Mental health within a spiritual context takes center stage as listeners call in with personal experiences and inquiries. From understanding the intersection of demonic influence and mental disorders to the significant question of women’s roles in church leadership, this episode promises an insightful perspective on how scriptural interpretations influence modern Christian practice.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path Radio Broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live for an hour, taking your calls as usual. We do this Monday through Friday and have been doing it Monday through Friday for 28 years. That’s a lot of years, a lot of programs. And I’ve heard in that time a lot of questions. The purpose of the program is for you to call in with any questions you have about the Bible or the Christian faith. And obviously we have many thousands of them that have been asked in before. A good chance the question you have has come up before, but that should not deter you from asking it if it is indeed something that you’ve never heard the answer to before. I might mention that there is a website called Matthew 713, which is kind of an adjunct of our own website, which is thenarrowpath.com. But Matthew713.com, somebody has gone to the great pains of taking over 25,000 questions that have been called into this program in the past. and making a topical index where you can actually go to the website, put in a topic, and multiple questions on the subject that have been asked in the past will come up. And I think there’s about 2,000 subjects and about 25,000 calls or questions where those subjects have been addressed. So, you know, it’s overwhelming, but, you know, if you’re interested – In knowing if your question has been asked before and answered on this program, feel free either to look it up there at Matthew713.com or call in today and we’ll talk about it here. I don’t mind talking about things that have come up before. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. All right, and I do want to remind our listeners, and if you listen regularly, you know this, I am coming to the Midwest. I’ll be speaking an 11-day itinerary in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the middle of next month from the 16th to the 26th of August. If you live in those areas and are interested in coming to one of our meetings, you can find the time and place listed at our website, That’s thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says announcements. All right. If you’d like to be on the program today, the number is 844-484-5737. And our first caller today is Jim calling from Sacramento, California. Jim, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, Steve. And I think, first of all, we should be, if you caught the Salem Radio News at the top of the hour, praying for the people about 136 miles east of me in Reno. They had a horrendous shooting at one of the casinos in Reno today.
SPEAKER 07 :
I only heard the headline just before the program. I did not hear the details. Yes, amen. It seems like these things are going on all the time these days. Well, Jim, your voice is kind of faint, and as usual when you call, there’s a lot of clicking on the line. I don’t know if you’re in a bad location, but go ahead and share your question.
SPEAKER 05 :
I
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Yeah, I know you’re in the hospital. All right. Well, I’m surprised that it’s not clearer. But go ahead with your question.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes. I’ve been reading our former associate pastor of St. Asgard’s doctoral dissertation book, The American Lutheranism of Gerard Spurgeon. And Pastor Phil Hooper, the author of the book, makes the case of Luther being pietistic. And as I’ve read the book, I think I’ve come to understand that pietism means something along the same line of what is kind of called Pentecostal holiness. Is that a correct understanding?
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s not what I understand pietism to mean. Pietism was a movement that grew out of Lutheranism, I would not have referred to Luther himself as a pietist, but I’m not really sure what the boundaries are of that particular movement. It’s basically associated with Luther and his followers, though, and it has to do with them being demonstrably religious in their lives, which, of course, the Roman Catholic Church which is before Luther’s time, did not necessarily require people to live a pious life. It required them to simply come to Mass and so forth. And, you know, it did not… Sure, I mean, Catholicism had its rules and its morals, but the idea was if you break them, that’s kind of okay. You can just go make confession, say the proper number of Hail Marys and so forth, and all will be well. Whereas… Luther and those who followed him who were not strictly Lutheran, but who were pietists themselves, believed that you have to live out your life in a pious way. I think of the Moravians under Count von Zinzendorf as a typical pietistic movement in Germany. But anyway, yeah, I didn’t know that people would say that Luther himself was a pietist. I suppose it’s a broad category for people. for people who would believe that living a pious, that is a God-centered and moral and religious life, is very important. Now, of course, the Catholics had people called monks, monastics, who set themselves apart for pious living, but they were separated from society. In the Catholic tradition, a monk… was a man who was called a religious. You’ll find it when you read, for example, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Akempis. He refers to his fellow monks as the noun a religious person. And, of course, they lived a very pious life, but they didn’t live it in the midst of society. Whereas the Protestant Reformation argued that you don’t have to be a monk. to be devoted to God, that virtually every calling in life should be seen as a divine calling. If you’re a shoemaker, if you’re a carpenter, if you raise sheep, whatever, you can do it all to the glory of God. And that’s part of the Reformation’s contribution to religious thought in the West. is that the Catholics thought, well, yes, some people are called to live a really righteous life, but they have to get away from common callings like just the ordinary making a living and having children to raise and things like that. And that was so in Catholicism, such people who wanted to be really devoted moved off into a monastery somewhere to do it and to avoid all the temptations and the entanglements of the world. Luther believed that what I just referred to as entanglements of the world are actually responsibilities that Christians have to conduct themselves for the glory of God. And that would be, I suppose, the underlying foundation of what they call pietism. Though, I have to say, there are certain groups… in history that I have associated with pietism, and the Moravians are one group that’s particularly so, I’m not really sure that I could tell you what the perimeters or the defining characteristics are of pietism. But according to what I was just describing, I would say Luther did fit into that category and maybe was the founder of it. Thank you for your call. Matthew from New Jersey. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, Steve, thanks for taking the call. I called in last week, and it was towards the end of the show, so I think the answer was kind of rushed, and I may need to try a second chance at it, if you don’t mind.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
So my question was regarding 1 Samuel 15, verse 35. Okay. From the NIV, until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again. Though Saul mourns for him, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. In the NIV, in Genesis 6-6, the word regretted is used again, that the Lord had regretted making man. In the New King James, it’s not regretted, it’s the Lord was sorry. What I’m ultimately driving at here is the notion of God regretting being regretful of a decision that you made. When I asked this last week, you kind of, almost as if I asked the question, how did God not know? Like he asked Cain, where’s Abel? And I was, maybe it’s the same answer to the question, but I just felt like with a little more time, if you wouldn’t mind expounding on why I’m having a hard time wrapping my arms around God making a decision and then later on down the road regretting that he had made that decision.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, yeah, it’s not really any different than Genesis chapter 6 where it says that God saw that the evil of man was great on the earth and the thoughts and intents of the hearts were only evil continually. And it says God repented or regretted that he had made man and he had sorrow at his heart. My understanding is this. Some people read that and they say, well, I guess God didn’t know this was going to happen. Well, or he did, but he was sorry that it did. I mean, not everything happens the way God would like it to happen. Now, to say he was surprised that it happened would be to question his omniscience. But to say he knew it happened, but it still made him sorry when it did, to my mind, that makes sense. I mean, if somebody I loved was on death row and I knew they were going to be put to death, and I knew this in advance, maybe for years in advance, and then they finally were put to death, it would still make me sorry. It might not surprise me. It might be something I had been aware of for years was going to happen, but it still makes me sorry when it happens. In fact, frankly, if I watch a good movie that I’ve seen before, and it’s got a poignant scene that gets me choked up, sometimes they do, And if I watch it a second or third time, I know that scene is coming up. But when that event happens, I’m still sorry that it happened simply because I’m in the moment, you know, in the movie or we live as time is going by. There may be things that we knew for sure were going to happen, but they’re still not happy things. And we are. When we see them happen, they make us sorry. I don’t think that God was surprised that man became as evil as they became before the flood, and I don’t believe that God was surprised that Saul went the wrong way. I personally do believe that God knows the future. Now, I don’t remember your call earlier, but I probably mentioned that people who hold to the openness theology would suggest that maybe God didn’t know that. And so he was sorry and surprised at the same time. To my mind, you don’t have to be surprised to be sorry. Things that are not at all surprising can make you sorry when they happen. And so, you know, I believe that when God is communicating with human beings who definitely are bound to The sequence of chronological time and he’s relating with them. It’s as if he’s going through that with them. That is, he’s going through history alongside them or with them. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t stand above it all and know all that’s going to happen. But it does mean that he’s, you know, let’s just say engaged. He’s engaged. And as things happen that are sorrowful things, he feels sorry for them. And, you know, not to say he wished he hadn’t made Saul King. That is, of course, a slightly different angle on it. But I consider that to be just as anthropomorphic. That’s when it says that God regretted that he made man on the earth at the time of the flood. I think. I think we’re given some idea here about how God’s emotions were about it. And anthropomorphism. is a way of describing God as if he was one of us and describing his emotions or his actions as we would describe those of a man in the same situation. That’s anthropomorphic language, and it’s used throughout Scripture of God. So we might say, well, I don’t know why they use that kind of language. Well, I don’t either, frankly. When we read the Bible, we’re not reading a modern book. We’re reading a book written by people in an ancient society and different culture and different ways of expressing things and anthropomorphic language, both for God and other things that aren’t human, but speaking of them as if they are human, like trees clapping their hands, for example, or the fields rejoicing. You know, those things are anthropomorphisms. And, you know, that’s simply the style of writing that biblical writers use. You know, we could complain about it, saying that confuses me. Apparently it didn’t confuse the people of the time, and I don’t think it should confuse us much once we take into account that this is how they did speak on many occasions. So anyway, that may not be an adequate answer for you, but that’s probably the same answer I gave you before, though I don’t remember.
SPEAKER 10 :
This one was a little more direct. We were up against it last time I asked you. We’re right up against the end of the show. Steve, as always, appreciate it, man. God bless you, brother.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, Matthew. God bless you. Thanks for calling. Jeff, also from Sacramento. Our second call from Sacramento out of three calls. Hello, Jeff. Welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hello. Thanks. I just want to say, first of all, I do not blame everything on demons. There’s some groups that do, but I do believe I’ve seen people manifest demons. But the question is related to, in the Bible you’ve got, it talks a lot about against pride and also use the word madness. But of course it doesn’t talk about, it doesn’t use the terms like narcissism or other mental disorders. I have studied more about the Bible, but I have studied about mental disorders. My question is, one, have you studied… Anything about mental disorders, and especially like narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder? Because I’ve known people that actually have been diagnosed or would be diagnosed.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, yeah, when it comes to mental disorders, that has not been a subject of formal study on my part. However… It is something I’ve read a lot about because it’s very concerning to me as a person who has to minister to the needs of people as a Christian. And therefore, for many decades, I have been paying attention to what psychologists and psychiatrists say about human behavior, most of which I disagree with their conclusions about. I mean, many times psychologists say that those kinds of behaviors… are due to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Well, that’s one person’s guess. And if someone says, no, that’s not guessing, they can actually do a brain scan and they can see the portions of the brain, you know, lighting up different colors and so forth on the scan, going along with certain thought processes or emotions. Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that the brain is causing those emotions. Maybe the emotions are causing the brain’s reaction. We don’t know. I mean, we could guess either way, and we would not approve either point. I think, you know, we do know that physiological things are sometimes caused by emotions and choices. I believe that anger and bitterness send toxins into our bodies, and And if we’re greatly alarmed in a situation, adrenaline, you know, shoots into us in large amounts and sometimes causes people to do amazing things. But the fact is that emotions can cause the physiological activity as much as the physiological activity can cause the emotions. So all I can say is I have read a fair amount on this. In fact, I have a series of lectures called… Biblical Counsel for a Change. And the first four lectures, I think, there’s eight of them. I do talk about the opinions of psychiatrists and psychologists and quote them and critique them in some ways. I won’t say that psychologists are always wrong or that psychiatrists are always wrong. I will say, though, that many times they do not take into consideration the spiritual aspects of things. You mentioned that you’ve seen demon possession manifest. So have I numerous times. And there’s no question in my mind that much aberrant behavior, is caused by demonic influence in people. However, most naturalistic scientists and doctors and psychiatrists, they don’t believe in supernatural things, so they don’t believe in demons. Therefore, they see these behaviors and they have to, you know, almost artificially give them some kind of a naturalistic label and explanation. And so we have labels for behaviors now. And we should realize that, you know, there are, I guess, what we call syndromes, although syndrome is a medical term. There are simply, what should we say, clusters of behaviors that are, you know, that are found in certain groups of people. And we can give names to those clusters. We can call someone a paranoid schizophrenic. We can call them a narcissist. We can call them… A hedonist, we can call them, you know, depressive or bipolar. You know, we can give names to these things. We can talk about the attention deficit disorder. All of these things are common labels in the psychiatric community or the mental health community. But what they’re talking about is behavior. Now, see, disease is something you have. Behavior is something you do. So if you’re doing something that is inconvenient for the people who are caring for you or dangerous to you, or if you’re involved in behavior that’s bad and harmful behavior, then people might call that a mental illness, whether it’s got any actual pathology involved or not physically. Now, I do believe… that there are physiological things that often affect behavior in a negative way. I think thyroid conditions, that is a lack of thyroid, can be supplemented, just like insulin can be supplemented by a diabetic. Now, the difference is that a diabetic needing insulin isn’t necessarily behaving erratically. A person needing thyroid… Infusions probably, well, sometimes does act strangely. Same thing with people who might be, I don’t know, just depleted of sugar or sleep or some other things. So I know there’s physiological things, including brain tumors and such, that cause bizarre behavior at times. But I don’t believe that we can consign all such things. A demon-possessed person that is levitating, for example, or that is speaking with several languages out of the same throat at the same time, unlearned languages, or a person out of whom a demon can be cast and it goes in. These are not psychiatric concerns. These are alien personalities that the Bible calls demons. And so I have, yeah, I have studied those things. And you might be interested, again, in my series of lectures, which goes into this considerably, called Biblical Counsel for a Change. If you go to thenarrowpath.com, look under topical lectures, you’ll see there’s a series called Biblical Counsel. And if you listen to those lectures, you’ll have a more complete treatment of those things than I can give you right here in this format. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. It’s good talking to you. Okay. Joe from Massachusetts. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes. Hi. Hi, Steve. I love your show, The Narrow Path. I’m in the car. Please forgive me. I love your path and your mind of Christ. Thank you for being so into the Bible that you help feed us. Thank you so much for that. I just have a question. What happened to the tree of life, please, after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, eating? That’s number one. And number two, just to what the call you just had, the Lord Jesus Christ actually delivered me and healed me from clinical depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia. When I said yes to Christ, I didn’t even know you could be healed from this stuff, but And I was actually being possessed. I’m living proof of that. But with Christ and his Holy Word and the Holy Spirit and the blood of Christ, he’s delivering me from all that and then some.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s wonderful, brother. I need to jump in here because we’re going to be cut off by a break. But that’s a great testimony. And I have known many people who were diagnosed with certain kinds of alleged mental illnesses and were, depending on a lot of meds, And and we’re delivered by God. Now, I’m not going to tell anybody to go off their meds because I’m not competent to that. I don’t know your problems. Your doctor would maybe at least take no more than I would. But, yeah, I mean, I’ve known a lot of people who went off their meds were delivered by God. They obviously didn’t have a physical malady at all. It was more of a behavioral malady, a spiritual malady. I think a lot of what’s considered to be mental health issues are really spiritual issues. As far as the tree of life is concerned, it only existed in the Garden of Eden, and it was only available to be eaten from before man sinned. Because a man who is made mortal could have lived forever by eating continually from the tree of life. But God said, but if you eat of the other tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you’re going to die. And what that really meant was when they ate of the wrong tree, God cut them off from access to the tree of life. And sin has therefore cut people off from that tree of life until, of course, Christ came. Christ is our tree of life. He said, whoever eats me. will never die. And we see in Revelation 22, I think it’s verse 3 or thereabouts, it says that the tree of life is there in the New Jerusalem. So I don’t know that it’s literally the tree of life that was in the Garden of Eden or not, or if it’s just symbolically saying access to eternal life is available in Christ there as it was available in the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. In any case, I don’t believe the tree of life is anywhere on the planet. I believe that it was probably just died off or it was destroyed. And in any case, the flood of Noah uprooted probably virtually every tree on the planet. I think the tree of life was probably gone even before that. But if not then, then by that, the tree, I mean, the Garden of Eden is no longer around. Its footprint is somewhere on the earth, but, you know, the garden isn’t there anymore and the trees that were in it. That tree was only needed and only available before man sinned. And because man sinned, it is no longer available. That tree is not available. Christ is. And therefore, we can all have eternal life if we, as he put it, eat of him. Of course, that’s talking figuratively of believing in him and becoming his follower and living off of what he provides. All right. I’m going to take a break. I hope that’s helpful to you, Joe. We’re going to have a break here for 30 seconds or so, maybe a minute. And then we have another half hour coming. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to us at The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593. You can also donate, if you wish, at our website, but everything’s free there. The website is thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds, so don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know how much it has enhanced your study and understanding of Scripture and possibly your whole Christian life. Don’t you think all your friends should benefit from the program as you have? You help to partner with us in impacting the body of Christ when you tell all your friends to listen to The Narrow Path. If you have not done so, visit the website thenarrowpath.com and discover all that is available for your learning pleasure.
SPEAKER 07 :
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, or you disagree with the host and want to balance a comment, Feel free to give me a call. We have a few lines open right now. You can call this number, 844-484-5737. That number again, 844-484-5737. This is a good time to get in. I want to mention to those of you in Southern California, a… A gathering is scheduled for the first Thursday of next month, that is August 7th, at a pizza parlor called Two Brothers Pizza in Huntington Beach. Now, the owners of this restaurant are listeners to this program, and they want to begin kind of a regular recurring thing at the pizza place called Theology Thursdays. And it’s not going to be every Thursday, at least I won’t be involved every Thursday, but possibly once or twice a month, maybe even twice, but next month it won’t be twice. And if you’re interested in that, the idea is you can get there around maybe 6.30, order food, have dinner, and I’ll be giving a short Bible study on a topic, and then we’ll be discussing it and have Q&A about it. I’ll be talking about the kingdom of God. This first time, which will be a week from this Thursday. Don’t. I mean, you can go there this Thursday, but it’s not happening there then. You can have dinner there. But, yeah, it’s a week from Thursday. The 7th of August is our first one. And you can find information about that at our website, thenarrowpath.com, under announcements. All right. Our first caller in this half hour is going to be Keith from San Diego, California. Hi, Keith. Welcome. Keith, are you there? Hey, I hit the button, but it didn’t activate. I can hear you now. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, good. I appreciate your biblical answers. I’ve been recently having a debate of a sort with a brother in my church, and I’m finding that the prevailing doctrines of eschatology is pre-tribulational. And so, there’s one particular brother, he’s a staunch believer, and one of the preachers on the radio, and I listen to Kay Bright in San Diego, and as a pretext to the preacher opinion, he names the 24 elders found in the book of Revelations, and he points out that they’re there prior to the seventh trumpet or the last trumpet prior to Jesus’ return. And that’s his proof text that the rapture has happened and the saints are in heaven already.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, they’re not only there before the tribulation is prepared, they’re there before John gets there. And John’s part of the church. In fact, he was part of a living church at that time and still is a part of the living church, only he’s in heaven now. But, yeah, I mean, obviously the 24 elders don’t represent all the church since John and many others, like the people in the seven churches he’s writing to in Revelation. They were on earth. So when he got up into heaven and saw the 24 elders, I do believe the 24 elders probably do refer to the redeemed community, both the Old and the New Testament redeemed people, because I think the number 12 is reminiscent of the 12 patriarchs from which Israel came. And then, of course, the other 12, making up 24, would represent the apostles as the representatives of the church. But I think this is a symbolic representation. I do believe that when John was caught into heaven, he saw redeemed people there worshiping God as well as other things like the four living creatures and so forth and multitudes of angels. But I do believe that if you or I were to be caught up in heaven right now, just as individuals, not in the rapture, if we could just go up there like John did or like Paul did in 2 Corinthians 12, I think we’d probably see a lot of Christians up there. I think we’d see them, but the rapture hasn’t occurred yet. I believe heaven has millions of Christians in it already. And, you know, so, you know, if we went up there, we’d see them because that’s where they are. But there’s also millions of Christians right here on earth because the rapture has not occurred. So to see Christians in heaven in no sense would tell us whether the rapture has occurred or not. Since I would suppose any time since the Apostles’ Day or since Stephen was stoned, you’d find some Christians in heaven if you went there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. They point out that they already have white robes, they already are sitting on thrones, they already have crowns, which, yeah, it is wonderful. But the question is, how did they get those rewards prior to Jesus coming back with the rewards?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I mean, that’s a good point, because the Bible indicates that at the last judgment, God is going to reward everybody. Now, see, the dispensational view is… that the rapture will occur before the tribulation and before what they believe is coming, a thousand-year millennium. And they believe the rapture occurs when the Christians alone are resurrected from the dead and the living Christians caught up with them, but no non-Christians are resurrected yet. And they believe that we Christians face some kind of a judgment. You know, the Bema seed of Christ, they’d usually say, and we are then rewarded in heaven. But they would believe the tribulation and the millennium remain, and then they believe the unsaved are going to be raised after the millennium, at the end of the millennium. Right. There’s nothing in Scripture, in my opinion, when exegeted, would give that impression. Right. I mean, in John chapter 5, verse 28 and 29, Jesus said, Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. So there’s going to be some resurrected to life, that’d be the righteous. There’s going to be some resurrected to condemnation, that’d be the unrighteous. and they’re both going to come out of the graves in the same hour, according to Jesus. There’s not 1,000 years or 1,007 years between the one group and the other. Jesus said, this is all going to happen at one hour. The hour is coming when all the graves are going to open. Everyone’s going to come out, and everyone’s going to go either to the resurrection of life or to the resurrection of condemnation. Jesus spoke similarly in Matthew 25, 31. in the parable of the sheep and the goats. He said, you know, when the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all his holy angels with him, he’ll gather all the nations together to him, and he’s going to separate them on one side, on his right hand, the sheep, and on the other side, the goats. And he’s going to send some to eternal life and some to eternal punishment, it says in verse 46. So, you know, Jesus said there’s a time coming, his coming. He’s going to come and sit on his throne with his holy angels, and he’s going to gather everybody, all the nations, and then he’s going to separate them into their eternal destinies. So that looks to me… like there’s only one event not separated by a thousand years or a thousand and seven years. Paul had the same argument in, or not argument, but he made a statement to that effect in Acts chapter 24 and verse 15, when he said that his view was the same as that which the Jews themselves believed, which was that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. So Paul knew of only one resurrection today, and that the just and the unjust would both be part of it, just as Jesus said. And so, you know, to place some kind of gap in between is artificial. The only way this can be justified in the sight of a premillennialist is to say, well, when you read Revelation 20… Verses 5 and 6 talk about the souls that are enthroned with Christ and reigning with him for that thousand years. It says, this is the first resurrection. And it says, you know, blessed are those who have part in the first resurrection. On them the second death has no power. So he’s saying that these people living at this time and reigning with Christ are the first resurrections. Now, some people think that’s referring to at the rapture when Jesus almost came back, didn’t quite come back, came close, raptured the church, resurrected the saints. That’s the first resurrection. And then later on, at the end of Revelation 20, you find there’s a resurrection of everybody in Hades and everybody in the sea and all that stuff, and they’re all judged on the great white throne. Now, as I understand it, based on the other scriptures I mentioned, the first resurrection is that which Jesus spoke about in John’s Gospel, chapter 5, verse 24. Now, a moment ago, I read to you John 5, 28 and 29, where Jesus said, the hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice. That’s the physical dead and come forth, some to resurrection of life, some to resurrection of condemnation. But four verses earlier, Jesus said, he that hears my words and believes in him that sent me, Now, this is obviously a spiritual resurrection. If you have come to believe in Christ, you have already passed from death unto life. You can’t say that any easier than calling that a resurrection when you were dead and came alive. And Paul… In Colossians and Ephesians, Ephesians 2, verse 1, and Colossians 2, I think it’s around verse 11 or 12, Paul said that we were dead in trespasses, but he has made us alive together with him. Now, that’s already happened to us. That’s the first resurrection. It’s our spiritual rebirth. The second resurrection is our physical resurrection. which occurs at the same time as everybody else’s does. And that’s at the end of Revelation 20. So they have a different grid they’re looking through. But to say that the 24 elders that John sees in Revelation 5 are the church raptured before the tribulation is to read one’s own ideas into it. It doesn’t say that’s the whole church anywhere. It doesn’t say they were raptured. In fact, ironically, you know, dispensationalists usually think that when John is caught up in Revelation 4.1, that that’s the rapture. John is caught up in chapter 4.1, hears a voice like a trumpet, says, come up here, and he’s caught up into heaven. They usually say that’s the rapture. But then when he gets there, he sees already attending to God, these 24 elders and the four living creatures singing continually worship. Now, They got there before he did, apparently. And yet, you know, he would have made the rapture if they had been raptured. So, I mean, this is reading their ideas into it. To my mind, there’s not the slightest reason to understand it the way that your friend is understanding it. Though I understand because I was a dispensationalist myself at one time. Okay, Alex from Woodinville, Wisconsin. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for your wonderful ministry. I liked what you said earlier in the program about depression certainly can have spiritual dynamics. I think of things like you wrestle not against flesh and blood, but princes and principalities. But I am a believer. I have struggled my whole adult life with these depression things, and I just need your opinion on something, and I’ll be quiet and let you comment. I tried a year ago to come off of all these medications, and I prayed about it. I did it very carefully, as they suggest, very slowly wean yourself off. And I was doing really well for about two, three weeks, and then I just, I was a mess. I love Jesus. I love my church. I love service. But I cannot deny anything you said earlier in the phone call. I mean, so I’m kind of stuck in the middle.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, let me do something for you because my lines are full. I’ve only got 15 minutes left. You know, I’m not able to explore with you your symptoms and what you’ve done and so forth. Let me suggest to you that you listen to my lectures that I mentioned earlier, which are called Biblical Counsel for a Change. You can go to thenarrowpath.com. under Topical Lectures, you’ll find a series called Biblical Counsel for Change. I go into those things in much more detail, certainly, than I could go into here. And as much as I care for your situation, I mean, I do. I pity you and so forth, but I think those lectures can help you more than anything I can say in, say, two or three minutes that I could afford to hear in the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you. I will do that. I promise to do that. You’re a very awesome Christ seeker. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
God bless you, Alex, and thank you for calling. You bet. All right. Bye now. LT from Memphis, Tennessee. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 08 :
How are you?
SPEAKER 07 :
Fine, thanks. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I was calling to see a question I probably asked before. Is it biblical? for a woman to pastor and lead a church, and is it biblical for a lady to teach Sunday school? I’ll hang up and listen to your answer.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Well, the Bible does not forbid women to teach, generally speaking. For example… Titus chapter 2 tells older women should teach younger women and actually gives them a list of the kinds of things they should teach the younger women. So Paul assumes that women should be teaching. Paul knew that Timothy’s mother and grandmother had taught him the scriptures from his childhood. Paul thought that was a good thing. He was glad of that. Paul, I’m sure, knew that Priscilla and Aquila, a married couple, had together, in a private session, counseled a man named Apollos. Now, I don’t think Paul objected to that. If that was a violation of Paul’s principles, I think Priscilla and Aquila would have known it and would have honored Paul’s principles because they were his companions in ministry. What Paul does say in 1 Timothy 2, verse 12 and following, he says that he does not allow a woman to teach and have authority over a man. Now, the context of this, of course, as he goes immediately afterwards into the qualifications for a bishop or an overseer, I think the context here is he does not want Timothy to appoint any women to that role of being overseers of the church. As Paul gives the qualifications for overseers in 1 Timothy 3, from verse 1 on, he mentions that they have to be teachers. They have to be apt to teach. In the early church, I think most of the teaching was done by the overseers, who are also called elders. And Paul is telling Timothy… what the qualifications are to be an overseer, because Timothy, as an apostolic legate, was appointed to appoint such leaders in the church, just as Paul himself did in Barnabas in Acts 14. When they established churches, they often appointed elders in every church. Well, Timothy was to do that, too, and Paul tells him what the qualifications for that are. Now, it’s in that context because I don’t let women in that role. I don’t let women teach or have authority over men. Now, Paul does not leave us in suspense about why he does not. Some people think he didn’t because it would be too controversial in that society for a woman to be the leader over men. Some think Paul is distrustful of women’s capacity. That he feels like they wouldn’t be good teachers. They might be easily deceived or whatever. Neither of these things agree with what Paul is actually saying. Paul says he doesn’t allow this because God created things to be otherwise. He said God made the man first and then the woman. And he’s recalling Genesis chapter 2 where God made the woman to be the helper to man. And then he says, and, of course, the woman led the way in the transgression also, which we know from Genesis 3 led God to tell her that she will have to be subject to her husband. Now, a woman in leadership is not necessarily over her husband unless he happens to be in the church and he’s not in leadership. Now, for a woman to be in leadership over the men of the church would seemingly include her husband. And that would be, I think, a violation of what God intended for the roles of men and women to be. Now, I don’t know that God finds it deeply offensive if a woman is in leadership of the church. I myself don’t find it deeply offensive, but I can’t speak for God completely. All I know is what the instructions are. I believe Paul’s instructions would not approve of women as the pastors of churches or elders of churches. It’s very hard to get around his words on that. Now, the question of whether his words are intended to be universally applicable at all times and all places is one of the discussions that people debate about. I myself… If I were a woman and contemplating, someone said, hey, would you be an elder or a pastor of our church? I, as a conscientious Bible follower, would have to say, well, I won’t do it unless I can somehow get over 1 Timothy 2, verses 12 through 15, without any shenanigans, without any agenda-driven arguments. reinterpretations. I was teaching in Youth with a Mission in Seoul, Korea many years ago. I teach for Youth with a Mission all over the world. Youth with a Mission allows for women to have every role that a man holds and has no problem with women pastors. But I was teaching on some passage of Scripture relevant to this and one of the girls on staff came up to me afterwards and said, so you don’t believe women should be pastors. Do you think you’d have the same opinion if you were a woman? And I said, well, of course, if I had the same Bible, you know, why would being a woman have any impact on what the Bible says? I myself, because I am divorced and remarried and I have some children who aren’t following Christ, I seriously doubt that I’m qualified to be an elder, though I’m a man. And I have no interest. I have no interest in trying to finagle the passages so that it lets me do what I want to do. Well, the truth is what I want to do is not be an elder. I don’t ever want to be an elder. I’ve been an elder before. But the point is, if I wanted to be an elder, even as a man, I feel like I might be disqualified based on what Paul said, and therefore I would never put myself forward as that. And if I were a woman, I would feel even more so. So my answer is I’m not making a statement coming from a male point of view. I’m coming from an exegetical biblical point of view. And if I were a woman, I’d feel the same way about it. unless I were less rational in my exegesis than I am as a man. But there’s no reason I’d have to be. A woman can be just as rational as a man. So, yeah, I personally, I’m not highly critical of women who are pastors. I assume that they are interpreting the scripture differently than I am. I hope they’re doing so honestly and humbly. And if they are, you know, I’ll leave it to God to correct them if they need to be corrected. I’m not on a campaign to stamp out women pastors. But if somebody asks me what the Bible says, I’ve got to say, the only part I read that says anything about women pastors seems to say no. So that’s my position on that. All right, let’s talk to George from San Diego. Hi, George, welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, Steve, I just got one question. Have you heard about Pastor Gino Jennings?
SPEAKER 07 :
That name sounds a little familiar, but I’m not familiar with him. Who is he, or what am I supposed to have heard?
SPEAKER 01 :
He’s a pastor that comes out on YouTube. I hear him a lot, and I just wanted to get your take, see if you heard and if you know about his teachings.
SPEAKER 07 :
I do not, but maybe you could tell me what he teaches or what you’re wondering about, and I could tell you what I think about that teaching.
SPEAKER 01 :
Uh, well, no, just in general, I wanted, I just wanted to know if you heard of him and what did you thought, but since you haven’t heard of him, uh, that’s okay. Uh, I love you. I love your program, man. God bless. Take care.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Thanks for your call, George. Yeah. I don’t spend very much time on YouTube if I, if I don’t have to, but, uh, I mean, especially hearing other preachers, partly because when preachers are on YouTube, it’s usually full-length sermons. Sometimes maybe they’re on a podcast that goes over an hour long. And I just don’t have that much time to sit around and listen to something unless I have a reason to do so. Now, if somebody’s a very influential minister, and I’m hearing a lot of people ask me about him or about some sermon he gave, then, you know, to my mind, that could easily justify me finding the time to watch them. I do believe that name is one I’ve heard, but I can’t say that I’ve heard anything particular about it, which makes it impossible for me to address it. Now, by the way, people are often asking me what I think about a particular teacher, and often I don’t know what I think about them because I haven’t heard them. But rather than addressing a particular teacher, in most cases, I’d rather address a particular teaching that maybe that teacher and many others hold to and teach and explain what I think is biblical or unbiblical about it, because I’d rather be critical of a teaching than of a man. I have debated… numerous doctoral points with numerous men in public debate and so forth. And I don’t have anything against these men. I will say there’s one person I debated about Calvinism, which I found very difficult to get along with. But, you know, I knew that would be the case before I debated him because I had heard him before. But, you know, most of the time when I debate somebody, I like the person. I just don’t share the doctrine. So, you know, if a particular teacher has a particular teaching, I’d be glad to discuss that teaching and tell you what I think about that teaching. And that way you’ll know not only what I think about him teaching it, but you’ll know what I think about anyone teaching it, because it’s very seldom the case that a well-known teacher is teaching something that nobody else is teaching anywhere else. If they are, then that’s a bit of an alarm in itself. So, all right, we don’t have time to take another call. Let me just real quickly take a question that was written in from Jason. Brother Steve, there are several verses that indicate that at the resurrection and final judgment, all mankind will be judged according to what they’ve done. For example, Noah didn’t know about Jesus, but Hebrews 11 tells us they had faith in God, and his works flowed from that faith. How then do we see non-Christian, heathen, atheists, etc., being judged in the last day? Is it a judgment based on faith in the God of the Bible, and therefore works done from him flowing from that faith? Or a strictly moral judgment of what has been done in their bodies during their lifetime? Does Romans 2, 14-16 answer this question? Or are those verses about Gentiles who have become Christians? I myself believe that Romans 2, 14-16 is talking about Christian Gentiles. Most people seem to take it otherwise, but I think in the flow of thought that can be discerned in Paul’s writings, I think he’s talking about believing Gentiles rather than pagan Gentiles. As far as atheists and heathen and so forth, everyone has had some light from God, and condemnation comes, according to Jesus in John 3.17. Condemnation comes when people have had light, and they don’t want the light. They hate the light because their deeds are evil. If they come to the light… and seek mercy from God, I would not be surprised if he gives them mercy through Christ. Christ died for everyone, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to forgive everyone who comes to him humbly. God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud. I’m out of time for today’s broadcast. You can write to us, or you just go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us. Let’s talk again tomorrow.
