Join host Steve Gregg on ‘The Narrow Path’ as he delves into poignant discussions that unravel some of the complexities surrounding Christian faith and biblical texts. In this episode, listeners are met with an exploration of Matthew 8:11-12, challenging preconceived notions about the ‘kingdom’s sons.’ Gregg invites callers to share their interpretations and dives deep into scripture for clarity, fostering a dialogue where faith meets reason.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
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 calls and to hear whatever questions you may wish to ask about the Bible or about the Christian faith and to discuss them, possibly find an answer from Scripture for your inquiry. If you have a difference of opinion from the host and want to balance comment, feel free to call in. We’ll hear your side of the story. Feel free to call. We have one line open right now. The number to call is 844-484-5737. A couple of announcements. Tonight is the one time during the month that we have an evening Zoom meeting open to everybody for an extended Q&A time. I say extended because it’s a little longer than this program. This program is an hour a day. We have a monthly meeting. Q&A, it’s usually 90 minutes to maybe sometimes closer to two hours, depends. And that’s on the first Wednesday night of each month, which is tonight, 7 o’clock Pacific time. You’re welcome to join us. We usually have, I don’t know, between maybe 50 and 70 people in the Zoom meeting. And you’re welcome to ask a question or to just listen in. If you want to log into that meeting tonight, again, it’s in Pacific time, 7 p.m. tonight, and the login information, as you know, you need that to be part of any kind of a Zoom meeting, is found at our website, thenarrowpath.com, at thenarrowpath.com. There’s a tab there that says Announcements. Find today’s date, tonight’s meeting. The login is there. And join us tonight at 7 o’clock Pacific time. All right. And the other thing I want to announce, because it’s coming up pretty quickly, is this weekend I will be beginning a week-long or a little bit more than a week-long itinerary in Tennessee, starting out in the, well, I say the Nashville area. People in Tennessee say it’s not really that close. It’s maybe an hour from Nashville or something. But to me, I live in California. That’s the Nashville area. So that’s that part of the state. And I also have meetings closer to Chattanooga and also the eastern, the northeastern part of the state of Tennessee in the coming week. If you live in any of those areas, you can find the date and time and place of these meetings there. by going to, again, thenarrowpath.com and looking under the tab that says Announcements. A lot of these meetings, actually, there might even be a night or two open if you wanted to book a meeting, but you can just attend one that’s in your area if there is one. I want to particularly push the meeting in Churchill, Tennessee, up toward the northeastern corner of the state. It’s a little tiny town. But we had quite a good number of people there last year when I came there. On the other hand, since it’s in a private residence, you have to kind of RSVP to get the address and so forth. And the hosts of that meeting have said they have not yet filled it up, and they would like to see, you know, welcome more people. That’s going to be, I believe, next Friday night, I guess it is. And so not this Friday, but next Friday. So Church Hill, Tennessee is where that one is. Anyway, just want you to check those things out. If you happen to be in Arizona, I’ll also be speaking for the better part of a week, I think, in Arizona, several different towns, especially in the Phoenix area. That would be at the end of this month for about a week. So if you’re in Arizona and curious about that, we have those meetings all listed at our website, thenarrowpath.com. Under the tab that says Announcements. And now we go to the phones and talk to, first of all, Greg from Cupertino, California. Greg, thanks for waiting. You’ve been on the line since long before we were on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello. Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, I had a question. I was kind of confused about the book of Matthew, chapter 8, verses 11 and 12. I’m not sure exactly what Jesus is saying there. Are they in the kingdom and then they’re getting kicked out of the kingdom?
SPEAKER 03 :
Matthew 8, 11 and 12 says, I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, there’s two groups of people here. The people who are coming in are not the ones who are kicked out. They’re the kingdom of God. of course, was promised in the Old Testament to Israel. And the disciples, even in Jesus’ time, still expected, as their question enunciates in Acts 1.6, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? The Jews did not think of this as something for the Gentiles, just for Israel. The Jews were the ones who would be naturally the sons of the kingdom, the ones that it was promised to the heirs of the promises of the Old Testament kingdom. Now, what Jesus is saying is, Lots of people are going to come from outside of Israel, from the east and the west, far away places, and they’re going to come and sit down in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now, what he’s simply saying is, you Jewish people are going to be a little surprised because there’s going to be a lot of Gentiles from all over the place in the kingdom. And on the other hand, the sons of the kingdom, he doesn’t mean all of them, but a significant number, these would be the Jews who would naturally be the ones who would expected to inherit the kingdom. He said they were going to be kicked out. Now, he’s not saying all Jews will be kicked out or all Gentiles will be brought in, but he’s saying the demographics of the kingdom that you expect is going to surprise you. You expect it to be essentially Israel ruling over the nations. Actually, there’s going to be a lot of Gentiles in there and a lot of Jews who are not. And by sitting down in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I don’t see this as something that’s eschatological. Some people think this is like the millennium or something when Jesus comes back. Jesus established the kingdom while he was there. He said so. I mean, in his ministry several times, he mentioned that the kingdom had arrived with him before he had any disciples. He said the kingdom of God has drawn near. And then when there were disciples, he said now the kingdom is in your midst. The kingdom has overtaken you. Of course, after Jesus left, Paul said similar things. Colossians 1.13, he said that we Christians have been translated into the kingdom already. This is where we are, the kingdom. The kingdom was Jesus’ movement. It’s the people who embrace Christ as their king and live their lives under his rule. And what he’s saying is many of the Jews will not comply with that. Many Jews will simply not be in that kingdom because they won’t receive Christ as their king, and they’ll reject Christ as their king. On the other hand, many Gentiles eventually will receive Christ. And, of course, that’s been happening for the past 2,000 years. This is talking about the present age, not an eschatological situation, in my opinion. So he’s saying simply that the kingdom of God is going to be different than many of the Jews, maybe most of the Jews, anticipated it being. If you’re a Jew, that doesn’t mean you’re a shoo-in for the kingdom. You’re going to be in there because you’re Jewish. No, a lot of Jewish people, the children of the king, a lot of them will be excluded. And it’ll be because they reject the king. You can’t be in his kingdom if you reject the king. And he said, on the other hand, Gentiles will be coming in. And note the context of this, because this is in the situation where a Gentile man who had a servant. He was a centurion, a Roman military official. And he had a servant who needed healing, and Jesus healed the man, healed the servant, because he said he found such great faith in the centurion. In fact, Jesus said, I haven’t found this kind of faith in all of Israel. Meaning, here’s a centurion. He’s not even an Israelite. He’s a Gentile. And here he’s exhibiting a faith that is hard to find even among the Jews. So that’s what inspired Jesus to say there’s going to be a lot of people like him. A lot of people come from different races and countries all over the place and be participants in what Christ has established here. But many Jews, the very ones that he has not found such faith among them, he said, well, because of that very thing, a lot of them won’t be there. Now, obviously, a lot of Jews did come into the kingdom. All the disciples were Jews at this time. And even after Pentecost, you know, all the, virtually all the converts at Pentecost and for some years later were in Jerusalem and were Jewish. But Gentiles eventually came in, and when the Gentiles did begin to be converted, they eventually outnumbered the Jews who were converted.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s kind of what Jesus is predicting here. Thank you so much, Steve. I look forward to seeing you in April. Great. Great. God bless you, Greg. Okay. Bye now.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Joshua from Phoenix. We’ve been hearing from Joshua a lot this week. Welcome. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, hey. Yeah, I mean, I call a lot because I enjoy it. And being a Catholic, I have a lot of knowledge that is in opposition with Protestantism. And one of them is that… So this idea that faith, when you become a believer… You don’t quite know everything that you’re taking in. So I became a Catholic, 18 years old, and I could have went down any path, basically Christianity, any. I could have been a Lutheran, whatever. I could have been any type of denomination, non-denomination, but I ended up being Catholic because my family is Catholic, right? Now, would you say that’s wrong? that I kind of just adopted it all without actually looking into it first, then accepting it? Or do you think that’s okay, that I just had the faith and I just became it and kind of adopted it? That’s my question.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, well, I guess it depends on how much of a truth nerd you are. I’m a real truth nerd. That is, I want to make sure that what I believe is true, especially since I teach. I don’t want to teach something that someone’s going to be able to come back and say, hey, that was wrong, and they’re right. I was wrong. Not that I never have. In my younger years, I taught lots of things I don’t think are true now, and that’s because we grow. We’re on the path. We’ve put Christ’s yoke upon us, and we’re learning from him. The very fact that people are learning means they’re changing their minds about things that they thought differently about. I’m a real nerd about truth. That is, if you can tell me or show me that anything I’m teaching or privately believe even, is not the truth, I want to change. I want to change to agree with the truth. Now, because of that, I couldn’t simply join a denomination. I couldn’t join the Catholic Church or any other, and in doing so, embrace everything that they say without examination. I’d have to subject every doctrine to an examination from Scripture. And if I found the Scripture to support it, I’d be in. But that wouldn’t mean that, let’s say I accept one doctrine of the, let’s say, of the Baptists. I grew up Baptist myself. But, you know, let’s say I go to a Baptist church and I accept some of the theology of it. But that doesn’t mean I accept everything they say until I at least examine it from Scripture, in which case I will hold what I find to be true in Scripture. Now, it turns out that if I worked, and by the way, I’m not attending a Baptist church at this time. I just grew up as a Baptist. But if I found that many Baptist doctrines were not what I thought was being taught in Scripture, that would not prevent me from continuing to attend a Baptist church if I found there the Spirit of Christ among the people and the love of God expressed among them and a humility and a love for truth, even if they disagreed with some things I said. I’ve never required that people agree with me. The only time I’ve ever left a church that says they require I agree with them, and sometimes in good conscience I could not. So I’ve been kind of, on occasion, railroaded out of a church. But prior to being railroaded, I didn’t mind that they disagreed with me. I’m not offended that you disagree with me. I’m not offended that you’re Catholic, and I’m not. But… But on the other hand, if I were, let’s just say I became convinced of something Catholic, let’s just say I became convinced of the transubstantiation, well, then I might attend a Catholic church. But I would still, before believing anything else, subject it to a test. And if there’s something that was taught there, I wouldn’t believe it. Actually, you know, I think a lot of Catholics, including Catholic priests, I think, though they’re not supposed to take that approach in the Catholic church, I think they do. I mean, there’s There are Catholic priests who, I think, support the idea of women in the clergy, I think, or are married clergy, you know. Now, you know, the Catholic Church stands against those things. And I would stand against also the women in the clergy, but not against the married clergy, because those are different issues, and I judge them by different biblical passages. But, you know, you can be in the Catholic Church and not hold to all the Catholic doctrines. But if you’re really a good Catholic, you’re supposed to hold to all the Catholic doctrine because it’s supposed to be the consensus of the College of Bishops and Cardinals and so forth and the Pope and all that. So I would never be part of a church that required me to simply accept all its doctrines without prior examination. And the reason is because there are a lot of churches. As every Catholic loves to point out, the Protestants, we’ve got thousands of denominations and they don’t all agree with each other. So how do we fix that? What do we Protestants do? Well, there’s two ways we can go. We can say, I’m going to commit myself to one denomination, maybe the Catholic, maybe the Eastern Orthodox, maybe Presbyterian or Methodist or something, and I’m just going to believe whatever they say. That way I won’t have to be confused. I can just decide which church is, to my mind, the best church and just say, okay, I’m just going to let them do my thinking for me. Let them tell me what to believe about everything. Or, I can decide I’m going to follow Jesus and not trust any human organization to be always right, and I’ll agree with them where they’re right, where they agree with Jesus. And I’ll disagree with them where they disagree with Jesus, but I’ll still fellowship with them because they’re my brothers and sisters if they love Christ. That’s the approach I would take. So you say, are you wrong to just kind of go back to the Catholic church you were raised in and accept their views? Well, it’s not the approach I would feel comfortable doing. Because I would always have to wonder, you know, a lot of things we believe here, I haven’t seen whether the Scripture really supports it. And to me, I just have this obsession, really, with if God has said something, I want to believe that. Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. I guess because, like, yeah, like you were saying, to be a good Catholic, you do have to accept the, like, main dogmas and all that. Yeah, of course. And I think that was more like my faith. I was kind of just going along because it was a multiple conversion. There was about four cousins and one brother all coming to this idea that Christ is the Messiah. Not the Messiah. I don’t know. Just like they were kind of understanding more about Christ. I don’t know if they were being exposed, but just I’m not going to go into conversion because it’s too long, but basically I ended up becoming Catholic and I basically accepted all of it. And I think that’s what happens even if you become a Christian, you accept the Bible as the word of God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it depends. It really depends on your attitude, you see, because the thing about Protestants is there are Protestants who are just as averse to thinking for themselves as maybe the Catholic Church requires their members to be. And so they’ll just follow their denomination. If they’re Calvinists, they’ll just say, well, I’ll go with Calvin or I’ll go with Luther or I’ll go with this confession of this year that the Baptists came out with. I’ll just say whatever they say is fine or the Westminster Confession. And they treat those things the same way the Catholic Church would treat the Pope. Although, I mean, these Protestants would be offended to have that pointed out. But they are the same. They are the same. They’re saying, okay, I admire this authority here, and I’m going to follow it because I’m loyal to it. But there’s Protestants like me who say, I’m not loyal to anything but Jesus. And so what he said, what he authorized, what his scriptures say, I’ll go with that. And if that disagrees on some points with every denomination, well, that’s okay. I can still fellowship with all these denominations. I don’t have to agree with them on the things that I don’t find to be scriptural. Hey, brother, we usually end up talking until the break, which means we don’t get many calls in. But I do need to take some more calls because we’ve got our lines full. But I do want to ask you, have you listened to any of my debates online with Catholic apologists?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, I have.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, great. All right, well, hey, I appreciate your call. We’ll talk again.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, Steve, take care.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, thanks, Joshua. Bye now. Bye. All right, Michael in Englewood, California, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Steve. First, I wanted to kind of just give you a commendation on your comprehensibility. And what I mean is sometimes people will be saying things or talking about different types of books or science or other things, but I really appreciate how you always know what they’re talking about, even if it’s like, say, missing shots playing basketball or your humor. Anyways, let me just move on. um a friend had a question that came up and i kind of thought it was a bit above my pay grade so it kind of goes like can demons well we know they can possess people and say pigs but can they possess say objects i may have i may have kind of talked to you about this before but um like say ouija boards or even like say phones through electronic devices and in that In that manner, can demons be trapped by humans in, say, artificial intelligence form, also similar to, say, a Ouija board?
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Well, let me just say that is also above my pay grade. You know, you mentioned it’s above your pay grade. I think it’s above mine, too, because I don’t really read anything in the Bible that talks about that. Now, I will say this. Some people think we can’t believe anything that is ever affirmed about demons unless we have cases of it mentioned in the Bible. And this is something where I may sound like I’m kind of taking a different view than I take when I’m talking to Catholics. Well, you believe in Sola Scriptura. But Sola Scriptura just means if the Bible says something, I agree with it no matter who says something else. But there are things the Bible doesn’t say. But it doesn’t mean… Knowledge of them can’t be had from other ways. I always bring the example up of, in the Bible, we have mention of Jesus curing epileptics. And we have him curing blind people. And him also curing people who are demon-possessed. Now, we don’t insist that we can know nothing about epilepsy or blindness. except what the Bible says about it. Because if we do, it doesn’t say much, and we’ll never know much. We allow that medical science has, through discovery and other experience, learned a great deal about epilepsy that isn’t mentioned in the Bible, and about blindness, too. And we can also argue that it’s possible that experienced Christians have learned a great deal about demon possession, which is not, you know, what they’ve learned, if it’s true, is not going to be contrary to Scripture. but it may be more than what the Scripture says about the subject. Of course, I would say this, that when missionaries have experiences with demons and demon possession and things like that, if they say things about demon possession that goes beyond what Scripture says, I can’t take it as being as authoritative as if the Bible did say it. But if it’s not contradicting anything the Bible said, I have no default reason to reject it. In other words… The Bible says very little about, it says nothing about demons possessing rocks and things like that, you know. Or being trapped in them, as it would appear that the demons seem to have been trapped in the swine when Jesus cast them into the swine. Or maybe they weren’t trapped. We’re not told that specifically. But that’s just the thing. We’re not told very many things very specifically about this topic of demon possession. But, the church has had a lot of experience with the phenomenon over the past 2,000 years, and it would be a very strange thing if people who have had a lot of experience with it had not observed certain patterns and cause and effect things in these circumstances that give them some at least tentative understanding of the subject that goes beyond what the Bible actually says specifically. Thus, you know, the idea, are there demons in objects? Well, the Bible doesn’t specifically say so. Of course, the Bible always treats idols as a demonic thing. To worship idols in the Old Testament was regarded as worshiping demons. In fact, the New Testament says that too. Paul says that in 1 Corinthians 10. He says that the sacrifices made by the heathen are made to demons. And he means by that the ones that they offer to idols are made to demons. But In Deuteronomy, Moses also said that they worshipped demons when they worshipped idols. Now, does that mean that there was a demon in the idol, trapped in there? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Though, if someone said, well, I’m pretty sure that’s true, I’d say, well, I can’t deny it, because I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t explain that. Obviously, the Bible does treat idolatry as a demonic thing, and that when people worship idols… They are worshiping demons, the Bible says. So exactly what is the connection between the idol and the demon? I don’t really know. I really don’t know. You know, I just figure if I needed to know that, I guess, the Bible probably would say. But what the Bible tells me is enough to know I don’t want to worship any idols. because then I’m getting into the devil’s territory. And when it comes to Ouija boards, things like that, I don’t even know that people would argue that the Ouija board is itself possessed so much as that it’s a device for contacting. demonic spirits, just like many other occult things are. In the occult, usually there’s techniques and sometimes objects that are employed to get in touch with demons. And insofar as there are objects that magicians use or that occultists use, I mean, like a crystal ball or something like that, I don’t know that they’re claiming that there’s a spirit in those things, but that there are spirits in the environment who can be, you know, you can ring them up, like you can call someone on the phone, you reach them through these objects. I know little about that that I could say with certainty, because, again, the Bible says absolutely nothing on that subject, but… But to say that can a demon get trapped in a phone or in an AI program or something like that, boy, that’s way over my head. I have no idea. But I’m not afraid of demons. And so if I believed that they could, it wouldn’t make me fearful or superstitious. I would just, you know, what God wants me to do is to live a holy life, to live like Jesus. And I may be surrounded by demons and the objects around me in the world, but if they don’t, prevent me from living for jesus and they don’t distract me from that uh they don’t worry me and that may not be a very satisfying answer but it’s the best i can give because because of the limited amount of revelation we’ve had from scripture on that hey i need to take a break but i appreciate your call you’re listening to the narrow path we have another half hour coming so don’t go away if you want to help us found the arrow you can go to our website the narrow path There’s free stuff there, too, at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
The book of Hebrews tells us do not forget to do good and to share with others. So let’s all do good and share The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg with family and friends. When the show is over today, tell one and all to go to thenarrowpath.com where they can study, learn, and enjoy with free topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and archives of all The Narrow Path radio shows. And be sure to tell them to tune into the show right here on the radio. Share listeners supported The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Share and do good.
SPEAKER 03 :
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 want to call with your questions about the Bible or Christianity, or to call to disagree with the host, please feel free to do that. The number to call is 844-484. That’s 844-484-5737. And remember, tonight is our monthly Zoom meeting, 7 o’clock p.m. tonight. You are welcome to join us. It’s a Q&A time. I’ll be hosting, and there will be lots of people like yourself who will be able to join in, ask questions, whatever. It’s going to be very much fun. similar in format to this radio program, a little longer, and it has the advantage of being face-to-face. So that’s tonight, 7 o’clock. If you want to log in and be part of that with us, just go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Look under the tab that says Announcements. Find today’s date, which is, of course, March 5th. And then you’ll find there the login codes to join the Zoom meeting. And we’ll see you tonight if you do that. All right. Let’s go back to the phones and talk to Sherry from Warren, Michigan. Hi, Sherry. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, Steve. Colossians 2, verses 11 and 12. Okay. The Presbyterian take is the circumcision made without hands in the verse 11 is the baptism in verse 12. How would you refute that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, okay, let me read it because I’m aware of the Presbyterian view on this. Paul says about our experience becoming Christians, he says, in him you were circumcised. Now, Paul mentions circumcision and baptism, you know, in these two verses. And many people believe that what Paul is implying or stating is is that baptism is basically the Christian version of circumcision, as circumcision is a Jewish practice, which is administered to a Jewish baby, a male, on the eighth day of his life, and which includes him in the covenant people as a baby. So also, baptism is sort of the parallel to that, the counterpart to that for Christians. We don’t circumcise, but we are baptized, and and that that also is what includes us in the covenant of Christ. And therefore, they say, for the Christian, baptism is what circumcision was to the Jew. And this becomes an argument for infant baptism, because obviously the Jews circumcised their infants. And they say, well, if God allowed Jewish people to include their infants in the covenant with the rest of the family… certainly God would not withdraw that privilege from us under the new covenant. So Christians, too, must have the privilege of baptizing their infants into Christ. Now, you know, this is a pretty convincing argument, and many people have felt on the strength of that argument they should just practice infant baptism. Yet infant baptism, of course, is not taught anywhere in Scripture. And much of what the Bible says about baptism has led people like myself to believe that only real believers should be baptized. Infants are not believers because they’re too young to know, too young to know what to believe. You have to reach a certain age before you can believe something. And an infant doesn’t believe much of anything, doesn’t have any theological beliefs anyway. So, you know, a person like myself, which believes in what’s called believer baptism, would say a person has to actually come to faith. They need to become a Christian first. They have to repent of their sins and become a believer in Christ. Then they can be baptized. Verses like Acts 2.38 would be one of the verses they’d use. So when Peter was asked what must be done to be saved, he said repent and be baptized. So he put repentance first. Mark 16, I think it’s verse 16 or 15, it might be verse 15, says, you know, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Again, believing is before baptism. Now, you know, so there’s these two views. Believer’s baptism says that people should not be baptized until they’re actually believers. Paedobaptist, which is the term for believing in infant baptism, paedobaptism, They believe that baptism is like circumcision and that you should be able to baptize your baby into the Christian family. Now, this really makes a big difference as to what we think baptism is for. If baptism is simply to mark a child or mark any person as being part of the church, whether they believe or not, then I guess pedo-baptism would work. would make sense. But it only makes sense if we agree that baptism is the New Testament counterpart to circumcision. And that’s what you’re saying. You’re saying in these verses in Colossians 2, 11 and 12, Paul mentions the circumcision made without hands, and then he mentions that we’re buried with Christ in baptism. So these two things. Now, I think, though, That what Paul is saying is that the circumcision which is made without hands is not baptism. It is something spiritual. It is a spiritual circumcision. He says it’s the circumcision of Christ. In another place, in Romans chapter 2, Paul says in verse 28 and 29, Now it sounds to me like Paul is saying that the New Testament counterpart of circumcision is circumcision of the heart. In other words, he doesn’t identify baptism as which is a physical act, an external act. He doesn’t identify that as the New Testament counterpart of circumcision. He says, no, the real circumcision is the circumcision of the heart, which is a spiritual thing. It’s an inward thing. It’s not an outward thing. Now, when Paul says that we have received this spiritual circumcision in Colossians 2, he goes on to say, and we’ve been baptized too. Now, in my opinion, he’s not saying those two are the same thing, but rather, Because we have this heart change, because this spiritual thing has happened to us, we have then gone on and become baptized, which is our way of saying, I am now part of Christ’s community. I belong to Christ now. It’s an outward thing we do because of something that already happened in our heart. Now, that’s just a different way of looking at baptism. So… I don’t believe that being baptized itself saves anyone, though I think having a circumcised heart does. But those who are circumcised in heart are commanded to be baptized also. And while there’s people disobedient to that today, in the early church there weren’t any. Everyone who has truly turned to Christ in their hearts and regenerated, they got baptized, generally speaking, the same day. So there were no unbaptized believers in Paul’s day. But there were probably some unbaptized babies. We don’t read anywhere in the Bible of anyone baptizing their babies or of any person being baptized who was said not to be a believer or were known not to be. There are a couple of cases in the Bible. One would be the Philippian jailer in Acts 16. And just prior to that, I think it was Lydia’s household. Both are said to have been baptized when they believed, and their whole household was baptized. So sometimes people say, well, see, this proves that they practiced infant baptism because when someone got baptized, they just baptized all their family. Well, but we’re just told these households, everyone in these households was baptized. How do we know that it’s not sane? Everyone in their household got saved. Everyone in their household believed. Now, we don’t know in Lydia’s case. I mean, we’re not told who the members of her household were or what their spiritual commitments were. We just read that she and her household were saved. But in reading the same statements about the Philippian jailer, we are told that his whole household was baptized in Acts 16.33. But the next verse, 34, says, Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them, and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household. In other words, he and all his household, together, they believed in God. And they also happened to get baptized. So, we don’t have any infants in this household, because infants don’t believe anything about God at all. But everyone in his household believed. And we’re told they got baptized. So, We’re not being told that there is some kind of standard practice of household baptism. One man gets saved, he just baptizes all his kids no matter what. We have this instance of a man whose whole house was converted, his whole family was converted, and they were all therefore baptized because converted people get baptized. We’re not told that Lydia’s house was different than this. We’re not told anything about her family other than they’re baptized, but certainly it is not denied that they believed. And it’s not affirmed that any of them were infants. So you really don’t have any biblical support for infant baptism. It’s more like a philosophical notion that stems from the assumption that circumcision as practiced among the Jews, which did include their infants, is basically the same thing as baptism for Christians, a statement that Paul doesn’t actually make in Colossians or anywhere else. The closest you’ll find to it being made is in Colossians, these verses you mentioned, and all we really have there. is that Paul says Christians have experienced this spiritual circumcision, and they have been baptized. He doesn’t say that those two are the same thing, happen simultaneously, or to be confused. I think that… You know, when we recognize there are New Testament counterparts of Old Testament rituals, like baptism, the counterparts in the New Testament are generally always spiritual. You know, you’ve got a ritual like Passover or, you know, or circumcision or offering animal sacrifices or those kinds of things in the Old Testament. They have parallels in the New Testament. Those parallels are spiritual, spiritual circumcision. spiritual Passover keeping, spiritual sacrifices offered, and so forth. And so it doesn’t seem to me that there’s any biblical basis for saying the New Testament counterpart of circumcision is baptism. I think we have more biblical evidence that the New Testament parallel for circumcision is spiritual circumcision, something that takes place in the heart. And if you’re in Colossians, and just turn back one page in your Bible probably, at Philippians 3, Paul’s writing to a primarily Gentile church, including Lydia’s family, because it’s in Philippi, that’s where she was, and she was among the first converts there, and the church met in her home. But in writing to them, he says in verse 3, Philippians 3.3, For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Now he’s saying, we’re the ones who have the true circumcision. He didn’t say we who have been baptized have the true circumcision, as if those were the same thing. No, he said the true circumcision is that we worship God in the Spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. We have no confidence in any fleshly activity. So I just don’t go with the – I mean, I certainly consider it when I was younger. I read the arguments of the Presbyterians on this, and I see their logic, but I think they’re making some premises that the Bible doesn’t support, and I think it’s not correct.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. That’s helpful. And also in the Acts 16.32, it says – when they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. So they had to hear it. So I agree with all you said, and I just thank you. You’re putting it together very succinctly, and I appreciate it. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Thanks, Sherry. God bless. Okay. We’ll talk next to Spud from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Hey, Spud. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, Steve. How are you doing? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. Hey, I had a discussion with a friend who’s a Catholic, and we were talking about the papacy. What are your thoughts on the Catholics believing in Peter as the first pope?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, if Peter was the first pope, he sure wasn’t a very good pope by modern pope standards because popes are not allowed to be married, and Peter was married. Peter had a wife. He had a mother-in-law. He had… It says in 1 Corinthians 9 that he took a wife around with him when he preached. One of the first miracles Jesus did in Galilee was healing Peter’s mother-in-law. You can’t get a mother-in-law without getting a wife, although I’m sure many would love to. But it’s just not possible by definition. So Peter had a wife. Popes aren’t allowed to have wives. So if he was a pope, he certainly was an inferior pope. But I believe Peter… was an apostle. And I don’t think we have any people today who stand in the status of the twelve apostles. Now, the Catholics believe that before the apostles died, they apparently appointed, or someone did, someone to be their successors. So, they believe Peter was the bishop of Rome. We don’t know if that’s true or not because the Bible doesn’t say it. Very near… I should say very late in Paul’s life and his life was he was killed by the same emperor that Peter was so they probably died around the same time Paul wrote a letter to Rome and he greeted a whole bunch of people I think about 16 or more people he greeted in Romans chapter 6 who were friends of his and people he knew who were in Rome at the church of Rome he didn’t mention Peter now the Catholics think Peter founded the church in Rome But it’s interesting that there were Christians in Rome before the Jerusalem Council. We have evidence of that from history. In the reign of Claudius, there were Christians in Rome. And that was 50 A.D. And yet, around the same time, Peter was in Jerusalem, according to Acts 15, at the Jerusalem Council. And that was about the same year. And then, of course, Paul wrote Romans maybe around 58 A.D., about eight years later. And when he writes to Rome and greets all the Christians he knows there, he doesn’t mention Peter, who happened to be a friend of his, but apparently wasn’t in Rome at the time. So we don’t know. The Bible tradition tells us that Peter went to Rome and died there under Nero. But that was a long time after the church in Rome was established. So I don’t see how we could argue that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. But even if he was… Even if he was, that doesn’t mean the next bishop of Rome had apostolic authority like Peter had, or that the third one had apostolic authority. The idea of apostolic succession is a Catholic doctrine. They believe that whoever’s the bishop of Rome in any generation is the successor of Peter and has Peter’s authority. And there’s not anything in the Bible that suggests apostolic succession as a doctrine, and it certainly doesn’t make sense. Jesus said, you 12 who’ve been with me from the beginning, you’ll sit on 12 thrones and judge the 12 houses of Israel. He didn’t say anything about them having successors who did that kind of thing. And by the way, if they did, I wonder who those 12 successors are. The bishops are allegedly today thought to be the successors of the apostles. But there were 12 apostles. There’s more than 12 bishops. Which ones are the successors of which apostles? This is a totally made-up doctrine. I mean, it is true that whatever churches the apostles died in, now some of these apostles were not bishops of churches. Some of them just got to town and got martyred and stuff. So I mean, Not all the apostles were even bishops of any churches. But whatever church they died in or whatever town they died in had bishops. It doesn’t mean that those bishops now became apostles. Right. You know, so the idea of apostolic succession simply doesn’t have a biblical leg to stand on. And, of course, I believe that if there’s anything like succession, it’s a succession of people that the apostles… you know, discipled and who learned from them and perpetuated their teachings. Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2, he said, you know, the things you’ve learned from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit those to faithful men who will teach others also. The Catholics tell us, well, you Protestants don’t have any central authority because you don’t believe in apostolic succession. How does the apostolic authority transmit from generation to generation down to the present? Well, I think Paul said it. He, as an apostle, taught Timothy, his protege, things. He said, now, Timothy, you teach another generation of teachers that, and make sure they’re faithful to teach it to another generation of teachers, and presumably on. In other words, apostolic authority is not perpetrated through the generations by having somebody sit in the apostle’s chair with their authority. but by the later generations remaining faithful to the authority of the apostles as expressed in their writings and in their teachings. So anyone who’s following what the apostles taught is observing apostolic authority. And frankly, many of the popes did not. You know, it was an apostle, Paul, who said that a bishop should be the husband of one wife. The Catholics don’t even allow a bishop to have a wife. So, I mean, by their traditions… They break the commandments of God, Jesus said, by the Pharisees. And I think this is a parallel situation.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that’s right. I started going down that road with Pharisees and Sadducees. Yeah, it just turned into a big, he said, kind of thing, you know? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Well, I appreciate your call, brother. I appreciate the answer. Thank you. Have a good night. Kevin from River Rouge, Michigan. Kevin, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 05 :
Steve, it is a pleasure. I just want to be quick about it because I know your time is limited. I talked to you in the past about whether things can enter this dimension, and your CD series on psychology I have, and I mentioned that. I want to just comment briefly on a couple of calls ago, the guy that, anyway, he had talked to you yesterday on Catholicism. I was raised 12 years as a Catholic, Even as a six-year-old kid, I knew there was something wrong with being in Mass every day. I call it a conglomeration of pagan heresies. My point is this. You know, studying Scripture like the Bereans is important for me as an amateur apologist to understand the difference between apostolic authority of Pope Reed and Sola Scriptura. Catholicism teaches both potpourri and tradition as well as the word of God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, but I need to know if you have a question for me because I say you can call if you have a question or if you disagree with me. But it doesn’t sound like you disagree with me. It sounds like you’re just saying the same things I said about that, Cedric. Do you have a question?
SPEAKER 05 :
I was just wondering why some people get into the cults as far as reincarnation and whatnot who were religious as far as Catholics and all that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I don’t know why Christians would get into reincarnation. I think if they do, it’s because they have not studied the Scripture, which can be said about most Christians. Like I said, most Christians, they just let the church they go to do the thinking for them. And in many cases, they don’t even study very hard to learn what their church believes. They just try to get the minimum requirements for going to heaven when they die under their belt. Once they’ve got that under their belt, they don’t really care much. I mean, they might. be interested in what the Bible says, but not interested enough to study it. And, you know, anyone who believes in reincarnation simply hasn’t, they either haven’t studied the Bible enough to know that the Bible teaches the opposite, teaches resurrection from the dead, it doesn’t teach reincarnation, or they may have studied and just not, they don’t respect the Scripture enough. So, and that’s true of a lot of Christians. A lot of Christians, they say they believe in the Scripture, but as soon as they find that the Scripture teaches something contrary to what they have an emotional attachment to, they feel free to ignore it, which is not very honest, not very consistent, but I have to say most Christians I have known throughout my history have not been very consistent. Okay, we don’t have a few minutes left, but Priscilla in Vancouver, British Columbia, if you can use two minutes, go for it, or three.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi there, Steve. Thank you so much. What does someone do when you’ve been so unholy, worldly, lawless, and done unspeakable things and now follow Jesus without feeling guilty or trying to be perfect and all when you’ve been the worst of the worst? Who am I to answer that call?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know… frankly, everyone has done unspeakably evil things. But if we grade on a curve, some of us haven’t done such scandalous things as other people do. But every time we have sinned, every time we’ve done something that God tells us not to do, and we did it just because we wanted to do it, we’ve done something horrendous. I mean, how horrendous was it for Adam and Eve to eat a piece of fruit in itself? You know, how could that be so important? But the important thing was that they were disobeying God. They were choosing what they wanted instead of what God wanted. And how severe a penalty was owed that? Well, the rest of us all came under the effects of the fall, I believe. So, you know, an individual’s sin may not be what people would normally view as a big deal. It may not be hugely scandalous, but it’s an act of choosing to defy God in favor of our own preferences. And that is not a small matter. You know, the Bible says sin is the transgression of the law. And Jesus said the greatest law is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, if I don’t love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, I’ve broken not only a law, the biggest law, the main law, Now, if sin is the transgression of the law, it may well be that I can see it that I’ve committed the biggest sin, even if I’ve done nothing that any human being would see as scandalous. Now, you have done things you feel are scandalous, and I won’t ask what they are. I don’t care what they are. I don’t think God cares what they are at this point because we’re all sinners, and we all come to God on the same terms, not coming and saying, Well, God, you know, I’ve sinned, but my sins were not really quite as bad as that person’s. You know, if I come on those terms, I’m probably not really repentant. We all have to recognize that our chief sin has been that we have lived for ourselves without regard for God’s will, that we have sought our own agendas and path and dreams, rather than saying, God, not my will, but yours be done. And every person has made that mistake. Every person has committed that sin. Some have done very scandalous things in that particular pursuit. And some less scandalous. But we’re all sinners. Now, how do we get over guilt? That’s what faith in Christ is for. It says in 1 John 1.9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He says in 1 John 2.1, These things I write to you so that you don’t sin. But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he’s the advocate for us before God. He’s the propitiation for our sins. So that’s what Christ is for. We’re all guilty, and there’s no sense evaluating how guilty I am compared to somebody else. We’re all guilty, and we’re all cleansed by the blood of Christ if we’re surrendered to him. So that’s how you get over the guilt of it, by believing what God said about that. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
