In this episode of The Narrow Path, Steve Gregg tackles some of the hardest spiritual questions posed by listeners. Dive into discussions around the nature of salvation, as Steve answers whether a tumultuous past can be overcome through faith. Delve into the arcane yet essential discussion on the end times, as Steve sheds light on differing views regarding the Rapture. Finally, explore the debate surrounding Bible history and the formation of scripture, as misconceptions are dissected and clarified for a better understanding of Christian doctrine.
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 with an open phone line so that you can call in with your questions if you have any such questions about the Bible or Christianity. Or maybe you would like to question the opinion of the host about something you’ve heard said before. If you disagree, want to balance comment, feel free to give me a call about that. Now, I’m going to give you the number, but our lines, I must tell you, our lines are all full at the moment. But they are going to be opening up continually through the hour. So if you call randomly in the next, you know, in a few minutes, you’ll probably find that a line or two has opened up. The number is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Now, I have an announcement about tonight, and this is for everybody around the world because this is online. I’ll be interviewed on the subject of modern Israel. Modern Israel and the Bible is the title. A.K. Richardson has a podcast. He’s going to be interviewing me about this tonight at 5 o’clock Pacific time. For him, it’s 7 o’clock. He’s in the central time zone. But wherever you are, you make the calculation. And if it’s at 5 o’clock tonight, which is two hours after this program ends, Pacific time, we will have this live streamed. on YouTube. Now, if you want to go to YouTube and watch it live streamed, we’ve got the link for you there posted at our website, thenarrowpath.com under announcements. Just go down to today’s date, which is June 17th, and you’ll see the link there. Just click on that. That should take you directly to Where the live feed will be, that’s tonight at 5 Pacific Time. And that’s going to be an interview, probably a couple hours, I’m not sure how long it will be, about modern Israel and the Bible. So, if you’re interested in that subject. Now, this weekend I’ve got five times I will be speaking on Saturdays and Sundays. Some different places, for example, Temecula. We have a meeting, a morning men’s Bible study in Temecula. Generally, it happens once a month, the third Saturday of the month. And that’s the case this coming Saturday. That’s in Temecula, 8 o’clock in the morning. And I teach that for men. Now, in the evening, for men and women, I’ll be also in Southern California, speaking this time in Orange County in Buena Park. Now, this meeting is also a monthly meeting. Generally speaking, we’ve interrupted it because of my travels recently. So this Saturday night is Buena Park. We’ll be talking about 2nd and 3rd John, the two epistles, the little short epistles of John. And that’s at 6 o’clock, I believe, this Saturday night. And then on Sunday, I’m speaking three times, all in the same place, the Living Truth Christian Fellowship in Corona, California. I’ll be speaking at the two morning services and the evening service. Now, in the mornings, I’ll be giving the same message both times at 9 o’clock and at 11 o’clock. There’s two services. I was asked if I would speak on the subject why I’m still a Christian. That’s what I’ll be talking about. If you have some friends who are no longer Christians, teenagers that are on the verge of giving up their faith or whatever, this is a message that would be helpful. tailored for that kind of a person, given the reasons why I remain a Christian in spite of all the things that have gone against it, supposedly. and all the arguments and all the atheist books and things like that. So that’s this Sunday morning, 9 o’clock and 11 o’clock. Twice I’ll be giving this message. And then in the evening, same church, which is Christian, excuse me, Living Truth Christian Fellowship in Corona, California. I’ll be speaking at 6.30. It’s a Q&A. So all that stuff is happening right now this week. And if you’d like to, what’s that? I did. Yep. Okay. So we’re going to, uh, you can, you can look at our website, the narrow path.com. If you’d like to find out where and when all of these things are, the addresses, the times, the dates and so forth at the narrow path.com under, um, announcements. All right. We’re going to go to the phone lines now and talk to Tina in Surrey, BC. Hi, Tina. Welcome. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Um, I have a friend. He has a neighbor, and she’s a female, and she smokes marijuana. She’s an alcoholic. She’s a bit of a glutton. She ate a whole pizza one day, a whole large pizza. She has diabetes. She’s 300 pounds, and she was drunk and fell on her arm and broke her arm, and as a result of breaking her arm, she has sciatica now. She screams at people down the hallway, and she got mad at the manager of the building one day, and she almost got evicted, and the manager was shaking his finger at her.
SPEAKER 01 :
So what is your question for me?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I just want to know. He wants to know if a person like that can still be saved. I’ll take my answer off the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
Does the lady claim to be saved?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, she doesn’t.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, so if she doesn’t claim to be saved, she probably is not.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I’m saying can a person like that still be saved?
SPEAKER 01 :
Can they get saved?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, okay. All right, I’d be glad to address that. Yes, a woman who behaves like that is what the Bible refers to as a sinner, which is what we all are before we’re saved. And the Bible says this is a faithful saying that Christ came to die to save sinners, Paul said. And then he said, of whom I am chief. So he indicated that his salvation was remarkable and that he regarded himself to be the chief of sinners. Now, I will say this. He probably is not literally the chief of sinners. I’m sure many people sin more than he did. But the point he was making is that as far as he’s concerned, he’s the chief of sinners. And therefore, he is saying that Christ can save the chief of sinners. Now, even if there’s sinners who are more sinful than he. But that’s beside the point. The purpose of Christ’s coming. was to establish his kingdom, which required that he forgive the sins of those who will be loyal to him, who will turn to him, who will repent and believe in him, and who will enter his kingdom with him. So, you know, forgiveness of sins was the first order of business in getting this purpose fulfilled. So everyone who’s a Christian is forgiven of sin. And in order to be forgiven of sin, you have to have been a sinner. So this woman, you’ve mentioned several things about her that make her seem very much like a sinner, and they’re very much like human beings are in general. Now, I will admit that many sinners are not as obnoxious as this woman appears to be, from your description. But those of us who are not given to obnoxious behavior that offends everyone around us, our sins are somewhat more civilized, perhaps, a little more obscure, perhaps. may be hidden. And so, you know, we’re all sinners. This woman’s sins are, uh, apparently she wears them on her sleeve, uh, as many people do, but also many people who are equally sinful, uh, do not, uh, are not so obvious about their sin, but have secret sins. And therefore all people have the same need, and that is to be forgiven of sin and to be, uh, brought into the family of God and into the kingdom of Christ. And, yes, she can be. Now, she cannot be saved apart from her own will. Every one of us must agree, if we wish to be saved, we must agree to be saved, to be forgiven. And forgiveness comes when we repent of our sins and believe in Christ. Now, repenting means we turn from them. We no longer approve of our sins, and we determine that we’re not going to do that anymore. We won’t be perfect from that point on, of course. Nobody is, but we will be determined to give up those sins and to live a life that’s pleasing to God. And if she could come to that point, Of wanting that and agreeing to that, then yes, she could be saved, just like everybody else can be. Christ wants all to come to repentance. He’s not willing that any should perish. All right, let’s talk to Cassandra from Phoenix, Arizona, who called also yesterday. Hi, Cassandra.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for having me again. My inquiry today is, will we still be married to our spouse in heaven, or is that something that only exists on earth?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, in the resurrection, which isn’t quite the same thing as heaven, resurrection is when Jesus comes back and raises our bodies from the dead and we live with him eternally in a perfect world in perfect bodies. Jesus said in the resurrection, people are not married or given a marriage. And he’s not simply saying that they don’t contract new marriages. he is saying that there is no marriage. Now, how do I know he’s not saying simply, he’s not simply saying that people will not contract new marriages? Well, there will be no new marriages, but the old ones won’t exist either. And the reason we know that is because he was answering the question of the Sadducees who described a woman who had married serially seven brothers. Each brother had died and the next brother had married her. And then that brother died and she married the next one. So, Altogether, she was married to seven men, not all at once, but individually after being widowed as many times. And then she died. Now, they asked her, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? In other words, they’re not asking him whether she will get married again in the resurrection, but whether any of the marriages she has been involved in on earth will be valid in the resurrection. So when Jesus said no, when those who make it into the resurrection, They don’t marry, and they’re not given in marriage, which is a way of saying she’s not going to be with any of them. They’re not going to be married, even though they were married in this life. Now, we don’t know what will be in its place. There are people probably – I know there’s a lot of people. My father was one of them who didn’t like that news because my parents had such a happy marriage. He wanted to be married to her forever. But there are people in much less happy marriages – who probably can hardly wait. You take vows to be with your partner until death parts you. And when death parts you, it parts you permanently. So if your marriage is a horrible one, what person might be happy to hear that they won’t be married to that person forever? Other people who are in happy marriages might be unhappy to hear about it, but they won’t be unhappy at that time because God is not going to deprive us of any pleasure or joy or desire that we have, which he grants us now, he’s not going to say, okay, it was more fun living in this world than it will be in the perfect world, in perfect bodies, you know, when I’ve removed the curse. Obviously, life will be more fulfilling and more enjoyable. And if it is so without marriage, it must be because we will not have such an orientation as to desire to be married. whether our present spouses will be special friends of ours in the next life, in the resurrection or not, we don’t have any information. But there certainly will not be less fulfillment in the resurrection than there is in this life. The opposite is true. So I don’t know what will replace marriage. Obviously, Marriage is a very common and normal thing in this life. God created marriage. God ordained it. God made man to be married so that he would not be alone. God says it’s not good for him to be alone. Of course, when we are in the resurrection, in some other sense, we will not be alone, and it will not be a not good thing. And so we just have to trust that God knows best what it is that will be most fulfilling to us. God is not… planning to lure us into heaven on rosy promises and then surprise us with unhappiness when we get there. In fact, he was in his business about not being married. It’s no surprise he announced it right up front. But he did not assume that would be a deterrent to, you know, God’s best purpose for our lives, which will always be the most fulfilling to us as well. There will be something that replaces it. We don’t know what. But, you know, when we’re little children, we don’t have any idea the kinds of things that will please us when we become adults. The things that are the greatest pleasures for adults, little children hardly have any interest in them at all. And the things that little children are most fascinated with, adults have no interest in at all. I believe that in the resurrection, we will be as different from the way we are now as children are from adults. We will come into a full maturity that we cannot imagine how we would think so differently than we do now. But whatever it is that we find most pleasure in now, if it isn’t the best thing, if it isn’t something that fully developed, perfect people will crave, well, it will probably not be there. Marriage being one of those things. So we just have to trust God that he knows what’s best for us and that he wants what’s best for us. And just like every parent wants nothing but the ultimate happiness of their children, God, who’s a perfect parent, is much more aware than we are of what that state will be and what in that state will make us the most happy. And he will not deprive us of that if we’re his children. So it’s just like when you make decisions for your children. A lot of times they’re not the decisions your children think they’re going to be happy with, but you know these decisions will make them better off in the end and that they’ll be glad you did. And so God’s decisions about what will happen in the next life reflect his knowledge of what we will most appreciate and most enjoy at that time, something we ourselves do not know at the present time. All right. Let’s talk to Tom in Gainesville, Florida. Hi, Tom. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hi. Hi. I love listening to you, and you’re very intelligent. And I don’t want to just do the minimum to get into heaven, but I’m just curious. What is the minimum?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the minimum is the same as the maximum, it seems to me. You will be in heaven if you belong to Christ. And if you don’t belong to Christ, you won’t. The only righteousness anyone has is in Christ. The Bible says in 1 John 5, verses 11 and 12, if I’m not mistaken, it says that this is the message that God has given to us, eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life. He that does not have the Son of God does not have life. So it has nothing to do with there being a minimum and a maximum and a somewhere in the middle for having life with God for eternity. It all comes to everybody who is in Christ. Now, I do believe there are different rewards for different people in heaven and in the resurrection because Jesus told parables about that. Jesus told parables about stewards who were given responsibility in this life. And then depending on how, how, uh, responsible they were with their opportunities, they were rewarded differently when the master came back. And I think that is true of us. Also, when Jesus comes back, different people will receive different rewards and will receive different responsibilities based on, you know, how they, how we stewarded our present ones. Um, But you have to be in Christ to be saved, and it’s all you need to be to be saved. But if you are in Christ, it means you have been given to him. You’ve given yourself to him. You know, the Bible says that we are not our own. We’ve been bought with a price. Christ purchased us. So to belong to Christ, only Christ. It requires that we recognize that and take that seriously, I think, and live according to that reality the best we know how. So having Christ means having a Lord because Jesus is the Lord. Having Christ also means having a Savior because Jesus is Lord and Savior. So having Christ means that you are saved because you have a Savior. and that you are bought because you have a Lord. And so you’ve got privilege and you’ve got responsibility, just like in any human enterprise, so also in the area of salvation.
SPEAKER 12 :
You seem to be saying that it’s not true that some people deserve to be in heaven more than others. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I don’t think anyone deserves to be in heaven. So, I mean, in a sense, that statement is correct. I do believe that there are some people who have done more to earn hell than others have. I mean, there are those who are not Christians who are still the God they do not know. They suspect is out there, and they’re trying to live according to their conscience to not harm other people and things like that. I do think… that the people who are like that are different than people who live their lives to simply selfishly exploit other people and hurt people and they have no conscience and, you know, they harm people. Now, it may be that both groups, if they don’t become Christians, will be in hell. And both groups, if they do become Christians, will be in heaven. I mean, that seems to be the case. But let’s just say, at the judgment, some people who have not come to be in Christ will deserve greater punishment than others will. But I’m not really sure that anyone can be said to have deserved to be in heaven. Only Christ deserves to be in heaven. And those who are in Christ will share with him in it.
SPEAKER 12 :
But someone does deserve to be in hell, is that correct?
SPEAKER 01 :
All of us do, I think. I mean, well, at least we deserve the penalty of sin. If hell is the penalty for sin, then we all deserve it because we’re all sinners. However, forgiveness of sin is what is offered.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, it’s just grace.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. It’s just grace, right, that we’re in heaven? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
I really appreciate it. Okay, Tom. Thanks for your call. Larry from Dallas, Texas. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you, Brother Steve. My question is about the controversy between Peter being the rock and Jesus Christ the rock of the church. What I believe is that Jesus Christ is the rock of the church just because of 1 Corinthians 10.1. which says, to summarize it, that the Israelites were in the desert, that the rock that followed them was Christ. And also, I’ve read that the word Peter is like a small pebble that can be tossed away really easily. And then also, like in Psalm 62, it talks about about the strong rock that we depend on, and I can see Jesus in that too. But I have somebody that is a bone of contention, somebody else that I’m talking to that believes that Peter is the rock. So what say you?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, of course, the controversy is over the verse in Matthew 16 where Jesus is speaking to Peter, and he says to Peter, Peter, you are Peter, which literally means a rock. And he said, and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So that’s verse 18, Matthew 16, 18. So when he said that, Peter, your name is Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock, I’ll build my church. Now, what did Jesus mean, upon this rock, I’ll build my church? Now, Peter’s name being rock, has caused Roman Catholics in particular to believe that he’s saying he’ll build his church upon Peter. Well, there is a sense in which that’s true because Peter is one of the 12 apostles. And Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, right at the end of the chapter, he says that we are the church. We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. So Peter is one of the apostles. And if we’re built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone, then I guess that would mean that the church is kind of built on him and the other 11, not just him. Now, the Catholic Church thinks that it’s especially him, that it’s just him. And they believe he was the first bishop of Rome, and therefore they believe every bishop of Rome since Peter has been in the same office that Peter held and that the whole church answers to him. But Jesus didn’t talk about the church answering to him. He said the church would be built upon him. Jesus laid the foundation of the church when he was here, and the church is built on top of that foundation. That doesn’t speak at all of the continuing activity of that foundation. When you build a building, you lay the foundation one time, then you build on top of it. Paul said that he had laid the foundation in Corinth, and that other people came and built on that foundation of the church. The apostles… are the foundational members of the church, and the church is built upon them. Now, what did Peter think about this? Did Peter say that he was the rock that the church was built on? Well, actually, if you read 1 Peter, he actually says a lot about rocks. He quotes several passages about rock. And it starts at 1 Peter 2.4. Peter said, We are coming to Christ as to a living stone. So Christ is the stone. Rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious. You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is also contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. Peter is, of course, quoting Isaiah 28, 16, where it actually says, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, and it’s Christ. So Christ is the foundation. Peter did not seem to know of himself being the foundation. He probably knew that he and the other apostles were foundational. But he did not say, look, I’m the foundation here. I’m the stone that’s built. No, Jesus is the stone. He’s the foundation, he said, by quoting Isaiah 20, 16. And then he says, therefore, to you who believe, he is precious. But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Now, here he’s quoting another Old Testament verse, Psalm 118, verse 22. And then he said in verse 8, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. There he’s quoting Isaiah chapter 8. So he quotes like two passages from Isaiah, one from Psalms, all of them about stones. And he said that Jesus is that stone. He also quotes there one of those verses where God says he’s going to lay this stone for a foundation, for a foundation to the church. The church is built on that stone, Jesus. Of course, the apostles are part of Jesus, too. Anyway, I need to take a break here, but I’m going to say Jesus is the foundation stone of the church, not Peter himself. But in a different sense, the first stones laid upon which the rest of the church is built are the 12 apostles. That includes Peter, but there’s nothing that would put Peter ahead of the others. All right, I appreciate your call. I’m going to have to take a break here, and we will come back for another half hour. Don’t go away. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener-supported. You can go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, if you wish to see how to support us. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away. We have another half hour.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, I’ll be glad to talk to you. You can call this number, 844-484-5737. Once more, that’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Alex in Kent, Washington. Hi, Alex. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling. Hello, Steve. How are you doing? Good.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, I have two questions. So my first question is… In Proverbs, it says pride goes before destruction. And in America, everyone tends to say, oh, like we’re proud to be Americans. And so I want to know what your thought is on that. And then I have another question about using guns, like as Christians. So in Matthew, Jesus said to one of the people that were with him when he cut off the servant’s ear, he said, all who take the sword will perish by the sword. And some people like to use that as a reason for not owning guns. However, I think if a Christian puts their trust into their gun for self-defense, then I think they tend to lose trust in God. So what’s your thought on that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, yeah, as far as the pride part, the proverb says, pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. So pride is, this is poetry, the two statements are parallel to each other. So what he means by pride is a haughty spirit. Both of them come before destruction or a fall. So pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. is basically saying a haughty person, an arrogant person, is setting himself up for disaster and for humiliation. Now, what about being proud of your country or proud of your kids or proud of your parents? I mean, is there anything wrong with that? Well, that depends. Do you have a haughty spirit about it? If you do, then that’s what I think the Proverbs is saying. The more haughty you are, the more you’re setting yourself up for a downfall. Now, when we say I’m haughty, when I say I’m proud, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m haughty. If I’m proud of my children because they do well, or I’m proud of, you know, my wife because she has done some accomplishment that she’s getting recognition for, and I’m proud of her. It’s not really, I mean, it’s not necessarily arrogance. It’s more like just taking pleasure in the fact that they have done well. Am I proud of America? Well, I mean, I don’t usually use that word, though. There would be some things that I think are worthy of being proud of America about it and some things not so much. But I would say I’m certainly grateful for being in America. I can’t think of anywhere else in the world that’s probably a better place all around to be. Am I proud of the founders of our nations? Well, they did show. tremendous courage, they showed tremendous wisdom in what they wrote. I guess I could say I’m proud of them. That kind of pride is not the same thing as pride in my own accomplishments or pride in who I am because, of course, I might have a very high view of the founders of this nation, but the credit doesn’t come to me. I’m not them. I didn’t do what they did. You know, so to say I’m proud, that’s obviously a different kind of meaning to being proud. Usually it just means that I have great admiration for them or I’m pleased with them, something like that. In which case, I don’t think there’s any more. If that’s all that someone means, I’m proud to be an American. If what they mean is, I think it’s, you know, I’m awfully privileged to be an American. I’m thankful to be an American. I’m pleased to be an American. and I’m proud of America in the sense that I think it has some great virtues. I wouldn’t say that everything about America is virtuous, certainly not, but there are some great virtues compared to other places. So we use the word pride in that other sense very differently because the pride that is sinful, is the pride where I’m seeking credit for something. It may be something I deserve credit for or something I don’t deserve credit for at all, but I want the credit anyway. And, you know, it puffs me up. Now, you know, if I have that kind of pride about having, you know, my ancestors came over on the Mayflower or I have pride in being born in America, I think Well, how is that something that I had anything to do with? I mean, if I think that makes me better than somebody else, I think this is the kind of pride that’s sinful, is where whatever it is you’re saying you’re proud of is something you think makes you better than someone else, that you should get some credit for it. And obviously, when people say they’re proud of America, probably they’re not taking credit for America. They’re probably just… I’m glad to be here. Now, you had a question about guns. Jesus did say to Peter, Peter, put away your sword. They who live by the sword will die by the sword. Now, what does that mean? That’s definitely not a universal truth because not everyone who is a soldier dies in battle. He speaks as if it’s a universal thing. Whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword. Well, lots of people have lived by the sword who died other ways and not by the sword. So he’s stating something that’s either not absolute or it’s absolute in the circumstances he’s talking about. One commentator I knew, A.B. Bruce, surprised me years ago when I was reading about this because I’d never heard this suggested, but he could be right. He thought that Jesus was simply saying to Peter, hey, if we in this situation try to live by the sword, any of us who do that will just die by the sword because we’re outnumbered here. I mean, these soldiers who have come to pick us up in the garden here, we’ve got two swords. They’ve got a whole group. You know, I mean, if we try to survive by bringing out the sword, it’s guaranteed we’ll die by the sword from these people. And his statement could have been simply applicable to the situation they were in at that moment without intending to say, and this is true of everybody who ever lives by the sword, they’ll always die by the sword. That’s not true. Although it would often be true, obviously, I mean, a person who depends on, you know, weapons for their survival rather than on God, often will come to a bad end. I mean, the Psalms tell us that. Isaiah tells us that. That trusting in weapons, trusting in horses and chariots is a foolish thing to do. They won’t save you. So, I mean, the statement may well have applied in the first instance simply to the disciples and Jesus under arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane where he said that. And it may have, of course, many other applications where it would also be true, but it may not have been intended to be a universal principle because if it was, then he’s mistaken. And he knew he was mistaken because he certainly knew of many people who did not die in war until they went to war. So I think we have to take him in his context and probably not extend it too far beyond what he intended. Now, about guns. Guns and swords, they’re kind of similar. I mean, in a way. I mean, what swords were to them, guns often are. In our modern age, we don’t carry swords anymore, but a lot of people carry guns. The soldiers and the policemen in Israel carried swords, where today’s policemen and soldiers carry guns. And by the way, obviously civilians carried swords too, as Peter showed there in the garden. He drew a sword and tried to defend Jesus. So civilians carrying weapons is not always, apparently, is not wrong because Jesus didn’t say, Peter, what are you doing with that sword? You’re one of my disciples. We don’t carry swords. No, he just said, put your sword back into its sheath. This is not a good time. This is not a good time to use it. Now, when we talk about should Christians have guns, I guess I want to say, for what? Well, you know, there are certainly very innocent uses of guns. Guns are used in sporting a lot. Some people have great fun shooting, you know, clay pigeons with their shotguns or going to the shooting range and shooting targets. and they never do anything with their gun that’s bad. Of course, many people have guns because they hunt. You know, when I lived in Idaho on the edge of a forest, when we went into deep forest, I carried a gun because there were bears there, and there were cougars, and there were things there that, you know, I’d rather take them out than have them take me out. There’s a lot of reasons to have a weapon. The question is, what do you want to do with it? There’s no sin in owning one or even having one on your person. But there would be sinful uses of it that should be avoided and presumably a number of non-sinful uses. So whether a Christian should have a gun or not, to my mind, I don’t know. Should they have a baseball bat? Should a Christian have a baseball bat? Well, I don’t know. Are they playing baseball or are they going to take it out and beat people’s heads in with it? Well, I don’t think a baseball bat is itself a bad thing any more than a gun is. or a bow and arrow. Some people have bows and arrows, but they’re not using them. They’re not planning to go out and murder people with them, generally speaking. So there are murderous things that some people do with guns, and there are innocent and just things that people do with guns. The gun itself, I can’t really see how it would be forbidden any more than having a rock in your front yard that you could pick up and throw at somebody or crack them over the head with. I mean, There’s plenty of things in the world you can do harm with. It’s not a sin for those things to exist. It’s a sin for you to do harm. That is unlawful and unjustly. Is it wrong for a person to use a gun to defend their family? Well, there certainly are Christians who think that we should never defend any family members because we should turn the other cheek. But I don’t think that they’re understanding what Jesus said when he spoke about turning the other cheek properly. And I do think that a man ought to defend innocent people. It was always expected to be done in the Old Testament, and I don’t read of anything in the New Testament that indicates otherwise. To help the innocent, to protect the helpless, these are good things. So, you know, all I can say is having a gun is not a moral or immoral thing to do. You might be a hunter. You might be trying to chase off the coyotes from your sheep, you know, or you might want to defend your home against intruders, or you might be a murderer. Obviously, not all of those things are good. Some of them are very bad. Some not. So I wouldn’t stigmatize the gun itself. It has to do with what someone plans to do with it. All right. Let’s talk to Ruth from British Columbia, Canada. Hi, Ruth. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi. Hi. I heard you say to one caller that you are not pre-trib. You used to be at one time, but you aren’t anymore. Could you please explain that to me?
SPEAKER 01 :
Why? Yeah, well, the reason I was pre-trib is because before I ever had studied the Bible, I sat under teachers who taught me that the Bible is pre-tribulational, that the Bible teaches that there’s a seven-year tribulation before Jesus comes back, And before that tribulation begins, Christ is going to rapture the church into the sky and we will be gone during that seven years. So that’s why I believed it. The reason I don’t believe it now is because I have studied the Bible now without the help of those teachers and actually read what it says and found out it doesn’t anywhere say that. In fact, some of the things it says are quite the opposite of that. Jesus said, for example, he’s going to raise his people up on the last day. But the pre-trib rapture view holds that he’s not going to raise us up on the last day. He’s going to raise us up seven years before the last day or maybe a thousand and seven years before if they’re premillennial. So so there’s I’m going to go with what Jesus said about that. There’s nothing in the Bible that ever said the rapture would be before the tribulation. But there’s certainly things in the Bible that say that the rapture will happen on the last day. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4 that the rapture will come at the coming of the Lord, at the day of the Lord. When the day of the Lord comes, that’s when we’ll be raptured. Now, Peter said at the day of the Lord, the heavens are going to be dissolved and the earth is going to melt with a fervent heat. And we’re looking for new heavens, new earth. So if at the day of the Lord, that’s when the rapture is. and that’s also when the earth is going to melt and vanish and be replaced, then clearly there’s not some more years after the rapture before all that happens. So the general teaching of Scripture is that there’s an important day at the end when Jesus comes back. It’s the Lord’s day, the day of Christ, the day of God, Peter calls it. The last day is what Jesus called it. And this is the day when the dead will be raised and everyone will be judged. and the earth will be burned up, and there will be new heavens and new earth. That’s the day Jesus comes back. And every place in the Bible that mentions the rapture associates it with the day that Jesus comes back. So that’s what I believe it will be.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, thank you. I just also want to say a big thank you for the last caller that you gave the explanation for pride. That’s the best explanation of pride.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, my goodness. I pushed your button. I didn’t. I accidentally hung up on you, Ruth. I apologize. That seems very rude of me, and I honestly did not want to do that. I accidentally swept the screen and hit the button accidentally. Please forgive me, but I thank you for the compliment that you were in the process of giving, which is another reason I don’t like to cut someone off until they finish complimenting me. But I appreciate it. Thank you very much, and perhaps we’ll talk again next time you have a question. God bless you. Okay, let’s talk to Jerry from Reseda, California. Jerry, welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. You know, I would kind of sit back a little bit here. I talked to someone today who read an article, and I had two questions, and I would sit back. And so my first question would be about that. My other question would be… Wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER 01 :
Your first question was about being set back by reading an article? I don’t know what the subject was. Well, I was set back. In other words, I was shocked.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so what was it about? Yes, it was about that, I guess in 325 or so, that when they had that council, I guess it was the Nicene Council, I’m not sure… And he said, the article said that, well, who was it again? Constantine, I think, said that he was the one who put the Gospels in place.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, well, let me just stop you there. Okay, that is a lie. That is a lie. You don’t have to worry about that. Constantine didn’t have anything to say about which Gospels are. That information comes from the novel and movie called The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code is entirely fiction. It’s entirely misleading. And it claims there were hundreds of Gospels out there, but Constantine in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, that he cut out all the other Gospels and only allowed those four to be there. But Dan Brown, who wrote that novel, said it was fiction. And when he was called on the carpet for all the lies, the historical lies that he told, he said, well, I just said it was fiction. He’s not going to stand by anything he said because it wasn’t true. The truth is, the truth is, that 150 years before Constantine, or possibly more than that, all four of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were accepted as the only four Gospels by the entire church. We know this because in the year 170 AD, Irenaeus, and around the same time another man named Tatian, recognized and said Well, Irenaeus said that those four Gospels were universally accepted as the true Gospels by all the churches worldwide and always had, and they accepted no others. Okay, so this is 170 A.D., which is obviously 155 years before the Council of Nicaea. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Because that answers the question. When were the actual, all the books of the Bible, that is, yeah, the Old Testament and New Testament, the 27 New Testament books compiled together into one book?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, that happened in stages. The Old Testament books were collected by the Jews because it was their Bible, the Tanakh, the Old Testament. And they gathered the books and They had included their books as early as 275 or 278 B.C. when they began to put together the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. They already had all the books of the Old Testament in it. They also added other books, but they didn’t necessarily consider them part of the Bible. But the Jewish collection of Old Testament books was in place long before Jesus was born. Now, the New Testament books, of course, were all written after Jesus had died and gone back to heaven. They were all written within a generation of Jesus’ death. But the selection of them into a collection that we call the New Testament was not made instantaneously. Some of the books, about 20 out of the 27, were accepted by the whole church instantly, including the four Gospels and Acts and the Epistles of Paul, 1 Peter, you know, and some of the others. There were about 20 of the New Testament books that were accepted immediately when they were written. There were about seven which later generations weren’t sure about their authorship. Hebrews, which was written anonymously. Revelation was written by someone named John, but it doesn’t say which John, and there were different opinions about which John wrote it. Second and third John were written anonymously by somebody who called himself the elder. James and Jude were held in question. And 2 Peter was thought perhaps not to have been written really by Peter. I mean, there were opinions about that out there. And because the church didn’t fully agree about some of those books, those books were called disputed books for a couple of centuries. So, you know, the New Testament came together in stages, but by 397 at the Council of Carthage, all the 27 books were recognized universally. Now, all of them had been recognized by some of the churches in the world from earlier times. In fact, every one of the books of the New Testament were accepted by some churches right from the beginning. It’s just that there were a few books that some of the churches weren’t sure about and some were. And those were the ones that were considered disputed until finally the whole group of bishops pretty much agreed on them in almost as late as 400 A.D. But it’s not as if those books suddenly took on a new authority at that time because all of the books had been used as scripture in churches around the world, just not all the churches since they were written. So the books were all written in the first century. And, you know, the first, about 20 out of 27 were universally recognized right from the beginning because the early Christians knew who wrote them. But later, some of the anonymous ones, they weren’t sure about. And so that was something that had to be, that was a list that developed over some time. Okay, let’s talk to Slavic from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Hi, Slavic.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi. Yesterday, I was reading the accounts of David and Goliath, and I noticed a detail that happened before. I guess I did notice that stone that killed Goliath, but it immobilized him, and then David came up and drew Goliath’s sword and slayed him and killed him with the sword and cut off his head. And that… After reading that, something clicked in my mind, and I thought maybe a typology of that. You know, we know that David is a type of Christ, but namely the stone first and then the sword. In the vision, you know, Daniel, the vision of the statue, the stone that was cut out, not by hand, you know, and struck the statue at the feet. Yes, uh-huh. Yeah, you know, it says, you know, I guess symbolizes Christ and his kingdom, you know, and it grows and fills the earth. Then we read in Revelation that the Christ ultimately will destroy the enemy. So what’s your question?
SPEAKER 01 :
We’re really running out of time. What’s your question?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I was wondering, do you think that this is a plausible typology of Christ first coming first? He came to disarm the principalities, you know, with his kingdom, him being the stone, you know, setting up the kingdom. And then in the second coming, when he slays the enemies and, you know, with the sword of his mouth, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s not impossible. That’s not an impossible way to look at it. All right. Thank you very much. Let me see if I can get another caller in here before we’re out of time. We’re almost out. Patrick from Torrance, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, how are you doing, brother?
SPEAKER 01 :
Good.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, the question has to do with Arminianism and Wesleyanism and basically the Atonement. My understanding, after doing some reading, is Wesleyan definitely held to substitutionary Atonement. However… Many of his followers and most Arminians hold to a theory of governmental atonement rather than substitutionary atonement.
SPEAKER 01 :
I know that Albert Barnes did, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Go ahead. What exactly is that governmental theory of atonement?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it’s frankly the most obscure of the five or six views of the atonement out there. It’s sometimes called the public justice view. And the idea is that while Jesus might not have paid an exact amount for a precise transaction of paying the penalty for sin, he did cover the problem by dying as an act of public justice, which his death would be illustrating publicly that it’s because of sin, and it shows that sin requires just penalty, and Jesus is there. His death is the example of the justice of God in allowing sin to be punished this way. Now, I don’t know all the ins and outs of it. I’ve read several different views of the atonement. And I’ve even read that one. Albert Barnes wrote a book years ago. Of course, he’s been dead for years. But, you know, about the public justice view, the government view. And I read it years ago back in the 70s. And I have to say there were parts of it I couldn’t quite process well, which means – I’m not really sure I’d be a good man to really represent its details because much of it is unclear to me. I will say this, though. The controversy over the atonement is one that has existed for centuries among Christians, which means that there’s not just one view of the atonement that Christians have always held. Right. One of the oldest views of the atonement, apparently, was the Christus Victor view, which was that through death, Jesus conquered Satan, which is, of course, is biblically true. But that doesn’t rule out other possible accomplishments through the death of Christ, too, including the ransom view or the, you know, substitutionary, you know, Jesus standing in and taking the punishment for others or even the moral government view that is the moral influence view. There’s just quite a few different views. And my consideration is that all of them or many of them have some support biblically and may all be true. I’m not sure why one act on the part of Jesus couldn’t accomplish a great number of things. And that’s what I think is probably the case. But as far as fully explaining all the apologetics for each view, I don’t feel like I’m really capable of doing that because, first of all, I don’t care that much. because, I mean, God understands it, and that’s the only important thing that I understand is never required, that God does. But it’s also very complicated. I’m sorry I can’t do better than that. I’m obviously out of time. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
