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Join us in this enlightening episode where Steve Gregg addresses pressing questions from callers across the globe. From discussing challenging family dynamics within religious contexts to exploring theological questions about salvation and the end times, this episode covers it all. Dive deep into the scriptures with us as we uncover the intersections of faith, tradition, and modern-day dilemmas.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
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. And we have a live program so you can interact with me online, or that is on the phone, in real time. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to call and we’ll talk about them. If you have issues with something that I believe that you don’t believe in, call about that. We’ll talk about that too. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Now, a week from today, I’m going to be speaking in the Dallas, Texas area. And I’ll be in Texas for more than a week, speaking in a variety of places, Friday through Sunday. I’m sorry, Friday and Saturday. I will be speaking in the Dallas area. And then Sunday through Tuesday, I’ll be speaking in the San Antonio area. And then on Thursday, I’m in the Houston area. And then Friday through Sunday, next, I’ll be in the Dallas area again. So I’ve got several Dallas locations and one in Houston at this point. By the way, we have… an available date. I’m speaking every day for those 10 days except for Wednesday, April 23rd, if you’re listening, especially if you’re in the Houston area, because I’ll be in Houston the next night anyway. Wednesday, the 23rd, that’s a week for next Wednesday. Then you can contact us and we can book something if you’re interested. I do want to say something about the meetings next Friday and Saturday, which are in the Dallas area. They’re actually in Coppel, which is near Dallas. Both days, Friday and Saturday, there are two meetings, one in the morning and one in the evening, each day. So there’s four meetings on Friday and Saturday. Now, all of them are going to be a deep dive into the book of Isaiah. Now, I realize that many people can’t make it to a Friday morning meeting, which is the first one of these. And you might think, well, I’ll dismiss all this because I can’t make it to the first one. Any of these meetings would be helpful, would be useful for you if you’re trying to understand not only the book of Isaiah. but the prophets in general. And of course, there’s an awful lot of people saying that Isaiah and the other prophets have a lot to say about our present time. I disagree. But if you’re interested, you can check those out and join us. That’s next Friday and Saturday in the Dallas area. You don’t have to come to all four meetings, although there will be obviously four different lectures about Isaiah. And I think there was also some food and stuff served there. If you go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements, you’ll find all of these meetings and, you know, where there’s food and, you know, timed fellowship and Q&As and You know, these meetings sometimes have more than one thing going on. Check it out if you’re in Texas at thenarrowpath.com under announcements. Now let’s go to the phones, and we’ll talk to Peter from the United Kingdom first of all. Peter’s been a regular caller for some time. Hi, Peter. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Steve, thanks for taking my call. I was asked, Steve, for some advice, which I really don’t have an answer for, and I was hoping you could make me some insight into it. So in a nutshell, a husband and wife, they met… They got married in a church, which I would consider it’s a personality cult because the leader of the church, his word is just as authoritative as the Bible. And also they’re sort of rooted in the shepherding sort of movement where they just have this approach where they want, want control over every aspect of your life and the wife they both have two young children and the wife recently has left the church because they just suck sucked or wanted to suck all the time but the issue is that the husband still is going and the husband feels that You know, he feels as if he’s spiritually growing. And obviously the leaders of this church are telling the husband and the wife that the wife’s in the wrong because she should follow where her husband is going. And I was asked for some advice, but I really don’t know. yeah, what to say really. And I just wanted to know, I don’t know if it’s biblically, if there’s anything really to go by on this one, but I just wanted to know what your opinion is on it.
SPEAKER 04 :
So they are married or they’re thinking about getting married? This is a couple that’s already married?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, they’re already married. So they met at the church and they got married in the church, but now the wife has left. She doesn’t want to go anymore.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, and they have children. I, you know, the church sounds cultic. And if it’s into the shepherding movement, I know that movement very well. A church that I was in in California in the 70s got deeply into that movement, and I left it over that. It is very cultic. It’s very wrong. But the husband feels like he’s growing spiritually there. Well, I would say there’s lots of ways to grow spiritually without being in a cult. I assume that people who join Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses also feel like they’re getting some kind of spiritual benefit from it. But at what cost, you know? Anyway, I will say this, that if they both were attending before and they met each other there and they got married there and the husband wants to continue going there, I think she should probably still go there. I believe that she, you know, she’s concerned about her children being indoctrinated and uh, if I were her, I’d tell her, uh, I would take the children aside and say, you know, there’s some things about this church that I don’t agree with, but, uh, and maybe say what they are, but, you know, we’re, you know, uh, you know, my husband wants to go there and, uh, you know, they are Christians. Uh, they do love the Lord, I think. And, uh, Therefore, we’re going to go to be a united family. Now, at the same time, she can be registering her complaints to her husband, not nagging him, but basically turning his attention to things that are concerns in the church. And it may indeed come to the point where he feels that whatever spiritual benefit he thinks he’s getting there is not worth the other aspects. But it’s not like she can marry him and say, okay, now we’re going to another church. They were both going to that church. He hasn’t seen a reason to leave it yet. I don’t think she should not go to church with him. I think it’s very valuable for families to attend church together, even if the churches are not the healthiest. I mean, which ones are? Where do you find a really healthy church? There’s not as many as I wish there were. I think she should still go But if she’s concerned about, you know, the children, I would, you know, when getting home, I wouldn’t just rag on the church because you don’t want to diminish their respect for the husband, for example, who’s getting something out of it. But I would just say, you know, there are some things we don’t agree about, about this church, and these are the things. And I would just want you kids to be able to think for yourself and be free to think as you’re growing up. Are they little children or older children?
SPEAKER 06 :
They’re little. One’s two, the other’s three. Yeah, babies really.
SPEAKER 04 :
I bet she wouldn’t need to say anything about that to them anyway at this point. Maybe when they get older and it’s a matter of concern. But hopefully by the time they’re older, the husband will see the light too. And so I think she should support him. I think she should say, you know, you’re my husband. I feel like we should be united. I’m going to support you. I’m going to go with you to the church. But I just want you to know this is not a church I like. There are things I think are unhealthy. I’d like for us to be able to talk about those. And, you know, over time, if she’s kindly and submissive and so forth, he may let his guard down. Sometimes a man may feel like he has to defend himself against his wife’s other agendas because sometimes women are not very submissive. and they kind of lock into a tug-of-war with their husbands over issues they disagree about. And that, in many cases, will get the husband to dig his heels in and say, hey, I think this church is good, and I’m not going to leave it because you’ve changed your mind. So I think if she’s cooperative, if she registers her cooperation, her attitude of wanting to support him and his decisions and so forth, but that she doesn’t like the church and makes her case. He might not change his mind right away, but her submissiveness… is often what the Bible says we’ll win a husband over. In 1 Peter 3, obviously, verses 1 through 6, especially 1 and 2, it makes it very clear that a husband who’s not making the right decisions can be won over by the submissiveness of his wife. This is something that women have not been taught for a couple of generations anyway. They’ve been taught that they need to stand up for themselves and not not let a man run roughshod over their wishes and things like that. Well, of course, men shouldn’t run roughshod over their wives’ wishes. Men should be concerned for their wives’ concerns. But when you teach women to stand up against their husband, that doesn’t work out well usually. It either makes the husband a wimp who the wife can’t support him because he’s not leading, or… It makes them resist her more. It builds a problem. I mean, Peter is smart. He said a wife can win over her husband by her submissive attitude. And I think that that’s something that ages of feminine wisdom would have also agreed with. from experience. But when a wife positions herself as the rival to her husband in the decision making about things, well, like I said, he’ll either cave in and she’ll always see him as a wimp after that because he because he didn’t take the lead, or he’ll resist. But the truth is that if she’s a team player and she affirms that she’s a team player, that puts it on him to have to make sure that he’s making decisions that aren’t wronging her. If she’s standing up for herself, he might feel like he needs to stand up for himself. But if she’s saying, hey, I’m your supporter here, then he’s got pressure on him to make sure that he doesn’t lead her into something that’s bad for her or hard for her. So anyway, that’s what I’d say. She is his helpmate. She does need to support him in front of the kids and so forth and be cooperative, or else they’re going to have a marriage of rivalry between each other. But obviously he needs to listen to her, of course. I mean, any wise man would know. that his wife’s opinion is as important as his. And that, you know, if she’s very concerned, he needs to take a second look at the whole thing and weigh it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you very much. Because when I was much younger, I used to go to that same church and I hated it. I just felt my… I know that I would have given a very biased opinion. So, yeah, no, I think… Thank you for giving your perspective on it because, yeah, I just didn’t want to say something out of my own sort of bias. But, yeah, no, I appreciate that, Steve. Thank you very much. All right. God bless you. All right. God bless you, Steve. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Good night. He’s in England, so it’s quite late there, probably 10 o’clock or more. Okay. Andrew from Orange County, California, a little closer to home. Hi, Andrew. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. I’ve got another family question for you. What are your thoughts on the idea that God may, in certain situations, save family members within the household of a righteous person, even if these family members are not necessarily believers? We see something like this in Lot’s family being saved out of Sodom, Noah’s family being saved from the flood, Rahab’s household being saved in Jericho. We know married people are of one flesh. And I also think of 1 Corinthians 7, 14, where it says the unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believing spouse. What do you think?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Paul does argue that way in 1 Corinthians 7. Obviously, he says if a spouse has an unbeliever for a partner, that the believer should, of course, not leave the marriage and should do the same things they would do if they had a believing partner. With the exception, of course, if the unbeliever is leading the family into actual sin, I don’t think a partner should follow their spouse into sin, right? Now, when you marry somebody who’s not a Christian, of course, you take that risk that they’re going to make decisions that are contrary to your Christian convictions. And that’s one reason the Bible says not to do that, not to marry a non-Christian. But if somebody is married to a non-Christian or has adult children who are not Christians or maybe has a parent living with them who’s not a Christian, there is a a divided home, spiritually speaking, in a sense. It doesn’t have to divide the relationships between the husband and wife. It depends on who’s the non-believer. But will God save the unbelievers in the home because they are there? There’s not a promise of that, but there’s that possibility. When Paul told the believer to stay in the marriage with the unbelieving partner that they’re with, he said, who knows, you might win your partner to Christ. So he’s not saying it’s necessarily a guarantee, but he says… Don’t leave. By you staying there, you’re sanctifying your partner. You’re sanctifying your children. And you may actually lead them to Christ. Now, what does it mean to sanctify them? The word sanctify means to set them apart in a different category. Obviously, it can be used in different ways. But I think what he’s saying is that an unbeliever, whether let’s just say an unbelieving husband or unbelieving children, if they have a wife and mother who’s a strong believer, they are in a different position than other unbelievers because they are now in a home where they’ve got the prayers and the influence and the godly example of the believer there. And therefore, they’re different than other families because that home has a witness for Christ inside it. And it may indeed lead them all to Christ or not. Sometimes it does. I knew a woman who went away to college as an unbeliever. She got converted in college, came back home. Her parents and her sister and her brother all got saved through her. So, you know, that can happen. Certainly it can happen. It’s not a guarantee. And likewise, if the man is the Christian and no one else in the family is a Christian, well, he’s even, generally speaking, got more influence than the woman. It’s much more common for an unbelieving wife to become saved because she had a believing husband who was uncompromising, except he was compromising when he married her, I guess. But it’s more often that a Christian husband wins his non-Christian wife than the other way around. Not that it doesn’t happen both ways. It does. But typically, the family is more statistically likely to follow the lead, the spiritual lead of the father than of the mother. But, no, it’s not guaranteed. Not guaranteed. Obviously, Noah made an ark and saved his whole family, but they weren’t all good people. They were saved from the flood, but they weren’t all necessarily good people. Ham, for example. But, yeah, there’s no guarantee there. Now, it does say in Acts chapter 16, I think it’s verse 30 or 31. When the Philippian jailer said, what must I do to be saved? Paul said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house, he said, meaning your family as well. And some people have taken that as some kind of a promise that if one person in the family becomes a convert, you can stand on the promise that… that their whole family will be saved. That is Acts 16.31, just checked. And that’s not really a promise. What he’s saying is if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you’ll be saved. And the same applies to your house. That is your household. If they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be saved too. Though I think in that society it was much more common that, for the decisions of the husband to have a very profound influence on the wife and children than it would be in our society because, of course, wives and children both have less respect and more independence from the man of the house than was the case in their society. A man could almost in those cases say, okay, we’re a Christian family now, and their family would say, oh, okay, that’s your decision, and they’d start going to church or something. But Man doesn’t always have that kind of influence over his family today as they did then. But the promise was that if you accept the Lord Jesus Christ, if you believe on him, you’ll be saved. And the same thing is true of your household and should be. The idea is that, you know… You need your household to be converted to, if possible. And then it says, of course, in verse 33, he took them the same hour that night, washed their stripes, and immediately he and all his family were baptized. So they all got saved. He says, now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them, and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household. So his whole household did get saved. They all believed and got baptized that night. So it’s always wonderful when a whole family gets saved. In fact, it’s a great strategy, frankly, for Muslim world missionaries. Many missionaries in the Muslim world say, you know, the idea is to get the whole family saved. Frankly, because if one person gets saved, they may be, especially anyone other than the father, you know, they may be put out of the home. They might even be killed if they’re converted from Islam to Christianity. But if the father… is converted, or his whole family is converted, then, of course, then they don’t have members of the family trying to kill him. So, anyway, converting whole families is definitely the desirable thing, and Paul, I think, is recommending it. But on the same terms, the man has to believe in order to be saved, and so does his household have to believe in order to be saved.
SPEAKER 1 :
All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, Andrew, thanks for your call. Jerry from Clear Lake, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, thank you for taking my call. You know, I’m looking at Mark 13. Yeah, it was great to see you last Monday night too in Ukiah. Just overjoyed. Okay, Mark 22 starts to begin to talk about the false prophets that will come. I’m wondering who that might have been, for an example. And then later on, let’s say in verse 26, at that time men will see the Son of Man coming and so forth and send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds and so forth. And then lastly in verse 30, a little further down, he’s telling who he’s speaking with there that this generation will certainly not pass away until these things happen.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Well, this whole discourse began with Jesus predicting that the temple would be destroyed, which it, of course, was 40 years after he predicted it. He says in verse 2, well, verse 1 says, Then as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here. And Jesus said to him, Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another. that shall not be thrown down. So he’s saying the whole thing is going to be destroyed. And it says, now, as he said on the Mount of Olives, opposite the temple, the Mount of Olives is to the east of Jerusalem, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, tell us, when will these things be? What will be the sign when these things will be fulfilled? They asked two questions about these things. Now, these things, he’s only predicted one thing, namely that the buildings of the temple and the surroundings will be torn down and Not one stone to be left on another. And this happened in A.D.
SPEAKER 1 :
70.
SPEAKER 04 :
So he said, well, when is that going to happen? And what sign will there be that that’s about to happen? So he starts going into this idea of all these things that are going to happen before it occurs. Now, in verse 30, as you point out, he said, assuredly, I say to you. This generation will by no means pass away until all these things take place. These things. Notice they said, when shall these things happen? He said, well, these things will take place before this generation has passed. And that was true. Of course, it happened 40 years later. Now, in between those verses. There’s a lot of things predicted, earthquakes, famines, disasters, wars, rumors of wars, prophets, false prophets and false Christs. You asked about that particular one. Well, false prophets and false Christs were numerous. You know, in 1 John chapter 4, it says many false prophets have gone out into the world. So there were many false prophets in John’s day. And in the book of Acts, we read about a number of them. Elemas, whom Paul blinded briefly, was said to be a false prophet. We could say that Simon Magus in Acts chapter 8 was a false prophet or magician. So, I mean, there were plenty of them. as Jesus said there would be. Now, what about this business in verse 26? Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and then he’ll send his angels and gather together his elect from the four winds. Well, seeing the Son of Man coming in the clouds is a phrase that you’ll find numerous places in the Old Testament, not about the Son of Man, but by God. God coming in the clouds is a reference in the Old Testament prophets, for example, in Psalms and Isaiah, in particular Isaiah 19.1, where God comes in the clouds. In that particular case, he comes to Egypt. Now, it’s referring to the Assyrian armies coming to Egypt at God’s behest. God is bringing the Assyrians against the Egyptians to conquer them as a judgment against Egypt. the poetic language of the prophets is that’s God coming. God is coming in these armies. God is coming on the clouds. He’s riding above these armies as they were. Now, it’s not literal. It’s just a way that the prophets often speak of a judgment coming on a nation, almost always by some, you know, army coming. And this is God coming. So the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., was God’s judgment upon them. And that’s what Jesus is saying. You’ll see him coming on the clouds, just like in the Old Testament. Armies that come against Israel or other nations to destroy them are God himself coming through them. Now, when it says he’ll send his angels to gather his elect, angels in the Greek means messengers. We think of maybe supernatural messengers from heaven, and it does mean that in certain contexts, but it’s also the ordinary word in Greek for a messenger. So he’ll send his messengers out to the whole world to gather his elect. I take that to be the evangelization of the world. After Jerusalem fell, we find the gospel going out to the Gentiles and gathering them in, into the body of Christ, into the kingdom. Now, by the way, if you read Matthew chapter 22, verses 1 through, I don’t know, 10, you’ll see a similar thing where it talks about the destruction of Jerusalem in verse 7. And then it talks about the gathering in of the Gentiles there. from all over the world, and so it’s kind of a similar sequence here. So he said it happened in that generation, and that was a very accurate prophecy. He knew exactly when it was going to happen, which is something that, you know, very few prophecies are quite spot on like that in saying when they’re going to happen. Hey, I need to take a break. You’re listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and… We are listener supported. You can go to our website to see how to help us out if you want to. It’s thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
We highly recommend that you listen to Steve Gregg’s 14 lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be? This series addresses topics like the Great Tribulation, Armageddon, the rise of the Antichrist, and the 70th week of Daniel. When Shall These Things Be? can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. If you’d like to call in, we can talk about your Bible questions or disagreements you might have with a host. The number to call is 844-825-8000. 484-5737. That’s 844-484. 57, 34, 7, excuse me, 57, 37. The last call we had, I had to race through kind of a question about the Olivet Discourse. The caller was referring to Mark 13, the same discourse that’s found in Luke 21 and also in Matthew 24, maybe more famously in Matthew 24. And I went over it rather quickly, and I’m not going to go over it in more detail right now, but I just want to say those of you who maybe were not so sure about the answer are welcome to go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, where I have hundreds and hundreds, well over a thousand lectures of mine on lots of different subjects, including all the books of the Bible verse by verse, but also many topics. And the announcer who just was on just a moment ago mentioned the series at the website called When Shall These Things Be? You can also look at my verse-by-verse teaching through Matthew 24 or Mark 13 or Luke 21. They’re all there. And there’s more detail. I mean, I had to race through it rather quickly a moment ago. and I have a lot of calls waiting, so I’m not going to go into it more now, but check it out at thenarrowpath.com. You can look under the verse-by-verse lectures and find Matthew 24 or Mark 13 or Luke 21 and my comments there. Or you can look at the topical lectures and go to the When Shall These Things Be lecture series, which is about eschatology and covers some of that, too. All right, let’s talk to Carolyn from Seattle, Washington. Carolyn, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you. I need to know how to answer pre-tribbers when the subject’s brought up of Jesus’ second coming. like in the parable of the tares, we’re in Matthew 13 right now, and that they will be taken first. And in John 6, Jesus says, on the last day, on the last day. They don’t even blink at that. They don’t mind that at all because, hey, they’ve been raptured seven years earlier. How do you get around that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, when Jesus said he’ll raise his people up on the last day, What do they mean when they say they’ve been raptured seven years earlier? The last day is when he’ll raise them up.
SPEAKER 11 :
Not to them. They’re already in heaven enjoying the dinner and etc. That’s what they say.
SPEAKER 04 :
What Jesus said in those passages, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I’ll raise them up at the last day. That’s present tense. The people who, while he was speaking… had eternal life. There’s several times Jesus mentioned that believers in him have eternal life, and it was true when he spoke it. And he says about those people who have eternal life, I will raise them up on the last day. So it’s the believers, not some post-tribulational believers or some post-rapture believers like tribulation saints. That’s what they probably think. No, Jesus is talking about believers from his time onward. Anyone… who the Father shall give him shall come to him, and I’ll raise him up to the last day. Anyone, you know, who sees the Son and believes in him has eternal life, and I’ll raise him up to the last day. So he’s talking about people from his day onward who believe in him. We call those people the church, by the way. And he said that he’s going to raise them up on the last day. Now, the other question you had was from, let me remember, what was your first one? The
SPEAKER 11 :
Matthew 13.
SPEAKER 04 :
Matthew 13, yes. Okay, so the tares are taken out first, right? Yeah. Okay, so in other words, when Jesus comes, he apparently removes the wicked, not taking them up into the sky, but he says they’re thrown into a furnace of fire is what he describes there. And I understand that to mean… they will be judged. They will be judged at his coming, leaving only the saints alive. And the saints, then, will be caught up in the air, I believe, while he burns up the earth and makes a new earth for us to come back down to. But he does say there, and he says it several places later in the same chapter, he talks about the good fish and the bad fish. He says the net brings in all kinds of fish, and then they remove the bad fish from the good and throw them into a furnace of fire. So, The wicked are separated out, and the righteous remain. Many people appeal to Luke 17 and the parallel in Matthew 24, where two are sleeping together, one should be taken and the other left. to grind it and one will be taken at the other left. In the context, it makes it very clear, the one that’s taken is the one that dies. The ones that are left are the ones who escape that judgment. Just like when the Jews or Israel in Egypt put blood on their door on the Passover evening, The ones that were left were the ones left alive after the death angel went through and took, that is killed, the firstborn of the houses that were not, didn’t have the blood on the door.
SPEAKER 11 :
That all makes sense to you and me, but they insist that, hey, they’ve been gone for seven years.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they’re making that up. They’re not making that up. They’re teachers or whoever taught their teachers made it up. It was Darby that made it up, but people who teach it today are simply repeating what Darby said. Now, I will say this. I mentioned earlier, just a moment ago, about my series, When Shall These Things Be, at our website. The series, When Shall These Things Be, has like three or four lectures about the rapture. And it goes over all… the verses relevant to the rapture. In fact, one lecture goes through and proves the pre-trib rapture, and then the next lecture goes through and disproves it. So, you know, I mean, if you listen to that, you’ll know all their arguments, and you’ll know how to answer all their arguments too.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. I’ve been over there, but I hadn’t listened to all of your lectures there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, shame on you. I know. 1,500 lectures there, and you haven’t heard them all yet? Come on. What kind of listener? Where’s your loyalty here? I know you’ve been calling for years.
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t have much more time either. Thank you, Steve, very much.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. God bless you, Carolyn. Thanks for calling. Bye now. All right. All right, our next caller is Lewis from Indianapolis, Indiana. Hi, Lewis, welcome. Hi, Steve. I have a real quick one. Maybe it’s easy for you, maybe not. Who can baptize? Well, the Bible doesn’t restrict who can baptize. Obviously, only a baptized Christian should be thought to be worthy to do so. But there’s no such thing as clergy, you know, in the Bible. Churches had elders, but they’re not called clergy. They’re the servants. They’re overseers who just serve the flock by oversight. So it’s not like they have some special stripes on their sleeve or badges that say, okay, we’re the leaders. We do the baptizing. I’ve known people who think of the church that way, and unfortunately, they ought to really get back to reading what Jesus said about that kind of stuff. But the truth is that anyone, as far as we know, can baptize. When Saul of Tarsus came to Damascus, a man who is not, as far as we know, a pastor or anything like that, a man named Ananias was sent by Jesus to go baptize Paul, and he did. You know, Philip, who is like a deacon, if we could call him that. The Bible doesn’t call him that. He’s one of the seven deacons. that was chosen to distribute food to the poor in the Jerusalem church. When he went to Samaria, he converted this Ethiopian eunuch and baptized him and baptized others too. He wasn’t a pastor of any kind. So there’s nothing in the Bible that says that a person who baptizes has to hold an office in the church. And as far as we know, of course, the apostle Paul himself was baptized by a man who didn’t. hold any stated office in any church. So it sounds like any Christian can do it. Now, I personally think it’s ideal for baptism to take place in a congregation. I mean, maybe outside is a good place, but the congregation should be witnessing it. It’s like witnessing the birth of a new baby, in a way, into the family. But, of course, a person who’s being baptized is not being baptized into a particular denomination or local church. but into the body of Christ, which means they’re now part of every Christian assembly. Every Christian assembly is part of the body of Christ if they honor Christ. So anyone could be there. Anyone can watch it. But with many churches, they like to, you know, if they’re going to baptize someone they led to the Lord, they’d like to baptize them in the midst of their own congregation with the assumption that that person will probably go to their church. But there’s no obligation to go to their church. So a lot of things are customary. A lot of things are traditional, even in Protestant circles today. We sometimes talk about how traditional the Catholics are, but the Protestants have their traditions too. But speaking biblically, there is no special qualification required for a Christian who wants to baptize another Christian. That’s great. Thanks very much. Okay, Lewis. Thanks for your call. Victor in Alberta, Canada. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, good afternoon, Steve. I’ve got a question regarding alternative medicines. There’s homeopathy. There’s what they call water witching or dousing. Some people would put acupuncture in the same category. My question is, the scientific community says there’s nothing behind it. It doesn’t work. It’s garbage, whatever. And then the other side, I know some people, they say, I can do this. It’s a gift from God. It’s a blessing and whatnot. And from my research… It kind of looks like it’s more along the lines of witchcraft. And I’d just like to know your thoughts on it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Well, first of all, the scientific medical community has shown us how much they can be trusted recently with the whole COVID thing. They lied to us for years and ruined the lives of many people. I would say they have a long way to go before they can reestablish any credibility. The scientific and pharmaceutical communities have have a very strong financial vested interest in debunking alternative medicines. I mean, for example, if you’re treating your health by taking vitamin supplements, let’s say, or something like that, and you stay healthy that way. Well, you know, the pharmaceutical companies can’t make any money off that. You could just eat oranges and bananas and, you know, eat good food, broccoli, and that might keep you healthy. It might not. You might also need medical intervention for other things, but the truth is, if people find relief through homeopathy or naturopathic medicines or, you know, nutrition, this cuts into the profits of the medical community. Now, that doesn’t mean that all medical people are motivated by greed. That’s certainly not the case. There’s doctors who are not greedy. In fact, there’s doctors who will recommend. I mean, there are allopathic doctors, but they’ll still recommend naturopathic. cures if they think it’ll help. I mean, there’s good doctors, but the whole industry as a whole has a financial interest in you going to regular allopathic medical people and using pharmaceutical cures. I’m not saying you never should. I’m just saying, just be aware. They are not without financial incentives. Now, at the same time, people who sell vitamins and people who sell essential oils and herbs and things like that, they’ve got financial interest also. Although you can grow some of those yourself, which means that those people don’t get anything out of that, and you just get the benefit if there is something in it. Now, when it comes to things like acupuncture and some things like that, there are people who believe that that is occultic. And I would say… I don’t know if it is or not. I’ve never used acupuncture. I know Christians who do. The reason for people, for Christians, speaking against acupuncture and maybe some similar kinds of things, like, I don’t know, what’s that one where you put pressure on the sole of the foot in certain places and it’s supposed to, you know, help things in other parts of your body? Those kinds of things, generally speaking, have come from the East, China and places like that, you know, centuries ago. And it’s often the case that our modern Western science cannot find a reason why that would work. And therefore, it’s possible to be prejudiced against it. It doesn’t match up with Western science. And to say, well, maybe it’s demonic if it works at all. Maybe it’s just supernatural and demonic, so we should avoid it. I’m not so sure about that. Again, I like science. I’m not a science denier. But I would not say that scientists have discovered everything there is to discover. And there are aspects of our human health that are related to the soul and the spirit, I think, at times. So there are things that are not merely biological issues. Even doctors know there’s such a thing as people who’ve got psychosomatic illnesses and things like that. Well, that indicates that it’s not all biological. It can be. Or it cannot be. There’s just more to the human being and more things that can go wrong than merely physical things. And so it’s not impossible to imagine that, you know, people in the East discovered certain things. And people in China and India and places, you know, before science ever came along, before medical science came along, they might have discovered that some of these things work. They might have had superstitious reasons for trying it, but if it worked, It worked. Now, is it demonic? That’s another thing. A lot of these things like acupuncture, for example, they proceed from the worldview of the Hindus or Buddhists who believe in the chakras of the body, these different energy fields in the body, which are interrupted by sticking these needles in there, and that’s what does the trick. Well, you know, that sounds non-scientific. I don’t think the scientists have discovered these chakras. And I don’t want to affirm that they exist, but I’m not sure that they don’t. I mean, there are things about human beings that doctors do not know. And it’s not impossible that some ancient society may have discovered them. I don’t see a reason to call it demonic. Now, there are things that are demonic. There definitely are. Witch doctors, there definitely are cures or alleged cures that practitioners call upon evil spirits to bring about. Obviously, that would be our cult, and Christians should have nothing to do with anything that’s related to that. But, you know, I and in fact, some people have felt like yoga should be avoided because yoga comes from the east. And also many yoga practitioners, you know, they are involved in meditation and other eastern practices that are spiritually, you know, it’s questionable whether they’re safe. And so lots of Christians are against yoga. But I think we just have to I mean, I would have to be an expert, which I don’t know that I don’t think anyone can be a complete expert. And I certainly am not even close to it. an expert on all these different therapies, and I’d have to know what’s really going on with them before I could say, oh, they’re all just demonic. If the American Medical Association doesn’t approve of them, then they’re just all demonic. I don’t know. I don’t want to be overly superstitious. And to say everything’s a demon that I don’t understand strikes me as superstitious. And if the medical associations say, We don’t understand this stuff, so it’s all demonic. Well, that seems superstitious to me, too. So I would just say if I don’t know of any way in which a particular therapy would honor, you know, false deities or call upon demonic forces, and, you know, and it’s worked for Christians and non-Christians alike, I guess I’d be slow to forbid it. I’d have to know more in order to affirm that this is demonic. And I don’t know more, so I can’t affirm it. I know many Christians who do affirm that. But I don’t know if they’re experts or not. I don’t know if they’re just superstitious. I have known a certain ilk of Christians throughout my life. I’ve been in the ministry for 54 years. I’ve known lots of different kinds of Christians, and there is certainly a superstitious strand within the body of Christ that sees everything as demonic, that they can’t otherwise explain. And I’m not like that myself. You mentioned water witching. Of course, that’s not really a therapy at all. That’s just a way of finding water if you want to dig a well. It may be that some people use similar things, take some kind of a little dowsing rod thing, to move it over the body to try to find out where problems are. I don’t know about that practice, but I wouldn’t be shocked to hear that some people do that. I believe that dowsing does strike me as having clearly supernatural properties. I don’t know anything in the property of water under the ground that would attract a dowsing rod made with a coat hanger. That strikes me as something other than natural. And it doesn’t strike me as necessarily something that the Bible recommends. So if something is supernatural, I mean, you kind of have instincts about that kind of thing. I would be cautious about that. On the other hand, I’ve known Christians who’ve used it to find water for their wells. So who can say? These are definitely what I’d call gray areas. Some people would say no. They’re not gray areas. They’re strictly demonic. But to say they’re demonic is more or less to guess. It is true that a lot of people who do some of these practices are involved in demonic religion or Isra religion, which, you know, I guess we have to ask, would it work as well if they weren’t? And can we find someone who isn’t into demonic religions who practices these things and who understands them better? I just don’t. I can’t say anything more insightful about them just because it’s above my pay grade. It’s not my level of expertise.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I appreciate your insight, as I always do in all your lectures.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thanks, Victor. Good talking to you. Let’s see. Douglas, no, I’m sorry, Douglas, you’re not next. Greg from Bellevue, Washington is next, then Douglas. James. Greg, welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you, Steve. Are you able to hear me all right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Please ask your question. We’re running out of time.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Yes, there was a comment. I want to make sure I’m on the right track. I’m studying typology. And Zechariah 6, there’s the priest and the king. And there’s two crowns, two branches, and two repetitions of, I will build the temple. And so, the first one is the gold crown, representing the king, and the silver representing redemption. And then the two branches, one’s from Jeremiah… from the lineage of David, the king, but also Isaiah 53, there’s something, a shoot that would come out of dry ground. And then 2 Samuel 7, it talks about the king from the lineage of David who will build the temple, but in the following verses, like 14, it talks about him that would be punished for disobedience and the
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, I’m going to have to cut you short here because we are running out of time. Can you put a question to me about this? I’m familiar with all those passages. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 10 :
Am I on the right track? Is this in my head?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, okay. You are on the right track if what you’re saying is that the reference to the branch in Zechariah 6.12 is a messianic term that’s found in Jeremiah 23. I think it’s verses 5 and 6. And no doubt related also to Isaiah 11.1 about a shoot shall spring up from Jesse. And, you know, those kinds of things. Jesus is referred to as a branch out of David or Jesse, David’s father, in several prophets. And Zechariah is one of them. So he’s, I believe, referring to him as the Messiah. The crowns, the crowning of Joshua. Remember, Joshua here is the high priest that returned with the exiles from Babylon. And in Jewish faith, in the Jewish system, a priest, like Joshua, could not have a king’s crown. He could not be a king. The kings had to come from the line of David, which was of the tribe of Judah, and the priests had to come from Aaron of the tribe of Levi. So you couldn’t really have the same man being king and priest. Now, the Bible tells us in the New Testament that Jesus is the one man who is king and priest. And so by putting a crown… on the head of Joshua as if he’s king now, I believe what it’s doing is showing that the office of priesthood and the office of monarch or king would be joined in one person, in this person called the branch, who is the Messiah. And so, yeah, I take it that way. And when you talk about typology, Joshua here, the priest, would be seen as a type of Christ in this prophetic action because he is priest and now he’s crowned. Now, Joshua, the priest, didn’t really ever become the king. But this is symbolic action to suggest that when the Messiah comes, he will be the priest just like Joshua is. He even has the same name. The name Jesus in Greek is the same as Joshua in the Old Testament. That may be a coincidence, or that may be more than a coincidence. But the point here is that the man Joshua in this crowning ceremony is seen as a type of Christ who is both king and priest. I have lectures on Zechariah, you know, chapter 6 and the rest at our website, thenarrowpath.com. And I’d suggest you might check it out because there’s quite a few other things you can see. Okay. All right. Thanks, Hugh, for your call. Douglas from Phoenix. I’m afraid we don’t have but a minute or two, but go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I don’t know if you can answer the question. Okay. You want to skip? I’d like to. I’ve noticed you use the New King James most of the time, so I’d like you to just weigh in on the debate between the source texts for the New Testament.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I don’t have a loyalty to either the Textus Receptus or the Alexandrian text, because, frankly, I believe that either one that you use will yield the same teachings. The Alexandrian text obviously is a little bit leaner, then the text is receptive. That is, there’s some words and even some verses that are left out of the Alexandrian text. But I don’t believe there’s anything very significant that is hanging on those variations, so that whether you read a good translation of the Alexandrian text, let’s say New American Standard, or a good translation of the text of Receptus, let’s say the New King James, there’s going to be some differences, but the differences are not going to be very significant. So, you know, all Christians could read either one and still receive the same doctrinal information from the scripture. And that’s what I’m concerned about. I’m not necessarily looking for a magic text where no words have been changed from the time the apostles wrote them, because I don’t think such a text exists anywhere. But I do believe that we have very good well-preserved texts in both the Alexandrian text and the Textus Receptus. Now, for those who don’t know those words, Textus Receptus is the New Testament manuscript family that the King James and the New King James used, whereas the Alexandrian text is a group of texts that were mostly associated with Alexandria, the Vaticanus, the Sinaiticus, the Alexandrianus. These texts are used mostly for the New Testament of the modern translations that are not King James or New King James. So there are differences between these texts. They are relatively small differences, and like I said, you can read either text and get the same doctrine. So I’ve never really been one to go to the mat, defending one over the other. You’re listening to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener-supported. You can write to us at the Narrow Path PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. or at our website, thenarrowpath.com.
