first and second century Christians were distressed, concerned that Jesus had not returned yet. And we saw some of that in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And there's some material, like I said, outside the Bible where some disciples thought Jesus should have returned in their lifetime. And all of that just says is it all just says that if you have wrong ideas about the second coming, that can make you open to false doctrine. And so Peter says, you know, there was a time when things had just been going along, same old, same old, same old. And then one day it rained. And just as there was a flood of water, there will be a flood of fire. And in verse 8, there Peter deals with the problem of it's really been a long time. What man thinks of as a long time is not that long against the backdrop of eternity. One writer said the age measurer of God differs from the hour reckoner of mortals. And of course, this verse has been terribly misused. People have decided that what that means is you can multiply a day equals a thousand years. And so you go to Daniel or Ezekiel and you multiply the 1,290 days by a thousand, and then you get the time that you need to know when the rapture is going to occur, or the next time the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl, it's probably a lot more than 1,290 days away, maybe 1290 years away. And don't do that. That's not what Peter is trying to do here. He's not giving away to do the math and calculate the return of Jesus. The thought here is that people with their limited perspective cannot possibly understand God's timetable. Indeed, verse 9, God's delay doesn't mean that he's asleep. It instead means that he's being very gracious. Verse 10 then is it's translated differently in different translations. If you have the numeric standard, it'll read differently than the ESV, read a little bit differently than the NLT. The literal text here in verse 10 is the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away, and the elements, um, the elements will be burned up. I think is what the numeric standard says. Um the ESV has the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, or or some have there's a marginal note there about laid bare. And the idea here, this passage does not mean there won't be a judgment or that the earth won't be dissolved or any of those kinds of things. It just means that everything will be laid bare before the Lord. If you're reading the ESV, that's how they take it, and all the things done in it will be exposed. There's the expression laid bare. I think you have the marginal note there. Um, exposed to God's wrath or laid bare before Him to be completely judged. And then verse 11, the whole idea is because we know these things, we live differently. We live differently because we know that we have the promise of a new heavens and a new earth. And I want to talk a little bit more about the new heavens and the new earth in our heaven-bound preaching theme. So I'll work on that some without any doubt. I'm never going to be able to clarify all of that for you and draw you a picture and you know show you an eight by ten colored glossy. This is what the new heavens and the new earth look like. I do want that idea to work against the sterile heaven view that we so often see. Everybody's in a white robe, usually with wings and a harp, and they're standing on clouds, and it's just dreadful. It's no kind of life. And the Bible never pictures heaven in that kind of way. In the book of Revelation, for example, heaven is portrayed as a beautiful city, and there's a river flowing through it with trees that line it. So that's an earthly kind of image. I don't think that is to be taken literally. This is not a podcast about heaven, uh, nor is it a podcast about Revelation. But clearly, when the Bible says something about the new heavens and the new earth, that that is to give us some kind of sense of what it is to be. And clearly, standing on clouds is not the new heavens and a new earth. So then Peter concludes with some final words, and some people have twisted. Paul's teaching here, that may be the book of Romans here. Twist by the word, by the way, I'm twisted. About some coffee. Twist is a word that's used in some sources outside the Bible of torture. So they're torturing the words of Paul. And Paul's words are considered scripture here. Do you see that? And they will rob you if you listen to these false teachers of your stability. Christians need to be confident in their relationship with Jesus Christ. The reading for Wednesday as we complete 2 Peter is 2 Peter, the third chapter. Welcome

Thursday Philemon

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to Thursday. Welcome to Thursday. And today we read the book of Philemon. One of the great things about a reading schedule that takes us all the way through the New Testament is that we end up spending some time with some books that maybe we've not spent a lot of time with. And Philemon is one of those books that often gets overlooked and kind of ignored. It's a very small book of the New Testament. And I think sometimes that causes people to decide it's not an important book. I would disagree with that. All scripture is inspired, but it's not just because 2 Timothy 3, 16, 17 that I think Philemon matters. Work with me today. Let's talk about the value of Philemon and how important it really is. Now the when and where of Philemon does matter. It is a prison epistle. Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, chapter 1, verse 1, also chapter 10. Yes, turn your Bible to chapter 10 of Philemon. Let me know how that works out for you. How about some coffee? That's the answer to that. Philemon 1, verse 10, Philemon 1, verse 13, Philemon 1, 23, all discuss Paul being a prisoner. Now who is Philemon? Philemon is a Christian in Colossae. He does own slaves. And the church does meet in his home, verse 2, to Aphia, our sister Archippis, our fellow soldier, and the church in your house. So he is wealthy, no question about that. And who is this Onesimus, Philip? Onesimus is one of Philemon's slaves. He ran away, and in God's providence, and through the preaching of Paul, he became a Christian. Chapter 1, verse 10. I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. That's what this book is about. Paul is returning Onesimus to Philemon. And the main message of the book, verse 16, is I want you, Philemon, Paul says, to treat Onesimus as a brother. He is liable for terrible punishment because he ran away. Rome did not put up with that in slaves. And so he probably is coming home with some fear. And that fear is well deserved. What's going to happen to me? How will I be treated? He comes home with this letter in hand. And that letter is designed to say because he's become a Christian, there's been a change in his relationship with Philemon. Now, I'm going to lean on David McClister's material here. David has done a lot of work on Philemon. He's written a book on it, really important, illustrates some important ideas about relationships in New Testament times and how that worked, some of the ideas there about who's in the honor position and who then is expected to obey or do what's being asked of them. But more than anything, David's done a good job of exposing that the problem with Philemon usually is we get into this long discussion about how and why Onesimus was away from Philemon and he ran away. And was Philemon a bad owner? And then how Paul and Onesimus got together, and what is Paul's stance on slavery? We're going to talk about slavery a whole lot. One of the things that you might just make a little footnote about the book of Philemon. Nobody cared about Philemon, and then, at least nobody cared about it in the United States, and then there was a civil war. And suddenly it became the most important book of the Bible, as everybody was making a stand on slavery, both north and south, out of the book of Philemon. But the reality is the text doesn't say anything about those topics. It doesn't discuss slavery. Paul's stance on that. Slavery is just accepted in the New Testament world. It is part of life, like the sky is blue. It's just, it just exists. It just is. And Christianity is not a political movement that's going to overthrow the social structures of the day. It doesn't say anything about how Onesimus heard the gospel. Don't be distracted with all of that. Instead, watch Paul's careful persuasion. Over and over again, Paul will say, I'm a prisoner, so I think he's playing for some sympathy. And one of the things I think that maybe is missed in verse two is that this is addressed to the church in your house. So this book is addressed not private Philemon's eyes only. It's addressed to the church. Everybody gets to read this, everybody gets to know about this. Everybody will be watching Philemon to see what he does. And in verse six, you get, I pray the sharing of your faith. That sounds like evangelism. It's not. That's the word fellowship, and it means sharing together in spiritual activity. And this is a church that is in fellowship. They're working together in spiritual activity. Philemon is sharing with them. For example, he seems to be sharing his home where they meet. And so Paul makes an appeal here for Onesimus. The name Onesimus means advantage or useful. So look at verse 11. Formerly he was useless to you. Now he is indeed useful. So Paul is saying he didn't used to be Onesimus. Now he really is Onesimus. He really is useful to you because he is a brother. And you might underline verse 15: not even Paul knows everything about Providence. We will never know everything about Providence. Paul doesn't know everything about all of this, but he is saying perhaps he was parted from you for a while, that he would learn the gospel. So Philemon, verse 17, is really put on the spot. How are you going to treat this runaway slave when he comes home? This is just a master class in making a careful appeal. You'll notice how Paul does that as you read down through Philemon today. And of course, it leaves us kind of on a cliffhanger. What happened next? Well, the New Testament does not tell us that, but a writer outside of the New Testament, Ignatius, writes later that Onesimus became an elder of the church in Colossae. And that's not in scripture, but I think it makes a lot of sense because I think Philemon is a wonderful Christian, and I think he does submit and obey the instructions that Paul sends to him, and he respects what Paul says and receives Onesimus as a brother. Notice that's not going to change people's social roles. Onesimus will still be a slave. That's not upsetting everything and overturning the apple cart. But how he is treated by his master is completely changed because now he's a brother in Christ. The reading for Thursday is the book of Philemon.

Friday Jude

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It's Friday. It is Friday. And today we're reading the book of Jude. Reading the book of Jude. That's the reading for Friday. Jude is just a form of Judas, as James is a form of Jacob. And the only James, I'm reading verse 1, Jude is served of Jesus Christ and brother of James, the only James well enough known in the early church that you can just drop his name would be the James of Jerusalem. He's a pillar in the Jerusalem church, Acts chapter 12, Acts chapter 15. He's the half-brother of Jesus, Matthew 13, 55. So put two and two together. Jude is a servant of Jesus Christ, and he's the brother of James. James is the half-brother of Jesus, then that means Jude is also a brother of the Lord. And you should know, or half-brother of the Lord, you should know that there's lots of controversy about the book of Jude. I said some of this when we were talking about 2 Peter earlier this week. And some have tried to say that this is not written by Jude, but instead written by somebody who's faking, who's pretending to be Jude. And the answer to that is that's outrageous and ridiculous. For one thing, it undermines our faith in Scripture that God would give us the true word and would allow a counterfeit to enter into the canon of Scripture. But even more practically, if you're writing a fake book of the Bible and you want people to accept it, why would you say, I'm a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James? You would say, I'm a servant of Jesus Christ, and he's my brother. I'm a half-brother to Jesus. Furthermore, if you're writing a fake book and you want to be accepted, who would choose Jude as the name to write under? You would say, I'm Peter. I am Paul. So I'm not buying that, and I don't think there's any reason for anyone to be disturbed by any of that. Now we don't know when this book was written, but the purpose here seems very much like 2 Peter to deal with false teachers. And it may well have been intended to circulate to several cheat uh to several different churches who these congregations are being afflicted. Wow, I'm struggling here. How about some coffee? The purpose here would be for it to circulate to several congregations that are struggling or being afflicted by struggling with and being afflicted by false teachers. And that's the reason for the letter, verses three and four. There are ungodly people who are undermining the faith, the objective, knowable system of faith or the Christian religion. And then Jude talks about the doom of the ungodly, and the point that he's making here is that God will deal with these people, and God knows how to deal with these people. And there's going to be all kinds of questions here about verse 6 and about these angels and all of that. And the answer to that is we don't know. We don't know and don't get lost trying to figure all of that out. And then, wow, for a little book, there's so much, there's so much here that causes all sorts of debate to bubble up. And we get that then when we get this business in verse 9 with Michael contending with the devil about the body of Moses. And we don't know when that happened and how that happened. That may reflect a story that's recorded in a book outside the Bible called the Testament of Moses. There are some legends that circulated about the body of Moses because that's mysterious. Only God knows where Moses was buried. And anytime you have something mysterious, somebody's going to jump up and down and say, you know what, I'll tell you about that. I got that covered for you. And the point here in verse 10 is not that Michael was respectful even to the devil, so we should be polite to the devil. That's not the point. The point is that Michael couldn't reject the devil on his own authority. He needed God to dismiss this. And so these false teachers are running around, presuming all kinds of authority that they don't have. They walk in the way of Cain. They've abandoned themselves, verse 11, to Balaam's error. They perish in Korah's rebellion. That's not a group you want to stand in the middle of. And then verses 12 and 13 give us six more figures of these false teachers. There's spots that could be rocks or reefs. There's they are then they are shepherds that feed themselves. They're waterless clouds, they're swept along by winds, they're fruitless trees in late autumn, on and on and on. These are terrible individuals. And someone will ask about love feast, and we don't know everything about that. It's an obscure reference here. And some have tried to build a whole theology of the importance of the church building a gigantic structure for the church to eat and play and have fun and social activities in. And you're getting a lot more out of verse 12 and the word love feast than I think is there than can be taken from that. It's probably just a reference to the Lord's Supper there. And then in verse 14, as if Jude hasn't stirred up enough debate and caused enough QA questions to come flooding in for Mark, probably thinking that was not his major concern. Then Jude quotes the book of Enoch. The book of Enoch in verse 14 is where that quote is. That's the longest surviving Jewish, what's called pseudopigraphal writing. Those are some writings that took place in between Malachi and Matthew. They are not inspired, they are not canonical, they're not part of the Bible. And the fact that Jude quotes it doesn't make it part of the Bible. Paul quotes pagan poets in Acts chapter 17. He quotes in 1 Corinthians 15, Menander, and in Titus, he quotes another pagan poet. That doesn't put them in the Bible either. What is true is true. Scripture is always true, but that doesn't mean there aren't other writings that are true. And so the book then concludes with some exhortation, verses 17 to 23, remain faithful, take care, be careful about yourself. Verse 20, help others, verse 22 and 23. And then a beautiful doxology, verses 24 and 25. Keep your eye on the Lord. The reading for Friday, the book of Jude. And that brings the podcast to a close for the week. Thanks so much for listening. I certainly do enjoy reading the Bible and talking about the Bible with you. Dina and I are on a trip, but yep, we're still doing our daily Bible reading, and I hope that you are as well. I'm Mark Roberts. I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come to see you Monday with a cup of coffee.

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Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ podcast, Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, justChristians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from Upbeat.io. That's Upbeat with two P's, U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others, and we look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.