Today’s episode of Classic Christianity Radio, featuring Bob George, explores the diverse and complex themes of spiritual gifts, the language of the Bible, and the true essence of faith. Engage with listeners from various regions as they call in, seeking wisdom and understanding on these critical issues. Bob provides practical insights into the Bible’s teaching, challenging the misinterpretations and misconceptions that are prevalent in today’s spiritual discussions.
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Today we are pleased to present a special radio show featuring call-in listeners from Bob’s original people-to-people daily radio program that was on the air for over 30 years, offering real answers for real-life problems as he addresses common questions as well as the tough issues of today, directing callers to the centrality of Christ in you, your only hope of glory. We want to remind our listeners that Bob George Ministries needs your financial support to continue to have Classic Christianity Radio on the air. Please visit BobGeorge.net to find out how you can help support us financially. Let’s now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights as he helps people experience a life of faith, hope, and love in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, let’s go directly to our phone lines. Toronto, Canada, listening on Joy, and you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, my question is actually related to the previous one. Why do you teach that the gifts of the Spirit are no longer operative? And I believe you just gave an illustration of one of the gifts of the Spirit, a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge from the Lord. So why do you teach that the other gifts are not operative today? Well, Ann, I don’t.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Evidently, if you’re listening in Toronto, you’re a new listener, so you’ve heard very little of what we’ve taught, but I certainly don’t teach that. I just say that there are some gifts that I do not believe is in existence. As an example, and what you’re talking about and what you’re trying to defend is the gift of tongues, I’ve never heard anyone speak in the biblical gift of tongues because the gift of tongues is a known language to somebody. And what is being done today in the Christian world is gibberish. It’s people babbling in some kind of sounds that they say is a language, but it isn’t a language. And so, well, no, there’s nothing funny about it. I think it’s an insult to God to be toying around with what… with what he said it is if you want to know what the gift of tongues is you go to where it started it started on the day of Pentecost and that was men preaching the gospel in languages that people understood they didn’t understand they didn’t learn the language it was given to them by God but it was a language that was understood by the people listening to it and that’s what gifts was and that’s what Paul said I suppose there’s hundreds of languages in the world but if you don’t understand what they mean what good is it Also, Anne, a gift of the spirit is for the benefit of the body. And if somebody is speaking, if my wife came to me and started speaking in Russian and only talked to me in Russian, I would say, what’s wrong with you, Amy? You understand English. I understand English. Why are you talking in Russian to me?
SPEAKER 02 :
Tongues is one of the gifts. It’s only one. The gifts are outlined. as you know, in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and they’re also outlined in Romans that came later. Well, and to answer your question, I’m not denying the gifts of the Spirit. I’m just saying that there are gifts that are misused, obviously. The gift of tongues was misused, where you wouldn’t have it spelled out in Corinthians, saying to the people that you’ve lost your minds.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, because they need to be translated.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. If they can’t be translated and if it’s not a language that you could go identify someplace, then it’s not biblical tongues. But the rest of the gifts of the Spirit are in existence, obviously, and it’s for the benefit of the body. It’s to edify the body of Christ. Well, you tell me, Ann, how tongues is going to edify me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Because it is then translated. There is a tongue which may not be which you may pray, which we call praying in the Spirit in Pentecostal circles. But there’s also a tongue which is given as prophecy within the body and is translated.
SPEAKER 04 :
Anne, I want you to use your mind for a minute. I want you to think for a minute. Just what do you think? Again, I’m going to get back to a person speaking a language that is what tongues is. It’s a language. Just say my wife. Now, what benefit is to me or to you or to any other Christian For Amy to get on this radio and start speaking in Russian.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, you can listen translated.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, no, no.
SPEAKER 02 :
Listen, listen.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hold on. Hold on a minute. How do you know what the translation is if nobody speaks the language?
SPEAKER 02 :
Because you hear from the Lord. The translator hears from the Lord.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you are absolutely wrong on this.
SPEAKER 02 :
But you look at all the Pentecostals that you’re not… If you were in Pentecostal circles… To observe what actually goes on. I have been.
SPEAKER 04 :
I have been. I have been. I’ve seen people rolling around on the floors. I’ve seen people barking like dogs.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ve seen all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it’s in charismatic circles. That’s what’s being done in so-called charismatic churches. Ann, I’m back to the argument that Paul said. If I don’t understand, as a part of the body of Christ, what you’re saying, what good is it?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, but his whole argument in that chapter is if you’re not going to have a translator… Who is doing the translating, Ann?
SPEAKER 04 :
Ann, who is doing the translating?
SPEAKER 02 :
And I have.
SPEAKER 04 :
Listen, listen to me. And I have had people who went into charismatic churches and gave the Lord’s prayer in Hebrew. And they thought he was babbling in tongues and stood up and interpreted what he said, which was nothing of what he said. And afterwards said, there’s what I’m getting at, guys. I just quoted to you the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew and bodily kicked him out of the church. Why? You cannot prove that. And so the whole issue of thinking that you’re interpreting something that you can’t understand, the person who spoke it doesn’t understand, but the person gets up and says, I have a gift of interpretation. I could make that up in a New York Minute, Ann. I don’t have to be a deterrent. I just get up and say, this is what you said. And I want to ask you a question. What do you think you could say in a tongue or in the language that we do understand? What do you think you could say that would be different than what the Word of God says? And if you were saying something different than what the Word of God says, I wouldn’t listen to it. Because… The prophecies that God gives has already been given. That’s why he said this book is closed. I don’t need another prophecy from you or from someone else. Number one, if God wants to speak to me, he’ll speak to me. He doesn’t need you to speak to me. And God lives in you. And God lives in me. And he wants to talk to you. And he wants to talk to me. I don’t need somebody speaking in a language that I don’t understand telling me what God is saying. Because God isn’t speaking in that language. God speaks to our hearts. God is spirit, speaks to our hearts. So at any rate, Ann, we could sit there and discuss that issue all day. I don’t teach that the gifts, I teach that the gifts of the spirit are active, but I also believe that it says when the perfect comes, they’ll no longer will be there. And I think the perfect is here when the word of God was closed. We could talk all day about that, Ann. We love you in the Lord. But I think you are dead wrong in concentrating the mere fact that you are calling to promote something that the Bible says is not important. It says, why are you doing this? Why don’t you go to the more important gifts, which is that of prophesying? We talk about it all day, Ann. I do appreciate your call. Love you in the Lord. But again, I think you’re dead wrong in what you’re doing. And you think I’m wrong, so we’re not going to arm wrestle or shoot each other. So we’ll just agree to love each other in the Lord, okay? Let’s go to Dexter in New Orleans, Louisiana, listening on WLNO. Dexter, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, sir. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
Doing fine, thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. The question I have, Bob, is with regard to when Jesus said, Call no man on earth your father, for you have one, which is your Father in heaven. Could you open that scripture up, please, so you understand it?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, again, I certainly think that what it basically would be saying is don’t refer to anyone down here as your father or to put them in the place of your heavenly father. That would certainly have something to do, as an example, with denominations that call their priests fathers, father this and father that, when it is absolutely expressed the fact that don’t call any man here on earth father. That certainly would not include your earthly father. What are you going to call them? Dad, that’s okay, but father isn’t. So the context is the fact that you do not put someone here in a position of equality with your father in heaven. And so don’t put that designation on a religious person.
SPEAKER 06 :
Do you feel that, oh man, I guess blessings are tied to a person? I understand that I call in and I do acknowledge like a pastor or I acknowledge that position of pastorship and so on, but I do have problems with addressing someone as father. I believe that I am a born-again Christian because of the blood of Christ.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, not because of religion, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, we were over when Amy and I, and her sister, took them over to Russia, back to Amy’s home in the Ukraine, and We were picked up by one of her cousins who had her priest with us. Now, that was Episcopal. That wasn’t Catholic. And so he introduced himself as Father so-and-so. And so… Probably wasn’t very nice, but I asked him, I said, how do you want to be referred to, his father or like your first name? Oh, father, I’m sorry, the Bible says don’t address anyone as father. So I’m just going to call you Jim.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’ll probably call him Vicar or something like that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Again, I don’t want to be identified. I don’t want someone to call me pastor. I don’t want to have my identity based on what I do. I want my identity based on who I am. I’m a child of God. So I’ll be a child of God regardless of what profession I’m in. So I think all those designations are ridiculous. Don’t call me a pastor. I don’t want to be called a pastor. I want to be called Bob.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. And the example, if I may real quick, the example that I have in my heart as an assurance is that Jesus, when he talked to his disciples, he said, I know what I’ll call you. servants, but I call you friends. Now, if anybody, you know, if anybody would have been called father, it would have been him because of all the children that he has birthed because of his blood. There’s no man that has died for any of us to take on that title. And I do fully acknowledge my father in heaven.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that’s, as a matter of fact, in one point in Jesus, he said, you’ve asked me for all kinds of things while I’m here, but I’m going away. You ask me no more. You’ll talk directly to my father. So he basically said, you’re not going to ask me for anything anymore. You’re going to ask the father. And so, yeah, basically, I think that it’s a violation of what Scripture is, is to refer to… a cleric as father. I don’t think that’s biblical. Okay, brother? Well, Bob, we’re going to go to Plainfield, Indiana right now, listening on WBRI. Sheila, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Bob, and hi, Bob.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Sheila. Hey, Sheila.
SPEAKER 03 :
I just wanted to call to give you guys encouragement because I’ve read The Faith That Pleases God and the classic Christianity. And because we don’t have a church yet, we use your Romans Grace for Life as our Sunday teaching every Sunday. Uh-huh. And it’s brought a lot of joy and understanding and wisdom into our life. And I have Bible study with my niece and my cousin. And I just wanted to let you know that last Friday’s scripture that you’re teaching that you did helped me stop smoking. Smoked free for about 48, 76 hours now.
SPEAKER 04 :
That is phenomenal, Sheila. Yeah. That’s probably one of the smartest things you’ve ever done.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. It wasn’t easy. No. When you read about the spiritual and the natural and were depraved on one side, you know, we can remember bad stuff, but we can’t remember the scriptures. Right. And when you said restraint, that hit me. That just went right in there and said, you can do it. Yep. He led me right to it and said, you can do it, and I’ll be there for you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I just wanted to thank you people.
SPEAKER 04 :
Congratulations, Sheila. And just don’t let Satan tempt you to get back into that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, no, he tries to every day, but I’ve got a stronger now.
SPEAKER 04 :
There you go. There you go. Well, good for you, Sheila, because it’s not that, you know, I say, as I’ve said to people, smoking ain’t going to send you to hell. You smell like you’ve been there, but it’s not going to send you there. But it is if your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit of God, why do you want to be putting smoke into it and literally giving your body cancer? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Plus, spending a ton of money on something that you just burn up. You may as well take the dollar bills out and just set them on fire.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, plus Satan laughing at you and saying, look what I’ve got you doing.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know it, exactly.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think you’re a child of God, but I’ve still got you doing this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Sheila, I just tickle to death for you, and you keep growing in grace, and we love you and appreciate your call back to us. Congratulations.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re welcome, and everything you’re doing is just great, and I can’t give you how much praise and glory and joy that you give us. I just wanted to tell you all thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, we thank the Lord together, don’t we?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, we do. Okay, Sheila.
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless you, Sheila. You too. Take care of our fellow Hoosiers back there.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m trying. All right. Okay, Sheila. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Are you looking for encouragement and deeper understanding of God’s Word? Head over to BobGeorge.net where you’ll find books, CDs, and study guides created to help you grow in your faith. And when you order or donate, you’re also helping Bob George Ministries continue sharing the good news with listeners across the country. Your donation, large or small, makes a lasting impact. Visit bobgeorge.net today to explore helpful resources and partner with us in spreading God’s truth. That’s bobgeorge.net. Together, let’s keep this ministry moving forward.
SPEAKER 04 :
We’re gonna go to Carl in Atlanta, Georgia, listening on WGUN. Carl, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, how are you doing, Bob and Bob?
SPEAKER 04 :
Doing good, Carl.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great, great. I was talking to some Jehovah’s Witnesses on my job, and they were telling me that… I can find some better people to talk to.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know.
SPEAKER 07 :
But they were telling me that Jesus Christ and God are not the same. They’re two different people, and Jesus Christ was a prophet or something like that. I said, no. I said, no. I said, it tells you all over the Bible that Jesus Christ is God. And I think I gave him a scripture, 1 Timothy 3.16, and it said, And with all controversy, great is the mystery of Godliness. God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, and believed only in the world. I gave him that. I don’t know how good that was, but I gave him that. Do you have any scriptures for me that I can take down or get a book or something that y’all have that I can study that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think the best thing on there is the deal that you, Gift out the gospel, and if they don’t listen to you, dust the dust off your shoes and move on. Because the issue is, I want to guarantee you, there’s not a Jehovah’s Witness who devotes their lives, called in the Bible, an antichrist. Anyone who’s going around denying the deity of Christ Jesus is called an antichrist in the Bible. And I’m not going to entertain an antichrist. And so the issue is, don’t tell me that any Jehovah’s Witness that has gone door to door has at one time or another run into a Christian who’s given them the truth of the good news. And they are rejecting that good news, intentional rejection of the word of God. It’s what the Bible says, sinning against the knowledge of truth. And that’s exactly what they’re sinning against is the knowledge of truth. And so to me, they have been trained in hopscotching through the business or through the book, through the Bible to pull out scriptures that they think justify something. But their main thing is they deny the deity of Christ. And there’s no way to be saved and deny who Jesus is. He’s God. Wow. Okay. Take Titus. Titus 3. What does it say? That it talks about in that passage of scripture. that while we wait, it talks about as well, we wait for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s the grace of God that teaches us to say no to unrighteousness and to live self-controlled, upright lives in this present generation while we wait for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, you’ve got to be an idiot to look at those passages and say that Jesus… At any rate, I’d shake the dust off my shoes. Yeah, I would, too.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m going to do the same thing. That’s it. Because they’re real stubborn and hard-headed, so I ain’t going to tell them nothing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. You’ve already told them truth. Now, the results from that point is up to God.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. Yeah. Thanks, Bob. I really appreciate it. I enjoy your show. I’ve been listening to you for like six months now. I come home from work. I go straight to this car, and I let it turn you on every day. God bless you, Carl. God bless you, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 07 :
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 04 :
Let’s go to Ray in Denver, Colorado, listening on KLT. Ray, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, brother. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m doing good, Ray.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, quick question. We’re having a Bible study. We’re studying the book of James right now. And we’re kind of getting, I’m wrestling with James 2, 24. A man is justified by works, not by faith only, I think. I’m just kind of quoting it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Can you help me with that? Just help me explain it, because I know that we are under grace and that only by faith are we saved. But I wasn’t sure what James was trying to say in that sentence there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think, first of all, let’s go back to what is all through Paul’s writings. James is the first book that was written in the New Testament, right? Again, it was written by James, the half-brother of Jesus, who had the unfortunate experience, what I call the unfortunate experience, of being the pastor in Jerusalem. I think I’d rather have any job in the world than that one, when you stop to think of having to introduce grace into all of the legalism that would have been there in Jerusalem. And so I do not believe, quite frankly, that his understanding of the totality of grace at that particular juncture was to the level that the Apostle Paul ultimately obtained. And that’s why I think the Apostle Paul, so that there was no confusion in that regard, wrote as strongly as he did about justification. And Galatians, as an example, he talks about the fact that What was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until, and when you see an until, that’s a before and after, the seed, that’s Jesus, whom the promise referred had come. But the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin so that what was being promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Now before this faith came, we were held prisoner by the law. And that would have certainly been before Jesus, and it would be before Jesus was real in our lives. We were held prisoner by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith, by faith and faith alone. And so when James is talking about the fact that you’re justified in some other way except faith and faith alone, It basically is being fully explained there to contradict or to explain more fully what James was saying A person is justified by what he does and not by faith. He also says in Galatians, I don’t set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing. He also says in Galatians 2.6 that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Christ Jesus. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not… by observing the law or not by works. Because by observing the law, no one will be justified. Galatians 3.11, clearly no one is justified before God by the law because the righteous will live by faith. Now that statement ties in to the righteous living by faith to Abraham and to where it was credited to him as righteousness. So in view of this, this is either a contradiction or Or you can’t misinterpret what Paul said. So it’s coming back to properly interpret what James was saying. And I think what James was saying here is that if you have true faith in Christ Jesus, in other words, Jesus didn’t come to justify anyone except the lost, the ungodly. He didn’t come to justify good people because there aren’t any. He came to justify a sinner. But he’s saying, you see, that a person is justified not just by what he does, or by what he does not by faith alone. And he quotes Abraham. Well, you take a look at Abraham. What happened? He believed God, and it was accredited to him as righteousness. But what did he do when he believed God? He offered his son as a sacrifice. So what he’s saying here is true faith in a true Jesus is going to produce Jesus’ works. And I think what he is trying to accomplish here is don’t be giving me this I believe in Jesus and then see no fruit of Jesus coming out of you. That’s a sign to me you’ve not been justified by faith. True works are going to be as a result of true salvation.
SPEAKER 05 :
With God living in you, the works will flow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely, but they’re God-produced, and they’re God-produced. Absolutely, yeah. And I think that was explained in a fullness by the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER 05 :
Those are the good works, Ben.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, basically, when you stop to think of what’s in the Bible, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. That you can speak in a tongue of men and angels… Be a martyr. If you don’t have love, you don’t have anything. Noisy, gong, clanging cymbal. Everything in the scripture is talking about love. What I want from you is to love one another, and the world will know that you’re my disciples by your love one toward another. That is the works that God wants to produce in you and me.
SPEAKER 05 :
Bob, I just wanted to ask you one quick question. When you read the Bible, is it better? I try to find it more harmonious than I do contradictions. If you look up and you try to contradict everything, that usually comes out. You’re better off trying to find the harmony in it, correct? And trying to find the contradiction. Because that’s the thing that, you know, the arguments come up and say, the Bible’s contradicting because Paul said this. And I try to find the harmony, like, justified by words. You know, it was the harmony of James saying, God’s words, the true faith will reduce true words.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Yeah, again, if the Bible is given to us by God, it isn’t going to contradict itself. And so there aren’t any contradictions to the Bible as far as I’m concerned. Like in the Gospels, you have four people that are observing a single event from four different vantage points. And just like if you had four people observing an accident from four different vantage points, you’d have… You would have four different accounts. It would be one is right and one is wrong. It’s just the vantage point that I’m looking at the accident from. Quite frankly, there are no contradictions in the Bible. It can all be explained by taking the Bible in its fullness, the context. And and taking it from there. So you don’t go to the obscure to interpret the obvious. You go to the obvious to interpret the obscure. That’s why I say you cannot be you can’t deny what Paul was saying, because it’s it’s the obvious because of the multitude of evidence that he gives in regard to justification by faith. And it’s by faith and faith alone. So that’s not, it really is not a debatable issue. It’s very clear. The statement in James would be more of a statement that instead of the obvious, it would be more of a nebulous type thing because it’s not explained in fullness. But once you put the two together, why, it’s very easy to interpret.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow, that’s great. Thank you, brother. I think I’m on the right track.
SPEAKER 04 :
Very good. You call again, pal.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. God bless you guys.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks. Same to you, pal. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at bobgeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.
