In this episode, delve into the enigmatic topic of demon possession as Steve Gregg illuminates excerpts from both the Old and New Testament. Understand why accounts of demonic activity were prevalent during Jesus’s time and what that reveals about the spiritual landscape of ancient Israel. As the conversation shifts, Steve addresses the importance of baptism as an essential act of faith, providing a thought-provoking discussion on what it means for contemporary Christians seeking to adhere to biblical commands.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour together. If you’d like to call in with your questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, that’s possible to do during the live broadcast. By the way, the program is live from 2 to 3 in the afternoon Pacific time. We’ve got people listening all over the country in different time zones and A few of those are not listening live. You may be listening as in New York City to a broadcast. But just so you’ll know, if you are in New York City, the live program is from 5 to 6 in the evening your time. And so you can call in between that time in the future. The number to call is 844- That’s 844-484-5737. And right now we’ve got, I’m looking at a lot of open lines on our switchboard, more than usual. So if you want to call, this is a great time to take advantage of an opportunity that may not be available later in the program. Once more, the number is 844-484-5737. I want you to remember that starting this Sunday, I’ll be speaking every day, well, I should say every night at least, in different locations in western Washington, in Seattle and places both south and north of Seattle. And, you know, every day is a different place. and different subjects. A lot of them are Q&A, but some of them are lectures. You can see all the information you need if you go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and you look under Announcements, and that’s where you’ll see the schedule and the time and place of everything. That’s coming up this Sunday through the following Sunday. So next week I’ll be speaking in different places in Washington State, especially in the general Seattle area. All right. And now the other thing is that tomorrow night is the first Wednesday of the month and we have our monthly Zoom meeting, which obviously means anybody can be a part of because Zoom reaches the whole world. At least you can reach it from anywhere in the world and you can be a part of our gathering tomorrow night. 7 p.m. Pacific time. And I’m going to be giving a talk. I was asked to do so. And I’m glad to do so. I haven’t given this talk for a long time. And it’s going to be called Why I’m Still a Christian. And if you have people in your life who think it’s stupid to be a Christian or think it’s not stupid to be a non-Christian, if they think either of those two things, I would suggest you have them listen in because this is going to be Especially helpful to people like that. It’s also helpful to Christians who simply don’t know how to defend their faith or articulate why they believe in Jesus. Well, you’ll have a lot of good answers if you listen to that tomorrow. Take notes. That’s tomorrow night on Zoom, 7 o’clock Pacific Time. And you can find out how to log into that. You get the numbers and the login codes there. If you go to thenarrowpath.com and under the tab that says Announcements, you’ll find the Zoom login, and we can see you tomorrow, tomorrow night. All right. We’re going to go to the phone lines and talk to John from Leominster, Massachusetts. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I’m going to ask my question and then get right off. Okay. So, you know, 1 John 2, 18 and 19, who are the antichrists that he’s talking about there? And, you know, when he says, you know, this is a big, like, Calvinist proof text. They went out from us because they were not of us. Is he talking about the antichrists? Is he talking about all the people in the church?
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, you’re breaking up.
SPEAKER 08 :
You’re breaking up. I mean…
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, yeah, I’ll be glad to talk about that. Yeah, you kind of broke up there, but I got your question. Yeah, all right, we’ll talk about that. Thanks for your call. All right. Well, John says this in 1 John 2, 18 and 19. Little children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard, that the Antichrist is coming. And by the way, the term the is not found in all the manuscripts. The older manuscripts simply say, as you have heard, that Antichrist is coming. Even now many Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out, that it may be made manifest that none of them were of us. Now, your first question is, who were these Antichrists? Well, for one thing, he says in verse 22, who is a liar, this is just a couple of verses later, But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, he, that person, is Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Now, who is a liar? But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, that person is Antichrist. Now, John tells his readers, there are already many Antichrists. There are plenty of people who deny that Jesus is the Christ. Now, probably, he’s thinking primarily Antichrist. of either false prophets or false teachers whose doctrine denies this. I mean, you’ll find walking down any street in the world, you can ask people if they think Jesus is the Messiah and find plenty of people who don’t. We could say, well, they’re Antichrist because they deny that Jesus is the Messiah or the Christ. And I guess they are, but John obviously had someone in particular, some people who had been in fellowship with his readers before. But then they left the fellowship. And he says, well, that’s really because they never really belonged to us. They were never of us. Now, as far as the specific teachers he has in mind, we may have a clue by looking at chapter 4, where he also identifies what he calls the spirit of Antichrist. He tells them to be careful about listening to prophecies, which he refers to as spirits. He says in chapter 4, verse 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God. Then he says, Then he says, Okay, well, you can stop there. He says the spirits or the prophetic utterances that deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, this is the spirit of Antichrist. So he’s already said that those who deny that Jesus is the Messiah are Antichrist. Now he makes a much more specific statement. They deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Now, who would deny that, especially in the first century? I mean, there’s not really many people who would deny it even today. The ones who do are very uninformed, and generally speaking, not historians. Historians know that Jesus Christ existed as a human being, and certainly people back then had no reason to doubt it either. So what would it mean to deny that Jesus came in the flesh? Most scholars would agree he’s talking about some form of nascent Gnosticism, a doctrine that rose up not long after this and became a tremendous problem to the church, especially in the 2nd century and the 3rd century. Gnosticism was one of the prevailing heresies that they had to contend against, and it was Gnostics taught one of two things. There were two kinds of them. There were the Serenthians who followed Serenthus, and there were Docetists or Docetists. These were the ones who – Docetism comes from the word for appearance – And they thought that Jesus wasn’t really a physical man. He was too ethereal, too spiritual to be a physical man. He just looked like a man. He just appeared to be a man. When he walked, he didn’t leave footprints, they thought. They thought he’s not really physical. That was one branch of Gnosticism, the Docetists. But then there’s the Corinthians, and they followed Corinthians, who taught that Jesus was a real man. but that the Christ was something other than him, sort of an essence or an anointing or some kind of an entity, the Christ that came upon him and was identified with him from the time of his baptism until just before he died and left him just before he died. So they would say that during the ministry of Jesus up until almost to his death, the Christ had come upon him. He was not the Christ. The Christ and Jesus were different things, but they were joined in some special sense during the ministry of Jesus. But the Christ came upon him at baptism and left him before he was crucified. Now, both of these were parts of Gnostic heresy. And both of them, in a sense, would say Jesus didn’t come or that Christ didn’t come in the flesh, especially the docetists, because they didn’t believe that Jesus was physical at all. So It may well be that John has those specific heretics in mind when he talks about the Antichrist. That doesn’t mean they’d be the only Antichrist heretics available, but he’s talking to an audience whom he knows personally and they have known these teachers personally. He says many false prophets have gone out from them. He says they went out from us. That means they were once in fellowship with us. They were once in our church, but they were not of us. This is chapter 2, verse 19 of 1 John. He said, if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us. Now, the Calvinists say, you see, if somebody doesn’t continue in the faith, they weren’t really ever in the faith. John says they went out from us because they never really were of us. This verse is usually given as a companion verse to the one in Matthew 7, where Jesus said, many will say, Lord, Lord, we did all these things in your name. And he’ll say, I never knew you. Well, I take both of these verses, both the statement of Jesus and the statement of John here, at face value. I believe that, as Jesus said, there will be many who never knew him. That doesn’t mean there won’t also be many others who did. I mean, frankly, the question of whether somebody who actually knows Christ could fall away is left entirely unaddressed. It’s not even in the view of the statement of Jesus. He’s talking about many who are not real Christians who will wish to claim that they were Christians. He’ll say, no, you weren’t. But that doesn’t address the other issues of people who actually were Christians and fell away. If that’s a possibility, we would need to examine that from other passages, and we have plenty of them to do it from. But this one here is also seen in the same light by Calvinists. They say, you see, he says they went out from us because they never were of us. If they had really been of us, they wouldn’t have gone out. They would have stayed with us. Well, I believe he’s telling the truth about these people. The people he’s talking about never were true Christians. They were heretics. They insinuated themselves within the church, and then they left the church, I guess, when they were unsuccessful in their attempts to corrupt the church or when they were exposed maybe by John or some of John’s, you know, some of the fathers he said he’s writing to who know more than most in the church. He mentions them earlier in the same chapter. Fathers of the church is the older men, the more mature leaders. So something had caused these people to leave. It was probably that they were not getting what they hoped for in terms of deceiving the church. And he says, you know, they never really were our brothers at all. Now, again, we have to realize he’s talking about some actual people, people that he knew, people that his readers knew. And he said, you know, it’s very clear that they weren’t ever true believers. They have these kinds of ideas about Jesus. Those aren’t ideas that believers have. They didn’t really belong among us. And that’s true. There are people in every church, well, maybe not every church, but in many churches, who simply aren’t Christians. They’re there for whatever reasons, and there’s a lot of different reasons a person might be, and they’re not a Christian, but But, you know, if they are, of course, false teachers trying to make headway in the church and deceive the church, their failure to do so probably will get them to move on and try to find some easier prey. They’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. They never were Christians. But, again, what John says about these particular false teachers, whom he knew and whom his readers knew, is simply he’s making a statement of those people. He’s not saying never in all of the past 2,000 years has there ever been a true Christian who fell away. He’s not even thinking about that. He’s thinking about false teachers who have the spirit of Antichrist. They’re trying to corrupt the church. Yeah, well, false teachers who have the spirit of Antichrist, generally speaking, aren’t real Christians. And John said that. He said, so they were exposed, and that’s why they had to leave. They went out and it exposed that they were not really Christians after all. Now, again, to find scriptures about people who were never real Christians, that’s not a theological statement about all people who have ever seemed to be Christians and fallen away. Some of them may have been Christians. These ones were not. But you can’t really extrapolate from that if you’re hoping to be responsible with scripture. You can’t make it say more than it’s hoping to get across. People often, there’s a way of supporting a doctrine that isn’t very supportable. that we call proof texting. Proof texting is you believe what you want to believe and you find verses that sound like, well, that would work. That one works to support my idea. I’ll put that on my list. Then when I’m debating this, I’ll just quote this verse and hope that the person I’m debating with doesn’t know more about the passage than I do. Hope they don’t know anything about the context. Hope they don’t know how to think about Scripture because if they do, I’m in trouble. But most people you talk to don’t know how to think about Scripture, don’t know anything about exegesis, don’t have any idea what the context is. And so these kind of proof texting devices work with a lot of people, but it won’t work with people who actually study the Bible. I mean, study the Bible without combing through it simply to find proof texts for their views. All right, let’s talk to Hector from Orlando, Florida. Hi, Hector. Welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello, thank you. I have a question regarding a proof test, kind of touched on what I was thinking. I’ve been a Christian 25 years now, and before I was a Christian, I drank alcohol. I was in bad relationships that I shouldn’t have been in without being buried, lots of things that I did. Those things I have since put away since becoming a Christian. But I’ve had many discussions with people regarding alcohol and the consumption of alcohol. I firmly believe that alcohol is wrong. I don’t think Christians should drink it. I don’t go around dictating what everybody should do. But there’s many verses in the Bible that show the problems with drinking and what occurs from them, from participating in that. So is there a clear-cut… view that a christian should have regarding the consumption of alcohol i i you know yes you should not be a fornicator i i know that but should you not drink i i firmly believe you shouldn’t i don’t see any reason for it it doesn’t enhance any situation or anything in my life i’d love to answer your question yeah yes please thank you thank you yeah
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, yeah, there’s a pretty clear-cut teaching about such things. It’s very similar to what the Bible says about food. Food is a good thing, but you can overdo it. There’s a thing called gluttony, which is the abuse of food, eating more than is healthy, more than is right, being addicted to it. There are lots of people in our society addicted to food, but that doesn’t mean food is bad. The Bible actually does not say that alcohol is bad anywhere, but the abuse of alcohol is forbidden strictly. In fact, it says in, you know, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. So drunkenness is clearly a sin. And, you know, it says in Ephesians 5, 18, do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. So, yeah, don’t be drunk with wine. That’s a very strong statement. In the Bible. On the other hand, Jesus drank wine. Jesus made wine. The church used wine at their table. We know that because, for example, Paul told the Corinthians that some of them at communion were taking more than their share and they were going home drunk. That’s in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. He says that some are going home drunk. Now, Paul didn’t say, what in the world are you doing with alcoholic wine at your table that people could get drunk? No, he rebukes them for taking more than their share. If you drink wine, as you should. Now, by the way, I don’t like wine. I don’t like alcohol. I never have liked alcohol. I’ve never been a drinker. And that doesn’t mean I’ve never tasted it. I’ve had a beer once or a few times in my life. I’ve had wine a few times in my life. I’ve even had a margarita once or twice in my life or more. But, you know, I easily go a year without touching alcohol and don’t have any interest in it. And when I do, I’m just being social. But I’ve never been an abuser of alcohol. I’m not a drunkard. and I’ve never been a glutton. I’m probably closer to being a glutton than a drunkard, but I’m not really either. I believe eating food is okay, and I think alcohol is okay. In fact, the Bible actually recommends wine for certain situations. For people who think that wine in the Bible didn’t have alcoholic properties, these people have to explain a lot of things. One is, why are they making up their own definitions of the word wine, for one thing? The other thing is, Why were people at communion getting drunk by drinking much of it if it’s grape juice? Another would be when Jesus made a bunch of wine at a wedding, why didn’t the master of ceremonies recognize that it was just grape juice when he said it’s the best wine that we’ve had the whole ceremony? I think he’d know if it was grape juice. The truth is there’s nothing wrong with wine, but of course there are things wrong. with being brought under the power of anything. Paul said, all things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything. And I think if a person is brought under the power of alcohol, they ought to stay far away from it, or from anything else that brings them under its power. That, by the way, is, of course, 1 Corinthians 6.12. He says, all things are lawful to me, but all things are not helpful. Now, he doesn’t mean all behaviors are lawful. He actually means all foods are lawful. But But certainly wine is a food. It’s something that everybody had at their table. And let me just share something with you that many people in our day don’t know. In biblical times, everybody drank wine at the table, but they mixed it with their water. When they were drinking water, they were really drinking a mixture of wine and water because the water was not safe. It wasn’t safe to drink water in the third world. It still isn’t in most cases. So they would put wine in it, and the alcohol in the wine purified the water and made it safe. So we know this from the Latin writers of that period, from the Greek writers, and from the Jewish writers in the Talmud. They all mentioned that they would put, you know, maybe one part wine to four parts water or something like that. Now, you’d have to drink gallons of that stuff to get drunk, but they weren’t drinking it to get drunk. They were drinking it to hydrate. and to stay safe and to avoid amoebas and so forth. So wine had to be alcoholic for it to do any good. Also, the Good Samaritan poured wine on the wounds of a man who’d been beaten. Why? Why pour wine on the wounds? Well, to disinfect. Well, couldn’t he just put grape juice on it? No, it wouldn’t have the same effect. It wouldn’t do any good. So, you know, wine is alcoholic. The Old and New Testament assume wine is alcoholic. They also assume that a person who drinks too much of it will get drunk, and that is a sin. They also assume that, you know, if you eat too much food regularly, you’re a glutton. That’s not good either. You can abuse lots of things that are good, but you don’t want to be brought under the power of any. Now, it sounds to me like since you’ve had a problem with drinking in your past, it’s probably a very good thing for you not to ever touch alcohol. I have never had a problem with drinking in my past. If I would sit down with a glass of wine, it would not have any effect on me. I know because I’ve done it before. And I don’t like it much, but I mean, I can tolerate it. I don’t like the taste of it. But the thing is, you know, I don’t have a problem with it. So it’s not a problem for me to drink it. The Bible never says not to drink wine, but we have plenty of times where wine is even recommended. For example, Paul tells Timothy, He says, don’t drink only water, but put a little wine in it to avoid your frequent stomach problems. Now, see, like I was saying, in ancient times, they had to put wine in their water to keep from getting amoebic dysentery. And apparently, Timothy got amoebic dysentery by avoiding wine. Some people would avoid wine if they were Nazarites. If a person had a special vow, they would avoid a number of things that other people didn’t avoid, including anything from the grapevine. which would include wine, they’d avoid cutting their hair or their beard, and they’d avoid coming near a dead body even for a funeral. So these were things that required a special vow to live that way. But people who didn’t have that vow, which is almost everybody, drank wine all the time. I mean, at the table with water. And there were, of course, people who drank it to get drunk. There were winos, I’m sure, back then. But drinking wine did not mean you were a wino. It didn’t mean that you got drunk. And, you know, I’ve lived in homes, I mean, my family home I grew up in. I’ve been with other people, Christians, who, you know, they drink some wine with their meal. They’ve never been drunk. And, frankly, there may be some medicinal benefits in drinking it. But I, you know, the Bible doesn’t say that wine is a bad thing. It does say that it can tempt you. In the Proverbs, it says wine is a mocker. which means it basically kind of seduces you and then mocks you for the behavior that it leads you to do, the misbehavior. So I would, you know, anyone who’s ever had a problem with alcohol, I’d say stay away from it. Stay all the way away from it. And I would suggest you probably should do that, too, because you mentioned you had had a problem with it before. All right. Thank you, Hector. Wendy from Evansville, Indiana. Welcome. Hi, Wendy.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thanks for taking my call. I was wondering if you could help me with the Scripture in 1 Corinthians 12, 21 through 23. You know, when it says the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the less honorable ones we close with honor, and the respectable members… The less respectable are treated with more respect. Who is he talking about? Who are the weaker members? Is it the poor or the disabled? Can you elaborate on that, please?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, yeah, he’s not speaking about members of the body here as members of the church, though he’s using this as an analogy for members of the church. 1 Corinthians 12 is the earliest discussion. Oh, wait, we’ve got to take a break here. Listen, Wendy, I’m going to come back to this. We need to take a break. I’ll put you on hold. And I’ll put you back on again after the break. So please stay with us. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have a hard break at the bottom of the hour. In order to let you know that The Narrow Path is a listener-supported ministry, and if you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to us at The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. That’s The Narrow Path. P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can also donate from the website thenarrowpath.com. There’s a donation link there, but there’s lots of things, thousands of things there you can take for free. Nothing’s for sale at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 03 :
If truth did exist, would it matter to you? Whom would you consult as an authority on the subject? In a 16-lecture series entitled The Authority of Scriptures, Steve Gregg not only thoroughly presents the case for the Bible’s authority, but also explains how this truth is to be applied to a believer’s daily walk and outlook. The Authority of Scriptures can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. Right now our lines are full, but if you want to call a little later, you might find an opportunity to get through. The number to call is 844-484. 57, 37. Just before the break, we heard from Wendy in Evansville. Wendy, I’ve put you back on now. We didn’t have time to address her question, but it had to do with 1 Corinthians 12, verses 21 through 23. Or we should say maybe further on down, let’s say through 24. Let me read this passage for those who don’t know what it is. I’ll mention her question and I’ll answer it. Paul said, The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Nor, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary, and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor. And our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need, But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it. You were asking, who’s he referring to by the members of the body that are weaker or less presentable? And what I was about to say, and then we got interrupted by the music, is that this is the first chapter chronologically in all of Paul’s writings where he introduces, as no one before him did, the idea of the body of Christ. That is, the church is the body of Christ. And the way he introduces this idea, though he makes a more thorough reference to it in different ways in Ephesians and other parts later, this is his very introductory chapter to the subject for the first time. He begins by talking about the human body, by analogy, the human body. So he says in verse 12, For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body being many are one body. Now, all of that is talking about Generically, a human body. He’s not talking about the church, although he’s setting it up to talk about the church. He’s saying this is what bodies are like. This is what every human body is actually like. It’s one body. Our bodies each have many members. All the members of the body are numerous, but they’re still part of one organism, one body. Then he says at the end of verse 12, so also is Christ. by which he means Christ exists now on the earth in the form of the body of Christ. He has many members. He’s the head in heaven, but his members, many of them are on earth, and we are them. And so he goes on to say, you know, in verse, well, he’s talking about a human body again. I mean, through most of this, he’s describing a human body with the intention of, of people recognizing that since he’s saying the body of Christ is like a human body, you’ll be able to make connections. And so when he says, the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you, of course what he’s saying there is that different parts of the body have different functions, and they supplement each other’s functions. The eye can’t walk, so it cannot say to the feet, I have no need of you. It needs them. And the feet really can’t say to the eye, I have no need of you, although, of course, it’s possible for a person who can walk to get around even if they’re blind. It certainly is a disability. It certainly is more difficult. And so the idea here is that it’s not as if the eyes are unimportant simply because they can’t contribute to the movement of the legs and the feet. And it’s not that the feet are unimportant simply because they don’t see. But each member of the body has its own function. And no part of your body, still about the human body, generally speaking, no part of it is really unnecessary. He says, no, much rather those members of the body, and he means a human body. which seem to be weaker, are necessary. Now, by weaker, he might mean more vulnerable, because he talks about our protecting them. He says those members of the body which we think less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor, and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty. Now, the unpresentable parts, I frankly believe he’s talking about the sexual organs, and we treat them with great modesty, not because we don’t value them, but because we do. because they’re very important parts of our human anatomy. And yet they are vulnerable. They need to be protected. Not only do they need to be protected from physical injury, but from, you know, public attention. And so he says, you know, there are things, there are parts of our body that aren’t the stronger parts, like our muscular arms and legs, you know, which we would show off to anybody. If we if we’re if they’re strong, but there’s parts of our bodies that we would never show off to people because they’re vulnerable. They are weaker. They are things that are not proper to expose publicly. Now, then he says in our presentable part, parts have no need. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to that part which lacks. He’s saying we don’t have to protect our presentable parts, the parts that we generally would present to the public, the parts we don’t cover with clothing, for example. I mean, we cover most of our bodies with clothing. Some parts are exposed. Certainly our neck and head is almost always exposed, our hands. In those days, probably the lower legs were exposed. They probably wore tunics or robes of some kind. you know, they probably roll up their sleeves at times and they might even take off, you know, the men might uncover their chest when they’re working out in the sun, their upper bodies. But for the most part, there are parts of the body you don’t expose. And there are parts of the body that you might expose more than others. But the point he’s making is we shouldn’t assume that because there are some people in the body of Christ who are not the ones we put up in front. They’re not the ones that we put on a pedestal like the preachers, the apostles and the prophets and so forth who publicly minister, there are people who minister in the shadows. They minister without notoriety. They don’t get much notice. They aren’t put on public display. But they’re still valuable. That’s the point he’s saying. The parts of the body that we protect from public view or from injury because they are weaker or more vulnerable than some other parts of our bodies, it’s not because we don’t value them. We actually value them just as much. Sometimes maybe more than the parts that we don’t protect so much. So that’s what he is saying. I think he’s saying that in the body of Christ, of course, there are visible members, the apostles, the prophets, the leaders. They’re visible to the world. And then there’s people who are less visible. And there’s some who might be maybe entirely not visible to the public. For example, people who have a, let’s just say someone who has an intercessory prayer ministry, and they go in their closet and close the door so they don’t appear unto men to be praying, as Jesus said, you know, well, the world might never see what they do. They might be undercover Christians, but they’re doing something very important. So I think all that Paul is saying is we can’t evaluate Christians different members of the body of Christ by the degree to which it’s suitable to put them up in public and put them on display, just like the members of your physical body. You value many parts of your body that you would not put on public display very often or ever. So that is, I believe, the meaning of his passage there. Thank you so much, Steve. Okay, Wendy. God bless you. Good talking to you. Bye now. Okay, Emily in North Haven, Connecticut. Welcome to the Neuropath.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, good afternoon. Hi. I was just very thankful for the gentleman that called prior to this lady that just got off talking about wine and drinking and everything because sometimes they make it so as if You just can’t drink, and that’s not true. I just believe that we have to stick to what the Word of God says about everything and not adding our idiosyncrasies or anything of that nature to it because it can be kind of confusing and disheartening. Because everybody that has a drink glass of wine is not having a glass of wine to get drunk. And I’m so glad that you brought that out. Because even Jesus himself said, I’m not going to drink this anymore until I drink it with you new in the kingdom. So I’ll get off and let you reply to that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Yeah, I agree with you. People do often have a tendency, especially very religiously minded people, have a tendency to make rules that go beyond what God’s rules are. I mean, God definitely puts restrictions on behaviors. I mean, there are some behaviors that are sinful and are not okay. There are some that are always righteous, but there’s some that are, you know, in some circumstances, all right, and then beyond a certain point, they’re not right. So, I mean, for example, it’s right to discipline your children when they go wrong, but it’s wrong to over-discipline them and and provoke them to wrath, as Paul said in Ephesians 6. You don’t want to do that. People adding to the word of God usually are well-intentioned, but they’re making a huge mistake. They’re thinking that they know better than God. Remember when Adam was told by God, you can eat all the trees of the garden, but don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of that tree, you’ll surely die. Well, in the next chapter, Eve, who must have learned that rule from Adam because she wasn’t created yet when God sent it to Adam, so she must have learned it from him. The serpent says, Are you allowed to eat of all the trees of the garden? Now, she should have said, No, we’re not allowed to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That’s what God says we can’t eat. But what she said is, We can eat of all the trees of the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So far, so good. But then she said, Of that one, we’re not allowed to eat it or even touch it. Now, where’d she get the idea that she couldn’t even touch it? Now, she might have added that herself, or Adam might have communicated it that way to her. Who knows? If Adam did, he was probably well-intentioned. Now, Eve, there’s this tree here. We’re not allowed to eat it. Don’t even touch it. If we eat it or touch it, we’ll die. But you see, if someone says, you can’t eat it, It might seem like common sense or wisdom to build a hedge around that law. That’s what the Pharisees did. The law said not to do certain things. And the Pharisees, as they put it, built a hedge around the law by saying, well, you can’t even do things that might come close to that. But that’s not necessarily what the Bible says. The Bible doesn’t say you can’t get close to sinning. It says you can’t sin. And so when Eve said we can’t eat it or even touch it, Now, frankly, that’s your typical legalist there, because they’re saying, we don’t want to sin, so we’re going to make another rule that even puts a hedge between us and that sin. If we keep this rule, we’ll certainly never get close enough to sin to actually commit the other rule, to break the other rule. And that was kind of the first legalism in the world, when someone added to the command of God. Now, like I said, it’s no doubt well-intentioned, You know, the Bible says that women should dress modestly. But some churches go so far as to say, well, a woman should never have her dress above her ankles. She should never have any makeup or jewelry on. She should, you know, always wear unattractive clothing. You know, and frankly, there are whole churches that that is their dress code. Why? Well, because that’s modest, right? Well… Maybe it is. Maybe it’s modest. But modesty doesn’t require those kinds of extremes. A person can be modest without keeping those particular rules. Those are rules that somebody adds. That’s somebody adding to the Word of God. And you’ve got churches that do that regularly. Same thing with alcohol. The Bible says, do not be drunk with wine. And there’s going to be somebody who says, well, every alcoholic has a first drink. And if you never have that first drink, you’ll never be a drunkard. Well, that is true. But it’s irrelevant. The Bible doesn’t say you can’t have a drink. The Bible says you can’t get drunk. Now, true, some people, if they have a drink, maybe they will get drunk. Well, if that’s a weakness of theirs, they probably shouldn’t have any drinks. But there’s a whole bunch of people that can drink without getting drunk and don’t want to get drunk. They drink for other reasons. And God made wine. You know, the Bible actually says about wine, In the Psalms and also in Judges chapter 9, that wine cheers the heart of man. In Proverbs chapter 31, it says, give wine to him that is perishing. It’s like an anesthesia. You know, they didn’t have Novocaine and they didn’t have the kinds of, anesthesia that we have to kill pain in those days. So what they had was wine. You see this in old westerns sometimes before they had anesthesia. The guy’s got gangrene in his legs, so they’ve got to saw it off like a branch off his body. And they’ve got nothing. They’ve got nothing to kill the pain except a pint of whiskey or something. And that seems to be what Proverbs is saying. Don’t drink wine as a recreational high. But, okay, give it to somebody who’s in agony and pain, you know, who’s dying. You know, it’s a painkiller. It’s not an ideal thing. But it’s, you know, in a situation like that, Proverbs chapter 30 or 31 actually says use it that way. And we know, of course, it was used for other medicinal purposes in the Bible, to kill germs, to disinfect wounds, to make water potable. I mean, God doesn’t make stuff for no good reason. And he made alcohol. Some people say, well, Jesus would never make real wine with real alcohol because some people might drink too much and get drunk. Then he’s responsible. Really? So if God creates food… and someone becomes a glutton, God’s responsible for that? How so? How is God responsible for people abusing something that he made for a good purpose? It doesn’t make sense to me to argue that way. It’s just silliness, actually. So, you know, if someone says, I don’t believe I should drink wine, then I don’t think you should. But if you say, I don’t think anyone should drink wine, well, you’re going beyond Scripture. You’re doing the same thing Eve did when she added, we can’t eat it or even touch it. And frankly, legalism and religion of that sort is what drives people away from Christ. And even those people who are not driven away and who embrace that legalism often live their lives a very different kind of Christian experience than what God intends for them. God did not make Christianity to be a religion of ever-increasing strictness of rules that don’t make any sense. The rules that do make sense are the ones God gave. And let’s stick with those, I would say. Michael in Englewood, California. Welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello. Yes, Steve. I’m kind of studying the Jewish Orthodox Bible a little. I’m not sure what you think about that, but I kind of like learning Hebrew, and I’m on the word shed right now, or shedim, which is demon, of course. And my question is, I don’t really find any demon possessions, or I don’t remember any demon possessions. or exorcisms in the Old Testament. And, of course, I do remember them in the New Testament. I think that’s actually a fruit gift of the Spirit. But my question is, are there any in the Old Testament? And if not, is that kind of related to when Jesus came down and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, if that makes sense?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I should make clear, and I know you intended it this way, but someone might not think so. When you said you find in the New Testament demon possession and people having it cast out, and you think that’s a gift of the Spirit, obviously you’re not saying that demon possession is a gift of the Spirit, but the casting out of demons. I’m not even sure that that is one of the gifts of the Spirit. It’s not listed as such, but that Christians have authority over demons to cast them out is both stated and demonstrated in the New Testament. as Jesus did, so Christians in his name can take authority over the demons and on occasion cast them out of people. But was this phenomenon of demon possession, was it around in the Old Testament times? Well, you never find the expression demon possession describing anyone in the Old Testament, but you do have references numerous times to people who have a familiar spirit. Usually these are people who are mediums. These are people who conduct seances, and it is suggested that they have a familiar spirit. And this idea of a familiar spirit almost certainly, I think almost everyone would agree, refers to a demon. Now, for them to have a demon is a term that even the New Testament uses sometimes as synonymous with being demon-possessed. The Syrophoenician woman had a daughter who was tormented with a demon. the Pharisees said of Jesus that you have a demon. And he said, I don’t have a demon. But having a demon would be the same as being demon-possessed. The language is interchangeable, really. So there were people in the Old Testament who had demons. Apparently those who were involved in the occult and magic and necromancy and soothsaying and mediumship. Those things were the realm of the demonic, and people who were involved with them apparently sometimes were possessed by demons. We do not ever read of them having them cast out, however. Saul, for example, had a demon that came to him and came and went. It would come upon him at times. He’d become a madman. And then when David would play music, The demon would seemingly go away, but it wasn’t a permanent fix. It kind of gave him more of a restful spirit, but the demon would still come back. And sometimes when David was playing music, instead of making the demon go away, it caused the demon to become more violent. So this strikes me as a case of demon possession and not actually, you know, exorcism as we think of it in the New Testament times. What is interesting, though, is that how much demon possession there was in Israel in the time of Jesus. Because the Bible says everywhere he went, he healed sick people and cast demons out of people. It’s almost like, you know, it was a very common phenomenon. The Jews at that time seemed to recognize it. For example, if you’ve ever seen a person demon-possessed and rolling on the floor in some kind of a fit, it’d be hard to tell the difference between that and an epileptic grand mal seizure. I mean, those things can look very similar. But the Bible makes a distinction between epileptics on the one hand and demon-possessed on the other. It does not teach that epileptics do have demons. Though I’m sure that many times when people have demons, the fits that they are in, a lot of times the Bible does say the demon throws them on the ground and they convulse and things like that. I’m sure that a lot of times it looks an awful lot like an epileptic seizure, yet the people in the Bible knew the difference. Between epilepsy, when it was occurring, and demon possession, when it was occurring. So it was apparently a common enough thing that not more, I mean, more than one person came to Jesus and said, my son or my daughter is demon possessed. Can you help them? And, of course, Jesus cast demons out lots of places. Now, how he found so many demon-possessed people is striking and a curious matter because, again, it seems a rare or rarely spoken of phenomenon in the Old Testament times. But I want to say this. It was probably very common in Old Testament times outside of Israel because the Bible says that the pagans who worshipped idols were worshipping demons. Moses said that in Deuteronomy. Paul affirms it in 1 Corinthians 10, I think it’s verse 20, that the things the heathen offer sacrifices to are demons. Now, if you’re actually worshiping demons, I would assume that would put you in a very vulnerable place to be demonized. And among the pagan nations, which you don’t read much about, their daily lives or their social lives in the Old Testament, we’re reading mostly about Israel there. But among the pagans, probably demon possession was not unusual. It’s much more unusual in Israel when the Israelites would take on the pagan ways. For example, God warned them in Leviticus 18, I suppose it was, and Deuteronomy 18, and Leviticus 19, I think, too. It warns them not to be involved in any occult practices, including divination and mediumship and so forth, because those are the things the pagans do who worship demons. So, obviously… When Israel compromised with pagan ways, they sometimes were involved in things that got them demonized. I don’t know if we should assume that in the age just before Jesus came, a lot of Jews were getting involved in those kinds of things and therefore were demonized. Or if there’s simply a more demonic activity happening. coming against Israel just before Jesus came because the devil was trying to put up a bulwark against what Christ was going to do. The Bible does say in Revelation 12 that before Jesus was born, the dragon was terrified and angry and waiting for him to be born so he could destroy him. So, I mean, obviously the devil had a lot of angst about the soon coming of Christ. He may have poured out an awful lot of his demons on people in the regions where Jesus would be ministering. at that time. But we’re not told that. We just see, I mean, that’s one interpretation of the facts we do see in Scripture. Anyway, we don’t have much reference to the term demon possession at all outside of the New Testament, even outside of the Gospels and Acts. All right, Elizabeth from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi there. Hi. We were in church. a few Sundays ago, and the preacher said, we’re going to have several baptisms. And he had just, we just entered new members and everything. We’re not a member of the church, but they had just done that. And then he said, well, we’re going to baptize, but we don’t believe that you have to be baptized to be saved. But that’s wrong.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it certainly is wrong if they’re saying that being baptized is optional. No, being baptized is mandatory. Yeah, it’s mandatory. It’s mandatory. Now, if they mean by that, they believe that some people will be in heaven who never had a chance to be baptized or never knew that they should. I would say that could be accurate, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what he’s talking about because he’s addressing a church where everybody knows about baptism and everybody has an opportunity. I mean, they’re having a baptism, so it’s obvious that everyone could do it. For him to say, well, you don’t have to do it, that’s like saying, well, Jesus said not to be angry at your brother for a cause because it’s like murder, but you don’t have to obey that. You know, or Jesus said, don’t look at a woman with lust because that’s adultery. But yeah, but we don’t really have to obey that. Jesus said to turn the other cheek, but we don’t really have to. You know, how is it that a pastor could get it through his head that he would be aware of commands of Christ, that he would say to his congregation, it’s not necessary. I mean, the commission Jesus gave the church is to make disciples by teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And since he commanded baptism, the church that is saying, you don’t have to do everything that Jesus commanded, is very remiss. And, you know, frankly, I would not wish to stand before God as a minister leading people astray like that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, and I’m going to mention something to him. If I go back to that church, I’m going to ask him what he actually meant by that because some people in there might not even have been baptized. Now they think, oh, well, I don’t have to do that as an adult. Well, you should ask him.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you should ask him, you know, where is it in the Bible that says that people don’t have to be baptized? Now he might say, well, you know, the thief on the cross wasn’t baptized. But there’s an easy answer to that. He had no opportunity. People who have no opportunity obviously can’t be expected to do things they can’t do. But he was a very unusual exception. Very few people are converted a few minutes before they die on a cross where they don’t have opportunity to be baptized. But, I mean, some may be. And I would say any case that is like that one, yeah, I believe they could probably be saved even though they’ve had no opportunity to be baptized. But that doesn’t mean we give permission for people who do have opportunity that they not be baptized. That is very bad teaching, very dangerous teaching, I think. Thank you for your call. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live Monday through Friday because we pay for time on the radio stations. We’re listener supported. If you want to help us out, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and see how to do that. Everything’s free there. Talk to you tomorrow.
