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Good afternoon, and welcome to The Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for an hour today, as usual. And during that hour, you can call in with your questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, if you have them.
Feel free to call. I’d be glad to talk to you about them here. The number to call is 844-484-5737.
Right now, I’m looking at a switchboard with quite a few open lines. So if you want to get through today, this may be the best chance you’ll have during the hour. The number is 844-484-5737.
And if you live in Washington state, you may be interested in knowing that I’ll be speaking at a variety of places in Western Washington for the next two weeks. And tonight I’m speaking in Arlington, which is pretty far north of where most of the places are I’m speaking. But if you’re interested in joining us there or at any of the other meetings, they’re all listed at our website, thenarrowpath.com.
That’s thenarrowpath.com. Under a tab you’ll find there that says Announcements. There you’ll find all the information about this meeting tonight and all the other meetings that we’ll be involved in.
All right, we’re going to go to the phones now and talk to Michael in Connecticut. Michael, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Hi, Steve. Just a minute. I wanted to talk to you today.
Thank you so much for taking the call. So I found a new church. I’ve been to it before, but I couldn’t go consistently to an Anglican church, a church of the Redeemer in Santa Cruz, Father Rob Patterson.
I don’t know if you’ve met him. Are you aware?
I don’t know him.
Have you heard of him?
No.
All right. No, I don’t know him. All right.
All right. Anyway, I’ve been going to the Sunday morning service. And just, you know, for years and years, I come away, I’m so touched at the core of my being.
And yesterday, Father Rob had a… He has an occasional class, How to Connect After the Service, Connect Class, I think he calls it. So I actually am considering being baptized, because it’s so profound.
Well, that’s great. Have you decided to finally surrender to Christ after all these years?
Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, because my theology or world view is at odds with my heart. And I, you know, what I’ve experienced is just, and this was at the Calvary Chapel in Athos for years, and other churches that I went to, and being in your meetings, and listening to Christian radio, the quality of love is off the meter. You know, it’s just such…
Well, you’ve often mentioned that, and for those of you who are new listeners, Michael has been calling this program for 20 years, probably. 2004. Yeah, 20 years now.
And Michael has not been identified as a Christian, but he’s of Jewish background who became Buddhist in his adult life, and he’s been a Buddhist seeker, I guess, for 20 years. But he has been attending Christian churches. Like he mentioned, he attended the Calvary Chapel for a long time.
Now he’s looking into an Anglican church or Episcopal church. Well, it’d be a real step for you. And like you’ve said, you’ve said many times you feel much more of the presence of God or the Holy Spirit when you’re in Christian groups.
And so it’s always surprised me and many others over the years why you haven’t taken the plunge, but you still, as you say, your theology in your mind is probably more along Buddhist lines than Christian lines. Is that what I’m to understand you say?
Yeah. The theology, of course, etymology, theos is God, I guess.
It’s technically true Buddhism.
Yeah. Atheistic, in a certain sense. But anyway, for years and years and years, as you know, and people know me, I was trying to reconcile a seemingly un-reconcilable, radical philosophical or theological difference.
Well, let me suggest this to you, Michael, because you’re asking about being baptized. Yeah, you should realize that being baptized is making a commitment to be a follower of Christ, which, as you know, is not going to hurt you any, after all the followers of Christ you’ve been around, you’ve had a good experience with them. But it does mean you’re going to have to embrace Christ as your Lord, and that’s a great thing.
You know, everyone should do that. Once you do so, you should be prepared to be humble enough to allow the teaching of Christ to change your world view in any area where it may need to be changed. So if you say, well, I’m very much interested in following Christ for the rest of my life.
A lot of things I believe or have always believed might not be in line with what Christ said, but I’m going to put Christ in the position to correct me, if he will. And that’s pretty much what submission to his Lordship means. You know, if he comes your rabbi, he comes your Lord, you’re going to look to him for answers to the big questions.
And every person, no matter whether they come out of Buddhism or atheism, or even just out of even a nominally Christian background, everyone has got to be prepared for the fact that we’ve got some ideas wrong. We need to be corrected on some things. And as far as deciding what to use as the standard for correcting beliefs, the Christian view is that Jesus is that standard.
So if you feel that you want to make your commitment to Christ and from this point on, learn from him. because that’s what Jesus said. Jesus said, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
He didn’t say that the moment you become a follower of his, you’ll know everything, right? But you’ll learn from him. You’ll have his yoke upon you.
That’s a term the Jews use for being under the yoke of a rabbi. That is, you had accepted or submitted to his teaching and were his follower now. That’s taking his yoke upon you.
So Jesus said, we have to take my yoke on you and learn from me. And if that’s the commitment you want to make, then I’d certainly encourage it. On the other hand, if you’re thinking, well, I’m still going to hold on to all the views that I don’t want to let go of, but I do like the good vibes, I feel when I’m in the presence of Christians.
No, no, no, no. I would not be the wishy-washy. That’s why I’m talking to you and other people.
Well, that’s great.
Yeah. But I know you have other cause, but here’s the last thing I want to say. So I dropped out of Hebrew school before I was bar mitzvahed, because the teaching, the curriculum in the Hebrew school was asking me to believe things that I thought I could not possibly know, you know, empirically.
I can’t see a God in heaven. All of this is beyond my perceptual range. I’m not saying there is no God, but if I just took that out of the belief, it’s not anything that I can know scientifically or empirically.
Well, there are many things that people cannot know scientifically, even very basic things like the love you say you feel or the presence of God when you’re in a church. Science can’t test that, because we’re not merely physical beings. And as a Buddhist yourself, you would recognize that we’re spiritual beings of a sort.
And therefore, a lot of the most genuine experiences are those that are of a spiritual sort that the scientific laboratory could say nothing about. So, I’d say that you’ve been thinking about this for a long time. And if this is the commitment you’re going to make, by all means, do so.
And I’ll be glad to talk to you afterward and hear what you thoughts are.
Yeah, the main, Steve, my final thought. Are you still there? Yes, quickly.
You know what, my final thought. The thing that again and again, it just sort of boils down to for me is that this is what maybe is not so much in Buddhism. The sense that there’s something, someone, presumably Jesus, that actually cares for the plight of human beings, the compassion.
That’s what touches me to the max.
Which is something Dharma does not do.
Well, on paper it doesn’t, in later forms of Buddhism. But in actual practice, it doesn’t feel quite the same.
Well, Michael, I’m really glad to hear this news, and I appreciate you calling to let us know. And I hope you’ll, if you take that step, you’ll call me back and we’ll talk about it some more.
Okay, Steve. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Michael. Good talking to you.
Same here. Bye-bye.
Bye now. All right. Our next caller is also another Michael from Inglewood, California.
Michael, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hello.
Thanks, Steve.
I’m calling because I have a quick question about Luke 1737, where it says, Where’s over the body is? There there will the eagles be gathered together. What does that mean?
I’m kind of lost.
Sure. Actually, Jesus made that statement twice. He made it when he was on the Mount of Olives, Jesus giving me all of the discourse in Matthew 24.
But he also gave it in another context in Luke 17, when he was talking about the second coming of Christ, in my opinion. And just before he says that, he says, In that day, there will be two sleeping in one bed. One will be taken at the other left.
Two will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken at the other left. Two will be working in the field.
One will be taken at the other left. And his disciples said, Where, Lord? So that’s what leads to his statement here.
He said that one will be taken and the other will be left. And his disciples don’t seem to have a clue of what he’s talking about. What do you mean they’ll be taken?
Where? Where will they be? Where will they be taken?
And he says, Well, where the corpse is or where the body is, that’s where the eagles will be gathered together. Some translators think maybe it should be vultures, but eagles works also because both vultures and eagles do accumulate around dead bodies to eat the corpse. I’ve seen both.
But the point here is they said, where are they taken to? And he says, Well, wherever the corpses are, you’ll see the eagles gather. In other words, it’s like saying where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
You know, if there’s a fire, you’ll see the smoke. If there’s dead bodies, you’ll see the gathering birds. Now, this is suggesting very cryptically, that those who are taken are taken in judgment.
They are killed. And that’s not too surprising because Jesus also compared it to in a parallel passage in Matthew 24. He compared it to the days of Noah, where he said that in the ark, the day that Noah entered the ark, the flood came and it says the people outside the ark didn’t know it was coming until the flood came and took them all away.
And then he says, And so shall it be, when the Son of Man comes, one will be taken and be over left. Those that were taken away were the ones outside the ark who were killed. Taken means they were taken out of this world.
They were taken, not carried into the sky. They just died. They departed.
They were judged and died. And so Jesus, when he talks about one should be taken and be over left, is saying that when Jesus comes back, though two people may be in close proximity, if one of them is an unbeliever, that person will be taken. That is killed, judged, just like those people outside the Ark were taken.
Whereas the others that are left are like the people in the Ark. They survived. They remained untaken.
They were unhurt. So this statement about where the corpses are, the eagles will be gathered, is basically kind of a cryptic answer to their question. You said, Lord, these people will be taken.
Where are they taken? And Jesus is essentially, maybe even in a flippant sort of way, saying, well, if you really want to find them, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a corpse. There’s a lot of birds around.
So, I mean, that’s where you’ll find them. Now, the statement that where the corpses, the eagles will be gathered together, is actually a proverb. Like I said, Jesus used it on another occasion, in another context.
And I believe it was a proverb, sort of like I said, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Or that kind of a proverb. We would use it in a variety of different kind of situations.
But this one, in my opinion, has come from something that was in the Book of Job, where it’s talking about eagles. And it says in Job 39, 28-30, on the rock it dwells. He’s talking about the eagles.
On the crags of the rock and the struggles, from there it spies out the prey, its eyes observe from far. It said, its young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there it is. That is, there is the eagles and the young eagles.
Where the slain are, where the corpses are, that’s where the eagles are. And that’s essentially what Jesus said also a couple of times. And my guess is that other Jews use that expression too, probably in a proverbial way, based on originally appearing in the Book of Job.
Thanks, Steve.
All right. Thank you for calling. It’s good talking to you today.
All right.
We’re going to talk next to George, calling from Detroit, Michigan. And by the way, we have a few lines open still, or again. So if you’d like to be on the program today, the number to call is 844-484-5737.
844-484-5737. George from Detroit. Welcome.
Thanks for joining us.
Steve, how are you for the day?
We don’t have a very good connection on your phone. You’re kind of distorted.
Okay. It’s just trying to make the room work.
No, we can’t even understand what you’re saying. It’s just all golly. Can you hear me?
Not much better. Maybe you should call on a landline or something. You apparently don’t have a very good connection on your cellular.
Is there another room you can go to? Are you driving or how?
Yeah, I’m driving.
So you’re probably just not in a very good area. I’ll tell you what. I’m going to take another call.
I can hear, but I can’t understand. It’s garbled. So I’m going to ask you to call back when you get to a better position.
And hopefully we can get a good call in from you when you’re in a better cellular spot. I’m going to take another call right now. We’re going to talk to Kara from Sacramento, California.
Third call in a row from California. Hi, Sarah. Welcome.
Oh, Kara, hi. Hi. Honored to talk to you.
My question is, I went to a Pentecostal church yesterday, and the Pentecostal pastor pointed at someone in the audience, and he’s going to give prophecies. And so several, well, I guess I have several people raise their hand at working prophecies because he declared he was going to give prophecies. The pastor declared, okay, the first person, and her name is like Lillian, and he says, what’s your name?
She says, Lillian. And he says, I see that the Lord, your son is dating someone, and your son tries to make each date exciting, like go on a picnic with a scowl, and I see the Lord being giddy for you, and some other things. Okay.
Okay. So then, he told the audience to actually put our hands extended in faith to God, like around that person, something like that. Okay.
Then he goes, he gives an example, then he goes to someone else, raise their hand, me mom is raising my hand too, interested in the prophecy. So anyway, so then he points to a man, what’s your name? My name is Edward.
Oh, Edward, I see that you do not have to fear being a friend, you are a good friend and you’re, you have a very reverent relationship with the Lord. And I raise my hand, and he threw his hand, and I raise my hand, and he wouldn’t answer, and he wouldn’t select me. Now, is this like a phony prophecy?
because if you have a prophecy, for anyone that raise their hand, why wouldn’t he acknowledge me? Or is it just that he knows background information about two people, you know, sort of knows what’s going on in their lives, so he could just say some general statements?
I can’t answer for him, actually. It’s a cultural thing in Pentecostal churches sometimes for the pastor or a visiting preacher, or someone who professes have a prophetic gift to operate in what they call the word of knowledge. And in that culture, it means that you see or know something about somebody that’s information given by divine revelation, stuff that you couldn’t otherwise know.
Now, the Bible does talk about a gift called the word of knowledge. Although it’s only listed as one of many gifts, it never actually describes what is meant by it. In 1 Corinthians 12, paul says, to one is given the word of wisdom by the spirit and to another, the word of knowledge by the same spirit, and then he lists some more gifts.
So, all we really know about the expression the word of knowledge is that that phrase appears in a list of gifts and never appears anywhere else again in the Bible. So, we have knowledge of something called a word of knowledge that’s a gift of spirit, but we aren’t told what it is, what it looks like, how it operates, or anything like that. Now, what they are calling a word of knowledge, that’s what this pastor is doing professedly, is what prophets in the Bible typically did.
Elijah had this kind of revelation, or Elisha did, about his servant, Gehazi. When Jesus had this kind of information about the woman at the well, he said, you’ve had five husbands and the man you have is not your husband. She said, sir, I see you were a prophet.
In other words, this kind of ability to see and to say things that the person didn’t ordinarily know in biblical times was called a prophet’s activity, a prophecy. Now, we’re not sure when paul said word of knowledge, if he meant something different than prophecy. If so, we don’t know what he meant.
But if it is a genuine gift, there is biblical precedent for it. As I said, Elisha knew that something Gehazi had done, an unscrupulous thing that he had done, even though Elisha was not there to see it. And Jesus knew that woman’s marital history.
So Peter knew in Acts chapter 5 that Ananias and Sapphira had lied about how much they had sold their property for, and they were giving it so forth. So I mean, there are cases in the Bible where somebody under the power of the Holy Spirit can say things about somebody else that they wouldn’t otherwise know. But I don’t know of any cases where this was done as sort of like a carnival trick or something just, okay, let me just give out some words of knowledge to people at random who would like to hear them.
When people, some denominations, emphasize the gifts of the Spirit in such a way as if they are something to give credentials to the minister in a way, I mean, if he can convince you that he can see things about you that he couldn’t otherwise know, then of course, that gives him prestige, that gives him respect in the movement, probably gets him more invitations to speak, maybe bigger offerings, and therefore, he might do that whether he really has the gift or not, whether it’s really something God’s revealing to him or not. Now, there are cases, I’m not going to put this man in that category since I don’t know him, but there are cases of ministers that used to do that kind of thing, but they got busted because they were faking it. They were, in a few cases, they actually had ear pieces in their ear that were concealed from the audience and their wife was in the back feeding them information about people that was, that she got information from them filling out cards or some other kind of thing.
And so he would act like he knew. Now, I do believe that a lot of people who do this, even if they don’t have ear pieces, I think they’re just making their best guess. I certainly had people who thought or pretended to be speaking through the Holy Spirit, tell me things that they thought were true about me, which actually they were just misinformed.
It wasn’t true. But they, you know, so I obviously wasn’t the Holy Spirit. Now, I don’t know what to tell you to do with the word that this man gave you at this church, because I don’t know you and I don’t know the details of what he said.
I don’t know him. So I can’t really say much except this, that if he was giving out what they call words of knowledge, this would be on the same order as prophecy. And the Bible says that prophets can speak in the church, but what they speak must be judged.
paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, you know, let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others judge, which means that you’re not just going to accept everything they say without critically examining it to see if it’s credible or true. And also in 1 John 4, verse 1, it says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. So whenever somebody says they’re speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit or indicates that they are, some kind of supernatural knowledge.
Well, the Bible makes it very clear, don’t just trust it. Don’t just believe everything they say. Now, there may be people who very clearly are gifted in this area and they’ve got a track record and they’re, you know, they’re honest, they’re not cheating and this just happens to be a gift God has given them.
Well, then, of course, if they say something to you along those lines and it’s not untrue or not, it’s not unscriptural or something like that. Well, then, believe them. What’s it going to hurt?
On the other hand, people might say things to you that, like, one, you know, a lot of fake preachers are, you know, fakes, they’re fake Christians, too, and they go and hold means like this and they’re trying to seduce the women and get money and things like that. And I heard of a preacher, a guy who was traveling, came to town and he met a woman at the door as she was leaving and he shook her hand and then he acted like he got a word for her and said, The Lord has shown me that I’m to be your husband. Well, the woman is already married, but she because she was foolish, she thought she’s supposed to divorce her husband and marry this guy.
You know, anyone who says stuff like that, run as far as you can away from them. But if what they do say is harmless, if there’s if nothing they have said gives you reason to be concerned about them, then I would say I would still take it with a grain of salt because you never know for sure. But I’ve had someone give me a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge before more than once.
And one of them really seemed to become true, and really seemed to be true. So I mean, I just say, take these case by case. I have to say I’m a bit skeptical about many of them.
But I don’t want to be so skeptical as to, as paul says, not to do despised prophesies. I need to take a break. I appreciate your call.
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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, you want to bring them up for conversation.
The number to call is 844-484-5737.
Once again, that’s 844-484-5737.
Our next caller is Doris, who’s calling from Arkansas. Doris, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Yes. Hello. Good afternoon.
So my question is, do you remember what it says, what kind of stone the commandments were written on?
No, I don’t believe we’re told what kind of stone it was.
I think in Exodus 24.10, it says sapphire.
Sapphire? No, I don’t believe that is, I don’t think that’s talking about the stones that the stone tablets were made from. Give me the reference again.
Exodus?
Exodus 24.10.
Yeah, I’ll take a look at that, see what it is saying. 24.10? Okay, it says, and they saw the God of Israel.
This is the 70 who went up on the mountain to have a covenant meal with Moses and God. They saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone. And it was like the very heavens in its clarity.
So, this is not talking about the stone tablets. This is talking about like there was, as it were, it appeared like a pavement under God that was like sapphire stone. So, yeah, that’s not referring to stone tablets.
Oh, okay.
Well, I must go.
Thank you.
All right. Thanks for your call. Rodney from Michigan.
Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to balance comment with you on a call you had on Friday, I believe, about Zechariah 14.
Okay.
I believe you said that Zechariah 14 was talking about destruction of Jerusalem, I mean, in 70 AD, is that correct?
Yes.
And I believe you said you compared God’s standing on with the seed on the Mount of Olives as you compared it to Ezekiel as figurative speech of, you know, how God’s glory departed from the temple in Ezekiel? Okay, so my question is in Ezekiel, it shows God leaving the temple and leaving Jerusalem, so that Jerusalem can be taken by the Babylonians. And yet, when you read Zechariah, it shows God coming to Jerusalem, and it says that in that day that Jerusalem will be safely inhabited, and the living waters will flow from Jerusalem.
So it seems in Ezekiel, you see God leaving Jerusalem, but in Zechariah, you see him coming to Jerusalem to preserve it. And also, you mentioned about the… it’s talking about 70 AD destruction, yet it says in Zechariah 14.1, I mean 14.2, that when this happens, that God is going to fight against those nations in that day.
And we know that in 70 AD, that Jerusalem was destroyed and for 2,000 years didn’t even exist. And Rome still existed till 5,476 AD, so God didn’t fight against Rome when he took it. So it seems contradictory to say what you said.
Okay, I appreciate you pointing those things out. Yeah, in verse 2, here’s what he says, for I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, okay, so it’s conquered.
The house is rifled and the women raped. Okay, that is the destruction of Jerusalem. That happened.
Now, of course, many people, perhaps the teachers you’ve heard, would say that’s a future destruction of a future Jerusalem. But the point here is that Zachariah never knew anything about a future Jerusalem. He knew about the Jerusalem he lived in.
It had been destroyed by the Babylonians before his time, but had also been restored through Zerubbabel, and Zachariah was contemporary with that. So Zachariah is writing at a time where Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians and now was restored. And now he’s talking about it being conquered again.
Now, of course, it was conquered again in 70 AD. We have no knowledge, at least from scripture, of any future Jerusalem after 70 AD that will ever be attacked. And I don’t think Zachariah knew of one.
If he did, he didn’t mention it. Now, it’s true that God says in verse 3, then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as he fights in the day of battle. And in that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives and it will split in two and it will make a valley going east to west and so forth.
This, I believe, I think God does fight against the nations. There’s a spiritual warfare that’s going on. See, I believe that after Jerusalem fell, Jerusalem continues as the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, the church.
That’s what the writer of Hebrews called the church is the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God, Mount Zion. This is in the prophets. Jerusalem is the people of God.
Zion is the people of God. And when the physical city of just of Jerusalem is destroyed, the remnant, which was the church, the body of Christ, is the Jews who were followers of Jesus. They were the spiritual Jerusalem.
And they continue. And I believe that after the fall of the physical Jerusalem, the prophecy is about the safety and the blessing of the continuing Jerusalem, which is the body of Christ. And in that connection, it says, for example, it says that, then living waters shall flow.
In verse, what is that? Eight. And that they live in water shall flow from Jerusalem.
Now, Jesus said in John 7 to the Jews in Jerusalem, he said, whoever thirsts, let him come unto me. And out of his belly, as the scripture has said, living waters will flow. Now, Jesus said that those who come to him, living waters will come from them and flow out from them.
Now, John tells us when he makes that quote in verse 39, John 7, 39, he says, he spoke this about the Holy Spirit. So, the living waters are the rivers of the Holy Spirit going out to bless the nations. Isaiah spoke about this too, where he talked about how everything would be a spiritual waste until the Spirit of God is poured out, and he pours out rivers in the desert and it becomes fruitful and so forth.
This is all imagery of the Spirit’s work, bringing forth spiritual fruit throughout the world. And this is the same image, the river flows out from Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is God’s people. And Jesus said that.
He said, as the scripture has said, living waters will flow from the believers. He said, whoever believes in me, out of his belly shall flow living waters. So the living waters flow from the believing disciple community, which is the church.
And it is the church that carries the ministry of the Holy Spirit out to the world, which it has done, and which continues to be done. So I believe this is spiritual. And my reasons for it are multiple.
But have you listened to my lecture on Zechariah 14?
No.
OK. So I thought not. And yet I think the last time I talked about Zechariah 14, which I think you were listening to because you called about that, I said, if anyone wants to know all the reasons for this position and a verse by verse exposition comparing scripture to scripture, listen to my lecture on Zechariah 14, which is at the website.
It’s free. Anyone can listen to it. Now, nobody has to listen to it.
But it would seem strange when I’ve invited you to do that, that instead of listening, you call me and say that my view doesn’t make sense. You don’t know if my view makes sense until you listen to the defense of it, which you’ll find in the lecture. But I’ll accept the fact that you probably won’t listen to that and that you probably won’t agree with me.
And of course, as I always say, the Bible doesn’t require anyone to agree with me. You don’t have to agree with me. I’m not the standard.
But I’m telling you what I believe the Bible teaches and means. And if you want to know why I think it, you can also listen to my lecture, because I tell in great detail why.
I got you. Just in passing, though, before I go, I’ve listened to you long enough to know your stand on it. And it’s nice to talk to you in person to get your quick response, because in my opinion, what you just said, you’re comparing similar scriptures that say similar things, yet you’re not addressing the chapter itself.
I mean, anyone could compare two verses in the Bible that say similar things, but might not even be talking about the same thing. So, it seems you’re just saying that’s a support of you, and that’s the problem.
You’re saying that an apocalyptic book like Zechariah should be interpreted simply by its contents without any reference to other apocalyptic books that talk about the same subject, even though they use the same image, and it frequently occurs. I actually don’t know any other way to responsibly study a prophet without cross-referencing that when he gives these images, oh, this image is used over here, oh, and it’s used here, and it’s used over here. It’s all the same image, and there’s no reason to believe that living water is going to flow multiple times at different times in history.
That’s simply to assume that is not a very reasonable one in my opinion.
Well, John’s not an apocalyptic book.
No, but he interprets this apocalyptic book. He said, as the scripture is said, and I believe he’s referring to Zechariah, because Jesus says, as the scripture said, living waters will flow, and there’s no other passage in the Old Testament that uses the term living waters. This is the only one in Zechariah.
So, if Jesus said, the scriptures have said that living waters will flow from the believers, and we look in the scriptures, and the only scripture in the whole Bible that uses, or the whole Old Testament, that he could be referring to is Zechariah 14.8, then we think, I think he must be talking about that scripture. And look, it does say that. If we understand him for what he’s saying, the Jerusalem from which the living waters flow, are the spiritual Jerusalem comprised of the followers of Christ, just like he said.
Now, obviously, you can, if you want to, and many people do, just interpret the passage without reference to any other scripture anywhere else in the Bible. But since it’s written in apocalyptic language, I think you’d be shooting in the dark. I think we’re supposed to take the whole of scripture.
And when some subjects are repeatedly talked about by many prophets and by the New Testament writers, I think that’s supposed to be helpful to us. I think that’s especially when the New Testament writers will quote or allude to difficult passages in the Old Testament and tell us what they mean. I take that as an advantage.
I’ll take that anytime rather than just guess. because without comparing scripture to scripture, we just have to guess what it means. And I don’t know that any of us are very good at that.
Okay. Yeah, you just forgot my original question though. That’s all.
Remember, my original questions were… Just now, you went off on the tangent somewhere else. My original questions were that Ezekiel is talking about God departing, yet Zechariah is talking about God coming to.
And that’s contradictory to what you said.
God is coming to Jerusalem in judgment. That’s the point.
No, you keep reading the chapter. It says that God will be king over all the earth in that day, and then living waters will flow from Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be safely inhabited.
He is.
That’s not talking about God coming in judgment.
Well, that’s the result of him destroying Jerusalem in the temple. That’s the end of the Old Covenant. because that has happened, God is now king not only over the Jews and Jerusalem, God is the king over all the earth.
And that’s what Jesus said when he came out of the tomb. He said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. He’s the king over all the earth.
That if he’s all authority in heaven and earth is his. This is talking about the present age. This is not talking about the end times.
This is talking about how, and by the way, this is one of about maybe 30 passages I can come up with in the prophets that talk about the destruction of Jerusalem and then of the new order in Christ, which is now, this is a very common theme in the prophets. That God takes out the old rebellious order and what remains is the faithful remnant, which is a main theme of many, many prophets. So, I mean, to me, that’s not hard to see, but it’s obviously not easy for you to see, so you can see it another way.
When it’s talking about God preserving and saving and things, he’s talking about his remnant, the faithful Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, which is us. When he’s talking about destroying the city and having the women raped and the houses rifled and so forth, the city taken, that’s talking about the physical city, of course, because that will never happen to the church. I mean, the church will be persecuted, but it’s not going to be destroyed ever.
So anyway, you and I really have different ways of looking at scripture, obviously, and that’s true of many people. A lot of people don’t agree with me, and I’m glad you called because I do invite people like you to call to balance comment. But I don’t think we’re going to get to an agreement on this one.
But I thank you for sharing your view because you’re certainly welcome to have it and even share it. Okay, let’s talk to Twila from Fresno, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path, Twila.
Hi, I’m calling in regarding a passage of scripture, Mark 14, 50, 51, and 52. We’re just calling to get some clarification who the man in the linen cloth was in the garden.
Yeah. Mark tells us that when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and the disciples scattered to flee for their lives, he inserts this little bit that you mentioned, verse 50 to 52, talking about, he says, there was a young man. He doesn’t give any clue to who that young man was.
We said there was a young man there who was dressed in nothing but a bedsheet. And he also fled, as everyone else did. And one of the people, probably one of the soldiers, grabbed at him to arrest him.
And they grabbed his sheet. And he ran off and left the sheet behind, naked. He went off naked into the night, leaving his bedsheet behind.
Now it’s interesting that that little bit of information is given by Mark that’s not mentioned in Matthew or Luke or John. And it doesn’t seem to have any significance. I mean, nothing is made of it.
And this has led many commentators to believe that Mark is that young man himself, that he was the one. And he’s kind of giving his backhanded testimony, but not mentioning himself by name, that he too fled. He also was there and fled.
But of course, it raises the question, why would he be dressed in only a bedsheet? Well, here’s an explanation that makes sense. It may not be absolutely correct, but it could be.
The last supper of just an hour or so earlier had been held in an upper room. Most gospel scholars assumed that this was probably the upper room of Mark’s mother’s house. We later read in Acts Chapter 12 that Mark’s mother had a house in Jerusalem where she hosted Christian meetings.
And many feel that it was in the upper room of Mark’s mother’s house that Jesus had the last supper. Now, the members of the household were not invited to the supper. It was just Jesus and his disciples.
But the members of the household knew he was there. They knew something was going on. And they certainly would know because it was the talk of the town that people were out to arrest Jesus.
So, Jesus was kind of there secretly under the radar. Very intriguing stuff. And the thought is that perhaps the last supper had gone quite late.
Mark was a young man. He’d gone to bed for the night. You know, he’s trying to sleep.
And then when Jesus and the disciples got up to go to the garden of Gethsemane, Mark’s curiosity got the best of him. And not wishing for them to get out of his sight, instead of taking time to get dressed, he just wrapped himself in his bedsheet because he was in bed, and followed them at some distance. So that by the time Jesus was arrested, maybe an hour later or so at the garden, Mark was there, but he didn’t have any regular clothes on.
He had a bedsheet, and then he fled too. But now, this may not, this may be filling in too many gaps, but it at least fills in all the gaps, because first of all, who is this guy? He’s apparently not one of the 12.
How did he even know to be there? Why didn’t he have, why wasn’t he dressed? Why did he have only a bedsheet around him?
Why does Mark even mention it? And no one else does. I think that the scenario I just gave you is very possibly the correct one, and if so, it explains why Mark would mention it, because it was his own sort of way of confessing, as it were, that he too had had the chance to stand for Christ, but failed, and like the other disciples, he fled off into the night too.
So that’s what I think about it.
Well, the context is why they fled. Yeah, I think the context is, well, they fled, and that makes sense as well. That’s a very interesting commentary on that.
It was actually the first time I’ve seen that in the scripture today.
Like, what does this mean?
It does get your attention, doesn’t it? It was a strange story. Let me try to get a couple more calls in if I came before.
We’re out of time here, and we almost are. We’re going to talk to Jay from Las Vegas. Next, Jay, welcome to The Narrow Path.
Thanks for coming.
Hi, Craig. First comment before I ask my question, since I heard your call earlier, I just want to comment and share with you that I’ve come out of the dispensationalism, the pro-Zionist, probably about a year and a half ago now. My eyes completely opened up, and I’ve been doing my research.
I’ve actually traveled to Eurasian countries or Eastern countries, where they have the Orthodox Church there to find libraries with the, do you know from the patriarchs on that side, what their church writings were? Great.
We only have a few minutes, so maybe we can get to your question. I appreciate the research you’ve done. That’s great.
Do you have a question? Yeah.
So my question is, and this is, in Revelations where we talked in 12, where we talked about the woman who bore the seed, bore the seed of the man that will rule all nations. And is that Mary? And also, what do you think of Mary being a second Eve, even though that’s not doctrine, it’s just a thought there, because it was just something that ran through my mind.
All right. Well, no, I don’t think it’s Mary, though it could be. The thing is that what is said in Revelation 12 about that woman, as you get to the later verses in the chapter, don’t seem to apply to Mary.
The Roman Catholics sometimes apply it to Mary, but they also, the Roman Catholic scholars also recognize, as I do, that it’s probably not primarily about Mary, but about, it’s a personification of the faithful remnant of Israel. Mary was one of them. I mean, there was the faithful remnant of Israel is the means, the woman, as it were, figuratively speaking, through whom Christ came.
And Mary was one representative of that group. In the Book of Revelation, women are usually representative of something larger than individual women, like the bride and the harlot and things like that, are women who are certainly not referring to individual women in Revelation. So I think the woman probably represents the Jewish remnant through whom Christ was born into the world.
Mary, of course, was the individual in that remnant, who actually carried the baby. So Catholics, they generally speaking, see it as a reference to that faithful remnant, or they sometimes say the church, which is also the faithful remnant. But they also see it as Mary.
I don’t see it as Mary, but it’s not a problem if it were. Now, what about Mary being seen as the new Eve? Catholics sometimes make this point, too.
They say, well, Jesus is the second Adam. Maybe Mary is the second Eve. Well, if Eve was Adam’s mother, I guess that would make some sense.
But Eve wasn’t the mother of Adam. So the second Eve would not likely be the mother of the second Adam. Eve was, in fact, the wife of Adam.
And therefore, the wife of Christ would be the second Eve, if he’s the second Adam. Now, the bride of Christ is us, the church. And paul makes that very clear, of course.
In fact, in talking about Adam and Eve, Genesis 2.24 says, For this cause, an aunt shall leave, this father and mother cleaved to his wife, and the two should become one flesh. That’s the prototype of marriage. And paul quotes that in Ephesians 5.
And he said, this is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the church. That is, Christ’s bride is the church, as Adam’s bride was Eve. So, you know, seeing Adam as this, Christ as the second Adam would suggest that the church is the second Eve.
And Eve was not the mother of Adam, so the mother of Jesus would not be necessarily the second Eve. I appreciate your call. We’re going to try to get one more call in.
Connie from Spokane, Washington. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
Thank you, Steve. I just recently heard about this doctrine of rewards where some people in heaven will gain more rewards than other people based on what they’ve done in this life. And the people that don’t receive those rewards, they will suffer losses.
And I’m just curious about that. And I can take my answer, Othir.
Okay. Well, the Bible definitely does… Thank you for calling.
The Bible definitely does talk about people having various rewards and losses. You know, in 1 Corinthians 3, paul talks about ministers who… They build the church in their ministries, but they do not do it with the right stuff.
So when it’s tested by fire, they lose it, and they lose, you know, they suffer loss, paul said. They suffer loss, but they themselves are saved. So a saved person may suffer loss in the final judgment, in the final testing.
That doesn’t mean they lose their salvation. paul specifically said they’ll suffer loss, but will be saved. So even people who are saved can come through the judgment having less than they otherwise would have had in terms of their reward.
They lose something. Now, as far as differences in positive rewards, that seems clear enough from parables that Jesus taught like the parable of the pounds in, I believe it’s in the 19th chapter or 18th chapter of Luke. And he talked about how the ones who are faithful with little and turned it into more will be entrusted with certain responsibilities.
He said, the man who produced five towns, not towns, but pounds, that he’ll be a ruler over five cities. And the one who came up with ten will be the ruler over ten cities. In other words, those who stewarded what they had and produced more for the kingdom of God than others will be entrusted with more responsibility.
That probably is what the rewards are. I don’t think rewards refer to bags of gold or jewels and things like that. Who cares about those?
I don’t even care about those now, much less in heaven. But the reward is being entrusted by God with more responsibility, which is referred to ruling, actually. We’re going to reign with Christ.
But reigning doesn’t mean we’re just going to have privilege and rank. It means that we get to be carry some of the responsibility of the kingdom that He has, He’s vetted us for, that we’ve qualified for, because we’ve shown ourselves faithful. And that which is least, He therefore knows that He can entrust us with more.
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