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Grace vs. Empire: A Clash of Legacies
February 9, 2026 · 29 min
Discover historical and theological insights in the stark contrast between Emperor Nero's tyranny and the Apostle Paul's mission for Christ, exploring how faith challenged an empire.
Series Nero and Paul by Kathie Lee Gifford February 9, 2026 · 29 min · Nero and Paul by Kathie Lee Gifford
Discover historical and theological insights in the stark contrast between Emperor Nero's tyranny and the Apostle Paul's mission for Christ, exploring how faith challenged an empire. ...more Show the full description Show less Discover historical and theological insights in the stark contrast between Emperor Nero's tyranny and the Apostle Paul's mission for Christ, exploring how faith challenged an empire.
Series Nero and Paul by Kathie Lee Gifford
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In this video 0:00 The Clash of Empires: Nero's Rome vs. Paul's Grace10:16 Resurrection Hope and the Way of Jesus21:40 Living Faith Today: Unity, Idols, and Invitation
The Clash of Empires: Nero's Rome vs. Paul's Grace 0:00 Hello everybody. I'm Kathie Lee Gifford and this is my good friend Doctor Brian Litvin and together we have a new book coming out. In fact, it's out in many places, Nero and paul and we are excited to share it0:12 with you. There's so much in this, it's so rich, There's so much depth historically and theologically. And we're excited because the first century Roman Empire was a world of immense power,0:24 intricate polytheistic traditions, and imperial authority. Into this world emerged a new and disruptive faith, Christianity. This movement with its monotheistic0:36 worship and claims of a king higher than Caesar created a profound cultural clash that reverberated throughout entire empire.0:46 2 figures stand at the heart of this collision, Emperor Nero and the apostle Paul. Nero, the embodiment of Roman imperial power, is remembered for his extravagance and0:58 according to some historical accounts for initiating the first major persecution of Christians. Paul, a former persecutor turned tireless missionary Mhmm. Championed the1:10 Christian faith across the Roman world, authoring letters that would become foundational texts of the new religion. Their lives and legacies represent a stark contrast between state1:22 authority and spiritual conviction.1:25 This historical tension between a dominant culture and a minority faith is not confined to the past. Around the world today, individuals and communities continue to
1:37 face persecution for their beliefs. Yet always in the face of immense pressure, faith demonstrates remarkable resilience, providing strength, identity, and hope for us
1:48 all. So, today we're gonna talk about, grace and how Paul introduced us and introduced the world to the concept of grace. And there was no
2:00 such thing in the the Roman Empire at the time, was there, under Nero?
2:04 Yeah. Paul is known as the messenger of grace. Mhmm. The gospel is the story of grace. And Amen. And and yet there there were these other gospels. We tend to think of that, don't we, as a as a religious word or a
2:15 spiritual word, and certainly, the Christian gospel is that. But other parts of the Roman Empire had gospels. The emperor had a gospel, which is I am king now, and my way is going
2:27 to bless
2:27 you. Mhmm.
2:28 But they were diametrically opposed, weren't they? The way of of grace and the way of Rome. So so like the word gospel, it means good
2:34 news. Right?
2:35 And and so it meant that a king had come into victory and was going to spread his kingdom across the earth. Well, that's true of Jesus, isn't it? But that was also true of what the emperors thought. We have been
2:46 victorious, and we are gonna lead you in the way that makes you happy. But it didn't lead to happiness, did it?
2:52 No. And they promised all kinds of great things that they would only hail their Caesar.
2:56 That's right.
2:56 And eventually, started out like every baby, you know, beautiful and precious in God's sight, made in his image, started to fall in love with himself and deify himself, which we see all over our world
3:08 today.
3:09 Did you enjoy getting to know Nero as you said?
3:11 Yes. Because I knew I knew so much more about, in our first book Yeah. About Herod. I I'd studied extensively Herod, but not Nero. Yeah. And we've always heard about how Nero fiddled during,
3:23 Rome, burning to the ground, most of it. But there was no fiddle at the time.
3:29 Well, there weren't fiddles. Right?
3:30 So There were lyres. There were there were different instruments Yeah. But not a fiddle.
3:33 And and we kind of bring out in the book, don't we, about how how much of an artist he was, how much of a performer he was.
3:40 Well, he thought he was an artist
3:41 Yeah. He
3:41 but he was a performer.
3:42 Yeah. He wanted everybody to to sort of acclaim him for that, didn't
3:46 he? He wanted to be worshiped, but not just as a deity, but as a man.
3:50 Yeah. Yeah. And to think about when when Rome is burning and his first instinct is not to care for his people or to, you know, marshal the firefighters. Mhmm. Yeah. Just let him burn, but it's his moment to
4:02 be sort of this tragic figure. And he goes up to the roof with his lyre, and he plays, a song about the fall of Troy as if he's sort of part of this mythic story. Epic. Yeah. I'm epic.
4:14 Right? It's look at me. Look at me. This is my moment. Doesn't that say something about Nero, I think?
4:18 I think it says at that point in his life, it says everything about him. Because by that time, he had butchered many others as well. We hear so much today in our world of Nigeria, what's going on with the there there
4:29 it's genocide in Nigeria. And we see, all around our world, the antisemitism and the butchering just recently of of so many Jews in Australia. It's it's it's it's growing. It's not getting
4:41 better in this world. Yeah. What do we do about that, doctor Litvin?
4:45 You're so right. You know, there's really only 1 solution, and it's the gospel of Jesus. Amen. It's the gospel that the apostle Paul tried to bring to the end of the world. That's something we bring out too, isn't it? We
4:55 were he's trying to bring the good news, not just to to his starting place in Israel, not just to Rome, all the way to the ends of the Earth.
5:03 And that back then, and you'll learn about that here. This is the kind of stuff I love about our books. The end of the Earth to them was Spain.
5:09 Yeah.
5:09 They didn't know that anything else existed
5:13 beyond that. Yeah. It's just the ocean kinda went off in forever. And so for Paul, he said, you know, the the Old Testament, the Old Covenant scriptures say that the word of the Lord has to be heard to the ends of the
5:22 earth Yes. From the rising of the sun to the setting of the same. And he said, I wanna be the man to do that. And that's really what this book is about is how do we enter into a story like that? Isn't there a greater
5:34 story than self glorification, self worship, self domination? Isn't there some way that everybody can be part of the message of peace and of love, the way of Jesus, really, isn't it?
5:45 Because Jesus, unlike Nero, Jesus was such a personal God. He was divine. We know that. But but look at what happened to people when they met Jesus. They looked in his
5:56 face. He looked in theirs. He looked in their eyes, especially when I think about what he did for women who were persecuted back then. Every bit as much as women are persecuted all around the world still.
6:09 And who was at the cross? The women. Yeah. 1 man.
6:12 Yeah.
6:13 The the disciple John. And who was at the at the grave on first first it's called first fruits. We call it Easter in our culture. But the the actual festival that was being
6:24 celebrated then was the Jewish festival called First Fruits. Explain what First Fruits might have been to the first century AD Jews.
6:32 Well, yeah. So it was a harvest festival. First fruits is a beautiful concept because Jesus is called the first fruits of the resurrection.
6:40 There you go.
6:40 You know? And and so what they would do is they would bring a portion of the harvest, and they would give it over to the Lord because they said, we trust you, oh Lord. You have given us some harvest. There is more to
6:50 come. And so when Jesus was raised from the dead, when he rose from that grave, he was a first fruits offering because, guess what, many more would come into his train. There were more resurrections to come.
7:02 You know what? I've just written a song. I'm working on a project called, well, the song is called, because it means in Italian, it means some shroud. And I stopped thinking about what Jesus was wrapped in, the cloth
7:14 that he was wrapped in as a burial. It wasn't his burial cloth. Cloth. It was his resurrection cloth because that's what made the image when he was resurrected. The power of that was
7:26 unbelievable. I mean, earthquakes. Yeah. Because you wouldn't even be able to measure how much electricity went into that. Right.
7:35 And have you thought about the parallelism? Because our book starts with a cloth, a shroud, so to speak, the veil that was torn into the temple. And so as the shroud was covering the body of Jesus, so
7:47 the shroud of the previous temple was torn in 2. It was time to end 1 shroud and move to another 1.
7:53 And and end something that the the Jews had thought was sacristy since the dawn of time, which was that's where you go to worship God.
8:00 Right.
8:01 You go to the temple. And once the temple was cut in down right down from the top to the bottom recognized Yeah. Not the bottom that that came from heaven. That was God saying, no. This is where you used to come to
8:13 worship me. But from now on, you will worship. I will live in your heart. I won't live in a temple made of stone. Mhmm. I will live in your flesh.
8:21 Mhmm.
8:21 And you will abide in me and I will abide in you. And it changed woah. Thank God. It changed everything.
8:27 And we often think that the ripping of the veil was about trying to go into the holy place. Now it does say that in Hebrews, but in the gospels, what's actually happening there is a different motif. There's an exit.
8:38 There's a coming out of the holy spirit
8:40 And into us.
8:41 And into us. And that's why Paul says, do you not know that you are temples of the holy spirit?
8:45 It's so exciting. I hope everybody if you're listening to us today, you're thinking, wait a minute, but I'm Catholic. Wait a minute. I'm Lutheran. Wait a it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you worship. It matters
8:56 who
8:57 Right.
8:57 You worship. Right. And and in the beginning of Jesus's walk on the on on the earth and after he was, taken to heaven, his his followers were
9:09 called they were called Christians. That came later. Mhmm. They were called followers of the way. Because Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Right. No 1 comes under the father but through me. And that's
9:20 good news, by the way. Mhmm. That's not something we should say. Well, that's just intolerant. Mhmm. No. You want the guy that actually died for you to be there to let you in or not, you know? Yeah. I always say to
9:30 somebody, you don't realize what great news this is, you know?
9:34 For you.
9:34 Yes. And now we can sit here and with even our crew and every 1 of us, we prayed before we started here today. You know why? Because God lives in us. He abides in us and in him we
9:46 live and move and have our very being. I don't want a religion. I want a relationship with the living God so that when we are persecuted for our faith, that's who will be with us.
9:58 That will be holding us. And when they were put on fire by Nero
10:03 Yeah.
10:03 Literally crucified as torches to light up his his party Right. It's about as thick as it gets.
10:09 It is. And that's 1 of those things where we see that opposition between 2 worlds, don't we? Mhmm. Where where there was the way the way. Right? The followers of Jesus have a way, but Rome had a way.Show more
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