Video first posted: September 12, 2026
Below is a machine-generated transcript of the Song of songs 3 v6-11 (Part 89) BitChute video, with a few minor manual edits. At the bottom, after the transcript, is a machine-generated summary of the transcript.
| Hello, in this video we're going to continue meditating on the spirit of Solomon and that is described in Song of Songs chapter 3 verses 6 through 11 and how it influenced the early church and we've been looking at how it influenced Paul who was the one who had resisted it the most amongst all the apostles. So even Paul got infected with the spirit of Solomon. | |
| So we've been going through the book of Acts, and we have last read up to Acts chapter 20, verse 4. And there we were looking at a list of seven people that were accompanying Paul in his journey through Macedonia and Greece, as it says here. | |
| And here in verse 4, Acts 20 verse 4 says, And there accompanied him into Asia, Sopater of Berea, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus, and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus, and of Asia, Tychicus, and Trophimus. So we saw the first three, I believe, in the previous video. We saw Sopater, Aristarchus, and Secundus. | |
| So I'll just write it out here so that it might be easier to follow. So Sopater, Aristarchus, and the other one was Secundus. So Sopater we saw literally means savior of the father. Aristarchus meant | |
| or means best, uh, uh, ruler, uh, or, um, I guess the word, yeah, ruler or, um, yes, I guess we can leave it at ruler. Um, but it has the word, uh, our case, our cake, which is, uh, where we get ruler here, um, has a connotation of someone at the top. So it has a leadership, uh, a kingship connotation. So, um, it might, uh, | |
| A good translation could also be best king, but that's not what it literally says. It says best ruler, but there's a kingly quality to the name here. And then secundus means second, but it also we saw means can be taken to mean fortunate for reasons that I'm still not too clear on, but apparently in the old days, being second was somehow | |
| um, uh, connected to, to being lucky or fortunate. Uh, so we saw that this, um, this name is, is, is connected to the apostolic endowment. Um, and, um, and, and, and by, uh, consequences connected to the spirit of Ephesus. That is one of the seven spirits of God. There are seven spirits of God. | |
| one connected to each of the seven churches that God speaks to at the beginning of Revelation. And the five ministries of Ephesians 4:11, each one of them is the manifestation, you could say, of one of the seven spirits of God. So the second name, best ruler, because of the kingly quality of the name, is connected to the evangelistic church. | |
| ministry, and therefore it is connected to the spirit of Pergamos. And let me just put some spaces here just to make it easier to see here. Okay. And then Secundus, we saw because of the connection to Fortunate and other things we saw, | |
| meant that this name is connected to the prophetic endowment, which in turn emanates from the spirit of Smyrna. So those are the first three we saw. And you could say that, so let's quickly recap the message that God is conveying here. | |
| Because the reason why he's mentioning these seven names in Acts 20 verse 4 is to say something about like a quality about each of his seven spirits. And we saw that the apostolic ministry or the spirit of Ephesus is connected to being a savior of the father in the sense that apostles come with a new wisdom. | |
| New in the sense of new to us, not that it's new in the sense that we just made it up. It's that it's always been there, but it's being unearthed for the first time. And then the apostle begins to speak, a person with an apostolic endowment begins to speak that wisdom that will, in many cases, contradict the false wisdom | |
| that we have learned from our fathers, the people who came before us, whom we saw as the wise people. So in other words, the apostolic endowment comes to challenge the wisdom of the fathers. And by doing that, it's not to attack the fathers, but to save them, if that makes sense. To save what the fathers started. | |
| so that it doesn't go corrupt. It's like exposing the flaws, the foundational wisdom flaws in what the fathers have established so that the house can be restored. And that's like a principle that God is exposing through the name Sopater. That's why it's not there just to fill up space. And the Lord put it in Acts 20 verse 4 for a very specific purpose. And then we saw with Aristarchus, | |
| uh, that, uh, there was an interesting thing about the name that, um, that the name came after the place where, um, uh, where he was from, uh, Sopater of Berea. So Berea, the place he was from came second, but with Aristarchus, Aristarchus, God put Thessalonians first of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus. And we saw that the message that God is embedding there is that, um, an evangelist, uh, | |
| uh is uh the the best evangelist or or the best type of evangelistic kingship comes when that kingship puts the people first the people that it's uh ruling over that's why the thessalonians come first before the name of aristarchus so aristarchus is not lording it over the name is not lording it over the thessalonians the thessalonians come first and aristarchus comes after that so um | |
| Maybe we can write it very quickly here that Sopater is showing that the apostle comes with new wisdom to challenge the father's wisdom and rescue their house. | |
| let's put it that way, the house that they started. And the evangelist means an evangelist, let's say, how can we put this? The evangelist exercises the best kingship | |
| when he or she puts the people first, the people ruled over first. So if you want to manifest the evangelistic in the best way possible, you will not see your kingship as an opportunity to be better than the people you rule over. You put | |
| the people that you are ruling over first. And that's a quality of a good evangelist. And then here we saw with the prophet that the prophet does not care for titles or positions and receives grace from God as a result. | |
| and receives spiritual grace from God as a result. So the prophet is not worried about, and we saw that because the name is | |
| Second mean second, but it's third on the list. So it's out of place. It's out of its position. It's as if the the prophet surrendered place number two to Aristarchus And said, okay, I don't care. I know my name is second. I should be second, but I I surrender my second position So it's a figure of not caring for titles or positions for visible titles | |
| And because a prophet doesn't care for those titles and positions, then God gives him a special endowment of spiritual grace, of invisible grace. And we saw how it's related to the two swords and the selling of the third sword to get the selling of a mantle, of your mantle, of your emation to get the sword of the spirit. | |
| This is related to Luke 22, if I'm not mistaken, where the Lord talks about how to buy the sword of the spirit, which is by selling your mantle, which is a figure of selling what makes you accepted and renowned in society because that's what the mantle was for back in the day. So you don't care about where you place. You don't care about honors and recognition. | |
| And when you do that, then God gives you an impartation of prophetic grace. So if you want evangelistic grace, then put people first. If you want apostolic grace, then be willing to challenge the fathers, the wisdom of the fathers in order to rescue, to save what the fathers have started. And then if you want prophetic grace, | |
| You should not care for titles or positions for visible recognition. And when you do that, then God will give you a spiritual invisible impartation, an impartation of invisible spiritual grace that will be tangible to people, but it will be very spiritual in nature, very prophetic. So those are the first three names there. And then the next name is Gaius of Derbe. | |
| So let's put him here. So Gaius or Gaius, but I prefer Gaius because I believe it's closer to the original pronunciation of the actual Greek name or Latin name. So we'll go look for what it means here. So we click here to look at the Greek words behind Acts 20 verse 4. | |
| we scroll down we'll find gaius here and gaius means it says here a lord um and uh and it and okay so that's what it it says supposedly here uh but i believe um maybe i did um here we go so uh previously um i the lord prompted me to do this search uh here in bing | |
| of the etymology of Gaius, where Gaius comes from. Because when I saw the translation as Lord, it just didn't resonate. I felt like there was something off. And it kind of raised my suspicions as well that the etymology that's mentioned here in this entry here in the Blue Letter Bible just says of Latin origin. If it had like a word that I could look at and see, okay, yeah, I see. | |
| It's coming from this other word, and that's why it means Lord. If I saw that, then I would have been more inclined to kind of accept it. But it felt like in my being, like there was something off with the translation as Lord, just like that. So that's why I was prompted, I believe in the Lord, to do this search, etymology of Gaius. And then it says, Gaius is the Latin pre-nomen, | |
| traditionally linked to the verb gaudere, meaning to rejoice, though its exact origin may also involve Etruscan or Greek influences. And when I saw that, I said, okay, that makes more sense. Gaius and gaudere look very similar. And I said, okay, yeah, I believe this is where the name really came from. So let's read here. Gaius, feminine Gaia, | |
| was one of the most common Roman pre nomina. I'm not sure what that word means, but I guess it means name or like first name or something used by both patrician and plebeian families and often abbreviated as C full stop. Not sure why reflecting its original spelling Caius before the letter C and G were distinguished in Latin writing systems. The feminine form | |
| was represented by the reserved, reversed C. So there's like a C that's written from right to left instead of from left to right, you could say. Then it says classical sources and modern scholars generally associate the name with the Latin verb gaudere, meaning to rejoice, suggesting that the name originally conveyed a sense of joy or gladness. This derivation | |
| while widely accepted, may have been influenced by folk etymology. So the thing is, agaios comes from rejoicing. And if you think of rejoicing, obviously that's connected to joy, and joy is connected to the evangelistic ministry, because the joy of conquest. You get joy when you have victory, and evangelists are conquerors, so | |
| So, and the evangelist has kingship. And so, so if you go down that route, you go, okay, maybe that's, it really does mean Lord, Gaius, as it said here in this blue letter Bible entry for the name here in the Strong's Concordance. So, but I still felt like it wasn't that, like, | |
| That's not it. So I kept looking. And let's see here. So I did another search, meaning of the word gaudere. So gaios comes from gaudere. So I said, okay, let's look into gaudere. Does it really mean joy or is it more of like something else? So here it says in Latin, gaudere is the present active infinitive of the verb gaudeo. | |
| Meaning to rejoice, to be glad, or to take pleasure in something. And when I read that, I said, oh, that's it. To take pleasure in something. This is coming from this website. It's doing a verification search, making sure I'm not a robot. And here we are. So, yeah, Gaudio, to be glad, to rejoice. Well, I'm not sure where. | |
| the bing entry got the thing about taking pleasure in it's not here um to be delighted um okay uh all right so the thing is that um uh that it's to take pleasure in something um and uh all right so um | |
| For example, here usage in Latin, they give an example. It means I'm rejoicing because I see you. And obviously seeing someone is not like the joy of victory. It's not like you conquered the other person or you fought a battle to finally see that person. That's why you're rejoicing. | |
| So clearly it has not the connotation of the joy of victory, but happiness, being delighted over something and being happy about it. And so that's what Gaudere represents, gladness or taking pleasure in something, something that gives you pleasure and happiness. So therefore, here we will say, | |
| Um, even though it's that Lord, um, in the Strong's entry that we were looking at, uh, because it comes from Gauderi, uh, uh, the, the better translation would have been, um, happy or, um, delighted, uh, let's say delighted, um, or happy or, um, | |
| are taking yeah pleasured so you know you something that gives you pleasure or happiness and when you see it like that then then suddenly becomes evident that this is connected to the pastor ministry because the pastor as we've said so many times | |
| is connected to people pleasing, to serving and pleasing others, like a waiter trying to please the people that they serve. So the pleasing or trying to make people happy is the pastoral ministry, which when it goes bad becomes Canaanite. The Canaanite spirit is the spirit of unrighteous pleasing, of pleasing others and then waiting for them to please you back. | |
| in that very sinister trading that happens of pleasure. I give you something, then you give me something. I please you with something, then you please me back. But the thing is that this is connected to the pastoral ministry. And that would be connected to the spirit of Thyatira in Revelation. That's the spirit of God from where the pastoral ministry comes. | |
| And what can we get or discern from this? Well, I really don't have much other than to say here that the pastor aims to please. And I really don't get much more understanding about that. I get the sense that there's something I'm missing here, but that's all I can see for now. | |
| so that's but the thing is that this name is connected to another ministry and then the next name in Acts 24 is oh and by the way it says of Derby so now I'm curious to see what Derby means Derby was a place | |
| and um derby means tanner tanner of skin cover with with skin um and um i guess uh let's i don't know how to put it here but um derby means tanner uh and tanner means uh is connected to green horse sacrifice | |
| And we've talked about this before in other recordings, the connection between Tanner, like for example, Simon the Tanner, the one in whose house Simon Peter was staying when God called him to go preach to the Gentiles, starting with Cornelius. And he was in Jaffa by the sea or something to that effect. And the sea is connected to the nations of the earth. | |
| and it's strongly connected to the green horse phase. And so it's kind of long to explain, but the thing is that Tanner, at the end of the day, is connected to green horse sacrifice. And we've also shared before that a prophet becomes complete when he becomes pastoral. | |
| and does a green horse sacrifice so this I believe is speaking of how God is calling pastors to act in prophetic green horse sacrifice and that's how they in a sense are manifesting true pastorship because | |
| The shepherd, the real shepherd, the real pastor gives his life for the sheep. And that means pastor. And that's what you do in green horse sacrifice. When you give yourself for the sheep, you're not just trying to please the sheep and make them happy. You are actually willing to die for them. So pastor dying for the sheep. | |
| And so I believe that that's the message that God is saying there about the quality of a past a real pastor And that's embedded in in the name Derby Okay, so So let's continue with the names here the next name Is Timotheus | |
| And it's interesting that Timotheus is the first one here that's not mentioned with a city or location. And just as a side note here, Thessalonians, we didn't talk about that word. And Thessalonians is, I think it has to do with death, if I'm not mistaken. Thessalonians. | |
| um thessalonica victory of falsity okay uh yeah victory interesting so so the word victory is embedded in thessalonica the nike part uh like nike uh n-i-k-e uh that means victory in in in greek so it's victory of falsehood which is kind of an interesting thing um so and so | |
| In a peculiar way, that even confirms even more the connection of Aristarchus, who was of the Thessalonians, his name's connection to the evangelist, because the evangelist has victory, has Nike. So you could also take it to mean victory over falsehood. | |
| And I don't get much more than that, um, in this, but, but, um, I believe there's something deep, deep there as well. And Sopater was from, uh, Berea and we saw how that related to the apostle, uh, someone who, who questions everything, who just doesn't take things at face value. That's how you can be a good apostle, um, have apostolic wisdom from God, because you're willing to question things that people have accepted for a long time without asking. | |
| The Bereans were famous. I forget the chapter in Acts where God mentions the Bereans. The Bereans were people that would go to scripture to confirm everything that I think Paul or whoever was saying to them. So it's that spirit of inquiry and questioning. And that is how you manifest an apostolic impartation from God. | |
| having that inquisitive attitude and being even willing to question the fathers, the people whose wisdom has been accepted for a long time. So you can see how the location where they were from was relevant in understanding each of them. Sopater of Berea, Aristarchus of the Thessalonians, Secundus of, well, actually, where was Secundus from? | |
| If we go back. Secundus. Oh, Aristarchus and Secundus were of the Thessalonians. Interesting. So the switch here, Secundus should have been second, but he was third. So, yeah. And for some reason, I associate Thessalonica with death. I don't know why. But for some reason, I've seen maybe... | |
| And that has to do with prophetic sacrifice, but I don't have evidence of that. But for some reason in my heart, every time I see Thessalonians, I see death, willingness to die. So in that sense, if that is valid, then it's like the Thessalonians points to both the evangelist and the prophet. And notice that these are the two grace ministries, evangelist and prophet, as we've said before. So the two come from the same place. | |
| Which I find interesting. God bundles them together and then flips them. So Secundus goes third. So he gives way to Aristarchus. And Aristarchus himself gives way to the Thessalonians. A good king. Putting people first. The people he rules over first. And then a prophet. Not demanding his place. But being willing to surrender. | |
| Human glory in order to receive spiritual grace. And then you have Gaius of Derby. A pastor who is happy to please people. But who takes the greatest pleasure when he's willing to die for those that he wants to please. That is a true pastor. And then we have Timotheus. | |
| And Timotheus has no location for some reason. And that is very, very interesting. And to be frank, I don't have quite too much clarity on what that means. But Timotheus, we'll see, is connected to the teacher ministry. And that's because Tim. | |
| the name comes from two words at team a which means to honor and Deus which means God so tipotheus means to honor honoring God and we saw that the word honor or the concept of honor we've shared in previous videos is strongly connected to to the teacher ministry so when you honor a teacher you're honoring God | |
| the teacher is the weakest of all the ministry so it's the the ministry that is least likely to be honored by others because it's so weak uh you know just like students sometimes in a literal classroom are disrespectful of the teacher because the teacher is just like uh like someone that in a figurative sense their parents have paid uh to serve uh knowledge to them it's like like another a servant | |
| that is there and it doesn't have, the teacher does not have the same level of authority and control over the students as like, let's say the parents do because the parents can control their allowance and can control how much, you know, they can do or not do. A teacher can just suggest, please do this. And a lot of times the students just don't care because, you know, who is this guy or this lady to tell me what to do? | |
| So the teacher is weak. It's like a manifestation of God in weakness. And if you honor that manifestation of weakness, then you are honoring God. And so this is a spirit. This is connected to the spirit of Sardis. That's the spirit of God connected to the teacher ministry. | |
| And and what do we get from this? I would say that the gist of it is When you honor A a weak teacher You are honoring God Because a teacher is a manifestation of the spirit of a spirit of God Even though it doesn't look like it because it looks it looks weak | |
| so uh i believe that's what god is saying and and it's interesting that he doesn't come from anywhere um and i i also take from that um that a teacher is the one um the one who worries the most about um about positions and titles and things like that um and about hierarchy and structure because a teacher | |
| comes from the Spirit of God that promotes organization, perfection, structure, methodology. So that's why to the teacher positions are very important and names and labels because that's how you organize things. It's interesting that Timothy doesn't get any label of where he's from. And I think that's a second message there. A true teacher | |
| is not bound to titles, if that makes sense. That's his natural tendency. See, the prophet's natural tendency, as we were describing here up above with Secundus, his natural tendency is not to care for titles. So he does it almost by nature. | |
| And but the teacher is the opposite but God is saying when he goes against that natural tendency Then he's being a true teacher If that makes sense Alright, so so there are some things that God is revealing about each of the ministries and for example Just as the thing if you want to get more prophetic impartation Then be willing to sell your mantle | |
| to get the sword of the spirit. Be willing to disregard titles and positions and promotions and human importance and visibility. That's how God is going to give you the invisible sword of the spirit to fight. And if you want to conquer, God says, put the people first. And if you want to be a good apostle, be willing to disregard the wisdom of the fathers to question it. | |
| because that's how you save what the fathers have started. It's ironic because people think, oh, you're questioning the father, so you want to destroy what the fathers did. No, I want to rescue what the fathers did. God wants to rescue what my fathers have done, but they had a false foundation. They did not have the fullness of the foundation of the wisdom of God. And this is what they were missing. And if you're willing to have the attitude God is going to impart | |
| Apostolic wisdom to you the apostolic anointing from the spirit of Ephesus and and also To be a true pastor. You have to be willing to to to go derby to go to be a tanner which has to do with green or sacrifice And and you're you're willing to die for the sheep and that's how you are a true pastor in God's eyes And then the spirit of Sardis | |
| I'm sorry, Timotheus speaks about the teacher in the sense of saying if you honor a teacher, you're honoring God. When someone is manifesting the spirit of Sardis, which is one of the seven spirits of God, when they are manifesting that spirit, it's God, even though he or she is cloaked in weakness. And when you honor that, then you're honoring God. | |
| And then on the other hand, a teacher is willing to go without titles if necessary to honor God. And that's how he honors God by not caring about titles. It's kind of ironic. So you honor God by honoring the teacher and the teacher honors God by not caring about titles. And where did we get this not caring about titles? It's because Timotheus doesn't have the title of being from somewhere. | |
| He's the only one who was not given a place of origin. And that means look towards eternity. Don't care about temporal things like the country you were born in or the nationality or the race that you belong to or you were born into. Don't care about any of that. You are you. And you're connected, therefore, to the spirit and to eternity. | |
| and a teacher has a tendency to kind of do the opposite of that. Okay. And then, all right, so here, I'm sorry, here in Acts 24, we're looking at, then the last two names are Tychicus and Trophimus. And again, they are mentioned second after where they are from. So, you know, of Asia, | |
| Tychicus and Trophimus, so let's go see very quickly what Tychicus and Trophimus mean. Tychicus or Tuchikos, however you want to pronounce it, Tuchikos means faithful. | |
| And interestingly, you would think that that name would only appear once in Scripture, but the brother shows up in Ephesians 6:21, or at least someone else with this name, in Colossians 4:7 here, Colossians 2 Timothy 4:12, and in Titus 3:12. And in these two verses, it doesn't say Tychicus, but apparently there's a footnote saying here, | |
| The following subscription appears in the textus receptus denoted in triple brackets by the King James translators as not being in the original monograms to the Ephesians written from Rome by Tychicus. So apparently Ephesians ends with a note somewhere saying that Tychicus was the one who actually wrote it. It was Paul's letter to the Ephesians, but written through Tychicus. | |
| So Tychicus was the secretary, you know, taking dictation, I guess. And the same thing here, Colossians 4:18, I guess this is the last verse of Colossians. And there's a footnote, kind of a similar one saying, written from Rome to Colossians by Tychicus and Onesimus. So Tychicus was apparently kind of someone who would write letters for Paul if these inscriptions or subscriptions are correct. | |
| okay so but so he appears way more than i would expect um at least in one two three four uh five six i think um three five six seven uh in five verses and and it's in he appears kind of in a subtle sense i guess in two others so in seven um he appears in five | |
| overtly and into implicitly you could say but the thing is that Taikikos means faithful and it comes from Tunkano which means to hit the mark to reach to attain to obtain to get to happen to fall out and so on so let's | |
| right here, Tychicus. If that's, I think it's usually spelled like this and, um, faithful, um, and, and it's, it's connected to, to connect it to, uh, attain, um, attaining. So, um, | |
| So you say, okay, what, what is the message here? Um, I don't have much understanding, uh, but this is what I get from this, um, that, um, um, it's like, um, um, | |
| Well, by the way, there's no more ministries to associate the names to because all five ministries have been taken up. So the other two names, and it's interesting, both names are from Asia. So God bundles them as two separate names that go together. And that kind of makes sense because as we've shared, um, um, | |
| There's no ministry here. But this is related therefore to the spirit. There are two village spirits. As we can call them. Two spirits of God. That are wild card spirits. Not connected to any ministry. And that are. Village spirits in the sense of. Yeah in a negative sense. They distort. | |
| that endowment of each of these two spirits distorts into the Perizzites and the Hibbites. The Perizzites are the poor villagers. The Hibbites are the rich villagers. So this, I believe, is connected to the spirit of Philadelphia, which is the spirit that, when degraded, becomes the Perizzite spirit, the poor villager spirit. And when you read the letter to the church in Philadelphia in Revelation, | |
| I think, let's see if we can go there very quickly. It's in Revelation 3, if I'm not mistaken. So here's the message to Philadelphia, verse 7. And that's where it starts. But let's read here, down here in verse 10. Because thou hast kept | |
| the word of my patience i also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth behold verse 11 i come quickly hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown and then verse 12 him that overcometh will i make a pillar in the temple of my god and he shall go no more out | |
| And I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, which is the Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God. And I will write upon him my new name. And then what I get from this is a person who has a lot of persistence, who endures even in the midst of weakness and attains a prize and attains the crown. As it says here, behold, I come. | |
| Verse 11, Behold, I come quickly, hold that fast, which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. And then God saying, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God, and you shall go out no more. And God will write his name upon those with the Philadelphia spirit. So someone who endures and attains | |
| Something and God doesn't say these things to any other church obviously every church had a different Was given a different word different message, but there's something very unique about the words here and it's in the context of someone who Despite being a poor villager shall we say Is is able to to to attain great things | |
| we shared that the Philadelphia spirit is connected to the spirit of dreams and visions. And it is the spirit of dreams and visions. So it's someone who in smallness dreams of big things. So this is someone in a small state dreaming of great things. You know, someone like born in a small village who one day dreams of making it in the big city. And I guess that's why it's not a coincidence that God talks about the name of the city of my God. | |
| being written upon the people with the spirit of Philadelphia. So I believe that this is kind of pointing to that dreamer spirit of someone who attains and who feels that, and maybe that's where the word faithful comes in, that like they had a destiny. Like I had a dream of something and I was destined to achieve it. | |
| And that's why they pursue that dream until they attain it. I hope that's making sense. And I think that's what we can say in short. Pursuing a dream that you feel destined for until you achieve it. And that's what... | |
| the spirit of Philadelphia conveys. And Joseph had that spirit of Philadelphia, you know, the son of Jacob. He was mistreated, disrespected, and sold in slavery. But he had a dream that he would one day be a king and that his brothers would bow before him and even his father, interestingly enough. And he eventually became, as we all know, | |
| um second only to pharaoh in egypt um because he and and even when he was in prison for 13 years he he kept saying i i have a dream uh i i i know that god has said this about me and i i have i am destined to achieve it but i but only if i uh persist in him uh and and you persist and persist until you attain or achieve it um | |
| So I think that's the message. It's like God giving a little bit of more of an insight on what each of his seven spirits is about. And then the seventh name that the Lord lists here in Acts 20 verse 4 is Trophimus. So if we go to that name here, Acts 20 verse 4, let's scroll down to Trophimus. | |
| And trophimus, trophimus means, it says nutritious. Okay. And trophy means food or nourishment. Interesting trophy sounds like trophy, but, and then trefo means to feed, to nourish, to support. Okay. So clearly the name is connected to | |
| uh, to nutrition. Um, okay. Um, and I'm just curious here, trophy, which is where trophy must comes from. It's only used, uh, well, it's used in scripture several times. Um, and it's used in terms of food, like nourishment, uh, like John, his nourishment was locusts and wild honey. Um, and let's go down here. Um, | |
| uh okay it says here james 2 15 if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food or daily nutrition daily trophy um what i'm getting in my being and and you might say well that's a bit of a stretch but for some reason i i feel that um that god is saying something here um john | |
| was a man who did not wear fine apparel, luxurious apparel. And we've talked about this in a previous recording. And to be frank, I don't remember if it was a video or an audio recording, but in a recent recording, we were talking about, I think it was an audio recording when we were talking about the yoke of the Lord. | |
| That is described in Matthew 11:29, if I remember correctly. That John was not living a life in a palace. That's how the Lord Jesus describes him. He was not living in a palace wearing soft raiment. Like effeminate, luxurious living. So he had a rough life. | |
| He was not living like a king. He was living like the opposite of a king. He did not have the comforts and luxury of a king. And then here, the very last time trophy is used is James 2:15. It says, if a brother or sister be naked and vested of daily food. And I think after that, it says here, verse 16. And one of you say to them, unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled. Notwithstanding, ye give them not those things which are needful to the body. What doth it profit? | |
| So it's like, we can, let's say, let's put trophimus here. I'm spelling it right here. And this means nutritious. And we know that it can't be tied to any ministry because we have already tied | |
| the five ministries to five names. So there's no more ministries left to connect to names. And this goes with the last spirit here on the list. Last but not least, the spirit of Laodicea, the spirit of prosperity. Like the spirit of Ephesus is the spirit of wisdom and judgment. The spirit of Pergamos is the spirit of conquest and head authority. | |
| The spirit of Aspirna is God's spirit of prophetic sacrifice. The spirit of Thyatira is God's spirit of service. The spirit of Sardis is God's spirit of perfection, as we share on the website. Perfection methodology, you know, efficiency. That's why teachers are obsessed with efficiency. And sometimes if they're not in the spirit, their obsession with efficiency gets in the way of God's will. | |
| Because, oh, no, this is not efficient. And God says, no, I don't care about efficiency right now. I want a deeper purpose to be achieved than literal efficiency. But the teacher gets so caught up in efficiency that he doesn't see it. It's like in church gatherings, they have this schedule of when to do this, when to do that. It's very efficient, very organized. And then suddenly he says, no, change of plans. I want you to do something completely different. | |
| And the teacher says, no, no, no, no. We have to maintain, continue with the schedule. We have to keep it going exactly as it is laid out in the program. And so it gets in the way. But in essence, the spirit of Sardis is the spirit of perfection and efficiency, you can say. | |
| Uh, and then the spirit of Philadelphia is the spirit of dreams and visions. And the spirit of Laodicea is the spirit of prosperity. Uh, this is, it's a, it's a spirit of God. There's a spirit of prosperity. Um, and those who preach the gospel, the prosperity gospel get obsessed with that part of God. Uh, and they don't see the rest. Um, so they take that part and distort it. And that's when it becomes the Hivite spirit. Um, | |
| But the thing is that we can safely say that this name, Trophimus, is connected to the spirit of Laodicea, the spirit of prosperity, God's spirit of prosperity. So what do we get from this that we didn't already know? And what I get in my heart is that Trophimus, which comes from Trophae, the first and last appearances, the bookends, | |
| of trophy one is talking about John who didn't care about luxury so it's like in prosperity when you're in God's prosperity being willing to forsake luxury just like John and just to put a reference here what was the verse that we were looking at | |
| where trophy appeared for the first time, Matthew 3:4. Matthew 3:4. And also, and sharing, and that would be James 2:15. So James 2:15, as you may recall, was mentioning, like, if you see your brother naked or, you know, without nutrition, without trophy, | |
| and you just send him away, like go in peace, get out of my face, then you're not acting in the spirit of God. So if you have wealth, if you have prosperity, and you have someone who is in need, and obviously under the parameters of righteousness, then being willing to give, then that's when you're really operating correctly in the spirit of prosperity. | |
| and I would dare say that many times when you want to operate in the spirit of prosperity it's as if you want the prosperity in order to be able to give to others to enable others spiritually and materially so it's like not just wanting the prosperity for yourself and and also not | |
| Tying yourself up to the luxury. Like if you can live in luxury, but if you just say, oh, I'll just live in luxury. Let's say you're a millionaire and you just enjoy life and all that. You get caught up in the luxury. Then you won't be exercising the spirit of prosperity correctly. God wants you to, even though you're living in prosperity, to live as if you were not when God calls you to or when you need to. | |
| Because you're not tied to the luxury. Yeah, you have a spirit that produces prosperity, but you don't become a slave to that prosperity. Your soul does not get bound up to that prosperity. And you're still with the attitude of a John the Baptist willing to live out in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey. And pronouncing very harsh words. | |
| out there in the wilderness, in the hot sun of the wilderness, of the desert. So I think that's what the Lord is saying in all these seven names. So there's a message there. So I pray that when we share these things, we have to kind of unpack them. When we unpack them, it takes a long time because we have to go, you know, | |
| um we have to look up words and meanings and then we tie it together but i pray that um and i it's something i need to do myself uh more and more that once we understand what each word in a verse represents it should be like the verb the word itself should um compact into it the essence all the things that are in uh in that name in that word if that makes sense like for example | |
| The next time I read Acts 24 and I read sopater, I go, oh yes. I saved the father by questioning the father's wisdom. My father, our father's wisdom. So that God's wisdom can replace whatever is wrong with the father's wisdom. You know, it's like you just read the name. So, you know, means comes from sozo meaning to save in Greek and pater or pater. | |
| you know, we all know it's connected to father, you know, paternal. So soul pater, savior of the father. Boom. Then you say, I'm willing to defy the father's wisdom. You know, earthly father's wisdom. If that's what it takes, because that's how I save them. I don't destroy them. I actually save them by questioning their wisdom. | |
| And then Aristarchus, you know, the best ruler. And then immediately, oh, the best ruler is the one who puts people first. Of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus. Not Aristarchus of Thessalonica. Of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus. You know, you put people, Thessalonians, first. So boom, you get it in partition. I want to be a king. I'll exercise kingship. But my desire will be to put the people that I rule over or that I've given authority over to put them first. | |
| And then you read secundus. Oh, yeah, secundus, the third name. Oh, he didn't care to be to be third when his name was second. I don't care about my names or titles. You know, you just get that in partition immediately. And if and if I don't and if I do that, I'll be fortunate. I'll receive fortune from God. Secundus, you know, means fortunate. That's one of the meanings aside from second. | |
| And you're saying hey, I'm willing to be second to others Not care about my position and and and I | |
| And in doing that, when I'm not obsessed about visible honor, I will get invisible honor, invisible fortune from God. I'll be very fortunate, very, very graced. You know, I'll receive an impartation of spiritual grace. And that's how I'll move in the prophetic. And then Gaius, you know, I'll go happy or pleasure. But then, okay, a pastor aims to please. | |
| But you will remember that he's of Derby, and Derby means Tanner. Tanner means green horse sacrifice. And a green horse, as we have shared before on the website, let's look at it very quickly. Let's see if I can find it. | |
| Yeah, it's the green-bashed prophetic word on the Shema Elam website here. We talk about several things, but we talk about the depersonalization barrier here in this section. And we talk about how the prophet can make sacrifices and be impersonal about them. But when he acts like a pastor, | |
| in the midst of that sacrifice and it's it's a personal sacrifice you're not just dying for people in general you're dying for people because you care for them the way a pastor cares for for its uh his sheep then uh you know the good shepherd the good pastor the lord said gives his life for the sheep so so when you understand that then then you are exercising pastorship at the level that god wants uh where you're willing uh you're not | |
| Just trying to please the sheep. And trying to get pleasure from them. You are willing to give your life for the sheep. For those that you're serving. And that's when you enter into true pastorship. So the message is. Gaius of Derbe. When you see Derbe. Tanner. Oh giving my life. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. That's how a good pastor lives in God's eyes. Being willing to do that. So it's a. | |
| It's not just pleasing for the sake of pleasing. Because why would you give your life for the sheep? It's because you see that there is a higher purpose that needs to be achieved for the sheep. For example, this is going to sound like a contradiction, but imagine that a mother has a son that has turned very rebellious and he goes into a life of crime and all that. | |
| And eventually he commits some serious crime and he goes and hides it in the mother's house. And the mother knows that if the son continues living like that, he's going to die and his life will be a complete waste. And she knows that in order to redeem him, she has to turn him over to the police. | |
| She has to rat him out, as people might want to say. So she rats him out, quote unquote. And in doing that, she knows that the son will feel like, oh, betrayed by the mother, like you were supposed to protect me. What kind of mother are you? And then he might end up hating her and calling her names and saying awful things against her. | |
| And that would, you know, if she's a mother that loves the child, the son very much, those words will cut to the bone, will hurt real deeply, and she will experience a form of death. But she realizes that that's what needed to be done. So even if she dies, if she sacrifices that affection that she wants from her son and his approval of her, | |
| So if she's willing to make that sacrifice, and that means death to her, she's going to do it. Why is she going to do it? Because she knows that by getting this son arrested, maybe spending some time in prison, that will help him to get his act together and maybe come to the census. So you're doing a sacrifice for a deeper, higher purpose. And that means that you're not going to just please for the sake of pleasing, just focus on this life. | |
| You're focused on something deeper because you see a value beyond this life for that sheep, for that person that you're pastoring in some way. I hope that's making sense. So you're caring about something deeper and you're willing to give your life for that deeper thing. And that will trump the pleasing that you will be prone to doing being a pastor. Yeah, so... | |
| And obviously it also involves a situation where, yeah, you're making a very deep sacrifice to enable something transcendental in the life of that sheep. So you're just not serving like a waiter, serving sandwiches and soft drinks or whatever. You're not just serving stuff to please the sheep for the moment. You're thinking about something deeper | |
| And if that means giving your life for them, you will. That's all that's being conveyed with Gaius of Derbe. And I pray that when you see those words in Acts 20 verse 4, they will hit you and minister to you. It's like God loaded all that essence, all that substance in each of these words. And we have to break them down. That's why these explanations can get very long. But | |
| But once you kind of get to the root of it, it should be like one substance, like one essence. And when you read the word, boom, all that substance goes into you. I hope that's making sense. And I pray that when you read Acts 20 verse 4, you will read it and each word will impart a substance into you, especially now with this understanding in your heart. | |
| uh heart and mind so timotheus uh uh well when you read timotheus oh okay uh honoring god yes when i the next time i run into a teacher of god uh and it can be a teacher in the literal you know a literal teacher you know at school or uh someone who teaches you something it doesn't have to be something spiritual but whoever is teaching you something but they're doing it in god you know in the spirit in the in the in the true | |
| spirit of Sardis attitude, then you should honor them. Because if I honor that, I'm honoring one of the seven spirits of God as I'm honoring God. And then also, Timotheus had no place of origin mentioned in Acts 24:20 verse four, as opposed to all the others. So therefore, Timotheus, we should impart, says, oh, I don't care about titles. | |
| and positions, even though I as a teacher will be focused on that, if I'm willing to let go of that when needed, I will be honoring God. So honoring God goes both ways. It refers to you honoring the teacher and then also the teacher honoring, in this case, God. Okay, so then when you read Tychicus in Acts 20 verse 4, | |
| will say oh uh someone who who has a sense of destiny you know fate faithful a sense of destiny uh of of one of believing that they will attain something that they have dreamed and and and being persistent despite opposition despite being called names and told that um that that you don't belong you know kind of like the treatment that the philadelphians were getting in verse nine it says behold i'll make them of the synagogue of satan | |
| which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee. You know, come and worship before thy feet. And that kind of points to Joseph because that's what Joseph dreamed. And that's why, that's one of the reasons why we have shared that the spirit of Philadelphia, it's like God is saying, is connected to the spirit of dreams and visions. You have a dream, you feel destiny in you, | |
| And you and you and your life is driven to attain that despite all the opposition all the attack even in your smallness And the people don't recognize what what is in you you will continue to pursue To to to work to operate in it and pursue it until you attain What God is is it's called you to attain? So all of that's in Tychicus faithful and attaining Yes, faithful or sense of destiny dreaming | |
| pursuit of something and people not believing, but you believe because God has put that dream in you and you continue until you attain it. And obviously, when we're thinking about dreams and visions, we're not just thinking about | |
| just things for yourself. I mean, there might be things that involve something that benefits you in some way. You know, that's understandable. But the thing is, you're dreaming the dreams of God. The dreams of what God wants to do through you. It's different from what I want for myself. I hope that makes sense. You know, some people take the thing about dreams and visions and apply it. Oh, I want a promotion. I want this. So they pray and pray until they get what they want. | |
| And that's not what we're talking about. It's when you dream the dreams of God. Joseph had a dream of God. And it was needed for him to get to the point where his brothers would worship him at his feet. Because that set the wheels in motion for the Israelites, the family of Jacob to be rescued from a certain death by famine that was going to hit the land. So they were rescued into Egypt through Joseph. | |
| And and obviously also God had a purpose of enslaving the Jewish people in Egypt to make them pay for for what Jacob had done in Genesis 20 as described in Genesis 29. We've talked about that before. But the thing is, the dream of Joseph of having his brothers worship at his feet was a dream of God because it was part of God's purposes in all of their lives. | |
| If that makes sense. So we're not talking about dreaming about, oh, I want to do this. I want to do that. Oh, I want to dream. I have a dream of taking a trip around the world. Well, if God is calling you to do that trip around the world because there's a prophetic purpose in that, that's a different story. But if it's just, oh, I just want to do this or that or the other, then that's not what we're talking about. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. | |
| But when you're in the spirit, then your ancillary dreams become secondary. It's like little things like that don't count as much as fulfilling the dreams that God has put in you. Okay, and then when you read Trothimus, the next time I pray in Acts 20 verse four, you'll think nutritious, nutritious. Oh yes, nutritious. Yes, if I have the spirit of prosperity, | |
| I want to be like John. Even though I have prosperity, I'm not going to tie myself to it. And I'm willing to be like John out in the wilderness, not living in palaces. Even if I have a palace, I'll not be obsessed with living in the palace. And if I have to go out in the wilderness, so be it. And then when you think of nutritious, you'll also think of James 2:15. | |
| Oh, if that if I have prosperity and there's others that I can enable others through that prosperity, I'll go ahead and do it. And I'll I will I will be willing to share that prosperity to enable others. OK. All right, so that's what the seven names represent. | |
| And they were the ones accompanying Paul in that journey. So I'll be frank, at this exact moment, I don't understand the context of why God put this description of these seven men and therefore the seven spirits of God in the middle of this chapter as Paul is kind of winding down his ministry, you could say, and | |
| on the last legs you could say of his journey of his third missionary journey I don't have too much clarity on that but but it's interesting that this happened when he instead of going to Jerusalem he had you know continuing down towards Jerusalem because that's where he was headed he went up to Macedonia so this was this all happened | |
| So he was about to sail to Syria, it says here in Acts 20 verse 3. He was about to sail into Syria. He was in Greece. And as we said before, when it says Greece, it's referring to Achaia, the province. But God spiritually uses the word Greece, as we shared before, to refer to the, like in a wider sense, to the Gentiles and the Greeks. So he was in Macedonia. | |
| And he was about to sail for Syria. Go down. So you can see here in the map. He was here in Macedonia. And the quickest way you could say is just take a ship from here and sail down to Syria. That's what he was about to do. But the Jews got in the way. And then he had to journey into kind of go around them and go south into the southern part of Greece. | |
| which is called the province of Greece or Achaia. And that's where he stayed for a while. And when he did that, then the seven spirits of God are shown. And I think that's the message there. That instead of, he was headed for Syria on his way to Jerusalem. And the Jews stopped him and they forced him to go deeper into Greek territory, deeper into Gentile territory. And it's as if to say, | |
| the way to manifest the seven spirits of God is for the message to be preached to the Gentiles, not to the Jews. It's through the Gentiles that the seven spirits of God will be manifested in God's people. And in a wider sense, the thing about Jews and Greeks here is the Jews represent the spirit of Solomon, the spirit of the hierarchical church structure. | |
| And God is saying, if you go away from that spirit of Solomon, then you will be able to manifest the seven spirits of God. But if you embrace the spirit of Solomon, my seven spirits cannot be manifested in you. Not in the deeper sense. That's what I'm getting from that. I hope that's just making sense. And then it says here, Acts 20, verse 5. Let's keep reading here. Oh, and by the way, I... | |
| I did forget to mention Asia here with Tychicus and Trophimus. Asia means Orient of the East. I have no understanding on that. And Asia is mentioned twice here because he was | |
| They were accompanying him into Asia. And Asia would be, if we go back to the map, Asia is here. So it's going back into Turkey. So he went down to the region where Corinth was, the southern part of Greece, deep into Gentile territory. And from there, he was headed for Asia, like crossing into Turkey, what is modern day Turkey. | |
| the province of Asia was here in western Turkey. So he was going into Asia and he was accompanied by seven men, two of which, the last two mentioned in Acts 20 verse 4, they were from Asia. They were from the destination he was headed for. And I don't have much understanding on that. The only thing I can get | |
| In my heart here is that. Yes, the seven spirits of God are manifested as you go towards the Gentiles. But. But the two spirits that are the wild card spirits are manifested as you return towards the east towards towards the Hebrews, if that makes sense. That's all I can get from that, like these two spirits of God. | |
| are are tied more to to the east than to the west um and like going back to heat to the hebrew uh to to to knowing the god of israel when you know the god of israel then these two spirits are manifest that's what i'm getting in my heart right now and i think it's of the lord i i pray it's of the lord um | |
| that when you start recognizing the God of Israel then the spirit of Philadelphia and the spirit of Laodicea will begin to get manifested in you more and more and that's why I think in part why the those who are trapped in the prosperity gospel if you listen to them they talk a lot about Abraham and this not the other they're going back to the Hebrew to the God of Israel in their hearts they do it the wrong way but but that's where they're going because | |
| That's how you manifest the spirit of Laodicea, even though they manifest prosperity in the wrong way. But the spiritual principle is that to manifest the spirit of Philadelphia and the spirit of Laodicea, you have to be aware of the God of Israel. | |
| If you think about it, like the Jewish people, if you listen to them, if you watch them, even those that don't know the Lord Jesus who deny the Messiah, it's like embedded in them a sense of destiny. I've heard that young Jewish kids are prayed over by the more religious people | |
| know jewish parents that they pray over them they play pray blessings over them and i think they even you know uh you know it's like they call their son over and they say let me pray for you and and the son starts to listen about uh to his father praying all these prayers of blessing over them and and what what it kind of starts building in them is a sense of destiny | |
| Like I'm not here in this world just to live and breathe and then suddenly die. I'm here to achieve something. I'm here to change the world. And that's why you see so many Jewish people succeeding in so many different areas, you know, in different arenas. It's because they've been given the sense of destiny that I was here for something. And it gets also added, embedded in them. We are the chosen people. | |
| We are the race that God chose to manifest himself on earth. And obviously they don't understand the fullness of what that means, but at least they have that concept that I have a sense of destiny and I contain it if I dream. So, and then they also, | |
| because they have that sense of destiny, they also apply it in the natural and believe I can prosper. And that's why you see a lot of, and it's interesting how the Jewish people, even in the midst of their persecution for over hundreds and hundreds of years, the judgment of God coming over them and pursuing them. And just like he had promised to do in Deuteronomy 28 and 29, it was God chasing them and torturing them and harassing them. | |
| and judging them because of their rebellion. And even in the midst of that, they were able many times to prosper. That's why they became the bankers. And that's where you get all the things about, all the stereotypes about Jewish people and the Shylocks and all that and all the other, all these things showing that even in the midst of their persecution, they found a way to prosper. | |
| And that's why Hitler hated them so much because they, despite being Jews and outcasts in many ways of society, that they were still able to dominate the finances of Germany and this and that and the other, because they were acquainted in a kind of literal sense, you could say, with the God of Israel. So | |
| think that's what god is saying when he said asia asia the east you know going back to the east to the god of the hebrews the god of israel so when you're when you know the god of israel you get a sense of destiny that yeah you can achieve great things because your call to that you're part of the chosen people uh you have a destiny to achieve uh and also you you will say oh i am a spiritual descendant of abraham | |
| and and abraham was a prosperous man so um so you start believing and you allow god to to issue prosperity out of you if that makes sense um okay so uh before we move on also uh we wanted to mention a couple of things um we had said um if you may recall this there was this weird um um | |
| quote-unquote digression that we did earlier in a previous video. We were talking about Pete Rose and Ray Fossey and Sal Bando, as you may have it written down here, as you can see, that Pete Rose ruined Ray Fossey's career in the 1970 World Series. I'm sorry, All-Star Game. | |
| Uh, and, uh, and I kept thinking that his name was Sal Bando. And then turns out there was a connection between the two. Um, Ray Fossey, who was of the Cleveland Indians, um, when he was injured by Pete Rose, ended up playing for the Oakland A's, uh, along with Sal Bando, who was a third baseman. Ray Fossey was a catcher. Sal Bando was a third baseman, if I remember correctly. And then we started talking about how, um, you know, what | |
| The significance of that was in Pete Rose, the evil man, he played for the Cincinnati Reds. They lost the World Series that year in 70, the year that he injured Ray Fossey. And one thing I hadn't mentioned, by the way, is that the Oakland A's, when they won their first World Series in the 70s, the first of three consecutive World Series, they actually beat the Reds. | |
| But the thing is, Ray Fossey was still not playing for the Oakland A's at that time. He joined them in 73, the next year. So it's interesting that God did not allow Ray Fossey to be on the Oakland A's team when they faced the Reds because it would have been... I feel there's something more there, but the thing is that... | |
| The ace, which would be Ray Fossey's team one year later, was the one that beat the Reds again. So they lost the World Series again for the second time in three years, the Reds with Pete Rose. But God didn't allow Ray Fossey to face Pete Rose in 72. And I think in part it might have been because Ray Fossey was still psychologically affected by what Pete Rose did to him and having Pete Rose on the field. | |
| might've affected him. I mean, that's all I can, I can, I can gauge from that. But the thing is that, um, uh, uh, the, the thing is that, um, what we wanted to mention here is that Sal Bando, um, and we, let's see if I can go to the Wikipedia page, Sal Bando, Wikipedia, um, here, uh, | |
| His, let's see if I can find it. In 1969, Bando married Sandy Fortunato. The couple had three sons, Salvatore Jr., Sonny, and Stefano. So he married a woman called Fortunato. That was her surname, her maiden name, Sandy Fortunato. | |
| And I was sharing when we went through that, that we would eventually get to that, that fortunato. And here notice secundus means fortunate. And we'll see this connection to fortune later on. And that's why I know all of this is related. You know, this weird story about Ray Fossey and Sal Bando and Pete Rose and all that. | |
| It's connected to this. And I'm still not fully aware of it, but of exactly what it's saying overall. But I see all these strange connections. And one of them is that connection to fortunate. To fortune. And there's another connection later to fortune, but we'll see it later when we continue reading. | |
| Eventually, I think, yeah, I think a few verses later, we'll run into fortune once again. Okay, but let's continue here in verse 5 of Acts 20. So let's go back here to Acts 20. It says, these going before tarried for us at Troas. Now, so these seven went ahead of Paul. | |
| and um into asia so the thing is paul was here in southern greece and he wanted to skip uh the water into um into turkey into asia and but the seven brothers who represent the seven spheres seven spheres of god went ahead of him and got there first | |
| And why did God allow that? And I feel like God did it because he was saying that what I'm saying about the seven spirits of God does not apply to Paul. Because Paul was going east towards Jerusalem with the wrong attitude. He was going there prompted by the spirit of Solomon. And that's not how you manifest the seven spirits of God, especially the last two. So that's why God sent | |
| The seven ahead of Paul. And they waited for him in Asia. | |
| Like waited, waited for him to catch up to them because they were not there with. He was not there with them yet. If that makes sense. And I think that's what God is saying there. It's like God saying all that I am saying about the seventh verse of God and how they will manifest. As you go east. | |
| does not apply to Paul because Paul was going east for the wrong reasons. He was going to Jerusalem, leaving the Gentiles and going towards Jerusalem, motivated by the wrong thing. Okay, and then Troas. Troas, as you may recall, is the city where God says that Paul and Silas made the skip into Europe. | |
| when they left Turkey, left the Middle Eastern part of the world, you could say, and went into Europe. It was from Troas that they sailed into Philippi when God put a dream in Paul's heart about this Macedonian asking for help. It was from Troas that they sailed. So I don't get much understanding on why Troas | |
| obviously you know there's a logistical reason that's um where you had to go i guess for um you know as you were going towards jerusalem troas was like the big port where you would land and do stuff um but and so the thing is that um i feel like like god is reminding him reminding paul hey you know uh | |
| You are going backwards now because I sent you from Troas into the Gentiles. But you are going from Troas now back into Jerusalem. You're doing the backward flip now. And so Troas kind of gains a negative connotation here. And I try to find what Troas means. And all I kept finding was it seemed like ambiguous what the name Troas means. | |
| And the closest that I found was something like, it may be related to Troy, the city of Troy. And let me look here. And then I said, okay, what does Troy mean? We all know about Helen of Troy. Not sure who she is, but I've heard of her. And we know the story about the Trojan whores and all that. | |
| but I've never really known exactly what Troy means, and I think it's in part because no one really knows. So here on this tab I had left from a few weeks ago, I went to BehindTheName.com and looked for Troy, and it says originally from a surname that denotes a person from the city of Troyus, Troy, I guess, Troy, I'm sorry, you pronounce it, | |
| but it's spelled T-R-O-Y-E-S, Troyes in France. It's now more likely used in reference to the ancient city of Troy that was besieged by the Greeks in Homer's Iliad. So yeah, so a more modern source of the surname is the city of Troyes in France, which you might pronounce Troyes, but the more ancient origin is apparently | |
| the city of Troy that was besieged by the Greeks in Homer's Iliad. The city's name from Greek Troia is said to derive from the mythical founder Tros, but it's more likely of Luwian or Hittite origin. And that hit me, I found that very interesting, Hittite. And I think that it's like Hittite is the spirit of deception, the spirit of lies and deception. | |
| Um, and it's almost like, like there was a spirit of deception moving along here. That was that that's what drove Paul, uh, that was driving Paul towards Jerusalem and away from the, um, from the Gentiles. Uh, and that that's what I'm getting. Um, and that allowed the introduction of a Trojan horse. | |
| And that Trojan horse, we'll see, is kind of explained later in that chapter. And I hope you'll see how it all kind of ties together in a peculiar way. Okay, so then let's continue reading here in Acts 20. Next verse would be verse 6. And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and came unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. | |
| Okay. Yeah, so what happened was he was going to Turkey at the beginning. The Jews stopped him. He went deep into the heart of Greece and then made his way back and back to Philippi. And from Philippi, he went down to Troas. So he did the inverse of what he had done earlier, years earlier when he sailed into Europe. | |
| from away from the Jews shall we say from Jewishness so he was doing the opposite now sailing from Philippi to Troas so he sailed from Philippi verse 6 after the days of unleavened bread and came unto them to Troas in five days where we abode seven days so I know there's meaning in all these things the five the seven but I don't have understanding and I think the five | |
| And the seven kind of goes with the seven spirits of God and the five ministries that are kind of embedded in verse four here with the seven names. And how the last two names are connected to Asia. I don't know. There's more here, but I know it's connected to verse four for sure in some way. The full meaning of it, I don't understand. | |
| But he came unto them. See, God put these things, these very specific things, five days, seven days. He would say, who cares? You know, he could have said for several days. No, but five days. It's like God saying, I want you to pay attention to something. And so he came unto them to Troas in five days. And there they abode seven. So the trip took five days. Not sure why it took that long, but... | |
| From Philippi, he went all the way down to Troas by boat, obviously. It took them five days overall to get here. It took Paul. And then he joined the seven brothers who had been waiting for him, the ones from verse four. And then they stayed there for seven days. So 12 days total, you could say, five and seven. But I... | |
| Um, like the five days that Paul took from Philippi to Troas correspond with the five names that are not connected to Asia. And then, uh, because, uh, the last two are the ones that are, that were from Asia. Um, so, um, that's what I get. So, but okay. So let's continue here. Uh, the next verse, next 20 would be verse seven here. | |
| And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow and continued his speech until midnight. I don't have much understanding on the overall meaning of this, what we're about to read. But you can see that he had the urgency to get to Jerusalem. | |
| And that's why he was preaching for so long because like he wanted to leave. But he had a lot to say. So he was forced to cram it into one night, if that makes any sense. So upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow and continued his speech until midnight because he had so much to say and he couldn't stay for several days. | |
| And by the way, this verse is always used to say that services were changed from Saturday to Sunday because first day of the week would be Sunday. You know, we usually think of Monday, but here it obviously it's referring to, you know, Saturday would be the last day of the week and the week actually starts on Sunday. So that's what this is referring to. So this is Sunday. | |
| So on Sunday, the disciples came together to break bread. So that's how people have believed that that shows that the early Christians gathered on Sunday. Now, what to make of that, that's a different story. But that's just a side note where people have gone to validate that | |
| Christians should gather on Sunday, that Sunday became the new Sabbath kind of thing. But I really don't have much understanding on that or much to say. Just wanted to share that little detail. So then it says, | |
| So Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow and continue his speech until midnight. So then verse 8, Acts 20, and there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. That's a very intriguing verse to me. You know, it's like God is saying something like there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. | |
| So God refers to the lights and to the people there. It's almost like God is making a connection between the people and the lights. If that makes sense. There was a lot of light in that place because there were all these people gathered there. Like they were the lights. If that makes sense. You know, some people would say, oh, well, verse 8 is just saying, you know, it was a well-lit place. Well, why would God bother to do that? | |
| Why would God bother to mention the lighting of the place? It was a very well lit place. So they had a lot of candles or whatever, you know, because obviously in those days they couldn't turn the switch on. There was no electricity. So it was just candles or lamps or whatever. And but they had a whole bunch of them. So it was a very well lit place. So even though it was midnight, there was a lot of light in there. | |
| Now, what more to make of this? I don't know. This is all very mysterious to me at this point. And then verse 9 of Acts 20, next verse. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead. So there was this young man, his name was Eutychus, | |
| And Eutychus, uh, let's go look at the meaning of the name. Um, Eutychus actually means fortunate. So there we go again, you know, we were, we're encountering that name, that word again. Um, and, um, and, uh, Eutychus comes from you, the you part, uh, EU, um, means good. Um, you know, whenever you see an English word that starts with you, um, | |
| then it's usually related to something good. Like euphemism, I think it's like a good way of saying something that is unpleasant to say, you know, directly. And eulogy is when you give a good word about someone, you know, when they're after they're dead. And I'm trying to think of another word that starts with EU, but | |
| Yeah, those are the only two I know. And then, how do you pronounce this? Tunkano, which we ran into earlier. This means to hit the mark, to attain, and all that. So now we run into the word fortunate again. | |
| Someone who was good at hitting the mark. Okay. So he was sitting in a window. And I'll share the thoughts that are in my heart. I've had a little bit of understanding about this story. God describes this event for years. But it's always been like little things. And | |
| The trouble I'm having right now is how it fits in with everything we've been saying about the spirit of Solomon and Paul's journey into Jerusalem and all that. In that context, I still don't quite grasp it. But the thing is that when it says here in verse 9, Acts 20, and there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus. In the previous verse, God had just said that there was a lot of light in that chamber. | |
| so why was he sitting in a window so obviously the window was open um i mean that's what i understand or at least yeah i mean how else could he have fallen if the window was not open um so he um so he was sitting you know at the window in this place um | |
| And you could say, well, maybe there was no air conditioning or whatever, so maybe that's why he wanted to be by the window to get a little bit of fresh air or something. But I get that this must have been in the early part of the year because Paul wanted to get to Jerusalem before Pentecost or something like that, I think it says somewhere. So Pentecost would be around | |
| May, you could say. So this means that this was in the early part of the year. And I think it's actually a little bit cold around that time of the year in Turkey, in that part of the world. So I don't think it was the heat that was prompting him to be sitting by the window. So was it lack of space? Well, it could have been. | |
| But God didn't bother to mention that as you can see here in verse eight says, and there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together, but it doesn't say, and it was a crowded house, you know, um, um, uh, and, um, people, uh, there were so many that they went into the overflow or anything. It doesn't say anything like there was excessive crowding. So we can rule out too many people. We can rule out to a certain extent too hot. | |
| So why was the young man sitting by the window? What I get in my heart, and you may discern of the Lord whether it is or it isn't correct. But what I get in my heart is that this place was very well lit. Yet the young man was drawn towards the darkness outside. And that's why he was by the window. | |
| Like he was trying to be In a place of light whilst also Connecting to the darkness outside That's why he was by the window if that makes sense So he was not like a moth being drawn to the light he was being he was the anti-moth He was being drawn away from the light And that's why he was by the window So there was something in him | |
| that needed to be restored. And the thing is, when Paul was talking and talking and talking, he was speaking word of the spirit, word of the spirit. I know that he was going the wrong way, that God wanted him to go and all that, going back to Jerusalem when he shouldn't be. But he was still a man of the spirit | |
| When he would speak things of the Spirit, he would be in the Spirit. He just had this one thing that he was off in. But the thing is that he was speaking of the Spirit, I believe. And as he was speaking and speaking, the Logos word began to operate in this Eutychus. And the Eutychus, it's like Eutychus began to be judged by God. And that's when he fell into a deep sleep. | |
| And then he was taken up by the darkness of God. So he was drawn towards the darkness outside. I would dare say maybe for the wrong reasons. Something in his soul was drawn to the darkness outside. But he was still there listening to Paul. And as Paul was speaking Logo's word of judgment... | |
| It began to wear him down and to judge him and to judge him and to judge him. And he fell into a deep sleep. He was being killed by the judgments. And then God drew him out to the darkness. But it was now the darkness of God. So something very dark happened that night. Because it was supposed to be a good thing. You know, Paul, Brother Paul is visiting us, preaching the gospel. And it's wonderful. It's the word of God. This, that, the other. | |
| And it's a very well-lit place. It's a place of light, a place of the spirit. And then something very dark happens. You know, a young man dies because he was there. You know, he wouldn't have fallen off the window if he was not in the room to begin with. So he was there, and because he was there, he died. So what was supposed to be a happy, I don't know if the word is happy, but, you know, | |
| pleasant good gathering say that way turned into a very dark moment a moment of death imagine you know someone dying in the middle of a service falling off the window so darkness filled the place and and it's the darkness of God that we've talked about so many times this kid needed to go through a process there was something holding him up and God had to kill him and | |
| and swallow him up in his darkness. So this kid fell from the third loft. And why third? Why does God emphasize third? Why doesn't he just say, you know, from, well, maybe you could say, oh, well, he said third loft because he wanted to emphasize how high he was. You know, that's why he died. Because people might be wondering if he fell from the second floor, you know, he might've broken something, but it's not the same as dying. | |
| Um, but, but I think that the reason why is more than just to provide measurement information, you know, uh, or, or justification for, for why the kid died. Uh, the third loft is pointing to the spirits. The first loft first floor, you could say is, um, um, is, uh, you could say, um, uh, | |
| Yeah, it says loft here, but uh, yeah, it's the third stories. I just wanted to confirm that i'm not misunderstanding here Um, I just switched here to the english standard version So yeah, it says third story instead instead of third lofty. It was on the third floor. Let's put it that way Um, and the first floor represents the body The second floor represents the soul and the third floor represents the spirit This was a gathering in the spirit | |
| that's why darkness came in because the soul doesn't like darkness if they were if they had been on the second floor then god's darkness would have would not have come but they were on the third floor and on the third floor you you you go through the darkness of god you're in the spirit and that's why um uh so that's what he was going through so he fell down from the third loft and then he was | |
| taken up dead and and and i'll be very frank i don't have understanding on that part he was taken up dead the word taken up or the phrase was uh translated from aido which means to lift um i think that's where we get the word air um you know it's uh uh idol has this connotation of of lifting up raising so | |
| Why do they phrase it like that? Why did God phrase it like this? So he says he fell down from the third floor, let's say it like that, and was raised up dead. Now, what I think of in the natural is the image of people going downstairs, running down the stairs to where the kid's body was, and then lifting him up from the ground. | |
| you know, like, hey, Eutychus, Eutychus, wake up, wake up, trying to lift him up. And I think that's what this means literally. But why does God phrase it like that? Because that's the natural reaction. You know, you go check for the kid, you try to lift him up and say, hey, hey, wake up. Are you okay? But I don't understand why God said it like this and was taking up that, you know, instead of just saying, | |
| And Eutychus, and they went downstairs and they found him dead. No, he was taken up dead. Okay, so then verse 10 of Acts 20, next verse. And Paul went down and fell on him and embracing him said, trouble not yourselves for his life is in him. Now, isn't this ironic that a kid just fell from the third floor? And what does Paul do? | |
| fall on him. It's kind of like counterintuitive. You know, if someone just fell, you know, you're worried about them having something broken inside of them and you don't go jump on top of them like to compound the problem. But that's exactly what Paul did. So Paul went down, he says, and fell on him and embracing him said, trouble not yourselves for his life is in him. And interesting, the word life is translated from psuche, | |
| If you go down here, life is psuche, which is the word for soul as well. So I would prefer to translate it as trouble not yourselves for his soul is in him. In other words, the soul gets worried sometimes with God's judgments. And like God's judgments will destroy the soul. And there's like a very subtle way of God saying, no, my judgments don't come to destroy your soul. | |
| Your soul will still be there. It will just be transformed. Don't reject my darkness. My darkness is not to destroy your soul. It's to redeem it from its condition, its fallen condition. So, and as I was reading this, it just hit me and I felt the anointing of the Lord | |
| that I'm getting a little bit of understanding about this story. This story is a figure. And the key here, I think, is the phrase went down. Paul went down. I think the word is katabaino, if I remember correctly. Yeah, katabaino, which is, yeah, to go down. And that's kind of, let's just confirm here. Basis, it comes from kata, which means according to, | |
| and basis, which means base or foot. It's like going down to the bottom of something. So it has a connotation of going down, like going down to basics, and you could translate it in that way. But he went down. And the thing is, he went down to the ground. And what I get in my heart, and I think we've shared about this before, when we were going through other verses here in Acts, if I'm not mistaken. | |
| that I found it interesting that when people are described going to Jerusalem, they are described as saying going up to Jerusalem. And to me, it's kind of peculiar. And God keeps saying it like that. And when people go away from Jerusalem, they go down to the other place. | |
| So you go up to Jerusalem and down to another place. And I don't think Jerusalem is up that high. It's not like Denver, like my high city kind of thing. So I don't understand. So to me, it's a puzzle why God phrases it like that. But I think it's like God setting it up so that we would understand the third loft and the people who are there with many lights are the Jewish people. The Jewish people who have been given so much light to live by, you know, | |
| All the prophets the the law of Moses and the miracles and all these things that God gave them a lots of lights a lot of lights to live by And they've been you know, they've been up there up high and then all the Gentiles were down below lost in the darkness outside and And then when Paul went down, it's like him going to the Gentiles that had been without a light and | |
| And had been neglected. They had been down on the ground. Whereas the Israelites were up in the spiritual. And he goes down. And then he says. His soul is in him. In other words God saying. He is. The Gentiles are alive. And they can be rescued. And brought back to life. When the Jews were trying to stay in the comfort of the well lit upper chamber. | |
| Paul was willing to go down from that upper chamber and find the Gentile down on the ground and say he's alive. I feel the anointing of God as I'm saying that's what part of what this story is about. And then we're running out of time. Verse 11. | |
| of Acts 20, when he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. So he went up again and he broke bread and ate and kept talking. So Paul was a bit of a talkative fellow. He just went on and on and on, like these videos sometimes. And then he talked until the break of day and then he departed. And then verse 12, and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted. | |
| And the word comfort, it was paracaleo, which is exhorted, prophetically exhorted. So they were not a little exhorted, which is kind of an interesting way of saying instead of saying a lot, saying not a little exhorted. And. OK, so I think we wanted to say something else here, but I think we have run out of time. | |
| We've arrived at verse 12 in the story of this Eutychus fellow. And I think he's a figure of the Gentiles. And Paul reaching down to rescue them. But then he left and went towards Jerusalem. So we'll continue, Lord willing, in the next video. May the Lord bless you through this word in one way or another. In the name of Yeshua. Amen. |
The study continues with a meditation on the "spirit of Solomon" as described in Song of Songs 3:6-11. This spirit influenced the early church and even Paul, who, despite resisting it more than any other apostle, was eventually "infected" by it. The discussion focuses on how these spiritual influences manifest through the names of the men accompanying Paul in Acts 20:4.
Acts 20:4 lists seven companions of Paul: Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Timotheus, Tychicus, and Trophimus. Each name carries an endowment connected to the seven spirits of God and the five ministries mentioned in Ephesians 4:11.
Sopater of Berea (Apostolic Ministry): Sopater means "savior of the father." This relates to the apostolic endowment, which brings a "new" wisdom—not a newly invented wisdom, but one that is unearthed to challenge the established wisdom of the fathers. The goal is not to attack the fathers, but to save the foundation they started from corruption. The connection to Berea is significant, as the Bereans were known for their spirit of inquiry and questioning everything against the Scriptures.
Aristarchus of the Thessalonians (Evangelistic Ministry): Aristarchus implies a "best ruler" with kingly qualities. However, the placement of "Thessalonians" before his name suggests that the best form of evangelistic kingship is one that puts the people first. An evangelist exercises true authority when they do not lord it over others but serve those they rule over. The term "Thessalonians" contains the Greek root nike (victory), suggesting the evangelist brings victory over falsehood.
Secundus (Prophetic Ministry): Secundus means "second," yet he appears third on the list. This signifies a prophet who does not care for visible titles or positions. By surrendering his "place," he receives an invisible, spiritual grace. This relates to the principle of selling one's "mantle" (social recognition) to obtain the "sword of the Spirit."
Gaius of Derbe (Pastoral Ministry): While some translations list Gaius as "Lord," the etymology points toward the Latin gaudere, meaning "to rejoice" or "to take pleasure." This connects to the pastoral ministry, which is inherently about pleasing and serving others.
However, the location "Derbe" (meaning "tanner") adds a deeper dimension. A tanner is connected to sacrifice. A true pastor does not merely seek to please people for social gain (the Canaanite spirit of unrighteous pleasing), but is a true shepherd willing to die for the sheep. True pastorship is the intersection of pastoral care and prophetic sacrifice.
Timotheus (Teaching Ministry): Timotheus (Timothy) is unique because he is the only one without a listed place of origin. His name means "honoring God." The teaching ministry is often seen as "weak" because teachers do not hold the same social authority as parents or leaders, yet to honor a teacher is to honor God.
The lack of a location for Timothy suggests that a true teacher is not bound by temporal labels, nationalities, or hierarchies. While the teacher's natural tendency is toward organization and structure, a true teacher must be willing to go beyond titles to honor God.
Tychicus and Trophimus (The Spirit of Philadelphia and Laodicea): The last two names are both from Asia, acting as "wild card" spirits not directly tied to the five primary ministries, but rather to the spirits of Philadelphia and Laodicea.
Tychicus (Spirit of Philadelphia): Tychicus means "faithful" and relates to "attaining" or "hitting the mark." This is connected to the spirit of Philadelphia—the spirit of dreams and visions. Like Joseph, who maintained his destiny despite slavery and prison, the faithful person pursues the dreams God has placed in them until they attain the prize.
Trophimus (Spirit of Laodicea): Trophimus means "nutritious" or "nourishment." This connects to the spirit of Laodicea, the spirit of prosperity. The lesson here is that one should possess prosperity without being enslaved by it. Like John the Baptist, a person in the spirit of prosperity should be willing to forsake luxury for the sake of the Gospel and be willing to use their resources to enable others.
Paul’s journey is significant. He was heading toward Jerusalem (the direction of the Jews/hierarchical structure/Spirit of Solomon) but was forced by opposition into deeper Gentile territory. This suggests that the full manifestation of the seven spirits of God is found when moving away from the hierarchical "Spirit of Solomon" and toward the Gentiles.
The Incident of Eutychus: The story of Eutychus falling from the third story serves as a final figure. The "third story" represents the spirit. Eutychus, whose name also means "fortunate," was drawn toward the darkness outside despite being in a room full of light. This represents the soul's struggle. Paul's act of "going down" to the ground to embrace the boy mirrors his ministry to the Gentiles—reaching down from the spiritual heights to rescue those "on the ground" in the darkness.
The narrative concludes with the disciples being "exhorted" (prophetically encouraged) by the restoration of the young man, signifying the life and light that the Spirit of God brings to those who are lost.