Join Steve Gregg in this engaging episode of The Narrow Path as he discusses his upcoming speaking tour across various states. Learn fascinating insights about his travels and the process behind setting these appointments. The episode takes a deeper dive into scriptural references as listener questions lead to discussions on two pivotal Bible passages. Discover the nuances of biblical interpretation and the significance of Peter’s inclusion in the resurrection message.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour as usual. We have an open phone line for you, which isn’t open at the moment because our lines are full, but individual lines will be opening up all through the program so you can call randomly and probably find a line open at some point. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. I’ve been making a lot of comments about my travels coming up because, frankly, because we had kind of short notice. We started making these appointments, I think, earlier this month, and now we’ve got appointments for me to speak in many, like eight different states or so in the next few months. And I’m spending several days to a week in most of them. And so we have announcements at our website. If you live, I can just read off the states I’m speaking in. And if you live in one of these states, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements, and see where I’ll be speaking next. in your state because it’s generally speaking not just in one town. Once I’m in Nashville, I take the whole state. Seattle, when I go to Seattle, I take all of western Washington and speak in places all over the place. Same thing when I go to Phoenix, a lot of places around. So if you live in one of these states, and we do have a lot of people listening in all of these places, you may want to know about these meetings coming up in the next few months. You can check out our website, the narrow path dot com under announcements. Also, in some of these cases, we still have a night or two unbooked in some of these areas. And if you’d like to book something, get in touch with us as soon as possible. Sometimes, you know, I have to have to plan my flights and things like that. So I have to know exactly what the total number of days I’m going to be before I can really book those flights. So we’re going to close it down soon, the opportunity, and you can contact us soon. We can usually fit something in somewhere. The states we’re talking about are Tennessee and Arizona, both of them in March. Northern California and Texas, both of those in April. Be in the Seattle area or western Washington area in May. In August, I’ll be in Michigan and Illinois and Indiana areas. That’s in Michigan. That’s in August. And then in mid-October, I’m coming to Oregon. We’ve got an itinerary set there, too. So if you’re listening in any of those areas and you’re curious of where I’ll be speaking and you want to come or you want to set up a meeting, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements, and there you’ll find how to contact us there about that. Okay, let’s talk to Steve in Eatonville, Washington. Steve, welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, good afternoon. I would like to read a small passage of Scripture from the Bible and then hone in on two words from that passage of Scripture. I’ve never read or listened to any comment on this, and since I respect your insights, I want to hear from you first before I look at any more. The scripture is Mark 16, 6 and 7. which says, And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. But go your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee. There shall you see him as he said unto you. The two words I want you to comment on are and Peter. Don’t those two words prove what an awesome God we serve? Here he knew that Peter would be wondering if he was beyond all hope after he betrayed Jesus. And so God told the angel to be sure to tell them to tell Peter that he was also included to assure him that he was still part of the in crowd. Don’t you think that was just on purpose that Mark included that? Anyway, what are your thoughts? And then I have one more comment after you’re done answering this question. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
In answer to your question, I say yes. And what’s your second question?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Okay. My only second question is I just want to be able to sort of tell people about the new website, the new website called Matthew713.com. Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
And let me just say this, Steve, before you do. Matthew713.com is not a new website, but it has been renewed. It’s been revamped, and it’s got a lot of great features. Go ahead, Steve. Quickly, though. Quickly, though. We’ve got a lot of people waiting.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, yeah. Okay, so the two main features, new features that you can do on the website are search for a scripture, a specific scripture that you want to hear about, just like I asked about. And the second thing is pretty soon you’ll be able to listen to, I mean, be able to hear immediately any question that was asked on there, not just any call, but any question that was asked on the Narrow Path website, Narrow Path radio show in the past.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s all. Thank you. Steve, let me understand it because I’m not sure I know. Does this mean that using AI, people will be able to just put a question in their own words and AI will find a question in the data bank that’s the same question, whether it’s worded the same or not? Is that it?
SPEAKER 05 :
No. What I mean is, for the last seven years, this website – when there’s been multiple calls, multiple questions on a call, you’d only come to that one timestamp, and then you’d have two or three more questions, and people would have to find it on their own. But now, pretty soon, you’ll be able to immediately go to each and every call that was ever asked of you on that website.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, okay, that’s fine. That’s great. I appreciate that announcement. By the way, Steve, who I’ve been talking to, is somebody who volunteers. There are a number of people who volunteer to keep that website up. Steve is one of them. But, yeah, the website is www.matthew713.com. So it’s like the scriptures, Matthew 713, without the colon. And if you don’t know anything about that, that’s a website that some, like several years now, We’ve had a lot of volunteers working on this. They’ve taken over 25,000 of the phone calls from this program in the past because we’ve been on for 28 years. They don’t go all the way back to the very beginning because we don’t have all those recorded, but they probably have 20 years’ worth of calls to the program, about 25,000 calls. and they’ve got them indexed by topic so that, you know, if you say, well, I wish I could get an answer from Steve on this particular topic, you can just enter the topic, and there’s over 2,000 different topics there and lots of calls under many of them, and it’ll tell you right there what the caller asked, and then you can, Push a button, and it’ll take you right to that call. It’ll play that call for you. So that website is Matthew713.com. Now, what Steve was saying is they’ve added a new feature. Apparently, I’ve never done this on the site. I don’t have time, but you can enter a scriptural reference. Enter a scriptural reference of a passage you’re interested in, and it’ll take you to all the calls where either the caller or I correspond. made reference to that reference and talked about it. So that’s a new feature there. And there’s a lot of other interesting stuff. That website’s the only place on the web where my lecture notes are there for my lectures. And you can download them if you want. There’s other things there, too. It’s really an amazing website. And it’s had a lot of man hours put in by quite a few volunteers. All right. Well, Stephen, thank you for that plug. And we’re going to talk to Michael from Denver, Colorado next. Michael, welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. And real quick, thank you to all the volunteers that run that website. It’s a really valuable resource and I’m sure not a cheap undertaking to operate all that. So, you know, thank you to them. So, Steve, what I was going to ask about today, I was recently reading this story. In 1990, archaeologists discovered a burial tomb in Jerusalem, and it contained an ossuary inscribed with Caiaphas. And inside, they found two nails in this ossuary, and they basically said that it sparked speculation that these nails nails could have actually been from the crucifixion itself because Caiaphas had such a big part in that crucifixion. And, you know, I’ve heard of, for example, like pieces of wood from the cross from the crucifixion being found. But, you know, I just wanted to ask you, you know, what’s your opinion about the kind of validity of artifacts found in in Jerusalem from the crucifixion, do you feel like that holds weight?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, anything related to the physical cross, like the Roman Catholic Church throughout history has sold splinters from this alleged physical cross. Or even if someone says, well, these nails, we think those might be from the cross that Jesus died on. I’m skeptical about those. First of all, I don’t see why anybody at the time when that cross could be identified and was around, why anyone would have saved parts. Remember, when Jesus died, they took him from the cross as they did any other criminal that they had crucified. They must have dispensed with the cross or used it for someone else, and they buried him. And no one expected him to come back. No one thought, well, we’ve got to hang on to this cross. This will be valuable someday. No, he’s just a criminal who had been, in their eyes, a criminal who had been crucified like thousands of others. And the idea that they… that they even kept track of where the cross was. They might have disassembled it for wood. They might have used it for firewood. They might have used it to hang somebody else later on. But the thing is, by the time anyone knew that Jesus would be somebody worth remembering, That is after his resurrection. And then, of course, not only that, but after Pentecost, which is like, you know, seven weeks later. I don’t think anyone would know where the cross was. The disciples certainly had no reason to hang on to it. And even if they had access to it, we don’t know if they did. So these ideas that, you know, the church preserved the cross or the. Holy Grail or any of those kinds of things suggest that somebody was keeping track of those things a long time before anyone knew they’d be interesting. You know, sometimes people say, you know, if Jesus was so important, why don’t more historians like Roman historians talk about him? Well, they actually do mention him amazingly. But but if none of them did, it wouldn’t be surprising. He never went to Rome. He was in his entire lifetime before he was crucified. He was a rather common, in a way, peasant walking around teaching. Now, he wasn’t really common because he said things like no one ever said, and he did marvelous works and so forth. But he didn’t do any of those outside of Israel. He didn’t go out and spread his word somewhere where historians there would say, oh, wow, this guy came here and I better write about him. It wasn’t until Christianity became prominent in the Roman Empire, which would be at least, you know, the second or third century, before people in Rome would even be paying any attention to him or think that there’s anything to know about him that’s of interest. And likewise with the cross. I think when people assumed that the apostles were collecting these things, These, you know, bits and pieces of Jesus’ clothing or his cross or whatever. Now, as far as the shroud of Turin, I’m not going to say I have serious doubts about that. To me, the shroud of Turin looks like it probably is authentic. And it wouldn’t be surprising that the women who came to anoint Jesus and found the shroud there instead of him, that they… they might have gathered it up as the last thing they had to remember him by or whatever. The shroud would be easy for the disciples to come by. They’re the ones who came to the empty tomb and would find it. But getting a hold of the cross or the nails from the cross, I have my doubts. Now, by the way, the Caiaphas ossuary, I remember when it was found, and it is significant because it is real. Now, an ossuary is simply a burial box, sort of like a coffin in a way, smaller. The bones were not kept all intact. I guess the skeletons were not intact completely, but they had their bones in them. And I remember when I was found because there were always people who’ve questioned whether some of these characters mentioned in the Bible even lived or if they were part of the Bible writers’ imaginary, you know, fictions or whatever. And, you know, they thought that about Pilate for a while. They thought that about Caiaphas. They thought that about lots of people, Belshazzar and others, Sargon II, many people the Bible mentions. skeptics, because they had found no external archaeological evidence of these people, or even in the writings of other historians, they just said, ah, well, those are fiction characters. We can’t trust the Bible to be telling the truth. But then all those people I just mentioned, of course, they later found inscriptions mentioning them or their own writings and things like that, or their palaces. In the case of Caiaphas, finding the Caiaphas ossuary, was one more of very many significant finds that proved that the Gospels were connected with people in real history. They weren’t simply like fictional stories. So as far as the nails, I had not heard that two nails were found in Caiaphas’ ossuary. But I don’t know. Until I saw that in something very reliable, I would doubt that that was true. But if it was true, I still wouldn’t see any reason to necessarily associate with Jesus. Unless Caiaphas was buried by Christians, he wasn’t a Christian himself. And they wanted to put the nails in their sort of… So in the resurrection, God would remember what Caiaphas did to Jesus. Here’s these nails. Remember those? Anyway, I don’t know anything about the nails, and I don’t really have much to say about those. But I appreciate you joining us. Let’s talk to Brandon from Phoenix, Arizona. Brandon, welcome. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Steve, I was talking to you yesterday about the Melchizedek question. I know you told me that you was going to bring up three causes of what you thought, and one of your thoughts, you was going to tell me what you thought about it. But I tried listening back to it again, and I think you missed out on telling me about what was your opinion about it, if you thought that Melchizedek was Christ, or if you thought it was a theophany and Christophany thing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Those are not different opinions. If it was Christ, it was a theophany. And I think I made it pretty clear that’s what I believe. Now, the other two views was the Jewish view that it was Shem. And then many Christians, perhaps most Christians, believe it was just some guy who was the king of Jerusalem in Abraham’s time. just an ordinary king and that his interaction with Abraham and the things that happened made him a good example of what we could call a type of Christ or a pattern like many people in the Old Testament sort of have things similar to Christ and are used in the New Testament to see as types but So Jews think he’s Shem. Many Christians think he’s a type of Christ, just an ordinary man. And others believe he was a Christophany or a Theophany, which means Christ, Christ appearing.
SPEAKER 03 :
So you do believe that he was Christ?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I spent a lot of time giving the reasons for that yesterday.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, gotcha, gotcha. And another question, when are you coming to Arizona? I would like to meet up with you. I know you spoke to my pastor.
SPEAKER 01 :
Here in Arizona. I’ll be there at the end of next month.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, okay. Well, maybe we can get together, maybe have some lunch, sit down with you. Me and my pastor listen to you every day. We come from Harvest Christian Fellowship.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, great. Well, I’d love to meet you and your pastor.
SPEAKER 03 :
Nice, nice. How do I get a hold of you?
SPEAKER 01 :
My email is at our website, thenarrowpath.com. If you look at the bottom of the page, my contact email is there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, my brother. Well, Christ be with you in the name of Jesus. God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you. And also, of course, information about where I’m speaking in Arizona is already posted at the website. All right. Let’s talk to Henry from Marietta, Georgia. Henry, welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. It’s kind of like a Matthew 713 question. I’ve been using that lately, and since they’ve updated it, it’s really powerful. But the real question is, and as long as I was in there studying topical, I was going to say, well, what has Steve said about imputed? And I looked up, and in the last 15 years, I guess, you’ve not had a call dealing with imputed. So it’s basically the doctrine of imputing His righteousness to us and our sin to Him and I was wondering what your explanation or your study had anything to do with imputed righteousness.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. To say that something is imputed to someone, it means it’s put to their credit. It’s treated as if it belongs to them, or it’s given to them without their own merits or what they’ve done. So when we say that our sins were imputed to Christ, and that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, what it means is that God is going to, in judgment, treat us as if we were as righteous as Christ in many respects. And I say in many respects because there will be different rewards. We’re not all going to have exactly the same rewards, but in terms of accepting us as God’s children, We will be accepted as God’s children. We’ll be accepted by God as much as Jesus himself is. That was the whole point of this coming, I believe. Well, not the whole point, but certainly a major point of this coming. So I believe that to speak of imputed righteousness, and by the way, That’s not a term that the Bible uses as frequently as preachers do. It’s usually used in connection with a quotation from Genesis 15, 6, which says Abraham believed in the Lord and it was imputed to him for righteousness. And then Paul, of course, uses that as an example of how we’re justified by faith. And we could assume justified faith. in context of Genesis 15 and 6, is the same thing as imputed righteousness. But the term imputed is not really used very often in the Bible, but when it is used, it’s referring to something being credited as such. Now, when we come to imputation in general, there’s also another whole line of theology that comes from Augustine that talks about Adam’s sin is imputed to us. So Augustine’s doctrine of original sin was that when Adam sinned, we were in him, and therefore his sinfulness was imputed to the whole race that would later be born from him. Therefore, on that view, every baby is already guilty in the sight of God because of Adam’s guilt, because Adam’s guilt is imputed to us. Now, I don’t find that taught in Scripture. The only verses that Augustine had for it were Psalm 51.5, which certainly doesn’t say that. And then one in the New Testament, Romans 5.12, he had, and that doesn’t say that either. So as far as imputed guilt, I don’t know of any biblical teaching of imputed guilt. In fact, I do know the Bible says that God doesn’t hold sons accountable for their father’s sins. And he says it very emphatically in a couple of places. So, I don’t think that people are born with the imputed sin of Adam, although I think everyone is born sinful. Or if they’re not born sinful, they become sinful from the womb. You know, they start committing sins right as soon as they’re on the planet. And, of course, all have sinned, and therefore all have need of the same salvation. But, But that’s another way that imputed is used in Christian theological talk. But as far as Christ’s righteousness, I believe it’s simply this, that God counts us to be in Christ. When we believe in Christ, we are grafted into him. And we are part of him, just like branches on a vine or branches on an olive tree or members of a body that are part of every member of your body. is part of you and therefore shares in whatever defects or character is on your record. So since Christ has a perfect record, once we are in him, we share his record. Now, in one sense, because there’s other aspects of our existence besides just our standing in Christ, there’s also our behavior. And the Bible says on the day of judgment, everyone’s works, they’re going to be rewarded according to their works. And so there will be differences between each of us and each other in the judgment. But no one who’s in Christ will be condemned. That’s what Romans 8.1 says. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. But there are, of course, different rewards. So, again, the whole idea of imputation is more of a word that’s used in theological discussions more than in the Bible, but the Bible does not lack the terms, especially with reference to Abraham and his being imputed righteous by his faith. Thank you, brother. Let’s see. Joshua from Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Steve. So I’m struggling to… conceive the notion of Sola Scriptura. I mean, it seems like there’s a lot of different opinions on it. This idea that Scripture is the greatest authority, not that it’s the only authority. I’ve been listening to you. You don’t believe it’s the only authority.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, no, there’s lots of authorities, but what I believe is this, and I don’t know if everyone who believes in Sola Scripture would say it this way or not, but most people I know I think probably would. And that is we go to the revealed word of God to know what he authoritatively has declared, especially Jesus. Jesus is the word made flesh and he’s all authority in heaven and earth belong to him. So I go to the word of God. I go to Christ. I go to the apostles that he authorized because whoever is authorized by him. speaks with his authority too, and I take my beliefs and I take my instructions from there. Now, Christianity is following Christ and the apostles, so that’s where we have a record of what they said. And therefore, that’s where we have to go to know. Now, after we’ve done that, we can consult many authorities about things, but if they contradict what Christ or the apostles said, we simply disregard them. Christ and the apostles who wrote the New Testament, they’re the yardstick by which we measure all other statements.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Have you ever heard this statement that the church’s interpretation of Scripture is greater than… Have you ever heard that before?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, that’s not usually the way the Catholics say it. I know the Catholics say that the church’s interpretation of Scripture is equal to Scripture, but I don’t see why that would be so. The Bible doesn’t tell us that anyone’s interpretation of Scripture is the final authority. Listen, I’m going to hold you over for the break because I want to continue our conversation. So I have to take a short break. I’ll have you on hold and I’ll come back to you. So please stay on there. All right, you’re listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live Monday through Friday. And we’re in a live conversation now with Joshua from Phoenix. And you can be on. You can actually call in. We’ll talk to you, too, if you want to. We are a listener-supported ministry. We have another half hour coming up. If you’d like to write to us, our address can be found at our website. Or you can donate from the website if you want to, though everything at the website is free. That website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 09 :
In the series, When Shall These Things Be?, you’ll learn that the biblical teaching concerning the rapture, the tribulation, Armageddon, the Antichrist, and the millennium are not necessarily in agreement with the wild sensationalist versions of these doctrines found in popular prophecy teaching and Christian fiction. The lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be?, can be downloaded without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re going to be continuing our talks with people who’ve called in with their questions. You can call in if you want to. We have a couple lines open. about the Bible or the Christian faith, the number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484. 844-484-5737. Now we’re going to talk here with Joshua again from Phoenix. We were talking with him before the break. Before I get back to him, I just want to say we had a call earlier in the first half And he was talking about how he couldn’t find any calls on the subject of imputed righteousness or imputation at the auxiliary website, Matthew 7.13, where there’s an index of many calls from this program in the past. And my wife, while I was on the call, my wife’s always busy, she was looking at Matthew 7.13. She looked at it and found six calls on that already. So apparently… Just look up imputed righteousness, and it should be there. That’s what she found. All right. We’re going to go back to talk to Joshua again now. Now, Joshua has called several times recently. We’re discussing differences between the Catholic position, which I believe Joshua holds, and the position I hold, which is not Catholic. And so we were talking about the whole idea of sola scriptura. And, Joshua, I’ve got you back on now. But you were asking, have I heard the idea that the church’s interpretation of Scripture is more authoritative than Scripture itself. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. To elaborate a little bit, it’s more like I struggle with Sola Scriptura only because I know that people can misinterpret it. And because I have the faith, that’s my faith. I think that’s a reason why Catholics don’t read Scripture as much is because we don’t We don’t believe we can interpret it correctly, and we know we can be deceived and we can misinterpret it. And we do need the church to properly discern it. That is our faith. That is something that we are born into. I understand that. Just like I believe Sola Scriptura is a faith as well, and I respect that. I’m not trying to bash Sola Scriptura. I think, first and foremost, I don’t properly understand it completely.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let me clarify that if I could, just because… You say Sola Scripture is a faith. Well, Sola Scripture is simply faith that the Bible is the Word of God. That’s all it really is. It’s the belief that the Bible is the Word of God and that God’s authority is above that of any human being’s authority. So that’s where it stands. So if we can go to the Word of God and get answers, that’s fine. We don’t need more than that. However, if we don’t get answers, we can certainly listen to suggestions from that others who know the Bible better than we do may have, you know, they can suggest, well, I think it means this, here’s why. We don’t have to accept any human’s interpretation. And the fact is, we don’t have to understand everything anyway. So it’s not like we have to nervously, oh, no, I’ve heard three different interpretations of this one passage. You know, how can I figure out which one’s correct before Jesus comes back, because I don’t want to be caught not knowing the answers. Those things are not on the test. So when Jesus comes back, the main test is, did you love me? Did you follow me? Did you obey me? Did you live according to what I commanded? Those are the things that the Bible says we’re going to be judged by. He’s not going to ask, did you learn how to correctly describe the Trinity? Well, shame on you if you didn’t. Well, I wouldn’t think he’d say shame on you. Jesus never described it. Jesus never expounded it. So how could he fault us for not being able to expound it perfectly? I mean, there are things that we don’t know. There are things above our pay grade. There are things that are simply complicated. There are things that we haven’t all thought through, and therefore where we don’t have all knowledge. Paul said we know in part. That’s okay. Omniscience is not a requirement for salvation or even for following Christ. We don’t have to be omniscient. But the things that we do need to know are not the kinds of things that you need a lot of Bible scholars to tease out for you from the Scripture, because they’re plainly taught by Jesus and the apostles, and they’re not even ambiguous. What becomes ambiguous is when the traditions of man, and this would include Catholic traditions in some cases, and it certainly included Jewish traditions that Jesus rebuked the Jews for following, and it also would apply to many Protestant traditions. So I’m not Catholic bashing here. I’m just saying that traditions of men sometimes bring confusion about passages that are not otherwise confusing. Now, I’m going to grant that some passages of the Bible are confusing. There’s many people who’ve asked me about passages I’ve had say, well, there’s two or three different opinions about this. Here’s one, here’s another, here’s another. Sometimes I think I know which one’s right, and I’ll say this is the one I hold to. But if there’s three different opinions among people who are searching the Scriptures… then the subject is not one of the things that Christians have to understand because God would not leave anything so vague that was necessary to know. Now, the more you study the Scripture… the more you can have confidence that you’re getting it, that you’re understanding what it’s saying. But even if you read the Bible through one time, there’s a good chance. In fact, I’d say it’s almost certain you will see the essential things in one glance. Now, I don’t mind being a lifetime learner. Some people don’t want to be lifetime learners. They don’t want to study. They want somebody else to study and tell them what to think. Okay, there’s Protestants like that. Certainly there’s Catholics like that. That’s the position the cardinals and the bishops and the pope are in, that they do the thinking for you and they tell you what to think. Okay, if you want that, you can also find Jehovah’s Witnesses and have an organization that does that for them. The Mormons have someone who does that for them, too. This is my idea of having a cultic commitment to human teachers. I’d much rather just keep learning. And in the meantime, having a lot of stuff I don’t know yet. You know, if I’m going to learn for life, that means I’m going to have to learn things I don’t know now. That means I’m going to have to not know everything now. And that’s okay. I don’t mind if I know everything now, but I don’t. And therefore, it’s okay. I’ll just keep learning. And I’ll keep studying. But, yeah, if a person really doesn’t want to do that, Then they’ll find somebody, maybe the Catholic officials, maybe the Jehovah’s Witness officials, maybe the Baptist officials or, you know, word of faith teachers. Find somebody, and they’ll think for you. The problem is they’re no more infallible than you are. Now, many of them have studied more than you have, and they might know more than you do, and they might even have a better chance of being right on some things than you do. But they’re not the final authority. And if you find that what they’re saying simply does not agree with what the Bible is saying, the soul of Scripture means we’ll go with the Bible and let the others, you know, they can stand before God with their other ideas. That’s fine.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. I mean, I guess the idea that you don’t need to pass a theological test to get to heaven, I mean, understanding who Christ is, understanding that sin is a reality. I think, like, for instance, once saved, always saved is very dangerous. I have a friend who believes that. I agree with you. Yeah, and I’ve been trying to use Scripture, but this idea that every Scripture I use, he can just say, well, it doesn’t mean that. Like, you need to read this Scripture, and I can’t use Scripture to convince him. So if he was Catholic, That would be an error on his part to take up that belief.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it’s an error anyway, whether he’s a Catholic or not. Whenever you believe something that isn’t true, that’s an error. Whether you’ve got an organization telling you it’s an error or whether it’s just an error. I mean, you’re wrong. So I agree with you. I think that once saved, always saved is not a biblical doctrine. and many people who believe in that doctrine have done harm to their own souls, but not everyone who believes it has. I mean, there are people who are wrong about that doctrine, but they still faithfully follow Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. There’s been very good Christians. If we judge a good Christian as one who follows faithfully after Christ and is eminent in the things that Jesus says are the most important things, like love, those are what I call good Christians. I mean, assuming that they believe Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah and so forth. But on something like once saved, always saved, well, you’re not saved by believing that you’re saved, okay? And therefore, if you say, well, I don’t believe that I’d be saved if I do such and such a thing. Well, then I better not do it. But the thing is, knowing whether I would still be saved or not is not on the test. The test is, am I devoted to Christ? If I’m devoted to Christ, that means I’m following him. I’m obeying him. I love him. Everything in my life is subject to him. And if that’s who I am, I can be wrong about a thousand things, but I pass. I pass the test, the loyalty test. And on the other hand, if I’m not really following Jesus, and I’m trying to substitute for that correctness of doctrine, and if I have all knowledge and understand all mysteries, and have not love, well, then it counts for nothing, the Bible says. So it’s not knowing mysteries. It’s not having all knowledge. I love knowledge. I’d like to know everything. I’ve been working toward that goal all my life. But I don’t expect to ever know everything. But I love knowing, so I’m not trying to diminish that. I’m certainly not trying to diminish theology, because I’m a theological nut. I mean, I’m always trying to refine my theology biblically. But I’m saying… There’s things that are very interesting and very helpful, but they’re not the things that we have to know in order to be saved. God’s not trying to make salvation hard. He’s just saving the people who are loyal to him and not saving those who are not. That’s just like the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were saved when they were loyal to him. When they rebelled against him, they weren’t. And so this is the way it is. Mankind has one test. And they better pass the test if they hope to be with Christ. And that is, be loyal to him. And loyal to him means you recognize he’s the king. He’s your lord. He owns you. You’ve been bought with a price. Everything you do should be done with a mind, is this pleasing to him or not? And if that’s not where our mind is, we can have all the good theology we want to. But it profits us nothing, I think.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, Steve, I appreciate your input, and I really do enjoy talking to you. I know you have other callers to get to. Yep. So have a good day. God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Great talking to you, Joshua. Thanks for calling. Bye. Bye now. All right, we’re going to talk next to Bill from Massachusetts. Hi, Bill. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. Always good to talk to you. My question is about John 14.6. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Now, I think many people interpret this in a narrow way, and I want to interpret it in a broader way. And I have a couple of questions related to that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
First, this sounds like a stupid question, I know, but who does the I refer to? Does it refer to the eternal second person of the Trinity? Or more specifically to… the second person of the Trinity as incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I don’t think that Jesus made a distinction between those two when he was with them or expected them to either. I mean, he’s talking to people. that he expected to understand his words. He knew these people. He’s going to be crucified within a few hours. He’s wanting to make things clear that they needed to know. I don’t think he’s talking in abstractions that they’re not supposed to understand. I think when they looked at Jesus, their understanding was that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. and and they had some hints that he that the son of god meant something about deity but they didn’t fully understand that that’s why they asked him in that very paragraph they said show us the father and it you know it it satisfies us and and and he said have i been this long with you you don’t know me in other words they didn’t know he he they didn’t know exactly the nature of the father and the son at that point they didn’t have the trinity doctrine they didn’t They probably didn’t understand, as they later did, that he was the word who has made flesh. But they knew that he was somehow God’s son and God’s Messiah and the king that was sent that God had promised. And they would learn more after that. But when he says, I am the way, the truth and life, I don’t think he meant for them to understand some deep theological knowledge. abstractions about him. I think he’s saying, look at me. If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. I’m the way. You’re looking for the way? Here I am. You’re looking for truth? You found him. You’re looking for life? Well, that’s me. I don’t think there’s anything much more secretive about it than that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Go ahead. My concern is people read this passion and think, oh, well, then you have to be a Christian in order to to know the Father. So I guess my second question was, do you believe that God has, at certain times and places in history, revealed himself in some manner, in some degree, to individuals outside the Judeo-Christian tradition?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, yes, absolutely. Well, outside the Judeo-Christian, sure. I mean, we’ve got Job. God revealed himself to Job, and Job was neither Jewish nor Christian. there’s no reason to believe that Noah, who was not a Jew or a Christian, that he had any deficiency in his revelation of God. God revealed himself specially to Abraham and especially to his seed through the law. Giving the law and the prophets was a special, more detailed revelation of himself that he made to the people of Israel. And then Jesus, of course, is even more exact and more specific. revelation of God. Now, outside of those very specific revelations of God, there’s many general revelations he gave. I think Paul mentions that in Romans 1, that the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being observed in the things that he’s made. So, in the creation, there’s a revelation of God. There’s other means by which God might reveal himself to people, but there’s no revelation of God, in my opinion, that was as clear and detailed to any people before the time of Christ than that which he gave to Israel. And after Christ came, when Christ came, I don’t think there’s any revelation of God that’s full and complete like the revelation of Christ. So if we say, well, did anyone maybe in India or ancient Greece believe Ethiopia or in Sumeria, did they have any revelations from God? Well, very possibly, but they wouldn’t be as complete revelations as we have in the direct revelations given both to Israel and through Christ, in my understanding of this.
SPEAKER 07 :
My point would be that can someone be on the way even if they don’t know Jesus? They don’t know the name Jesus, or they maybe have misinformation about Jesus.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I mean, the Old Testament saints did not know the name of Jesus. I mean, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, the prophets, they didn’t know the name of Jesus, but they certainly had revelations of God. And some of those revelations were even about Christ, but they didn’t know his name. His name was not revealed at that time. But my position would be, If somebody has never heard the name of Jesus, then God’s going to have to judge them on some other basis than whether they followed Jesus or rejected Jesus. He knows how much life they’ve had. He knows how much revelation each one has had. He knows also the degree to which they have responded to the revelation they’ve had and the degree to which they should have. I mean, God knows all that stuff, and I don’t know any of that. I don’t know any of that stuff, so I can’t make any judgments about those people. God will make a fair and just judgment of every person. But if somebody knows about Jesus and says, well, I don’t prefer to believe in Jesus, I don’t prefer to follow Jesus, I prefer to be New Age or Hindu or something else, well, that’s an outright rejection of Christ. That’s different. It’s one thing to have never heard of Christ or not know about Christ and to be doing one’s best to discover God and God can judge on that effort if he wants to, however he wishes. But that’s one thing. But to know about Christ and say, yeah, but I don’t want to do it that way. I don’t want to take a stand for Christ. I don’t want to be loyal to Christ. I don’t want to be persecuted for following Christ. I don’t want to die to myself and carry a cross for Christ. Well, that’s an outright rejection of God’s revelation of himself. So I believe that different people have different degrees of light that God gives them, and our response to the light that we have is an important thing in God’s evaluation of our Relative guilt. But on the other hand, those who have heard of Christ have received the most light of all. And the rejection of light is what condemns a person. That’s what Jesus said in John chapter 3. He said the Son of Man didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, but he came into the world that the world might be saved through him. He says the world was already condemned. He says this was the condemnation. that light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Now, that’s condemnation. If you’ve received light and you’ve rejected the light that God has sent you, that’s the condemnation. If you have received light and you’ve responded the best you know how to the light there is and you’ve not rejected it, well, then I’m not sure there’s any condemnation in that. But, I mean, God will be the judge. God knows the degree to which we have done any of those things.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve. I always appreciate talking to you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Bill. Good talking to you, man.
SPEAKER 07 :
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. We’re going to talk next to, it’s going to be Doug from Denton, Texas. Hi, Doug. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello. What’s the proof that we have a soul?
SPEAKER 01 :
I don’t know if there is proof that we have a soul. It depends on what you’re defining as a soul. In the Bible, the word soul is used a number of ways, and the most common way in the Old Testament is, seems to be simply a reference to a person as a whole. For example, God made man from the dust of the earth, he breathed into his nostrils the spirit of life, and he became a living soul. Okay, so here’s a dust man, and he’s got the spirit blown into his nostrils, and combined, the dust and the spirit, he becomes a soul. Even in the New Testament, we read that there were eight souls saved in the ark through water in 1 Peter chapter 3 and verse 20 or 21. And so, you know, people are called souls. But also there are times when the soul seems to be spoken of as a distinct aspect or part of a person. Paul talks about our spirit, soul, and body. being sanctified and being preserved blameless until Jesus comes back. There are references to the soul in contrast to the body. Jesus said, do not fear those who can kill the body and can do no more, but fear him who, after he has killed the body, also can destroy the soul in Gehenna. So the destruction of the body takes place at one time, and then the destruction of the soul separately. So there is, at least in the Bible, plenty of evidence that in addition to using the word soul in some cases simply would mean a person, it also is the case that there’s a distinction between our soul and our body, since some people can only kill the body and not the soul, whereas God can kill both. By the way, the word soul is also sometimes translated life. For example, Jesus said, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? And some translations will say life because it’s the same word in the Greek there. So the word soul, if you say, how can we prove there’s a soul? I’d say, well, first we have to define what you mean by soul. Now, if you mean an immortal soul in every man, I don’t think the Bible says that man has an immortal soul. The Bible says only God possesses immortality in 1 Timothy 6.16. So I don’t think our souls are naturally immortal. But I do think there is a soul in man that is, let’s just say, it’s got some separate kind of perimeters than our mere physical life. And what would those be? Well, I don’t know. But I know that thought is not merely a mechanical product of the material brain. I know some people would dispute that. But there’s no explanation how the movement of cells, none of them being conscious in themselves, but moving together in this mass called the brain… not only orders the body to do certain things, as even insect brains do, but our bodies actually can theorize about things. We can create things. We can create stories and artwork and music, and we can philosophize, and we can have theories. I mean, we just, we can reason. Now, the animals can’t do that. They have brains. as we do, but they don’t do those things. It’s not just that we do it better than they do because our brain is more fully developed than theirs is, so we do all those things a lot better than they do. They don’t do it at all. The highest mammals, even whose DNA is 95% or 97% the same as ours and have big, impressive brains and can do smart things, they don’t philosophize. They don’t contemplate. Things like we do not even a little bit. They never write stories or, you know, make artwork. And so I believe the soul speaks of the non-material aspect of our consciousness and our creativity and our God likeness. made in his image, which is, you know, it’s connected with our body, but it’s not inseparable from it. That’s what I think. Now, can I prove that? Well, no. I mean, I’m not even sure I can prove that my definition of the soul is the same as yours, but I’m just saying we don’t have to prove that there’s a soul, but we first have to define what a soul is. All I can say is there’s something in man that goes beyond the capabilities of a mere physical machine like a brain. Because we love, we hate, we get angry, we have peace, we have joy. And the opposites of those things, these are all, they’re not all just chemical reactions, despite the fact that a materialist or atheist would say they are. It’s simply, I’m just going to deny that outright. All right, let’s talk to Amy from Memphis, Tennessee. Hi, Amy, welcome. Only got a minute. Hello.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, I’ll try to be brief. I’m a first-time caller. I just appreciate the program I bring to you while coming home from work. So my question is, in Matthew 10 and 14, when Jesus is referring to the disciples, when he told his disciples that he sent them out, is that really just pertaining to strangers? Because, you know, we have friends and family that we try to witness to, but they, you know, of course, don’t disagree or don’t agree.
SPEAKER 01 :
Jesus is not saying that we have to be rude to people who don’t listen to us when we witness to them. He’s sending the 12 out two by two on a special short-term mission. And he makes it clear, especially down in verse 23, he makes it very clear that they have limited time. to get to all the villages of Israel. This is going to be short-term outreach. He wants them to just get there and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand and to do miracles, signs and wonders, healings to demonstrate that they’re not just blowing smoke, and then to move along. He doesn’t want them to be dilly-dallying because he said, for example, he says in verse 23, if they persecute you and they flee to another, for assuredly, I say to you, you’ll not have gone through all the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. That is, you’re not going to have time to get to them all. So don’t waste time. So when he says, if they won’t, in verse 14, whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from the house, shake off the dust from your feet. That is to say, don’t waste time trying to convince them further if they don’t want to hear it because you’ve got other places you need to get to. Now, if you’ve got unbelieving relatives, you’ve got maybe the rest of their life or your life to keep reaching out to them. You don’t have to stamp the dust on their feet the first time they don’t accept your witness. Or ever. Correct. So it’s not the same thing. You’re not on a short-term outreach. With your friends and relatives, you’re in a long-term outreach. And so you don’t have to be quite as careful about your time. I appreciate it, Amy, but I’m out of time. I’m glad we got your call in. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. We’re listener-supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or from our website, thenarrowpath.com. Have a good weekend.
