Join the conversation as we navigate the intersection of science and faith. Gregg addresses listeners’ concerns about prominent scientific voices that challenge religious beliefs. This episode also takes a closer look at the book of Revelation, comparing various interpretations held over the centuries, and engaging with audience queries about theological assertions versus scientific theories. A thought-provoking dialogue awaits, providing insights into the ongoing conversation between science and spirituality.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
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 to take your phone calls. If you have questions you’d like to raise for conversation on the Bible, the Christian faith, anything related thereto, If you have a difference of opinion from the host and want to bring that up, feel free to do that. The number to call is 844-484-5737. Now, we have some lines open. That may not be true, let’s say, five minutes from now. But if you call now, you will get through in one of these lines, 844-484-5737. I want to remind our Oregon listeners, I am coming to Oregon, and I’ll be speaking there from October 9th through October 20th. And I’ll be speaking in lots of different places. I’ll be speaking in Monmouth, Brownsville, Milwaukee. Malala, Lebanon, Milwaukee, Albany, Portland, Rockaway Beach, and Salem. Those are all different cities I’ll be speaking in over that period of time. That’s October 9th through the 20th. If you’re in Oregon and curious about those meetings, you can find them listed at our website. the narrow path dot com under the tab that says announcements. Also, shortly after I get back from there, I’ll be going to Dallas, Texas for a couple of days on November 7th and 8th. There will be a debate between myself, actually three debates on a weekend between myself and Dr. Michael Brown on the subject of the biblical teachings about Israel. And that should be very interesting. If you’re interested in that, that is also mentioned at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says announcements. All right, we’re going to go to the phones now and talk to Andy, who’s calling from San Diego, California. Andy, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you for taking my call. I love listening to your show. Quick question. Have you ever heard of the guy Dr. Bart Ehrman? Bart Ehrman? Yes, of course. He’s Yeah, I’ve been watching a bunch of his presentations, and they’re incredibly well done. What is your take on his kind of how he refutes the biblical truth, and it’s been changed so many times over the years, and stories added. I’d love to get your opinion on that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it’s interesting. He was once an evangelical Christian himself. He went to Moody Bible Institute in Wheaton College, and I think he went to Princeton after that. And somewhere along the line, he learned something that made him lose his faith. And what made him lose his faith was learning that we do not have the original manuscripts of the New Testament. But what we have instead are copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of the original manuscripts. Now, in the process of copying manuscripts, there are sometimes mistakes that are made by the person copying, whether he intends to or not. And usually they don’t intend to. They usually intend to be a faithful copyist, but sometimes… a manuscript will, because of the errors of the person making the copies, will end up not being exactly like the previous one from which he copied it. And then, of course, if his copy is used by somebody else to make a new copy, they’ll preserve the error that that copy has made. Now, this has happened over hundreds of generations of copying, As a result, we have over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek and a very large number in Latin, also which are early translations from the Greek. Now, Bart Ehrman, for some reason, saw this as a negative. Almost all Bible scholars see this as a positive. When it comes to ancient literature, we don’t have the originals of any of it. parchment and papyri and those kinds of materials that people wrote on thousands of years ago, they just don’t last through the ages. They deteriorate quickly. So it’s very unusual. Well, we don’t actually have any really original copies of ancient works that we know of, but we have copies of copies of copies. And that’s true whether we’re talking about Shakespeare, which is only a few hundred years ago, or whether we’re talking about Herodotus and Thucydides, which is 400 years before Christ, or whether we’re talking about the Bible or, frankly, any other ancient literature. All ancient literature has come down to us through the same process. What Bart Ehrman doesn’t necessarily emphasize, although he sometimes will admit it, is that we have better manuscript evidence for the New Testament than we have for any of the other ancient works. We have far more manuscripts to compare with each other, and the changes in them, are much less than you find in many others. For example, I’ve heard that in the manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays, each of his plays contain over 100 discrepancies in their manuscripts. So, I mean, if you take Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or, you know, King Lear, and look at all the manuscripts we have, and these were written only a few hundred years ago, you’ll find over 100 discrepancies in the manuscripts for each of those. Now, that doesn’t make us worry about whether we know what the plot is. That doesn’t make us worry about whether we have, in general, a pretty good idea of what Shakespeare wrote. And that’s even more to be said when it comes to the New Testament. The differences in the manuscripts are minor in 99% of the times. And Bart Ehrman admits this. When you read his books, he mentions, yeah, well, he says all the differences are very minor. Okay, so why did he let that destroy his faith? I don’t know. I have to assume there was something else that destroyed his faith. It may be that he had a very superstitious view of the Bible before he learned this. Many people who are raised in fundamentalist or evangelical circles have a very superstitious idea of the Bible. When they hear that it’s the word of God, they almost feel like God wrote it by automatic writing and then and maybe even dropped it from heaven between leather covers. I mean, I don’t know if anyone really believes that, but many people approach it as if it’s that way. And so when they find that, oh, well, there’s several manuscripts, I mean, there’s thousands of manuscripts of the Book of Romans, and a few of them have an alteration here in this word, that’s different than some of the other manuscripts. Okay, so I guess it’s not perfect. Therefore, God didn’t inspire it. And therefore, I lose my faith. Well, this is astonishing to me. For one thing, every theologian, every scholar has known for centuries that the Bible has come down to us through this kind of manuscript evidence. But most think it’s a tremendous value to us to have all these different manuscripts because there’s a whole science behind And Bart Ehrman is a representative of this field called textual criticism. Bart Ehrman is a textual critic, and so are hundreds and hundreds of other scholars. But most of them say, this is excellent, man. We can look at all these manuscripts. We can compare them. We can see how little change has been done, how insignificant the changes are that are in them. I mean, if you have a superstitious idea that the Bible is a magical book fallen from heaven, then, of course, you’re going to be disturbed if you find that it’s come down to us the same way all books have come down to us from ancient times. But if you’re looking for the message of Jesus and you’re looking for the message of the apostles, you’ll have no difficulty finding them in all the manuscripts. I mean, there are differences here and there of minor sorts, but there’s not a single difference that’s going to alter an important biblical doctrine. And scholars have known that a long time. It shocked me when I first heard Bart Ehrman many years ago tell how he lost his faith when he found out that we have all these different manuscripts like that. What? What’s the problem with that? I’ve known that since I was in high school. How is it he didn’t learn that until he got to Princeton? I think he just didn’t get much education early on about this, and when he did, he didn’t know how to handle it. Now, everything he says, I won’t say everything he says is true, but much of what he says is true. But what he makes of it is nonsense. You know, it is true that there are differences between the manuscripts, and he can point them out, so can many other believers point them out. I can. I can’t point out as many as some can, but I know of dozens of them, differences in the manuscripts, maybe more than dozens. But they don’t have a negative impact on my faith, because my faith is not in a magic book. My faith is in Jesus Christ. And that book, though not magical at all, is a faithful witness that has come down to us with great integrity. And it tells me who Jesus is and what he did and what he said. And that’s really all I need to know to be a follower of Jesus. So, I mean, Barth was, I don’t know, his faith was in something other than God. I think his faith was in a superstitious idea of the Bible. And when he found out that his superstitious idea of the Bible wasn’t true and that no scholar ever believed that it was true, he didn’t know what to do with that. So, you know, I think he’s a very shallow person, as a matter of fact. I mean, he has a lot of factual data, and much of what I knew, I mean, when I listened to him, I knew a lot of that stuff already. I mean, frankly, most of it’s common knowledge to anyone who’s a literate Christian. But that he would use it as a basis for leaving his faith tells me that he had some other motives for leaving his faith. No intelligent person would leave the faith. because of the data that he discovered or that he presents. So, I mean, that’s where I stand about him. I think that he has become famous for writing a bestseller. He’s written several bestsellers now, but his bestseller, Misquoting Jesus, made him famous. And he’s an agnostic now, which is a very strange thing. Well, I shouldn’t say it’s very strange, because there’s lots of former Christians who are agnostics now or call themselves atheists. What is strange is that they would do so. It’s not uncommon. It just shows us how many Christians there are that don’t have any firm basis for their belief. And when they begin to be challenged in their belief by somebody, these Christians don’t know anything about what they believe or why. And that’s a shame because Christianity is true. And, you know, anybody who studies well enough would know that’s true, I would think, unless they’re dishonest. So, you know, he has been a great stumbling block to many people. And that’s a shame because he seems like a nice guy. You know, frankly, he seems like a nice guy. I just don’t know why he was so gullible as to leave the faith over that kind of material.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, thanks. What a fantastic answer. Thanks, Steve.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, Andy. God bless you, man. Good talking to you. Wendell in Butler, Indiana. Welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi. I’ve been watching on YouTube a series called Project Revelation by Warren Gage and Chip Bennett. Don’t know. And apparently they take kind of an idealistic approach to understanding the book of Revelation and a typological and they say that The main books to understand Revelation is Joshua and Hosea, and that it’s an ancient kind of a Greek comedy that you go from tragedy to marriage in its direction. And it’s chiastically written, and it’s pretty impressive and convincing. They do take an early date, pre-’70s. A.D. for the writing. Anyway, I just was wondering if you’d come across those days.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I’ve never heard of their names or their project. But, I mean, some of what they said I have no problem with. I mean, obviously I believe in the early dating of Revelation. I also believe it could be argued that it was written chiastically. And I also believe that it could be. written more or less in the form of a Greek drama with seven acts and seven scenes in every act and so forth. I mean, those are views, at least some of those, are the views that idealists take about the book of Revelation. I see a lot of value in idealism. I myself am a partial preterist. That is, I take part of Revelation to be about AD 70. And part of it I take as an idealist myself. So I’ve got no fundamental objection to the concept of idealism.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you might check those guys out. Warren Gage and Chip Bennett on YouTube. The Revelation Project. Well, thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thanks. God bless you, Wendell. Bye now. I’m surprised no one has asked me why the rapture didn’t happen at Rosh Hashanah a few days ago. I think someone said it was supposed to. You know, it blows my mind that there are people who are still You know, trying to predict such dates as those. And I bring that up now, not because of what Wendell said, except that he mentioned the book of Revelation. And I was just thinking again how people who take the futurist view of Revelation are the only ones, I think, who ever believe. set such dates as this. I’m not sure if Harold Camping took a future’s view of Revelation. I don’t know that he used Revelation. I don’t remember what his teaching was on that, but he was a fool enough to set dates and made a fool of himself and of the church. But almost all people who set dates these days are taking a futurist view of Revelation. Now, in the old days, in the 17th and 18th centuries, and 19th centuries perhaps, people who set dates were often taking the historicist view of Revelation. If you’re not familiar with these different views of Revelation, I wrote a book called Revelation Four Views, a parallel commentary, which might help you to become aware of how many different ways people have taken Revelation, other than the way that you may have heard of. Because there’s one way that’s very popular today, but it was not always the popular view. And in many respects, it’s weak compared to the other views. Okay, let’s talk to Walter in San Diego, California. Walter, welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hello. Hi. Excuse me. Steve, there’s a kind of a controversy between science and religion today. Because religion says there is God and that the universe is weird and it only works because God makes it work. But science says there is no God and the universe works by itself and was created, just kind of came about on its own somehow. And you were saying a couple of times that you kind of believe the teachings of science. Is that true?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, how can we not believe science? Science is a word that means knowledge. And true science, empirical science, is what has been discovered by experiment. To be true, it’s been observed. Now, of course, you said that science says there’s no God. No, science doesn’t say there’s no God. Certain scientists have said that. But what scientists say… It’s not the same thing as science. Scientists have their own opinions about things, but science refers to what has been proven by experiment to be true. Now, no one has proven by experiment that there’s no God. What kind of experiment would you run to figure that out? No person has proven by experiment that anything about Christianity is false. What experience would they run? How would you prove, for example, that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? Well, I could tell you how you could prove that. If you found his body, you’d find that he was, of course, dead. But that hasn’t happened. It’s not likely to happen. And, of course, it won’t happen because he’s not dead. But the point is science doesn’t make pronouncements about God. But scientists do because scientists are people and people have belief systems. Your medical doctor has a scientific education. But he might be a Buddhist. He might be a Hindu. He might be a Muslim. He might be an atheist. He might be a Christian. You know, in other words, he might be an excellently trained scientist. But it doesn’t give him any expertise in choosing which religious view or which worldview is to be chosen. Because that’s not the kind of thing science talks about. Now, unfortunately, many people who are scientists have told the world that they are science. I remember… Anthony Fauci, you know, when people were questioning his views, he said, I am science. If you criticize me, you’re criticizing science. Well, that’s the kind of idiocy that scientists have sometimes promoted, which shows that they’re not the smartest people around. I mean, first of all, if they think they are science, they’re delusional. Secondly, if they know they’re not science, but they think that we’re going to mistake them for science, they’re almost equally delusional. They’re not that smart. People can be very brilliant about science, like Richard Dawkins. He’s a brilliant scientist when it comes to science. He understands biology. He understands zoology. He understands science. What he doesn’t understand is theology. He doesn’t know if there’s a God or not. He thinks there isn’t. But there are scientists who are just as smart as he is, Francis Collins, for example, who believe there is a God. There’s lots of scientists who believe there’s a God, and there are not any worse scientists than Richard Dawkins. So we can see that science doesn’t tell you anything about God in itself. Science is the presentation of observed phenomena. which is then experimented with to see how it responds under certain theoretical testing. And you know, the person involved in science is still going to have his own preferences about what’s moral or immoral or whether there’s a God or not. Science can’t test for that. So when you say science says there’s no God, what you’re really saying is that popular scientific theories held by atheistic scientists say there’s no God. Yeah, but they don’t know. I mean, they may know their science. They don’t know their God. And, you know, it’s like I’m pretty smart about the Bible. But if I started to give a lecture about auto mechanics, I don’t know anything about auto mechanics. But if I said, well, you should believe me because I know the Bible really well. I think anyone should say, well, but we’re not here talking about the Bible. We’re talking about auto mechanics. So you’ve got to have a separate expertise in that. Being an expert in one subject doesn’t make you an expert in another. Scientists may be experts in science, and they may also be experts in theology if they happen to study that too. But just because somebody’s an expert in science doesn’t mean he knows even one thing about theology. Richard Dawkins is a good example. Great scientist, terrible at theology. So, you’re right, there’s a controversy, but the controversy is not between science and theology. It’s between different views of scientists about theology. And, of course, that’s outside of their sphere of expertise. So, you know, when a man who’s the most brilliant scientist, if Einstein himself… were to say, you know, Calvinism is true. He’s making a theological statement. Now, Einstein might be the smartest scientist who’s lived in the 20th century, but it doesn’t mean he’s necessarily good at theology. So we have to, when people make pronouncements about theology, we need to ask, okay, does he know any more about it than you or I do? He might, but we could know more about it than he does, even if he knows a lot more about science. So don’t get confused about that. To say that science says something is not really the same thing as saying scientists say this, because there’s no consensus among scientists about whether God exists. There certainly is consensus among scientists about the boiling temperature of water. you know, or the saline content of the ocean water. I mean, scientists can test that. And when they test it, everyone agrees with it. But since you can’t test the theories about God and theology, you don’t have a consensus. There are scientists who think there’s a God. There’s some who don’t think there’s a God. And there’s some who think there are many gods, like Hindu scientists and so forth. So obviously, when you want to know something about God, you don’t go to a scientist to figure it out, unless he separately has gained expertise on the subject of God. In that case, we could say this. You know, anybody who has come to know God is a greater expert on the subject of whether there’s a God or not. than anybody who has not come to know God. Now, that means that you can have a room full of scientists who say there’s no God, but one child who knows there’s a God knows more about it than they do. To my mind, it’s very much like if you had a room full of scientists who were born blind, and they’re speculating about whether there’s such a thing as color or not, and they all vote that there’s not because they’ve never seen it. Well, You know, the janitor who’s emptying their wastebaskets knows more about color than they do, though he doesn’t have any education at all. Why? Because he has eyes. Because he can see. And, you know, a person who knows God, who’s experienced God, and frankly, who has studied the question of God, is certainly in a better position than the most expert scientist who knows nothing about God. But there are people who are expert scientists who also know a great deal about God because they have experienced God. So science does not speak with a united voice about that, but it can’t speak with any authority at all as science. on the subject of the existence of God. So the controversy is not on the lines that you think it is. It’s not between religion and science. It’s between different religious notions held by scientists and by non-scientists. There are definitely different notions about science and about God, but the scientist is not in a better position than anyone else to make pronouncements about God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yeah, but, well, the universe is eternal. And it doesn’t work. God makes it work. And science is kind of on the other side of the argument that everything came about by itself without God.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, again, science doesn’t tell us that everything came about by itself without God. They can’t prove that. You see, if you see something explode into existence, now you could say that happened without God. Or someone else could say, no, that happened with God. God made that happen. And, you know, you’ve got no proof either way. Did God make it happen or did it happen without God? Well, no scientist would be in a position to tell you that. Everyone can look at it and say, well, we saw it explode. And we saw it come about. We can’t see God, and we can’t see the absence of God. If God is invisible, that’s not part of the observed reality, and we’re going to have to make decisions about God on some other basis. But scientists are not anti-God, except for the ones who are. But science is not anti-God. Science doesn’t tell us why things exist or who made them. Science tells us how they operate, like examining a machine and saying, oh, it operates this way. That’s what science does. It tells us how the laws of science affect real phenomena. And a Christian can agree with their conclusions about that as much as a non-Christian can. It’s when they start saying there’s no God that they’re making stuff up out of their head, which isn’t valuable. All right, we’re going to take a break, but we have another half hour coming. Don’t go away. Our website is thenarrowpaths.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Stay tuned.
SPEAKER 02 :
If you call the narrow path, please have your question ready as soon as you are on the air. Do not take much time setting up the question or giving background. If such detail is needed to clarify your question, the host will ask for such information. Our desire is to get as many callers on the air during the short program. There are many calls waiting behind you, so please be considerate to others.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible, the Christian faith, or any such thing as that, you disagree with the host, want to say why, feel free to give me a call. The number is 844- 484-5737. I’m looking at three open lines right now. Not all the lines are open, but those are some that are available to you if you call now. I can’t guarantee they’ll be there 30 seconds from now, so you can call now. 844-484-5737. You’ll get through. We’re going to talk next to, let’s see, Mike in Hawaii. Hi, Mike. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Hi, Steve. I wanted to get your take on this because I know you have a background in Calvary Chapel. But they typically teach that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was that he had an eye disease and a sickness and that this is what he was talking about. And they related to certain verses in Galatians and a few other places, but I did a deep dive on that, and I found it was more just the persecution and demonic oppression. And I couldn’t see anything that logically would have you reason that it was a disease that he had. So I wanted to get your thoughts.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. There are reasons to believe that, but there are reasons to suggest other answers, too. I mean, Paul doesn’t tell us what his thorn in the flesh was. The reason for saying it’s persecution usually is connecting it with the statements in the Old Testament where God says that if the Israelites do not wipe out the Canaanites, that the Canaanites would be thorns in their sides, which is not the exact same phrase as thorn in the flesh, but similar. And so they’ll say, okay, so the Canaanites would be thorns in the sides of Israel. Paul’s saying he had a thorn in the flesh, so he may be thinking of some persons, like the Canaanites were people, who are giving him a hard time. Now, to suggest it’s demonic also has some basis because Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, 7 refers to it as a messenger of Satan to buffet him with scent. Now, a messenger of Satan could easily be a demon, although perhaps a person could be regarded as a messenger of Satan, too. I mean, Jesus said that the Jews who wanted to kill him were children of Satan, so it’s possible that Paul had some false teachers or people who were persecuting him that he saw as messengers of Satan and not strictly demons. But some people could say it’s a demonic thing coming against him because he said it’s a messenger of Satan, though that’s not unnecessary. You could take it otherwise. Some could say it’s a person or persons like the Canaanites would be thorns in the side of Israel. Certainly a lot of people have taken it that way. But to say there’s no reason at all to see it as a physical ailment, I think there are reasons for it. They may not be conclusive. I would just say there’s reasons for more than one possible theory. But here’s why I think it is. In verse 9 and 10, when Paul asked Christ to remove the thorn in the flesh, he said, Christ said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness. And Paul says, therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest me. Now, the word infirmities is the normal word for sickness in the New Testament. It can be used, you know. It can be used figuratively, but in the Greek it’s the normal word for sickness. And then he says in the next verse, therefore I take pleasure in infirmities. Then he mentions, and reproaches, and needs, and persecutions, and distresses, for Christ’s sake, for when I’m weak then I’m strong. So he does mention reproaches, he does mention persecutions, but twice he also mentions infirmities. So he’s listing all kinds of things that can make life miserable and painful. You know, he’s saying in all of them, the grace of God enables him to get by well. Now, you have a passage in Galatians that people use in Galatians. I think it’s chapter four. You know, he talks about how he in physical infirmity. Again, that’s the word he uses. He says, you know, that I came to you in physical infirmity. And that’s in Galatians 4, 13. He says, you know that because of physical infirmity. Now, here specifically says physical infirmity. So that’s not a human adversary or a spiritual demonic thing. It’s a physical sickness. He says, because of physical sickness, I preached the gospel to you at the first. And my trial, which was in my flesh. Okay, he talked in 2 Corinthians of his thorn in his flesh. Here he says it’s his trial in his flesh. You did not despise or reject, but you received me as an angel of God, even as Christ himself. He says, what then was the blessing you enjoyed? For I bear you witness that if possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. Now, he said, you couldn’t do it, but if you could have, you would have given me your eyes. This is, you know, why would anyone want to give you their eyes? I think the suggestion that many have taken from this is that Paul did have a need for new eyes. His eyes were in bad shape. He had some kind of physical infirmity that related to his eyes. And the Galatians were so sympathetic, they would have helped him if they could. They would have even donated their own eyes, but what good would that do? You can’t transplant an eyeball. So at least they couldn’t. So, you know, I think there is reason to suspect that it was an eye problem, but I’m not one who would feel a necessity of proving that particular theory. I certainly understand why it is held.
SPEAKER 09 :
Can I point out something in regards to that? Yeah. As far as I understand, right before he came to Galatia, he was in Iconium where he got stoned so badly that they thought he was dead. So that possibly getting stoned in the head and be close to death might have something to do with the infirmities that he’s referring to.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s quite possible. Yeah, I think Chuck Smith saw it that way. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know that that’s the case because, I mean, certainly if someone gets a rock across the head, you know, it can damage that part of the brain that your optic nerves need to have interpreted to your brain and, you know, you can’t see. That’d be a very special kind of injury. to the head that it could happen. It’s not impossible. Many people think there was maybe some kind of oriental eye disease that he contracted in his travels. But I don’t have a specific theory. I do think there is reason to suspect it was an eye problem that he had. Whether it was caused by the stoning or not, I don’t know.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. And, of course, there’s that other thing that sometimes he makes reference to the size of his handwriting. He says, see, you know, the size of the letters I’m using to sign my own name, which is one of those other data that some think may indicate he had poor eyesight.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I understand with that verse that, I mean, that word, it means kind of more like it would be like I write you these long letters. rather than I write with large case size. Yeah. So that could be taken.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s entirely possible, too.
SPEAKER 09 :
But the main way I get my understanding is just in context, reading before and after his thorn-in-the-flesh statements in Corinthians, that he’s clearly talking about his whole resume of persecutions. And in the end, it says Jesus was crucified. in weakness. So I don’t think Jesus had, he didn’t die of AIDS. So that’s my thought on that.
SPEAKER 05 :
That certainly is something one would be entitled to see from that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, Mike. Thanks for your call. Bye now. All right. Let’s talk next to Nelson from Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Nelson.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, thank you for taking my call there. While it’s fresh on your mind, can you tell me the name of the author and book title of the first two questions that came to you on the phone line? The book title? Yeah, the title and the author. Oh, Bart Ehrman? Oh, the author’s name is Bart? Yeah, the name is Bart Ehrman.
SPEAKER 05 :
B-A-R-T? Yeah, like in Bart Simpson. Right. Only it’s Bart Ehrman. E-H-R-M-A-N. I think his first best-selling book was called Misquoting Jesus. Misquoting Jesus. Yeah, that might not have been his first, but I think it was his first book. It’s the first one I heard of. All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
And second question, do you remember that name, author, or book?
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t remember what the second question was. Tell me.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, I don’t remember either.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, there’s a project. Yeah, there’s an online project, a Revelation project. Yeah, I don’t. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
What was that again?
SPEAKER 05 :
By Warren Gage. By Warren Gage. Anyway, yeah, I don’t remember the other name, but it’s apparently online. I didn’t get the impression that was a book. YouTube, it’s on YouTube. Warren Gage, called The Project… Revelation Project. I don’t know anything about it. That’s something that the caller mentioned. Okay.
SPEAKER 08 :
I see. How can I get your archives of call-ins like today’s?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, a couple of places. One, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. It’s got archives going back many, many years. And there’s another website called Matthew713.com, like Matthew 713, which is the verse about enter at the narrow gate. Matthew713.com actually has a topical index of calls that have come into this show over the past 13 years or more. Of course, we’ve been on there for 28 years, but this index goes back like to 2012. And you can look up a topic, and it’ll show you the calls for that topic. That’s at Matthew713.com.
SPEAKER 08 :
How can I go from recent dates like today’s date and then go back a week in case I’ve missed your?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, just if you go to our website, you’ll see how that’s done.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. All right. I’ll try to do research on that. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. Thank you, Nelson. Bye now. All right. Let’s see here. Our website, by the way, is TheNarrowPath.com. The other one is Matthew713.com. Okay. Wen from Miami, Florida. Welcome. Welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi, sir. Just curious, do you have an opinion on if one version of the Bible is the best or most accurate version?
SPEAKER 05 :
No. Not one. I mean, there are some versions I like better than others. But I wouldn’t say that there’s one version that just stands out above all the others and everyone should use it. I personally use the New King James Version, which I think is a very good one. It’s not perfect, but it’s got a lot of virtues that some other versions don’t have. The New American Standard is a pretty good one. That’s the NASB, New American Standard Bible. I think the Holman Christian Standard Bible, sometimes just called the CSB, that’s a pretty good one. The ESV, English Standard Bible, is a pretty good one. Those are all Bibles that I think the translators have made an effort to be pretty literal, word for word in their translating. There’s other Bibles, a lot of them, where the translators are not that interested in being word-for-word accurate. They kind of want to be more breezy, a little more readable to modern readers. They don’t bother too much about the actual words in the Greek text, but they more want to rephrase things in ways that are easy to understand. I’d rather have somebody tell me what the author said than what the translator thinks the author meant. So I’d rather have a word-for-word translation if possible. And none is perfect, and the reason there’s none perfect is because whenever you translate from one language to another, there are different idioms. You know, sometimes there are words left out of one language that would have to be inserted in the next one to make sense. For example, the Greek has no indefinite article, a, like when we say a boy. The Greek would simply have the word boy, and in certain contexts, a boy would be implied. So there’s no indefinite article in Greek. So you’re going to find, you know, when you’re translating from the Greek, your translator is going to have to decide, is this noun, does it imply a before it, or does it not? And so translators have to make up their mind about those kind of things. But some translators definitely aim at being word-for-word translators. literal, you know, and others do not. So some of the ones I mentioned that I think are good ones are more word for word.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, thank you. Very helpful. I appreciate the context.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, Wynn. Thanks for your call. Okay, Simon from Sun City Center, Florida. Welcome, Simon.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hey, how’s it going? Good. You know, I get… I get my saved and unsaved friends, both kind of basically pick on me because they say God is a God of grace and mercy, and that’s how you become saved. But I’m like, that’s true, but the process God used, and you don’t hear about it anymore, is repentance. I think from Jesus to the Old Testament to Paul to the New Testament, probably 100 verses on to repent. And they’re like, oh, yeah. I’m saved just like you’re a hater and my saved plans. Even my brothers are like, oh, no, it’s a God of love. You know, you have to be a change of mind and it’s action change before grace and mercy applies. What do you think of that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I agree. I agree. I mean, repentance is mandatory to get right with God because we sinned and we have to repent of our sin. Now, repentance means we change our mind about sinning. The word repentance, metanoia, in the Greek means to change your mind. So before I’m a Christian, I’m finding excuses for doing what I want to do, even if they’re not really good things. I rationalize. I excuse it. I indicate that I’m not really that bad. Now, I can’t really know God without coming to terms with that and changing my mind and realizing I am as bad. as the Bible says, as God says I am. My sins are not excusable. My sins are, excuse me, I do have to give up sin. Because sin is what’s killing me and hurting other people when I sin. And it’s keeping me alienated from God. Now, salvation is by grace. But it’s not by grace in the sense that everybody walking down the street just gets hit with grace. And suddenly they’re all saved. In that case, Judas Iscariot and Adolf Hitler would be saved too. Because grace would be unconditional. And if God wants to just give grace to everybody… no matter what they do or no matter what they think. Well, okay, then we’ve got a sort of a, we’ve got a God who doesn’t care much about right and wrong. He doesn’t care much about human suffering that’s caused by people’s sin. He doesn’t care whether people love him or hate him. That’s not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible wants to have a relationship with everybody, but he does care whether they love or hate him. If they hate him, they can’t very well be in a relationship with him that’s of any value. Just like you don’t want to marry some woman who hates you, you want to marry someone who loves you. You don’t want your children to hate you. So, I mean, there are people who hate God. There are people who love their sin and hate righteousness. God would love to save these people, and he will if they repent and if they believe on him. But… But that’s a conditional grace, and the Bible always indicates that grace is conditional. The Bible says by grace you’ve been saved through faith. Okay. Okay. So you have to have faith or you can’t have the grace. Paul says the same thing. By the way, that’s Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. But in Romans 5, 2, it says that we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. Now, faith is putting our trust in Christ. To do that, you’ve got to change your mind. That’s repentance. Repentance means change your mind. If you’re living your life not putting your faith in Christ, then in order to put your faith in Christ, you’ve got to change your mind about that. Because that’s what changes when you put faith in someone you didn’t believe in before. I didn’t believe that. Now I do. I’ve had a change of mind. That’s what repentance means. I used to think I could get on by myself. I used to think I didn’t need God. I used to think that I could justify my actions even if they were disobedient to God. you’re not going to have a relationship with God until you change your mind about those things. And when you do, you realize that God is right and I’m wrong. And that’s what repentance means. Now, your friends who say, no, God will just, you’re just hating. You know, if you tell me I have to repent of my sin, you’re just a hater. Well, that’s like calling the doctor the hater when he tells you you’re dying of diabetes and you’re going to have to take some insulin, stop eating so much sugar. You know, the doctor doesn’t hate you, but he sees your problem correctly. And he’s telling you what you need to do to not die. That’s exactly what God does. God knows what your problem is. And he’s revealed it so that Christians who read the Bible can know that too and can tell you that. Or you can read the Bible yourself. And when you see that, you find that, uh-oh, like the diabetic, I’ve got to stop eating sugar so much. And when you recognize what’s killing you, which the Bible certainly will tell you what it is, the wages of sin is death, then it’s obvious you need to change your mind about sinning. You’ve got to stop doing that, and God will give you grace. Now, if someone says, well, why do I have to repent for God to give me grace? Isn’t grace free? Well, it is a free gift, but it’s not a gift given to everybody. I give gifts to my children. on their birthdays and at Christmas and so forth. I don’t give gifts to everybody on the planet. I give gifts to those who are related to me. And we become related to God when we turn to him and seek our relationship with him. And when people don’t do that, you know, they don’t receive the grace because, frankly, they’re not where the grace is given. It’s given to those who believe and who trust in God. and who repent of sin and want to be followers of Christ. That’s where the grace is. It’s still free, because if God didn’t have any grace, you could repent all day long, and you’d still be lost. Repenting doesn’t earn anything. Change your mind about something that doesn’t earn special benefits from anywhere. It’s still grace. It’s just grace given on certain conditions. And grace, you know, always is given on conditions. Again, like I said, a parent always, you know, supports their child. But that’s on the condition that they are their child. They don’t go and support every child in the universe or in the world, I should say. You know, they have priorities. And God’s priority is that he has a special set of gifts for his children. And so becoming one of his children is how that grace is given to us. All right. All right. I appreciate your call. Hey, I’m sorry. We’re almost out of time. I couldn’t hear what you’re saying there. Travis in Little Rock, Arkansas. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
So I just wanted to get your own opinion. I’ve been listening to you for the past couple of months, and I’ve come to a recent question that I’ve been going through with a couple of different people. And it comes down to, what are your thoughts on the difference between traits and qualifiers for God?
SPEAKER 05 :
God’s traits or our traits you’re talking about?
SPEAKER 07 :
About God. So a lot of times when we hear about, especially let’s say New Age preachers or stuff like that, they’ll go, God is love, God is holy, God is beautiful, God is powerful, which are all correct things. God is love, holy, beautiful, but these are not qualifiers. Those are just His traits. Those are not just because God does this, not so much that doesn’t make Him God. such as for all my biblical things that I’ve pulled up, where Exodus 3, where he tells Moses that I am, to describe himself, and in 1 Kings, where the Syrians are attacking, and they go, oh, well, fish in the valley, there’s the God of the hills. Well, he does have dominion over those things, and he does have those traits. Those are not things that make him him. He just is him.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Well, I’m not sure where that dividing line is you’re making. I will just say this, that if one has not created the universe, they’re not the real God. So, I mean, that’s the definer of who he is, the one who created all things. The Bible says God is light. The Bible says God is spirit. The Bible says God is love. Now, these are not necessarily said to be traits, although I guess we could call them characteristics of God. Um, it’s possible that there could be a spirit or a light or even a love that is not God. So if, if that is true, then I suppose that would mean that that’s not what makes him God. Being loving isn’t what makes him God, but it is what makes him the God that he is as opposed to some other God. Uh, the Bible indicates that there are many things that people worship and that they call gods. And, uh, Many of them are made of stone or wood. They’re carved images. The Bible indicates that money can be a god, or we know that there’s lots of idols that people can choose other than God. But they don’t have the traits. They don’t qualify as the god of the Bible because they aren’t spirit, or they aren’t light, or they aren’t love. They aren’t what he is. I think the word god… can be used much more broadly than just referring to the real God. But the real God has certain traits, and if we’re not talking about one who has those traits, we’re not talking about a real God, but some other kind of God. I’m not really sure how you’re dividing those attributes up into different categories. And for that reason, I don’t feel very adequate to answer your question. If I understood it better, I might be able to do a better job. Thanks for calling, though. Okay, Alan in Atkinson, New Hampshire. Welcome to The Narrow Path. We don’t have much time.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes, hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question about what the Bible says about the new heaven and what’s the difference between that new heaven, which will happen after Jesus comes back, and what your experience is like now when you get to have him.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I don’t think the new heaven is referring to the same kind of heaven. There’s three things called heaven in the Bible. One is the atmosphere around the earth where the birds are. They fly through the heaven. There’s the starry heavens. The universe out there is called heaven. And then the spiritual realm where God dwells is also called heaven. I think that when I die and go to heaven, I’m going to that spiritual realm. The new heavens and the new earth, I think, refer to a new planet and a new atmosphere or maybe a new universe. Because the language of Revelation 21 1 mimics the language of Genesis 1 1, which is in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, the heavens and the earth are apparently referred to the universe and the planet Earth. And, you know, not referring to the spiritual realm where God already dwelt. but more the physical realm. So I think the new heavens and new earth refer to a new physical heaven and physical earth, but not a change in the spiritual realm where God dwells. So I don’t know that there’s any difference in that. I’m sorry we’re out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. My name is Steve Gregg. We are listener supported. The Narrow Path can be found at thenarrowpath.com. You can find out everything you need to know right there, thenarrowpath.com. Let’s talk again tomorrow.
