Reflections on Translation: Choosing the Right Bible

SPEAKER 1 : 0:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:37

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. The purpose of having a live broadcast is so we can talk in real time. If you want to call in with questions you would like for me to discuss with you about the Bible or the Christian faith, um, or if you have a difference of opinion from that of the host and want to balance comment, you’re certainly welcome to call with that kind of a call as well. We have a couple of lines open on our switchboard right now. You can call right now, 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. And just a real quick advance notice, uh, In September, the 12th through the 14th, I’m going to be speaking near Minneapolis. I think it’s just north of Minneapolis. And if you live in Minneapolis area and you’d like to find out more about those things, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, look under announcements, and you’ll find out where I’m going to be speaking in the middle of September. Then in October, I’m going to be doing an itinerary in Oregon. I think we have all that booked. Do we have all that booked? Yeah, we’ve got the whole week booked up. But if you live in any of the areas where I’ll be speaking, feel free to join us. You can, again, find out about all those things by going to our website, thenarrowpath.com. and looking under announcements again. And so I guess a couple other things. Next Wednesday we have our Zoom meeting. It’s once a month. And next Thursday I believe we’re going to be having our Theology Thursday again at Two Brothers Pizza in Huntington Beach. And so I guess more on that later. I’ll tell you more about that next week. Okay, let’s talk to Carrie from Fort Worth, Texas. Kerry, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

SPEAKER 05 : 2:50

Yeah, Steve, I was reading about Christ and him washing the feet of the disciples. And quite frankly, I think I would have had the same reaction that Peter had. And I was wondering if you would elaborate on Christ, how he replied to Peter in that circumstance.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:14

Well, when Jesus began to wash the disciples’ feet, which was in John 13, it was an act such as the lowest ranking servant in a household would normally do. The washing of a guest’s feet at the door was something that nobody coveted to do, and therefore it kind of fell to the lowest ranking servant to do that. Now, Jesus did it. to his disciples to set an example for them. And that’s what he says in verse 15, for I’ve given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Now, before this happened, apparently most of the disciples allowed Jesus to do it without protest. But Peter, always quick to voice his thoughts, said, Lord, are you going to wash my feet? And Jesus said, what I’m doing to you, you do not understand now, but you will know after this. And Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Now, of course, Peter’s basically saying, Lord, that’s below your dignity to do that. You’re the king here. You’re the Messiah. I can’t allow you to wash my feet. That’s demeaning to you. I won’t stand for it. And Jesus answered and said to him, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. And Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Always, you know, the extremist swings to the other end of the pendulum. Oh, you’re never going to wash my feet? Oh, okay, wash all of me. My whole body, my head, my hands, everything. And Jesus said to him, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you. Now, this last statement, you are clean, but not all of you, John gives us sort of the subtext for it in the next verse. Verse 11, he says, For he knew who would betray him, therefore he said, You are not all clean. Now, this is interesting because John made that comment in retrospect. When Jesus said, You’re not all clean, he was talking about spiritually clean because he’s making reference to Judas there, who is certainly not spiritually clean. And therefore, this washing of the feet, according to John, had this secondary meaning. Not only was Jesus being servant-minded, which is an important lesson, but also he was washing their feet as an emblem of washing them spiritually, too. Now, when Peter said, I can’t have you wash my feet, and then Jesus said, well, if I don’t wash your feet, you have no part with me. This probably means… You know, if you don’t let me cleanse you, you’ll have no part with me, since this cleaning is not only literal but symbolic, according to verse 11. And then Peter, of course, goes over to wash my hands and my head and all the rest, too. And Jesus says, okay, let’s not go to extremes here. If you’re already bathed, and it was assumed that these guys, I guess, bathed regularly enough, then you don’t need to have your whole body washed. You only need your feet washed. And, you know, you’re already clean, but not all of you. Now, Jesus had cleansed them, and therefore they were, as it were, bathed. Spiritually speaking, they were cleansed. But the feet obviously get dirty when you walk around in the world. So he’s saying that I’ve cleansed you, but I only need to wash your feet now. And some people would say, What that means is that a Christian is one who has been cleansed. And every time you succumb to a temptation, you don’t need to get saved all over again. You don’t have to get thoroughly washed as if you were an unconverted person again. But rather, you just need to repent of that sin and have that cleansed. And that’s, of course, what John, the same author, said in 1 John 1, verse 7 and verse 9. In verse 7, he says, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us, that’s ongoing, present tense, cleanses us from all sin. And two verses later in 1 John 1, verse 9, he says, you know, if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, apparently, he’s referring to Christians here who’ve already been bathed, as it were. They’ve already been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. But we do sin, and we do incur temporal defilement. And he says, well, we need to have the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing us of all sin as we walk in the light in this world. And if we confess our sins, his blood cleanses us from all sins. So I believe that the idea here is probably… that a christian doesn’t need to get saved all over again every time they sin they’ve already been bathed uh but they do get their feet dirty you know when you walk around in the world the part of you that has contact with the world tends to get dirty gets to be defiled by the world as it were and he says so you need to get cleaned once in a while the feet need to be cleaned which i believe just means you don’t have to take a whole bath you just need So, I mean, if we confess our sins as they occur, he cleanses those. And that doesn’t mean we get all saved all over again. We just have that cleansing of that part that got defiled. And I think that’s the underlying text here. Now, when he washed their feet, he took his garments and sat down and said to them, Do you know what I’ve done to you? He says, You call me teacher and Lord, and you say, Well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet… Then you ought also to wash one another’s feet, for I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Now, what he seems to be saying there is there’s this other aspect of what he’s doing, and that is being the servant, washing the feet. He says, well, you need to wash each other’s feet then, too, because if I’m your master and I act as a servant, then obviously you’re not above your master, so you should do it also. And I’ve given you an example of how to serve. Now, the way it’s worded in a different situation in Matthew, he’s talking about leadership. It’s not the same scene. It’s not the occasion in the upper room where he washed their feet, but it’s when the disciples had been arguing among themselves as to which of them was the greatest, and Jesus had to rebuke them and so forth. He said in Matthew 20, verse 25, Jesus called them to himself, and he said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. So it’s kind of the same lesson given a little earlier verbally. But then later in the upper room in John 13, he gives them a visual lesson. He’s the Son of Man. He didn’t come to be served. He came to serve. And here he is playing the role of a lowly servant. And then he says, now you have to be that way too. You don’t want to be like the Gentiles who seek positions higher than each other, but whoever’s going to be the chief among you has got to be the slave or servant of all of the rest. And so he said, in this case, if I, your master, am washing your feet, how much more should you wash each other’s feet? Now, by the way, this story has become the rationale for some churches having occasional foot washing services. I don’t know how often they do it because… I really haven’t been part of a church that follows that custom. But maybe, I don’t know, maybe once a month. I don’t know. Maybe communion Sunday. I don’t really know. But from time to time, there are churches that practice foot washing. They have a set time where, you know, everyone washes each other’s feet in the church. And no doubt that’s because Jesus actually said, you ought to wash one another’s feet. And that’s taken as a command. Now, in my opinion, and no criticism of those who do this literally, I think this is an example of people taking Jesus literally when he probably meant it more figuratively. You know, if I have served you, you should serve each other. It seems unlikely that he would literally wish for anyone today, for example, to wash the feet of others unless their feet were really dirty. Then, of course, it would be fine. But, you know, in those days, people’s feet got dirty. They didn’t wear shoes and socks. They wore sandals. And they didn’t have paved roads and had dirty roads. So their feet were dirty when they came in from outside. Most people today, when they go to church, they’ve already bathed or they at least have clean feet, at least as clean as the rest of their body. So it’s not as if there’s some special need to wash feet in our society as there was there. The point is that those who did the foot washing were the lowest servants. They were taking the most humble role of servitude. And that’s what he’s saying that we should do. We should seek to take the lower roles of servitude toward each other. Again, if people actually have foot washing services, and I don’t want people to call me and say, oh, we do that in our church, and it’s a real blessing. I’ve heard that, and I’m not denying that it would be. That’s fine. But I’m just saying I’m not sure that Jesus is mandating that. a ritual foot washing in these words, as some people take them. Anyway, I hope that helps. Let’s talk to George from Scottsdale, Arizona. George, welcome.

SPEAKER 06 : 13:14

Hello, Steve. Yes, I used to belong to a Grace Brethren denomination church, and we did foot washing along with communion once a quarter. And as you say, it is a blessing. It was a practice in humility and submission. But I’m not calling about that. I just was responding to your last call. Sure. A few days ago, you explained how the various Gospels were – you didn’t use these words, but I will, were researched and the information gathered and, you know, it was put together over a period of time based on, you know, preaching. And I thought that was great. Can you tell me how that relates or how inspiration fits into that?

SPEAKER 01 : 14:03

Maybe. I think that was probably on one of the shows earlier this week where they played a recorded show, because I don’t remember that question coming up recently. We did have two recorded shows at the beginning of the week, and I assume you’re probably referring to some question that was asked there, and I didn’t hear it. But as far as how the Gospels were written, I believe that Matthew and Mark and John didn’t really need to do a lot of research, because Matthew and John… were present for most of the things they recorded. And Mark got it straight from Peter. According to early church fathers, Mark wrote the gospel as he heard it from Peter. And Peter didn’t have to do research either. He had memories. But Luke didn’t have any memories because he hadn’t really been in Israel at the time when Jesus was there. He probably was not converted until the second missionary trip of Paul. or if he was converted before that, he at least didn’t have personal memories of Jesus. And he tells us at the beginning of his gospel, Luke chapter 1, verse 1, that there were others besides himself who had written gospels, accounts of Jesus, and that he had good information from eyewitnesses and from other sources that were truly reliable. He said he’s had a thorough understanding of the whole story, from the beginning, and of course he’s saying that in order to say, you can trust what I’m saying here because I’ve actually done the research. I’ve got witnesses. My sources are good. In other words, Luke is not claiming that he saw any of this happen, but he’s saying that the people that did have provided information for him. And I believe that some of those things that he wrote, he must have gotten not even from Paul, though he traveled with Paul a lot. after his conversion, but some of the things about the early Christian church, for example, in Acts, the first nine chapters, and of course in the life of Jesus, even Paul wasn’t there for those. So we know that Paul and Luke and his companions spent time in Jerusalem meeting with the other apostles, and also they spent some time in the house of Philip the Evangelist when they were in Caesarea, and he was the one He’s one of the seven in the early church in Jerusalem, and there’s a story about him in Acts 8. So, I mean, Luke had access to these people. Now, you said, how does this relate to the whole idea of inspiration? Well, I don’t know. Luke never mentions that he was inspired. In fact, Matthew, Mark, and John don’t mention that they are either. So, they don’t give us any information about how they’re memories of Christ or their research that they had about Christ, you know, somehow jived with the whole idea of being inspired. Now, we can certainly believe that in addition to whatever else was going on when they were writing, that there was some spirit of, you know, the spirit of God was kind of inspiring them or directing them when they wrote. We can believe that, although they never said that. So, you know, we’re not required to believe that. But if that is our view, then we just have to assume that that was true when they wrote the Gospels, just like it was true, I guess, when Paul wrote his epistles or Peter wrote his epistles, assuming they are inspired since the Bible doesn’t say whether they are or not. But if they’re inspired, that doesn’t mean that Paul didn’t write from his own concerns and his own heart and his own vocabulary and his own, you know, his own sentence structures and things like that. That is to say… If we say that the Bible is inspired, at least the New Testament is inspired, we don’t usually mean that somehow some force took over them so that they were almost writing like a machine, a dictaphone or some kind of automatic writing, and therefore that what they believed and what they knew and their own limits of vocabulary and grammar and so forth would be irrelevant to we see that different writers of the New Testament had different grammar. Paul had some special words that no one else used. John had some special words that no one else used in his writings. We could say that’s Johannine grammar, or I should say vocabulary, or Pauline grammar or vocabulary. Paul’s grammar, for example, is very extended. He has some long sentences, 13 verses long before you hit a period. You know, he had his own style. So, I mean, we have to say that whatever else we might say about the inspiration of these books, inspiration did not preclude or seemingly interfere with them writing as they would have written even without it. You know, I mean, if Matthew or Peter, who’s the story behind Mark’s gospel, or John, you know, wrote down their memoirs, correctly, then that’s great. We can say, well, the Holy Spirit was behind that, guiding them. And we could say that, though they don’t say that themselves. It could be true. But whether it’s true or not, the main thing they argue is that they’re telling the truth. Now, since most of the biblical authors in the New Testament do not mention inspiration as being at play in their writing, that’s more of an evangelical position that we take. And it arose largely in, I think, the 19th century in response to the modernists who were saying the Bible wasn’t true, wasn’t reliable, things like that. I think it was the conservative Christians who, began to emphasize, no, it’s the Word of God, it was inspired. But again, these authors don’t mention that. So I guess we’re not obligated to know or to explain how those things work together. I’d be satisfied, whether they were inspired or not, if they simply told the truth. Because I don’t read Matthew’s Gospel to learn something about Matthew being inspired. I don’t read Mark to learn something about Mark being inspired. I read those books to learn about Jesus. And all I need from them is that they tell an accurate story of Jesus, that they tell what he did and said without changing it. And I think that’s what they did. So if there’s also an additional layer over that of inspiration, which they didn’t mention, that’s okay with me, because as far as I’m concerned, they wrote correctly. Now, some people say, do you believe they wrote infallibly? Well, I don’t know what that means. The Bible doesn’t ever use such a word as infallible. Does it mean they didn’t make any mistakes? I’d be willing to say they probably didn’t make any mistakes. But, you know, but on the other hand, does it mean that they were under some influence, some supernatural influence that would have precluded them making mistakes? I don’t know that because certainly, like I said, they never mentioned that if that’s true.

SPEAKER 06 : 21:14

And I really appreciate your insight on that. Two things, if I could. One, you know, Matthew says, you know, when Jesus put the demons into the pigs, there were two men that the demons were extracted from. Whereas Luke said one man. So is that an error or is that simply an inconsistency? I don’t know.

SPEAKER 01 : 21:37

Well, I don’t know why that would be considered an error. First of all, Matthew was present when that happened, and I think if he says there were two men there, I’ll take his word for it. Now, Luke doesn’t deny that there were two men there. Well, he doesn’t deny it.

SPEAKER 06 : 21:53

He just says one.

SPEAKER 01 : 21:55

He says there was a man. So, I mean, that’s true of quite a few stories, like the angels at the tomb of Jesus. A couple of Gospels mention there were two, and a couple of them mention an angel or a man who said this to the women. Now, if there’s two Gospels that tell me there were two angels there, well… There must have been. But when two more Gospels tell us there was an angel who said this, I agree. That’s true, too. I believe there were two angels there, and one of them said those things. Likewise, when Jesus was coming toward Jericho, there were two blind men who were healed. Matthew tells us there were two, either Mark or Luke. I think it’s Mark. mentions one blind man and gives his name, Bartimaeus. And so, you know, so I mean, it’s not uncommon for one account to mention how many people were there and for the other one simply to mention the one that’s doing the talking.

SPEAKER 06 : 22:56

Yeah, that makes sense. Well, the last thing, the proof text for, you know, that Paul wrote about all Scripture God breathed, suitable for I take it from what you’re saying that you don’t use that. You don’t think that that covers all of the New Testament.

SPEAKER 01 : 23:16

Right, because none of the New Testament was written when Paul wrote that. I mean, not one book of the New Testament was written when Paul wrote that. Well, yeah, I can’t say not one book. I think that’s true, though. I mean, most scholars would say none of the books were. Now, it’s possible that Mark or Matthew were written, but But that they were considered Scripture at the time, we don’t know if Paul’s thinking of them when he says that. Because in that chapter, which is, of course, 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture is given by the Spirit of God. The previous verse, Paul says, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures. which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Jesus Christ. All scriptures give by inspiration of God. Now, the holy scriptures that Timothy had known from his childhood certainly didn’t include any New Testament books, because it’s obvious there was not one book of the New Testament written when Timothy was a young child. So Timothy was raised in the Old Testament scriptures. The Bible tells us he had a Jewish mother and a Gentile father. And apparently his mother, a Jew, taught him the Hebrew scriptures from his youth. And so when Paul’s talking about Timothy’s learning the scriptures, he can’t mean anything other than the Old Testament scriptures. And then this next statement, all scriptures given by inspiration of God, appears to be referring to the same scriptures he mentioned in the previous verse, I think. But, I mean, on the other hand, I have no objection. I have no objection to saying the New Testament books are written by inspiration of God, but I don’t think Paul is affirming that there.

SPEAKER 06 : 24:53

Gotcha.

SPEAKER 01 : 24:54

Gotcha.

SPEAKER 06 : 24:55

Okay. Thank you. You’re always insightful. I really appreciate it. You are quite the blessing.

SPEAKER 01 : 25:01

Well, thanks, George. God bless you. And I don’t mean to be controversial about any of this. I just try to say what is and what isn’t in the Bible. It is true that, you know, when I was raised in the fundamentalist faith, And my view was that every word of the Bible, Old and New Testament, was specifically breathed out of God’s mind and mouth. And then I studied the scriptures and realized that, well… I’m claiming something about them that they don’t claim about themselves. In which case, I’m claiming something that’s a tradition of man. And unless the scripture says it, then whoever’s saying it is a man. And it’s his traditions. So, I mean, I sometimes liken it to the way Roman Catholics talk about Mary. Mary’s a wonderful, godly woman. But they revere her so much. that there were accretions to their traditions about her. Eventually she was sinless. Then she was a perpetual virgin and things like that. Things the Bible doesn’t say at all. It’s a tendency for people who highly revere something to tend to, I don’t know, maybe exaggerate beyond what the Bible says about them. And evangelicals don’t do that with Mary, but they may do that with the Scriptures. They may say more about the Scriptures than the Scriptures actually say about themselves. In which case, just like the Catholic reverence for Mary, evangelical reverence for the Bible can include some traditional ideas in addition to what the Bible does say. I spend most of my life trying to find out what the Bible does say so that I can distinguish between traditions of man and Scripture. That’s what I try to do. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have a break. Another half hour coming up. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.

SPEAKER 08 : 27:00

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SPEAKER 01 : 27:44

Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. Our lines are full, so don’t call at this time, but I’ll give you the phone number in case you want to try in a few minutes. Sometimes you may find a line has opened up. The number is 844-484. 5737. Our next caller is Fred in Alameda, California. Fred, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

SPEAKER 09 : 28:10

Yes. I’ve heard it said that when David numbered the people, and I don’t know whether that’s in Chronicles, I’m not really sure, but I’ve heard people tell me, Christians tell me, that was a worse sin than his sin with Bathsheba, you know, and Uriah. So I have two questions. Do you agree with that? Numbering the people was a worse sin. And then my second question is, why do you think David had so much trouble doing the right things at various times? Because the Bible says he was a man after God’s own heart. Why did he have such trouble?

SPEAKER 01 : 28:50

Well, uh, I mean, why do we have so much trouble sometimes? Actually, you know, uh, people are human and, uh, I would like to think I’m a man after God’s own heart. I mean, I’m not going to boast of it there, I think, but that’s what I desire to be, and I have reason to believe that I would be, that God would see me that way, and I think that he’d see any serious Christian that way. So, you know, any serious Christian can sin. Now, I will say this. If someone says that David numbering the people was a worse sin than his sin with Bathsheba, I’m not Certainly the Bible doesn’t say that anywhere. You know, I mean, the punishment is pretty severe compared to that. And maybe that’s what they’re going by. But, yeah, the Bible doesn’t evaluate that sin in some ranking next to his murder and his adultery. So, and I’m not really, I mean, there was a horrible price to pay for that particular sin. But there was a terrible price to pay for a sin of Bathsheba, too. A baby died and died. The kingdom was, you know, compromised. And, you know, Nathan the prophet told David that he had given the enemies of God, you know, occasion of blaspheme and so forth. So that’s pretty serious stuff, too. David, those are the two great things that David did wrong on record. There are probably other things he did wrong, too, on record. I mean, the Bible doesn’t refer to them as sins. But, I mean, certainly David did some things that we might say, well, I think that was uncalled for. I mean, his violence towards some of his enemies and things like that. So, you know, David’s not a perfect man, but he’s a man after God’s heart. And a man after God’s heart still, that just speaks of where his spirit is. But Paul said in Galatians 5.17, the flesh lusts against the spirit. and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary to each other, so you don’t do what you want to do. I think that means that you want to please God. You want to live a holy life in your heart, in your spirit. You may be after God’s own heart, but you still have a flesh. Now, that’s not an excuse for sinning, but it’s just an observation. People who are godly sometimes sin, but if they really are godly, They don’t like the fact that they sinned. They repent. And that’s what David himself did, too. So I don’t think there’s any contradiction there between David being a man after God’s own heart and having two sins or three in a lifetime recorded against him. I’ve done more sins than that in my lifetime. Not that kind of sins. I haven’t done those sins. I haven’t committed adultery.

SPEAKER 09 : 31:39

Can I ask you a third question? Mm-hmm. There’s this minister on the radio. I don’t know if you know this name, but his name is Dr. Robert Jeffers. And he said in one of his messages, he said, quote, I believe there will be regrets in heaven for some believers, end quote. So I guess, do you think David’s going to have regrets in heaven or any of us?

SPEAKER 01 : 32:09

I don’t really know enough about heaven to know that because the Bible doesn’t tell us very much about heaven. It’s not really one of the main subjects mentioned in the Bible, people in heaven. But I already have regrets. So, I mean, I’m sure that when I’m in heaven, I’ll recognize what I’ve done wrong and I’ll regret it, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be fearful for my salvation. I don’t have any doubts about my salvation now, but I have regrets about things I’ve done. I think that the holier we are the more regrets we’ll have about the times that we weren’t holy enough. But I don’t think we’re going to spend any time regretting it. I think when we stand before God, we may say, oh, man, I wish I’d done more for Christ. I wish I hadn’t compromised in that area or whatever. But I don’t think we’ll spend eternity regretting it, if that’s what you’re wondering.

SPEAKER 09 : 33:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER 01 : 33:02

All right. Thank you for your call. David in Dallas, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.

SPEAKER 02 : 33:09

Well, I understand it. I don’t think any of us are going to get to heaven unless our sins have been forgiven by Christ Jesus. And I know that mine were, and I hope that everybody listening knows that theirs were. And he’s the only one that can do it for any of us or ever will.

SPEAKER 01 : 33:21

Well, that’s true. And I know my sins are forgiven. That doesn’t make me regret them. I mean, there have been people hurt. There have been people hurt by my sins. And even if I’m forgiven, that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry I did them.

SPEAKER 02 : 33:32

I agree. But going back, I think there’s a lot of people… that are true Christians, that are people that will be considered people that were after God’s own heart. Not just David. David was one of them. But I think God was leading us to believe. Let’s look around. I think we can see a few others maybe in our midst. No doubt. But anyway, Greg, I was calling you to ask you something. My pastor was talking about the different versions of the Bible recently and everything. And I’ve only grown up reading them knowing one version. That’s the King James. I’m alive for the new King James. I finally got a copy of it back in the 80s. And I’m stuck with that because I don’t find it hard to read, like some people claim that it is and stuff like that. I don’t find it hard to read at all. It makes sense to me. But what do you recommend as a version or some versions that people read or maybe one that you read yourself more often?

SPEAKER 01 : 34:35

Well, like yourself, I never had any problems reading the King James. I love the King James. The language is beautiful. You know, I’m familiar enough with the archaic English that I know that some words have changed meanings. For example, in the King James, the word conversation. You know, in modern English, conversation means what we’re doing. We’re having a conversation. But in old English, it meant behavior. And so… you know, when Peter would say, have your conversation honest among the Gentiles, he wasn’t talking about the things you say, but the things you do. But I knew that kind of stuff. Like you, being raised reading the King James Version, you know what the language means. Just like if you were raised in a Chinese-speaking home, you’d know what the Chinese words mean. But it’d be foreign to somebody else who wasn’t raised there, but it’s not a problem to you. So like you, I don’t have any problem with the King James. Never did. But I taught a school for years where I taught verse by verse through the Bible, which means the students and I had to actually read it, and I’d comment on every verse. So some of the students were younger. They hadn’t been raised reading the Bible. They said the King James English was difficult for them. I was a little wishing they would just kind of educate themselves up to it, but it was happening often enough that I thought, well, I could go to the New King James Bible. because it’s almost like the King James, but it doesn’t have the these and the thous, and that’s what people often say, I don’t know what all those these and thous are. Well, to me it seemed pretty easy to tell them what these and thous are. It means you, okay, so it shouldn’t make it impossible to read the King James, but But at least no one could make that complaint about the New King James because it didn’t have the archaic language in it. And yet it was worded very much the same as the King James. So I still use the New King James a lot, but I’ve read many others. I’ve read the ESV. I’ve taught using the ESV in some schools overseas that used it. I’ve done the same thing with the New Revised Standard, which I don’t like very much. I don’t recommend the New Revised Standard, but some of the schools I’ve taught in, they use the New Revised Standard, so I use whatever Bible they’re using. Some use the ESV, some use the Christian Standard Bible by Holman. Those are all okay. I mean, I don’t like the New RSV because of the gender-neutral leanings in it, but New American Standard’s a good one. There’s a lot of good Bibles. I would just, many people have said this, this is not an original statement, but the version of the Bible that is best for you is the one you’ll actually read. If you have a Bible that you don’t read because, I don’t know, you have a hard time understanding it, then get one that you can understand and read that one. It’s not a question of which Bible, although some Bibles are better than others, so no question about that. But any Bible you buy, except I think the New World Translation, which is published by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, any Bible you buy will be will have the same information in it for the most part. So I would just say the Bible that you’ll read is the Bible to get. Marie in Sacramento, California. Welcome.

SPEAKER 10 : 37:56

Hello. I have a quote from William Booth that I heard. And I wanted to know what you think of it, especially of two parts of it. He said, religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, Forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, and politics without God, and heaven and hell. And he said this was what he thought it would be like in the 21st century. So I’m especially interested in two of them, and one is the forgiveness without repentance and salvation without regeneration. What do you think of this?

SPEAKER 01 : 38:39

Well, I didn’t know that William Booth prophesied, but he may have. I mean, that certainly is a problem in many churches in America today and probably Europe too. I would agree with him that all those things are deficient. You know, salvation without regeneration, forgiveness without repentance, you know, Christianity without Christ, whatever. Those are deficiencies. Those are deviations. from what the Bible teaches, what Christianity believes. So, yeah, I think that those are bad things, and I think those things have come upon us to a very large degree in the 21st century, although there was a lot of that in the 20th century too, but that was, you know, he was before that. So I don’t know, you know, I don’t know when he said that. I don’t know if he specifically identified the 21st century as the time he’s referred to. If so, then it would seem he was prophetic.

SPEAKER 10 : 39:38

Well, how can there be salvation without regeneration? That really bothers me. Can you really have salvation without being regenerative?

SPEAKER 01 : 39:48

You can’t have normative salvation without being regenerative, no. I mean, the Old Testament saints, I think, did not have regeneration. I think regeneration is part of the New Covenant blessing. And there’s several Old Testament passages that speak of, you know, in the New Covenant, God’s going to do a work inward in people, write his laws on their hearts, take out their stony heart and give them a heart of flesh, you know, pour out his spirit, put his spirit in them. This is all reference to, I think, regeneration. And this had not happened in the Old Testament to the Jews. But many of them, I think, were saved in the sense, if by saved we mean justified, because Paul says that Abraham was justified by faith, and David… was justified without works, he says in Romans chapter 4. Now, these were Old Testament people. And the book of Hebrews goes through, you know, from Abel on through the whole Old Testament, pretty much, naming the people that were saints and saying, by faith they did this and by faith they did that. And he says, by faith they received a good report. which I think means a good report from God. God gave them a good report because of their faith. So it seems to me that I don’t think those people were regenerated because I think, again, I think regeneration is part of the new covenant privileges of the saved.

SPEAKER 10 : 41:10

He was saying this in reference to the 21st century.

SPEAKER 01 : 41:16

Okay.

SPEAKER 10 : 41:17

People in the 21st century. Yes.

SPEAKER 01 : 41:21

Right. So what do you, I mean, I agree with him. He was saying those things are not good. I mean, right?

SPEAKER 10 : 41:32

Yes, but how can this be applied to all of us now? I mean, in churches.

SPEAKER 01 : 41:42

I mean, what he’s saying is people are settling for a substandard form of Christianity, God, you know, an idea of salvation that doesn’t include regeneration. I don’t think he’s – you might be misunderstanding it. It sounds like you think he’s saying that people would really be saved without regeneration. No, I don’t think so. Okay, well, then I’m not sure why you’re asking the question. We all agree salvation includes regeneration. So there is no salvation without regeneration that we know of in Scripture today.

SPEAKER 10 : 42:20

Could people be deluded to thinking they’re saved when they’re not because they’re not regenerated?

SPEAKER 01 : 42:25

Well, obviously.

SPEAKER 10 : 42:26

We’re safe by faith.

SPEAKER 01 : 42:28

Sure. I mean, there’s tons of false assurance of salvation. I mean, Jesus said many would say to him, Lord, Lord, we did all these things in your name. And he said, I’ll say to them, I never knew you. So, I mean, there’s no question that people can be deluded about whether they’re saved or not. And I think the way the gospel is preached these days, it probably creates a lot of that kind of false assurance for some people. Because often, you know, people are given verbal assurance that they’re saved when there’s no evidence, you know, of the Holy Spirit in their life or of change in their life or repentance in their life. So obviously they’re not saved, or at least there’s no reason to say they are saved. So, yeah, I mean, do I think some people think they’re saved? Yeah, absolutely. That’s a very common place. Yeah. Okay, let’s talk to Jack in Everett, Washington. Jack, welcome.

SPEAKER 03 : 43:22

Hey, Steve. Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking my call. I’ve been thinking about glory a lot, and it says that we Christians have the hope of glory. And also, Paul said that there would be a day where God would share his glory with us. Is that hope of glory the fact that we’re also going to have a resurrected body, like Jesus has a resurrected body, or is it more than that? what exactly does it mean, this hope of glory? And I’ll go ahead and take my answer offline.

SPEAKER 01 : 43:52

Okay. Okay, thanks. Well, the hope of the Christian is the glory of God. Paul said that. I mean, you’re referring to Colossians chapter 1 where he said, Christ in you, the hope of glory. But in Romans chapter 5, He said that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So again, our hope is the glory of God. In Titus 2.13, he says we’re looking for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So that’s our blessed hope is the glory of Christ appearing. Paul said in Romans chapter 1, I’m sorry, Romans chapter 8 and verse 18, he said, I’m persuaded that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy of to be compared with the glory that should be revealed in us. Now, in us, what glory is being revealed in us? Well, in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, he said that as we, with unveiled faces, behold, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, meaning the glory of Jesus, we are changed from glory to glory into that same image, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. So we’re actually progressing into greater and greater glory ourselves, which is the image of Christ. We’re changed from glory to glory into that image, the image of Christ. I believe the glory that is our hope is the hope of being like Jesus, which is why in 1 John 3, it says, Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. For we shall see him as he is, and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself. So our hope is the hope of glory. Our hope is to become in the image of Christ. You know, John says the hope that’s in us is that we will be like him when he comes. In Philippians, I guess it’s probably chapter 3, verse 21 or thereabouts, it says that Christ will change our vile body into the likeness of his glorious body. Now, glorification then is becoming like Christ. I believe that it would include the progressive, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we are becoming internally more like Christ all the time. But also, ultimately, when he returns, even our bodies will be glorified and be like his glorious body. So there’s, in a sense, two ways in which we, you know, our hope is to be glorified. One is to be like him internally in our character, to be changed into the spiritual duplicates of Christ. So when people see us, even in these mortal bodies, they would feel that they’ve encountered Christ because Christ. It says in 2 Peter 1.4, we have become partakers of the divine nature. So Christ’s nature is imparted to us increasingly by the Holy Spirit. So we become more like him in our inner person. But also we’ll be made just like him in terms of physical glorification and immortality. When he returns, he’ll change our vile body into the likeness of his glorious body, is what Paul actually says in Philippians. So the glory of God that we hope in is being like Jesus. That’s the thing. And Jesus is said to be the glory and likeness of God. What God is like is what Jesus was like, and that’s the glory. It says in 1 John, I’m sorry, in John chapter 1, after it says that Jesus was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, it says in verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father. So, we saw his glory, which is the glory like a son has of his father, meaning likeness. I mean, a son looks a lot like his father in many cases, ideally. So, It’s saying that Jesus looked like his dad. We saw his glory. It’s like the glory of a son bearing the glory or the image of his father. It says in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3 that Christ is the image of the invisible God and the bright shining God. Of his person. He’s his image and he’s the bright shining of his glory. I think it says he’s the bright shining of his glory and the express image of his person. I think that’s how it says it. That is of God’s. Christ is the image and the glory of God. We are being changed into the image and glory of Christ. So, I mean, that’s a deep subject, and I suggest that you, with those thoughts in mind, you know, look into it on your own and enrich yourself with that study. It’s a very interesting thing. Pete in Forest Lake, Minnesota. Welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER 04 : 49:12

Well, thank you, Steve. Hi. I just recently found your ministry and I’ve been blessed by the audio teachings and the video teachings and so forth that I’ve listened to. And I can’t understand why I haven’t found you before this. But I guess I was kind of going towards Calvinism and, you know, maybe… I listen to John MacArthur a lot. I think he’s a pretty good preacher. But the question that I really have is I’m kind of now listening to your ministry, I’m kind of going back the other way and saying that, yeah, maybe, you know, The baptism of the Holy Spirit is, you know, maybe another, I don’t call it a separate blessing, but is, you know, good for our time, too, as well as back in the apostolic times. So the kind of a two-part question is, what do you say, or how would you expound the verse in Jude 20 where it says… praying in the Holy Spirit, you know, building up your most holy faith, if you could respond to that a little bit. And then also, one of the problems I have with, like, Pentecost, I was raised in the assembly of God, is that, you know, a lot of the charismatic stuff out there has really gone way off and, you know, deep end almost in a lot of places. So if you could maybe refer to that too also, and I can probably hang up too and just, you know, listen to your answer and so forth. All right. Thanks again.

SPEAKER 01 : 50:34

Okay, Pete, good to hear from you. Thanks for calling. Yeah, Jude verse 20 says, build yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Now, Jude is not Paul and may use these terms differently than Paul did. But Paul definitely linked speaking in tongues with praying in the Holy Spirit and also with building yourselves up. Jude said, build yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the Spirit. Well, in 1 Corinthians 14, 4, Paul said, he who speaks in a tongue edifies. That means builds himself up. But he who prophesies builds up the church. The word edify, by the way, there’s a lot of people who are not familiar with that word in modern English. It doesn’t mean to glorify. Some people say, oh, we need to just edify God. No, we need to glorify God. Edify means to build up, like building a building up. An edifice, the word edifice for building is obviously of the same root. The word edifies himself means he builds himself up, meaning spiritually. He makes himself spiritually edified. more mature and stable and things like that, like when you build a building. So, you know, he says he that speaks in a tongue edifies or builds himself up. But he also refers to speaking in tongues as praying in the Spirit. Because he says in verse 14 of the same chapter, 1 Corinthians 14, 14, For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. So his spirit is praying. He’s praying in the Spirit. What is the result then? I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray also with the understanding. Now, he either means, I will pray all at once in the understanding and in the spirit, so that my prayer in the understanding is spiritually guided. But he’s, in the context, talking about tongues as praying in the spirit. He says, I’ll do both. I’ll pray in the understanding. I’ll also pray in the spirit. I’ll also, he says, I will sing in the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding. Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, now he’s talking about blessing God, praising God. If you’re doing this in the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed say amen at your giving of thanks, seeing he does not understand what you say? So he says, if you’re blessing God in the spirit, then people won’t know what you’re saying. He’s obviously talking about tongues there. And so, you know, he says, I will sing in the spirit. I will pray in the spirit. My understanding is unfruitful when I do that, but But I can do that and pray with the understanding, sing with the understanding. But he says, if I just bless God in the spirit, no one will understand. So clearly Paul is using the term in the spirit to refer to tongues in these passages. And he says, if you speak in tongues, you build yourself up, which is a good thing. So when Jude says, build yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, if he’s using the language the same way Paul uses it, then he is saying pray in tongues. Pray in tongues and you edify yourself, build yourself up spiritually. Or Jude might be using the words differently, since obviously those terms, praying in the Spirit, could simply mean when you pray in your native language, be guided by the Holy Spirit in it. But, yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. The wording of Jude 20 is so close. to that of Paul and the ideas so close, that praying in tongues builds you up, and it’s also called praying in the Spirit by Paul. So I kind of think that Jude 20 probably is talking about the same thing, speaking in tongues. And I agree with you that charismatics do a lot of wild and crazy and embarrassing things. I wish they wouldn’t. I wish all Christians were just going to do what the Bible says instead of what they feel like doing, and then we’d have a lot fewer embarrassing things going on in the body of Christ. I hear you on that. Hey, I’m out of time. Sorry to say, you’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. You can go to our website. If you wish to donate, you can find out there at thenarrowpath.com. Have a good weekend. Let’s talk Monday. God bless.