Dive into the complexities surrounding divine election and human free will. How does God’s sovereignty align with individual choice? Through caller interactions and biblical referencing, the conversation sheds light on this profound theological inquiry.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour each weekday afternoon and we take your phone calls for this hour. We can take yours if you call at this time. The number is 844-484-5737. That is if you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith you’d like to raise for conversation or another side to the story, a different opinion from that of the host you’d like to bring up. Again, the number to call is 844-484-5737. This Saturday, that would be tomorrow, In the morning, there is a gathering in the Temecula area. Oh, that’s not today? Tomorrow? Oh, my mistake. Okay. My wife corrected me. I’m a week off, so I’m not going to make that announcement until next week. So, really? Bill’s meeting is not? Okay. I’m surprised. I was looking at my calendar wrong. That happens. Hey, I do that right here on the air. It happens a lot. Anyway, well, that exact thing doesn’t happen a lot, but I have to ask my wife for corrections a lot, even on the air. So anyway, never mind. I’ll tell you about that next week. That’s not this weekend, but the following one. So that means we can go directly to the phones and talk to these callers, including Brian from Fairview, Texas. Hi, Brian. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, Steve. It’s actually Frank from Fairview.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, Frank. Okay. My call screener thought it was Brian. Sorry.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s okay. No problem. And I also am married to a very good corrector. So, it’s a good thing, though. Oh, yeah. Hey, listen. A couple of weeks ago, you had a caller. He was talking about asking questions about nowadays, are there any profits? And It was kind of a hit. The station wasn’t coming in very good. I was in a bad area.
SPEAKER 01 :
Truth is, your call’s not coming through very good. Your call’s quite rough, too. You may not be in a good area. But go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, yeah. I’ll make this quick. And I couldn’t hear all the answers. And could you – I’m not sure you remember the call or anything, but he was asking about problems. Okay, see, he was talking about are there any prophets these days. What do you, if someone claims to be a prophet, how do you test that? How do you know that they are true? And one other question was, if a prophet is wrong in something, then does that make him just null and void altogether?
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, when was it you heard that call?
SPEAKER 11 :
It was a good two weeks, you know, maybe three.
SPEAKER 01 :
I see. Okay, because, you know, all the calls, all the shows are archived at our website, and you can listen to any of them that you want to afterwards. As far as prophets are concerned, I don’t remember the call you’re talking about, but there are people who believe that there are prophets today. And I’m not sure. I’m not sure because I’m not sure I’ve met anyone who impresses me as a genuine prophet. On the other hand, I know of nothing in the Bible that says that there can’t be prophets today. So I’m just going to have to say I’m not sure. I do believe this. The gift of prophecy, which is not quite the same thing as the office of a prophet, but the gift of prophesying, is something that I believe is still available because I believe all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are available. I don’t know that all the offices are. For example, apostles and prophets were leading offices in the early church. And I don’t believe we’ve got apostles today, at least not like Paul and Peter and James and John. I don’t think we have those kind of apostles today. And I’m not sure if we have prophets like they had back then, like Agabus, for example. But we might. I just don’t know. I’ve been in charismatic circles for 55 years. I’ve heard a lot of people prophesy, at least allegedly prophesy. I’ve known lots of people who said they were prophets or that somebody else said that they were prophets. But, I mean, while I’m open to the possibility, I just have to say I have not found anyone whose credentials were very impressive to convince me that they were real prophets. Though I have heard people give individual prophecies from time to time that I believe were genuine. So what’s the difference? Well, the Bible says that not everyone is a prophet. It says God gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. And not everybody is an apostle or a prophet or an evangelist or a pastor or a teacher. In fact, Paul implies that strongly at the end of 1 Corinthians 12. where he says, are all apostles, are all prophets? He means that the answer is no, they’re not. And so not everyone’s a prophet. Even in biblical times, not everyone is a prophet or an apostle. But Paul did suggest that prophecy was an activity that anyone might do. He said, desire the best gifts, especially that you might prophesy. And at another place, he said, let the prophets speak. two or three, and let the others judge. And then he said that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. He said you may all prophesy one by one that the church may be edified. So prophesying can be done even by someone who’s not a prophet. For example, John chapter 11 says that Caiaphas, the high priest, prophesied. As far as we know, he only did it once, and he was not a prophet. In fact, he was an evil man. He wasn’t even a Christian, much less a godly prophet. Balaam prophesied, and so did even King Saul, but they were not good men at all, and they prophesied. So to speak of somebody prophesying only means that a word is given through them, by God, through the Holy Spirit, which is true, but that doesn’t mean that they now possess the office of a prophet. The office of a prophet, I presume… would belong to those who primarily are trustworthy and regularly prophesying genuinely. Now, there would be then, in contrast to those prophets, there would be people who maybe prophesy one time. As Paul says, to desire to prophesy. Well, I might desire to prophesy, but I haven’t ever done it. I’m not a prophet, and I don’t even know if I can have ever prophesied. I don’t think so. So, in other words, I don’t know much about that. I have heard prophecies that I believe were genuine. I have heard prophecies that I was pretty sure were not. How do you tell the difference? Well, if you don’t know, don’t take it very seriously, I think. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5, do not despise prophesying, so you shouldn’t disregard it. prophesying, if it’s genuine, but it also indicates that we should test all things and hold fast to that, which is good, also in 1 Thessalonians 5. So you listen when someone says they’re speaking from the Lord, and you test it. Now, how do you test it? Well, there’s a variety of ways to test it. In Deuteronomy 18, instead of a prophet predicts that something is going to happen, and it doesn’t happen, well, it says that’s not the word from the Lord. That was not a genuine prophecy. If they prophesied something would come true and it didn’t, they’re false in their prophesying. In another place, in Deuteronomy 13, Moses said if someone prophesies and their prophecy is directing you to worship God, someone other than the real God. Well, then obviously that’s a false prophecy. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul said anyone speaking by the Spirit of God would not say Jesus is accursed. And so obviously he’s saying that that would be something that would be inconsistent with the real prophet. In 1 John chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, it says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits whether they’re of god because many false prophets have gone out into the world he goes on to say if anyone says uh any spirit says uh you know jesus has not come in the flesh then that that’s a false prophet that’s not of god that’s the spirit of antichrist so there’s a variety of statements in the bible that tells us we should test prophecies now if you say well but someone prophesied in our church and um There’s nothing really specific about it to hang on to to test it. Well, if there’s nothing specific to disqualify it or to qualify it, then it would seem to me that you’re at liberty to make a decision according to your own sense about the thing. You could pray about it and ask God to give you a sense of whether that’s from him or not and trust what the Holy Spirit tells you about it. But if there’s anything that’s, let’s say, theologically wrong or directs you to the wrong God or demeans Christ or predicts something that doesn’t come true, well, these are ways that the Bible says you’d know for sure that a person is not prophesying correctly. Now, even if someone does prophesy correctly on some occasion, like I said, it doesn’t mean they are a prophet, because the office of a prophet is not the same thing as just somebody like Caiaphas, who on one occasion gives a prophecy. He did not suddenly occupy the office of a prophet, because apparently anyone might prophesy in any situation that God wants them to, and that doesn’t suddenly give them credentials. as a prophet in the church. Remember it says in Ephesians chapter 2, at the end of the chapter, it says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And that makes me think that, okay, the church’s foundation was laid 2,000 years ago. everything’s been being built upon that foundation that the apostles and prophets laid 2,000 years ago. The church is still the same church. You don’t relay the foundation every generation. You just build on the foundation that was once and for all laid. So as I understand it, prophets, people who held the office of a prophet and those who held the office of apostle were a functional part of the establishing of the church in the early days. I don’t know that they continued beyond very far. I will say this, though, that the church fathers believed that there were still prophets that traveled around and spoke. The Didache, an early church document at the end of the first century, actually gave instructions about how to recognize somebody as a true prophet or a false prophet. They said if someone asked for money, they were a false prophet. He said if they wanted to stay upon your hospitality for more than three days, They were a false prophet unless they worked. So, I mean, the interesting thing is the early Christians believed there were prophets who traveled around and visited their churches, but they had to watch out for the wrong kind. So, you know, today, are there people who hold the office of prophet? There could be, but all I can say is I haven’t met them yet. I haven’t met the ones that definitely could be said to have that as an undisputable gift. or office, I should say.
SPEAKER 11 :
I appreciate that. I think I’m on the right track on that.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Well, thank you, Brian. I appreciate you.
SPEAKER 11 :
God bless you. That’s right. Thanks for your good work, too.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. I appreciate your call.
SPEAKER 11 :
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Bye now. Okay. Ron from Vancouver, British Columbia. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, hi there.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi. Hi.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi. Hey, I have a question regarding, I’m a bit in confusion here, regarding the elect. So I was recently reading up on Martin Luther’s book, The Bondage of the Will. Maybe you’re familiar with that. And in that, his argument there was to Erasmus, this is going 500 years ago, that only by grace are we saved. It’s God’s election and only God’s will for us to be saved or not. So no free will coming into place there. So I’m just confused in the sense of how does one… Yeah, do we really have a choice to be saved then or not? Is it just God chooses and His grace and we have no part to play in it? Or is it also… We accept. I don’t know if you could clarify a bit with that, if you’re able to.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Sure. Well, let’s compare it with being one of the chosen people in the Old Testament. Israel was the chosen nation, the chosen people. Now, could a person decide to be an Israelite or not? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. A person might be born Jewish, but the Bible says in the Old Testament that if they worshipped idols, or did any number of other things that broke the covenant, that they would be cut off from the people. That is, they no longer belonged to the people of Israel. Their violation of the covenant would exclude them. Okay, so they made a choice not to be in Israel. Now, as far as that goes, a person who was born of a Gentile offspring and was not Jewish could convert and become part of Israel. They could get circumcised and keep the covenant that God gave through Moses and be regarded as like a native of the land, the Bible says. So a Gentile could become part of Israel by choice. A Jew could cease to be part of Israel by choice, which means that you could choose to be in Israel or not. Now, if you were in Israel, you were in the chosen people. If you were not in Israel, you’re not in the chosen people. The choosing, however, was of the nation collectively. not of the individuals in it. God chose Israel as a nation to be his own nation separate from the other nations. Individuals could decide if they want to be part of that or not. Now, same thing. God has chosen Christ and those who are in him to be his special people, his chosen. We can decide to be in Christ or not. Jesus told his disciples in John 15 that they were in him. They were branches in him. He was a vine and they were branches in him. But he said, but you have to remain in me because if you don’t remain in me, you’ll be cast forth as a branch and withered and burned. So it was very clear that he was saying being in me is where you need to be. Just like in the Old Testament, you had to be in Israel to be one of the chosen. We are chosen in Christ. Old Testament saints were chosen in Israel because Israel was chosen and they remained in Israel. If they had not remained in Israel, they would cease to be chosen. It’s not the individuals that are chosen individually. It’s the collective that’s chosen. Likewise, the body of Christ. We choose to be in the body of Christ or not. Even if we’re in the body of Christ, we can choose not to abide in him, as he warned. and a person can choose to become a Christian. Obviously, that’s everywhere taught in Scripture. There’s nowhere in the Bible that says that God chose certain people to be in Christ and other people he did not choose to be in Christ. He says in Ephesians 1.4 that God chose us in him, not chose us to be in him. So we are chosen in him because he is chosen, and all who are in him are thereby chosen. chosen too. So it’s a collective election. It’s a collective choosing. And as an individual, my responsibility is to decide whether I want to be chosen in him or unchosen, not in him. Because that is individually my choice.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes. Thank you so much. And we hope everybody chooses him.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Thanks for your call.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
God bless. Dan from Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. Hey, Steve. I was calling about something that you had said yesterday. Up front, I’m a Sabbath keeper, and I heard you mentioning something to someone about the Sabbath. And later on, I heard a conversation with you and a guy that said that we shouldn’t add or take away from the Scriptures. From my studying, the history of the church and the scriptures, I don’t think most of us are aware of that gap, that time period where many things have been changed or added to or taken away. And I wanted to know… Who do you believe that gave the Sabbath? These are like three questions. And then when was it taken away? And then what is a biblical definition of sin?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, there’s, okay, there’s several questions. As far as the biblical definition of sin, we could say, just to put it very simply, it’s disobedience to God is sin. I mean… If God tells you to do something and you don’t do it, that’s sin. If God tells you not to do something and you do it, that is sin. So sin is disobeying God. Now, the question of, you know, things being taken from or added to the Scripture, and especially the Sabbath, you said, who commanded the Sabbath? Well, one person I know who didn’t was Jesus. That’s nothing he commanded in any of his teaching. Now, Yahweh, you know, commanded Israel to keep the Sabbath. That was part of the Old Covenant. uh he he saved them out of egypt made a nation out of them at mount sinai and gave them the law there and the law included strong commands to keep not only the sabbath day but sabbath uh years and uh you know and and jubilee years and other other kinds of things in fact they had a lot of they had quite an elaborate calendar of special days they were supposed to observe and god commanded all of those things. But those were things that the New Testament says were types and shadows for the time being. That is for the Old Testament era, not for now. Paul says in Colossians 2, 16 and 17 that Sabbaths and festival days and new moons and those other things, those, he said, were a shadow for the time being. But this body or the reality has come now. instead of just the shadow of the reality, and that is Christ. And therefore, he said, no one can judge you whether you keep those days or not, because obviously, if someone can’t judge you for it, it’s because there’s no obligation to do it. If you’re obligated to do it, then people have every right to judge you for not doing it. God himself would. And so would any righteous person. But the New Testament doesn’t contain any commands about keeping Sabbath. And we’re followers of Jesus, not of Moses. We’re not followers of the Old Covenant, but of the New. And so that’s why, you know, I don’t believe there’s any command to keep Sabbath for the Christian.
SPEAKER 05 :
So, Steve.
SPEAKER 01 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 05 :
When you say that Jesus didn’t give it, well, Messiah didn’t give it, but Yahweh, the Most High, gave it. If he gave it, then, you know, like you say, that’s a commandment from him. It would have been a commandment from, if Jesus needed to have given the commandment, he would have given it. He didn’t need to. The commandment was already there until it existed.
SPEAKER 01 :
Let me ask you this. Then do you believe we should keep all the Jewish festivals? Well, no, but there are things that… They were already in place, and that’s why Jesus didn’t command those too, right? Why would he have to command Sabbath separately and not have to command those other ones separately?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. I can explain it. So, like you said before, or what most Christians say that we have things that are for fear and massage. Yes, you know, Jesus came for fear, but in Colossians 2.16, the one you referred to, there are different definitions of what that means. Just like, you know, when I heard you say there are three views of hell, I didn’t know but two, but once I heard you say it was three, I said, okay, yes, you know, let me take that out. That do make sense that some people have have this idea that God is going to take, you know, people, even though they went to hell, save them from hell and then save everybody. You know, that was a teaching. So in Colossians, you have different teachings or different understandings of that verse. What I believe, as a believer, we should go and check those different definitions out.
SPEAKER 02 :
I agree.
SPEAKER 05 :
My understanding of the definition is that Paul wasn’t telling them that not to observe these days. He was telling them, you don’t have to observe them from the way that the Jews were doing them in the old covenant. You don’t have to do burnt sacrifices no more. You don’t have to do drink offerings no more. You know, things of that nature. But even among the Christians today, they celebrate Easter, which we know is wrong, but Passover was the time that Messiah was crucified. So, That could be a day, like Passover comes, that could be a day that we can say, okay, we know for certain that Messiah was crucified on Passover. First fruits. We also know when that exactly was. You know, that’s the beginning of the church. That could be, we can celebrate.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, let me just jump in here because we’re going to come up on a break, and this doesn’t seem to be getting quickly to any point. The point I would make is this. there are no holy days that the New Testament commands us to keep. And Paul makes it very clear in Romans 14, 5, that there were some people in the Roman church who wanted to keep special days. And Paul says they can do that if they want to. But he said there were also people in the Roman church who didn’t keep special days, and they just assumed every day was alike. And he said, well, they can do that too. In other words, Paul didn’t see any reason to correct those people who didn’t observe special days. If Paul didn’t feel like he had to correct them, he must not have felt that they were doing the wrong thing. In others, he felt like they were at liberty to not keep special days, which means there’s no obligation to do it. Now, if he had heard that people in the church were fornicating, He wouldn’t have said, oh, that’s okay, just let everyone be, you know, if they’re murdering or worshiping idols or, you know, that kind of stuff. He wouldn’t have said, well, that’s, you know, I know that, you know, some people think that’s okay and some people don’t, but let everyone be fully persuaded in their own mind. No, there are things that Paul would never have said everyone can just do whatever they feel right about. Because they’d be moral issues, and we don’t have flexibility in our morality. But when it comes to rituals, like special days, special places, special people, like priests and so forth, those are all ritual things. That’s something we’re not obligated to keep. It’s not commanded in the New Testament. Now, if you want to keep the Sabbath, as you said you do, I’ve got no criticism of you. But all I can say is, I’m like the other people that Paul talked about. I believe every day is a lie. I don’t observe Easter or any Jewish holy days or Christian holy days. I feel like following Jesus is the celebration of the resurrection. I appreciate you joining us, and thanks for doing so. We need to take a break here. You’re listening to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we are listener-supported. If you’d like to write to us, the address is The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
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 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another 30 minutes, approximately. Taking your calls, if you have questions about the Bible or Christianity, you’d like to call in and discuss them. You disagree with the host, like our last caller did, we’d love to have you join us. We always enjoy having those conversations, too. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next call is from Dan in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Hi, Dan. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Yes, hello. Hi.
SPEAKER 07 :
I had a quick question. Are you familiar with the musical Jesus Christ Superstar? Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Did you watch it or did you listen to it? I did. I actually heard the album when it first came out. What was it, around 1970 or 71?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I’d like to get your thoughts about that and especially as it’s related to the Jesus movement of that time.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. Well, it was not a product of the… Yeah, it was not really part of the Jesus movement, though it came out about the same time. I think that the Jesus Christ Superstar came out exploiting the fact that there was a Jesus movement happening. And, you know, some commercial group wanted to kind of sell albums and sell a stage play roughly based on Jesus, but it was not Christian. And that’s why it wasn’t part of the Jesus movement. Jesus Christ Superstar was not a Christian movement. It was a musical play, and they made a movie of it, too. It was about the story of Jesus, but it left out everything that would point to him being the actual Messiah or being the Son of God. It left out his resurrection. It had him crucified, but it doesn’t have him resurrected. It kind of… hinted that he might be a little bit delusional. It didn’t come out real strongly in that way, I don’t think, but it did suggest that he might have thought he was more than he really was. Judas seems to be like one of the heroes in the thing. In fact, even after both Jesus and Judas have died, In the play, later on, Judas sings a song at the end, although Jesus never shows up again. So it’s like after death, Judas reappears and Jesus does not. So it’s very much not a Christian play. Now, it didn’t blaspheme Christ as much as some non-Christian plays do. Something like The Last Temptation of Christ or something like that. There are movies based on Jesus that are blasphemous, but On the other hand, this wasn’t specifically made to make Christ look bad, but it certainly didn’t promote him as the Christ that Christians know him to be. So I would just say it’s not Christian. Now, to my mind, as a person who enjoyed rock music, I thought the music was phenomenal. which is too bad in a way. I mean, it’d be nice if that kind of music was available for something that really did glorify God. But yeah, it had very catchy music. You know, at least one of the songs made it top 40 on the radio and stuff. But It’s, you know, as a piece of art, as a piece of musical art, it had some redeeming qualities. But as a piece of religious historical fiction, it was not of any use at all. And I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who’s trying to understand who Jesus is at all. It doesn’t really the people who made it didn’t know, you know. So, I mean, I’m hesitant to recommend the music just because the merits of the music, it’s enjoyable. But I don’t I mean, lots of music is enjoyable. It’s not not really spiritually edifying. So that would be my quick review. Of course, it’s a very old production. It came out in the early 70s. I haven’t heard it in 40 years probably or more.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Okay. Kevin in River Rouge, Michigan. By the way, we have some lines open if you want to try to – jump on the line here before we’re out of time. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Kevin, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, thanks, Steve. I wanted to say when you mentioned Judas that dealing with God on our side that I was really into before, well, even after he got saved, at the end of that song said, you’ll have to ask yourself, did Judas have God on his side? That’s not what I’m called about. But before my question, I want to say that I had a remark. I listened to a tape, one of your conversations with your friend John, who was talking about transubstantiation. I listened to that today, and he said, You had told him something about, well, I really appreciate your critique and your rebuttal regarding the Corinthians, were they drinking wine or the blood of Christ? I like that. But I wanted to not criticize you, but three weeks ago you mentioned on another call that was about 20 minutes, about the same amount of time, when the guy finished the conversation, he said, well… Everyone has interpreted the Bible like personally or something in that regard. And I mentioned, well, I wanted to mention why you didn’t say to him at the time, 1 Peter 1.20 says there’s no scripture given to private interpreters. 2 Peter. Yeah, and the other thing was that I just feel like… This whole thing that’s been disputed there, that belief, I was raised 12 years of that, had to go to Mass every day during the week as a Catholic in fundamental school, but that Hebrews 7, chapters 7 through 10, mentions the final sacrifice, especially chapters 9 and 10, especially 10, in that regard, one sacrifice. My question is this. Why do you believe that that belief in appealing to intelligent Catholic people is so pervasive. I feel like that the thing is, why do you believe that people don’t study the Bible who profess to be Catholic Christians?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think there’s an answer to that. For a long time, the Catholic Church did not encourage their people to study the Bible. And one of the problems was that the Reformation happened 500 years ago when a Catholic monk studied the Bible and began to see that the Bible didn’t say the same thing that the Catholic Church said. Now, the Catholic Church’s position is that we don’t get all the truth from the Bible. We get some of the truth from the Bible, but we also have an equal authority in the hierarchy of the church, the popes and the magisterium, the bishops and so forth, that what they come up with is as important as what the Bible says. So they try to thread the needle of maintaining the complete authority of the Bible, but also an equal complete authority of the church’s traditions, which often don’t agree with the Bible. Now, Luther didn’t agree that the traditions were as authoritative as the Bible itself. He believed the Bible is the word of God and the traditions of the church are traditions of man. And he felt like Jesus did toward the Pharisees, that sometimes in keeping their traditions, they nullified the word of God. Now, Luther, therefore, became a tremendous thorn in the side of the Roman Catholic Church. And he was the first to have a very successful tradition. break off in the Western European theater from the Catholic Church and have a continuing movement that was contrary to them and rival to them. So this was a problem that arose because Luther had the gall to study the Bible. And so when I was young, when I was in elementary school, I had Catholic friends, and it was clear that they were told they’re not really supposed to read the Bible. the priest will tell them what to think about the Bible. Don’t study it on your own. Now, I’ve had Catholics tell me that they were raised around that time and that they weren’t discouraged by the church from reading the Bible. But frankly, I’ve had like 10 times as many Catholics tell me that it was discouraged as I’ve had Catholics tell me that it wasn’t discouraged. So you say, why don’t they read the Bible? I think they were discouraged from doing so because if you actually do study the Bible, you will no doubt… If you credit the Bible, if you believe what the Bible says, you will not be able to follow all the traditions of the Catholic Church. Now, you asked me why I didn’t mention 2 Peter 1, 20, which says, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. I didn’t bring it up because it wasn’t really relevant to the point when someone says, well, I guess everybody interprets the Bible their own way. I agree with that. I think everybody does interpret the Bible their own way, but not all interpretations are correct. Obviously, you can misinterpret the Bible, but to interpret it legitimately is not forbidden. This passage is sometimes used actually by the Catholic Church. I think the Catholics used it this way first, and then Protestants also sometimes will use it when somebody starts disagreeing with them. And they’ll say, well, no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. And what they think that means, you’re not allowed to privately interpret the Bible. Or some Protestants say private interpretation would really mean in isolation from other passages. So they’d say prophecy should not be interpreted in isolation from the rest of Scripture. But see, both views of this, which are both wrong. I mean, Peter’s not saying either of those two things. Peter is not saying that you are not allowed to privately interpret the Bible when you read it. And he’s not saying that you can’t interpret scripture, you know, in isolation from other scriptures. Now, I personally would believe the second statement is true, that you shouldn’t interpret any scripture in isolation from other scriptures. But that’s not what Peter’s saying. Peter’s not giving any instructions about how to interpret the Bible. He’s not saying don’t interpret it for yourself, don’t interpret it in isolation, don’t interpret it this way or that way. He’s not talking about how to interpret the scripture. He’s talking about where the scripture came from. He said no prophecy of scripture is of, that means from, anyone’s private interpretations. He’s telling where the Scripture came from. It’s not a result of human opinion, human reasoning, human interpreting of the events when Isaiah said what was going to happen to Syria and to Israel and to Babylon. He wasn’t given his own interpretation of political trends. No prophecies of the… And he’s talking about Old Testament prophecies specifically. He says, no prophecy of Scripture… That means from. It did not arise from anyone’s private interpretation. And you can see that that’s what he means by the next line. Because he says, So he’s giving two different views, denying one and affirming the other. as to the origins of the prophetic scriptures. He says they didn’t come from somebody’s private interpretation. It didn’t come by the will of man. It came from God’s Holy Spirit moving on holy men of God. So, in other words, although this scripture is quoted by both Catholics and Protestants, in order to try to persuade individuals not to interpret the scriptures for themselves, Peter has no interest in that question here. He’s not talking about how you should or should not interpret Scripture. He’s talking about where Scriptures did or did not come from. And they did not come from anyone’s private interpretation. They came from the Holy Spirit moving upon holy men of God. So, I mean, that’s the reason I didn’t mention that Scripture in that call, because I don’t believe it would have been specifically relevant. I appreciate your call, though. Let’s talk to Jeff in Pooleville, Texas. Jeff, welcome. Hey, Steve.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi. Hi. My question is, at what point in time did Christianity become somewhat of a ceremony? It was centered around communion, priests, robes. that type of thing, and it fell away from what Paul preached, etc. And I’ll take my answer off the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Okay, Jeff, thank you for your call. Well, there’s not a particular date or generation you can point all this to. This was a gradual evolution. It particularly picked up, of course, after the conversion of Constantine, the emperor, because for the first 200 years or more of the Christian faith, almost 300 years, the Christians were pretty much persecuted by the Roman government. And then the Roman emperor got converted himself, and the persecution of the Christians ended then. In fact, it began to be the case that the church suddenly was not only not persecuted, but actually had the favor of the emperor. So they began to experience the luxury of favor from the world and sponsorship from the world. And therefore, the church attracted a lot of people in who would not have been attracted to it under the times of persecution. That means it began to attract people who weren’t really converted as well as people who were. Now, they were in the Roman world. And as they began to compromise on the things that Jesus the Apostles taught, they began to assimilate ideas and rituals from the pagan religions. And also… probably from the Jewish religion, which, of course, Christianity came out from the Jewish milieu. So they began to adopt different things at different times. My guess is that until the conversion of Constantine, They probably didn’t have their leaders wearing robes. In fact, we have no reason to believe they even had priests at all. They had men who were called overseers, episcopae. They were the overseers of the church. They had those from the time of Paul, and they were also called presbyteri. They were the elders. Elders and overseers are really what those words mean. Paul and his apostolic team appointed leaders in every church who were elders and also called overseers, episcope. And so yet in the second century, these bishops began to take on more of a governing role a little more in a political sense in the church than they did in the apostolic times. And, of course, communion, what can be called the Eucharist, evolved also. In the early days of the church, the church celebrated what they called the agape feast. Their services often were held around a special feast, a regular feast of food. And it was joined with what was called the Eucharist. The word Eucharist means Thanksgiving. But, of course, today the word Eucharist generally is associated with the communion, taking communion in the Catholic Church, at least it is. So this was joined with the agape feast initially. Then later on, some of the church fathers speak of the agape feast as separate from the Eucharist. And it would appear that the Eucharist began to take on a life of its own as part of the worship service, not even as part of a meal. And at some point, the idea developed. that the bread and the wine actually went through some kind of a transformation at the time of the Eucharistic celebration, and that the words of the priest had some kind of supernatural effect of turning the bread into the actual body and flesh of Jesus. and the wine into the actual blood of Jesus. Now, this was supported by some of the misunderstood statements that Jesus had made at the Passover feast. But they certainly were misunderstanding him. And eventually, the church fathers, later church fathers, began to speak as if the bread actually turns into the body of Jesus. It’s called transubstantiation. So these ideas kind of just developed over time as you get further from the apostles’ times. And then, of course, when the emperor becomes converted in the 4th century, then suddenly the church has the liberty to start fine-tuning some of its religious rituals. Because in the early days of the church, The principle definition of a Christian was somebody who loved his neighbor and followed Jesus and obeyed Jesus in his life. They did meet together for worship and meals and things like that. But being a Christian had less to do with what you did when you gathered with other Christians than it had to do with the way you live your life every day. as a disciple. But eventually, Christianity began to be centered around more the formal liturgical meetings. And again, I’m thinking that probably was after Constantine’s conversion. It’s hard to tell from some of the early church writers how much that had come in yet. But like Justin Martyr, in the early second century or mid, you know, describes a church service. And it doesn’t seem to have very much liturgy to it. But it just developed. So you say, when did all that come in? Each thing had its own moment. And it wasn’t just a punctiliar moment. It was more a development, which eventually was declared to be normative by some council or something. So it was a matter of centuries. It was a matter of centuries in the beginning of the church where these things transformed, where the church instead just being a family of people who loved God and followed Jesus and loved each other and sacrificed their lives for each other and for Christ. That’s what it was originally. That’s what Jesus established. That’s what the apostles established. But eventually it became more like a religion. Instead of having much to do with how you relate with your brother, it had more to do with how you relate with the priest and the ritual and the liturgy of a special meeting, which is not anything Jesus set up that we know of. Okay. Let’s see who’s been here the longest. We’re going to talk to Jeff from Sacramento next. Hi, Jeff. Welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hello. I’ve got kind of like three questions for you. Mm-hmm. Oh, don’t make it quick, though. You don’t have to give a long answer on any of them.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, we’ve got a lot of people waiting.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, but one thing is, like you were just talking about, the substantiation thing. Well, yeah, I’ve talked to Catholics, and I ask them the question, you know, I go, well, I go, how literal? You know, they believe that the body and blood literally change, and I go, well, if you take that literal, how literal do you take it? Because Jesus is not up in heaven experiencing pain when people are taking the communion, he’s not going, ow, ow, you’re eating my body. So it’s not that literal. At least they don’t argue with me on that point. And then I go, well, no one is actually tasting blood. Do you taste blood? Do you taste flesh? So it’s not that literal.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, so is that your first question?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, yeah, but the second one is related to the sinner’s prayer. I’ve already talked about that many times. But the big question is, Where did it come from? I asked a friend one time, and he said he thought it came from D.L. Moody. Yeah, but who’s the first person that actually told people to ask Jesus to come into their hearts?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I don’t know who first came up with that line. And D.L. Moody is kind of one of the early founders of American evangelicalism and revivalism. And, you know, if somebody suggested that D.L. Moody was perhaps the first one who introduced the sinner’s prayer as a means of being converted, I would say, though I don’t know if that’s true exactly, it’s quite possibly true because D.L. Moody’s crusades, you know, quite like the Billy Graham crusades, but, you know, a hundred years earlier – kind of set the tone for American evangelism in the later years and later generations. So it may have been D.L. Moody. There may have been someone before him that did that. Probably the idea of doing that comes from Jesus’ statement about the parable, about the publican and the Pharisee, and the publican said, God be merciful to me, a sinner, and he went home justified. Prior to this form of evangelization, like, for example, Finney, you know, he had great revivals, but in his day… People would not just get saved by saying a sinner’s prayer, generally speaking. They’d come under conviction. Sometimes at the meetings they’d have what they call an anxious bench, where someone who wasn’t quite converted but was feeling convicted would go sit on this bench and be anxious until they were ready to surrender to God. And when they did surrender to God, I don’t know if they said a prayer or if they just… got baptized or what. In the early church, we don’t read of people becoming converted by saying a prayer. They got converted by deciding to be baptized, submitting to baptism. So, you know, there’s, you know, I think saying a sinner’s prayer is I think many people have gotten saved doing that, but only if it corresponds with the kind of response of the inner man to completely surrender to Christ under conviction of the Holy Spirit. Now, that surrender is something that takes place inside. It might be expressed in a prayer. Unfortunately, a person can say a prayer, especially if the evangelist is leading him. Line by line, repeat after me, say it this way. Dear Lord, you know, please, I know I’m a sinner kind of thing. You know, if you’re repeating line by line what somebody’s telling you to say, well, you might be sincere. You might be doing serious business with God. You might actually get converted in that moment. But saying those lines doesn’t guarantee it. In the Bible, nobody ever really got saved and became a Christian, a follower of Christ, a member of the church by simply saying a prayer. They became persuaded, convicted of the truth of the gospel, and they submitted to water baptism. And that was considered their conversion. They repented and believed and were baptized. And again, we don’t read anywhere in the book of Acts of anyone getting saved by saying a sinner’s prayer. It’s never recommended in the epistles or by Jesus or anything. But on the other hand, there’s nothing to preclude a person saying a sinner’s prayer if they’re really getting converted to. So being converted means you’ve changed your direction. You’ve become a follower of Jesus now. And you might pray and then become a follower of Jesus, or you might just become a follower of Jesus without a specific sinner’s prayer. Now, someone might say, well, don’t you have to confess your sins? Don’t you have to repent? You do. You do have to repent. But that’s something you do in your heart, and it shows in your life. You may also say it in a prayer, God, I repent. And that’s fine. I’m not discouraging that. I’m just saying that if you say you repent, but you really don’t, and you don’t change, then no matter how many sinners’ prayers you’ve said, you haven’t converted yet. Conversion is never in the Bible recommended through saying a prayer, though it’s never forbidden either. Well, I’m sorry for all of you who are waiting to go on, and we didn’t get very far. But there’s always Monday if the Lord tarries, so I hope you’ll call back. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener-supported. If you’re interested in helping us stand there, you might want to go to our website. Everything’s free there. But there’s also the donation option at the website, thenarrowpath.com. Have a good weekend. Let’s talk again Monday.
