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Join Steve Gregg on The Narrow Path as he dives into a deep theological discussion about the distinction between the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of Grace. Tackling various theological interpretations, Steve addresses these fundamental concepts, including how interpretations role in Christian faith and understanding today. Engage as he answers listener questions with clarity, delving into scriptural insights and historical contexts, establishing a foundation of truth sought after by seeking Christians.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon, including today. And during the live program, we invite you to call in with questions you might have about the Bible or the Christian faith that we can discuss together. Maybe objections. To the Christian faith, or at least some point that this host has previously made, and you object and see it differently. We always welcome argumentation from alternate viewpoints. That’s the only way to be honest and to seek the truth. And so we welcome you to do that. What I’m looking at right now is an empty switchboard, which is, again, this has happened maybe once in the last decade. Month or so, but it hardly ever happens. Been doing this for 28 years. This is our 28th year this year doing this show. Anyway, it’s a good time for you to get through because of that. Some of the lines are lighting up, but we’ve still got lines open for you at this number, 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484. 5737. And so we’ll be getting to your calls in just a moment. We, again, have some lines open for you at 844-484-5737. Our first caller today is going to be Shannon from Arkansas. Hi, Shannon. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, how you doing?
SPEAKER 01 :
Good. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good to see you. And I’ll get right to it. Mark 4, 11, that Jesus said, the mystery of the kingdom of God revealed to the twelve about the kingdom. Could you explain that verse? I had a Mid-Acts guy tell me that’s about a prophecy. That’s about the prophecy in the Old Testament, which they would say that’s a different gospel, you know, than Paul preached.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Can you go over that, please?
SPEAKER 01 :
Sure. I’ll be glad to talk to you about it. The mid-Acts dispensationalists that you mentioned, they believe there’s a different gospel that is to be preached today than the gospel that Jesus and the early apostles preached. They acknowledge that Jesus preached a gospel of the kingdom. They believe that the early apostles, Peter, James, and John, and those guys, they also preached the gospel of the kingdom. But that, in the middle of Acts, when Paul became an apostle and began to preach, he had an entirely different gospel, and it was the gospel of grace. So they’d make a distinction between the gospel of the kingdom, which they say Jesus and the early apostles taught, and on the other hand, the gospel of grace, which they say Paul taught. Now, they believe that for this present dispensation, the gospel of grace is the appropriate gospel. So we should be preaching the gospel as Paul did, not as Jesus did or the early apostles did. On this view, of course, nothing in the Gospels, at least in terms of instructions, are applicable to us in this dispensation. So the Sermon on the Mount, the teachings of Christ in general, are not directly relevant to us, and they’re not for us. They were for the Jews who Jesus thought would welcome the kingdom. That’s what they say. But the Jews did not, and therefore those teachings of Jesus were postponed until the kingdom comes at the second coming of Christ. Apparently the apostles in the early chapters of Acts are thought to have made the same mistake that Jesus made, that the gospel he preached was only going to be true if the Jews were receptive to it. I don’t know of anything in the Bible, actually, that says that the truthfulness of the gospel has anything to do with any number of people accepting it, Jews or Gentiles. So this is an assumption they make, but it’s an assumption based on, well, nothing in the Bible, at least. the idea of the gospel that Paul preached being different, they would say that this does not involve the kingdom. It’s the gospel of salvation. It’s the gospel of grace, and that we shouldn’t preach the gospel that Jesus preached over the early disciples, because if we do, we’re in the wrong dispensation. I would love to see some evidence that this claim has merit. I mean, I wouldn’t love to see it because I don’t like the idea necessarily, but I’m not, you know, if I could see the biblical evidence for it, I’d certainly be open to that. But it simply doesn’t have any biblical evidence. By the way, I’ll answer your question directly in a moment from Mark chapter 4, but I will say that for those who are inclined to think that Paul and Jesus spoke different gospels from each other, I would recommend a document that I have posted online that compares Jesus’ teaching with Paul’s on 15 of the major things that they taught about, side by side in two columns, and show that they taught exactly the same things on every subject that they discussed. Now, that online document can be found at Matthew713.com. That’s Matthew713.com. And there’s a choice of categories to look at, but one of them I think is called Charts. Charts is on there somewhere. If you click on Charts, there’s a lot of different charts I’ve made and posted. I think the first one is the one I’m talking about. I think it says Jesus versus Paul or Paul versus Jesus or something like that. So you can find it at Matthew713.com. And you click on the thing that would take you to the charts. And I believe it’s the first one. You can easily tell by the title of whatever is listed as the first one. Now, on the verse Mark 4, 11, this was an answer Jesus gave to the twelve when they had heard his parable of the sower. And they and the audience didn’t understand it. And so it seemed to the disciples that Jesus was not speaking very clearly there. and was more or less too obscure to be understood by his audience, which doesn’t seem like something a public speaker would want to be the case. And the reason it was obscure is because he spoke in parables. And, you know, these parables would begin with the words, you know, the kingdom of God is like this. But then what it’s like would be something that was not obviously meaningful to the kingdom of God. You know, sower sowing seeds, a woman making dough, putting leaven in the dough. You know, the planting of a mustard seed that grows into a tree. I mean, what do these things have to do with the kingdom of God? Well, the disciples thought Jesus could be somewhat more lucid if he avoided being so obscure with his parables. And they said to him, why do you speak to these people in parables? And he said to them, to you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But to those who are outside, all things come in parables. Now, what he’s saying is that he’s not going to entrust the message with any clarity to people that he doesn’t trust. He’s preaching to multitudes. Now, the Jewish multitudes throughout history have shown themselves to be very shallow in their interest in the things of God. They had a few revivals in their history, but most of the time they wandered off into idolatry and whatever. whatever Jewish practices they conducted faithfully. They did it without zeal. They sacrificed inferior animals. God said that their love for him was like the dew on the grass that lasts about just as long when the sun comes up, it’s gone. There are many complaints the prophets made, and Jesus made some of them too, about the Jews. He didn’t trust them with the secrets. Now, he was bringing a kingdom… that was an invasion force into a world that was already occupied by the kingdom of Satan. And Jesus made that clear in what he was saying about it in Matthew 12, when he answered the Pharisees saying, you know, he’s casting out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Jesus made it very clear, no, I’ve come, I’ve invaded Satan’s kingdom, and he can’t stop me because I’ve bound the strong man. I’m spoiling his house. So Jesus bringing his kingdom was invading an already occupied planet that by an opposing kingdom. Now, therefore, his ministry was doing something that was going to oppose and overthrow Satan. And he didn’t want Satan and his loyalists to understand it. You know, Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 that the rulers of this world did not understand the secret wisdom of God in a mystery. Here, Jesus used the word mystery in this verse 2 that you’re talking about. Paul said it’s something revealed to the apostles by the Spirit, but he said, The enemies were not allowed in on it. He says, or else they might not crucify him. See, the secret plan was for Jesus to overthrow Satan by being crucified. But if Satan understood that, well, then Satan might not do it. So Jesus was basically keeping his cards close to his chest and not just explaining these mysteries to the crowds. He said, to them it is not given to know. The mystery of the kingdom of God. But to you it is given. Now, who’s you? Well, it says specifically the twelve. The twelve had come to him and asked him about why he was using the parable. Well, you guys. I trust you guys. You guys have left everything to follow me. You guys have been vetted. You guys are trustworthy. And therefore, I’m letting you in on my secrets. In fact, later on, when they were in the upper room before Jesus was arrested, in John 15, Jesus said, I don’t call you anymore servants, but friends, because a master doesn’t let his servants know everything he’s doing, but I’ve let you know everything that the Father has revealed to me. So he’s willing to tell his friends secrets because he trusts them. He doesn’t tell his secrets to people he doesn’t trust. Now, by speaking parables… and saying the kingdom of God is like this, he makes it very clear that he has information about the kingdom of God, but it’s not very clear to the average here what that information is. So people could just go home and say, well, I didn’t get anything out of that guy. I don’t know why everyone talks about him being so profound. Or others could say, he’s talking about the kingdom. I want to know about the kingdom. I’ve been waiting for the kingdom. I want to understand this. And disciples would come to him and ask him, tell us the meaning of this parable. And it says in Mark chapter 4, just a few verses later, in verse 34, it says, but without a parable, he did not speak to them, meaning the multitudes. And when they were alone, he explained everything to his disciples. So he did want his disciples to understand the mysteries that he wasn’t telling everybody. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, don’t cast your pearls before a swine or give what is holy to dogs. They’ll just abuse them and turn on you. Jesus was practicing his own policy. He wasn’t sure who in the crowd was or was not comparable to a dog who would trample upon him or a pig. But he knew there were some people in the crowd who were potential disciples. So he threw the bait out there to the crowd and said the kingdom of God is like this. And there were people in Israel, the faithful remnant, who were faithfully looking for the kingdom of God, craving it. and could not be put off. They said, I want the kingdom of God. I need to find out more about this. The rest of the crowds would just go home confused and not think any more about it, perhaps. And so he’s saying, to you disciples, and he means by that not just you 12, but anyone who’s a disciple, because it says in verse 34, he explained all things to his disciples, and there were many of those besides the 12. But the disciples all had one thing in common. They had left everything to follow him. And therefore, they could be more trusted than the faceless masses. So this is what he’s saying. It’s not given to the crowds to know the secrets or the mysteries of the kingdom. It is given to you. Now, Paul also, of course, later became an apostle. And he said that he was preaching the mystery. The mystery was that Jews and Gentiles be joined together in one entity. And that is what the kingdom of God is. It’s the kingdom of God is made up of all those who embrace Christ as their king and follow him. And that’s not just Jews. The Jews thought they were the kingdom of God alone. And Paul said, no, this is more mysterious than they knew. This includes Gentiles, too. You’ll see that, for example, in Ephesians 3, verses 1 through 7. But Paul frequently talks about the mystery. And so does Jesus. It’s a mystery to people who don’t have any right to know it, basically. But the disciples of Jesus are the ones who do have the right to know it. That’s what he’s saying. And that’s why he spoke that way to them.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, thank you so much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, Shannon, great talking to you, man.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, bye now. Let’s see, Zachary from Maui, Hawaii. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, Shannon, good talking to you, man.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, you got to turn your radio off. Turn your radio off. We’re hearing what we heard a minute ago. Yeah. Okay. Hi, Zachary. Are you there? Hey, Zach.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey. Hey. Yeah. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. I have been… Can you hear me? Yes. But you haven’t heard me until now. Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Go ahead. Okay. Hey. So this is my dilemma. So I… I made a pact with God. I know that’s not something necessary, but God and I have always had this understanding with each other, as far as I know, that if I behave a certain way, if I stay away from certain things, that good things will happen. And it always worked that way throughout my life. And I recently did something that I said I would never do again, and if I do do it again, my tenants would be going to hell. And I did what I said I wasn’t going to do, and now that I repent for what I did, usually when I repent when I do something, I… I feel a presence. I feel a warmth come over me. I can feel the Holy Spirit’s presence within me. Right now, when I repent and pray, I don’t feel any type of warmth or any type of… Okay, okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let me just say there’s a number of things that you’ve said that I would like to respond to. One of them is that feeling warm is not one of the ways of knowing whether you have repented and whether God forgives you or not. I’m not saying that people never do have such a warm feeling when they know they’re forgiven, but feelings have nothing to do with it. The faithfulness of God to forgive, as he said he would, is what determines whether that’s happened or not. Whether you feel it or not, you can trust that God is telling the truth. But you also have kind of a sub… Christian concept of what it means to have a relationship with God. You feel like you can bargain with God. You say you and God have an understanding that if you avoid certain things, things will go well for you. I’m not sure that that’s God that you’re dealing with, because God doesn’t really negotiate that way, as far as I know. And frankly, God doesn’t promise that things will go well for us. As a matter of fact, Jesus said, in the world you will have tribulation. And Paul said the same thing. In fact, the Bible says it throughout. If you follow God, there’s going to be possible persecution. Some people are broke because they follow God. Paul was. Paul said that he was homeless and naked, meaning he didn’t have much clothes. He’s hungry. And this is all because he was obeying God. And, you know, not everyone experiences the same trials, but certainly there’s not anything in the Bible that suggests if you do the right thing, things will go well for you. What is said in the Bible is that if you do things that God is pleased for you to do, well, eventually, in eternity, it will certainly go good for you. But in this life, God doesn’t make promises in this life other than that he’ll take care of you as long as you need to live. In other words, he’ll provide all your needs. But, of course, when it’s his time for you to die, then your needs do not include anything. You know, you’re going to die. It’s your time. But providing your needs isn’t often what people understand it to mean. It certainly doesn’t mean making you wealthy. It doesn’t even mean preventing you from being sick or from being rejected by society or other things like that. All those things happen to people who are pleasing to God, as well as good things. God has a plan that he works for your life, and it includes some trials and probably some blessings, too. But this life is not all there is. And Paul said, our outward man is perishing. He’s talking about all the suffering he’s going through as a Christian. He said, though our outward man is perishing, our inward man is being renewed day by day. And he says, while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. That’s over in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, I think it’s like verses 17 and 18. So, he’s not, you know, you don’t make a deal with God that if I obey you, I’ll expect you to give me good things and do good things in my life and have good things happen to me. Now, obeying God is what we’re all obligated to. It’s not like, hey, God, I’ll do you a favor if you do me a favor. Now, when you obey God, you’re doing God no favor. You owe that to him, you know. It’s like if I lend you $100,000, And you come to me and say, you know, if I pay you back that $100, I expect you to do such and such for me. Or rather, if you do certain things for me, I’ll give you back the $100 I borrowed. No, no, you owe me the $100. You need to pay that back in any case. And we owe God our lives. We’ve been bought with a price. We’re not our own, the Bible says. Jesus died for us to purchase us. And our surrender to him and our trust in him and our living under his lordship is what he requires. And those who actually do those things are not in a position to ask for special bonuses. It’s failing to do that that puts you below the waterline, puts you underwater. If you do everything God said, you know what Jesus said? Jesus said this over in Luke 17.10. He said, so you also, when you have done all things that you’ve been commanded to do, say, We are unprofitable servants. We’ve done only what was our duty to do. In other words, if I do everything God wants me to do, then my position is I don’t have any special claim to privilege or congratulations. I’m a servant. Servants are supposed to obey their masters. So I’ve done nothing more than that. So your idea of working things out with God where you’ll do certain good things that he wants you to do. By the way, doing good things aren’t that good if he doesn’t want you to do them. So the only thing that’s really a good thing you can do is whatever God wants. Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father in heaven. So doing what God wants is the Christian’s duty. Now, A lot of listeners are going to want me to tell you this, and I will, that you can’t earn your way to heaven anyway. You can’t earn favor from God. That’s what grace means. Grace means that God gives good things to those that he chooses to give them to, not based on how they earn them, but on his good pleasure. And he gives grace to the humble. He gives grace to the repentant. And the Bible says that. So when you turn to Christ, which is, of course… The first thing everyone needs to do, because he’s the Lord of all, God has given him authority over heaven and earth and everything in it. So, you know, you are under his authority whether you live like it or not. But when you repent of not doing so, when you surrender to his lordship and willingly live as he wants you to, you are accepted. And you’re accepted because you have surrendered and because you do believe in him. That’s what believing is. Some people think you just have to believe Jesus existed, and that’s how you’re saved. The Bible knows nothing of that kind of faith. The only faith the Bible knows that saves anyone is one that changes their direction and their life, a faith that says, I trust in Christ, and that means I’m going to follow his way. Why? Well, because I trust him. He wouldn’t tell me wrong. If I trust him, he wouldn’t give me an inferior way to live. If I really believe in Christ, it means I’m going to live the way he said to live, or else I’m saying I don’t believe him. I believe I think I have a better idea than he had. That’s not being a Christian. Now, it’s when you recognize what the Bible says about Jesus. He’s the king. He’s the Lord. He has bought us with a price. I believe that, and therefore I live as though that is true. That means I’m obedient to him as a servant to a master. I’m not trying to gain brownie points with him in any way. I’m just living my role. It’s like a child obeys his father in a good parenting situation, not because he’s hoping that that way his father will still accept him as his child, but he obeys his father because that’s what children are supposed to do with their father. He doesn’t do it, he shouldn’t have to do it because of fear of punishment or a carrot on a stick of some reward. He should do it because that’s what children are supposed to do. That’s what the role is of being a child in a household. Submit to your parents. So, you know, I think people who think of God as someone who’s out there making some kind of a transaction with people who will do enough good deeds, that’s not even taught in the Bible. The Bible does teach that when you turn your life around to be a follower of Jesus, that dominates everything about you. And, of course, as a result, you will do what pleases him. You’ll do what he asks. but you won’t be expecting special treatment that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. You don’t expect bonuses for obedience, because obedience is simply what comes with the territory. It’s part of the definition of submitting to someone who’s a Lord. And if you don’t think of him as your Lord, then you don’t think of him at all, because there is no Jesus in the universe who isn’t the Lord. So some people say, well, I believe that Jesus is my Savior. Well, fine, but the only Jesus I know of that’s a Savior is also a Lord. If you believe he’s Savior but not Lord, you don’t believe in the Jesus in the Bible. The only Jesus in the Bible and in the universe that can save is the one who’s the Lord. And if you believe he’s your Lord, that’ll show in the way you behave. But you won’t be doing it hoping to get special treatment from him and bonuses. That’s just something employers do with their employees. You don’t have an employment system. arrangement with your father in heaven and with Christ. So that’s the whole area where I think your whole approach to God is wrong. The fact that you don’t feel anything, the fact that you don’t feel forgiven or whatever, it doesn’t matter how you feel because, again, we’re talking about trusting. We’re talking about faith. If you have faith in Christ and he says, listen, I’ll forgive you. You know, the In 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So if you trust in Christ, then there is a promise that he forgives your sins. What if you don’t feel like it? Well, is God’s faithfulness dependent on your feelings or does it depend on who he is? Well, the answer to that is that’s a rhetorical question. Of course, it’s based on who he is. He’s faithful because that’s what he is, faithful. And therefore, you don’t have to worry whether you feel it or not. You take it by faith. I would anyway, and I recommend you do too. I need to take a break here. Appreciate your call. You’re listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We have another half hour coming up. But at this point, we’d just like to make sure our listeners know we are a listener-supported ministry. And you can write to us at thenarrowpath.com. 1730 Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can do so from our website where all the resources are free for download at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away. We’re only half done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Everyone is welcome to call the narrow path and discuss areas of disagreement with the host, but if you do so, please state your disagreement succinctly at the beginning of your call and be prepared to present your scriptural arguments when asked by the host. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t have the last word or if your call is cut shorter than you prefer. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program, so please be considerate to others.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour. Right now our phones are, all the lines are full, and there may not be a chance to take more calls than those that are waiting, so I’m not going to give out the number at this point. But for those of you who are waiting online, let me instruct everybody, as our former caller needed to be instructed, when you get on Don’t leave your phone somewhere and just listen to the radio hoping you’ll notice when I call your name. The problem is the radio broadcast is delayed by maybe as much as half a minute. So when I actually in real time call your name, you’ll hear it if you’re on the phone because your phone and I are connected in real time. But if you’re away from the phone listening to the radio, you won’t hear me call your name until half a minute or so has gone by, in which time we’ve used up over $50 of airtime because you weren’t there. And so we’d love to have you on, but please stay near your phone if you’re online waiting to talk. All right, we’re going to talk next to, looks like it’s going to be Anna from Petersburg, New Hampshire. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi. Hi. You heard me, okay. How are you today?
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m fine. How are you?
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m good, thank you. Happy New Year. Thank you. My question is, and I’m so humbled because you have such a wealth of knowledge, but people have touched on this before, and I wanted to be sure, but let me just come out with it. Okay, so God created Adam and Eve, right? And the… It says, and I got all the days that were of creation, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and some day rested, right? But in those days, it says he created man and women, and he said be fruitful and multiply. But then when you get into the second chapter is when he starts forming Adam, and then he puts, takes Adam out he takes Adam and puts him in the garden right and now Adam names all these animals and everything and he names all the plants and everything and he gets bored and then God makes him a woman for a helper someone to love right but where are you your voice disappeared hello well you seem to have gotten cut off I didn’t cut you off
SPEAKER 01 :
Anyway, I will answer your question because I think I understand what you’re getting at. And that is that in Genesis chapter 1, we have the creation of everything, including man and woman, recorded in a chronological sequence of six days. And then on the seventh day, God rested. That seventh day is mentioned in chapter 2 of Genesis, verses 1 through 3. Although the chapter divisions are not in the original. Those were added centuries later. So, The story of the seven days of creation really goes from Genesis 1-1 through Genesis 2-3. But at the next verse, Genesis 2-4, you begin to have a story of creation again. It kind of sounds different in some ways. It starts at a different place. In fact, it starts with the creation of man. Well, it not quite starts because it mentions there was ground, there was no rain, a mist rose up from the earth and watered the ground, which I presume means rain. for the plant’s sake, which must have been there. But what mentions that God made man from the dust of the earth, and then later he brings the animals to him, and Adam names the animals. He puts them in the Garden of Eden, as you said. He makes a wife for him and gives them instructions. Now, because you read chapter 1 first and chapter 2 second, it seems like maybe you’ve got two events, the creation events of chapter 1, which then were followed by the creation events of chapter 2. But this is not how any Bible scholar would understand it. And frankly, we need to be careful not to do that because there are times when the same story is repeated in the Bible from a different angle or giving different details of the story. For example, if you read of the birth narrative of Jesus in Matthew chapters 1 and 2, And then you read of the birth narrative of Jesus when you get to Luke in chapter 1 and 2. You say, wait a minute, was Jesus born on earth twice? I read about this two books ago. Back in Matthew, we had the birth. Now it looks like he’s getting born all over again. No, you understand that Matthew and Luke are both telling about the same story, but they’re giving different details about it. And that’s true of also the first two chapters of Genesis. The first chapter is told as a broad overview of without laying much emphasis on any one thing. It’s six days, and at the end of the sixth day, everything has been created. Among the things that are said to have been created are man and woman, who, like the animals before them, are given instructions to be fruitful and multiply, though they’re also given instruction to have dominion over everything else. Now, then the story ends. But in the first chapter, the creation of man and woman aren’t given that much… focus, not as much as humans deserve in terms of the creation of everything else, in terms of trees and rocks and distant planets, man’s creation is much more significant. So there’s a second account of the creation of man and woman, which Of course, it doubles back and retells the story of the sixth day, or at least part of it, where man and women were created. See, in Genesis 1, it kind of just says, he made man his own image, male and female he made them. Well, in Genesis chapter 2, it’s going to go back, take that more slowly, and say, okay, he made man, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, and then he made the woman. Now, you wouldn’t know that from reading chapter 1, It just says he made man, he made male and female. Well, that’s true. That’s not disputed, even in chapter 2. It also says that God made male and female, but it gives lots more information of things that happened, for example, between the creation of man and woman. And then what happened, it gives God’s instructions about the trees. So what we have in chapter 2 is a second account which focuses in greater detail on one point in the first account. It’s like, you know, I don’t know if anyone reads magazines anymore, but back in the day when these news magazines like Time and Newsweek were around, they’d have a story that ran several pages long about some event going on in the world, some war or something. But then they’d have what they called a sidebar, a little block on one of the pages, kind of in the midst of the story, that went into more detail on some issue that was covered over very quickly in the general story. They covered over it quickly in the general story because they didn’t want to interrupt the story with all this extra information. They wanted to get through the story. But then they thought, well, some people may not know much about this point. So they’d have what they called a sidebar on the page where they had a lot more information on one point. And that’s, I think, the way we’re supposed to look at Genesis 2. That’s like a sidebar. Genesis 1 kind of gave the sweep of the creation of everything from zero to the end in six days. But then… Realizing that the creation of man and woman has only been passed over in a few sentences in the first account, just like the other things in the other days were, the writer gives us a second look at that. And it’s more of a microscopic view or a magnifying glass view of the creation of man and woman, giving many more details. So the second account is not contradictory or it’s not an additional creation. The man who is called Adam in the second account and the woman who is called Eve in the second account are the same male and female that were mentioned without naming them in Genesis 1, 26 and 27. So that’s something that you’re not the first person to have misunderstood that, but that is a misunderstanding some people have. All right, let’s talk to Thomas from Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Thomas.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Steve. How are you?
SPEAKER 01 :
Good, thanks.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, thanks for taking my call. Okay, so I guess I’m just looking for some biblical direction and reassurance on something. I’ve asked a lot of questions, and not just in your show. You know, I’ve heard a lot. I’ve heard a lot of Bible shows throughout my life, and I’m getting to the point where I’m kind of asking, what is the You know, like, there’s so many answers that even you or a bunch of these other people basically say, like, well, we don’t really know, you know, a lot of things. I mean, obviously there’s some clear-cut things in Scripture, but, like, I hope you see what I’m trying to ask here. At what point should we just stop trying to figure out every little nuance of Scripture, or is that just something I need to push past?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let me say this. There’s no point of Scripture that I would not be interested in understanding correctly. But there are many points of Scripture that I realize I don’t have sufficient data provided to know exactly what something means. Now, my commitment in reading the Bible is to find out what God wants me to know. I don’t read it just out of general curiosity, or just to say I read the Bible through so many times, I read it because I consider it to be God’s word, his revelation to me about the things he wants me to know. But when I find things that are obscure enough, that there just isn’t enough information to make the decision up, I have to assume, okay, this must be something that God didn’t really care that much for me to know, because he would have made it less obscure. Now, many things in the Bible are, you know, very obvious, that Yahweh is the one true God who created all things, that he made us, that he has an interest in our behavior and in a relationship with us, that he called a people at one point through Abraham to make himself known to them through prophets and through the law. And he told them he’s going to send a Messiah. And when the Messiah would come, he’d be the true king, not only of Israel, but of the whole world. And then, of course, we see Jesus coming as the Messiah. And we have Jesus teaching about how to live. And then we have, after he left, he authorized the apostles to continue teaching the church how to live. And so we find that kind of teaching in what the apostles wrote, what we call the epistles, the rest of the New Testament, in other words. So, I mean, there’s a storyline. There’s a narrative here which has the main features. No one can read the Bible trusting it and miss it. But, of course, there are hundreds of things that are passed over without much description. Yes, like I was saying to that previous caller earlier, We don’t have a sidebar on everything, but the story, the grand narrative of human history mentions certain things in passing that simply aren’t part of the main story, at least not enough to give a whole sidebar and explain it all. So we’re reading ancient history here. We’re reading the history of ancient Mesopotamian and Semitic and Middle Eastern people and their customs and traditions. We read about the kings and the nations and the wars that were going on around Israel. Some of them involved Israel, some of them not so much. But, I mean, we’re reading ancient stuff that we don’t naturally understand or know. And fortunately, some of the information that we don’t know much about, and the Bible doesn’t say much about, can be discovered and has been discovered through archaeology and other studies. But the point is, If God didn’t make it clear in his word, I think it’s his way of saying, move along, nothing to see here, you know, nothing to worry about here. Now, if you say, but I’m very curious, well, you can read books about archaeology and other things and find out some of those things. Can’t find them all out. But I think our problem is we have perhaps lost the instinct. of recognizing the difference between the essential things and the peripheral things. We just like to know everything. I do. I’d like to know everything. But I’m also realistic, and I realize that, you know, not everything is equally important. And the things that are essential, I think God has made clear. The things that are not as essential are not as clear. Now, among those things that are not essential, there’s two categories. There’s those things that there just isn’t enough information given to us, to know exactly what they are. And they’re apparently not important at all. But also among the non-essential things, there are some things that there’s a lot of information about, but people misunderstand or misinterpret parts. So you’ve got different theories. You’ve heard on this program people talk about dispensationalism and in contrast to, say, amillennialism. Or you’ve heard people talk about Calvinism in contrast to Arminianism or whatever. These are subjects where there’s a lot of information in Scripture But people, somebody is misinterpreting some information. You know, on one side of the aisle, someone’s getting it wrong. They can’t both be right on both sides because they have, in many cases, conflicting ideas. But this being the case, we can argue that this is not crystal clear. If it’s not made crystal clear, it’s not one of the essential things. God’s not trying to hide himself from people who are seeking to follow him. He’s trying to reveal himself to those who are seeking to follow him. You know, if something is obscure enough that people who’ve studied the Bible a great deal cannot really decide which side of the aisle, you know, the Bible really supports more, then it must be that the Bible doesn’t make that the central issue. And so, for example, dispensationalism. That has a lot to do with end times prophecy and stuff like that. I’m not a dispensationalist, so I disagree with dispensational views. But I hardly think it matters much. I mean, there are some aspects that do. But the end times stuff doesn’t. I mean, what do I care? What do I care if the dispensations are right or wrong about end times? I’m not living with a focus on the end times. I’m living with a focus on Jesus. And that’s the point. The essential thing is, who is Jesus? Who is he to me? And what does he want me to do? I believe the Bible gives all. more than adequate information for that. And in the course of reading the story, of course, we recognize we’re reading ancient Middle Eastern literature. It had to be written by somebody in some culture, in some language. But we just happen to live in a different culture, a different time, and speak different languages than they did. So it is possible to become a scholar and to learn those languages or to learn a great deal about their culture, and it will fill out a lot of interesting stuff. That would not otherwise be clear to us. But we have to assume it’s mostly clear to the people who lived in that culture and spoke that language. And we have to access things that they knew just from living at that time. We don’t. So we have to learn those things by special scholarship or not at all. And some of those things, the not at all is just fine because to get all tangled up in controversial things that aren’t essential can simply be a distraction. And it is for many people. Now, I’ve spent lots of years teaching the Bible, and I’m very interested in almost all the controversies, and I’ve studied both sides of almost all of them, too, because I’m interested. I’d like to know. But having done so, I’ve come to the conclusion that many of the things that people have controversy over, I think I know what the Bible does say on it, but it doesn’t matter much. I mean, I’m not emotional about it. I don’t care if someone agrees with me or not. And many other things I’ve looked into, okay, we just don’t have any information on that. Even from archaeology or anything else, we just don’t have currently any information on that. So I don’t have to know that. So we just kind of have to read the Bible for what it is and recognize it’s a set of ancient documents written in a culture that we have very little familiarity with unless we study it specially. written in languages that are now dead languages, which we’ll never know unless we study them as an academic pursuit. And, you know, so I think we have to take an attitude that I trust God to make clear to me the things that he wants to be clear to me. The other things I’m still interested in, but at a much lower level of interest. And I’ll still study them because if I can learn more about them, I’m I want to, but I’m not going to worry about them too much. So, I mean, when you hear all kinds of different subjects and you hear me saying, yeah, it doesn’t really matter, it doesn’t really matter, I don’t care if you agree with me or not on this subject, those are subjects that can become distractions from the main subject. And when I say I don’t care if you believe it or not, I would like it if everyone saw everything just the way I do. I think it would be a better world, a better church, if everyone just saw things just like I do. And the people who disagree with me think the same about their views. But the truth is, in most cases, if someone puts too heavy an emphasis on one disputed subject, they’re going to be distracted from the main subject. And it’s more of the attitude you have to have toward the Bible, I think. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
That was awesome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you. Okay, Thomas. Hey, good talking to you, brother. Thanks for your call. All right, our next caller is Scott from Detroit, Michigan. Scott, thanks for waiting so long. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, hi. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, hi, Steve. I appreciate you and your ministry and your understanding of the Word of God. I’ve listened to you for some time, and I had a time when someone was calling in about the millennium, or the millennial period, and I just want to ask you some questions on those. I think I actually attend a church and part of the denomination that does is non-millennial, if you will, but I just can’t stomach it personally myself, and it’s not, again, a huge issue, but it’s just something that I wonder why people come to a different conclusion than what I would assume or would say is fairly clearly stated in Revelation 20 that it is a period that happens after Christ comes back and isn’t something that’s going on right now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Well, there’s a lot of people who agree with you about that. For those who didn’t understand, he’s saying he attends an amillennial church, but he doesn’t believe in amillennialism. Now, I do, and so I understand why Revelation 20 can be seen the way that amillennialists see it, because I see it that way myself. I can also see why someone might have trouble with it. I think the one thing you said I’d like to respond to is you said it looks like it’s pretty clear in Revelation 20. Well, I don’t think anything in the Bible is pretty clear, unless you really compare the visions in Revelation with other material throughout the Bible, because nothing in Revelation is given in very literal terms. Jesus is not described as a human being or as God. He’s described as a lamb with seven eyes and seven horns. That’s not literal, but he’s called that about 27 times in the book of Revelation. The enemy of God is seen to be a dragon with seven heads and ten horns, which is obviously supposed to be Satan, but Satan is not a reptile with seven heads and ten horns. That’s a symbol of him. Likewise, the evil rulers of the world are described as a beast with seven heads and ten horns with the mouth of a lion and feet of a bear, you know, and other characteristics. And, you know, no one believes that that’s a real animal. No one believes that. So we realize that the whole book is written in symbolism. So we have to be careful about saying, I think it’s clear. Now, I’ll tell you, you said it seems clear that the thousand years in chapter 20 comes after the second coming of Christ. Let me just tell you why it’s not all that clear to me that that’s the case. One is, Revelation 20 is a standalone vision. It doesn’t necessarily have to have any chronological relationship to chapter 19. There are many times that a vision in Revelation will come to its proper end, and then a new vision will come that covers the same territory. For example, in Revelation 11, when the seventh trumpet sounds, it sounds like it’s the judgment of the world on the last day. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he’ll reign forever, and it’s the time of the judgment. So that’s chapter 11. But in chapter 12, it goes back to the birth of Christ again and tells the story another way from another angle. So this is, you know, so chapter 19 could bring us to the end of the world at the second coming of Christ, and chapter 20 could start it at the beginning again. I mean, we can’t say until we know what chapter 20 is saying whether that’s so or not. But it’s not, it wouldn’t be a strange thing. We have to be, we have to ask that question. Is that what’s happening? Now, the other thing is you probably assume that the second coming of Christ is described in chapter 19, which is why the assumption would be that he’s on earth in chapter 20. But many people see Jesus riding on a white horse, smiting the nations with the rod or the sword from his mouth. is not a reference to his second coming, but is a description of the gospel progressing, the word of God coming out of his mouth like a sword, conquering the nations through the missionary efforts of the church. Now, it doesn’t seem like that to you or me, probably, but it can be seen that way. I mean, there certainly are similar images here. making that kind of a point in Scripture. So, in other words, it may be that what you naturally see as the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19 isn’t even about that. Now, when you get to chapter 20, it’s interesting that Jesus is not mentioned as being on earth. Now, if he came back and set up the millennial kingdom on earth, you’d expect him to be there. But there’s not one reference in Revelation 20 to Jesus being on earth, nor even does it mention the saints on earth, although I think there are no doubt are saints on earth during the period of time. But it describes saints in heaven, seated on thrones in heaven, reigning with Christ. He sees their souls, not their bodies. So the resurrection has not happened yet, or else he wouldn’t see their souls. He’d see them in resurrected bodies. So, I mean, there’s some things. Now, I was taught, as you are, that we’ve got the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19, then we’ve got the millennium comes after that in chapter 20. But the more you study the book of Revelation, the more you realize that what is intuitive to you upon a first or second reading, because of the symbolic nature of the book, because of the non-chronological nature of the book and so forth, there’s simply no reason to insist, and maybe not even a very good reason to suggest, that Revelation is describing things that happened after chapter 19. It is certainly a position that can be taken, but it’s not at all something that’s obvious when you take all the factors into consideration. Brother, I need to take another call, but I appreciate yours. Oh, no, I’m running out of time. I may not have much time for another call. You’ve been waiting a long time. Craig from Washington. If you’ve got a real quick one, I’ll take it. Otherwise, we’re probably not going to get through it. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it’s not very quick, but anyway, I’ve been doing some research on the millennial reign, and some people, some Christian people are looking into it and thinking that he came physically and the reign is over. And why do you think that he didn’t come in a physical form and that you think he’s like this?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think he hasn’t come in a physical form yet because he still is going to. Now, people who say that the millennial reign is over and that Jesus already came are probably what we call full preterists. They believe everything predicted in the Bible was fulfilled no later than A.D. 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed. I don’t agree with them. I think that’s really an irresponsible way to look at the Scripture, but there’s a lot of people out there, especially online, who are full preterists, and that’s the view they take. They don’t believe there’s a future second coming. They think Jesus came back in 70 AD, though they wouldn’t say physically. They would say he came back spiritually in 70 AD, and they would say the millennium then was the period between Jesus’ death and his coming in 70 AD. Now, I don’t consider that this has good arguments in its favor at all, but that is the view that some take. Now, as far as you believe Jesus will come back physically, so do I, But he hasn’t yet. That’s why we can’t see him anywhere right now. He hasn’t come back yet. When he comes back, every eye will see him. But the book of Revelation does not necessarily describe Jesus as coming back before the millennium. That’s what I was saying to the previous caller. I have lectures on this. I don’t have much time right now to go over it deeply. But if you go to thenarrowpath.com, look under topical lectures and find the series that’s called When Shall These Things Be? I have very thorough lectures on the millennium and other topics like this at thenarrowpath.com. We are listener supported. You can donate there, too, if you wish. But you don’t need to. Just take the stuff.
