In this episode of ‘The Narrow Path,’ host Steve Gregg navigates through dense theological terrain with clarity and nuance. He invites callers to engage on topics ranging from the interpretation of biblical Sabbath laws to the intricate relationships within the Trinity. The show probes deep into scriptural contexts, challenging listeners to rethink traditional beliefs about Sabbath practices and their current relevance. Steve further elaborates on the misunderstanding regarding God’s nature across the Testaments, presenting evidence of divine patience and compassion. Concluding with practical discussions such as the Mormon prohibition on certain beverages, Steve’s articulate responses highlight his commitment to
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
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 you’d like to ask about the Bible or the Christian faith, we’ll talk to you about those. If you have a different viewpoint from the host, I want to talk about that. You’re always welcome to do that. The number to call is 844-484-5737. And if you call right now, there’s a good chance you’ll get through. We have a couple of lines open right now. The number is 844-484-5737. All right. And we’re going to talk first of all to Yossi from Knoxville, Tennessee. Hi, Yossi. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 07 :
The Narrow Path. Hey, Steve. Thanks for taking my call. So to my knowledge, in the Bible, there seems to be two groups of people, God-lovers and God-haters, from going through your lecture of Romans. And there seems to be another group of, it might be the Jews that are ignorant of the knowledge of righteousness. I think Paul was in that group. And the group of, in Romans 10, I think you put Paul in that category. If you could just expand on that, on like, you know, Paul and the Jews before being saved. You said they were not enemies of God. They were not enemies of God?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know what you heard me say about that. Certainly many Jews are enemies of God and so are many Gentiles. I do think that many people many Christians assume that all humanity divides into two categories those who love God and those who hate God I think that I’ve met many people who neither love God nor hate God I think they just are apathetic toward God they haven’t given God much thought and even when they do give God thought they feel themselves to be rather overwhelmed or ignorant or not knowing what to think about God so There’s lots of people who are in between. Now, of course, Jesus said, if you’re not for me, you’re against me. So technically, if you’re not in favor of Christ, if you’re not following Christ, then technically you are still living in sin. And sin is what condemns a person. So obviously you need to become a lover of God. But among those who are not lovers of God, among those who don’t receive Christ, It does not necessarily follow. It certainly isn’t biblical to say that all unbelievers hate God. I think there’s a lot of people who kind of are. I mean, for example, in Israel, Jesus preached all over Galilee and in Judea before he died. And, you know, some of the Jews loved him, his disciples. Some hated him, the ones who wanted him dead. And then an awful lot more probably were generally positively disposed toward him, especially, for example, if he had healed their sicknesses or their children or something. But they didn’t bother to follow him. They didn’t become his disciples. But they probably would not be among the crowds crying, crucify him either. You know, I mean, it’s a rather oversimplified view of the human race to say everybody either loves God or hates God. I think there’s many people who don’t know God at all but are searching. for something, as far as they know, they may be searching for God or for truth or for justice or something else, and they don’t find those things until they find Christ. But sometimes in the course of looking for those things, they have some stops along the way into other religious philosophies and so forth that sound at first to them to be right. Of course, they’re not, but they don’t know that. So sometimes people go through lots of different stages from being initially either apathetic toward God or hating God, as many people do. to the point of being searchers for God. And they’re not apathetic or hating him. They just don’t know him. And sometimes they’re looking for him in the wrong places. So I would put, you know, I would say each person. It’s a lot easier for us, simpler, just to say, okay, there’s two categories. Everyone’s in this one or that one. And in the broader sense, it’s true. There are two categories. There’s people who are disciples of Jesus, and there’s people who aren’t disciples of Jesus. But among those who are not disciples of Jesus… They don’t all fit one description. Some of them are quite devout in the wrong religion. Some of them are atheists and hate God. Some of them are simply, you know, they just don’t think they have enough information to know whether there’s a God or not. Some may suspect that there’s a God and be relatively apathetic. These are all very different than people who hate God. Now, Paul, before he was a Christian, actually was a, at least he thought himself to be a lover of God. according to the religious traditions that he was raised in, he was very conscientious. He was very eager to please God. He didn’t hate God, though initially he hated Christ, apparently, but that’s because he misperceived and thought that Christ was a heretic, that Christ was a blasphemer. He held the view that the Sanhedrin held, and I don’t think Saul had done much personal research into the matter at the point, but he just bought in with his religious leaders that Jesus was a bad guy. And that’s why Paul says in Romans 10 that he can testify that the Jews, they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. A zeal for God is the opposite of hating God. They’re zealously, you know, favorable toward God insofar as they understand him, but they don’t understand him well. He said they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Their problem, in many cases, is not that they don’t have enough love for God, but they don’t have enough information to know that that love for God should cause them to submit to Christ as their Messiah. Now, I’m not saying whether those people who have not turned to Christ, but who have a zeal for God, you know, are going to heaven or hell or those kinds of things. Paul doesn’t discuss that there. He’s simply saying that they’re ignorant and they need to know. And, you know, I let God decide how he views every man’s heart, because there might be people who are very devout in some religions, who it’s just a hypocritical cover for just being, you know, wicked, you know, narcissists. And I think Jesus saw through a lot of Pharisees and said that was true of them, but it certainly would not be true of every religious Jew or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu. Now, I’m not saying anything about those people being saved. I’m saying… I’m not talking about them being saved or lost. I’m talking about whether they are haters of God or not. And some of them, some do hate God and some don’t. So I don’t know which statements I made in my lectures on Romans that made you wonder about this. But I think it’s definitely a mistake to say that everyone who isn’t a follower of Christ is a hater of God. The Calvinists would say that, or at least many Calvinists would. Certainly James White would say that and some other Calvinists would. They’d say if you’re not regenerated, meaning if you’re not a Christian, then you’re a hater of God and you won’t seek God and you are shaking your fist in defiance against God. And I would say anyone who’s not following Christ is, in fact, on the wrong side of a conflict between man and God. And they are denying God his rights to their life. But they don’t, in many cases, they don’t see it that way. They don’t know it that way. They don’t even know what God’s claims are on their life. And they’re not consciously shaking their fists and saying, I defy you, God. They just, God’s not in their thoughts. In fact, David even mentioned that about certain people, about the wicked. He said, God is not in their thoughts. And so if he’s not in your thoughts, you’re not hating him or loving him. You’re just somewhere in between him. But in saying that there’s a wide range of attitudes that people have about God, that doesn’t mean that there’s a lot of different attitudes about God that are okay. I’m just saying not all of them are the very worst conceivable attitude.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep. Thanks for clarifying.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you. All right, Jesse. Thank you for your call. God bless. Molly in North Idaho. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, Steve. It’s my second time calling you, and I’ve got another question about the Sabbath because I have many Sabbatarian friends, Seventh-day Adventists and some Hebrew types, and I’m consistently trying to reason with them from the Scriptures about why I don’t think it’s binding that we keep the Seventh-day Sabbath as followers of Christ. And so my question is about Ezekiel 20. I know you’re familiar with the verses in 2012. The Lord through Ezekiel is talking about when he brought them out of Egypt. And he says, he gave them my Sabbath to be a sign between me and them. And then in verse 13, he talks about how they were polluting my Sabbath. They greatly polluted. So several questions for you. One is, what does he mean by polluting Sabbaths? Had God ever mentioned before that he was giving the Sabbath as a sign? Because I haven’t seen that, you know, when I’m reading Exodus and Deuteronomy. I don’t see that word used, but maybe I’ve missed it. And then my last question is, could what he means possibly be revealed to us through Hebrews 4, 3 and 4, where it seems to be talking about this same time? where they didn’t enter into his rest through their unbelief. And could that be what it’s really, if we were to think today as Christians, what it would mean to pollute the Sabbath, wouldn’t be working or doing something on the seventh day, but rather not fully trusting in Christ and entering his rest.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. It answers your question. First of all, your question, did any time prior to Ezekiel 20, Had God mentioned that the Sabbath was a sign between himself and Israel? Yeah, he said that pretty early on. Actually, back in Exodus, just 10 or 11 chapters after the Ten Commandments were given. In Exodus 31, God is reminding them to keep the Sabbath and to work six days and not on the others. And he says in verse 16 and 17, near the end of Exodus 31, he says, Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. So he said that’s as a perpetual covenant. Now the covenant that he’s talking about is the covenant he’s That was given to them right here in this book, which was at Mount Sinai. He gave them the Ten Commandments and he gave them the three chapters of covenant laws. And elsewhere in the Pentateuch or the Torah, there’s a total of like 613 laws that he gave them. And that’s the covenant that he made at Mount Sinai to the children of Israel who had come out of Egypt. And he says that the Sabbath in particular was the sign of that covenant between him and them. Now, if we were involved in that covenant, then we should be keeping the Sabbath. I’m not involved in that covenant. I never was and never will be because that was made between God and the children of Israel at Mount Sinai. And that covenant is the covenant that the writer of Hebrews refers to as the first covenant as opposed to what the writer of Hebrews calls the new covenant. Now, of course, the writer of Hebrews, when he talks about the new covenant, didn’t make that term up, Jeremiah. first used that term, the new covenant. In Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34, Jeremiah said that God was going to make a new covenant that would not be like the first covenant. Now, the first covenant was the one made at Mount Sinai, the one that Exodus is about. So there’s a new covenant, Jeremiah says, going to come. And then Jesus said he made that new covenant. He gave the disciples the cup and said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 says, said that he was a minister of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. And the writer of Hebrews also talks about the new covenant. And that’s where the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 8, 13, that when he speaks of a new covenant, he’s made the first one obsolete. Now, if the first one is obsolete, then it is no longer relevant. And that first one was the one made at Mount Sinai. So, yeah, God did give the Sabbath. as a sign of that covenant between himself and Israel. And throughout the entire 1400 years, from Moses till Christ, anyone who wanted to really be part of Israel had to keep that covenant, which included the Sabbath. Keeping the Sabbath was the principal sign of it. Now, circumcision was also a sign of God’s covenant between Abraham’s seed and himself in Genesis 17. when God instituted circumcision with Abraham, he said, it’s going to be a sign of the covenant between you and me. So the Israelites were descended from Abraham and, of course, entered into the new covenant at Mount Sinai. So they had two covenants, the Abrahamic covenant, of which circumcision was the sign. And then there was the Sinaitic covenant, what we usually call the old covenant today. And Sabbath was the sign of that. So that’s all right. That’s all true. And, you know, if you were born in Israel or even somewhere else and wanted to be part of Israel. Any time prior to the time of Christ, it’d be incumbent on you to come under the terms of circumcision and Sabbath keeping and all those covenant laws. But since Jesus has come and the new covenant has come, all of those laws now become a moot point. And all that remains in the new covenant is to be a follower of Jesus Christ and to do what he said, not what Moses said, because that was a different covenant. Paul compares these in Romans 7, he compares this to two different weddings, marriages, because a marriage is a covenant too. And he talks about the Christians saying, Apparently, Christians who had once been Jews, like himself, had once been married to the law. He’s talking about the covenant, not Sinai. He said, we were married to the law. The law was our husband, and we had to obey it, of course. But he said, now through Christ, we have died to the law through the body of Christ. And now we are married to another, even him that is raised from the dead. He says, this is the first four verses of Romans 7. So Paul says, we were married in one covenant. to the law up until the time that Jesus died, and through his death, that has come to an end, and we now have a new marriage, a new covenant to Jesus. And it shouldn’t be hard to understand what that means. If a woman has one husband, and he’s supporting her, and it’s a traditional marriage, which is what the Bible always assumes, he’s the head of the home, and she’s the support, and together they’re running a home and raising children and so forth. he’s the leader, and he makes the decisions for the family. But if he dies, she’s free from any decisions he made. She doesn’t have to do anything, he said, because he’s gone, he’s dead. But if she marries another man, well, now she has a man who’s making the decisions again, a different man, and maybe making different decisions. And that’s what it is to have come out from under one covenant into a new covenant. Now, the old covenant required Sabbath keeping. The new covenant does not. We know that partly because of all the commandments in the Pentateuch, I should say all of those in the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, Jesus repeated all of them except the Sabbath. And since the new covenant is the keeping of what Jesus said, remember Jesus said, if you continue in my words, then you’re my disciples indeed. And he also said later, go and make disciples and teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you. He didn’t say go teach all the things Moses commanded you. Teach them the things I have commanded you. And so being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t mean you follow what Moses said. It means you follow what Jesus said. And he did forbid murder and adultery and theft and lying and covetousness and blasphemy and so forth. He never made a peep about the Sabbath, except that he violated it a great deal and got into controversies with the Jews over it. He justified himself. He said, my father works every day of the week, and I’m his son. I do what he does. I’m his apprentice, just like an apprentice son in a shop like where Jesus grew up. Under Joseph, he learned carpentry. Jesus said his son doesn’t know what his father does, but the father loves him and teaches him, teaches him the family trade. And Jesus had learned how to be a carpenter from Joseph. He says, now I’m following my other father, God, and I’m learning the trade from him. I’m doing what he does. The son can only learn the trade by following the example of his father. He said, my father works every day. I’m his son. I do what I see him do. Therefore, I work every day, which means I don’t keep Sabbath. Working every day means you don’t keep Sabbath because the very command of the Sabbath is do all your work six days a week and don’t do any of it on the seventh. But Jesus did as much of the same kind of work on the Sabbath day as he did any other day. That’s not keeping the Sabbath. Now, I would also, you said, what does it mean to desecrate the Sabbath? That means simply to work on the Sabbath. Under the old covenant, the Sabbath was a day for no work. And it was held to be different than all other days. That was a sacred day set apart from the others to be God’s day. But if you did the same kind of work on the Sabbath you did any other day, you’re treating it like any other day. You’re desecrating it. You’re reducing it to the level of other regular days and not upholding its sanctity. So when he talks about you desecrate by Sabbath, He means you ignore it. You do the same kind of work on it that you do every other day, which is what the Sabbath forbids. That’s what it means to desecrate it. As far as Hebrews 3 and 4, yes, it does say there that we do keep a Sabbath. It says that in Hebrews 4 and 9. He says there remains a Sabbath keeping for the people of God. But he explains, as you said, that this is a Sabbath that we keep that’s not the keeping of a day without work. It’s a matter of resting from our own works and trusting in the finished work of Christ. That is to say, under the new covenant, we’re not trying to earn our place with God by working, by obeying laws. We’re not doing that. We have our place with God because of what Christ has done. and our trust in him. And therefore, we’ve put away work as a means of, you know, earning a place in God’s family. We’ve put away the legalism of the law, and now we’re resting in what Christ has done. And therefore, that spiritual rest is what the Sabbath day rest was pointing to. That’s what the writer of Hebrews is saying, I believe. So, I think we covered all three of your questions, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. It all makes sense to me. Just one more quick little follow-up. So we’re told in the New Testament that circumcision means nothing, right? It’s all, you know, circumcision in the flesh means nothing because it’s about circumcision of your heart. And so I’ve tried to use that with some of my Sabbatarian friends, saying it’s the same with the Sabbath. That weekly Sabbath keeping means nothing. What it is is having that faith to enter into the rest. Jesus called us, come all who are weary, I will give you rest. So does that make sense to you, too, that there’s kind of a type? Yes. Have you heard my lectures on the Sabbath? Yes. I have. I have heard some of them. But, you know, then I get snagged sometimes when I’m discussing it. Well, listen, my lines are full.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think I’ve covered three questions before I’ve got to move on.
SPEAKER 02 :
I appreciate your call, though. All right. Thank you so much. You were very thorough. Okay. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless you. Bye now. Okay. And let’s talk next to Sean from Boynton Beach, Florida. Hi, Sean. Welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve. I just have a question about the 144,000 mentioned in the chapter 7 of Revelation. I’m reading your book about Revelation, and I’m enjoying your ministry thoroughly. I just, I don’t understand why he would go to the trouble to listing all the 12 tribes if those tribes were not in existence at that time in the first century.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, in the first century, there were representatives of all 12 tribes still living. What there was not… any longer, was tribal regions in Israel. When Israel came out of Egypt and wandered through the wilderness and then were led into the Promised Land by Joshua, and they conquered the land of Canaan, each tribe was given a designated portion of the land. They had tribal inheritances. And so the nation of Israel was divided not only into tribes in terms of who the ancestors of the people were, but also in terms of what property they inhabited. And now that ended. That came to an end in 722 B.C. because the Assyrians came and just wiped out that northern kingdom. And the ten tribes to the north were scattered all over the world. I mean, the world at the time. And they intermarried with other people and pretty much lost their essential property. tribal identities. But before 722 BC, that is before the nation in the north was destroyed, the Bible records that many people, not the majority, but just a remnant of them, but many people from each of the ten tribes in the north left and moved south and became part of the tribe of Judah, the nation of Judah. Now, the nation of Judah wasn’t destroyed in 722 B.C., and therefore when the northern kingdom was wiped out, pretty much the members of the ten tribes that were there, as I say, were scattered, eventually intermarried. Their descendants, some of them became the Samaritans, and they intermixed with other Gentile groups. But there were members of each tribe. that had long before that been absorbed in the nation of Judah to the south because they’d returned there. And so when the nation of Judah was later conquered by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., it consisted mostly of people of the tribe of Judah because that was the original tribe. composition of the nation of Judah. But it also included some. I don’t know how many. It could have been a few hundred. It could have been some thousands. We don’t know. But there were some from all the other tribes that were there, too, that had become part of that nation. So as they went into Babylon, probably members of all 12 tribes went in. But they may not have mostly been distinguishing themselves tribally. But even in Jesus’ day, There were people who knew what tribe they were of. Paul, Saul of Tarsus, he knew he was of the tribe of Benjamin. You know, Anna, the old woman in the temple who was there when Jesus was presented as a baby, she was said to be of the tribe of Asher. Okay, so, I mean, these are some tribes that disappeared in 722 B.C., but all the people of those tribes weren’t dead. They still were there. So there’s, I mean, to this day, there are descendants in the world, of each of the 12 tribes. Not that that’s relevant to the 144,000, because I think the 144,000, of course, lived in the first century, because I think that’s the time frame that Revelation’s talking about. I think it’s referring to the Jewish church in Jerusalem, which survived the Holocaust of A.D. 70. And that’s why they were mentioned as sealed against that crisis. Just like in Ezekiel’s day, he saw in Ezekiel 9, the righteous Jews of Jerusalem sealed to be preserved against the Babylonian invasion, which destroyed Jerusalem. So it was the Jewish church in Jerusalem that was sealed and preserved when Jerusalem fell in 7 AD. And I think that’s what the 144,000 are referring to. I appreciate your call. I need to take a break here. We have another half hour coming up. We’re not really anywhere near done. But at the bottom of the break, we like to let people know that we are a listener-supported ministry. We pay for time on the radio, and we have no other expenses. If you’d like to write to us, you can write to The Narrow Path, P.O. Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593, or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 01 :
In a 16-lecture series entitled The Authority of Scriptures, Steve Gregg not only thoroughly presents the case for the Bible’s authority, but also explains specifically how this truth is to be applied to a believer’s daily walk and outlook. The Authority of Scriptures, as well as hundreds of other stimulating lectures, can be downloaded in MP3 format without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg and we’re live from For another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions, you want to call in and talk about the Bible, Christianity, your Christian life or whatever, feel free to call with those questions. And if you want to present an alternative viewpoint to that of the host and discuss that, I’d be glad to hear from you about that as well. The number to call is 844-484-5737. And something interesting is going to be happening a week from today, next Thursday, in Huntington Beach, California. I’m pretty sure I’ve never spoken in Huntington Beach, California, though my family went there for summer times when I was a kid many times. But and I have friends there. But but there is a new thing that has come up. The owners of a pizza restaurant in Huntington Beach called Two Brothers Pizza. would like to have a Theology Thursday recurring there. Not every Thursday necessarily, but occasional Theology Thursdays at the restaurant. And they’ve asked if I would be involved, and I’m going to be. I mean, I don’t know how frequently we can do it, but this next Thursday, a week from today, will be the first time. The second time will be the first Thursday of next month. Is that right? Next month. Oh, no. Yeah, the following month. Yeah, September. And then, you know, it may be that we’ll start doing it twice a month. We’ll just see what the interest level is. But the thing is, it’s different than ordinary Bible study, which I give a lot of those around, in that there’s food there. I mean, you can buy pizza. You can eat there. And I’m going to give a short teaching, which is very unusual. I’m going to teach for probably 20 or 30 minutes. On this occasion, it will be about the kingdom of God. And then there will be like as much as an hour or more. of discussion, Q&A and stuff about it, which you can be a part of. So I think it starts at like 6.30 next Thursday night and may go as late as 9 o’clock, or if the interest is there. But obviously people can come and go as they wish. But it’s a new thing. It hasn’t really taken shape entirely yet, but I think it will find its way. But if you’re interested, it’s in Huntington Beach at Two Brothers Pizza, 630. And we’ll be there for Theology Thursday, okay? And we’ll see if anything develops for that. If it does, I’ll see you there with some kind of regularity. All right, let’s talk to, looks like it’s going to be Marty from Brooklyn, New York. Hi, Marty. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, Steve. How are you?
SPEAKER 04 :
Good.
SPEAKER 09 :
I just had a fast comment and a question. A woman called before about circumcision. Actually, circumcision is good for the health of a male child.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, that has been debated, but I believe you’re right. But it’s not really related to anything we were talking about.
SPEAKER 09 :
No. Anyway… I’ve been reading the Old Testament over and over and each time I read it, you know, you see things you didn’t see before. And I see many times God the Father does not have the patience with us or with Israel as his son Jesus has. And I feel that’s why he sent his son Jesus, because if he had his way, I think he would have destroyed everybody.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because Well, I think, you know, I mean, that makes it sound like God is the one who’s angry and Jesus is the one who is the good guy who is on our side. And, you know, that God was inclined to destroy us all, had no interest in saving us. But fortunately, Jesus was around to kind of talk him out of it or do something about it. Yeah, that’s the opposite of what the Bible says. The Bible says God, meaning God the Father, so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whoever… believes in him, will not perish but have everlasting life. It was God’s idea. It wasn’t Jesus’. In fact, Jesus kind of tried to explore the possibility of getting out of it. When he was in the Garden of Eden, he said, Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass from me. But not my will, but yours be done. And it was Christ’s sacrifice for us to save us was the Father’s will. And Jesus actually said that he came to do his Father’s will. So it would be a very strange thing to say the Father and Jesus had different wills. God was kind of wanting to kill people off and wipe them out and damn them. But Jesus had a different plan. Jesus was very adamant. His plan, he didn’t have his own plan. He’s following his Father’s plan. So I don’t see any evidence in the Bible that the Father was less patient in the Old Testament. I mean, think about it. it says in Genesis 6 that God was really upset with the condition of the earth. He saw that the earth was filled with violence and the thoughts and intents of men’s hearts were only evil continually. Pretty bad. Sounds like it can’t get any worse. It’s reached the absolute nadir of corruption and evil. And God says, my spirit won’t always strive with man. I’m going to give him another 120 years only. Okay, so 120 years, that’s a long time to turn around, but God says, you know, I just can’t take this horrendous behavior indefinitely, so I’m going to do something about it in about 120 years. That sounds very patient. Jesus never waited 120 years for anything when he was on earth. Now, you know, we see similar things back in Abraham’s day. The Canaanites were very wicked people doing things that you and I would not tolerate if we were God. We would stamp them out because they were so vicious and oppressive and evil. But God told Abraham, yeah, I’m going to give their land to your people, but first your people are going to go into Egypt or into a foreign land for about 400 years, and then your people come back and take it from the Canaanites. And he says, you’re going to be, first of all, 400 years in another land because the iniquity of the Amorites, meaning the Canaanites, the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete or full. In other words, if you had looked at the way the Canaanites were behaving in Abraham’s day, you would have thought, how in the world could any God, good God, tolerate that kind of horrible behavior? And God says, well, I’m not going to. I’m going to judge those nations. I’m going to give their country to Israel. It’s just going to be about 400 years from now. Now, that sounds like patience to me. Now, Jesus, when he was crucified, predicted that the destruction of Jerusalem, of those who killed him, was going to happen in that generation, and it did within 40 years. So to my mind, I mean, I’m not saying Jesus was less patient than God. I’m saying that in terms of the time spent waiting to punish people, Jesus only waited 40 years. God waited sometimes hundreds of years. So I don’t really see any evidence that Jesus was more patient than God the Father. In fact, Jesus indicated that he and his father were just about exactly on the same page. He said, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. And I don’t do anything except what I see my Father do. Jesus didn’t come with his own agenda. He came on his Father’s program. And it was the Father who loved the world and wanted to save it that said, I don’t know any other way to do this than for Jesus to be crucified. And it wasn’t something he really preferred to do. The Bible indicates it was a tremendous sacrifice. But God did it because he loved the world. In fact, that’s in 1 John. It says, let me find this first. It’s very much like John 3, 16 by the same author. 1 John 3 says, Well, let’s see here. 1 John 3. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brother. Whoever hates his brother. Let me see here. Blah, blah, blah. Here it is, verse 16. 1 John 3, 16, of all things. By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Now, essentially, he’s saying that this is what love looks like. And God is the one who wouldn’t let Jesus off the hook. So God’s love is seen for us in that he sent his son to die for us. So, you know, I realize that what you said is something very commonly thought by people who read the Bible. And I think they only read it at a kind of a surface level. But when you actually begin to recognize what’s going on in the Bible, you realize why is God putting up with this behavior today? Why doesn’t God just destroy them all? And the answer is because he’s long-suffering and plenteous in mercy. It says in Psalm 103, an Old Testament verse, it says God is slow to wrath and plenteous in mercy. You know, as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. And so God in the Old Testament is very merciful. And Jesus is a good demonstration of who he is. Which is exactly what Jesus said about himself. If you don’t know who God is, look at me. I appreciate your call, Marty. Let’s see. We’ve got Richard from Bothell, Washington. Next. Richard, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you, Steve. Thank you. My question today deals from a Bible reading this morning. I was reading the story about Saul’s trying to kill David and Jonathan was trying to help David, protect David, and he made an oath to David to love David as with his heart and soul. What does it mean, Steve, to love anything with your heart and your soul? I think I know what the heart is, but what is… Can you explain the loving the soul part?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s clearly a figure of speech because your heart… does not emit emotion or dictate emotion. Your heart actually is a mechanical pump. It pumps liquid, just like the fuel pump in your car. Your heart doesn’t love. It’s a figure of speech. Sometimes the Bible talks about the inner man, which refers to our our spiritual inner nature, using imagery from anatomy. For example, to feel something deeply, emotionally, is sometimes associated with the heart. Sometimes it’s associated with the kidneys in the Bible. In the King James, the word reins, R-E-I-N-S, the inner man is referred to as your reins, which is actually a term for kidneys. But we in the English-speaking world use the word heart in that way. It’s a very commonplace. It’s metaphorical. You don’t really love anyone with your heart. You love them with your spiritual inward capacity. But I think the heart and the soul are simply different ways of talking about your complete orientation, your complete inward capacity. character and so forth. So, I mean, it’s true. And emotion. I mean, definitely loving someone with your heart is speaking of an emotional love for someone. And to say heart and soul, perhaps, I’m not sure, but perhaps adding soul to that, it could just be deepening the metaphor or it could be saying, you know, the heart is associated with the emotions of love and the soul is perhaps more associated with the commitment of your life to the other person. But I’m speaking kind of intuitively here from my knowledge of how those words are used in the Bible. I’m not speaking scholarly here. I could be wrong. But to my mind, to simply say I love you with my heart and my soul is just a way of saying with everything, everything within me. Like I fully, completely am devoted to you would be really what it’s saying here. And as far as the reason for using the specific words, it’s metaphorical words. You don’t love someone with your heart, except in the metaphorical sense. But we all use the metaphorical sense regularly, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that. But it’s simply a manner of speaking. It has to do with the way you express inward feelings. you know, feeling and commitment and so forth. So I would say that’s all I could really say about why John would use that particular phraseology. Yeah. Hey, I need to move on. I’m sorry to say we’ve got little time and more callers to take. We do have perhaps the possibility of you getting on if you call. The number to call is 844- 484-5737. All right, we’re going to talk next to Ben from Troy, Michigan. Hi, Ben. Welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, Steve. So my question is, so I belong to the Mormon Church. I don’t know if you know anything about it. Yeah, yeah, I know a fair bit. Oh, okay. So I don’t understand… part about it. We have a book called The Book of Mormon. I’ve read some of it. Okay. In there, there’s a thing called The Word of Wisdom. Basically, what that is is we’re not allowed to drink coffee or tea. I don’t understand why that is because Like we’re allowed to drink like other caffeinated stuff like Coke and Pepsi and stuff.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, yeah, I have to admit, I’ve always wondered that myself. I wasn’t sure why Mormons are not supposed to drink those two caffeinated drinks. Although I had been under the impression that they weren’t supposed to drink Coke either or anything that had caffeine, but maybe I’m not up to date on the current rules. Of course, when Joseph Smith was writing these books, Coca-Cola didn’t exist. I don’t think they had what we call soft drinks with caffeine in them at that time. In fact, when Coke did come into existence, I don’t think it had caffeine in it. It had cocaine in it instead. And when that became illegal, they put caffeine instead to replace the cocaine. But… But I don’t really know what is the rationale for the Mormon practice. Now, I myself do not, I will not defend the authority of the Book of Mormon or any of the Mormon books because I don’t believe that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, which obviously puts me on the other side of the aisle from all Mormons, Mormons by definition, except that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and that God inspired him in the writing of the You know, the books Pearl of Great Price, Book of Mormon, they accept the doctrines and covenants as scripture as well as the Bible. But I think Joseph Smith showed that he didn’t really have the competence to do that kind of translation work with the Book of Abraham, which he thought was about Abraham. He bought this money from an antiquities dealer, traveling antiquities dealer, an actual money they had of some parchment in it in hieroglyphics. And this is before anyone knew how to read hieroglyphics. And so fortunately for Joe Smith, he was able to translate it into English, allegedly, by inspiration, I guess. But he translated it into a story about Abraham. But then when, of course, it became possible for Egyptologists to read hieroglyphics, they thought it had nothing to do with that. It was absolutely not a story at all. There’s some like some Egyptian funerary rites or something were in there. So in other words, Joseph Smith deceived people. He did it before he wrote the Book of Mormon. He did it after he wrote the Book of Mormon because the Book of Abraham came later. So, I mean, the man before and after the founding of the Mormon Church, to my mind, was a charlatan. And that’s why I don’t accept it. And that’s why I don’t accept his writings. Now, I don’t mean that as an insult to Mormons. I realize that many Mormons would take it as such. I don’t mean it that way. I’m not saying anything bad about the Mormon people themselves. I’m simply saying, I think that if you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet and his books were inspired… I think you’re one of the people he managed to fool. So that would be my position. So, you know, if he’s the one who said don’t drink coffee and tea, he’ll have to answer for himself about that. I don’t follow any rules that a man like that would lay down. Okay. All right. Thank you for your call, Ben. Jan from Minnesota, welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. Regarding the issue of Sunday, I think because – I was always taught as a kid growing up that, you know, God worked for six days to create heaven and earth and everything, and then he rested on the seventh day, and that’s why we observed that. So what’s your question? Well, I didn’t have a question. I just wanted to… Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I was taught that, too. I mean, I think most people raised in church were taught something like that. I mean, certainly the Bible teaches… that the seventh day was a day of rest for the Jewish people under their religion, though it wasn’t Sunday. Sunday is actually the first day of the week. Saturday is the seventh. And so the Jews who do observe Sabbath, they do it on Saturday, and they always have, because that’s always been understood, even on our calendars. Saturday is considered the seventh day of the week. Now, the thing is, Christians more often meet on Sunday than on Saturday, because Because the Christians in the early days, at least the Gentile Christians, did not believe it was necessary to keep the Jewish laws. And they didn’t feel it was necessary to keep the Sabbath. And they didn’t change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, as some people mistakenly say. They simply didn’t keep Sabbath. But they did believe they should get together for meetings and things. So they chose Sunday, which they called the Lord’s Day. They didn’t call it the Sabbath. Because Sunday is not the Sabbath. Saturday is the Sabbath. But Christians don’t have to keep the Sabbath because they’re not part of that covenant. We don’t have that same covenant the Jews had. We’re in a new covenant. And the Sabbath was not ever part of the new covenant. And, you know, it is true that some Pope, you know, some centuries later did make some kind of absurd decree that Sunday is now the Sabbath. But neither Popes nor anyone else have any right to say that. In the New Testament, there’s many references to the Sabbath. You know, Jesus went into the synagogue on the Sabbath. Paul preached in the synagogues on the Sabbath. But that was always talked about Saturday. The Sabbath in the Old Testament and the New is always Saturday. But the real question is, is the Sabbath something that’s relevant to Christianity? Do we have an obligation? Paul and Jesus did not go into the synagogue on the Sabbath to keep the Sabbath. They went there to work. Working is what you’re not supposed to do on the Sabbath. They went there to do the same work they did the other six days of the week. They went there to preach. Now, there’s no command in the law that says you shall preach on the Sabbath. You don’t work on the Sabbath. That’s the law. You don’t work on the Sabbath. Well, Jesus and Paul, when it was Sabbath, they did exactly the same kind of work they did all the other days. They didn’t cease from work. But they did it in the synagogues on the Sabbath because that’s where the audiences were. That’s where the people were gathered. But when it was another day and the people weren’t gathered in the synagogue, they’d preach on the hillsides or in the marketplace or wherever they could find people. It was just easy to find Jewish people in the synagogues on the Sabbath. So that’s on the Sabbath, Jesus preached in the synagogues, and so did Paul. But that wasn’t Christian behavior. That was just preaching. They weren’t observing the Sabbaths. because, again, they would have to not be preaching to Uzzah because that was their work. But on the other hand, when Christians began to keep Sunday, they weren’t doing it as the Sabbath. They called it the Lord’s Day because Jesus rose from the dead on that day. And so they wanted to celebrate that instead of the cessation of work in the first seven days of creation. So it’s a very different thing. The Bible does not teach anywhere in the New Testament – that keeping a Sabbath day is somehow an obligation to followers of Christ. It is not. If you want to keep Sabbath, and some Christians do, then Saturday is the day for that. But that’s simply a personal choice. The Bible does not command it. And you can go to church on Sunday instead if you want to, because you can go to church every day. You know, in the Jesus movement back in the 70s, we went to church every day of the week. It was always the same kind of thing. You’d worship God for two hours in song, and then you’d listen to an hour and a half Bible study, and you’d hang out for hours afterwards in fellowship every single night of the week. We did that for years in the Jesus Movement. So, I mean, Sunday or Saturday was no different. If someone says, well, you shouldn’t worship on Sunday, you should worship on Saturday. Well, why can’t I worship all seven days? Is there something that commands me not to do that? You know, how does Saturday or Sunday become a special day for worshiping that’s different than my requirement to worship God the other five days? Am I not supposed to worship him 24-7? Am I not to present my body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him all the time? How can I do that more on Saturday or more on Sunday than the other days, unless I’m not doing it enough on those other days? I’m supposed to be doing it completely every day. That’s what being a Christian is. So Sabbath is a non-issue in the New Testament. It’s a very big issue, though, of course, in the Old Testament. Okay, Dominic from San Diego, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, Steve.
SPEAKER 04 :
How you doing? Good. Did you turn the radio down?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, I’m trying to turn it down right now. Yeah, I did.
SPEAKER 04 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Can you hear me now?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, my question is, people…
SPEAKER 07 :
It says in the Bible that God the Father, God the Word, and God the Holy Spirit are one. So why do people try to separate them into three?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, there’s a bit of a conundrum about that. Because the Bible does say repeatedly that there’s only one God, okay? There is only one God. The problem is that the Father is specifically called God. Shh! And Jesus is also specifically called God. And the Holy Spirit is also specifically called God. Now, one conclusion might be that there’s only one God, and he sometimes is called the Father, and sometimes he’s called the Son, and sometimes he’s called the Holy Spirit, so that these would just be different ways of speaking of the one God. This is what the modalist, or the Jesus-only view, the oneness Pentecostal view teaches. But the Trinitarian view observes that Jesus does not, in every way, identify himself as the Father. I mentioned earlier, he said, if you’ve seen the Father, you’ve seen me. Or, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. I’m sorry. But later in the chapter, he said, the Father is greater than I. So, he identifies with the Father at one level, and distinguishes himself from the Father on another. Sometimes Jesus said, I didn’t come to do my own will, but the will of my Father. Okay, so the Father has a will, and Jesus has a will. That makes them like two different persons in some sense, and yet, He’s identified with the Father somehow. Holy Spirit likewise. I mean, those kinds of things too. The Father and the Spirit are sometimes spoken of as separate. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are sometimes spoken of as separate. Like when Jesus said, I’m going away, but I’ll send you another comforter, meaning the Holy Spirit. Well, if it’s just him, it’s not another comforter. It’s the same one. He’s just going to come back. But the point here is, The Bible regularly speaks about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each as God, but not always as interchangeable with each other. But actually, there is distinction as well as identity and unity between them. So how do we understand that? Well, I don’t know if we do. But the Trinity Doctrine is one way that seems to explain it. Because the Trinity Doctrine teaches that God is one in substance, but three in person. Now, the word substance isn’t found in the Bible. The word persons isn’t found in the Bible in that connection. So those are words that people have used that the Bible doesn’t use. But it’s a way of trying to affirm something that the Bible apparently requires. And that is that in some sense, the three are one. They are all God and there’s only one God. In another sense, the three are three. And so God is one in a certain sense, traditionally we’d say in substance. He’s three in a different sense. And the analogy I always give is that the Bible says the husband and wife are one flesh. Well, we know that they’re different from each other. They’re different people. And yet they are one, according to God, but not in the same sense, obviously. So, I mean, God is three in a sense, and one in a different, just like a couple are two in one sense and one in another. It’s not explained to us how, but it is saying it’s in a different sense. I’m sorry I’m out of time. Wish I was not. This is The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
