Menu
In today’s episode, we delve into the ancient story of Job, examining its relevance for contemporary believers. How do Job’s trials serve as a paradigm for human suffering and divine justice? Furthermore, we’ll discuss how God’s dealings differ between nations and individuals, offering a holistic understanding of biblical justice and mercy.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon, as we have been for the past 28 years, taking your phone calls. In fact, that’s all we do. We don’t have any commercial breaks. We just take phone calls for an hour. And we do have a break at the bottom of the hour to give our address and stuff like that, but that’s only brief. So we want to have you call in and call with your questions that you have about the Bible or the Christian faith, and we’ll talk to you about those. Or if you have a difference of opinion or a problem with something the host says, feel free to call about that, too. We welcome you. The number to call is 844-484. 5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Now, my trip to Arizona is upon us. Tomorrow night I’m speaking in Tucson. And then Friday night I’m speaking in Maricopa, Arizona. Saturday I’m speaking three places. I’m going to speak in Goodyear. Although I don’t know that – I don’t think that’s open to the public. I think that’s full. But I’ll also be talking about it in Peoria and in Buckeye. And then Sunday I’ll be speaking kind of once in the morning and twice in the afternoon in one location in Scottsdale at a church called – Chapel at Reigning Grace Ranch. It’s actually in Rio Verde, near Scottsdale. So that’s what I’m doing Thursday through Sunday. And if you’re in Arizona or interested in attending any of those meetings, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and just look under announcements. You’ll see where the time and place is for each meeting. All right, we’re going to talk first of all today to Kurt in Orlando, Florida. Kurt, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Steve. I want to say first of all, I appreciate all the work you do. Thank you. It’s really a blessing. So I want to ask about Calvinism and predestination. On my journey, I’m still trying to learn. And when I listen to you, I’m like, oh, everything you say makes sense. And then I’ll listen to someone who maybe teaches more of a Calvinist type thing. I’m like, well, what they say makes sense. So I guess I want to ask you today, Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 6, can you tell me why those verses don’t mean what the Calvinist says they mean?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’ll be glad to discuss them. Let me just say this, too. Have you listened to my lecture series on Calvinism?
SPEAKER 06 :
I have not.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, the reason I ask is, I believe it’s 12 lectures, but I deal with every Calvinist argument. I quote the Calvinists, they make their own arguments, and then we talk about the scriptures that they use, and then we talk about the problems with their arguments and the problems with the way they use their scriptures. So if you’re interested in that after we’re done here, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and under the topical lectures area, you’ll find a series called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation, which is a comprehensive treatment of the five points of Calvinism and the whole concept of sovereignty as taught in Calvinism and so forth. So it’s very thorough. I don’t think there’s a Calvinist argument that does not get presented and also discussed from a non-Calvinist side.
SPEAKER 06 :
I will definitely check that out.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s called God’s Sovereignty, Man’s Salvation. The lectures are free. Everything on our website is free, so you can just listen to it anytime you want to. Okay, so you were talking about Ephesians 1, verses 3 and 4, which says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us. with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Now, what’s going on here is that Paul is talking in the first half, at least, or more, of Ephesians 1 about what it means to be in Christ. We have our status with God is in Christ. And in Christ we have, for example, he says in verse 7, we have redemption, we have forgiveness, we’re accepted in the blood, he says in verse 6, we were chosen in him, verse 4 says, we’re blessed in all heavenly places in him, and so on. Paul talks this way about being in Christ throughout the first part of Ephesians 1. What does it mean to be in Christ? Paul has Christ in view as a corporate entity with Jesus as the head, and we are the members of his body. Another way of looking at this would be we are living stones in a temple, as Peter talks about in 1 Peter 2.5. We are viewed both individually and as a collective. We’re living stones built into one temple. We are many body parts together. incorporated into one body. And that body has the head, Christ. And therefore, Paul says, for example, in Ephesians, in the same chapter, it says in verses 22 and 23 that God put all things under Christ’s feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him. who fills all in all. The church, Christ’s body, is the fullness of him in Paul’s understanding. This is a very important thing. This is actually the mystery that Paul says was revealed to him and other apostles over in Ephesians chapter 3. He said in verse 4 of chapter 3, “…by which when you read you may understand my knowledge of the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men.” as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets. And what is the mystery? That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel. So the mystery is this phenomenon of corporate Christ, which Gentiles, along with Jews who are believers… are incorporated into one body. And so this is one of Paul’s favorite subjects, at least in his later epistles. So when he says that we’re chosen in Christ, what does he mean by that? He means that collectively, all the members of the body enjoy chosen status. because we are in Christ, and He is chosen. The reason we’re accepted in Christ, in verse 6, is because Christ is accepted, and we’re in Him. So, God who accepts Christ, accepts every part of Christ, not just the head, but every member of His body. And, you know, God chose Christ, not just the head, but every member of His body, in Him alone. We enjoy the chosenness of Christ. You know, when we have a presidential election, one man or woman conceivably in the future is to be chosen by the nation to be the president. Now, that’s not just his head. Although if he was paralyzed from the neck down, I suppose he could still function as president. But when we elect a person, we have chosen him. And that means his head and all the other parts of him. He’s one person. And Paul says many times, we are one body in Christ. So in Christ, we share in his privilege and status. We’re joint heirs with him, the Bible says in Romans. You know, we are one body. so that there’s no Jew or Gentile or slave or free in him. In Christ, we all share the status of being chosen in him. Now, notice he doesn’t say in verse 4, we were chosen to be in him. Like, okay, so here’s this body of Christ, and God chose somebody to be part of that. Now, Paul doesn’t ever say that. Paul doesn’t say we were chosen to be part of it. He says we are chosen in him. That is true. Collectively, all who are in him share in his chosen state because of his merits, because he is chosen. So when people think of election or predestination as God selecting individuals to be saved and other individuals, he just decides not to select them to be saved. Not only do we get a picture of God’s character that is contrary to what the Bible teaches us, Because God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, it says in the Old Testament. The New Testament says he’s not willing that any should perish. So if God, if the Calvinist is right and God just has unilateral activity choosing some to be saved, well, then he would choose all to be saved because he wants all to be saved. So the truth is that God wants all to be saved, but not all are because not all want to be saved. But those who do, those who do embrace Christ, those who do trust in him, are incorporated into him. And he is chosen. And so all who are in him are chosen with him or in him as being part of him. And that’s what Paul means by in Christ. So he’s not talking about individuals being selected to be in Christ. He’s talking about all believers collectively are in Christ and in Christ are chosen. My wife usually wants me to give the illustration that I sometimes have given of a high school football team that my son was in when he was younger, when he was in high school. He didn’t play football very much, but he was on the team. And one day he came home and said, you know, our team was chosen for the privilege of playing a televised game in a certain location against another team. You know, high school football teams coveted this particular privilege. I don’t remember the details. But he told me his team had been chosen for this, you know, publicized game. And he was on the team. So he could say we were chosen. However, by the time that that game was played, he had left the team. He wasn’t on the team. The team was still chosen. But he chose not to be on it. You see, a team can be chosen without reference to who comprises the team. The team collectively is chosen. And a person may join the team after the team was chosen or leave the team. It’s not the individuals who are chosen. It’s the team. It’s the collective. And so, likewise, the body of Christ is made up of those who have decided to be Christians. And as a collective, that group is chosen, chosen for glory, chosen to become like Jesus. And another famous verse on this subject that Calvinists do like to use, but they use it wrongly again, is in Romans chapter 8, verse 29, where it says, For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Now, whom he foreknew, that’s the ones that he has chosen, that he’s predestined. Now, what did he predestine them for? Not for salvation. It doesn’t say that. The ones he foreknew are the ones who are saved. being foreknown in this sense is referring to those who have come to Christ, who are saved, or what we might call those who are now elect because they’re in Christ. But he says for those people that he foreknew, he has predestined a certain destiny or fate, namely that they will be conformed, or we could say we will be conformed, into the image of God’s Son, Jesus. And that is the destiny of Christians, that he has called the collective body of Christ to. It says in 1 John 3, I think it’s verse 2, it says, Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we’ll see him as he is. That’s what God has selected. That’s the destiny that God has predestined for his people. Now, it doesn’t say that he has predestined who’s going to be one of those people. His people are collective. They’re the body of Christ. They’re those of whom Christ is the head. They’re the fullness of him who fills all in all, Paul says. So what God has done is predestined a certain glory, a certain privilege, a certain role for those that he foreknew. Now, those he foreknew refers to Christians of all time. But what he’s predestined is not that someone would be one of those people and someone would not be. Paul doesn’t ever raise that issue. He says, no, what God has predestined for them is that they will enjoy someday being conformed to the image of God’s Son. That’s a privilege only for Christians, Paul says, those who are in Christ. When we understand election as Paul spoke of it, we realize that it’s not really Calvinistic at all. Everybody believes that God has chosen Christ. And those who are in him for certain things. But the question is, did God choose who will be in him or not? The Bible always puts the responsibility for that on the individual person. I can choose to be in Christ or not, once I’ve heard the gospel. And if I choose to be in, I join the chosen people. And I’m chosen in them. Just like in Israel, in the Old Testament. Israel was the chosen nation. The individuals were not chosen. The nation was chosen collectively. How do we know this? Because anyone could join Israel. A Gentile could be circumcised and become part of Israel. Or anyone could be cut out of Israel by committing murder or idolatry. Someone could have to be cut off from the people. Now, what we see there is whether somebody new joins or somebody who’s been there is cut out, Still, Israel is still the chosen nation. And anyone who is in Israel shared in the chosen status of the nation. But it doesn’t mean they were chosen to be in it. They are in it and as such are chosen in it. So that’s how Paul understands Christ. He’s the new Israel. So in the Old Testament, you want to be one of God’s chosen people, you’ve got to be part of Israel. And you could be if you want to. In the New Testament, you’ve got to be one of God’s chosen people. You’ve got to be in Christ because he’s the chosen one. So that’s how Paul talks about election.
SPEAKER 06 :
So essentially it’s that if you have chosen to be a Christian, you are predestined for this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, if you choose to persevere in Christ, in other words, if you follow Christ, And persevere to the end, you’ll be saved. And those who have done so will find that God has a great destiny. He’s predestined for all of them, namely to be like Jesus. Gotcha. Thank you so much. That helps. Okay, Kurt. God bless you. Good talking to you. Bye now. Tim from Atlanta, Georgia, welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for hosting this program. So how are you? Fine, thanks. Okay, so I had some questions about the story of Job, and I was wondering whether or not the way in which God related to Job is a common scenario for many believers or people who try to, you know, strive to follow Jesus. Okay. Additionally, I’m wondering, is it possible for people to, let’s say, be provided the circumstances similar to Job, but maybe not actually receive the abundant blessing that he received, let’s say, on earth in the end?
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. I mean, Job in some ways is a paradigm of all believers, but like all believers have their own individual circumstances, he had his. I mean, not all believers start out as the richest person in their country as he did. And certainly not everyone lose all their property and their health and their family on one day. In those respects, Job is not like everybody. And also at the end of the story, God restored him. He was wealthier than ever and had the same amount of children as before. And, you know, God made it up to him all in this life. Now, that doesn’t happen to everybody, no. The way that Job is a paradigm of all people, I believe, and I say so because this is what I think the Bible teaches both in the Old and the New Testament. is that God puts a hedge around or protection around his people who trust him. And that’s the problem that Satan complained about in chapter 1. You’ve put a hedge around him. I can’t touch him. I can’t hurt him. And so God does protect his people. It says in Psalm 34, the angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear him and delivers them. So God has put a detail of security around us of his angels. so that no one can hurt us until God allows it, obviously. God, who has set up the hedge, can also open it if he wishes. Now, what we find is that God does test Job. He allows Satan to go through that hedge with limited access, and he determines how much the devil will be allowed to do and how much the devil will not be allowed to do. He delineates it for him. And Satan is able to hurt Job in just the ways that God says he can, and he cannot beyond that. So God is still controlling Job’s safety and his circumstances, though he’s allowing him to be tested with trials to see if he will remain loyal. This is what trials are for, to see if we’ll remain loyal to God or whether we’ll throw him over because we’re unhappy with the way he’s providing trials. for us, or dealing with us. So the devil was testing Job, and so was God, and everyone is tested today. There’s not been a person who’s lived who’s never been tested. Even Adam and Eve or even Jesus was tested by the devil in the wilderness. So it’s a universal experience of man, and Job is like the universal man in that respect. It’s just that his special circumstances, his wealth, his health, taking away those particular things, the restoring of them later, those are unique dealings of God with that one man. Now, lots of times, God lets us go through those kinds of trials and does restore things in this life. But, of course, if he doesn’t, we know something Job never probably understood very well, and that is that there’s a judgment and God’s going to right all the wrongs and reward everyone according to their works. So we know that there will be a reward and a vindication of those who deserve it, who should be vindicated, even if we don’t get repaid in this life.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Also, I was just… With regards to the story of Job, I also was thinking about how God dealt with the nation of Israel. And I’m not certain if there are many examples in which, you know, when the nation of Israel was at its best in terms of being upright as a nation and righteous, that God tested them really severely, you could say, the way that God tested Job. So I’m wondering whether or not there are examples like that, or whether God… maybe relates to nations or collective groups of people differently than individuals?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I don’t know. I mean, God can do the same thing with nations. In the case of Israel, usually when they were innocent like Job, they didn’t go through those kind of hardships. God promised in Deuteronomy 28 that if they were obedient to him, he’d bless them as a nation. Now, that doesn’t mean every Israelite in the nation would be wealthy. It doesn’t mean that nobody would get sick, but it means that the nation as a whole, collectively as a nation, would be exalted, would be spared from disastrous famines and invasions and so forth, that God would care for the nation if they were obedient. But he also said in that same chapter, Deuteronomy 28, beginning at verse 15, he said, if you don’t obey me, then it’s all going to come down on you like crazy, you know, really bad stuff. Famine, invasions, you know, you’re going to be hurting. Which is the kind of thing that happened to Job, though Job had not been disobedient. So in a sense, God’s dealing with Israel is not the same as it was with Job. Because Job was tested when he was not doing anything wrong. And God promised Israel that he wouldn’t do that to them when they are not doing anything wrong. Of course, they did evil so often that that didn’t really… It didn’t prevent God from bringing those kinds of things on them frequently because they brought it on themselves. But does God deal with nations the same? I think that nations, God will deal with them more in terms of their own righteousness and retribution for their good or bad deeds. Whereas Christians, as individuals, might go through great trials. I mean, Jesus died. not only was tested by the devil in the wilderness, he also was tested with Gethsemane and the cross and so forth, and Jesus hadn’t done anything wrong. So working with individuals, or Stephen, who was stoned to death, who hadn’t done anything wrong, or Paul, who suffered more than any other apostle through beatings and floggings and imprisonments and eventually beheaded, you know, Paul didn’t do anything wrong to deserve that. So I don’t think that God’s dealing with individuals is, generally speaking, the same as his dealing with nations. Nations will eventually get what they deserve entirely. And so will Christians eventually, but in this life, not necessarily. Christians are often treated very badly, unfairly, and die without being vindicated. But in eternity, they will be vindicated. So it’s a little different.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. You know, also when we think about the way that God, let’s say, dealt with nations, like I guess I would say, let’s say in the Old Testament, he might have supported, let’s say, Israel in defeating groups of people or defeating other regions because, let’s say, that region was sinful or practicing evil and, let’s say, taking their possessions away. eradicating the individuals and that would not apply to let’s say on an individual basis right like you know that’s why I’m thinking maybe the way that God deals with nations is different than dealing with human by human because on an individual basis he would not say you know you can just attack your neighbor because your neighbor is doing evil and that you can take the possessions right and even Israel wasn’t given carte blanche to just destroy people whenever they thought they had done evil
SPEAKER 03 :
God did tell them to destroy the Canaanites because God said these people had become so evil that they had to be exterminated, and he chose Israel to be the instrument. It may be that I would have neighbors who do things that are worthy of death, but I haven’t been appointed by God to go and be the executioner. The Bible does say that the government has been appointed to do that. If people do things worthy of death, the government is God’s agent of wrath. But I’m not. So, yeah, there’s different – well, but see, Israel was not allowed to go and do that to anyone else just because they thought they were bad. They were told to do it in cases that God told them to do it in. And then the rest of the time they couldn’t do it without his instruction. And that was most of the time. Israel never set out. on a campaign of destroying all the pagans in the world. Some people think, well, what God did in the Old Testament through Israel is like jihad in Islam. No, no. Actually, in Islam, in the Koran, people who are not the people of Allah are to convert or die. Now, I realize that not everything in the Quran says that, and there’s conflicting things in the Quran. So some people say, well, Islam doesn’t teach that. But it did. It did teach that. And whereas the Bible doesn’t say to the Jews, go and convert the Canaanites or they’ll die. No, he just said, kill them. He wasn’t looking to convert them. They were a nation that had become so wicked that they had to be just removed. And just like Sodom and Gomorrah were removed without Israel’s intervention, because Israel didn’t exist yet, but God did that to himself. So, you know, God doesn’t, you know, national behavior and individual behavior are not exactly the same thing. Though, of course, nations can be judged for their bad behavior, they’re not allowed to just go and kill people who are bad. However, the government is supposed to punish criminals within their own borders for Because that’s what God has appointed nations to do, to keep the nation safe for the innocent citizens. And that means when there’s aggressive criminals hurting the innocent, the nation’s government is supposed to help protect them. I need to take a break here. I appreciate your call. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming up. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us out, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California. 92593. Or you can go to our website. Everything’s free, but you can donate at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
In a 16 lecture series entitled The Authority of Scriptures, Steve Gregg not only thoroughly presents the case for the Bible’s authority, but also explains specifically how this truth is to be applied to a believer’s daily walk and outlook. The Authority of Scriptures, as well as hundreds of other stimulating lectures, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another Half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, I’d love to talk to you about them. Right now our lines are full, so it won’t do any good to call at the moment. But if you call in a few minutes, it may be that a line will have opened up. Very common. It does happen. The number to call would be, at that time, whenever you kind of randomly try later on, 844- Our next caller is A.K. from Batesville, Arkansas. Hi, A.K., good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thanks, sir. Thank you for my call, Steve. This isn’t all that significant, but I was going to ask you about if you’ve seen the movie Joseph with Ben Kingsley.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s an old movie, right?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, well, it was a TV series, I think.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, I do remember when it was out. I did not see it. I might have seen a part of one episode or something, but I don’t – no, I can’t say that I saw the whole movie.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I was saying because, you know, a couple weeks ago you were talking about movies that you watched, and, well, so I’m just – I was going to say I think this is an excellent movie, and I don’t like very many Bible movies. Uh-huh. But – I would recommend that one if you ever watch it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s good to know. That’s good to know. It’s good to have a good recommendation. Yeah, it’s a good movie. Good acting, too. Yeah, Ben Kingsley’s good. Okay, so is that it?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, no, that was all. I heard you talking about you didn’t like a lot of Bible movies, and I think the same way. But this one is really good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, well, good. Maybe I’ll make a point of finding that while I’m watching it. Thank you, brother. Okay, God bless you. Bye now. Slavic from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ve got a question about, hey, in Isaiah 51, verse 7, it says, Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. And Jeremiah 31 says, also states basically the same thing when addressing the new covenant, when he says that I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. I guess that this is not a new, you know, situation.
SPEAKER 03 :
Something unique. Yeah, something unique to the new covenant. All right. Well, to have God’s law in the heart, is something that is spoken of in the Old Testament. David, writing in Psalm 40, said in verse 8, I delight to do your will, O my God, and your law is within my heart. Now, of course, that verse is quoted in Hebrews as being Jesus speaking, but when David wrote that, I don’t know that he knew it was Jesus speaking. I think he was writing about himself, and he’s a type of Christ, and so his words are considered to be something Christ would say. too. But he says, your law is within my heart. We certainly know that in Psalm 119, he meditated day and night on the law of God. So it would certainly be in his heart in that sense. Yeah, in Isaiah 51, right, listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people in whose heart is my law. I think what that means in the Old Testament is that they have devoted themselves to his law. Their hearts are are attuned to his law and that they love his law and they delight in it. It says in Psalm 1.1, the righteous man, in verse 1 through 3, it says that in God’s law he delights. I think that’s what it means to say your law is in my heart. Now, when God says in Jeremiah 31 that in the new covenant, which of course had not yet come when any of these Old Testament things were written, one feature of the New Covenant would be that God would write his law in their hearts and put his ways in their inward parts. Now, that doesn’t mean that such things had never happened before. It just means that this would be so with everyone in the covenant. Now, certainly in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, And people had the law written on stones, and all of Israel had that law, but they didn’t all have it written in their hearts. Only what we might call the remnant did. The faithful remnant loved God and loved his laws and meditated on them and cherished them and delighted in them. I say those people had his law in their hearts. Most of the nation, though they were Israel and though they were under the old covenant, didn’t have the law in their hearts. It was unusual, and that’s why they rebelled so much. But when Jeremiah 31 is talking about the new covenant, he’s talking about something that there’s going to be something that God’s going to do with the faithful remnant of Israel, and I think he’s going to redefine Israel as only those who have these new covenant connections. That is, only those who come to Christ, embrace the new covenant, they will all have his law in their hearts. And it goes on later, it says, They shall not say to every man his neighbor and every man his brother, know the Lord, because they shall all know me, from the least unto the greatest. Now, that’s another thing different. The old covenant, there were people who knew God, but it wasn’t true that all of them did. And so what he’s saying, I think, is that as the old covenant put the law on people externally and didn’t necessarily impact their inward hearts, Yet all Israel was under that covenant. Only a remnant of them were really in their hearts what all of them should have been. The people who knew God, people who loved God, people who loved his law. They were there, but they weren’t everywhere. All of them weren’t there. Some of them were there in Israel and others were not. But the new covenant will be made with a new society who are all described this way. His law will be in all their hearts. They will all know him from the least to the greatest. And another thing, too, in the Old Testament, of course, it talks about the Spirit of God being given to some people. Some people had the Spirit of God and some did not in Israel. In the New Covenant, it says he’s going to prod his Spirit on all flesh. And your sons and daughters and servants and maidservants and so forth will all be filled with the Spirit. We’ll all have the Spirit that the prophets in the Old Testament had. So what’s going on there is that even before Jesus came, even before there was a new covenant, there were individuals, the faithful remnant in Israel, who could be described in these terms. They had God’s spirit. They knew God. His law was in their hearts. But most of them, that wasn’t the description of them. In the new covenant, the only people in that covenant will be the people who have those characteristics. And in other words, what’s going to happen when Jesus came is, and made the New Covenant with the disciples in the upper room, it applies to those who are his disciples, to those who are born again, who have devoted themselves to Christ, who continue in his words and are his disciples indeed. So the New Covenant is for that remnant of Israel, which the disciples were, that fit this description, and all the people in the New Covenant did. have this characteristic. Now, if someone says, well, I go to church, I don’t think I could say that all the people I know there fit that description. Well, then they’re not in the new covenant. Everyone in the new covenant will. That’s what Jeremiah said. And Jesus said that he made the new covenant with his disciples, and obviously by extension with the church after that, or through them. They’re the representatives. When God made the old covenant at Mount Sinai, He had Moses bring 70 elders up on the hillside to have a covenantal meal. He made the covenant with the representatives of the nation, the leadership. And they had a meal. And that’s what Jesus did with the disciples. The apostles were the leadership of the new covenant group. And they had a covenant meal at the Last Supper. So he basically replaced the Sinaitic covenant and the people who were defined by it. which was the whole nation of Israel, with the new covenant and the people who were defined by it, which was only the faithful remnant of Israel. So there were people in the Old Testament who did have those characteristics, but most of Israel did not. But in the new covenant, only those who do have those characteristics are in it, are in Israel. So that’s how I understand that juxtaposition of those things.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Thanks a lot. Ken from Las Vegas, Nevada. Thanks for waiting. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. Hello. Hi. My question is Romans chapter 16, verse 7. I’m going to read it from the King James. Okay. It says, Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles. And the question is twofold. One, Junia, which… from everything I can tell, is female. Is she to be included among the apostles, which seems to be what many, or at least some scholars seem to say. So should we look upon Junia as an apostle?
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, when people are arguing for female pastors, they often bring this up. They say, well, you know, Paul… recognize a woman as an apostle. So how can you not recognize a woman as a pastor? Well, for one thing, apostles and pastors are not the same thing. They have different roles. And so, you know, it may be that one role would be more suited for women, and another role would not be suited for them at all. So, I mean, whatever Paul says about elders, which is what pastors are, doesn’t have to conform to what he might think about apostles. Now, this matter of Junia There are several controversies as to the meaning of Paul’s statement. Andronicus and Junia may have been a man and woman, possibly married couple. Although, I think in the King James, if I’m not mistaken, her name is given as Junius, which is a male form.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, it’s no S in the King James.
SPEAKER 03 :
Not in the King James? Okay, it is some places. I’m not looking at the King James, so I don’t remember. But so it was disputed when I was younger in commentators and so forth. It was disputed. whether this was a woman or a man. Now, I think modern commentators are undisputed among themselves. They don’t dispute it. They believe it was a woman, which is fine. I’ve got no problem with that. Then the next question is, okay, suppose it’s a woman, and Andronicus and Junius are a man and a woman. which I think many would assume a husband and wife, like Priscilla and Aquila. Then it says that they are of note among the apostles. Now, that term is ambiguous because some have said that means they are among the apostles as apostles, that they belong to the apostolic company and are of note among them. But others have thought, well, of note among the apostles means that they are considered notable in the opinions of the apostles. Of the apostles, these people are notable. That is, among the apostles, that’s the opinion they have of them. They’re highly regarded by the apostles. And that could be true, too. Now, in other words, there’s a fair amount of ambiguity that has always surrounded this statement. But let’s go with the position that, just for the sake of argument, because the people who use it are usually arguing for a position I don’t hold. I don’t hold that women can be pastors, but those who argue for Junius being an apostle and a woman usually are trying to argue for women to be pastors. So, just for the sake of, you know, not arguing that point, specifically, let’s accept for the sake of argument, at least, that this is saying there’s an apostle named Junius, or Junia, who is a woman. Okay, that’s fine. The Bible doesn’t say there can’t be an apostle who’s a woman. We don’t know of any women that were apostles other than this. And a lot of people are called apostles, by the way. There’s the Twelve. And then, of course, Matthias was added to them when Judas left. Paul was an apostle. Barnabas is called an apostle also in Acts chapter 14. And Paul’s companions with him in ministry who were not of the same status as Paul himself, they’re called apostles. But Paul does distinguish between apostles of Christ, like himself, and apostles of the churches, as the term he uses in 2 Corinthians 8.23, of his companions. Paul, an apostle of Christ, traveled with people who were apostles of the churches. Now, the word apostle means one who is sent or one who is dispatched. An apostle of Christ has been dispatched by Christ himself, like Paul and Peter and those guys. And Barnabas was too, I believe, because a prophetic word sent him out. But many people who traveled with Paul were apostles in the second sense. They were dispatched by the churches. That’s why they’re called apostles of the churches rather than apostles of Christ. They’re emissaries of the church that sent them out. And Paul wasn’t sent out specifically by one church only, but by Christ himself on the road to Damascus. So apostles can refer to either one. The second kind, what we call apostles, what Paul called apostles of churches, can be what we call missionaries. Missionaries are sent out by churches all the time. In fact, the word missionary comes from the Latin word for apostle. Apostolos is Greek. Missionary is an English word derived from the Latin version of the same word. So missionaries are apostles of the churches. They are not on the same level with the Twelve or with Paul. who are apostles of Christ, but they’re apostles. So could Andronicus and Junius be apostles of the churches? Sure. Sure, why not? I mean, if a man and his wife are sent out on a mission, they’re both sent out. They’re both missionaries. And so there’s no problem with that. Now, this would not even come close to addressing the question of female pastors. Missionaries, by definition, are not settled into a church. They’re not overseeing the church. They’re planting churches. They’re agents going out to start churches and evangelize areas. A pastor or an elder is somebody who’s settled in the area and oversees the congregation, preferably long term. There’s a very different kind of responsibility of apostles on the one hand and elders on the other. So even if we allow that Junia was a female apostle, that’s fine. You know, Peter and his wife went out together. We don’t know her name, but Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9 that Peter took his wife around with him when he went around. I assume they were both considered to be sent out. You know, he was an apostle of Christ and she would be, you know, sent out from the churches, you know, due to her obvious connection to him. So I don’t think Paul or anyone in the early church would have problems with the idea that couples could be apostolic couples, you know. So, I mean, that’s how I understand that verse.
SPEAKER 05 :
I appreciate your insight. I really do. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, Ken. Good talking to you. Let’s talk to David from Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, David. Hey, Steve. How are you?
SPEAKER 09 :
Good, thanks. I appreciate the call. I’m calling on behalf of a friend. It’s a friend of mine, and he runs a Bible study with another brother, and this second gentleman has an issue with anger to the point that he’s actually slapped his wife. So me and my friend are in agreement. that this other gentleman should not be allowed to be a leader anymore. He needs to step down. But there’s been – my friend is frustrated that he’s unable to help this other brother. He’s very defensive. He’s blame-shifting. And so he says, hey, do you not have any Godly sorrow? He says, I don’t have any Godly sorrow because God put on my heart that he knew I would do this, and I’m forgiven, and I’m loved. And so it’s kind of gone around and around. I’m trying to help my friend. He’s trying to speak the truth of love to his friends. Christians who do wrong things. My thing is just real quick that he’s acting immature, and he’s not submitted to the Lord or to the Word. And what say you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Christians who do wrong things can be forgiven and loved. That doesn’t mean they can be leaders. It’s very clear that if you’re going to lead somebody, you have to be an example. uh i don’t know what this man who you know slaps his wife and loses his temper i don’t know what he thinks leadership is if he thinks maybe he’s thinking of like secular leadership where someone has authority over other people jesus said that’s how the gent the pagans their leaders exercise authority over them but he said it should not be so among you and it’s very clear when there’s someone taking some kind of spiritual leadership, that they have to be spiritually an example. For example, when Paul addressed the elders in Ephesus in Acts chapter 20, or when Peter addressed the elders in 1 Peter chapter 5, he makes it very clear that leading is setting an example. Now, any man who loses his temper like that is not setting an example that anyone should follow, and therefore he shouldn’t lead. That sounds pretty simple.
SPEAKER 09 :
It seems like, and my friend’s concern is that he’s kind of hiding in kind of a Calvinistic kind of mindset where, oh, God knew I would do this, and it was inevitable. Okay, well, I talk about free will versus… Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Our sinning is not inevitable. That’s our choice. That’s why we’re responsible for it. That’s why God will judge us for it. If it was inevitable, it’s like inevitable that I’ll breathe while I’m asleep. Why? Because I have no choice in the matter. My body will do that. I’m not telling it to. It just does it. Okay, so that’s inevitable. If it was wrong to breathe in my sleep, then I’d be in trouble because I couldn’t make any choice about it. I’d have to do the wrong thing. But we don’t have to do the wrong thing. And no one can hold a person responsible for sleeping and doing something in their sleep, but they can certainly be responsible for wrong choices they make, especially when they harm other people and set a bad example for younger Christians. That’s really inexcusable. Now, I’m not saying that all Christians are going to be perfectly governing their temper at all points in time, but if they’re not, they’re not the kind of person that can be an example. Now, if he says, well, God knew I would do these things, well, maybe he did. If he did, he knew you shouldn’t be a leader. The question is not what God knew or didn’t know. The question is, did he put restrictions on those who would be public leaders in the church? When someone is a public leader in the church, what it does is it basically advertises the Christian norm as being what they are doing. And so someone needs to be careful about that, for sure. And, you know, it’s very specific. When Paul is talking about those who are elders, and that’s not just being pastors, that’s being a leader. Anyone that’s setting examples for the younger ones. He says that the man should be one who rules his own house well. It says in 1 Timothy 3, 4. He has his children in all submission with reverence. It says in verse 3, he’s not quarrelsome, he’s gentle. Not covetous, not greedy for money. So I would say a man who strikes his wife is not in any sense gentle. And he’s not qualified to lead, to be an example to Christians. And if he’s not an example to Christians, he doesn’t really belong in leadership. We also have the same thing. about leaders in Titus chapter 1, verse 6 says, If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination, a bishop, which means an overseer, must be blameless, the steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine. Okay, so if he’s not quick-tempered, then obviously your friend who is quick-tempered It doesn’t belong in leadership. It’s just that simple. I mean, we don’t need to make a big case theologically about it. There’s a person who is a leader is supposed to set an example. If they can’t set an example, then they should step down out of leadership before they lead people wrongly because people do follow the examples of their leaders. And if that man is doing what Christians should never allow themselves to do, and yet he’s setting himself up as an example, then if somebody follows him and does what he does, then he is stumbling people, and he should have a millstone put around his neck and be thrown into the sea. That’s Jesus saying that. If somebody stumbles somebody, well, you’re certainly doing that if you’re setting a bad example for people who are committed to following you. then you’re stumbling them. And, you know, to me, it’s frankly a no-brainer. But even if you have your brain turned up to 10 on the dial, you’d see it clearly, too. I mean, you don’t put someone in leadership unless they’re what you want everyone to become.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right? Thank you, Steve. I appreciate that. I’ll see you Sunday morning in Scottsdale.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, David. Good. Look forward to it. Let’s see here. Longest waiting is Tom from Lewiston, Maine. Welcome, Tom.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Steve. Appreciate you. I’m looking for some scripture I can look at to help me get my head around this. You know, in the garden when God said, when they ate the fruit in dying, you will die. Now, if my spirit comes from God… I don’t understand how God’s spirit can die. Is the human spirit different than God’s spirit? Absolutely.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, God’s spirit is eternal.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, right. That’s why I didn’t see how that, if he gave me part of his spirit, that’s kind of what I always thought.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, it’s not. No, no. Only when you’re born again does his spirit come to be in you, but you still have your own human spirit, which is distinguished.
SPEAKER 04 :
But what scripture says that? Where can I look?
SPEAKER 03 :
Romans chapter 8, Paul says that the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. So if one being is bearing witness to another being, they are not the same being.
SPEAKER 04 :
But I mean, where does it say that? So the human spirit, when it’s created and put in the earth, it’s like that’s not eternal. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no. Only God possesses immortality. That’s what Paul said in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 16. God has put a spirit in man. And initially, he breathed his own spirit into man, too. But, of course, I believe that not all people have the spirit of God in them now. In fact, the Bible specifically says not all have the spirit. But it’s Romans 8, 16. It says the spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit, himself bears witness with our spirit that we’re the children of God. So our spirit and the Holy Spirit communicate with each other. And therefore, they are two parties. So… Yeah, the human spirit is not the same as the Holy Spirit. But when the believer is born again, he’s born of the Spirit of God, and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside of him. But it wasn’t that the man had no spirit at all before that.
SPEAKER 04 :
I guess that’s what I don’t understand. Is that a result of the first sin?
SPEAKER 03 :
What, the loss of God’s Spirit? I would say so. Yeah, I mean… When you rebel against God, you certainly grieve the Holy Spirit. And we’re told not to do that. And so I don’t think the Holy Spirit dwelt in Adam and Eve after that. We know that Moses didn’t believe that everybody had the Holy Spirit in them because he said, would to God, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that he’d put his spirit in all of them. You know, so Paul didn’t see it. I mean, Moses didn’t see everyone having the spirit. Only the prophets and a few others did. Anyway, that’s how it reads. Thank you for your call. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregan. If you didn’t hear earlier in the program, if you’re in Arizona, I’ll be speaking in Arizona. I’ll be in Tucson tomorrow night. I’ll be in Maricopa the next night. And on Saturday, I’ll be three places. I’ll be in Goodyear, Peoria, and Buckeye. All on Saturday, speaking. And then on Sunday, I’ll be in the Scottsdale area. So… If you’re interested, go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under announcements. If you’d like to donate to help us stay on the air, you can also go to our website and look under donate. The website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
