Ep 1 palm sundays

hey and welcome to the very first episode of Palm Sunday's I'm Nathaniel buzolic if you follow me on social media you'll know that I'm an actor from The Vampire Diaries and the originals and I'm also an extremely passionate Jesus follower and I'm constantly sharing what I learned from the Bible and I'm constantly making references to Scripture and just trying to encourage people to actually dig a little bit deeper into this fascinating book we call it the Bible and this is the book that most Christians try to avoid or read as little as possible from my experience which is one of the reasons why I wanted to start this I wanted to encourage inspire and convict particularly Christians but also people who might just be interested in learning something different that this book is incredible but it's also extremely complicated and sometimes very very confusing and strange particularly the Old Testament it is strange and if you don't do your homework and look into context and to the style of writing understanding you know not only a historical context but a Jewish context you will get lost and you'll get lost very easy and you'll also get very confused there's also the Christians who just read the New Testament and I feel like at the same time that's also a little bit confusing because so much of what the the biblical authors are writing in the New Testament relate to the Old Testament so if you don't understand the full story you kind of miss it out you know you kind of jump in really really late it's kind of like entering into season five of vampire diaries you'll be confused for a very very long time trying to work out why these characters all dislike each other same sort of thing I also find this very interesting I meet a lot of people that call themselves Christians and they've never really read much of the Bible or they don't really invest a lot of time into it so they don't really understand what that word Christian means you know a lot of people even think that Jesus's last name is Christ you know Jesus Christ and Christ is actually a title and I think probably some Christians out there will know that so there's your first tip write that down Jesus Christ is the title it's actually a from a Hebrew word which is a messiah or anointed one but it's just interesting when I meet Christian people how little they know about the God that they say that they believe in so a huge part of me starting this YouTube channel is to break down some barriers to get people actually excited about the Bible and also to give people tools to study it and I'll hopefully try and do that this is a obviously a very introductory video because there's a lot to explain when I start off but um as the week's go on I'm just gonna go straight into Scripture and the people that stick around awesome and the people that go no I'd rather watch entertainment and somebody smashing their head against the wall you'll find those videos too there's heaps of them out there so the Bible 66 different books the Bible itself that's actually a comes from a Latin word it means library so this is a collection of books 40 different authors this was written thousands of years ago so although the principles do not change the challenge for us as modern day Christians and it's a absolute challenge is to actually start to understand the context you have to understand first of all Jewish context and historical context what was happening at the time what was going on also just understanding the authors who they were writing to who was the audience and what was happening around them I mean these things are key the other thing you also have to understand is there's lots of different styles of writing different literature there's more there's history there's biography there's prophecy and there's poetry so you can't just open it up and expect to treat it all the same way you have to sort of do your due diligence and you have to work out which book it is and what kind of book it is and sort of start from that point it's like a starting point because otherwise you're going to get into this book and you're gonna get very very lost also even just with the Gospels and we have four Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John and people often go huh but they differ it's guys saying this and this guy saying that and one of the key things that I always say to people is that the Gospels are not pictures of Jesus they're portraits and every author is doing a portrait in a different direction in a different light you know you got Matthew who's really making references to Jesus being the messianic King you know then you've got Mark and he's really referring to Jesus as the suffering servant Luke is so much about Jesus as humanity and John really focuses on the divinity of Jesus why Jesus is God so you've really got to start to understand the authors and when you start to understand the authors the Bible will open up and you'll start becoming a lot more alive to those who read it from my experience the people who have the greatest amount of faith the Christians that are on fire for God are the ones who invest their time and energy into understanding this book you have to remember that a relationship with God is like a relationship with every single other person you have in your life friends family boyfriends or girlfriends whatever time you put in is what you're gonna get back and if you put no time into that relationship that relationships going to be dead so when I met Christians and they say they really read their Bible their relationships just kind of like a prayer and take thing god I need this God I need that it's little wonder that you meet those people and then 12 months later you see that their faith is absolutely struggling and it's simply because they don't know what they believe in and I think a key element to being a Christian is to at the very least know what you believe in if you want to learn more about the Bible as an overview the guys that do the Bible project are unbelievable and they do these seven-minute videos about each chapter of the Bible and also specific themes which I'll probably be referring to very often when I do these videos but it's an amazing way to get started into the Bible and I think it's a blueprint to you know a relationship of God if you take this book out of the equation or you think you can do it on your own you'll find that you'll struggle you'll fail and you'll make no sense of God the other thing that I found about modern day Christianity is we've actually started to believe things that aren't biblical and that becomes a huge problem we've redefined God we've redefined Jesus and we've even redefined what this book is here's a newsflash this book will not make you smarter it will not make you richer and it'll definitely not make you more popular this book is not made for that if you want to get richer smarter or more popular this is not the book to read but if you want to get wiser if you want to grow in wisdom this is the book that will change everything now wisdom is so important because wisdom is the thing that's gonna make and help you make the better decision in any circumstance that you face in your life its instruction instruction to do what is wise what is smart what is best for the long run what is best for others and I think there's so few books that actually do that and also I think that unlike other religions and other you know texts that people sort of buy into this book really answers some of the big questions that we have in life where do I come from what's my purpose what's my value and where do I go when I die all those ideas are really explored in this book and hopefully I'll be able to explore a lot of that stuff as we continue on this journey together so that's kind of like my beginning summer and I wanted to kind of leave you guys with something as it is the first episode of Palm Sunday's I'm probably going to look at this and be like oh man there was so much stuff I wanted to talk about but I kind of wanted to make this like short and sweet for the first one because I will go deep and I will talk forever which is normal at least now you can see that I actually really love the Bible like so much and I get fully excited when I am when I study it okay so if you have a Bible here's a chance if you've never read the Bible that's alright we're gonna work on it together next week I'm probably going to do in start a study of Matthew because I think it'll be awesome for people to rediscover who Jesus is because this is what I'm going to say and this is true I've met so many Christian people who have created their own Jesus it is so easy to create your own Jesus and to create your own God here's the problem when you create your own Jesus and you create your own God and then you read this they don't match up and they're not going to line up and there's going to be problems and there's going to be contradictions and I think that's one of the biggest challenges that I want to break down is like who Jesus really is and what the Bible says Jesus really is not often what people say Jesus is and and that's like massive and that's something that I've discovered on my journey as a Christian and that all came from study because I had some wild understandings of Jesus before I really started sinking into it but he is faithful and he is good and spirit it talks to you when you really give it the time so if you have a Bible or you just want to listen I'm gonna go through just the first Psalm and I think it's just a really cool way to introduce you an end and also just to reiterate the fact that I think studying and understanding the Bible is is a key to this Christian walk and without it you're gonna get lost and you're gonna go down the wrong path and you're gonna not like Christianity at all because you're actually not gonna be a part of it and you'll just feel like it's empty and has no benefit to your life so anyway boom boom here we go Psalms it says this um actually I'll read it for my computer blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night all right so that someone wanted to really easy now when I'm studying and the first thing that I pull out from this is blessed is the man right now the word blessed have you I'm surely you've heard people it's just common language now when people ghost wanna be blessed well I feel so blessed right it's a word that gets thrown around a lot and I think the problem with this were when we immediately read this is blessed is the man people immediately think personal gain they immediately think ah bless it is the man the person who's gonna get more right that's a very worldly thinking out there's a biblical definition to blessing and there's a worldly definition of less in the world the definition the blessing is you're gonna get everything you want you're gonna get the car you need a good job you gonna get more famous you're gonna have all the money you're never gonna have a problem you can have the perfect roommate best girlfriend take all the boxes and that's not a biblical understanding of blessing the biblical understanding of blessing is very different a blessing from a biblical point of view is anything that draws you closer to God anything that brings you closer into his presence into who he is into understanding his nature his character what he loves and what he hates that's a blessing and that blessed is the man when he says this blessed is the man the man who's closest to God will be the following right and that's really really important now remember the end goal if you're a Christian is God his present that's what we're after so if you're looking for the religion or the spirituality that just gives you what you want tap out right now it's not Christianity Christianity is not that and you will not find that from the lips of Jesus that hey I'm just gonna give you everything you want there are points where Jesus says God will give you what you need but there is a huge difference between need and one so the first thing I acknowledge when I look at this son is blessed is the man who is the closest to God and remember Jesus says blessed is the pure in heart for they will see God right so as we continue who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers what I find really interesting about this and the little things that you kind of notice is he talks about walks stands and sits right now you're more than likely sitting you might be walking or possibly standing if you're making dinner in the kitchen but at any point of the day you're going to be doing one of those three things walking standing or sitting you know almost like you know the only time you're gonna be safe is when you're sleeping but any one of these points there's gonna be a choice to be made okay and it goes on to like be the counsel of the wicked right where do you hear advice from where does your where does your wisdom come from you know think about that today who you who you following on social media whose inspiring you whose encouraging you is their is their message good is their message true you know you see a lot of social media influences it seems like everybody's enlightened now you know everyone's got enlightenment and then the message is always the same you got to love yourself self-love self-love self-love which I'll talk about in another episode because I don't believe in it but but you know walks not in the counsel of the nor stands in the way of sinners what are you stand for what do you represent if you ask yourself that question now what do I represent who do I represent do I represent me do I represent money do I represent power do I represent self love you know self achievement these are sort of questions you want to ask and you know social mediums fascinating if we can continue to go on who sits in the seat of scoffers look at the hate that gets spread around on comments and you know and and people's feeds are just it's just we become a society of scoffers we're judging judging judging judging and it's easy to throw hate on someone's page and we love to do it but the man who's closest to God is the one who who doesn't take advice from the wicked who doesn't walk in the way of sinners and doesn't sit in those seats of scoffers who's sending hateful messages and it's also interesting what what Jesus says you know about the tongue and what comes out of the tongue that comes from the heart right so there's a sort of questions that you ask that these people but then we go on to the next part and I think this is really really interesting so immediately in this song he's creating divide between two groups of people those close to God and those distant from God right so he's basically gone blessed is the one this is the one who's the closest to God who doesn't do this this this but instead he delights in the law of the Lord now as an English speaker myself included when I first read this I was like law Oh 613 laws in you know the Old Testament the Torah Wow like it's like okay so I do I just have to like memorize the law I have to like know the Ten Commandments off by heart you know and I have to delight in that I have to delight in that sort of understanding what's interesting about that is I have a scripture the Scriptures Bible here which is actually a Hebrew interpretation and it actually it says Torah so the word law in English is actually taurah and taurah is interesting because you have to understand from a Jewish perspective and this is what we often lose as Christians when they say Torah yes there is legal discussions in there because there is a lot of laws like I said 613 laws of the Jewish people but Torah is also the first five books of Moses right so it's not just law perfect it'll be fine I'm sure you won't even hear it oh so law is not just the law but it's the history of God's interaction with humanity Genesis Exodus there's a story's there that you know God pulling you know the Israelites out of Egypt pulling them out of oppression saving and lifting up Moses so there's the law is not just like the law that we think it I often look at that and is it that when I read it and it says but he who delights in the history of God's interaction with humanity that's how I see it and then he goes on and on his law he meditates day and night now here's another thing that we need to sort of really sort of dig a little bit deeper in this is why study is so amazing especially when you get into a Jewish context so when we get to Genesis and which is the first book of the Bible talks about day and night right and for the Jewish people often they would represent order and night would be chaos and there's a difference between day and night now think of this from an ancient text point of view during the day you can see everything if you have a village you can see everything that's going on and you feel safe and secure because you can see to the horizon so if you know if your enemies are going to sneak up on your during the day you can see them and you can defend yourself you can prepare yourself so there's order there's control you can you know you can tend to your to your your flock your farms during the day it's control you feel safe but at night it's a different story at night people can sneak up on you at night you have to be on your guard you know and that's why do you have this understanding of order and chaos and night is so often referred to and you know Jewish Texas there's there's something that we're we're out of control and that sort of chaos element that comes with it so when I read that and it says but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night and I see someone blessed is the man who meditates on the Holy Scriptures the human interaction with God since the beginning he meditates up on the good moments and the bad in the good and in the chaos and that's the question you have to ask yourself like cuz you'll meet a lot of Christian people who we all turn to God when everything's falling apart but but this Psalm is saying blessed is the man who turns to God in the good and the bad in the in the sunshine and in the darkness in the order and in the chaos because everything is always praising and giving thanks to him and and that's what this psalm is so powerful and and also is talked about meditating on his law how often do we open up this book study man-eater meditate on it and and I think the psalm really is the blueprint if you want to live a faithful life if you want to know God more that it all starts with this how often am i investing in this book so today ask yourself this question where do I get my advice from where I get my counsel from which way do I go who do I follow on social media who do I follow in life who are my friends who do I surround myself with and and and what's coming out of my lips because those three questions will really tell you how blessed you are how close you are to God and that's be an indication of how much you understand this book for me it changes everything and the good thing is I have a lifetime to study it so my final advice to anybody who's about to begin stay in the Bible pick a book if you start with Genesis go all the way through don't just pick chapters don't just pick verses but commit to one book at a time and learn it and study it so there you have it this is the first episode I have talked for a while hopefully you've learned something interesting about Jesus or about the Bible or just in general about me I hope this has been rewarding and oh man this is the first one and I'm gonna do so many more I don't know how often bring him out but I'm gonna leave it at that because I probably you're pretty take it so much though and I could talk about the Bible like all day long I literally can I hope that was helpful for you guys have a blessed day and I will see you soon on Palm Sunday

Channel: palm Sundays Co

Views: 11,454

Rating: 4.9840956 out of 5

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Id: w1CjllDhwLQ

Length: 19min 53sec (1193 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 12 2019