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This episode also delves into the practice of tithing in Christianity today, as listeners seek clarity on Matthew 23:23 and the different denominational interpretations of giving. Steve emphasizes Christ’s teachings on being peacemakers and true disciples, underscoring the vital aspects of living in accordance with the teachings of Jesus. Whether discussing modern theological concepts or practical questions of faith, this broadcast encourages thoughtful reflection and understanding within the broader Christian community.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we are live for an hour as we usually are each weekday afternoon. You can call in and ask questions. We’ll discuss them. about the Bible, about the Christian faith, and so forth. Or you can call in to tell us where you might disagree with the host on something. You’re welcome to do that here, too. I suppose the only announcement I have to make right now is that this Saturday, a couple days from now, I will be speaking in two places in Southern California. This is a monthly gig, Saturday morning in Temecula. At 8 o’clock in the morning we have a men’s Bible study. You’re welcome to join us if you happen to be in the area. Then Saturday night, also a monthly thing, we are going to be having our monthly meeting in Buena Park, which is in Orange County, California. And we’ll be talking about the book of 2 Peter and Jude, which are very similar books to each other in many respects. And so we’ll be talking about those this Saturday night. That meeting is at 6 o’clock, and the morning meeting in Temecula is at 8 o’clock. If you want to consider attending one of those meetings, you can find all the information you’ll need at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says Announcements. All right. If you’d like to be on the program, the number to call is 844-484-5737. I’ll give that one more time. 844-484-5737. Right now there’s a couple of lines open. Good time for you to call. We’re going to talk first of all to Steve calling from Lakewood, California. Hi, Steve. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, thank you so much, Steve, for giving me the opportunity to be able to call in. I really appreciate you and your ministry. Hey, my question, I’ll try to make it real concise here, is about the origination of… dispensationalism through John Nelson Darby, 1830, and not even 200 years old. I talked to a dispensationalist the other night, and he told me that wasn’t true. And I said, how so? And he said, well, Darby wasn’t the originator or creator of dispensationalism. He said it was actually always a thing. And I said, well, how can you prove that to me? And he said, well, if you’ll go on and find St. Ignatius’ book, excuse me, St. Arrhenius’ book on heresies, book number five, and I found it and I read it. It was a pretty lengthy book, 35 chapters. He said that he knew the apostles personally, some of them, and he wrote of the pre-tribulation rapture, and Darby brought it back into existence. He didn’t actually create it. And he also said that Justin Martyr, Clemens of Alexandria, and St. Ignatius also… agreed with that, and they knew some of the apostles. So my first question, is this true? My second question, I’m familiar with Polycarp, who was discipled by John the Apostle, but did these men really know any of the apostles other than Polycarp?
SPEAKER 02 :
Some people think that not only Polycarp, but also Papias knew the apostle John. Irenaeus did not know the Apostle John. Irenaeus lived much too late for that, but he did know Polycarp. So Polycarp knew John, and Irenaeus knew Polycarp. That is the connection there. I believe that Ignatius also is thought to have perhaps known Polycarp, but not necessarily John. So there’s some question there. about whether any of the church fathers other than Polycarp and Papias and probably Clement of Rome probably also knew some of the apostles, at least Paul. So, yeah, there are some of those. Now, Irenaeus was a premillennialist, but I don’t believe you’ll find a pre-trib rapture in his writings. There’s a couple of, you know, let me put it this way. If you want to know whether dispensationalism, as we know it today, originated in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby, You simply have to get any book, look up the word in any encyclopedia, find any responsible website, and everyone knows that dispensationalism, the system that is dominant in much of the evangelical church today, was originated by John Nelson Darby. Now, his system did incorporate some points made by some earlier church fathers, or at least something left them. I think there were some of the earlier Christians before Darby that thought that there would be a rapture like either three and a half years before the second coming. I don’t know if there are any who thought it would be seven years like Darby did, but there are a few people. They were not in the mainstream. That is, they weren’t in the majority. But there were some who did have some kind of an idea similar to a pre-trib rapture. There also were some, and they were not in the majority either, who believed that Israel would be restored in the end times, which is a very important Darbyite view and dispensational view. The difference being that the church fathers, and Irenaeus was one of them actually, who believed that the Jews would be returning to their land in the end times, they didn’t believe this was going to be God’s doing. They didn’t believe that God had unfulfilled promises to Israel that he had to keep, which is what dispensationalism teaches. they taught that the Antichrist was going to bring them back, and it’s going to be a judgment on Israel, not a fulfillment of some divine mercy on them. That Irenaeus and a few others that I’ve read, I think Hippolytus also did believe, and specifically said the Antichrist is going to bring the Jews back to Israel. Now, that was not taught by very many people. By very many church fathers, including some that were earlier than Irenaeus, like Tertullian, or I should say Justin Martyr, and some others, they did not believe that. In fact, they thought that was a carnal idea. So the dispensational system isn’t simply someone saying, well, here’s someone who said there’s going to be a rapture. before the tribulation, or here’s somebody who said the Jews are going to come back to their land. Those are very important dispensational points. But in most cases, the few persons earlier than Darby who said them were not in step with the majority of the thinking of the church, and they did not put things together like Darby did. See, what Darby came up with is a system. When you read Irenaeus and his eschatology, it’s really scattered. And so the same thing with Hippolytus. I’ve read them both. And, you know, they believed there’s going to be a millennium, but they didn’t believe what Darby believed. Darby believed the temple system and the Levitical priesthood will be set up in the millennium, that the Jewish religion will be reestablished there. Early church fathers didn’t believe any such thing. They believed Judaism was done and that Jesus had replaced it, of course, because that’s what the New Testament tells us. So what you’ll find is that in some of the earlier writers than Darby, a very small number, some points that sound a lot like Darby’s points are found. But you’ll never find the system that Darby came up with. And Darby knew that. Darby actually said that he was rediscovering truths that no one had remembered since the time of the Apostles. He made a very original system, and this is the system that’s called dispensationalism today. And anyone can prove that to themselves by looking up the history of dispensationalism in an encyclopedia or on an online source.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, Darwin is the creator and originator of the seven dispensations of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, of the whole system that included that. Yeah, I mean, he had this form of premillennialism. that had a restoration of the Jewish temple and animal sacrifices in the Levitical priesthood during the millennium. Now, Irenaeus and Hippolytus and Tertullian and many early church fathers believed there would be a millennium, but they did not believe there would be a restoration of Jewish practices in the millennium. That was strictly Darby. And most of them did not believe in a pre-trib rapture. I don’t know of any church father before Darby who said that there are unfulfilled promises that God has not fulfilled to Israel. that need to be fulfilled in the end times. So, I mean, these are the basic, these are the core issues in Darby’s view, which is held by dispensationalists today. And it was not, you know, like I said, there’s some things that were kind of quasi-similar to Darby’s ideas, but he was very original, and he claimed to be. You know, he didn’t say, hey, I’m teaching what all the church fathers have taught before me. You know, he taught that he was not. He said that he had rediscovered something that they had lost already after the apostles died. So your friend has heard someone say things like that, and I think your friend has confused some of the issues. There are a couple of books that have come out, which I’ve read, by dispensationalists that argue for dispensational ideas before Darby’s time. One is called Dispensationalism Before Darby. You can just go to Amazon and look it up, Dispensationalism Before Darby. And that largely is a book It’s mostly focusing on Puritan writers and things that some of them said, which was before Darby’s time, maybe a century before Darby’s time. That sounded a lot like Darby’s points on some issues. But again, when you look at them closely, they’re not saying the same thing. And they were out of step with the majority at the time anyway. So it wasn’t really the teaching of the church or anything like that. The other book is called… what’s it called? Ancient Dispensational Truth, I think it’s called. Ancient Dispensational Truth. And that book goes back to the church fathers and quotes them extensively. And I’ve read that one, too. And one thing I noticed as I, you know, analyzed the text is that they had very few church fathers that they could quote at all to sound anything like Darby. And then on the points where they did sound like Darby a little bit, they had a different view entirely. Primarily, that Darby believed that all of prophecy centers around God fulfilling Abrahamic promises to the Jews in the end times. And, you know, yeah, some of the early church fathers, a handful of them at the very most, thought that Israel would come back to the land in the last days, but they said it was going to be the Antichrist doing it, not God fulfilling his promises. So they thought it was going to be a judgment that God was bringing on Israel through the Antichrist. Now, dispensations today will sometimes say that, but they also get it confused with the idea that God’s bringing them back to Israel to fulfill promises. So I think they’re trying to incorporate some of what Irenaeus and others said with their own Darbyite views. You know, there’s these unfulfilled promises that have to be fulfilled to Israel, though the New Testament disagreed with that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, Steve. You’re a very kind gentleman. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Steve, thanks for your call. Good talking to you. Well, we have the next two callers also, like Steve, are from California. This is Nelson calling from San Diego. Hi, Nelson. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to make a comment here briefly. I’ve read your book, The Four Views of Revelation and The Three Views of Health. And they’re really very good. They’re very exhaustive, but they’re easy to read. I think that’s the point I wanted to make. It’s enjoyable to read. And I recently picked up the two-volume set of The Empire of the Risen Sun. And, man, you knocked it out of the park there, brother. I really appreciate that read. And it’s a great resource. I like the hard copy version. You can mark it up and everything. So I would just recommend that to any of your listeners that it’s kind of a must-read for any disciple-looking person. And then the best news probably is your Matthew713.com site. I don’t get any credit for that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Others have worked on that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, but you can download, you can print out certain passages of the Bible, and it’s just a really incredible resource, and I just wanted to give you a shout-out for that, and it’s an awesome read. Thanks, brother.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I appreciate those commendations. God bless you, and thanks for your call. Yeah, for those of you who don’t know, Matthew713.com is a tremendous resource, Matthew713.com. It’s got a topical index where you can listen to up to 25,000 previous calls from the show topically arranged in an index. You can also look them up by not by the topic, but by the scriptures that are in the calls. And in addition to that, the same Web site also has all my lecture notes, at least all the ones I’ve got online. And so, you know, you don’t need to write to me and say, could you send me the notes for this or that lecture? Just go to Matthew713.com. They’re there. You can print them out. It’s a great resource. I agree on that. And I do appreciate you saying that about my books. I, of course, hope very much that that would be how people would find them, easy to read. And also, of course, I would agree that the books Empire of the Risen Son are the most important. You said a must-read. I would agree. I think they are kind of a must-read for Christians, even though I am the author. If I had read them and I wasn’t the author, I would say, yeah, I wish everyone could read these books. That’s why I wrote them, because they’re things I wish everyone would read. All right. Well, thank you, brother. That’s very complimentary. Let’s talk to Eric from Sacramento, California. Eric, welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, Steve. How’s it going?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good, thanks.
SPEAKER 10 :
Good, good. Hey, real quick, just had a quick question. But my kids wanted to say hi because they didn’t get through last time when I called you earlier this week. Hi, kids. You and Dana.
SPEAKER 1 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi. Good to hear from you. They’re getting bigger. They’re getting bigger. One of them was a baby last time I saw her, I think.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. Yeah, they were. So they’re definitely growing, so. I wanted to call and ask you about kind of following up a little bit about the call I had earlier this week about specifically about like LDS so I was trying to ask I was wondering if you could tell me how they kind of understand the Holy Spirit and then also I was trying to formulate an argument after having read the doctrines and covenants I think it’s like like chapter or like verse like 130 or something, it says something about that the Father is bodily, and so is Jesus, and they can’t dwell in us because they are a body, but that’s why the Holy Spirit can because he’s a spirit and not a body. So I was trying to formulate an argument using John like 14, where Jesus is talking about the dwelling place and then saying that the Father and him will dwell in us. Um, do you, have you, I guess my question is, have you ever made that argument, um, to LDS, uh, missionaries? Um, and then if so, um, or if not, like how, how would you go about, um, arguing that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Now I have to say in my many lengthy conversations with LDS people, I don’t remember that subject ever coming up, the subject of the Holy Spirit. I, um, So I’m no expert on what they think about that. I usually talk to them about Jesus more directly. But yeah, I mean, if they say, well, the Father and the Son cannot be inside of us because they have physical bodies, the idea that the Father has a physical body is, of course, a distinctly Mormon doctrine. Joseph Smith believed that the Father… has a physical body even capable of having sexual relations with Eve to produce the next generation of humans and so forth. They had this Adam-God thing. Actually, Brigham Young, the replacement for Joseph Smith as the leader of the church, He kind of developed that idea. But, yeah, that’s one of the heresies of the Mormon churches. They believe that God the Father has a body, that he’s a bodily being, that he’s about six foot something, they said, I think, and that he literally has hands and feet like you and I have. And so when the Bible uses expressions about the hand of the Lord or whatever, they don’t see that as metaphorical. They just see that as he literally has a body. But Jesus said, of course, in John 4, God is spirit. and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. So he said God is spirit, and he was talking about the Father, of course. And later, after he himself rose from the dead in physical form, he said, Touch me and feel me and see it is I, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have. He said that in Luke 24. And so he said, I have flesh and bones, therefore I’m not a spirit. I have a body. Of course, Jesus had a body before he died, too, but the point is his disciples, after he rose from the dead, mistook him for a ghost, thought he was only a spirit. He said, no, look, I’ve got flesh and bones. Spirits don’t have those. So if God is a spirit and a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones, like Jesus said, then God doesn’t have a physical body such as we think of Jesus having or ourselves having. God is a spirit, too. He’s everywhere at once. You can’t really be everywhere at once and be confined within a body. At least I wouldn’t see how one could. Now, they obviously believe the Spirit doesn’t have a body, but I don’t know what they believe the relation is exactly between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son. So, I can’t help you there. But, yeah, I mean, John 14, 23, I think you referred to, where Jesus said, He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me, and my Father will love him, and we, referring to his Father and himself, will come and make our home with him. And there can be very little doubt that Jesus is referring to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer, because he’s just been talking about that. Just in the verses just before that, he’s saying, I’m going to send you another comfort, the Spirit, and he’ll dwell with you forever. So the Spirit dwelling in us is, Jesus said, the Father and himself coming to dwell in them. So that’s a, I mean, you thought of that yourself, and I’d say that’s a very good answer to them. So, again, I don’t know the nuances of their doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but I do know that they believe that the Father has a body, and that’s not biblical, I don’t think.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, because I was reading up on why they say that also, and they said because in all the visions that every vision talks about God having, you know, like when Jesus stood up when Stephen was being martyred, He said he’s at the right hand of the Father. So he said that every vision has God being in, you know, having like some sort of human form.
SPEAKER 02 :
But how would they expect God to be depicted in a vision except in sort of a human-like form? I mean, he could look like an animal, I suppose, or like a cloud or something. But no, these are visions. And visions are, by nature, symbolic representations of other realities. I mean, think of Daniel’s vision where A he-goat with a notable horn is at war with a ram with two horns, and he defeats the ram, and then his notable horn is broken, and so forth. I mean, he’s talking about the Medo-Persian Empire as the ram, and the he-goat is Alexander the Great in the Grecian Empire. That’s not how he really looked. You know, these are the symbolic representations of things that aren’t really like the representation, but they’re just a way of depicting them. So to say that when people have visions or dreams about God and he’s depicted like a person on a throne, obviously he’s being depicted as a king, which is a good symbolic representation of him. He is a king. But he probably doesn’t have a human form.
SPEAKER 01 :
If he does, I don’t know it.
SPEAKER 02 :
But Jesus said he doesn’t have flesh and bones. So even if he had… even if he had a visible form that looked like a human form. I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. But if he did, that doesn’t mean he had flesh and bones or that he had a physical body.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. And then you bring up a good point when you always mention that Jesus in Revelation is a lamb with seven eyes and seven horns. So I would wonder how they would respond. But I do, can I ask you real quick, just because you brought up that God is, John 4, 24, I think it is, where God is spirit. So I looked that up on a website, like a Mormon or LDS website. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, where it’s called Fair Mormon or Fair LDS. Anyway, they basically answer pretty much all these kind of questions. They said that in the Greek, there is no God. There is no is. It’s God, like spirit. It’s like the pneuma and then the…
SPEAKER 02 :
or um and then the word deos um and so they they had like a different interpretation what would you say to something like that would you well in the greek uh it says let you go yeah it says god spirit you’re right the word is is not there yeah but it’s implied that’s why the translators have it there what what would it mean if if you don’t imply the word is what would it mean god spirit and those who worship him must worship him say i mean god god spirit isn’t It’s not a sentence. It’s not even a complete clause. And yet, you know, it’s common in the Greek New Testament to have small words not actually included in the Greek sentences, but that are clearly implied that the translators put in and they put them in italics like they did this here.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, what do they think it means? I mean, it’s one thing to say, well, because that word is actually isn’t a Greek text. Yeah, okay, so, okay, you tell me what it means.
SPEAKER 10 :
They offer, they do offer, yeah, they do offer on this website, they do offer an answer. I can’t remember it now because I’ve just been doing a lot of, like, reading, like, just recently. Yeah, but they do offer something, but I’m not sure if that’s, like, if it’s legitimate. You know, like, I know they can give an answer, but is it acceptable? solid you know good answer like i don’t i don’t know so i was just wondering but um uh yeah so all right well i appreciate it steve and then i was wondering also real quick does that does mike from oregon the the christian now did he does he if i emailed you would he want like would he talk to me or like he probably he would probably he’d probably be glad to because he was once a mormon apologist himself and then he became a christian yeah so
SPEAKER 02 :
See, I know that he has contacted me many times, not real recently, but we’re friends. I’d be glad to. You email me, and I’ll send your email on to him, and he’ll contact you, I’m pretty sure.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, thanks, brother. I really appreciate it, Steve. And hi, Dana. So, all right, I’ll let you guys go.
SPEAKER 02 :
Dana says hi. God bless you, Eric.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. God bless you. Say hi to your family.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
I will do. Bye. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. We have a break coming up here that we have to take, and then we’re coming back for another half hour. And we have just one line open right now in our switchboard. If you want to call in, the number is 844-484-5737. It looks like that line is already being taken now. Someone is calling in right now. The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry. You’ve heard me say that before if you’re a regular listener. But if you’re a new listener, you might not have noticed we’ve just gone through a half hour without any commercial breaks. We’re going to have another half hour without a commercial break. In fact, we’re not even having a commercial break now because we have no commercials. We have nothing to sell. No sponsors. But we do like you to know that it costs us money to go on the air. You know, I’ve been on the air with this show for 28 years. And I remember years ago, people used to say, well, how much do you get paid to do this show? And they had the impression that the stations paid us to kind of host shows on their stations. And I don’t blame them for not knowing better, but… The stations sell time to people like us. Everyone you listen to, well, just about all these programs that are all over the country on different radio stations like this one, they buy the time at great expense. We spend well over a million dollars a year paying for airtime, and we have no other expenses, just that. But we are listener-supported for paying those bills to stay on the air. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to us at TheNarrowPath, P.O. Box 1730 Temecula, California, 92593. That’s The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730 Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can go to the website where everything’s free, but you can donate there at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
If you call the narrow path, please have your question ready as soon as you are on the air. Do not take much time setting up the question or giving background. If such detail is needed to clarify your question, the host will ask for such information. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program. There are many calls waiting behind you, so please be considerate to others.
SPEAKER 02 :
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. Our lines are full right now, but if you want to try to call in a little while, there might be a line that will open up for you. The number is 844-484-5700. And if you live in Southern California, or if you’re going to be in Southern California this weekend, just to remind you, we have a couple of meetings on Saturday. There’s a men’s Bible study on Saturday morning, 8 o’clock in Temecula. And there’s an evening meeting for anybody in Buena Park at 6 o’clock in Buena Park. You can get specifics about those by going to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and look under Announcements. You’ll also see announcements about where I’ll be speaking in the next few months in Tennessee, Arizona, Texas, Seattle, and Oregon. I’ll be doing about a week in each of those states starting the beginning of next month. So you can see those dates also at thenarrowpath.com under announcements. All right, we’re going to go back to the phones again, and we’re going to talk to Craig in, is it Lone, Washington, or Ione, Washington? I can’t tell if it’s an L or an I. I think it’s Ione, Washington. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, Ione.
SPEAKER 02 :
Ione, okay, great.
SPEAKER 09 :
Like in the Greek Ionians.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
In the mountains. Anyway, there’s a new theory coming out. in the Christian community, mostly younger generation on YouTube, that think that maybe the millennial reign was a physical reign of Christ, and what they call the Dark Ages was more like the Age of Light, and they added maybe 700 to 1,000 years to our history. And in 1776, they got the Statue of Liberty, and there’s a chain… around the ankle. And we know the Statue of Liberty is basically the statue of Lucifer or Satan. And the chain is broken in Revelations. And so we’re thinking that there’s this great mud flood and it’s a Tartaria. There’s a Tartaria connection and mud flood that the earth really did go through the tribulation. But God reigns. and there were kings. And then around 1776, you know, they celebrate the Statue of Liberty, Satan’s chain being broken, and that they’re hiding the fact Christ reigned physically, and maybe that he’s somewhere on earth in the camp of the saints. Maybe it’s at the North Pole. Nobody could go up there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I will say… I’ve never met anyone who had that particular collection of ideas. I don’t even know what you’d call it, but I don’t hear anything in them that sounds valid. More than that, I can’t imagine what the value is of them. I mean, let’s just say for a moment, and I’m not buying it, but let’s say that all those things are true. Let’s just say all those things are true. So how does that affect anything? How do I live my life differently today because of that?
SPEAKER 09 :
Can I ask you another question?
SPEAKER 02 :
Could you answer mine first?
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe knowing the truth, if it’s true, it might mean something. What? I don’t know what you mean.
SPEAKER 02 :
Whenever I hear people with wild… You think it’s wild? Oh, yeah, very wild. It seems very wild, and to my mind, counterintuitive.
SPEAKER 09 :
These are young Christians. I agree with your preterism, partial preterism. You just believe that Christ didn’t come physically, but it was some kind of spiritual reign in heaven.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, he’s still there. He’s still in heaven.
SPEAKER 09 :
On the throne room, but he didn’t come physically. It was a spiritual reign from heaven, and he wasn’t here physically.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, you said that several times in a row. Okay, here’s what I believe, because this is what the New Testament says. When Jesus ascended into heaven, which was 40 days after his resurrection 2,000 years ago, he sat down at the right hand of God, and he was given all authority in heaven and earth. and dominion, and so forth, and like Paul said, so that every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus is the Lord. And Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, had predicted that this would happen, and it was fulfilled when Jesus went into heaven. Now, when he sat down at the right hand of God, he sat on a throne. He’s reigning. He sat down to reign. And Paul, referring to that very thing in 1 Corinthians 15, says, said that he must reign, that is, Jesus must reign as he does now at the right hand of God, until all his enemies have been put under his feet. And then, of course, he’s going to turn it over to the Father, he said. Now, Paul is alluding to Psalm 110, verse 1, where God said to the Messiah, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. That’s where Jesus is. He’s at God’s right hand. And he’s going to sit there until he’s made all his enemies his footstool, or as Paul said, until he’s put all his enemies under his feet. So that hasn’t happened because there’s still enemies of Christ plentifully in the world today. And Paul said the last enemy specifically that would be defeated would be death. And that would be at the resurrection when these mortal bodies have put on immortality. and these inglorious bodies would become glorious, and that simply hasn’t happened. So I’m not sure. I will tell you this, and I’ll warn you about this because this happens a lot. People who read the Bible with very little knowledge of it get impressions, and there’s a certain kind of, I don’t know, I’m inclined to say a narcissist who assumes that the impressions they get are somehow, brilliant and somehow insightful and somehow smarter than all other Christians who’ve ever lived before them. And they think they’ve discovered something. The devil has started so many cults that way. I mean, that’s essentially what virtually every cult that used to be part of Christianity, but then branched off. It was that kind of thing. A leader thought he saw something no one else saw. He was not very good at exegeting the scriptures. His knowledge of the Bible was not as good as he thought it was, and his brilliance was not as much as he pretended or thought it had. And he’s led a lot of people astray. The simple thing is this. Everything you mentioned is a distraction from the one thing needful. Remember when Jesus was in the house of Mary and Martha, and Mary was listening to Jesus at his feet, and Martha was busily doing all kinds of practical things to serve the community in her home. Jesus said to her, Martha, you’re concerned about so many things. There’s only one thing necessary, he said, and Mary has chosen that one thing. And I think that Christ wants us all to choose that one thing, and that is to listen to Jesus and follow him. It’s really quite simple. But we want a lot more complexity. And people who are, I guess, offended by the simplicity of just saying, hey, why don’t we just follow Jesus? They want all kinds of weird, esoteric things to set them off, set them apart from others, so that they can pretend to know something that’s very esoteric and others don’t know. That’s exactly where cults come from. So I would just warn you about this stuff. It’s not true, and in my opinion… It’s very cult-like. So that would be my reaction to that. I appreciate you calling about it, though. Let’s talk to Thomas from Houston, Texas. Thomas, welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, Steve. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good.
SPEAKER 11 :
Can’t wait until you come out here to Texas again. Yeah, that’s going to take so long. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I just want to start by urging all your listeners to go online and listen to your resources you’ve got. a plethora of resources that are just awesome. I don’t know that you could spend any kind of money and get anything like that when you’re getting it for free. So I just want to urge everyone to go to narrowpath.com. Boy, oh boy, there’s just so much there. But anyway… In addition to that, read your books, too, especially your Empire books. Those are awesome. But right now, I am going through one of your books right now. Well, I’ve actually read it, and now I’m studying, going back and studying through it, and that’s Why Not Full Preterist. Okay, good. And it’s a great book. I really like it. And it’s similar to what you just taught. Basically, when you become a full preterist, you have to basically say that all the apostolic fathers were a bunch of fools. And they didn’t know what they were doing. And they didn’t pass down their truth.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, all Christians up until the 1970s were fools, yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. And the other thing, I didn’t see, at least I didn’t notice it when I read it. Might have passed over it. But I didn’t see any. Actually, I haven’t heard anyone say this. But, okay, let’s say all the apostolic fathers were wrong. Let’s say they’re wrong. You know, they’re not, you know. They’re not really an apostle. So they could be wrong. That’s fine. But how about the Apostle John? The Apostle John was alive after 70 AD. And the Apostle John most certainly couldn’t be wrong. And if most certainly the resurrection would have happened, the Apostle John would know. I agree.
SPEAKER 02 :
I agree. And also, more than that, Someone earlier mentioned Polycarp, who was a disciple of John. Polycarp was born in or earlier than 70 A.D., but he was a bishop of Smyrna in the second century. And, you know, he was, you know, he would have lived through 70 A.D. And if some of the things happened that full preterists claimed happened in 70 A.D., It seems like he would be aware of it. He lived through that. And almost certainly Papias did also. And in all probability, Clement of Rome did also. These are church fathers who were born before 70 A.D. and lived beyond it. And yet they still thought the second coming of Jesus was in the future and the resurrection too. Yeah, and we’ll see, the Apostle John can’t be wrong.
SPEAKER 11 :
If he is, then our whole apologetic is false. I mean, the Apostle John has to be right about whether or not the resurrection happened. And he most certainly would have passed that on to Polycarp.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I agree.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, I agree. How much time do we spend, too? Like, listen, the Irenaeus and his whole thing about when it would have been, you know, whether or not the dating of Revelation… you know, in the reign of Domitian or if it was earlier, you know. So we at least got to say that he thought that John was alive during the reign of Domitian. At least that’s the way he proposes it, you know.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that’s true. He believes that. All right. I hear you.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. All right. I’ll let you go. But anyways, keep doing the great work. God bless you, Steve.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, Thomas. Thanks for your call.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right. Bye.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. Bye now. All right, let’s talk to Michael from Santee, California. Hi, Michael. I think I got your book in the mail.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, hi, Steve. I was able to speak with you yesterday, and you mentioned peacemaker. I just had a couple questions. What does it mean to be a peacemaker? And also, what does it mean to be a disciple of Christ? Those are just two questions I just want to ask of you, in your opinion.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure, sure. Well, Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called the sons of God, meaning they will resemble God the way that a son resembles a father. That’s a very common thing to speak that way in the Hebrew culture, to say somebody is a son of, well, like Barnabas was naming son of encouragement, for example. I mean, character is sometimes described as like a relationship with equality. But being a peacemaker is being like God, because God’s a peacemaker. God had the whole world at enmity with him, and he sent Jesus to make peace. And also he made peace between the Jew and the Gentile in Christ, it says in Ephesians chapter 2. So we need to be peacemakers too. In other words, when we see that there’s alienation between parties that shouldn’t be alienated, We seek to help be a factor for reconciliation. If you see two people who won’t speak to each other and there’s no good reason for it, one of them just took offense or they both did, and you step in to say, hey, you know, why don’t we get together and talk this out so you guys can be friends again. I mean, making peace like that is being a peacemaker. Paul said that we’ve been given the ministry of reconciliation over in 2 Corinthians 5. Now, he’s talking about reconciliation with God, He says, you know, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and he’s given us the ministry of reconciliation. We, in Christ’s place, say be reconciled with God. So making peace between people and God obviously is something we want to do, but that would be evangelism. But peacemakers also are persons who simply are people. seeking to heal up broken relationships with people. God is not pleased with broken relationships with people. In Proverbs chapter 6, it says that there are six things that God hates in verses 16 through 19. And one of them that God hates is he that sows discord among brethren. God hates it when people cause strife and division between brethren. And he loves it when people are at peace with each other, whether they’re how good and how pleasant it is, the psalmist says, for brethren to dwell together in unity. Good and pleasant for whom? Well, maybe the psalmist finds it good and pleasant, but he certainly is implying that this is something that pleases God also. That’s Psalm 133, verse 1. So, peace among people is something that God values, and for people who go out and help people reconcile who are not at peace with each other that’s a very godlike thing to do and they’ll be called the sons of god now what does it mean to be a disciple of jesus we have a very good answer from jesus himself on that in john 8 31 where jesus said if you continue in my words then you are my disciples indeed And by saying you’re my disciples indeed, he means you’re really my disciples, as opposed to maybe someone who just mistakes themselves for being a disciple or pretends to be a disciple. You’re a real disciple if you continue in my words. Now that would mean, for example, when you read the Sermon on the Mount, you see those as his words and you’re going to live in them. You’re going to continue in obedience to them. Because after all, the Sermon on the Mount ends with this statement, Whoever hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a fool who builds his house on sand. And whoever hears these words of mine and does do them is like a wise man who builds his house on rock. And obviously he’s saying that’s the place of stability and that’s the place of not being wiped out when the storms come. So Jesus, when he teaches the Sermon on the Mount, for example, which is Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, at the end of that he says you better do these things because otherwise you’re a fool. So to continue in his words means you look at what Jesus said and say, hey, I take that seriously. That’s what God is looking for from me. That’s what I’m going to do. I want to follow Christ. And so following Christ simply really means continuing in his words. Now, a lot of other things may also be involved in the life of a disciple, like going to churches and doing certain kinds of things. religious work and things like that, which go beyond what Jesus specifically commanded us to do, but they would be still good things to do, perhaps. But the real basis of being a disciple is that you are doing what Jesus said to do. And in the Great Commission, in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, Jesus said, “…all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples.” of all nations, and you baptize them and teach them to observe everything I’ve commanded you. So you make disciples by bringing someone into submission to Christ and then teaching them to obey everything he commanded. So obviously a disciple is someone who obeys Christ, is someone who has made Christ their priority and intends to do nothing else but to please him and to do what’s suited, what he finds suitable for you to do. So those would be the brief answers to your two questions.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Steve. I appreciate your answers. I really do. Thank you, brother.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, brother. Thank you for your call. Let’s see here. We’re going to talk to Robert from Dixon, California. A lot of California calls today. In fact, most of them have been from California. Hi, Robert. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, Steve, how you doing? This is my first time calling. And I heard you say before that nowhere in the New Testament Jesus tells us to tithe. Yeah. So if you could explain Matthew 23, 23, and even before that, where he’s talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and then he says to the blind and to the… Is he talking always to them, or is he talking to us at that point, or… And I was just wondering your take on that, and maybe part two, if you could give me your understanding of the differences between a fundamentalist Baptist church and the Church of Christ. And I’ll take your answers or your replies off the air, and I’ll listen to them on the podcast.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, Matthew 23, 23 is not a command to Christians at all. He’s rebuking the scribes and Pharisees. So he says, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees. So he’s not really talking to his disciples. He’s talking to his enemies. His disciples are the ones who are following him. His enemies were the ones who were trying to kill him. And he says to them several times, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees. He says what they do. In verse 23, Matthew 23, 23, he says, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, for you pay tithes of mint and anise and cumin, which, of course, is what they had to do. They were under the law, the law required. That’s how you support the temple. That’s how you support the Levites, with the tithes. That’s what the tithes were for. And so as good Jews, they were required to pay tithes. And he says, and you do. Good on you for that. But he says, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith or faithfulness. And he says, these you ought to have done. Meaning the weightier things, justice and mercy and faithfulness, you should have done that and not leave the others undone. In other words, you did pay your tithes as the law required you to do. And good, you were required to. You shouldn’t leave those things undone. But there are more important things that you did leave undone. And shame on you, because the things you left undone were the weightier things, the heavier things, the things that God cares more about. That is, God cares more about justice and mercy and faithfulness than he cares about you paying tithes. Though he did require the Jews to pay tithes under the law. And so the Pharisees, of course, should not leave that undone. They should pay their tithes. And he said, well, but you did do that part. It’s just that that’s the smaller part, the big part you left out. And then he says, you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. And that’s a figurative way of saying the very same thing. Because a gnat and a camel, under the law, were both unclean animals. And to remain clean, to make sure they stayed kosher and didn’t eat unclean animals, if a bug fell in their drink, they’d strain it out because they wouldn’t drink an unclean animal. But he says you’re straining out gnats, but you’re swallowing camels, a much bigger unclean animal. So he’s saying you’re keeping the law in small ways that don’t matter as much, and you’re neglecting to keep the law in the big ways that matter a great deal. But he’s not giving instructions to the disciples. He’s rebuking the Pharisees because they did pay their tithes, as they should. But they didn’t do the thing that mattered more. Now, if someone says, well, see, Jesus said you should pay your tithes. Well, he said they should. They were Jews under the law. They should also offer animal sacrifices because the law required that too. But we don’t have to. They should also be circumcised and circumcise their children. But we don’t have to. They were under the law. Under the law, they had to do a lot of things that we don’t have to do because we’re not under that law. But he said the tithing was part of the law. But he’s saying it was a small part, as far as God was concerned, in comparison to what they were actually neglecting to do. So there’s no teaching about Christians, you know, paint ties here. He’s talking about what the Pharisees were required to do and what they did and what they didn’t do. There was no new covenant yet, and everyone was under the law at that point. Now, you said, what’s the difference between a fundamental Baptist church and a church of Christ? Well… The Church of Christ is a movement that rose up in the 1800s in what’s called the Restoration Movement, or the Stone-Campbell Movement. Two leaders, Stone and Campbell. And several churches, including the Church of Christ and some others, Disciples of Christ and such, grew out of this movement. They were attempting to have a non-denominational movement that would restore what they thought were missing elements from evangelical Christianity that the Bible had taught. They laid especially heavy stress on water baptism, because apparently they felt like most evangelicals were not strong in that. They went so far as to say, if you’re not water baptized, you’re going to hell. Now, I think that goes beyond what the Bible actually says on that subject. Though the Bible does say that water baptism is required, it’s commanded, but it doesn’t say that those who fail to be baptized are going to hell. They’re reading that into it. There’s nothing in the Bible that tells them that. But the Baptists and other denominations, they go back further in time than the Church of Christ movement, and each one has their own views. Fundamentalist Baptists, Many times they’re going to be King James only. They don’t have to be, but they often are King James only. I don’t think the Church of Christ is that. Fundamentalist Baptists, they hold probably most of the same doctrines that all conservative Christians hold, including the Church of Christ. Baptists usually have a different eschatology. That’s teaching of end times, although not always, because fundamentalist Baptists can also be amillennial or premillennial. They can be dispensational. But I think most fundamentalist Baptist churches are dispensationalists. If you don’t know what that means, I don’t have time to go into it now. We were talking about it earlier. But the Church of Christ is not. Many Baptist churches are Calvinistic, but the Church of Christ is not. So there are some differences in theology. The main thing is that the Baptists see themselves as part of a denomination that goes back many generations, many centuries. And the Church of Christ is part of a newer movement, but they think they’re restoring Christ. you know, the most ancient form of Christianity. But even their movement splintered into different groups. You’ve got the churches of Christ. You’ve got the so-called the Christian church and the disciples of Christ. These different groups splintered off from each other in that same movement. Anyway, the differences, of course, are much more numerous than that, but those would be the main significant differences I’m aware of. And we simply don’t have time to go into the rest of them because of the music playing in the background here. That means we have about one minute to sign off and then we’re done for the day. I don’t like having the limits on our time, but our time is limited because we can only afford to buy an hour a day. And it’s amazing that we can do that because it’s expensive. But two hours a day would cost probably twice as much. And we are on some 80 or so stations across the country every day because we have donors who want us to stay on. They’re not all regular. Some of them are regular. Some are not. If you’d like to help us stay on, we are entirely listener-supported. You can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can also donate at the website where, again, everything is free. There’s a lot of resources. Several callers today have said they are very valuable resources. I would have to agree. Check it out at thenarrowpath.com. You can also donate there. at thenarrowpath.com.
