Transcript: As a young Christian for starting to read the word and learn about scriptures, I thought synagogue and Temple were the same thing. And so, when I read in Scripture that he visited the synagogue, I just figured they had this big Temple like in every city. The synagogue is not the temple, right? The temple is where the sacrifices take place; it’s where the priests do their work. That’s what that Temple is. So it’s one location in all the land of Israel, and it’s one of a kind—nothing like it. The synagogue is a different thing altogether. The synagogue is where we gather together, and that’s what the word means: “suno go gay,” gathered together. That’s what it is—gathered together.

And so, the synagogue is that location. They would meet on the Sabbath, but they would also meet on the seventh day of the week, Saturday, or Friday at sundown. That’s because they would see the beginning of the day at sundown, so their Sabbath or Saturday would be Friday night—that was when it would begin. And they would also meet on the second and fifth days of the week for worship. But when they met on the Sabbath, which seems to be what’s happening right here in Mark, they meet on the Sabbath. Here’s what they would do according to the Mishnah, an ancient Jewish source. Here they would read a statement of faith; this is like reading the Shema: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” They would read the Shema, quoting basically from Deuteronomy and Numbers, just reading sort of a statement of faith to begin the service.

Then they would do a scripture reading. After the scripture reading, they would potentially have an interpretation, especially later on, because it was to help those who were present who didn’t know the Hebrew. So as Hebrew was waning, they might help translate for people who knew Aramaic but not Hebrew, or they might help for maybe people who knew Greek but not Hebrew. So it would offer an interpretation, not like a hermeneutics interpretation, but a linguistic interpretation.

Then after that, they would do the address. For the address, the speaking, the speech part, anyone who was suitably qualified was allowed to do this—anybody who was suitably qualified. And so you didn’t have to go to school for X number of years or something quite like that, but you had to have some kind of qualification. Well, Jesus has now been teaching in different synagogues, and he has disciples following him, and he’s done miracles, he’s done all this stuff, so they’re open to him teaching. And he actually comes, and now he’s teaching in a synagogue where probably for his whole life he never has. Maybe he did the reading, maybe he did something else, but he didn’t actually teach.

So Jesus teaches now, and it’s an acceptable place to do it. This is something I’ve noticed in the scripture—that they would strategically go to the synagogues. And this was like, the Jews are all gathered together; this is a town full of Jewish people, right? And they’re gathered together all in the synagogue, and here’s a great chance to reach all of them with the message of Christ. So he gets up, and he shares. This was Jesus’s style—he would always teach in the synagogue. He also taught randomly in other locations, you know, but he would teach in the synagogues in particular.

And Apollos did this too. In Acts chapter 18, we read about a guy named Apollos who gets saved, right? He hears about Christ, puts his faith and trust in Christ, and the next thing he does is he goes into the synagogue because he’s Jewish, and he just starts teaching them, giving addresses about how Jesus is the Messiah of the Old Testament. But we also see it in Paul. Paul did it too. As soon as Paul got saved, he’s preaching in the synagogue. Let me read it to you: Acts 9:20. “And immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues,” plural, right? He would go to various synagogues, and his proclamation was: “He is the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of God.”

So what do we learn from this? Jesus does it, Apollos does it, Paul does it. Various people who have some qualification, where the synagogue would allow them to teach, they take advantage of it, and they do it. In fact, with Paul, it was a habit throughout the Book of Acts. We see over and over again, whenever he goes to a new town, he teaches in the synagogue first. First thing he does—he teaches in the synagogue, finds where’s the synagogue, goes there, and starts sharing about Jesus. Maybe they kick him out, maybe they don’t, you know, but he teaches in the synagogue. Here’s my application: when I see Jesus doing it, Paul doing it, Paul doing it throughout the scripture…

I say that the synagogue is the appropriate and expected place where religious discussion happens, and they’re like, how could I not go and teach there? And where is that place today? That’s the question I’ve asked myself quite a while ago because I was like, man, I go to the mall, and I’m trying to hand out tracts and share with people, and if you ask people, they’re probably thinking, this is not the appropriate and expected place for this kind of conversation to happen, you know? But there are certain places, and if you think about it in your life, where it’s appropriate and expected, where it’s at least tolerated more. And I’m not saying we don’t preach the gospel everywhere, but I’m saying we should definitely take advantage of those locations. We should highlight those. So this might be a free speech area on a campus. This might be in a class where religious discussion is expected, and you could say, well, how could I not bring the truth of Christ into that environment?

So when you find that place, go for it. And to me, I thought, well, it’s the internet. Everybody argues about everything on the internet, and here’s an opportunity we have on our various—whether it’s social media or you name it. Now, it’s true that some of the older generation, they think that it’s inappropriate to put, say, on Facebook or something, a comment about God or politics or Jesus or something like that. But I think that that’s more just that generation because they were sort of taught that you shouldn’t ever talk about that stuff anywhere. You guys remember that, right? Don’t talk about religion, politics, or anything important, and that’s how we’ll be friends. I don’t know what that friendship is based on if we can’t talk about what’s valuable to us. But, yeah, it seems to me that gracious and loving open discussion about the truth of Christianity… We have this huge open door with the internet, and we should take advantage of it while we can. Now, it’s true that they later got kicked out of the synagogues, and they couldn’t do it anymore. But when they could, they did it, and they did it till they couldn’t.

And often we’re too intimidated to share the truth of Christ on social media or on whatever platform, and we kick ourselves out of the synagogue, right? You don’t have to kick me out; I’ll just kick myself right out—I won’t even bother saying anything because you might get mad. And yeah, how can we not? How can we not, right? The opportunity’s there. It’s kind of like the synagogue of the day, in a sense. So find those places, use it while it’s there. If you get kicked out, go somewhere else. That’s my thought—go for it.

See original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIYND1XedY