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In this episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg leads a spirited discussion driven by caller inquiries, touching on profound aspects of biblical interpretation and Christian living. The discourse traverses from the theological intricacies of John’s Gospel to the eschatological insights in Paul’s writings. Through genuine engagement with listeners, Steve addresses contemporary Christian concerns, from understanding the symbolic role of biblical curses to the practical aspects of living out faith through family and community. With insights grounded in scripture, this episode is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of the Christian faith.
SPEAKER 02 :
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. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith and you call those in, we’ll discuss them in this coming hour. We’re looking at a pretty encouraging switchboard for you if you’d like to call in. Quite a few lines are open. Once again, it’s a good time to call in if you hope to get through to the program today. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Tonight is the first Wednesday of the month, and that means like on most first Wednesdays of most months, we have a Zoom meeting that I will be hosting. Actually, somebody else hosts it, but I do most of the speaking on it. Usually it’s a Q&A like this program. Tonight I was asked if I would give a talk. on why I am still a Christian. And this is responding to, of course, the question of why would anyone be a Christian in this modern time? Aren’t there fewer and fewer people who believe in Christianity in the United States? Hasn’t science and modern learning undermined Christianity? Faith in the Bible and such? Well, if you think so, this might be something you would like to learn something from. Because if you think those things, you simply are not one of the students of the subject that actually has learned anything about it. And we will talk about that. I’ll give you my reasons for being a Christian. And that’s what we’ll be talking about at 7 o’clock Pacific time tonight on our Zoom meeting. Now, if you want to join us for that, you’re welcome to. I think only about 100 people can be on this Zoom call at one time. And we often have certainly well over half of that, most months. I don’t know if we’ve ever maxed it out. But if you want to make sure you get on, you might want to call a little early. But you go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and look under announcements, and you will see there the login information for the Zoom meeting. That is tonight, and it is at 7 o’clock p.m. Pacific time. Also, all next week, I’ll be speaking in Washington State in a variety of places, including Chicago. Seattle, a lot in the Seattle area, and then there’s some places south, quite a bit south, and some quite a bit north of Seattle. So if you’re in any part of western Washington and you’re interested in knowing if I’m going to be in your area, feel free to go to our website, again, thenarrowpaths.com, under the tab that says Announcement. All the meetings are listed there. All right, we’re going to go to the phones now and talk to Rich in Los Angeles, California. Hello, Rich. Good to hear from you again. Welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, Steve. Again, I just have to keep thanking you for all of your resources and things that I’ve learned from your teaching. And kind of in that regard, the question sort of starts off, I guess, in John 1. You know, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then also things that have been highlighted by you earlier. In Hebrews 11, the worlds were made by the word of God, and similarly in Psalm 33, I think. So it’s the concept that the word became flesh, the word became alive, but the word didn’t become alive because he already was alive. But the question is then, with that as kind of a setting, your comment on 1 Corinthians 15, 28.
SPEAKER 02 :
You want me to comment on 1 Corinthians 15, 28? Is that what you’re saying? Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Well, that verse says, Now when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. So this is talking about something that is apparently eschatological. Paul says just prior to that that Jesus is reigning at the right hand of God and will continue to reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, which, of course, is an allusion to Psalm 110, verse 1, where God says to the Messiah, sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies your footstool. So Christ then is sitting at the right hand of God. He is reigning, and Paul says he will reign until he has subjected all of his enemies. But when he has done that, when all things are subject to him, then the Son, that is Christ, will hand over the finished project to the one who gave him the project in the first place, his Father. Now, that’s what Paul is saying, and we don’t know very much more about that, like what will happen after that, or how things will be different after that. But, obviously, Paul is saying there will be some kind of a difference between after Christ has subdued all of his enemies. Now, in the passage, he says the last enemy that he will subjugate is death itself, and this will be the final conquest of death at the resurrection. So, the resurrection will take place when Jesus comes back. That’ll be the final enemy, and having defeated all of his enemies, he’ll then hand a finished conquest over to his father. Now, Do we know whether Jesus will still be reigning over it after he hands it to his father? I would imagine he would be. The Bible says he will reign forever and ever. But, again, we aren’t told anything more about it than that. So I have no insights beyond what the Bible says about it. Was there a particular issue with the verse you were having trouble with?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, it’s… Kind of the issue of, you know, whether the Son is an eternal Son, whether he’s, you know, in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, you know, God created, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit was over the waters, and then God said, let there be light. So it’s, you know, probably ultimately gets down to the Trinity. and whether there’s an eternal trinity and whether essentially the son somehow is reabsorbed these are questions obviously I can’t resolve I guess we can’t as far as the son being reabsorbed into the father
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t know of anything that would suggest that that would be the case. It seems that once he became human flesh, he is now part of the human race. And that was the whole point of him becoming flesh, that he could become part of the human race. He’s the second Adam. And he came through the seed of Adam and Eve, and he’s one of us. I mean, he’s God, who has become one of us in the process, but even after he rose from the dead, he was still a glorified man, as we shall be when Jesus raises us from the dead, we’ll be glorified in bodies like his. And Paul even says to Timothy that, you know, there’s one God and one mediator between God and man, and that is the man, Jesus. So right now, Jesus is still a man. And there’s, I don’t know of anything in the Bible that would suggest that the time would come where he would give up that separate glorified manhood.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. Okay. It helps.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Rich. I’m not sure that I really said anything that does help because I don’t know how to answer your question because we just don’t have much there. But, yeah, he’s going to be – I don’t believe he’s going to just be reabsorbed into God and lose his identity versus distinctness. Okay. Let’s talk to John in Phoenix, Arizona. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thank you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, Steve. Hi. I’ve got a couple of questions for you. I’ll try to be brief because I know time is precious. In Genesis, God told Adam and Eve to replenish the earth. Would that assume or make some – does that mean that there may have been another race of humans on the earth before them? And can people use that argument for that or that scripture for the argument? And the second question I have is – When Jesus gave us authority over all power, or is that for every Christian?
SPEAKER 02 :
I missed your phone cut out or something cut out. I didn’t catch the whole thing. When Jesus gave us authority over what? Over demons?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, demons and the devil. Was that just for the 70 or is that authority for every Christian, every believer?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Okay. I’ll be glad to talk about those two things. As far as the word replenish, when God made Adam and Eve and said, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth in Genesis chapter 2, many have used that to suggest that since replenish means to refill something that was once filled previously, some have felt like, well, there was a human race on the planet that was wiped out before Adam and Eve were created. And so they were put in the position to fill the earth again, as it had once been. And that’s what the word replenish seems to mean. On the other hand, most modern translators do not assume that the Hebrew word here means replenish. It doesn’t have the same meaning as our English word. And modern translations, at least most of the ones I’ve seen, seem to just render it fill the earth. In others, they don’t say replenish, they say fill the earth. Now, I don’t think they’re doing that in order to conceal any ideas that were revealed in the word replenish. I think it simply comes with a better understanding of the Hebrew language as time and scholarship moves on. Apparently, most Hebrew translators don’t believe that the word replenish is the best word for it, only to fill the earth. So if they’re correct, then there would be no suggestion here of a previous human race. And so I’m not going to argue that there was one. Some people do argue that, but I wouldn’t. Now, as far as do we, all Christians, have authority over demons, since Jesus gave that authority not only to the 12, but also to the 70 in Luke chapter 10, I would say yes. I mean, we all bear the name of Christ. We’re all part of his body. And casting out demons is something that is done by his authority. not so much our own, it’s not inherent in us so much, except as part of Christ. We stand in Christ’s place and we can address the demons as Christ could. Now, I don’t believe that every Christian has necessarily the same focus as other Christians might. I think missionaries, and the Seventy were short-term missionaries, I think missionaries encounter demon possession probably far more often. than the average Christian does just living in a peaceful land. I think it’s largely demon possession flourished where there’s worship of demons, where there’s paganism, where there’s idolatry, where there’s occult practices. Now, there’s plenty of those practices in the United States now, but at times and places where there aren’t a lot of those, I don’t think that we run into the demon-possessed quite as frequently. So I would say that today missionaries are more likely than others into third-world countries or pagan lands to run into demon-possessed people. And, of course, they still, when they do, they can exercise the demons. Now, demons can’t be exercised just because we want to do it. there are factors. Sometimes people are demonized because they have given place to the devil, as Paul uses the expression in Ephesians 4. He said, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, neither give place to the devil. So if someone gives place to the devil, and that person still wants the devil to have that place, I don’t think a third party, I don’t even think Jesus ever cast demons out of anyone who didn’t want to be delivered. because every person that Jesus cast demons out of, on record at least, was somebody who came to him seeking help, or was brought, maybe a child was brought by their parent to him. And therefore, we’re not dealing with people who really have and like to have demons, and want to keep their demons. There are people like that, because some people have received occultic powers, some make their livings off of this. As we see in Acts chapter 16, the woman who had a a demon that allowed her to tell fortunes. And she was a slave, but her masters rented her out for telling fortunes and made money on her. And when the demon was cast out of her, she couldn’t do that anymore, and that made the owners mad. So there are people who are not necessarily rejoicing to be delivered from demons. And Jesus said if you cast a demon out of someone or if a demon goes out of someone, it’ll look for another place to live. And if it doesn’t find a suitable place, it’ll come back with seven worse demons to the original person and his conditionally worse. So we don’t just run around casting demons without effort or without consideration. But I believe that if somebody wants to be delivered, I do believe that along with the preaching of the gospel and the reception of the gospel, they can be delivered by, I think, any Christian Now, I may be wrong. I always assumed I was right about that because whenever I encountered demon-possessed people in my youth, I had no qualms about casting the demons out of them. Now, I wasn’t always successful. But on a few occasions, I believe I was. And so I just believed that anyone like me, because I certainly had every reason to believe I was like everyone else, can do that. But now, of course, in the years that have gone since then, of course, I find that I’m called to be a minister in a way that not everybody is. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe that’s not given to everybody else. I’m not sure. But if I were unsure about it, and I was dealing with a person who seemed to be demon-possessed, I’d certainly pray that God would use me to deliver that person. And I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t trust God to answer that prayer if we’re the one there to serve in that emergency. Many things about demon possession and about exorcism are left totally unaddressed in the Bible. We don’t have there a manual of dealing with demons, unfortunately. It would be nice to have all the questions answered. Most of what we can know about it, besides the most basic facts, would be things we’d probably learn in the battle itself, in the experience of it. And many people have done that. There are books on this. Some of the books that people have written about deliverance, I don’t trust them. I mean, they’re trying to sell books, or they tend to be very sensationalistic people. They float a lot of theories that they don’t have any proof for. On the other hand, There are plenty of books of missionary stories of people who’ve encountered demon possession and have been successful in delivering people. I’ve read lots of those stories, and I think sometimes there are elements of their stories that aren’t found in the Bible, but they’re not contrary to the Bible either. And I think we can learn as we go along by experience, as long as we’re not letting our experiences go beyond what the Bible would allow.
SPEAKER 10 :
It was real common when I was a Christian that people would, if they were being tempted, speak to the devil and take authority over him. Is that biblical or no?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, Jesus did that. I suppose we could do that. I have to say that the Bible doesn’t teach us to do that. I mean, we couldn’t say you can’t do that since Jesus did it. But we’re told to flee from temptation and And, you know, resist the devil. We’re not told to talk to him, but to resist his influence in our lives. So, you know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with speaking to the devil about such things. Although there are some people who become so devil conscious that they’re always talking to the devil every few minutes, you know, rebuking him for this or that. And we don’t see that kind of behavior among the apostles in the book of Acts at all. or even with Jesus. Generally speaking, when Jesus spoke to demons, they were in people. And he’s dealing with demon possession in most cases. But to simply talk to the devil when you’re being tempted, we do read of Jesus doing that, you know, when he was tempted three times to the wilderness. But when he was being tempted in the Garden of Gethsemane, We don’t read of him talking to the devil, only to his father. And so I guess I’d say I wouldn’t forbid addressing the devil like that, but I wouldn’t think it normal to go around doing that an awful lot. I mean, I would just say, do what the Holy Spirit leads you to do. That’s what the whole Christian life ought to be. Thank you for your call. Let’s talk to Priscilla from Vancouver, B.C. Hi, Priscilla. Welcome. Hi there.
SPEAKER 08 :
How are you? It’s been a while. I just want to thank you for your service and your goodwill, especially to do for Christ. You here?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Steve. I just wanted to read a poem. I’ve got it here. Just give me a moment. It was Matthew 23, and it was about how cleaning inside your cup. It says, Jesus said, first clean the inside of the cup, Matthew 23, 26. I would like you to, if you may, sir, please expand on that. And it says here, deep spiritual cleansing. And also, from a local here in Vancouver and dealing with when you are a local in the city, and let’s say you get so many of these people coming into your city and, like, you’re born and raised somewhere, instead of being so foul and, like, not welcoming, how do you just kind of, like, absorb it or take it and be good to foreigners that come in instead of being bitter? I’m going to hang up, sir. Send my love to you and, of course, all glory to thee, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I thank you in the true light.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. All right. Well, thank you for your call. Well, on the matter of how do you, you know, be gracious to immigrants rather than being resentful of them, I would say you have to look at them the same way you’d look at any other person initially, that they are made in the image of God. They have They’re somebody’s children. They have the same kind of needs and desires that other human beings have. You should wish for all their needs to be met in the will of God and so forth. Now, that doesn’t mean that you would favor policies that allows every person from another country who wants to, to just come walking into your country without any kind of vetting, without any kind of, you know, conditions. Because it’s one thing to say, I love people. I want them to have everything that they need. On the other hand, it’s another thing to say, however, I don’t know that we have everything they need. And if unlimited numbers of them come here and start taxing the resources of this country, then not only will they not have all they need, but no one here will have all they need either. Because if you let the whole world come in, Of course, you’re in Canada. I’m in the United States, but it would be the same both ways. If you let the whole world come in, well, that’s putting the whole world in one continent, and it probably would overrun it and not be good for the standard of living for anybody. Also, of course, we have to remember that though we love people, we might love them to be helped in their own land, where they have their own language and their own culture that they’re familiar with and where they fit in well. I mean, we might see it that way. Some people might not. But, I mean, as Christians, we can care about them and want them to do well and want them to have all they need without assuming that that translates into, well, let’s just bring them all over here. Because, frankly… A lot of them don’t have a work ethic. Some of them do. Some of them don’t. Some of them don’t have morals like we would like to see our citizens have. And if you get overrun by people of a different culture that don’t value, for example, honesty or don’t value the dignity of women or things like that, you get too many of that coming in, then you lose all the ground your culture has gained in those areas. because you get overwhelmed with people who don’t have those views and aren’t learning them, don’t want them. So it’s a complicated thing when we talk about immigrants. I mean, when you see that immigrants are in the country, I would say, well, treat them as you would treat anybody else who’s in the country. But if it comes to, let’s say, favoring certain immigration policies, the fact that you love these people doesn’t mean that you would necessarily favor just throwing the doors open for everyone to come in Regardless of their cultural or language or moral commitments, I think people need to be vetted. That’s why the illegal immigration issue is problematic, because the people can come in without being vetted. And some of them are not the kind of people you really want in your neighborhood. Not because you don’t love them, but because… well, they don’t love you, and they don’t behave in a way that’s loving toward their neighbors. Some do, but certainly some do not. So I would say I wouldn’t judge them when I say, oh, this person came from another country. I have to say, if I was living in a third-world country and I had the opportunity to come live in America, I’d probably make that choice, too. But on the other hand, for centuries, people in third-world countries who wanted to come to America had to go through a process where they were vetted. And And I don’t see anything wrong with that. And I do see dangers in abandoning such a policy as that. Now, when Jesus told the Pharisees they were like whitewashed tombs and like cups that are clean on the outside, he’s talking about things that are externally clean and pretty. A tomb… In Israel, of course, if people touched a dead body, they were made unclean for a week, or anything associated with it. If they touched a tomb or came in close proximity to a dead body, they were unclean. Now, at the festival times, when Jews came from all over the world to Jerusalem to spend a week for the festivals, they didn’t want to become unclean, and yet there were tombs around which… Almost all tombs were simply caves. And, you know, they might go into a cave to relieve themselves, like Saul did once in the Bible. And, like, they didn’t have outhouses. I imagine that’s where a lot of people did their business. But if they went into such a cave and didn’t know that there’s a dead body in there, they would accidentally be defiled by the dead body’s presence, and they would not be able to participate in the festivities that they were making their journey to be part of. So the Jews, before the festivals, as I understand it, would go out and paint the tombs with whitewash so they might not be mistaken for any other ordinary caves. Now, therefore, there was such a thing as whitewashed tombs. And yet they were full of dead men’s bones. If you went into them, you would be defiled by them. They’re pretty on the outside, but they’re defiling on the inside. That’s what Jesus said the Pharisees were like. They had cleaned up their act. Externally, they behaved… morally and well. Inside, however, they were very corrupt and manipulative and scheming and even deadly, as we find out when they plotted to kill Jesus and Lazarus. So that’s what Jesus is saying. You’ve got to clean up your insides, not just your outsides. If you clean your insides, then your outsides will behave themselves too. That’s what he was saying there. Hey, we need to take a break, but we have another half hour coming up, so we’re not done. Don’t go away. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We are listener supported. Everything at the website is free, but you can donate if you wish at thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 05 :
Is the Great Tribulation about to begin? Are we seeing the fulfillment of biblical prophecy unfolding before our very eyes? In the series, When Shall These Things Be?, Steve Gregg answers these and many other intriguing questions. The lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be?, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour. We’re taking your calls. Right now I’m looking at a few open lines on our switchboard. If you tried during the first half hour, a lot of those lines were pretty full during most of that first half hour. Right now we have about maybe about half of our lines are open right now, so a good time to get through. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller today is Andrew from Columbus, Ohio. Andrew, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi. Thanks for having me. I’ve wondered this for a long time, and I don’t know if you have an answer for this, but… Do you have any idea what exactly a curse is in the Old Testament when it mentions people cursing other people? Is that some kind of witchcraft or is it not a supernatural thing at all? It’s just, you know, mean words or what? I think it’s fairly straightforward what it means when God curses people, but I don’t know what it’s talking about when it says that, you know, Noah cursed Canaan.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Well, that’s a really good question because the word curse is used very ambiguously and in a variety of ways in the Bible. You’re right. God himself curses some people. And then sometimes godly people curse people like Noah did and like Elisha did when he cursed the village that mocked him after Elijah was taken up. You know, pronouncing a curse on somebody in those cases seems to be prophetic knowledge. like uh well just like uh the deathbed blessings that patriarchs gave to their sons as the patriarch was dying he’d call his sons and he’d utter blessings over there which is the opposite of curses and the blessings uh even scholars themselves say well it’s not always clear whether the blessing is announcing something that will happen because it is announced and it’s it’s is creating a reality for that person, a blessing upon them that’s going to happen because it is said, or if they’re just predicting that this person will have these blessings in his life. There’s a prophetic insight. Someone’s seeing this future. Now, in the case of cursing Canaan, I don’t see why any man would wish a curse on his children, on his child or grandson’s son. Now, we realize that Ham had done something wrong in that story in Genesis 9, but Ham didn’t receive the curse. His son, Noah’s grandson, received the curse. Now, we don’t read even that Canaan, the grandson, was involved in the wrongdoing. In other words, there’d be no reason why Noah, out of sheer anger, would curse his grandson and wish evil things on him, when we’re not even told that his grandson had done anything wrong, and that Noah would pass over doing so to him who had done something wrong to him. So it seems to me that Noah’s curse is more of a prophesied curse. Certainly the later generations of the Canaanites who were descended from Canaan, they were a wicked people. They sacrificed their babies to idols. They did horrendous things. God told Moses that they were involved in all kinds of sexual perversion and all kinds of wickedness. So, you know, God brought judgment upon them. They did suffer a curse from God, namely that God gave their land to the Israelites. And in the process, many Canaanites were subjugated or killed. And so, you know, that was a curse upon them. And that’s what Noah predicted. So I think that Noah’s utterance of the curse was probably just more predictive than prescriptive, you know. And now, of course, when Elisha cursed the people of this city where some young men had mocked him, he uttered a curse upon them. And the next thing we read, two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of them. Now, did this happen because Elijah wished it on them? Maybe. I don’t know. Did he call these bears down upon them? We don’t read that he did. He just uttered a curse and he went his way. Now, it could be that the bears coming down happened any time in the near future after that. And when they did, it was recognized, well, that’s because Elisha cursed us. This happened to us, you know. We’re not told that Elisha wished for the bears to come. He just uttered a curse. And then the misfortune that came on the city was recognized as somehow connected with that. Did Elisha just know that these wicked people would have some misfortune fall upon them, and so he said so? Or did he call it upon them? I don’t really know. I don’t really know, in his case, how it works. Now, when Balaam was hired by Balak to curse Israel, it’s obvious that Balak believed that a curse upon Israel, uttered by Balaam, would bring misfortune on Israel, not just predict it, but would prescribe it. In fact, Balaak’s messengers, when they came to Balaam, said, We know that whoever you curse is cursed, and whoever you bless is blessed. In other words… If you bless someone, then blessings are going to come upon them. If you curse someone, then curse is going to come upon them. And so that was perhaps a form of witchcraft or occultism, because Balaam was not a Jew and not a godly man. He was just kind of a freelance occult practitioner, apparently. And when he tried to curse Israel, And couldn’t do it. And Balak complained that Balaam wasn’t cursing him, wasn’t cursing Israel. Balaam said there is no divination against Israel. So it sounds like it was a form of divination. So it sounds like just like blessing, just like blessing, because we should bless people. who curse us, Jesus said. Now, blessing then means nothing if it just means we’re predicting something good will happen because it’s going to anyway. I think what he means is people who curse us are wishing evil upon us. They’re imprecating evil upon us and that we should not retaliate in kind, but we should wish blessing on them. So, you know, there’s like a whole range of things here. There’s some cases where a blessing or a curse may simply be prophetic things. There’s times where it may be that it incurs harm. Maybe if the blessing or the curse is inspired by God, by, let’s say, a prophet or somebody who’s inspired to do it, then God brings that upon the person. But also, it looks like there could be occultic versions of the same phenomena. I don’t curse anybody. I do bless people, but I don’t even know when I do. When I say, bless you, God bless you, I’m not even sure what I’m doing. But Jesus said, bless those who curse you, and I’ll bless people who don’t even curse me. But I don’t – I mean, I’ll leave it to God. I was hitchhiking once in Santa Cruz when I was in my 20s, and there was a Christian girl who – a young Christian – who I had met at a Christian coffee house about a week earlier or less, and she happened to walk up, and she was hitchhiking in the same direction. So we both put our thumbs up, and we both got picked up. And the guy who picked us up dropped us off only a few blocks later, which wasn’t very helpful. And when he let us off and he left, I said to her, well, that ride didn’t accomplish much. And she said, well, maybe he just needed the blessing, because getting out of the car, I had said God bless you to the guy. And she said, well, maybe he just needed the blessing. I thought, well, I say God bless you all the time. I don’t even know what I’m saying. It never occurs to me that it’s really going to bring a blessing on him. I realized I was using Christianese, which I probably still do. It’s kind of a habit to say bless you to people. But she, as a young Christian, assumed that when I said God bless you, he’s going to get a blessing. And that may be why God had him picked up so he could get that blessing. I thought, well, she might say something I don’t. That may be true. But I can’t say. We’re not really given that kind of information in the Bible. It’s clear that blessing someone is a well-wishing upon them, whether it’s a prediction or whether it brings any supernatural results with it. I don’t know, but it’s a well-wishing. And to curse someone is really to wish them ill. That much we can say. How much more after that is hard to say.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, thanks.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Andrew. Thanks for your call. All right. We’re going to talk next to Gary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hi, Gary. Welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. I got your opinion on something I read a long time ago, but I just wondered if I could talk to you after the show’s over because it’s not very edifying and I don’t want your readers to hear it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, why don’t you… Email me after the program and tell me what it’s about and give me your phone number. Maybe I’ll have time to call you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I don’t have a computer. Can I just give you my number and call me after the show?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you want to give the whole world your number?
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, I don’t care.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, listen, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to put you on hold, and I’ll ask the guy who’s call screening to get your number from you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, sounds good.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so you’re going on hold. And I’m going to take another call in just a few seconds. So give your number to the call screener. All right. Let’s see here. It looked like we hung up on him, and I didn’t mean to hang up on him. I hope that wasn’t a hang up. No, wait. Let’s see here.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hello.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, you’re there. Did you get the call screener? I’m not really sure how to do this.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m still waiting for you to do it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, I’m going to put you on hold, and hopefully your call screener will get you. Or why don’t you just call back and talk to this call screener? That would be the easier thing. Because I’m not sure if I can take another call while you’re on the line, maybe. In any case, if you can’t get through that way, then call the number again. When the call screener answers, just say, I’m the one I wanted to leave my number with, Steve. All right, I’m going to talk to Eric in Manchester, New Hampshire. Eric, welcome to the Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey Steve, how’s it going? I’m a real big fan of your show. I listen to it every day. Great.
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m glad to hear it. Oh, that’s wonderful.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I appreciate it. I’m getting all the advice and I do some ministering and everything myself on a personal level to my family and friends and people at work. And it’s really some of the knowledge that you’ve given me has definitely gone a long way.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, great to hear it. What was your question?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, so I had a question today. Me and my wife are going through a separation. And I know that it does say in the Bible, I don’t know if it’s leading to divorce. It kind of seems that way at this point. But I was wondering, like, how persistently I’m supposed to pray for her. She was the one that wanted to walk away, like, the last two times in the marriage. And I was just wondering, like, as a Christian man, like, how persistently am I supposed to pursue this? I know that I took the commitment very serious, even though I had a part to play. You know, I’m not perfect and stuff like that. I just wanted to get some advice on what the Bible says as a husband, even in this time of separation with her, and kind of just ask, like, all callers and stuff like that and yourself maybe for a little bit of prayer. for me and my situation as well, too. But I just wanted to take your advice on how long I’m supposed to hang on as a Christian man, because obviously when you take those vows, it’s a forever type deal. Is she a Christian? She is. So I brought her to the waters as well as my daughters. We all got baptized together and saved. And I don’t think she walks. as deeply in the Christian roots as I do. But, yes, she is baptized. But it comes from a background of, like, the Mormon church, as well as she was a foster kid, never really had involvement with her father or her mother and stuff like that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Are you involved in a church now? No. Are you involved in the church?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, yeah. So I’ve been involved as well as when we were together. That was really one of the things that I was hoping we both could follow.
SPEAKER 01 :
Have you gotten the leaders of your church involved to talk to her and to counsel you guys?
SPEAKER 07 :
I haven’t yet. So since our last separation, I actually went out on my own and found a new church that I’m very involved in now. Since I’ve been involved in that church the last two years. Me and her have been on and off, so I didn’t feel very comfortable involving people from the church in.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let me try to get a word in here. I’m sorry, really sorry about your situation, and I have been through that myself, and I know it’s a very hard thing to go through. How hard should you work on rescuing the marriage? I believe you should work as hard as you can. You know, if you’re a shepherd and one of your sheep goes astray, Jesus said the good shepherd goes out and he searches until he finds it and recovers it. Now, of course, if the sheep has already gone over a cliff or something, then the shepherd won’t be able to recover it. But assuming the sheep can be recovered and is still alive somewhere, the shepherd doesn’t give up. Now, I would say, though, if she divorced you and she married another man, that’s time to give up. You shouldn’t continue to pursue her because, according to Scripture, even if she ceased to be married to the other man, she wouldn’t be permitted to come back to your marriage. So your marriage is still savable as long as she has not married somebody else. And I think you should do, with all your effort, all that you can, to to rescue her from that. Now, I didn’t ask you if you have children. If you do, that makes it all the more urgent. But even if you don’t have children, you have both made vows before God, and it’s never safe to take vows you take before God lightly. The Bible says, be careful about taking vows. It says in Ecclesiastes 5, at the beginning of that chapter, it says, God has no pleasure in fools. He says, it’s better for you not to take a vow at all than to take a vow and break it. So, It’s very important to God when you make a vow that you keep your vows. I know it sounds like you’re trying to, and it takes two to keep a marriage together. And at this point, it sounds like she’s the one who doesn’t want it together. But, you know, a marriage is a very sacred thing. And it’s for the glory of God that your marriage could be rescued and saved and redeemed. So I would continue to work on that. I would not give up on that until such a time as she’s simply not available in the world anymore to seek, either because she’s dead or because she’s remarried. Short of that, I would recommend continuing to try to save her and get her back. All right. It’s a very sad, very sad story, like so many others. Beverly in San Diego, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, thank you for taking my call as well. I have a grandson who is an adult now. He’s nearly 40. He went to church with me when he was about 10. He went for a few months, and then he didn’t want to go anymore. And now, as he’s older, we’re very close. He’s very good to me and groups me out to breakfast a lot and to dinner. And We have a lot of deep discussions about Christianity and about Israel and about Jews, and I think he’s looking for an excuse to not make the commitment. I think he’s on the fence as far as being a believer. I think he kind of would like to be, but he doesn’t really want to make the commitment, so he’s looking for reasons not to. And right now his hang-up is… Israel because he knows I’m very pro-Israel and he thinks number one he thinks it’s really he can’t understand why they’re called the chosen people if God loves everyone the same why would they call the chosen and why do they consider themselves better than everybody else and then the other thing is the killing that’s going on over there and I tried to point out to him that it’s not the Christian Jews that are doing the killing, but the secular people that are power hungry. But he’s got a real problem with Israel and what’s going on over there right now. So I have to be tread very softly in discussing that with him. Can you explain to me how I can tell him that the Jews are chosen, but that they are not better than we are? As Jennifer knows that Even God calls them his chosen people. He doesn’t love them more than he loves us. I don’t know how to explain that to him.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Well, the chosenness of Israel had to do with choosing them to accomplish something for the rest of the world. Before anyone was talked about as a chosen people, There was Abraham, and the Jews, of course, sprang from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, eventually, centuries after the death of Abraham. But their specialness arose from the special promises that God made to Abraham. And the promise God made to Abraham was, if Abraham would be obedient to God and faithful to God, then he would make him into a great nation and make him a blessing to all the nations, that all the nations of the world, all the families of the earth would be blessed through him and through his seed. So the choosing of Abraham was to be the one, the instrument through whose seed all the nations would be blessed. He wasn’t chosen to be blessed with his family alone, but blessed to become the conduit of God’s blessing to all nations. Of course, what was the fulfillment of that promise, according to Paul in Galatians 3, is that Abraham’s seed brought forth the Messiah, and the Messiah is a blessing to all nations. So the calling of Abraham was to be the one who would bring into the world God, an offspring eventually, who would be the Messiah, who would bless all the nations. Now, so there’s nothing wrong with God. Let’s just say a town is under invasion, and the mayor picks a bunch of people, let’s say a thousand people from the town, to go out and ward off the invaders. Well, why is he picking them? Why are they so special? Well, I don’t know why they’re so special. Maybe they’re the best fighters, maybe not. Maybe he just didn’t want to send everybody, but they are there to save the whole town. Choosing these people isn’t favoring them over others. It is choosing them to play the role of saving the others. And that’s what Abraham was chosen for, that his seed would be the Messiah and would save all the nations, not just Israel. Now, it is true that when Abraham’s offspring came out of Egypt… in the days of Moses, that God brought them to Mount Sinai and made a covenant with them that turned them into a nation. They had never been a nation before. And they were told that if they’re obedient to God’s covenant, they would be a chosen nation and a holy nation. And that’s where we get the idea of them being a chosen people. But again, it was still, they were chosen for a task. You know, when we think of someone being chosen, we might think, well, they were chosen to receive all all of God’s favor, and everyone else was neglected. God just passed over everybody and just chose the ones he wanted to bless. No, it’s like choosing a team, choosing soldiers, choosing anyone for a mission. It was the mission of Abraham’s seed to bring blessing to the whole world through the Messiah. So, you know, now it is true that Israel many times in their history did make the mistake of thinking, well, since God chose us, we’re better than everybody else. Since God chose us, he loves us more than he loves everyone else. Since God chose us, the Gentiles are hated by God and lesser than we are. Now, the Bible, the prophets and the New Testament writers made it clear that when the Jews had that idea, they were wrong. There’s a a whole chapter of Romans, Romans chapter 2, where Paul, at least beginning with verse 17 to the end of the chapter, Romans 2, 17 through 29, or 28, I forget which is the last verse, you know, he’s making that point. Yeah, God chose you people to be better, to bring, to fulfill a mission, but you aren’t better. You’re not better than anyone else. And he says that in chapter… three of romans also he says so what advantage do jews have well they had advantages especially that god gave them the oracles of god but in verse 9 says but are jews better than other people no not even a little bit i mean he’s in other words god chose us gave us privileges so that we could fulfill a mission but we haven’t been very good at it we’re not better than other people when people think of their chosenness as simply being chosen for privilege rather than chosen for a task, chosen for a mission, then they totally misunderstand God’s choosing. And that’s what Israel did. Yeah, Israel was chosen to bring the Messiah into the world. And by the way, mission accomplished. They did. And now it’s for everyone in the whole world to receive Christ because now that he’s here, that’s what God commands, that every knee should bow and every tongue should confess. In heaven and earth. So you may want to, you know, this conversation, if you can’t remember all this when you talk to him, feel free to play this recording because at our website, thenarrowpath.com, all the radio shows are there to listen to. So you can just play back from the archives this show and this question for him if it will help. Also, I would think it would be maybe helpful for him to listen to our Zoom meeting tonight. And because I’m going to be talking about why I’m a Christian, I’m not going to be giving my personal testimony so much as my reasons, my reasoning for being a Christian. And and it’d be good for someone to hear who doesn’t know why they should be a Christian, because I’ll be given some good reasons. Anyway, if you want to get in on that, you can go to the narrow path dot com. And under announcements, there’s how to log in to a Zoom meeting tonight at 7 Pacific time. And I know you’re in San Diego, so you’re in the Pacific time zone like me, so 7 o’clock tonight. And I do hope you and your grandson, I think it’s your grandson you said, do have fruitful conversations over this and that God will bring him to himself. But I’m glad that you have a good communication with him. Not all grandparents have that with their grandchildren. God bless you. All right. Let’s see here. John and Kent Washington. We only have a couple minutes. Welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
Thanks, Steve. A quick question. 1 Timothy 5.8 says, You know, if one doesn’t provide for his relatives or his family, it’s worse than an unbeliever. I was wondering if you could explain that real quick.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. In the context, Paul is talking about how the church would take care of the indigent widows because widows, if they didn’t have a man to support them in those days, would be pretty much poor. So the church would take them under their wing. But Paul said there that if a widow has adult children or grandchildren, then those children or grandchildren should take care of those widows for them. The church shouldn’t be burdened with it if there are some relatives of the widow who have a moral obligation to take care of them. Paul spoke about it as repaying their parents, because obviously your parents supported you when you were little. You support them when they need it, when they’re older. Now, when Paul said, if anyone does not take care of his own children, household he’s talking not so much about his wife and kids although i think it would apply to that too obviously they too hard are his obligation but he’s talking about if anyone doesn’t take care of their needy parents when they should they have denied the faith and they’re worse than an unbeliever because even unbelievers will do that for their parents and so he’s saying you’re worse than an unbeliever if you won’t do even what they’ll do that’s what paul means you’ve been listening to the narrow path radio broadcast my name is steve greg our website is the narrow path We’ve got that Zoom meeting tonight at 7. Hope to see you there. God bless.
