Join Steve Gregg as he navigates the nuanced interpretations within Christianity, from understanding Bible doctrines to explaining denominational differences. This episode features insightful conversations about the essence of spiritual service and obedience, a reflective analysis on Billy Graham’s influence amid criticism, and a clarifying exchange on theological terms like ‘Holy Ghost’ versus ‘Holy Spirit’. With engaging listener interactions, this episode uncovers the core principles of Christian life and thought.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We take your phone calls during this hour. If you call in with your questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or disagreements you might have with the host, we’ll talk to you about that as well. The number to call is 844- Once again, that number is 844-484-5737. Our first caller is calling from London, England, from Peter from the UK. Peter, you are in London, is that correct?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, I am, Steve. Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
I thought so. Hi.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thanks, Steve. Happy New Year. Thank you. Thanks, Steve. My question today, reading the Gospels, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they almost appear out of nowhere in the beginning of the Gospels. I’ve never actually thought about the origin of those two sects. Do you have any idea sort of their origins or where they come from and how such a devout group missed Mark when it came to, especially when it came to their engagement with Jesus?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, the Pharisees and the Sadducees did not exist in the Old Testament. So when the Old Testament closes in Malachi, we’ve heard nothing about them thus far. But as you say, once we get to Matthew, which is 400 years later, 400 years after Malachi. Matthew’s Gospel has the places crawling with the Pharisees and Sadducees, and you think, well, as you say, where’d they come from? Who are they? These groups arose during the intertestamental period, that 400-year period between the Old and the New Testament. And they probably arose around the time of the subjection to either the Ptolemies in Egypt or the Seleucids in Syria. But the Pharisees have their precursors in the Hasidim, which were the conservative, faithful Jews. who stood for the law and resisted the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes, or about 167 B.C. approximately. And they were greatly persecuted. Now, they weren’t called the Pharisees at that time. They were called the Hasidim, and they’re not exactly the same group, probably, but… But the Pharisees almost certainly grew up from those roots. The word Pharisee means separated ones, and therefore these were people who saw themselves as not even necessarily compromising with the majority of the people of Israel, but separated even from the rest by their strict adherence to the law. Now, the Pharisees not only were loyal to the law, they were also loyal to what was called the traditions of the elders. In this sense, they differed from Jesus and they differed from the Sadducees, which we’ll talk about in a moment. But the Pharisees held to the traditions of the elders, essentially as if they were on the same level with Scripture. Now, Orthodox Jews today, recognize that they are the direct descendants in terms of beliefs from the Pharisees of the first century. We think the word Pharisee is a negative. If you call somebody a Pharisee, we’re taking the term from our knowledge of the New Testament where they were the opponents of Christ. They were very compromised in ways that Jesus took them to task about. He called them hypocrites. And so to us, the word Pharisee is a bad word. It’s always been a bad word in Christian theology. because of their behavior in the Gospels. But actually, the Pharisees were simply the Jewish sect. There were only about, I think, about 3,000 of them, although they did have religious influence disproportionate to their numbers. But they were the ones who held to the law of Moses very strictly. and to the traditions of the elders. Now, the traditions of the elders are those which later became written down, not in Jesus’ day, but a couple centuries later, they were written down as what we call the Talmud. Now, Orthodox Jews today are Talmudists. They believe in Moses and the Law of the Prophets, but they also believe in the Talmud. And they would recognize themselves as the successors of the Pharisees because that’s exactly what distinguished the Pharisees. Now, apart from the Pharisees, there were other Jewish sects. There were some that were even more strict than they were, but probably didn’t go with all the traditions of the elders, but had their own traditions. And they were called the Essenes. and they were the ones who lived out in the Dead Sea area and who are almost certainly the ones who produced what we call the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were a remote, monastic almost kind of a sect. They were even more separated from normal society in order to remain clean and undefiled, even more than the Pharisees. They even saw the Pharisees as compromised. But within the Jewish society, not including the Essenes, the Pharisees were the strictest Jews. And again, they strictly held to what Moses said and to what the traditions of the elders said. Now, Jesus actually rebuked them for that because he said by keeping the traditions of the elders, they sometimes nullify what Moses said, which is always the case whenever a group thinks that they can have the Bible plus whatever traditions of their group. Well, it’s always going to be the scriptures that suffer. and are compromised in favor of the traditions. Now, the Pharisees believed that in addition to the written Torah, the law that was given to Moses in Mount Sinai, which was passed down to them, they believed there was also what they called an oral Torah, that Moses had spoken quite a few laws that were never written down, but were passed down through Joshua and through the other leaders of Israel through the ages, and that they were what became known as the traditions of the elders, and later were written down in the Talmud. Now, the oral law… is not able to be documented. I mean, we don’t have any record of Moses doing this, and it wasn’t written down, even in Jesus’ day, 1400 years after Moses, it still wasn’t written down. So, you know, anyone can claim that Moses said certain things, but who could prove it? To my mind, this is very much like the claim of the Catholic Church that holds that the Bible and the traditions of the Church are equal, just like the Pharisees believed that the Bible and the traditions of the elders, or the rabbis, were equal in weight. The Catholic Church holds that the Bible and the traditions of the Catholic Church are, and they believe, similar to the Pharisees, that there’s not only the written scriptures, but there’s the spoken scriptures, the spoken traditions that were decided by bishops in various councils and so forth since then. But once again, just as the Pharisees, by putting human traditions on the same level with scripture, ended up compromising the scriptures, I believe the Roman Catholic Church has done the same. Their traditions often, because they hold them, have been made to compromise their loyalty to the scriptures. I mean, for example, the tradition of the clergy being celibate. Well, Paul said that the elders, the leaders of the church, the bishops, should be married men with children. So, I mean, you’ve got Paul saying one thing. You’ve got the tradition saying something else. They always go with the tradition. They’ll always compromise the scriptures for their traditions. And that’s true of any group. Now, Protestants have their traditions, too. And, you know, we need to be careful not to judge too harshly, you know, some other group because we also need to look and see, well, does my denomination have traditions that we will not compromise our traditions even if the scriptures are against them? That’s where the Pharisees were at with their Old Testament scriptures and the traditions. Now, the Sadducees, no one knows exactly how their movement arose, but it probably rose up. either before or after the Pharisees, around the same time. It is thought that the word Sadducee may have developed from the name Zadok. Now, Zadok was a very famous priest in the time of David, and God spoke very well of Zadok. He was a faithful priest of Israel. And some think that the word Sadducee is a variation based on the name of Zadok. They were typically the denomination in Judaism that the priests belonged to. Not all the priests, perhaps, and not only priests, but the Sadducees were a smaller group than the Pharisees. But they kind of held the loyalty of the priesthood, the Sanhedrin, the more ruling class. So the Pharisees were more influential culturally and religiously. But the Sadducees had more political power because the nation’s rulers typically were Sadducean in their beliefs. Now, the Sadducees didn’t believe in the traditions of the elders, just like Jesus didn’t. So in that sense, Jesus and the Sadducees both agreed. against the Pharisees. But the Sadducees also, according to Josephus, and some feel that this needs to be interpreted and may not have been interpreted correctly, but Josephus seems to say that the only scriptures the Sadducees accepted were the five books of Moses, whereas the Pharisees received Moses and the prophets and the Psalms and all that. But the Sadducees apparently only believed in the Torah. And they didn’t believe in angels. They didn’t believe in spirits. And they didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. And those are things where they clashed with Jesus, especially on the resurrection. The Pharisees did believe in the resurrection of the dead, and Jesus did too. So whereas the Sadducees and Jesus agreed with each other against the traditions of the elders, contrary to the Pharisees, the Pharisees and Jesus agreed on the resurrection of the dead doctrine, contrary to the Sadducees. So Jesus was not on either side. But his theology was probably closer, at least in his interpretation of Scripture, perhaps, to the Pharisees. In any case, he wasn’t part of either group. But these groups had grown up, and they were rival, sort of like there’s rival denominations, you know, in Christianity. You know, the Sadducees were the ones who typically minimized the supernatural, where the Pharisees had no problem with the supernatural elements of the Old Testament. So those are kind of a survey of those two groups.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, they sound like two political parties almost, one being more conservative, one being more liberal to the doctrines of the belief system of the time.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, we evangelicals would probably describe the Pharisees as the more conservative, and the Sadducees as the more liberal, because in Christianity, it’s the liberals who don’t believe in the supernatural, and it’s the conservatives who believe the whole Bible. On the other hand, scholars usually describe the Sadducees as the conservatives, because they only accepted the Torah, and they did not accept the traditions of the elders, which were extra-biblical, beyond Scripture. So, you know, it depends on what we call liberal or conservative. But they were like two different denominations, or maybe… like two different movements. Because in Christianity, we not only have many denominations, we also have the liberal side and the conservative side. So almost every denomination has a liberal branch and a conservative branch. You know, there’s different denominations of Lutherans. Some of them are liberals. Some are conservatives. There are different branches of Presbyterians and Methodists. Some of them, in each case, liberal and some conservative. Same with Baptists. Same with Episcopalians. So, you know, you do have these different general ideologies, and the Sadducees and Pharisees were different ideological camps and not very friendly with each other generally.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you very much, Steve. That’s really helped to provide context to those two groups. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, Peter. Now get some sleep.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, will do. Thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. God bless you. Bye now. He’s calling from England where it’s eight hours later than where I am at that time. Okay. Let’s talk to Don from Washington State, from Vancouver, Washington. Hi, Don. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, Steve. Happy New Year to you and Dana.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, my question is about ECT. I wrote this down because I’m beginning to have some cognitive issues, so I forget things.
SPEAKER 01 :
So you’re talking about eternal conscious torment view of hell? Correct, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
I was going to actually not say that whole long word, all those words there. Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. My question about it is… Well, I wrote it down on what I write. Okay, the denomination of the church I attend has in their statement of faith an insistence on the belief to become a member. So you have to agree that you agree to that belief to become a member. Also, some of the missions organizations my wife and I have served in over the years also insist on this belief. So my question is, Why do you think their belief in ECT, eternal conscious torment, is so important to them? Do you think they believe the fear factor is the best way to bring people to Jesus? I’m sorry I had to sound so weird. No, that sounds good.
SPEAKER 01 :
I would say you’re probably guessing correctly. Okay. When you were telling me your church and submissions, they require you to believe in eternal conscious torment view of hell, my first question was, why would they do that? And that turned out to be your question for me. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I think that may be a badge of honor or authenticity. maybe to them. I’m not sure. I’ve really thought about this. I see it in statements that have nothing to do with anything they’d ever get near that on.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, right. Well, for those who are listening and don’t know why this is even controversial, many people have only heard one view of hell, and they believe it’s what the Bible teaches, and that is that the unbeliever will be eternally consciously tormented in hell without relief for all eternity. And there’s a few verses of the Bible that sound like that might be true, but there’s actually a lot more verses in the Bible that seem like that is not true. And there’s other views of hell that the Bible can be seen to at least teach as clearly or more clearly than that particular view. But the view of eternal conscious torment in hell became a traditional view for the church through Augustine. Now, he didn’t invent it. People like Tertullian before Augustine taught it. But there were other church fathers that taught other views. There was no official view of the church about which way hell is until Augustine kind of threw his hat in the ring in favor of eternal conscious torment. And then he, of course, is the father of Roman Catholicism. So the Western Church adopted that view of hell in the Catholic community. centuries. And then the Reformation came from the Western Church and out of Augustine also. So the Reformation just simply accepted the eternal conscious torment view too. Now, before Augustine, there were people like Irenaeus who believed in annihilation. They didn’t believe that sinners will be tormented forever and ever. They believed they’ll be put out of existence. There were church fathers before Augustine like Origen, perhaps the most influential church father before Augustine, and he believed that hell was a place of restoration of the lost to repentance. That is a kind of rehabilitation of sinners who have not become saved in their lifetime. So these different views of hell all existed, and all were thought to be quite possibly what the Bible teaches, because there is biblical support for all of them, and none of them were considered to be heretical. But now, because of Augustine’s influence, the Roman Catholic Church and then the Protestant churches have seen this eternal conscious torment view of hell as almost, like you said, a stamp of authenticity of being a true Bible believer. Now, I’m not really sure why. that would be necessary unless they realize that belief in eternal conscious torment is a very repugnant doctrine to at least unbelievers and to many believers too, and therefore they probably see themselves as courageously faithful to Scripture by saying, we hold to this view. Now, I can appreciate someone who’s being faithful to Scripture, but if somebody says that by holding to this view and considering no other, we are being faithful to Scripture, I’d say they are doing what we were talking about the Pharisees doing. They are holding a traditional interpretation of hell, which arose essentially in the time of Augustine, which was not held by the church earlier and which is not taught clearly in Scripture. All three views… have significant scriptural support. And so, in other words, to say, well, we are courageously standing with scripture by taking this view. No, no, you’re not. People who believe the other two views have as much scripture or more in favor of their views. What you’re standing with is the tradition. of the Catholic Church, basically, which Augustine fed to it and which the Protestant reformers never challenged. So, I mean, and that’s okay if you think that’s a good way to get doctrine, but don’t flatter yourself that you’re following scripture. I wrote that book, you know, Why Hell, Three Christian Views, to show the scriptural case for all three views. That book’s available, by the way, in audiobook and hardbound. And it goes through all three views. It shows the scriptural case for each one. And it gives a scriptural critique of each one. And it does not advocate anyone. So I think people who have that in their statement of faith, we believe in the eternal conscious torment view of hell. I think they are people who haven’t done the research. They haven’t studied the Bible thoroughly. They think they have because probably they’ve read the Bible through many times in some cases, but they haven’t done so without reading it through the grid of assuming things. that when you read about weeping and gnashing of teeth, that’s talking about eternal conscious torment, even though weeping and gnashing of teeth does not speak of eternal conscious torment necessarily. I mean, you read that into it, there’s lots of things like that. You know, when they talk about the broad path leads to destruction, well, that means eternal conscious torment. Really? Why do you say that destruction means eternal conscious torment? It doesn’t sound like it does. Well, that’s because that’s our doctrine. We hold that doctrine and we import that idea into the word destruction. Okay, well, then what you’re doing is you’re not showing loyalty to the Scripture. You’re showing loyalty to a particular traditional understanding of hell, and you’re reading it into passages that don’t say it. Now, everyone does that with their theology once in a while, but we need to be careful not to do that more than we should. Now, if a church says to be a member of this church you have to hold this one view of hell, I would say then you would not let Irenaeus be a member of your church. And Irenaeus, the church father, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John the Apostle, you wouldn’t let him in? That’s pretty weird to me. But like you said, I think the reason they do it is because they think that the doctrine of hell, of eternal consciousness, they not only think it’s true, but mostly they think it’s useful. It’s a useful doctrine because it presents a terrible alternative to conversion. If you don’t convert, you’re going to be tormented forever and ever and ever. Now, I will say this. The alternative to conversion is horrible. If you’re not converted, you will suffer condemnation and judgment and so forth, just like the Bible says. The question of whether it’s eternal or not shouldn’t have much to do with it. I mean, if I believed that by rejecting Christ I will be tormented in flames for a half hour, I’d say, no thanks, I’ll follow Jesus. I don’t want to be a half hour in flames. I don’t even like to have my hand on a hot stove for a second, you know, with the fire on. You know, you don’t need eternal torment. to provide an incentive to be converted. But it’s the big stick. It’s really the big stick that you can wield. And the problem with it is, although many people assume that it provides the best incentive for people to get saved, it actually, in our day, where people don’t really even believe in hell at all, it just sounds ridiculous to them. It’s clearly unfair. It’s not taught in scripture clearly. And it makes God seem like he’s very unreasonable. And so while there may be some people who are converted simply out of fear of eternal conscious torment, there’s others who might be converted simply by the love of God and what Christ has done for them and by the gospel itself, the power of the gospel, which does not include any one view of hell since when the apostles preached in Acts, they didn’t present any particular view of hell. But they got people saved a lot because they preached Christ. The gospel is not about hell. The gospel about Jesus. And lots of people will be drawn to Jesus if they see him as he is. But if they’ve got the mistaken notion that he hates sinners and he’s got nothing that delights him more than to burn them in hell and torment them forever and ever if they do him the indignity of not accepting him, well, that’s a certain picture of him that I don’t think the Bible teaches. It doesn’t look like it to me. When people were crucifying Jesus, he didn’t say, God, smoke him. He said, God, forgive them. So, I mean, I don’t really see. I think the gospel, as some people want it to be heard, is not flattering to God, is not a correct representation of the character of God, and it depends on fear rather than love or gratitude to try to get people to get saved. Now, if the Bible teaches eternal conscious torment, so be it. I’m for what the Bible teaches. But when people say they hold that view because they follow the Bible, I know better. Because I actually wrote a book comparing the biblical case for each view. And I have a feeling these people haven’t even looked at that case for any view other than their own. So I’m surprised, Don, that they would do that, that they would say you have to hold that view. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I suppose the church I grew up in might have required that, too. But I’ve been out of that. traditional institutional Christianity so long and have just been a follower of Jesus and the Bible for 50 years, I forget how many people are just locked into the traditions of their churches and how inflexible they can be. In any case, brother, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m not sure what you’ll do about your membership at your church. Maybe just keep your cards close to your chest.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, well, I can’t sign a statement about illegal. I just won’t do that, you know. But anyway, thanks very much, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, brother. I hear you, and I’m sure there’s many people out there who have the same problem. I’m not sure how those are.
SPEAKER 07 :
I think you’re right, yes. Okay, thanks.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, brother. I really appreciate you. God bless.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, bye now. All right, let’s see. Our next caller is going to be Robert from Sacramento. However, we’re going to be having a break coming up right away here. And no sense interrupting that call with Robert. We have another half hour coming up, but we’re at the bottom of the hour now. And when we come to the bottom of the hour, we take that opportunity to let listeners who are unfamiliar with us know that you just heard a half hour program without any commercials. And you’ll hear another half hour without any commercials. And the reason there’s no commercials is is we have no sponsors and don’t want any sponsors. This is a listener-supported ministry. Nobody underwrites it. We just depend on God to provide every month to pay the radio bills. What are the radio bills? Well, they’re down a little this year compared to last year because we dropped a station, or true, but it used to be about $140,000 a month. Now it’s, I think, around $120,000 a month. But still, that’s a lot of money. And that all comes in from donors. We get nothing from anywhere else. We don’t sell anything. Or if it doesn’t come in, we don’t stay on the air. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can do it from our website. The website’s loaded with lots of resources. They’re all free, but you can donate there if you want. It’s thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, and we have another half hour coming up, so don’t go away. Just stay tuned.
SPEAKER 04 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. Welcome to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When the radio show is over, go to thenarrowpath.com where you can study, learn, and enjoy with free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. We thank you for supporting the listeners supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. See you at thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Craig, and we’re live for another half hour, during which we take your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, maybe you have a different view from the host, want to call to defend an alternative, you don’t have to agree with the host to be on the program. The number to call is 844. We have a couple lines open right now. 844-484-5737. That number again, 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Robert from Sacramento. And, Robert, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
How are you doing? Good. Can you hear me good? Yeah, you’re kind of over… over-modulating or something, kind of loud, but go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, anyways, I’m calling you because, you know, I wanted to ask you a question I had for a long time. You know, what separates Christianity from Baptists, from Pentecostals, and, you know, all the other religions? You know, what sets us apart? You know, what beliefs are different?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, there’s a lot of noise on your line, but don’t hang up because I want to clarify what is your question. Are you asking me what is the difference between Christianity and the other religions that are not Christian religions? In other words, how does Christianity differ from non-Christians? Or are you asking what is the difference between different kinds of Christians? You mentioned Baptists and Pentecostals, which are not something other than Christians. They are simply Christians. what we call denominations or varieties of Christians. Are you asking about the differences between the different varieties of Christians or between Christianity as a whole and other religions that are not Christian?
SPEAKER 09 :
Which is it you’re wondering about? I want to say what separates us from all the other religions. You know, everybody has different beliefs or they have different arguments on certain subjects. What have you found, you know, that really what’s the common denominator that separates us from Pentecostal, Methodist?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, those are not different religions. Methodists are Christians. Pentecostals are Christians. Baptists are Christians. Lutherans are Christians. Episcopalians are Christians. Presbyterians are Christians. These are different denominations. How do they differ from each other? Well, in small ways, usually. Now, some of them are fairly significant ways. There are different ways that certain ideas in the Bible have been interpreted. And, you know, when you find a group of people who agree about one interpretation of these things, and it’s very important to them, let’s say, they stick together. And then someone else who reads the Bible has a different interpretation of it and comes up with a different view on that same subject. so that they don’t agree, well, then typically the people who hold the other view stick together too. Now, this should not be, by the way, this is not authorized in Scripture. The Bible does not authorize Christians separating from other Christians simply because they have different opinions about things. In fact, the Bible specifically says that people who have different opinions, who are Christians, and have different opinions from other Christians, should simply give liberty to each other to believe what they will. That’s what Paul said in Romans chapter 14, verses 1 through 5, that where Christians have different opinions about certain things, but they’re still Christians, well, they should give liberty to each other to believe what they feel they should believe and love each other. Being a Christian. is not a matter of believing everything the same as every other Christian does. The only way you’ll find a group of people who all agree with everything the same is if somebody is dictating those opinions to them. Because when people read the Bible for themselves, they’ll get the message. All people who read honestly are going to get the basic message. And that’s what Christianity is. The basic message is there’s a God that he created us. He owns us, and he has a plan for us. He has purpose for our lives, and he has given instructions about how he wants us to live. The Old Testament is about how he chose a group of people, Israel, to give them special instructions to live obediently to him so that they’d be different from the disobedient nations. Now, he also said he’s going to send a king to them who we call the Messiah. Now, the New Testament teaches that Jesus is that Messiah, himself, in a sense, came down among us as a man. And he’s called the Son of God. He’s called Jesus. And he’s the Messiah. And that he died for our sins and rose again. And now he’s ascended into heaven. He’s alive at the right hand of God, ruling over our kingdom. And he calls all of us to become part of his kingdom by repenting of our sins, by entering into a relationship of complete trust and obedience with Christ. and following him until the day we die. Now, that’s the message that you cannot miss if you read the Bible. I don’t see how anyone who’s literate, who has a mind capable of following a train of thought, and who reads the Bible, honestly, I don’t see how they could miss that. Those are things that all Christians believe. Now, there are many things the Bible talks about that not all Christians do believe because the Bible’s not as clear about them as they are about those things I just mentioned. There are doctrines of predestination that some people hold one way and some hold a different way. There are doctrines of once saved, always saved, which some Christians read the Bible to get one view and some interpret a different way and get another view. There are views about the end times, which Christians don’t all agree about because some of the passages say, in the Bible that can be seen more than one way because they’re not clear. And so the Bible is full of things on lots of subjects that are not anywhere near as clear as the basic things. The basic things are what all Christians believe, and that’s what Christianity is. The other things are areas where Christians who follow Jesus can disagree in their opinions. The Bible does not require that Christians have all the same opinions as each other. And therefore, if, for example, I have, let me say I have a certain opinion about baptism. Let’s say I believe baptism should be by immersion in water. But another Christian, the way he reads the Bible, he says, I think I see it as talking about sprinkling. Okay. or pouring water over their head. Well, I’m not going to see it that way because that’s not what I think the Scripture teaches, but they think it does. Okay, well, what’s the solution? Well, there’s no crisis here. God’s not going to bust people on a technicality if we’re trying to follow God’s Word the best we understand it. God knows that. You know, God’s not going to send someone to hell because they did what they thought the Bible taught them to do about baptism, and it turns out that someone else had a more correct opinion about it. We’re not going to be saved by our opinions. We’re saved by our commitment to Christ, our surrender to God, and our devotion to following him. So, you know, you’re going to find different opinions about baptism, different opinions about the end times, different opinions about predestination among Christians. And that’s why we have different denominations. That’s why there’s Presbyterians and Lutherans and Methodists and Baptists and Nazarenes and others. Methodists, I think I mentioned them. There’s a lot of denominations. There’s actually thousands of them. But they shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be denominations. Because the denominations have existed, have come into being, because people had different opinions and would not tolerate the opinions of other Christians who didn’t hold the same opinions. That’s immaturity. That’s carnality. A family does not separate from each other because they don’t all hold the same opinion about things. But the church has done that. And that’s wrong. Christians should recognize their brothers and sisters, even like you recognize your literal brothers and sisters as such, even if they have a different favorite color than you have, or if they have a different political opinion than you have. You know, if they have a different, I don’t know, there’s lots of differences that family members have with other family members. You don’t exclude them unless you’re, you know, very carnal. And very worldly. And that’s what the Bible says. When Paul said to the Corinthians that they were, some of them were saying, I’m of Paul. Some were saying, I’m of Cephas. Some were saying, I’m of Apollos. These were different kind of groups starting over different loyalties and doctrines. And Paul said, that’s carnal. That’s worldly. That’s immature. It’s infantile. And that’s what it is. The church, as long as it’s dividing over things like that, is in an infantile state, which means it’s a long ways from where God wants it to become. So we need to grow up. All right, Robert, I appreciate your call. Thanks for asking. Jennifer from Utah, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. Hi. Thank you so much for your service to the Lord. Love you for it. Thank you. Okay, my question, I’ve been studying in Genesis, and something that just hit me, my question is Okay, in Genesis 1, they’re told to be fruitful and multiply. Then in Genesis 2, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were naked, and the man and his wife were not ashamed. So to me, that kind of indicates physical intimacy and maybe being fruitful and multiplying. But then it’s not until after the fall, now Adam knew his wife Eve, conceived and bore Cain, and then Abel, But my question, I think kind of the answer came in my head. I’m thinking on a linear time level here. But my question is, why weren’t they being fruitful and multiplying before the fall?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, my assumption is that they fell rather quickly. Okay. I’m not sure that Adam and Eve had not been intimate before they fell, but they apparently had not become pregnant yet. So the impression I have is that the fall took place quite early. My opinion is that when God made man and woman, put them together and told them to go at it and to have kids and flittle earth, they probably became intimate immediately. But they may have fallen almost immediately, too. Could have been the second day or whatever. So we apparently… Apparently pregnancy did not occur until after the fall, but we don’t know whether they were sexually involved before the fall. They had every right to be. In other words, we first read of them having sex and conceiving and having a child in chapter 4 of Genesis, which is after their fall, but it’s not saying that they had sex because they were fallen now, or as if for a couple to have sex is a bad thing. God, as you point out, God commanded them to do it. So it’s not a bad thing for a married couple to do. But my assumption is that the fault simply, as a matter of fact, happened very quickly before they got pregnant.
SPEAKER 05 :
That makes total sense. And especially because, you know, in Chapter 2, and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. That indicates he just joined to his wife. Now he’s saying they’re not ashamed. So to me, that would indicate shame. you know, the blessing in the physical union of a man and his wife, pregnant or not. Absolutely. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, and that was my question for today. You answered it great. Thank you so much. Love you.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, thank you for your question, and God bless you. Okay. God bless you, too. Have a great day. Bye-bye. You, too. Bye now. All right. Mark from Egan, Minnesota. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello, sir. I got a question on Billy Graham. I’ve considered him a hero for many years. And recently I’ve been watching some videos on YouTube from pastors and others who disparage him and say he’s a false teacher and he was a Mason and agreed with Catholicism and things like that. What is your take on Billy Graham?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, You know, Billy Graham and I might not have had all the same theological positions, although when I was young, I mean, he is a hero of mine also. He’s a hero of mine, and he has been since I was a child. He was my hero from childhood. But, I mean, he had maybe some views I wouldn’t agree with, but the things that people criticize him for, I wouldn’t be that critical about. Many times the people who are critical of Billy Graham appealed to a particular video of him talking with Robert Shuler at the Crystal Cathedral. And something Billy Graham said in that interview, which I’ve watched several times, gives people the impression that Billy Graham is affirming that people can go to heaven without Christ. Now, he didn’t say that. What he did say, he believed that God has his people all over the place, and he’s calling people out of their other religions and out of their other, you know, from all over the world, out of their other ideologies and so forth to be his people. At least as I listened to him, it sounded to me like that’s what he’s saying. But some people think that he’s saying that he’s affirming that Buddhists and Hindus and, you know, people like that can be saved in that religion. I don’t know that that’s what he is saying. But if he did believe that, and I’m not sure if he did, I do think he became more broad-minded, more generous in this view as he got older. But, I mean, he may have believed like C.S. Lewis. And C.S. Lewis was another hero of mine. C.S. Lewis believes that Jesus died for everyone and that, therefore, he could save anyone who turns to him. And that might include people who have never heard of Jesus but who have turned to God. They’re turning to God and they would not be saved without Jesus. Because Jesus died for them, and that’s the only reason they can be saved, because he did. But C.S. Lewis did think that they might be saved possibly without hearing about Jesus. But because their hearts are seeking God and desiring God, just the same as Abraham in the Old Testament, who didn’t know Jesus either, or David, or Moses, that God recognizes Jesus. because of the orientation of their heart that they are on his side and seeking to believe in him. It’s not their fault that they’ve never heard specifically the gospel presented, if it’s never come to them, but that Jesus died for them anyway. So Billy Graham might have believed that. I know C.S. Lewis did, and I suspect that that’s true myself. I mean, why wouldn’t it be? Why would God condemn somebody who is the very person who would gladly have received the gospel had they heard it, but they didn’t hear it? And why would God deprive Jesus of somebody that he paid for with his blood simply because that person didn’t happen to be the right place or time to hear about it? So, I mean, this is called the new broader hope view, which lots of evangelicals have held. Billy Graham might have held that. Now, I don’t know about him being a Mason. I don’t agree with the Masonic Lodge. I believe it’s wrong for a Christian to be a Mason, but many Christians have been. And I think that many Christians who have been Masons have not done so with any awareness that there’s anything about the Masonic Lodge that’s contrary to Christianity. There have been many ministers… who have been Masons. Again, I don’t think the Masonic Lodge is the right place for Christians to be. I think it’s got some very dark things about it that Christians shouldn’t approve of. How many of those things are known to these Christians who’ve gotten into it, I don’t know. I think a lot of people see the Masons as just kind of a service club, and even just a a way to connect with other people of goodwill in the community. I think a lot of ministers join the Masons because there’s a lot of well-meaning people there, and it becomes a network of relationships through which maybe they can evangelize more people, not through the Masons, but through the Masonic, quote-unquote, brothers there. They can evangelize them. That’s not my… I wouldn’t recommend any pastor do that that way. And I don’t know if Billy Graham did that. But, you know, I can’t judge his reasons. I realize the Masonic Lodge has a reputation for having some very dark things going on. I don’t think Billy Graham had dark things going on in his life. You know, there was a Christian magazine. I think it still exists. I think it’s still called The Door. It used to be called The Wittenberg Door back in the… 70s. And it was kind of a Christian, it’s a Christian magazine, but it’s very critical of things that could be criticized in the evangelical church. It was sort of a parody magazine. It mocked a lot of things in the evangelical church, but it was coming from a Christian point of view, but not necessarily one that’s just buying into normal Christian culture. But They did an article once on Billy Graham, and I remember they said in the article, they said, you know, when we write about major Christian figures, we usually are looking for dirt on them. We’re trying to find out anything that would tell us that they’re hypocrites and stuff like that. And they said, but the more we looked into him, the more we couldn’t find anything. He’s spotless. You know, the man… The man is very uncompromised. Now, if he was, in fact, in the Masonic Lodge, I don’t know that he was, but let’s just say someone does know that he was and he was. I’m going to have to trust him for his motives. I don’t think he was worshiping Lucifer. I’ll share that with you. But, you know, he may have gone in there to evangelize. I can’t say, you know, so. I would go. I wouldn’t join the lodge, but if I was invited to go speak there, I’d speak to them about Christ. You know, I’d do the same thing in a kingdom hall or anywhere. I’ve spoken at Catholic meetings about Christ. So, you know, Jesus went among tax collectors and sinners to preach the gospel. So, you know, where a man goes has a lot to do with his intentions as far as the way I’m going to judge him about it. But I think Billy Graham lived a very, very uncompromised Christian life. And he was very sincere, and he spent his whole life, you know, preaching the gospel, and I believe living it too. So people who are critical of Billy Graham, I don’t have any use for them. I mean, at least the criticisms I’ve heard, yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, quickly, do you know, have you heard the name Robert Breaker and Jordan Riley?
SPEAKER 01 :
No, I don’t know those names.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, they’re on YouTube. They’re Bible scholars, but they’re critical of Billy Graham. And they’re critical of a lot of things, Christian and the Bible. I didn’t know if you knew who they were.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, I don’t. Got to go. I appreciate your call. Let’s see if we can get some more calls in. We’re almost out of time. Tanya from Kentucky, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Just a quick question. What is the difference between the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit? Or is there a difference? Thank you, and I will take my answer off there.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. The difference is the difference between the King James Version and any other version of the Bible. The word spirit in the Greek is pneuma. And in older English, like when the King James was translated, the word ghost was often used for it. In fact, in German, the word spirit is geist, which is like ghost. Ghost and spirit are really the same word. Even when we talk about ghosts, even if we’re talking about Casper, the friendly ghost, we’re really using a word that just means a spirit. So spirit and ghost are simply interchangeable words. It’s just that ghost is a more archaic, older word for the same thing. But if you read the word Holy Ghost in a passage in the Bible and then read the term Holy Spirit in a passage in the Bible, they’re both going to be the same Greek word. It’s just the translators of the King James felt more, you know, it was more common to use the word ghost when they meant spirit. So that’s all there is to that. There’s nothing, no difference between the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit. In the Greek, they’re the same. Linda from New Hampshire, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Steve, how are you? Good. Good. So I have a… kind of a roll into question. I was listening to one of your programs from last year and you were talking about the new heavens and the new earth when we’re all going to be living forever. Do you see us as serving Jesus during that time?
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. But not just serving him, we’re going to be reigning with him too.
SPEAKER 06 :
But we’ll be subordinate. The question is that during that Somebody called in and talked about people who accepted Jesus like the last second of their lives or whatever, or they were mentally impaired or had some other reason that they couldn’t accept Jesus and serve him. And your response to that was that, well, they just die and they never get to serve God. So I’m just wondering, if we’re going to have glorified bodies when we die after we’re resurrected, wouldn’t that be a time for these people to serve Jesus?
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. Yeah, when I said they died, but they missed out on serving God, I meant they missed out on serving God in this life. You know, they don’t miss out on serving God in the next life. The thief on the cross was in paradise with Christ that same day after he died, he was in paradise with Christ. Jesus said, this day you’ll be with me in paradise. And so he, you know, he is apparently now serving God in heaven or whatever. But but he didn’t get to serve God in this life. If I say when people die or become saved on their deathbed, if we say, well, have they missed out on anything, or do they just get the same heaven we get? Well, I think they get the same heaven we get, but they missed out in this life. They missed out on serving God. Now, if you say, well, what if they didn’t care? Well, they will when they’re in heaven, because… they’ll realize that the whole purpose of their life was to fulfill God’s will and purposes. God has a reason why each of us was born. He’s got some task he intends for us to do. And the sooner we find God and get involved in that task, the more of that we’ll be able to accomplish before we die. And so they will have missed out on that. They will have lived a life for no reason. Well, not for no reason, because they ultimately got saved and went to heaven. And maybe even they’ve had children or whatever that will serve God. But they have missed out on the primary purpose of existence, which is to fulfill the will of God that he had when he created you. And to get to the end of your life and realize, I was made for something, but I had no idea what it was and didn’t do it. I mean, you only get one lifetime to do that. I mean, heaven is not a chance where you go back to relive your first life again. In this life, what we do determines what we will have for eternity. The Bible says every man will be rewarded according to his works. He means the works done in this life. So let’s just say someone finds Christ after a life of selfish rebellion against God. On his deathbed, they go to heaven. As soon as they’re there, they’ll realize that, wow, my whole eternity ahead of me would be different, better, if I had Christ. done in my lifetime what I was made to do instead of wasting it all. So when I say that people who are converted on their deathbed, they missed out on serving God, I’m not referring to the future. I’m talking about their past, that their lifetime they missed out on serving God. But when they go forward into the presence of the Lord, they’ll get to serve God there. But not everyone’s going to be in the same condition there. The Bible indicates there’s going to be different rewards for what we’ve done in this life in the body. And so someone who’s done nothing that God will reward, I mean, well, they have eternal life, but they get through by the skin of their teeth having no reward for it. So, you know, getting saved and going to heaven isn’t all that matters. It’s doing in this life the things that will make that eternity happen. the kind of eternity that we will be glad that we warranted by our obedience. Anyway, that’s what the Bible teaches, I think, and so that’s why I said that. We’re out of time for the program today, though. I appreciate your call, all the calls today. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg. If you would like to help us stay on the air, we pay for the time on the radio stations, but we are listener-supported. You can write to us at thenarrowpath.com. P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Or you can do that from our website where all the resources there are free. It’s thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
