In another enlightening episode, Greg explores the notion of Sabbath observance and its relevance to contemporary Christian life. Engaging with callers, he tackles questions regarding the shift from Saturday to Sunday worship, elaborating on early Christian practices and the theological significances behind them. Steve Gregg also emphasizes the importance of examining traditional beliefs through the lens of biblical teachings, encouraging listeners to cultivate a more personal and informed faith journey.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon. We do that so that we can take your calls in real time on the air if you want to call in with questions about the Bible or the Christian faith or challenges to Christianity or to the particular views of this host on any subject. feel free to give me a call. The number to call is 844-484-5737. And I can say right now we’re looking at several open lines on our switchboard, so this is a good time, if you want to get through in this hour, to call now, 844-484-5737. And having said that, I don’t know that I have anything I need to announce this week. There are some things coming up in the next several weeks, but I won’t get into that right now. Let’s just go to the phones and talk to Rashad in Brooklyn, New York. Rashad, welcome to The Narrow Path. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good to be heard, Steve. Hope all is well with you. So today this is what I want to ask. In your experience with debating Calvinists and having them call into the show, why do they believe that God’s sovereignty and his omnipotence means he literally controls every aspect of our lives?
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, I can’t answer why they would think that. It certainly does not follow. Well, I mean, there’s at least one thing. that I would say, and that many of them do not understand the meaning of the word sovereignty. Now, the irony is that the word sovereignty is never used in the Bible of God. But the idea of God being sovereign is, of course, a fundamental biblical assumption based on not the use of the word sovereignty in Scripture, but on much of the teachings of Scripture about God’s general nature. right to rule, and that’s what the word sovereignty means. Sovereignty means the right to make the decisions without challenge from anyone else. If you’re sovereign, you are free to act according to your wishes. A king is sovereign over his people. A nation may be sovereign. Some people have advocated for America to become sovereign in the sense of leaving the United Nations and things like that, so that a nation that is sovereign doesn’t have to please or answer to other nations or other higher powers. So to say that God is sovereign means he doesn’t have to answer to anybody. He can do whatever he wants to. Now, unfortunately, the idea of God’s sovereignty as it has come to be popularized in Calvinism is not just that. But the idea that God is sovereign to them means he micromanages or he ordains everything that happens. In his book, Chosen by God, for example, R.C. Sproul begins by telling about students that he had. When he was teaching in seminary, he said that he would ask students, how many of you believe that God ordains everything that happens? And some would raise their hands, but not everybody. And then he said, how many of you are atheists? And none of them answered their hands. And he said, well, whoever didn’t raise their hand the first time should have raised their hand the second time. In other words, if they don’t believe God is ordaining everything that happens, you should have been calling yourself an atheist. Of course, that’s rather absurd. And so he has to give an explanation, which is equally absurd. He said, if you don’t believe that God ordains everything, then you don’t believe that God is sovereign. And if you don’t believe that God is sovereign, you don’t believe in God. So there you go. But you see, the reasoning was flawed. He said, if you don’t believe that God ordains everything, you don’t believe he’s sovereign. Well, that doesn’t follow. That only follows if you take the Calvinist definition of sovereignty, which is not the definition that any dictionary would necessarily give. A sovereign is not someone who necessarily ordains everything that happens, but it is someone who has the right to do so if they wish. And I’ve sometimes mentioned to Calvinists that a king may be sovereign over his country. A father may be sovereign over his children in the home, in the realm of the home. He may be the one who makes the rules and they have to obey him. But that doesn’t mean he foreordains everything they do or that he micromanages all their activities. He may have the right to, but he might prefer not to. A king does not necessarily… just because he has the power or the right, he does not necessarily make all the decisions for all of his people. He might allow them to decide for themselves. what they will do for a living, who they’ll marry, what they’ll eat for dinner, how many children they’ll have. I mean, a king can be sovereign and not be making all those decisions for people. And usually Calvinists have answered me, well, a king can’t do it because he’s not omnipresent, not omnipotent like God is. In other words, they’re saying a king would do that if he could, but human kings have limits so they can’t. Well, that tells me more about the Calvinists than it tells me about God. It means that they’re saying, if I could control everything everyone did, I would do it. And the only reason I wouldn’t is because I can’t. And they assume that every king that doesn’t control everything that people do down to the details, simply is not able to do it, but they would if they could. But what if that’s not the case? What if somebody actually, what if a father actually could schedule every moment of his children’s life, but doesn’t prefer to, actually likes to give them some elective time, some time to make their own choices about things? He’d still have perimeters that he wouldn’t let them go beyond, and also if they broke his rules, there would be punishments and so forth. He’s sovereign, after all. But that doesn’t mean he insists on ordaining everything they do every moment. So the idea of God being sovereign does not in itself carry the notion of him ordaining everything that happens, nor is there anything in the Bible that says that God ordains everything that happens. The reason we say that God is sovereign is because the Bible uses images from this life, from human society, of sovereigns. He’s called a king. Well, there’s human kings, too. They’re sovereign. God is a king, so he’s sovereign. He’s a father. Well, fathers are sovereign over their homes, and God is a father, so he’s sovereign. He’s called the lord or master. Again, sovereign over his household and so forth. The idea that God is compared to sovereign entities like kings and fathers and so forth in their domains, is a way of saying that he has the kind of sovereignty that they have. That is, he has the right to rule just like they do. But it’s not telling us that his choice of how he rules is going to be any particular way. In fact, that’s the very point. If he’s sovereign, he can do it any way he wants to. You see, a person like myself, I believe that God is absolutely sovereign. I believe he has the right to do whatever he wants, and no one can question him. But I don’t think he necessarily wants to control everything that people do. I think he actually kind of likes the idea of having creatures that have some choices they can make. Without that, you can’t really have any real interaction that’s meaningful. If you have pets, they will probably do everything you want them to do, But the interaction you have with a pet is not like that with another human being or a child. And so, you know, to say that God can still be sovereign while he’s not for ordaining everything that happens is simply saying God is sovereign. He can do what he wants to. If he doesn’t want to ordain everything that happens, that’s his business, isn’t it? And Calvinist says, no, he can’t. He can’t be sovereign and not ordain everything that happens. Well… I think you’re violating the term sovereign then, because you can’t say God is sovereign and then say he can’t do certain things that he wants to do. The real question is not whether he has the right to ordain everything, but whether that’s what he says he does, if that’s what he wants to do or not. And according to the Bible, he doesn’t do everything he wants to do. Well, let’s say he does everything he wants to do, but he doesn’t want to do everything that he could do. I think that’s a better way of putting it. The Bible says that God will fulfill all his purposes, and he does whatever he wills in heaven and on earth, the Bible says. Okay, I agree with that. But that doesn’t tell me, those verses don’t tell me what he wills and doesn’t will. Does he will to control everything, or does he will to let some control be delegated to agents? Like Jesus talks about stewards. You know, the master gives his property to his stewards and lets them do with it What they will, then they have to give account to them for how it turned out. That’s delegation. The master has the right to make every investment of his property himself, but he entrusts it to people to do what they want to do with it and then rewards or punishes them based on their performance. So to say that a person who’s sovereign and has the right to do things does not tell us whether or not he actually does everything he has the power to do. It only tells us he does the things he wants to do. And we have to discover what those are from other passages and other considerations.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I think one of the dangers of that definition that they have of God is that, you know, we have no real, like us as human beings, you know, even as Christians, we have no real choices that we make. So even the bad things that we do, you inevitably have to blame God for it because he ordains everything. So if I was to go outside and decide to do a mass shooting, God ordained that since the beginning of time. And I didn’t actually do that. God ordained that that would happen. To me, that’s not a picture of God that is in the Bible, like you already said.
SPEAKER 03 :
I agree with you. I agree with you. But they would say… They have some fancy philosophical footwork they do, which doesn’t help much, but it gets them out of the hot seat. They say, well, man is responsible for the wrong deeds he does because he makes those choices freely. But God ordained that he would make them. freely, and therefore man is the proximate cause of the deed, or the second cause, and God is the ultimate first cause of those deeds. Well, I mean, that’s all just mumbo-jumbo as far as I’m concerned. It doesn’t change what you’re saying. If God ordained that this person would inevitably commit this mass shooting, and it was therefore inevitable that he would, and this was decided before the man was ever born, and there’s no way it’s going to go any other way than that, the man has no power to do something different than what God ordained, Well, then God’s responsible. I mean, that’s simply unavoidable. And so I think you’re saying it correctly, brother. I need to take another call because our lines are full. But good talking to you both.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good talking to you too. God bless you.
SPEAKER 03 :
You too. Bye now. All right. Let’s talk to Ben in Troy, Michigan. Ben, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Ben, are you there? Kind of sounds like he’s not. Going once, going twice. This is on line two. Studio, is that turned up? Okay, I’m not hearing you, Ben. Maybe we got a bad connection there. If you’re hearing me, I apologize. We can’t hear you, so call back, and I’ll try to maybe get on a different line, and we’ll work out better. Let’s talk to Glenn from Mount Vernon, Washington. Hi, Glenn. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi. My question has to do with the change of the Saturday Shabbat to Sunday, it appears to me in reading the New Testament that there was no change at all, and all of a sudden we get to the second, third century, and everything that’s Jewish gets jettisoned, and so does the Sabbath.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, I’ll talk about that. There’s loud noise on your line. I’m going to have to put you on hold, but I’ll definitely address it. You’re talking about the fact that Many Christian denominations teach that Sunday is the Sabbath for Christians. And yet, of course, in the time of Jesus and the Apostles, Sunday was never regarded to be the Sabbath. Jesus was a Jew, and the early Apostles were Jews too. And when they kept Sabbath, if they did keep Sabbath, we’re not really sure they did, but if they kept Sabbath… It was Saturday. That’s the only Sabbath they’d ever heard of. There’s never been any other Sabbath than Saturday. Now, when I say if they kept Sabbath, I have to say it’s not really clear that they did. Some people say, well, Jesus obviously kept Sabbath. So did Paul. They went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and preached. Yeah, but preaching in the synagogue is not one of the commands of the Sabbath day. first of all, keeping the Sabbath does not involve preaching at all. It certainly doesn’t involve a synagogue. The synagogues didn’t exist in the time of Moses. In fact, didn’t exist until after the Babylonian exile. So there’s nothing in the law of Sabbath that says you must go into a synagogue and preach there. So when Jesus and Paul went into the synagogue and preached, they were not actually keeping the Sabbath per se because they were actually doing the same thing they did other six days a week. They preached seven days a week. It’s just that their audience was often found in the synagogue if it was the Sabbath. The Jews gathered on the Sabbath in the synagogue, and to find an audience among them, Jesus would go in there and preach to them, and so would Paul. But we don’t read that they were keeping the Sabbath in the sense that the Bible commands it to be kept. For example, the Bible commands that you don’t do your ordinary work on the Sabbath day. Very, very specifically, the command often says in six days you do all your work for the week and then you take a rest and don’t do that work on the Sabbath. Yeah, well, Jesus didn’t observe that. He did the same work on the Sabbath as he did any other day. So did Paul. So we don’t have any real record of them keeping the Sabbath in the sense of ceasing from their normal labors on the Sabbath. Um, But insofar that we read of them doing anything on the Sabbath, it was Saturday. Now, you mentioned that a lot of Christians think of the Sabbath as Sunday, and you’re not seeing anything in the Bible to agree with that change. I agree with you. The Bible doesn’t say anything about changing the Sabbath. Some people say, well, because Jesus rose on Sunday morning, The Christians changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday to celebrate his resurrection. Well, it is true that early Christians began to meet on Sundays. Actually, initially, and after the Pentecost, it looks like they met every day for a long time. But eventually, probably they had to get back to their jobs and ordinary responsibilities, so they couldn’t meet every day. And it became customary very early on. to meet on Sunday. But they didn’t call Sunday the Sabbath. They simply didn’t believe the Sabbath was a Christian obligation. In the early centuries, Justin Martyr, for example, in his dialogue with Trifle the Jew, he made it very clear, Christians don’t believe that they have to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath was for the old covenant. It was not for the new covenant. And, you know, so he didn’t say, we have changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and now we keep the Sabbath on Sunday. He said, no, Sabbath keeping, he said, that was never done before the law. He said Abraham didn’t keep the Sabbath, and I think he’s got the Bible on his side for that. I don’t think anyone kept the Sabbath until after the Exodus, except God. Of course, God kept it on the seventh day. We read of that in Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3. God rested on the Sabbath. We don’t read that any human rested on the Sabbath at that time. God rested on it. He sanctified it. He made it a different kind of day. That’s what the word holy means. It was set apart from other days because all other days up to that point had been days of activity of God creating things. Sabbath was different. It was different than the other days because he didn’t create anything new. So we see God resting on the Sabbath from his creation. And then, actually thousands of years later, he tells Israel to rest on the Sabbath day too. But he never told anyone else to do that before the Exodus. So, you know, I don’t believe that the Sabbath observance is given to anybody but Israel. And that was, of course, under the Old Covenant. In fact, in Exodus, it says that the Sabbath keeping was the special sign of of Israel’s relationship to God as a chosen people under the Old Covenant. So it’s obvious that no one else was probably keeping the Sabbath. It was apparently not required to do so. And only Israel was commanded to do that. And it was a special sign between them and God. So if it was a special thing between him and them, it wasn’t some kind of command that belonged to all humanity, obviously, or else it couldn’t serve as such a sign. So the New Testament does not change the Sabbath to Sunday. Although early Christians did begin to meet weekly on Sundays, they never referred to that as their Sabbath. It wasn’t until some centuries later there was some pope that made some decision that Sunday was now the Sabbath, which, you know, of course, I don’t follow the pope, so I don’t believe Sunday is the Sabbath. I believe that the Sabbath day, like all the holy days on the Jewish calendar… were symbolic. I think they were types and shadows. Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, Sabbath, New Moons. Paul said all of these things were shadows for the time being. That’s what Paul says in Colossians 2, verses 16 and 17. He says, don’t let anyone judge you about Keeping what you eat or drink or keeping festivals, that’s the annual festivals, or new moons, that’s the monthly first day of each month, or Sabbath days, he said. Don’t let anyone judge you about whether you do those things or not. That’s not important because he said those were shadows. He said the substance, the body, the reality is Christ. Since he’s come, shadows pass away, of course. But he’s here. And so we have Christ instead. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 4 does say that there is a Sabbath that we keep in Hebrews 4, 9. But he describes it. as our resting from our own works, which is, he uses that in a special sense, of entering into a spiritual rest from our works. And later on in Hebrews, he talks about how Christ, after he offered himself once for sin, in Hebrews 10, he says he sat down. That is, he’s resting now. He was doing his work until he sat down at the right hand of God. And now he’s resting, and we enter into his rest, what some Christians have described entering into the finished work of Christ. The Bible doesn’t use the term finished work, but it certainly has that concept there in Hebrews 10. So the Sabbath as a day of the week that was observed as a holy day, just like the new moons, which were observed every month, or the festivals that were observed every year, All of these were part of the festal calendar of Israel after they came out of Egypt. We don’t read of any of those things being kept by godly people before the Exodus, nor do we necessarily read of any obligation for Christians to keep them. Like Paul said, those were shadows for the time. And in Romans 14, verse 5, Paul said there are Christians who have different convictions about this kind of thing. In Romans 14, verse 5, he said, One man esteems one day above another. Another man esteems every day alike. So among the Christians, he’s saying there were some people who did like to keep a special day holy and others didn’t bother. And in answering that difference among them, he said, let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind, which is another way of saying there’s no obligations about this. Let everyone follow their own conscience because there’s no command of God that everyone’s supposed to keep about this, which means, of course, that Paul did not recognize any command of God to keep the Sabbath. or any other holy days. He said some people do that, and other people don’t. But everyone’s free to follow their own conscience, which means there’s no obligation to do it otherwise. So that’s how I approach that whole subject. And I hope that’s helpful. All right, let’s talk to John from Phoenix, Arizona. John, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, you’re welcome. Thanks, Steve. Hey, by the way, when I was a young Christian, I liked keeping those rules, the Sabbath and all this other stuff, because, frankly, it was a lot easier than loving God supremely and giving my enemy the shirt off my back. So I think a lot of Christians get caught up in that stuff.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s easier to act holy by keeping a checklist of rules than it is to be holy and to be Christlike and to be transformed so that you actually do love God and love people.
SPEAKER 05 :
Amen. Absolutely. Hey, I really enjoyed your comment on Romans 8, what shall separate us from the love of Christ, yesterday. I just have one question. If somebody approached me and said, well, and John Tennant says, nobody shall snatch them out of my hand for whatever the Father gives me, I lose not one. How would you answer that? Yeah. That sounds like a deterministic view.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, in that passage, which is in John 10, Jesus is saying he’s the good shepherd of the sheep, and no one can steal the sheep from him. He’s the door of the sheepfold. He’d sleep across the doorway when the sheep are in the fold so that no one could get in and take them from him. He’s saying you don’t have to worry that when you’re under my care that somebody stronger than me is going to be able to come along and rip you off. You’re secure with me. Now, he is not addressing every situation. He’s talking about being stolen by a thief in that situation. But he is saying, when he says, no one snatches you from a father’s hand or from my hand, he’s not talking about the question of whether a sheep can wander off or not, because sheep do that. In fact, Jesus and the Old Testament both speak of God’s sheep wandering off. In Isaiah chapter 53, verse 6 says, Speaking of Israel, God’s flock, it says all we like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned everyone to his own way. So the question of whether sheep can wander off, even God’s sheep can wander off, is a different question than whether sheep under his protection can be stolen by some thief or not. And Jesus talked about that too. Jesus talked about the people that were coming to him were like lost sheep. Now, they had been sheep. He compared himself with a shepherd who had 100 sheep, and one of them went away and got lost. So he’d leave the 99 and go bring back the one. And, of course, that’s always a possibility, unless that one has fallen off a cliff in the meantime or something and isn’t rescuable. But he’s basically saying that a shepherd is committed to the safety of his sheep. But he’s not arguing that a sheep never wanders off. from where he should be, the Old and New Testament both tell us that Israel and God’s sheep in general can do that. So when he says no one can snatch you out of my Father’s hand, I think what he’s saying is don’t worry about some enemy coming along when you’re trying to be faithful to Jesus and they’re just going to rip you off and take you from him. That can’t happen. No one is stronger than them. He said the Father who gave them to me is stronger than all, and no one can snatch them from my Father’s hand. Yeah, okay, I agree with that. Anyone who’s trusting Christ, anyone who’s following Christ, and by the way, that’s what his sheep are described as in that very passage. When he’s talking about his sheep, in John chapter 10, he says this in verse 27, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. Okay. No one can snatch what out of his hand? His sheep. Well, what’s his sheep? His sheep is someone who’s hearing his voice and following him. That’s what verse 27 says. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. All right. Well, if I’m hearing his voice and following him, I’m his sheep. And can anyone snatch me out of his hand while I’m doing that? He says no. Now, what if I stop listening to his voice? What if I stop following him? Now, don’t tell me that that can’t happen because people do it all the time. Many people who have followed Christ for years have turned on their heels and left him. I was reading the testimony of a pastor in Texas who seemed like a faithful pastor for 40 years. And then he just turned on his heels and left the faith and wrote a book about his atheism. So, I mean, yeah, sheep can stop following him. And when they do, they’re not his sheep anymore. And if they’re not his sheep, they’re not under his protection in that way. Hey, I need to take a break, but I hope that helps you. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming, so don’t go away. I’ll be back in 30 seconds.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 03 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. I’m looking at a switchboard that has three open lines on it, which is pretty good. Good chances you can get in this half hour if you want to call right now. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Mick from Detroit, Michigan. Hi, Mick. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Steve. How’s it going? Good. So I have a question about… Because you say the Bible is the final authority, right? A.K.A. Sola Scriptura, is that correct?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. But you said something I heard once when I was listening a few days ago maybe or something, and it was kind of mind-boggling to me, which is that you’re not sure or you don’t believe that we can pray directly to Jesus Christ, right? And I just found that a little mind-boggling as a Trinitarian, right, because it’s like, Jesus is God, right, and we can worship God, talk to God, pray to God, request from God. So why is it that you came to that conclusion? And I guess have you thought about it? I’m sure you’ve thought about it deeper, right? But I just, yeah, I’m not sure how to go any further about it. Just basically, I’m surprised you came to that conclusion.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I didn’t come to that conclusion. That’s what Jesus said, so I just believe what he said. I’m talking about John 16, where Jesus said in verse 23, John 16, 23, Jesus said, And in that day, meaning after he is gone, you will ask me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father. In my name, he will give it to you. So he says, you’ve been asking me for things. Now, when I’m gone, you won’t be asking me for things. You’ll be asking the Father. You’ll have access to the Father through me, through my name, which means I authorize you to come to the Father as if you were me. That’s what it means to do something in his name. So through my name, you’ll go to the Father and ask him. But you won’t be asking me anymore. And in a few verses later, he says in verse 26, John 16, 26, In that day you will ask in my name, meaning, as he said earlier, you’ll ask the Father in my name. And I do not say to you that I shall pray to the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. So Jesus is teaching his disciples how they will be praying after he has left them. And he says, you won’t be asking me for things. You’ll be asking the Father. You’ll be able to approach the Father personally in my name. That’s the new privilege you’ll have when I’m gone. You can talk to God himself. Now, Nick, you said that as a Trinitarian, it seems strange to say that. Well, actually, I’m a true Trinitarian. I’m not sure that most Christians who call themselves Trinitarians are. When someone says, well, you know, Jesus is God, so it doesn’t make sense that we talk to God instead of Jesus because Jesus is God. That’s not Trinitarianism. That’s confusion. I mean, the Trinity doctrine is that God is one God, but there are three persons or centers of consciousness or individuals in the Godhead. This is in contrast to, say, oneness Pentecostals who believe that Jesus and God are the same person. Now, I think someone’s entitled to look at the body of Scripture and reach a oneness position and reject Trinitarianism, but I think if they do, they’re not doing justice to some of the passages in the Bible. I believe that the best way to be faithful to all that the Bible says on the subject is to take a Trinitarian view, which is that, in a sense, God is one God. In a different sense, he’s three. and being three and one is what the very word Trinity means. Now, if it doesn’t make sense to you to say we come to the Father with our prayers, not to Jesus, because you believe Jesus is God, then, you know, you’re not thinking of God as three. You’re thinking of God as only one. And yet the Bible does indicate that Jesus is separable from and not independent of, but one. distinguishable from the Father. And he said so many times, he said, you know, the Father is greater than I, he said, you know. He said, I didn’t come to seek my own will, but my Father’s will. Pardon?
SPEAKER 08 :
The trinity that the three persons are in perfect unity with one another?
SPEAKER 03 :
I would think so, yeah. I mean, I don’t know, certainly I wouldn’t expect to be discord among them.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right, right, right. And I was just thinking, doesn’t it reason that if they are in perfect unity with each other and them being three distinct persons, which is obviously a mystery that we’re not going to completely understand, right, but that we can talk and they’re in perfect unity. I love you. Help me. Oh, am I?
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re fading out.
SPEAKER 08 :
Is it better?
SPEAKER 03 :
I got your question. Since they’re in unison, they are of one mind, let’s say, that it would make sense that we could talk to all of them. Well, you can talk to all of them if you want to. When I pray, I like to follow the instructions. And Jesus said, when you pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven. So he tells us to pray to the Father. When the apostles prayed, they prayed to the Father. We see that in their prayers that are recorded in Scripture. Jesus said, you will not ask me, you’ll ask my Father. You can go to the Father because he loves you. He says, I’m not going to go to the Father for you. You go to him yourself. So, I mean, I just try to follow instructions. I don’t claim to know more than God does about these things. I mean, I can say, well, it only makes sense to me that I understand the Trinity a certain way, and therefore I don’t have to follow Jesus’ instructions because my doctrine gives me permission to do something different than what Jesus said. Well, I don’t do my relationship with God that way. I try to follow his directions just because I think he knows more about it than I do.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, last comment because I know you have other callers. You would know this passage better than me, but I think it was Stephen when he was getting martyred. Didn’t he pray directly to Jesus Christ and say, I give you my soul or something?
SPEAKER 03 :
What was that message? He said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And there’s one other case like that, and that’s the last prayer in the Bible at the end of Revelation. where John says, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. So Stephen, at the time he was dying, prayed to Jesus to receive his spirit. And John also prayed to Jesus to come quickly. Now, we would say those are the two exceptions to the instructions we’ve received, and they both are kind of unusual in this respect. When Stephen said that, he was actually seeing Jesus standing at the right hand of God. You know, he’s looking at Jesus, and he speaks to him. Likewise, John, in Revelation chapter 22, he also is seeing Jesus, and he speaks to him. So these are not your normal, you know, devotional discussions. seasons of prayer here, we’re talking about fairly unique situations where Jesus appeared to these men and they spoke to him. So, I mean, I’m not suggesting that Jesus is angry when someone speaks to him, but he didn’t teach us to pray that way. Now, if I saw Jesus, if he appeared to me, I might say, hey, Jesus, you know, I’ve been glad to see you. You know, I might even, you know, ask him some questions. But I don’t see him. And until I do, I’m going to just pray the way he said to pray. But, yeah, I’m not a legalist. I mean, in other words, if you think that I’m saying, well, shame on you if you pray to Jesus, shame on you if you pray to the Holy Spirit. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying we were never instructed to pray that way. So, you know, I actually think we humans are very poor at praying, generally speaking. Once in a while you meet someone who’s really good at it. But even people who love God a lot, often they struggle with prayers. You know, it’s hard to know if you’re saying what you should say or doing what you should do. And that being the case, I want to at least be able to say whatever else may be deficient in my prayers, I don’t want it also to be deficient that I’m praying differently than he told me to do. You know, I can at least follow instructions. If there’s other defects in my praying, I’ll have to discover what those are, too, and try to do better. But I don’t have to inquire as to who I’m supposed to pray to since I have direct instructions from Jesus about that. So I’m not saying shame on people who pray to Jesus. If Jesus appeared to me, I’d probably speak directly to him also. But that’s not what’s happening when I’m praying most of the time. Most of the time I’m praying and I don’t see him. I’m just praying like the disciples did most of the time in the Bible.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. God bless you, brother. Thanks.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, Mick. Good talk to you. God bless. Bye now. Okay, let’s talk to Robert in Fullerton, California. Robert, welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, it’s Robert. Particularly like Hebrews chapter 9, I believe it’s verse 15, talks about the called. I know Romans has a few times talks about those who are called. How does a non-Calvinist deal with that, if you will? I know we are called. I know everybody is called, but how do we basically reconcile that as far as with Scripture? I know there’s a good verse in Revelation 17, 14 that kind of sort of sums that up, but I don’t have it memorized, so I can’t say I’m on the road right now.
SPEAKER 03 :
When the New Testament talks about Christians as the called or the called ones, it is emphasizing the fact that we didn’t come to God unbidden, but we were invited. Actually, the word called generally means invited, like when it talks about those who were called to the wedding feast. Well, they were invited to the feast. They received the call. They received the invitations. So to call ourselves the called is to simply focus on the fact that we didn’t think of this on our own. God initiated. God put out the call, and we responded to the call. We’re the respondents to the call. But on the other hand, there’s other nuances because not everyone who’s called comes. Jesus said many are called, but few are chosen. So, you know, in what sense are the many called? Well, we’re all called. Everybody’s called. Everyone who hears the gospel, at least, is called. Paul talks in one of his letters about by whom he called is by the gospel. So when the gospel is preached to us, that’s a call. That’s an invitation to respond. And lots of people receive that call but do not respond, and therefore they never become part of the elect community. They never become part of the chosen people. But so many are called. but not all are chosen. Only relatively few are chosen or elect. Now, the Calvinists sees this very differently, and that is they say there’s two kinds of calling that Paul talks about. One is what’s called the general call, which is what I mentioned earlier. When someone hears the gospel, that’s a call from God. And Calvinists say, yeah, that’s called the general call. That’s the universal call. When the gospel is preached to all people, that is the call. However, In Calvinism, many people are called who simply cannot respond because they aren’t chosen. Now, see, they would assume that the choosing is the basis for people’s response. I believe that people’s response forms the basis for being among the chosen. I think we’re chosen because of our response, not otherwise. But in any case, the Calvinist believes that everybody receives the general call, who hears the gospel. But then there’s a second kind of call, and they refer to that as the effectual call. This is essentially the same thing as what they call the irresistible grace, that if you are one of the ones that God elected before the foundation of the world to be saved, then God doesn’t just send a general call to you. He accompanies that with the effectual call. And the effectual call is like a tractor beam. You know, if you are chosen, if you’re elect, and you receive the effectual call, then that call is effectual. It’s successful. It draws you, and you’ll necessarily come. And that’s what the doctrine of irresistible grace teaches. irresistible grace and the effectual call are kind of both Calvinist doctrines. Now, the Bible doesn’t teach that that is true. In fact, the Bible teaches that God has called many who don’t respond. See, the Calvinists say, oh, that’s not a problem, because every time the Bible says, I called and no one listened, I called and no one came, He’s just talking about the general call. Because if he used his effectual call, they would have. So, I mean, that’s how Calvinism looks at it. And so when Christians are called the called… the Calvinists would say, oh, well, they are the effectually called. The called, in that sense, refers to the effectually called. The non-Calvinists would say it’s referring to those who responded to the call without any suggestion that it was irresistible. You know, when I get an invitation to go to a party or something like that, and I don’t get those very often, as you can imagine, but if I did… I can decide if I want to go or not. And usually I wouldn’t want to. But the truth is, I mean, if my wife wants me to go, I’ll go. Otherwise, I’ll stay home and read a book. But the truth is that when I receive an invitation, I can go or not. But if I choose to go, that’s fine. And if someone says, well, how did you get here? I say, I was invited. I’m one of the invited ones. It doesn’t mean I was the only, you know, that there weren’t other people invited who didn’t come. But I’m here because I was invited. And to say we’re saved because God invited us and we accepted it. It doesn’t say that we couldn’t have rejected it or that other people weren’t also invited. So, I mean, the non-Calvinist view is simply common sense. It uses the term the way we would normally talk. But the Calvinist idea is God actually calls everybody who hears the gospel, but he doesn’t really want them to come. So why does he call them? Why does he invite them if he doesn’t want them to come? Well, that’s a mystery. The ones he really wants to come. He doesn’t just call them generally. He gives this tractor beam call, this effectual calling to them. And they necessarily come. Unavoidably, they come. And so I think, well, okay, if he has this tractor beam kind of call that people cannot resist, why doesn’t he call everybody that way? And the answer is he doesn’t want everyone to be saved. Calvinists don’t believe that God wants everyone saved. But then I’d say, well, okay, if he doesn’t want these people saved, why does he give them any kind of a call? And usually the answer would be something like, because by being called, they increase their culpability, and their punishment, therefore, is greater, because they were called, but they didn’t come. Well, how could they be more guilty if they were called to do something that they had no power to do? How can I be guilty of something that somebody wants me to do, but I have absolutely no power to do it? If I’m a quadriplegic. And someone says, hey, come over here across the room, get out of bed and come over here. And they know very well I can’t do it. What, they’re going to come over and beat me up because I didn’t do it? What kind of God are we talking about here? We’re talking about Calvinism’s God. I don’t talk about God that way. I’m I’m on God’s side about things, and I’m on the Bible’s side. Calvinism never was taught in the church until the fourth century or later. And it came in with a philosopher named Augustine, and apparently he was more interested in his philosophy than he was in preserving the character of God. And unfortunately, he became the most influential theologian in the Western church in history. And so the Catholic church and the Reformed churches followed him. The Eastern churches didn’t. And many other churches didn’t. And fortunately, the first century, no churches did, the first four centuries. No one followed those ideas.
SPEAKER 07 :
Does the Eastern Church now, do you know?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, the Eastern Orthodoxy does not follow Augustine.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. All right.
SPEAKER 03 :
He was a Western, he’s a Latin father, therefore part of the Roman Church. But, yeah, the Eastern Church never followed Augustine. All right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, Robert. Good talk to you, bro. Okay, let’s talk to Hank from Youngsville, North Carolina. Hi, Hank.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi. Hello, Steve. Can you hear me? I can. Go ahead. Okay. My question is regarding the Churches of Christ. I’ve heard you say on more than one occasion that they are very legalistic.
SPEAKER 03 :
I said they can be. They can be.
SPEAKER 04 :
They are at all.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. I am a member of the Churches of Christ, and I actually joined them in South Africa before I came to the United States. I know that they advocate no instrumental music in the services, and I really prefer not to have bands playing in a church service. But you mentioned something about baptisms. And their contention is they use Revelation 22, 18, they use Deuteronomy 12, 32, Proverbs 36, and many others, and to point out that you do not add and you do not subtract to God’s Word. So would you say that by misinterpreting the do not add commands,
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, no, I mean, there’s several places the Bible says do not add to God’s word. Deuteronomy, Moses says don’t add to these laws. Like you said, Proverbs chapter 30 says do not add to his word lest you be found a liar, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar, it says. Revelation says, you know, anyone who adds to the words of this book, you know, the plagues of this book will be added to him. Yeah, adding to the Word of God is not something we’re allowed to do. Now, I’m not sure how this comes in to the matter of baptism. I’m not adding or subtracting from the Word of God. I believe that we’re commanded to be baptized, and therefore I think it’s obligatory. I think Christians are obliged to be baptized. I also think we’re obligated to love our enemies. and to do a number of other things and to be holy and to, you know, there’s a lot of things that are obligatory. Unfortunately, not everyone fulfills all of their obligations. And then the question then becomes, okay, if someone fails to fulfill all these obligations, does God, does he bump them? Even if they love God and they, let’s just say they didn’t even know what their obligations were. They kind of innocently didn’t do something they were supposed to do. Or maybe they’re, you know, they just weren’t. as strong against temptation as others were? I don’t know. But, I mean, the point is, are we saved because we fulfill all our obligations, or are we saved because of Christ? In my opinion, we’re saved because we’re found in Christ, and we are found in Christ by our being born of God, and we are baptized into the body of Christ by the Spirit. Now, there’s also physical baptism that we’re supposed to do. But what is done by the Spirit is a spiritual thing, not a physical thing. And Paul says in, what, 1 Corinthians 12, 12, is it, that they were baptized by the Spirit into the body. So what I believe that means is that we’ve been immersed into the body of Christ by the Spirit. Now, is Paul saying this happened at the time of water baptism? He might be, but he doesn’t say so. But I do believe everyone’s commanded to be water baptized, so I would never make that, like, optional. But I do believe there’s many things mandatory, which failing to do them doesn’t guarantee that you’re lost. To say that God commands certain things, for example, take the Old Testament, all the commands God gave. There never was a king or a generation of the Jews who kept all those commands. They always were slack about something. Remember, there were whole generations that didn’t even keep the Passover or didn’t circumcise their children when they should have, the ones that came out of Egypt. And yet, it was their defection from God, a separate issue, or their worshiping idols or something that brought the boom down upon them. God wants people to obey him 100%, and that’s what I want to do. I want to obey God 100%. I would never advocate anyone you know, obey him any less than 100%. The question of whether God wants us to do something and whether the failure to do so will result in his disowning us are two different questions. And that’s what I call legalism. Legalism is when we say, okay, we know what God wants us to do. If you fail to do it, you’re going to hell. Well, maybe you are or maybe not. God’s going to have to decide that. We’re not here to decide who’s going to go to hell and who’s not going to go to hell. We’re here to tell people what God wants to be done. And I would hope that certainly everyone who’s a true Christian will want to do everything that God wants. But, I mean, the Bible says in many things we all stumble. I really think there’s a lot of people who’ve come to Christ who have been poorly preached to. and they don’t fully understand they’re supposed to be baptized. I know this is true because I’ve met people who thought they were doing everything Jesus said, and they didn’t even know that being baptized was required. I told them it was. But suppose a person hasn’t been preached to properly, and they don’t know what to believe about that. What if they live in a country where there’s no churches, like Arabia or somewhere like that, and no one tells them, and they don’t have a Bible? Is it impossible for them to repent and come to Christ and love God? But they’re going to go to hell because they didn’t get baptized because they didn’t know it. I, you know, I don’t think God’s legalistic. I think God has things he commands us to do and none of them are optional. But to say they’re not optional doesn’t mean that the failure to do them. It’s like if I get a job somewhere and the boss tells me, okay, here’s what you’re expected to do in the course of an eight-hour day. I want you to do everything on this checklist. Well, suppose I get, you know, I really want to do them all, but at the end of the day, some things were left undone. Does that mean he’s going to necessarily fire me? Well, he might. It depends on how legalistic he is. Or if he says, well, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak, you know, he might not fire me. The question of whether I’ll be fired for not doing everything I was supposed to do is a different question than, am I required to do everything that I’m supposed to do? And the same thing is true when it comes to salvation, I think.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Now, thank you for that, Steve. So you do think that this instrumental music thing is, you cannot say that is an addition.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it is actually an addition because the Bible doesn’t say that. not to use instruments. In fact, there’s several times in the Bible that it seems like it says to use them. There’s three times in the New Testament, Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4 and James chapter 5, where we are actually told to sing the psalms. Now, the word psalm in the Greek means a poem to be accompanied by stringed instruments. And many of the psalms actually say, play, you know, on the harp, play on the timbrel to God, you know, and so on. you know, if we’re supposed to sing the Psalms, and Psalms by definition are accompanied by stringed instruments and so forth, then there can’t really, you’d have to find a special command not to do so. But instead we have commands to do so. And James, who tells us, is anyone merry, let him sing Psalms, he also says in his book a little earlier, don’t be hearers of the word only, but be doers of the word. So if we’re singing Psalms, and they say play skillfully with a loud noise on a stringed instrument, a ten-stringed instrument or whatever, am I supposed to be a doer of the word or not? So, I mean, I actually like a cappella singing. I love to be in Church of Christ meetings where they don’t have instruments playing because those Church of Christ people can sing so beautifully if it’s a large congregation. On the other hand, I was in a very tiny Church of Christ congregation where nine people were there and none of them could sing. And I think they could have benefited from some musical instruments there. But I’m not a big fan of musical instruments necessarily, but I’m not against them either. I feel that churches are free to go either way on that. And some Church of Christ churches allow it too, but some do not. I’m sorry I’m out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
