Living for What Lasts: The Sobering Gift of Pompeii What a city frozen in time and James 4:14 show us about the life right in front of us Pompeii is the Roman city that Mount Vesuvius buried in AD 79, and walking through it is one of the most unexpected stops on our Rome trip. It drops you straight into the world of the New Testament, and it asks a question none of us can dodge: are you living for what lasts? Across this bonus series we've walked through prisons, along ancient roads, and down into the tombs. Today we end up somewhere that might not seem to belong on a Bible study trip at all, until you see why it might be the most important stop of the week. Pompeii reminds us that today is the day. If the Lord is stirring something in you, come walk this world with us in November and see your Bible with your own eyes. Registration closes July 29 and only a few spots are left. [Learn more at BibleStudyLive.org →] https://www.rachaelgroll.com/bible-study-live In this episode 00:01 Welcome and the bonus series 00:35 A stop that might surprise you: Pompeii 02:41 Walking through a city frozen in time 04:43 How Pompeii brings the New Testament to life 06:17 The city that thought it had tomorrow 08:27 Your life is a vapor: James 4 09:38 The parable of the rich fool 10:18 Are you living for what lasts? 11:40 A prayer 12:29 Come and see it for yourself Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 and buried Pompeii, and that date lands right in the middle of the New Testament era. Paul had walked the roads of the Roman Empire within the same generation. The book of Acts had been written, the early church was spreading through these very regions, and some of the last books of your New Testament were being written in that same world. So when the ash sealed Pompeii, it sealed a living, breathing example of the exact culture the apostles knew. The same empire. The same streets and shops and customs Paul walked among. The ash that destroyed Pompeii also protected it. It covered everything and sealed it, and it stayed sealed for almost seventeen hundred years. When it was finally uncovered, and archaeologists are still uncovering parts of it today, what they found was not the usual ruins you see across Italy. It was a Roman city frozen in time, frozen at the exact moment the world Paul was writing to was alive. You walk on the original stone streets, with ruts worn into the stone by cartwheels and raised stepping stones where people crossed to keep their feet out of the mud. You pass homes with paint still on the walls and frescoes that still hold their color after two thousand years. You see shops and what look like fast food counters, with holes in the stone where jars of hot food once sat, right near the theaters. There are public bathhouses and marketplaces and meeting places. And there is graffiti, real words scratched into the walls by real people, election notices, advertisements, someone boasting about their wealth, even love notes with an insult scratched in beside them. Ordinary human life, preserved so completely you can still read it off the walls. Most of the world we read about in Scripture is gone. We can read about it and imagine it, but we cannot touch it. Pompeii you can touch. When you read Paul's letters to churches in cities like this one and wonder what it was actually like to live there, what the streets and homes and markets looked like, Pompeii lets you walk through the answer instead of picturing it. That is why we go. It takes the world of your Bible and helps you understand it in your body. Paul stops being a figure in a stained glass window and becomes a man who walked streets like these, preached to people who lived in homes like these, and grabbed meals at counters like these. Pompeii had no idea what was coming. They did not understand volcanoes. They saw a mountain, and even with Vesuvius right there in view, they opened their shops and went about their day. They made their bread. Actual loaves have been found still in the ovens. People were in the middle of meals and errands and an ordinary day, and no one woke up thinking it was their last. They thought they had time. In a matter of hours the whole city was gone. And walking through it, you cannot help but think about how we live the same way, sure there will always be more days ahead to deal with what matters most, to finally do the thing God is asking of us, to turn back toward Him. James says our lives are brief and not ours to schedule. He wrote it in that same New Testament world. Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. (James 4:13-14) Here for a moment, then gone. Walking through Pompeii is walking through that verse. Jesus told a story that could almost be about Pompeii. A man had a great harvest and told himself he would build bigger barns, store up all his goods, and finally relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?" So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. (Luke 12:20-21) Jesus was not trying to scare that man. He was trying to wake him up before it was too late, to say stop building your whole life on things that vanish in a night, and put your focus on what will last. That is what Pompeii asks of anyone who walks its streets. Not fear, but waking up to the fact that the decisions you make either push you toward God or away from Him. If today were the day, have you built your life on the one thing that cannot be buried or taken away? The people of Pompeii thought they had tomorrow. We think it too. The strange gift of a place like that is the reminder that no one is owed another day, and that the invitation to go all in for God is always for today. Father, thank You for this life, and for every ordinary day in it as a gift. We so easily live as though we have endless time, and we put things off, even the things that matter to us most. Would You wake us up to what really lasts, and help us build our lives on things that do not vanish. I want to pray for the person who has been putting off turning toward You, who keeps thinking there will be a better time or that they need to get it together first. Would You help them see that today is the day, that You are here right now, ready to be found. Make us rich toward You, and help us respond to Your call and live for You. In Jesus' name, amen. What translation does Rachael use on the podcast? The written study materials use the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Is Pompeii part of the Rome trip itinerary? Yes. Pompeii is so large it would take days to see all of it, so we focus on one section for reasons Rachael explains in person. When timing allows, we also visit nearby Herculaneum, another town Vesuvius buried that is still being carefully excavated. Do you have to be a history person to get something out of Pompeii? Not at all. The point is not the archaeology. It is standing inside the world of your Bible and letting it ask you what you are living for. When does registration for this year's Rome trip close? Registration closes July 29, and there are only a few spots left. What is coming next in this bonus series? Next week's episode releases on Wednesday instead of Friday, and it is the final stop in the series. It ends somewhere unexpected, so you will want to come back for it. Pompeii reminds us that today is the day. If the Lord is stirring something in you, come walk this world with us in November and see your Bible with your own eyes. Registration closes July 29 and only a few spots are left. [Learn more at BibleStudyLive.org →] https://www.rachaelgroll.com/bible-study-live Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
