In a riveting conversation with Junior from Bowie, Maryland, we explore worship approaches as perceived by the early church versus contemporary practices. As insights from Dr. Tom Wadesworth spark a vibrant discussion, Steve Gregg addresses the ongoing debate on the role of church gatherings in fostering true worship. Adding to the mix, listener Mitchell from Tennessee raises critical questions regarding the dating of gospel writings, pushing the discussion toward the vital intersection of historical evidence and biblical tradition. Tune in for a fresh perspective on Christian worship and biblical scholarship.
SPEAKER 1 :
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 each weekday afternoon, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, feel free to call in. We’d be glad to talk to you about them. If you see things differently than I do and want to bring a point of disagreement, feel free. You’re welcome to do that here. The number is 844-484-5737. Now, I’m looking at full switchboard right now, so don’t call right now, but take this number down. Call in a few minutes. Lines do open up. The number is 844-484-5737. And I guess we’ll go right to the phones and talk to Frederick from West Virginia. Frederick, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, hi there. I’ve got a two-part question. I’ll give you the first part first. How’s that? Good. So Galatians 3, 16 and 19 and Genesis 22, 18 from the Septuagint. I’ve read that there is no such case in the Old Testament where ta sperma in Greek is used to describe a single individual who is above all the others in a group. in stature, it’s only used to mean descendants, plural, which is how a lot of the Bibles translate it, or a representative individual among the descendants in this context, but not Christ, as Paul does. So I’m wondering about his exegesis.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, Paul does say there in Galatians 3.16 that when the promises were made to Abraham and his seed, Paul says this applies to one seed, not many, which is Christ. Now, it is true that in Genesis, when it talks about Abram’s seed, it’s almost always, at least it sounds like it’s talking to his multiple seed. The word seed, as you mentioned in the Greek, sperma, and there’s a Hebrew word, it skips my mind right now, for seed. But in both cases, the word in the same form can mean a singular or a plural, just as it can in English. If we talk about buying a ton of seed or planting a seed, we use the same form of the English word, and that’s true in numerous languages, and it’s true in Hebrew and in Greek, which means that Paul is free to recognize the statement as a reference to Christ. Now, when Paul recognizes it as a statement to Christ, He’s not saying that this does not involve a lot of people, because in verse 29 of Galatians 3, he says, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed. Same word, same form. But he’s talking about many of us. He says, you are Abraham’s seed and heirs, plural, according to the promise. So what’s he saying there? Well, he says in the verse before that, he says that there’s no Jew or Gentile, male or female, bond or free. All are one seed. In Christ, he’s seeing Christ as the corporate seed made up of many individuals. Now, by the way, Israel meant that, too, only somewhat with a different application. Promises made to Abraham, or let’s just say to Israel. Israel was a man’s name. And Israel was the man that these were fulfilled by. But it was fulfilled not in his time, but in his offspring, which were, as the Bible would use the term, in him. We were in Adam, for example, when he sinned. It says in Hebrews chapter 7 that the Levites were in Abraham when he received tithe from Melchizedek. Now, they weren’t born yet, but because they came from him, they are regarded as having been in him. Now, the whole nation of Israel… I should say the whole race of Israel, was in the man Israel. Israel was an individual man, but he can be spoken of collectively as including himself and his entire offspring, or all those who are in him. And so even in the Old Testament, Abraham’s seed, even if we apply it to the nation of Israel, this is simply seeing Israel as the multiple seed. parts of the corporate man, Israel, or the entity. It starts with a man and becomes corporate with his offspring. Now, Jesus is, in Paul’s writing, not always but very frequently, especially when he talks about being in Christ or when he talks about the body of Christ, he’s thinking of Christ as corporate, not just the man Jesus. Now, of course, the Bible does use the term both singular and plural. Jesus is the singular individual who walked in Galilee you know, before Paul’s time. But in Paul’s time, Christ now was comprised of a body of many members, and these members were individual people. So Paul could say that in Christ, you know, there’s no Jew, Gentile, male, female, bond-free, all are one in Christ, and he can say to that one body, you are Abraham’s seed, and you are heirs according to the promise. Now this is in the same chapter where You know, only 12 verses earlier, he said the seed that the promises to are to the one seed, Christ, by which he means not everyone descended from Abraham is that seed. But Christ is and those who are in him. So it’s still it’s still a singular and a plural. Christ is many members. He’s a many membered body. Jesus being the head. So Paul, in his own mind, is able to hold these things together as one concept. The one seed of Abraham to whom these apply is that one seed, Christ, who is comprised of many people who are in him. Neither Jew, Gentile, male, female, or bond, or free, just whoever is in Christ is part of that one seed. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, he says, which is singular because you’re one body in Christ, but it’s also plural. And you are heirs individually of the promises, he said. So Paul is very much aware that the word seed, both in the Hebrew and in the Greek, can mean singular or plural. Now, we might say, well, we don’t have very many cases, maybe none in the Old Testament where the word seed is used as a singular. Although we do, of course, in the teaching of Christ where he talks about a mustard seed, he’s talking about an individual seed. When he says, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. Of course, that’s an individual seed he’s indicating. There are references in the Bible to individual seeds, especially, of course, in parables of Jesus. A seed here or a seed there in this story or that story. But you’re right, most of the time the Bible speaks of the plurality of seeds. But just because it’s used the majority of times that way doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have the characteristics that the word actually has in the language. It can be singular or plural. And Paul can think of Christ as a plural in that he’s made up of many members. All of us are individual members of his body. He’s a corporate person. Or he can speak of him as one person because he is that too. He is one person made of many members. So I don’t think Paul’s exegesis is wrong. I think he’s drawing something very deep out of the statement that I think his critics did not draw from it. They just assumed that the seed of Abraham refers to whoever is descended from Abraham. But Paul teaches not only here but many places that being a descendant of Abraham isn’t what it takes to be you know, one of Abram’s seed in the sense that it means something. He makes it very clear that Abram had two kinds of seeds. He had, in Romans chapter 9, verses 7 through, I think, 9 or 10, those verses. He speaks of Abram having children according to the flesh and children of the promise, all of which are physically seed of Abram. But some are merely physically seed of Abraham. Paul said in Romans 2, he is not a Jew who’s one outwardly, but he’s a Jew who’s one inwardly. So there are Jews who are seed of Abraham according to the flesh. But Paul always distinguished between those and the seed of Abraham according to the promise. And the promise, he says, was made to Christ. And those who are in him are the heirs according to the promise. So this is his theology on that. And, you know, so I mean, if we understand Paul’s Christology and this comes out even more in Ephesians and Colossians, he sees Christ as a corporate body and we are in him just like organs are in a body. And we share in his identity, just like all the organs of my body share in my identity. And so that’s Paul’s thinking. And he did refer to it as a mystery, he said, that was not made known to the sons of men in previous times, but was revealed through the Holy Spirit to the apostles and prophets. He made that statement four times in different writings of his. So this is how Paul’s thinking.
SPEAKER 05 :
But he says, I have the NASB. Let me just read verse 16. Now the promises were… Spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say and to seeds as referring to many But rather to one right I’m familiar verse yeah, and to your seeds, so I don’t see how you’re You’re saying that it meant seeds and Paul’s saying it didn’t mean you know no I said it’s talking about one person Christ who is made up of multiple parts and
SPEAKER 07 :
multiple members of his body. So each of us, we are a plurality of people who are collectively Abram’s seed, singular, which is Christ. But we are individually heirs, according to the promise.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, and quickly, my second part. Now, do you think that they got all this originally in Genesis? Oh, I doubt it. Do you think that has a different exegesis? If they would have exegeted, Exegeted, is that a word?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, it is. I’m sure the Jews would not have exegeted the way Paul did. If they did, we wouldn’t need Paul. In fact, we wouldn’t need the Holy Spirit. We could just ask the rabbis what the Bible means. The thing is that the Bible indicates that the rabbis, Jesus referred to the rabbis as blind leaders of the blind. So, you know, that’s why so many Jews who got their understanding of Scripture from their rabbis remained blind and didn’t see it. Now, remember in Luke chapter 24 and verse 45, it says that Jesus, after his resurrection, in the upper room with the disciples, it says he opened their understanding so that they might understand the scriptures, meaning the Old Testament scriptures. Now, why would that be necessary? Couldn’t they just ask the rabbis what that means? Well, they could, but they wouldn’t get the right answer because, as Jesus said, the rabbis are blind. They’re blind leaders of the blind. Jesus, however, was not blind, and he could open their understanding to see what the scriptures meant, and that’s what he did. And Peter even says in 1 Peter 1, verses 10 through 12, that even the prophets, not just the rabbis, but even the inspired prophets in the Old Testament didn’t understand what they were writing. And Peter tells us that they asked God, what is this they’re talking about? And he told them, it’s not for you to know. It’s for, Peter said, for us to know who have had the gospel preached to us. So the teaching of the New Testament is that although the Old Testament was inspired by Those who interpreted it for the Jews mostly were not inspired, at least in their interpretations. Even the prophets, though they were inspired to give their messages, were not given the meaning of them. And the rabbis, who were not inspired at all, were the main teachers of Israel. So, yeah, would the rabbis see it the way Paul did? No, I’m sure they would not. And that’s why Paul said about this matter of Christ’s body, he said, you know, this was not revealed to the sons of men in former generations. but has only now been revealed to the apostles and prophets through the Spirit. So Paul’s exegesis is going to be very different, and Peter’s is too, and so is Jesus’s, than the rabbis have. You know, the disciples once asked Jesus, when they were with him, why do the rabbis say that Elijah’s going to come? Well, the reason the rabbis said that is because Malachi 3, verses 4 and 5, tell us that Elijah’s going to come. And the rabbis understood that to mean the literal Elijah who lived in the days that they have in Jezebel is going to come back. That’s how the rabbis understood it. But Jesus said, well, he has come. And he said, if you can receive it, John is Elijah who was to come. In other words, this prophecy has been fulfilled by John. He’s not literally Elijah. But the prophecy about Elijah is really about John, if you can receive it. Now, remember, Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter… Two, I think it’s verse 14 or 15, he said, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They’re foolishness to him because they’re spiritually discerned. So, Jesus said to his disciples, if you can receive it, that is, if you’re spiritual men. Now, at the time he was speaking to them, they were not. They had not received the Holy Spirit yet. But Jesus is saying, someone who can receive it, someone who has the spiritual capacity to understand what he’s talking about, will recognize that Malachi was not talking about the historic Elijah. He was talking about John the Baptist. He said, if you can receive it, John is Elijah, who was to come. That is, who was to come means who was predicted. And so, you see, Jesus understood things very differently than the rabbis did, partly because he was God. And then he gave the Holy Spirit, who also is God. to the disciples to lead them into all truth. And he also opened their understanding to understand the scripture. So we definitely are in a much better position to understand even what the Old Testament says by reading what the New Testament writers said, what the apostles said about it, than what any rabbis at any time have ever said about it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, Frederick. Great talking to you. God bless you. You too. Bye now. Okay, let’s see here. The next caller is Junior from Bowie, Maryland. Hey, I know, Junior. How are you doing? I haven’t heard from you for a while.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know. It’s, you know, when you have a child. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
You have other things to do in your life besides call me? Get your priorities right, bro.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, but it’s really truly a pleasure. Every morning I’m listening to you or doing the devotional. But yeah, this is a good question I wanted to get your thoughts on. You’ve probably heard of this before. So this is from a biblical scholar called Dr. Tom Wadesworth. And his thesis or his idea is The church, we understand worship differently from how the New Testament, the epoch of the New Testament saw it. So what he means by that is we see in our time, we see worship as going to church to worship God. And he is saying that. what they see in the new Testament is going to church to edify one another, as opposed to like congregational singing X, Y, and Z. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, I think I’ve heard of him. I’ve never heard him. Uh, I know some, I’ve heard of some podcasts where he was interviewed and I’ve gotten kind of a, uh, sort of a preview from the podcast host of what he’s going to talk about and stuff. So I know kind of of him, but I don’t know his work. Um, Now, if he’s saying that worshiping God is mostly about going to church and fellowshipping with each other, I’m going to have to say he’s almost right. But he seems to have missed it. Now, he might not have missed it. It’s possible if I heard him, he hasn’t missed it at all. But just from the idea, the representation that he’s saying, okay, biblical worship isn’t going to church to sing songs. Biblical worship is going to the church to edify one another. Well, I would say that’s what church is for. Yes, that’s what going to church is for, is to edify one another with various gifts. I believe that someone who has a gift of preaching or teaching or prophesying or any other kind of speaking gift might be one of those people who exercises his gift to edify the body of Christ. But there are other kinds of gifts, too, that aren’t pulpit gifts, which also should be bearing one another’s burdens in various ways. which can include paying each other’s bills and things like that, which are things you don’t necessarily do when you go to church. To my mind, fellowship is 24-7. I mean, fellowship is, the word koinonia means to participate together in something, to share in something, and what we share in is the life of Christ. As I was saying to an earlier caller, we are all one body in him, so The need of any member of the body is the concern of every other member of the body. So, yeah, I mean, when I go to church, it’s true there are certain gifts operating. We pray for each other. There’s a teaching and things like that. We also sing, which, by the way, is a biblical, you know, exhortation to, the Bible tells us, to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, both in Ephesians and in Colossians we’re told to do that. And James also encourages us to sing. So, you know, there’s nothing wrong with going to church and singing songs. That is a form of worship, if, in fact, it is a form of worship. Now, you can sing without worshiping, because worshiping is a matter, Jesus said, God’s looking for people who worship in spirit and in truth. And, you know, John said in 1 John, let’s not love in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And I said about loving each other. But I think the same applies to loving God. We should love God in word and in time, but not only, but also in deed and in truth. The truth is that our whole life is worship. Paul said, now let me just say what I think worship is. Every reference to worship I know of in the Old Testament, and there aren’t as many in the New Testament, but In the Old Testament, worship, whether it’s of God or of false gods, it always is something that involves offering something to God, offering usually animal sacrifices or something like that. The pagan gods received animal sacrifices as people worshiped them. God allowed and ordained animal sacrifices to be offered in the worship of him. Now, that’s not all there is to worship, but But it’s the main thing that the word worship meant in ancient times. When Abraham was told by God to go and offer his son as a sacrifice on the mountaintop, Moriah, Abraham and his servants made the journey with Isaac. And as Abraham and Isaac were going up the hill, Abraham said to the servants, you wait here. My son and I are going to go up and worship. Okay. Okay. He didn’t explain what that’s going to look like. He didn’t say we’re going to sing songs and, you know, three songs and listen to a sermon and things like that. No. They knew what that meant. And Isaac knew what that meant because as they went up the hill, Isaac said, well, where’s the animal we’re going to offer? You know, I see a fire. I see wood. I just don’t see it. How are we going to worship? Where’s the animal we’re going to offer? The word worship itself means to offer sacrifices. Now, in the New Testament, we don’t offer animal sacrifices. Jesus has fulfilled that. But we do, as it says in 1 Peter 2.5, 1 Peter 2.5 says, Holy and acceptable to God. So, So we are not offering animal sacrifice, but we do offer spiritual sacrifices. Now, in Romans 12.1, Paul said that we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. Okay, so offering my body, how’s that actually done? It’s not specifically done when I go to church. It’s not specifically done at any time other than another. It’s my whole self sacrifice. is offered to him all the time. Whatever touches the altar in the Old Testament in Leviticus is holy, which means whatever you put on the altar is devoted to God, and it’s irrevocable. Basically, you’ve given it to God. You can’t take it back. Well, when we come to Christ and offer ourselves, we’re putting ourselves, as it were, on the altar. Now we’re holy. Now we’re set apart for God. We can’t be used for something else now. And so offering ourselves is a daily thing. I mean, when Paul says to present your bodies, that word present… there in Romans 12.1, is the same Greek word that’s used in Romans 6.13, where it says we should present our members, the members of our body, as instruments of righteousness to God. So we present ourselves, our bodies, to God by presenting our members. Our hands, our feet, our, you know, whatever, eyes, whatever. We present everything to him as instruments of righteousness. So this is our real worship. This is our spiritual worship. So this is not something you do at church particularly. You should do it at church, but you should do it all the other times, too. I suppose you do much less of it at church.
SPEAKER 04 :
So I may have misrepresented his point of view a little bit, but what you’re saying is what he’s saying. But I think what he’s trying to say is church itself, like going to church, isn’t a place where it’s like time to worship time. Like you don’t worship the whole week. Like he’s saying that church is like more of edification, but what we do on a daily basis, daily lives is always worship. Like what you’re saying, he’s in agreement with what you’re saying, but he’s trying to say like our new age, our Western perspective of what going to church is, isn’t what the New Testament perspective of what the church was.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, by the way, offering up praise, which is often in the form of song, is a spiritual sacrifice, according to Hebrews chapter 13, 15. It says we should offer the fruit of our lips a spiritual sacrifice, which is the fruit of our lips, praise to God or thanksgiving to God. So, you know, we offer our bodies. That’s a spiritual sacrifice. We offer the fruit of our lips in praise to him. That’s a spiritual sacrifice. You know, there’s more than one way. Even when we give something material for the kingdom of God’s sake, that sacrifice is seen as a spiritual act, which is why Paul in Philippians 4, when he was imprisoned, in Rome apparently, he wrote to the Philippians and thanked them for a financial gift they had sent. He said, this gift you sent is a sacrifice, holy and acceptable before God, a sweet smell before God. So anything offered to God, your body first, your material things too, Your words of praise, all of those are forms of worship. They’re offering sacrifices of different kinds. So I’m not going to say that what we do when we sing songs in church is not worship. What I would say is many times when people sing songs in church, it isn’t worship. Not because singing isn’t worshipful. But because, frankly, there’s not much in the songs that would induce worship or could be even seen as worship to me. A lot of the songs are more feel-good kind of testimonials or things like that, which is, I guess they have their place. I’m not trying to say not. But I think that a lot of the singing, first of all, all the singing could be done without any heart for God at all, if you like the music. People who like music, I wonder if they’re worshiping the music or worshiping the worship, you know, rather than God. But if your singing is expressing heartfelt spiritual love for and appreciation for God, then that’s a worship. And there’s certainly no reason not to do it when Christians get together. But I guess I never have thought of the Sunday meetings as especially what it means to worship God. We do sometimes call it the worship service, you know. And I believe that like Roman Catholics and some, and Eastern Orthodox maybe, and maybe some Protestant groups, they see the taking of the communion or the Eucharist as a central act of worship. I don’t see that as a biblical teaching, but for those who it is, you can see why going to church on Sunday would be, where you do that. That’s where the priest is to turn, you know, to work the magic on it. So, you know, I would just, I personally do not share those sentiments about the Eucharist. But for those who do, I can see why they came to think of Sunday meetings as the place where they go to worship, because that’s where the priest hands out the hosts to the people. As a non-Roman Catholic, and as simply someone trying to follow primitive Christianity the way Jesus taught it, And the apostles, I don’t see the meetings as any more a time of worship than any other time of my life. If I’m not worshiping God all the time, I need to get saved. Or I just need to get more in tune with what God wants. All right. Hey, brother, I’ve got to take a break here. I appreciate your call. God bless you. All right. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. We have another half hour coming up. We’re not done. Stay tuned. We are listener supported. If you’d like to help us out, you can go to our website, thenarrowpath.org. I’ll be back in 30 seconds and we have another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life. We’re proud to welcome you to The Narrow Path with Steve Gregg. Steve has nothing to sell you today but everything to give you. When today’s radio show is over, we invite you to visit thenarrowpath.com. where you’ll find topical audio teachings, blog articles, verse-by-verse teachings, and the archives of all the radio shows. Study, learn, and enjoy. We thank you for supporting the listener-supported Narrow Path with Steve Gregg.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome back to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we have another half hour ahead of us taking your calls. There’s a couple of lines that have opened up since the beginning of the show, and if you want to call, you can occupy one of those if you have questions about the Bible or about Christianity you’d like to bring up for conversation, or perhaps objections or disagreements about things like this. Feel free to give me a call. The number is 844- That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Ben calling from Troy, Michigan. Hi, Ben. Welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, Steve. I’m going to have to call you tomorrow because I’m about to eat dinner.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m sorry. I was on hold for half an hour. I didn’t know that.
SPEAKER 07 :
I can’t apologize for that. There were people ahead of you. But, yeah, call tomorrow.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, Ben. Thanks for your call. Never had anyone say that before when they’re on the air. Okay. Mitchell, although I’ve heard people say the wait was long, and it can be. Mitchell in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Hi. Welcome to the Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Yeah. I just want to tell you how much I’ve appreciated your teaching. Empire of the Risen Son, I’ve read now through four times. It was given to me by a friend of yours, one of your students, George Humley. Oh, I love George. In McMinnville, Oregon. Yeah. He’s a great guy. And he’s been my teacher now for four years. has really changed my life in the word. Is he in Tennessee now? No, he’s in McMinnville. He’s still driving the garbage truck. I’m down here doing a show in Pigeon Forge. I see. Okay. I’m an entertainer. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
But the question I have for you today is one of my producers, who’s a pastor – I made a comment when I was in the studio up in Nashville a couple of weeks ago about that, you know, Matthew, the book of Matthew wasn’t written until like the late part of the first century, like 90 or whatever. And so I called George and we talked about it. And so I’m having a real, I just, I believe all the gospels and the letters of Paul and everything were written prior to 70 AD because The only one living after 70 A.D. would have been John. So how could people say that these books were written later by the actual apostles if they weren’t written before they were actually martyred and killed?
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s my question. If I told you the Gospel of Matthew is written by a Hindu, would you believe me?
SPEAKER 08 :
No.
SPEAKER 07 :
I wouldn’t either. And that’s why I wouldn’t believe someone who says they’re in the 90s either. Anyone can say anything they want to. You know, I haven’t looked for a while, but years ago I looked on a line saying, you know, what’s the date of writing of New Testament books? They put them all in the second century. I once heard N.T. Wright was in a Q&A time, and someone said, when were the Gospels written? And he, who’s one of the most eminent New Testament scholars around, said, no one knows really for sure when any of those Gospels were written. And that’s, you know, in other words, if someone says it was 95 A.D., that’s their guess. I would guess much earlier based on evidence. Let me give you some evidence of what I think. First of all, the early Christians seemed to think that Matthew was the earliest gospel written. They may be wrong, and most Bible scholars say they think that Mark was the first one written. But both Matthew and Mark were almost certainly written before 70 A.D., not because everyone was dead after that. I’m not sure if John is the only surviving apostle. I don’t know when the others died. But because both Mark and Matthew mention Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, but they make no hint that it had happened at the time they wrote. Now, especially Matthew, but I think all the gospel writers were very fond of pointing out When prophecies were fulfilled, that’s kind of one of their apologetic devices. If a prophecy was given and it was fulfilled, they like to point that out. Matthew and Mark both give detailed accounts of Jesus’ predictions about 70 AD, which happened exactly the way he said. And as one of the most precise prophecies anywhere in the Bible, and certainly one that is delimited by time when Jesus said this will happen in this generation, and it did happen just 40 years later, you know, there’s not many prophecies in the Bible, even of the best prophets. that tell you when things are going to happen. Daniel had a few date-sensitive prophecies. But to my mind, one of the most amazing fulfillments of prophecy in the Bible is Jesus’ predictions about 70 AD, which happened just the way he said. Now, if Matthew or Mark or Luke, who also recorded it, were writing after the events, and they were telling us about Jesus’ prediction about 70, they almost certainly would have said, and this happened exactly as he said when the Romans came and destroyed the temple. Because that’s what they do. They’re continually pointing out what prophecy said and how it was fulfilled. And it would be amazing if three Gospels were written that all included Jesus’ predictions about 70 A.D. and not one of them, if they were written after the event, that not one of them mentioned that it had happened. Now, Luke is interesting. Most people don’t think Luke is the earliest. Almost all scholars believe Matthew and Mark are older than Luke. But Luke wrote two books, one of which was the book of Acts, and that was the second one. The book of Acts had to be written around 62 A.D. I say had to be because I’m just basing it on evidence. There are people who would place it much later, but they simply can’t be paying attention to the evidence. The evidence is that Luke, who wrote Acts, followed the ministry of Paul right up until the time he was a prisoner in Rome. And he was awaiting trial. Was he going to be executed by Nero, or was he going to be released? Certainly the readers would be fascinated to know that. But he had to wait two years for that trial, at least. And Luke stops writing after Paul has come to Rome. He says, and he remained two years there. Okay, well, Paul arrived in Rome in 60 A.D., so it was 62 A.D. when the record ends. Why would the record end if the story hadn’t ended? For example… We know that Paul had to have been there at least two years before Luke wrote it, or else Luke would not be able to report that he was there for two years’ efforts. But it couldn’t have been much longer than two years, or else he would have said three years or four years or however long it was. Obviously, he’s only able to take it as far as he can. And the fact that he totally omits the trial and the outcome of the trial before Nero, which is, of course, would be the high point of his story, means it hadn’t happened yet. So, I mean, certainly the most intelligent and unbiased reading of Acts would be that it was written around 62. But in the beginning of Acts, Luke says this is his second book, and he talks about his first book, where he said he recorded the life of Jesus in the first book until Jesus was taken up. That would be the book of Luke, which means that if Acts was written in 62, Luke was written earlier, maybe around 60. Okay. Now, most scholars believe Matthew and Mark were earlier than Luke. And since Luke couldn’t have been written any later than, say, 60 or 61, Matthew and Mark would have to be placed earlier. There are some scholars who think Mark was as early as 50 A.D. But in any case, objective evidence would point to all three of those Gospels being written before 70 A.D. and Luke as early as 60 A.D. So, I mean, your friend who says it’s 95, he’s probably one of these people who has a little bit of knowledge he got from the Internet. There are many people who think that John wrote his book around 95 AD, and that’s a possibility that he did. John lived apparently into the 90s, and he could have written the Gospel of John in the 90s. And maybe your friend’s confusing the Gospel of John with Matthew. But Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I believe I’d go to the map on the evidential basis for them being written before 70 AD.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, he’s actually an ordained pastor, and I kind of learned a little bit. I think he has some Calvinist views.
SPEAKER 07 :
I was ordained once, but it didn’t make me infallible. That came later. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
But anyway, I just, you know, I talked to George, and I kind of believe that all the, like, letters of Paul had to be written while they were alive. I don’t know that any of the books could be written.
SPEAKER 07 :
It seems very unlikely that any of those men wrote their books after they died, yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Highly unlikely. Well, I appreciate the answer, Steve. I really do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, great to hear from you, Mitchell. Okay, take care. Okay, bye now. Okay, Carl in La Mesa, California is next. Carl, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hello, Steve. We’ve talked before. I understand you emphasize a lot the kingship of Christ and salvation or the lordship. You can imagine a scenario of maybe somebody just deciding that he’s going to jump ship and have a new master, a new captain, and so he… He takes Christ as his Lord, his captain, his king. Where does the atonement fit into that, actually?
SPEAKER 07 :
The atonement, I believe, is the means by which Jesus purchased the world to himself, which means he can claim any part of it that he wants to. In other words, if the devil would say, hey, you can’t have this person because he’s a sinner and he’s in my camp, I think Jesus’ death and resurrection are that which freed and opened the doors to that prison and allows anyone to come out. Now, I don’t believe that everyone whom he purchased comes out. Let’s face it. If you’re a prisoner on death row and someone says, okay, you’ve got a pardon, you can come out now. But it means that you have to, you know, obey the judge for the rest of your life. And let’s say the person hates the judge, has a gripe against the judge. He might say, well, then I’m not coming out on those terms. I’m not going to come out. Kill me instead. I mean, there are people that are just that stubborn. And there are people that are that stubborn about God. God has issued a general pardon to those who come out on his terms. His terms are they recognize him as their king and their lord, and they live their life, you know, in accordance with that fact. Some people just don’t want to do that. They’d rather be on death row and will stay there until they’re dead. So the atonement was there to, I think, to open those doors, to open the prison doors. And then, of course, it’s up to each person to make the decision to respond to it. Okay, thank you. Okay, Carl. Good talking to you, brother. Thanks for your call. Let’s see. John from Vancouver, British Columbia. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, hi. I just had a question. Since the best minds in the world have grappled with the Bible, the teachings of the New Testament, Old Testament for 2,000 years, how is it that there is such controversy on basic fundamental doctrines amongst Christians, considering that the source of Scripture is inspired by God? How is it we manage to…
SPEAKER 07 :
struggle over such simple teachings well i’ll tell you i’ll tell you why because the bible whether it’s inspired or not is reliable and trustworthy and tells the truth the problem is people reading the bible are not necessarily inspired and trustworthy and when you read the bible You have to have some presuppositions that not everyone has. One is that you’re reading an ancient book written in a different culture than ours, in a different language than ours. We have it by way of translation, but the languages it was written in are now dead languages. There’s nobody who speaks them except for scholars who specially study them. Modern Greeks don’t speak biblical Greek. Modern Hebrews don’t speak biblical Hebrew. Those are dead languages now. But they can be known by scholars. It takes quite a bit of special scholarship to be able to do that. Fortunately, there are people who have that scholarship, and they’ve translated it into our language, though perhaps not perfectly in every case, just because it’s hard to believe any translation of any book is a perfect one. But the point here is, that we are removed both by language and time and culture from the time of writing. Now, most people in America or in Europe are not specially trained in the handling of ancient Middle Eastern literature. They don’t naturally grow up knowing the idioms and the presuppositions of writers and things like that. Those, too, just like the language can be learned by special study, those kinds of things can, too. In fact, you don’t even need to go to college necessarily to learn those things. You probably won’t learn Hebrew and Greek, biblical Hebrew and Greek, without going to school for that. But you can certainly become acquainted with the idioms of the Bible by simply becoming saturated in the way they speak. It’s like you learn the Bible. Well, at least I recommend that you learn the Bible in a way similar to the way that you learned your native language. When you were born, you didn’t know any words at all. You couldn’t make any sense. You were just a baby. But people around you knew words and senses, and you heard them all. You were immersed in them. Eventually, you began to recognize some words that occurred several different times in different circumstances, and you began to brilliantly, because God made brilliant minds in humans. begin to put together, oh, okay, this word is used in all these settings. I get an idea of what it means. And then, similarly, you eventually pick up phrases and sentences, and eventually, within a very few years, you can speak it rather fluently. And that’s an amazing thing. You start with zero understanding, but because you’re immersed in it, it becomes your native language. Now, the Bible recommends that we meditate day and night upon it. In fact, it It insists upon it. We should meditate day and night on the scriptures. Not enough Christians do that, in my opinion. There are people who study the scriptures in seminary, and I’m sure they learn a lot of good things. But most people, when they learn about the scripture from somewhere other than the scripture itself, they’re learning the doctrines of somebody else. maybe hundreds of years ago, a John Calvin or a Luther or somebody like that, maybe a St. Augustine, maybe an Aquinas, maybe someone like that. You’re reading the understanding of the scripture that somebody had when they read it. And people who didn’t maybe want to read it as much and learn it as much as that person just kind of bought into that person’s thinking. That person was very smart. That person maybe read the Bible a hundred times and wrote lots of books and explanations of it. Hey, the average Christian says, I don’t think I’ll read the Bible that much. I’ll just say whatever he said is probably good. And I know this phenomenon because the first person I ever knew who taught through the Bible verse by verse for me was Chuck Smith at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa in the Jesus Movement. I went through the whole Bible with him numerous times. And I literally thought this man knows the Bible like no one ever I ever encountered. And I was very loathe in any sense to disagree with him when I think, well, I don’t know as much as he does. And it was true I didn’t. But, you know, what I found out is studying the Bible on my own for years and years, eventually I may well have known as much as he did. I don’t know. I’m not trying to compare it. But I did find things in the Bible that I thought, you know, I think he’s not seeing that in context. I don’t think he’s seeing that quite right. Now, he could be right and I could be wrong. But this is how, you know, this is how I came to understand what I came to understand. I can remember and I can relate with someone thinking, well, that man knows the Bible better than anyone I know. I’ll just go with him. In fact, I fear that there may be people who listen to me who, you know, they’ve never had any other teacher, you know, and they might say, oh, Steve thinks that he probably knows because he knows more. Don’t assume that. I’ve got a lot to learn myself. We all do. But how I learned. was through a combination of study and reading a lot of the Bible. I mean, reading it many times through, but really more than anything, meditating on it day and night. And as you meditate on it, you begin to see, as you think through what you’ve heard or what you haven’t heard, you begin to think through and see maybe errors in the first thing you heard or thought about it. The more you think it through and analyze it, the more you see things differently or learn new things. And not everyone has done that. Not everyone wants to do that. Some people have other things they’d rather think about. Many people would rather memorize sports statistics or everything there is to know about sports. or something like that. I knew a person who was fascinated with trains. I mean, there are people who want to think about other things, and then there are people who want to think mostly about the Scripture. But I think most of us pick up and borrow the ideas of some of the first people we encounter who have obviously done a lot of study and thinking. And, you know, it’s a lot easier just to say, okay, I’ll let him think for me because he’s smarter or he’s done more work. You should never do that. I mean, you can temporarily, you can provisionally say, okay, this sounds right. But I’m going to do my own thing. I’m going to do my own reading. Because no teacher you’ve ever heard is always right. Now, you say, why do so many Christians see things differently? Because most people just stick with whatever it is their first teachers told them. And these first teachers are often just repeating what their first teachers told them and going on back. But in the process of time, people have seen some passages differently, and then these become part of a system that they form. And then people just kind of have loyalty to the systems and are resistant to change. And even if their own study of the Scripture could easily, under ideal circumstances, help them escape from the view they hold, they don’t want to escape from the view they hold. It took them long enough to master the one they have. Who wants to start from scratch again? Well, I would, but not everyone wants to. And so I think that’s why you still find a lot of people holding different views. A lot of them think for themselves and others don’t. But I do think that the more we meditate on the Scripture, the more we submit to Scripture, the more we humbly critique our own viewpoints from Scripture. the more likely we are to see our way past the errors that others make. So I don’t know if that fully answered your question, but that’s my thoughts about it. Hey, I need to take some more calls. We’re almost out of time here. Alex in Woodinville, Wisconsin. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. I’ll move really quickly. Yesterday I called. I was the guy struggling with depression for most of my life, but I am a believer in And you were so kind and offered some teachings on the website, The Narrow Path. And I was so focused on expressing my plight that I forgot the names of them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, didn’t you write to me and ask me for that information again?
SPEAKER 09 :
I did. I thought you didn’t get it because I didn’t get a response.
SPEAKER 07 :
I thought you got… I sent a response. Maybe it didn’t get to you. Okay. The name of the series that I was recommending is my teaching series called Biblical Counsel for a Change. Biblical Counsel for a Change.
SPEAKER 09 :
And that’s the title of it in the drawdown?
SPEAKER 07 :
It may be listed simply as under Biblical Counsel. Sometimes the titles are abbreviated in the listing on the website, but Yeah, if you go to thenarrowpath.com, there’s a tab there that says Topical Lectures. Okay, thenarrowpath.com, the tab that says Topical Lectures. Then you’ll scroll down. There’s not very far down. There’s a series called Biblical Council or Biblical Council for a Change.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
And click on it, and you’ll see there’s eight lectures on it, and you can listen to them right there. Wonderful, wonderful.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’ll double-check my email. Maybe it went to a spam folder or something. But thank you, Steve.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Yeah, I sent it from my phone. If it went to your email, maybe it did go to spam. All right. Thank you, Alex. Thank you. Good talking to you, brother. Joe from Granite Bay, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes, good afternoon. I was wondering about a CQL28 issue. where it talks about Lucifer and his trading, and I don’t quite understand all of that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Would you elaborate a little bit? Well, first of all, yes, I’d be glad to. First of all, Ezekiel 28 does not mention Lucifer. That word appears only in Isaiah 14.12. And that word Lucifer is not in the Hebrew text, and it’s not in most English texts either. It’s in the Latins. The word Lucifer is a Latin word that means light bearer. And it was in the Latin Bible before the English Bible was translated. And so, you know, Isaiah says, how are you fallen from heaven? Oh, light bearer. Now, as the English translators were using, you know, translated from Latin into English, which they did first before they started doing it from Greek and Hebrew. they simply took the Latin word, light bear, Lucifer, and stuck it in the English translation. So they treated it as if it’s a proper name. Now, this word doesn’t appear anywhere else in Scripture. So the only place you’ll find that particular word, which is translated in the King James Version as Lucifer, is in Isaiah 16. 1412, and there you’ll find that modern translations do not even have the word Lucifer because they don’t borrow their language from the Latin Vulgate. They translate from the Hebrew, and the Hebrew word in the text means light bearer or morning star, something like that. But I understand what you’re saying about Ezekiel 28. Ezekiel 28 is a prophecy, according to verse 12, about the king of Tyre. Now, many people have assumed that Lucifer in Isaiah 14 and the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 are both addressed to the same person. Now, there’s nothing at all in the text that would justify this assumption. In fact, Lucifer in Isaiah 14 is in verse 5 identified as the king of Babylon. So Lucifer is simply a name lightbearer, poetic, flattery name for the king of Babylon. Isaiah 14 identifies the person addressed as the king of Babylon. And this is in a continuing prophecy against Babylon, which started in the previous chapter. Isaiah 13 and 14 are both about Babylon. But when he starts talking to the king as lightbearer, or in the King James Lucifer, Christians have kind of just decided that that they’re going to make that the devil. There’s nothing in the passage that suggests it’s about the devil, but it’s just an early tradition that formed, and we’re still taught it by most of our preachers. The word Lucifer is not found in the Hebrew Bible, although proper names like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob are. Now, Ezekiel, I think, is talking about a different king, not the king of Babylon, but the king of Tyre. Yeah, the things he says about him have made some people think he’s talking about the devil there, too. But I don’t see it. He does use poetic language. That’s because it’s Ezekiel. Ezekiel does that. And he talks about the king of Tyre as if he was a character in the Garden of Eden. But not the serpent, but the cherub in the Garden of Eden. There’s a cherub in Genesis 3 in the Garden of Eden. And so the king of Tyre is symbolically referred to as that cherub that was in the Garden of Eden. He’s nowhere equated with Satan, who was the serpent in the Garden of Eden. There’s a lot of people who read very carelessly these things and reach rather strange conclusions. And the idea that Ezekiel 28 is about the devil, I think, is one of those cases. Hey, I’m out of time. I wish I was not. Thank you for joining us. I hope that helps. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener supported. Our website, that’s been mentioned several times, is thenarrowpath.com.
