The conversation takes a spirited turn towards understanding the purpose and interpretation of parables with special focus on the wheat and tares. Alongside, Steve dives headfirst into discussing the implications of women’s teaching roles in churches, guided by Biblical references in 1 Timothy. This episode is not just a reflection on scripture, but a practical discussion on living out one’s beliefs through fellowship, ethics, and actions.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
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. Take in your calls if you have questions you’d like to raise for conversation on the air about the Bible or the Christian faith, anything like that. Or if you see things differently, maybe you’re not a Christian, maybe you have objections to the Bible or to Christianity. Maybe you are a Christian and you just have objections to something this host believes. We’d be glad to hear from you. We can talk about those if you’ll call in. You can’t call in right now because all our lines are full, but that will not be the case for the entire hour. And if you call in a little later, randomly, hopefully not too late, because if you get through too late, we may not have time to talk very long. But, you know, just maybe a few minutes from now, you may find that a line has opened up. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844- 1-888-484-5737. A couple of things I need to announce because they’re coming up real quick. One is that tomorrow night, Wednesday night, is being the first Wednesday of the month. It’s the time we normally have our Zoom meeting, and we are doing that. I’m not canceling it or anything like that in case you went the way I said we normally do it. We normally do it, and we will be doing it as normal tomorrow, 7 o’clock p.m. Pacific time. is when we do it, and it’s about an hour and a half long usually, and it’s a Q&A like this program. But it’s on Zoom with face-to-face interaction, which is, for me, I enjoy it more than just looking at a wall while I’m talking over the air. I like to see the people I’m talking to. So that’s tomorrow night and the first Wednesday of every month, generally speaking. And then the next night, day after tomorrow, Thursday night, This is for Southern California listeners, especially in Orange County area, I suppose, and San Diego County, perhaps. I’m going to be doing something I haven’t done before. I’ve been asked if I would do it, I think, with some regularity, and we’ll see if that happens. We’ll see how it goes the first time. There’s a pizza house in Huntington Beach, California, called Two Brothers Pizza, and The owners are believers, and they listen to this program, and they’ve asked if I would be interested in conducting a Theology Thursday occasionally at their restaurant. This would mean I’d give a short talk. Now, see, many of you might want to show up just to see if that can be done. I don’t know if I can give short talks, but no, I’m supposed to speak for 20 minutes or 30 minutes on a subject. And then we have like maybe an hour and a half to discuss it. We can interact. You can ask questions about it. We can maybe discuss differences of opinion about it or whatever. It’s just a matter of theological inquiry on a Thursday night. That’s why they call it Theology Thursday. And it may be that we’ll do this one on a quasi-regular basis. This is the first time, though, and we’ll, of course, wait and see how it goes. to make that decision. But the idea is that you can come early. 6.30 or so is when we’re kind of announcing it, I think. And you can have a meal, and you can even have a meal while the talk is going on and so forth. And then I’ll give a short talk, and we’ll have a long discussion. And that’s Thursday. So tomorrow night is Zoom meeting. Thursday night is Theology Thursday in Huntington Beach at Two Brothers Pizza. Now, if you want to find the information about the time and place of those things and how to log in to the Zoom meeting, you only have to go to our website, thenarrowpath.com, and click on the tab that says Announcements, and go down to tomorrow’s date, which is August 6th, and the next day’s date, which is August 7th. And you’ll find the information there about these meetings, the time and place and all of that. So that’s coming up tomorrow and the next day. And information about the details can be found at thenarrowpath.com under the tab that says announcements. All right. Enough of that. Let’s talk to Mark calling in from Eagan, Minnesota. Right? Gotcha. Hi, Mark. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello. Thank you. Okay, I’m not a Calvinist, but I’m studying it because my pastor at my Baptist church here is a Calvinist. He told me he was, but he doesn’t preach it. But I’m still going to meet with him at some point and discuss things with him. So I’m looking up pro-Calvinistic verses, and I’ll just give you one that maybe you can help me with. It’s Matthew 24, 22 and 24. It says, And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days shall be cut short. Then verse 24, for false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Who are they talking about the elect there?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, of course, Jesus is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem that was going to take place there. within 40 years of the time he was speaking, that’s how the conversation began with the disciples asking when that would be, when he predicted in verse 2 that not one stone would be left standing on another of the temple. And they came to him and said, when will this be? So he gave this long, protracted discourse, we call the Olivet Discourse, answering that. Now, in the course of that, he talks about how God will take care of the elect. Now, who are the elect? Well, the elect, Paul actually gives us that answer in Romans chapter 11. He talks about, at the beginning of chapter 11 of Romans, he says, I say that has God cast away his people? Certainly not. He says, I’m also an Israelite at the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Now, he speaks about some people whom God has foreknown. Now, Paul does admit that God has cast off Israelite branches that do not remain on the olive tree because they don’t believe in Christ. So many Jews, Paul says, have been broken off of the tree. They are cast off. But he is an example of a Jew who is not. Now, what was he an example of? A believing Jew, a Christian Jew. A believing Jew is one who believes in Christ. So he is one of those that God foreknew. And then a little further down, he says in verse 5, even so then at this present time there is a remnant, of which Paul has already said he’s part of that, a righteous remnant, according to the election of grace. So the election, the elect, is a reference to this believing remnant, these faithful Jews. And then, of course, in verse 7 of Romans 11, he says, what then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks, meaning the generality of the nation. But the elect or the election have obtained it and the rest were hardened. So Paul identifies himself and other believing Jews as the election or the remnant. Of course, Paul often speaks with Christians as the elect in Ephesians and so forth and elsewhere in Romans. So I would say that when Jesus said, if the days were not shortened, the elect themselves would not survive. But for the elect’s sake. God will shorten the days. Well, that’s apparently what happened. God allowed the, I don’t know what shortening the days exactly looks like, but allowed an opportunity for the believing Jewish people, the church in Jerusalem, to flee before the war came. And they did. We know this historically, that the church in Jerusalem fled and escaped. And before the Holocaust of 1870 came, they were gone and safe. And so they were saved. And he says that the false prophets were such that if it were possible, the elect themselves would be deceived. Now, I would say this, that he’s saying even those who are believing Jews, if possible, they could be deceived. Now, If possible, what’s that mean? I think a Calvinist would probably say, he’s simply saying it’s not possible for the elect to be deceived because they are elect. And being elect, they are guaranteed to not be deceived. But I’m not sure I would take it that way. I would say that there were elect individuals like Paul himself. There were Christian Jews who were of the elect. And if they allow it, If they make it possible, they can be deceived. That’s why Jesus is warning about it. If it were impossible for elect people to be deceived, there’d be no reason to warn them against deceivers. Because it would be a given. You’re elect, so you won’t be deceived. So it seems clear that he’s talking about, you know, elect ones individually can be deceived if they allow it. But, you know, and if they do, if they make it possible, they can be deceived too. So I believe that… Be elect simply refers to the church in Jerusalem that survived that war and that siege and that holocaust. I don’t think it has anything to do with Calvinist ideas. Can you tell me what point he is making from those verses that he thinks supports the Calvinist view? How is he using those verses?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I don’t know yet. The thing is, our pastor, he never says anything about Calvinism. Like, unlike John MacArthur did, I mean, he was vehemently preaching it. Yeah. Right? And R.C. Sproul and others. But our pastor never hints at it at all. I heard a rumor that he was a Calvinist, so I pointed, I just went up and asked, are you a Calvinist? He said yes. Oh, okay. So he doesn’t preach it. But I’m prepared to talk to him about it because I want to find out why, I guess.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. I wouldn’t make that a hill to die on if he’s not preaching it. He’s not presenting a danger.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, but that’s not my concern. My concern, I want to know about Calvinism, and I’m trying to study it myself, and I want to ask him these questions, like why do you believe the things you do, I guess.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let me ask you, have you listened to my series, my lecture series on Calvinism?
SPEAKER 07 :
No. No.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, if you do, you’ll learn about as much about Calvinism as you’d learn in a seminary course. Okay, so the series is called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. So if you go to thenarrowpath.com, go to the tab that says Topical Lectures, and you’ll see a listing of different series, and one of the series is called God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Salvation. Okay. Those lectures will fill you in on all the arguments they use and all the reasons that they’re not convincing. Yeah, I interact with every argument, every scripture they use, pretty much.
SPEAKER 07 :
Perfect. That’s what I need. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, brother. Thanks for your call. Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, bye.
SPEAKER 02 :
Bye now. Another Mark, this time from Mission Viejo, California, is next. Hi, Mark. Welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hello, Steve. Last Friday… Towards the end of the program, there was a call regarding the wheat and the tares, the parable. And I didn’t notice. I mean, what I did notice was there seemed to be something I want to put out on the table as well, just to see if I don’t know what difference it would make, but it may make some difference. You were struggling. One of the points you were making early on, maybe as an introduction, was that parables are typically, at least in our time, interpreted with one point to figure out what the main point of the parable is. But in this parable, and this is the thing I wanted to point out myself, was that in this particular parable, as you know, Jesus interpreted his own parable. Yep. Yeah. So in that sense, I would think the more the modern, would I consider a modern principle of hermeneutic, of trying to figure out the one point of a parable, doesn’t apply in this situation for this parable. because Jesus interpreted his own parable.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let me just say, what Jesus did is he identified the symbols in the story. That’s not the same thing as telling you what the point of the story is, but he does give the point of the story. It’s the last part of it. Usually the point of a parable is at the end, and no matter how many details of the story come before it, a lot of times those are simply setting up the story for the conclusion of the story. and you can’t have a conclusion of a story if you don’t have a story. So Jesus talks about a man who sowed good seed in his field. Another man who was hostile toward him sowed tares, or kind of a weed in the field that would compromise the integrity of the crops. The owner of the field, his servant saw that there were tares growing, although tares look an awful lot like wheat and could be mistaken for them. And they said, should we go through and pull out the tares? And he said, no, just wait for the harvest time. Then we’ll take the tares out first. Then we’ll gather the wheat. Okay, that’s the story. Now, we can’t get the conclusion of the story right if we don’t know what the story is even about. And so Jesus says, well, in this story, the field is the world. The man who sowed the good seed is the son of man, and the good seed are the sons of the kingdom. And the enemy who sowed the bad seed is the devil, and the sons of the devil are those seed. And so just like they’re going to gather the tares out of the field, God will send his angels at the end, and they’ll gather the tares first, the wicked, out, and then the righteous will shine forth in the kingdom of their father. Now, in other words, the story is about this. There are wicked people in the world alongside Christians. And we don’t have to be told that. We know that. The question we need to know is, should we try to get rid of them all? Should we try to weed them out? I mean, should we wage a war against them like the Israelites did against the Canaanites to drive them all out? No, Jesus said, you might accidentally get rid of some wheat that way when you’re trying not to. He said, wait till the end. And he says, in the end, the angels will come and do that. So the message of the parable is that it’s not our task to try to remove the wicked from the world forcibly. We have to simply live alongside them until the end when Jesus sends the angels to gather them out. So it will be his job. Sort of like what God said in the New Testament quotes a couple of times. Once in Romans, I think once in Hebrews. where God said, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. We don’t take vengeance on people. We don’t try to rid the world of bad people. Of course, we do try to convert them. Now, see, if we’re going to go every detail of the parable corresponds to something exactly, you can’t convert a tare into wheat, okay? But children of the devil can be converted to become children of God. So, you know, I mean, many people have been children of the devil at one point in their life, And now they’re converted. They’re children of God. So, I mean, if we were going to press the details of the parable at every point, we’d say, well, you know, you can’t convert somebody to Christ because they’re a tare and a tare can’t become wheat. Well, that’s not the point being made, and it’s not a correct point in terms of, I mean, it’s true about wheat and tares. It’s not true about peoples. So you can’t press every detail of a parable unless you’re going to mess up your theology. What you do is you kind of, what is the point of this parable? And the point of this parable is there’s bad people in the world. The field is the world. And there’s good people. And it’s not the job of the good people to go and forcibly get rid of the bad people. God will take care of that. And that’s the message. That’s the one point. Yeah, Jesus did take some time to identify the symbols. Okay, the world is symbolized by the field. You know, the good seed, that’s a symbol of good people. So far, he goes through and tells that, because otherwise we wouldn’t even know what the story is about. But the point of the story is not to insist that any people really are like wheat or like tares, although in some ways they can be symbolic of them, but The point is the one that Jesus gives at the end. And that’s what I believe is the intention of that parable, just like other parables. I think it has one major point. Thank you for your call, Omar. Okay, Alan from Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, thank you twice, Steve. The call screener said because we are against a hard break, I didn’t get a chance to ask about the second part of my question.
SPEAKER 02 :
Is it okay if I ask about it now? Listen, we might have time for both parts. It just depends on what it is. We have about seven minutes.
SPEAKER 06 :
There’s a second part of my question that I asked yesterday. Well, let me get to it. Now, as a premise or a foundation of questions, I’m going to read three verses from Isaiah and one from Romans, if that’s all right. Isaiah 49, 14, But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me. Verse 15, can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. Their walls are continually before me. And the cross-reference, which is related. Verse 4, or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God be his repentance? Now, what I mentioned was, is that some people think, well, let me just say this. I should have mentioned it first. I believe in the call of Abraham, which is confirmed to Jacob in Genesis 27, verse 29. I believe in the verity of God. And so some people think, like I was saying, that the Jewish people are the salmon people. They spawn the Christ and then whatever. People say, we’re done with Israel. And can you disabuse me of this notion?
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. When you say Israel, do you mean the nation of Israel, or do you mean the people of Israel, like the race?
SPEAKER 06 :
The people group. Sometimes there’s a mixed multitude. They identify with the people group.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right, but you’re referring to Jewish people, or are you referring to the political nation in the Middle East?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, no, not the political nation.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ve never known any Christian to believe that God is done with the Jewish people in the sense that they can’t be saved. I mean, there’s no people that can’t be saved. Everyone can be saved. And so God has never put the Jews in a separate category from Gentiles in that respect. Gentiles can be saved by coming to Christ, and so can Jews. And that will be true through all time and through eternity, I guess. So, no, I don’t think anyone – I don’t know of any theology that says that God is – closed the gate to the Jews. Now, when God says to Israel, or to Jerusalem, actually, that he has engraved them on the palm of his hand, meaning that he’s not going to forget them, like a woman can’t forget a nursing child. Of course not. Now, of course, a nursing child is in relationship with the mother and drawing its life from the mother, nursing. And so, you know, obviously God would never forget those who are trusting in him and drawing their life from him and that relationship with him. But, you see, there are many Jews who aren’t in that relationship with him, you know. I mean, Judas Iscariot would be one that comes to mind. You know, Caiaphas would be another. There would be a lot of them, of course. Whole generations of them in the Old Testament worshipped Baal and died in that condition and apparently died without that relationship with God. In modern times, we’ve had people, Jewish people like Jeffrey Epstein or, you know, Sigmund Freud or And Karl Marx and people like that who were enemies of Christianity and enemies of God, atheists, I don’t think they’re in heaven. I don’t think God has a relationship with them any more than he does with atheists who are not Jewish. Now, in other words, the Bible has never said that God’s promises to Israel apply to every person who’s Jewish. Of course, even the promise he made to them in Mount Sinai was, if you keep my covenant and if you obey my voice, you’ll be my people. And I believe that that’s always true. I think that if a Jewish person today obeys God’s voice and keeps the covenant, which now has been replaced with the new covenant, but they can do that too. All the original partners in the new covenant with Jesus, the disciples, they were all Jewish. And there have been thousands of Jews throughout history have become followers of the Messiah, as they should, of course. But, you know, promises that are made by God to his people, are assuming that his people are his people by choice, not just by default. They’re not just born with the right ancestors. They have to be faithful. God has never made any promises to people who are unfaithful. Like I said, even in the Old Testament, he made it a condition of God’s ownership of them, that they obey his voice and keep his covenant. So you really don’t have any race of people who, just because of their race, have some kind of unconditional relationship with God. When God said he won’t forget them, it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t forget any of them. Certainly, like I said, I think Judas Iscariot, I think he escaped. I think he escaped from God’s love. I think God has pretty much rejected him. Whether eternally or not, I don’t know. But at this point, he certainly stands condemned. I wouldn’t want to be him at the judgment, but he’s Jewish. So, I mean… The truth is that being Jewish doesn’t mean that you are a recipient of the promises God made to Israel because those promises, as frankly many Old Testament passages say, are made to the faithful remnant of Israel. If the Jews are worshiping Baal or Moloch and denouncing God and cursing God or they’re atheists, No, they don’t have a special relationship with God. When they die, they’re going to be just like any pagan that dies, because they are pagans, essentially. So that’s what I would say. Certainly God has never rejected any race, the Jews or anyone else, in the sense that he won’t have them if they’ll have him. Thank you for the clarification. Well done. Thank you. Okay, Alan. Thanks for your call, brother. Bye now. Okay, Robert from Hereford, Arizona. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Oh, we may have to hold you over, but go ahead. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Steve. Hi. Romans 7.25, my question’s concerning, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and he’s talking about the issue of dealing with the law of sin and death in his body. My question to you is, do you think he’s indicating he’s talking about the resurrection from the dead through Christ in that sense, or is he like… Something currently? That’s my question.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. In verses 13 and following, he’s talking about, well, actually a little later, 14 and following, he’s talking about the struggle with the flesh and the spirit, and he’s finding how frustrating it is because his mind wants to be obedient to God. But his flesh has given him trouble. And Paul talks about this in Galatians 5.17. And so he says, you know, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? He means from this struggle with the flesh. When am I going to be done with it? He says, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. What he means is that’s the answer to the question. Who’s going to deliver me from this body of death? Well, it’s God. It’s through Jesus I’ll be delivered. And yes, I do believe he’s talking there about ultimately the resurrection, which he talks about, obviously, in chapter 8, verses 22 and 23 and so forth. But I think also he’s talking about how we have a provisional deliverance just through walking in the Spirit. Because he says in chapter 8, in verse 4, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So I believe what he’s saying is, I’ve got troubles with this flesh. Some of them are temporary, because when Jesus comes back, I’ll be done with that flesh. In the meantime, God still delivers me step by step. And, you know, moment by moment, as I walk in the Spirit, he gives me the power over the flesh. Eventually, he’ll give me total freedom from the flesh in the resurrection. I need to take a break. I wish I didn’t right now, but thank you for your call, Robert. Good to talk to you, brother. You’re listening to The Narrow Path. Our website’s thenarrowpath.com. We have another half hour coming. Don’t go away. I’ll be back in 30 seconds.
SPEAKER 01 :
Do you find that reading the Bible leaves you scratching your head with more new questions than you had before you read it? but don’t know where to go for answers? You may be interested then in Steve Gregg’s many online lectures, downloadable without charge from our website, thenarrowpath.com. There’s no charge for anything at thenarrowpath.com. Visit us there and be amazed at all you have been missing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome back to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. My name is Steve Gregg, and we’re live for another half hour. Taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or a difference of opinion with the host, and you’d like to call and talk about that, I’d love to have you do so. We have one line open right now. You might get through if you call quickly. It’s 844-484-5737. That’s 844. 484-5737. On our switchboard right now, there’s a couple of calls from Michigan. We had one from, well, I don’t remember what else we had today, but we often have calls from the Midwest, and it’s a good opportunity for me to mention I’ll be speaking in the Midwest. I’ll be speaking in Michigan and in Indiana and in Illinois. little bit I’m going to be on a like a looks like it’s 11 day itinerary this month from the 16th to the 26th I guess the 15th I think the 15th to 26 so you know if you’re in those areas and you want to come to any of the meetings just look at our website the narrow path calm and look under announcements and you’ll see where those meetings are going to be held possibly in your area All right, let’s talk to, let’s see who’s been here longest. Well, it’s been Barbara from Roseville, Michigan. Barbara, welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, hi, Steve. Thank you so much. My question is 1 Corinthians 5.11, where he talks about not so much as eating with a brother who is a fornicator or a drunk or, you know, no fellowship. So if I’m at church and we’re having a fellowship dinner and someone who, a fornicator and he’s drunk at the table, should I get up from the table and take my food someplace else? Or should the kitchen staff give him a carryout because we know what manner of person he is? What am I to do with this scripture?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I will say this. When Paul said if a person is considered a Christian and living in these unacceptable behaviors… The presumption is that person has been confronted about those behaviors and has failed to repent and is showing themselves obstinate about it. Because, I mean, if that person is confronted and he repents and stops doing it, well, then it’s all good. So the assumption is the person is simply living in sin in various ways, drunkenness and fornication, those kind of things are mentioned. But he won’t repent. Well, then that’s the responsibility of the church itself. to confront him and call him to repentance if he doesn’t repent to say, well, you know, until you repent, you really can’t be part of the fellowship of the saints because you don’t want to be a saint. And it shouldn’t be laid on the individual church members like you. If you’re going to a church potluck or something and, you know, you’re just fellowshipping with the real Christian people and there’s somebody there who shouldn’t be there, I don’t think you have to leave I mean, you might. You might want to. No, I would just say if you end up at the table with him, I’d say I wouldn’t fellowship with him. I mean, I just wouldn’t engage too much with him. But he shouldn’t be there. Obviously, the church leaders would be the ones I would expect to handle this. They shouldn’t put you in that position where the Bible expects you not to have to be eating with these people. And the church kind of allows them to come and eat with you and the others. It’s a negligence on the part of the church leadership. I mean, you might, out of conscience, remove yourself from the table. But, yeah, it’s our thing. I actually think that Paul, in some cases, is known to use a little bit of hyperbole. Like when he says, if when I eat meat, it stumbles my brother, I’ll never eat again as long as the world lives, as long as the world goes on or whatever. You know, there’s times when Paul says things very emphatically. When he says, don’t even eat with such a person, I think there would be times when you would, in a rather non-legalistic way, say, well, it would be a very strange and difficult thing not to eat with this person in this situation. And it is not an ideal situation. Someone should be addressing it, but I’m not sure it needs to be me. I also would say, you know, an exception would be if the person in question is a member of your own family, you know, nuclear family, a woman married to a husband, let’s say, and he’s supposedly a Christian, but he’s a drunkard and fornicator. Well, you know, she might say, well, I shouldn’t eat with him. Well, you know, you shouldn’t have to be in that position. But I don’t know that you’re in violation when you’re eating with your own family members, you know, your children or husband or whatever, and they fit that – Paul is simply arguing that the church should not countenance that behavior. And since the church met around a table very much the same, I mean, just the, you know, you read the same book, 1 Corinthians chapter 11, he talks about how they’re at the Lord’s Supper, but they’re not really eating the Lord’s Supper properly because some of them are taking too much food and some are getting too much wine and getting drunk. In other words, it was a meal. It was at a meal. That’s how the early church did the Lord’s Supper. And so the idea is that much of the fellowship of the early church was over food, over a meal. And I think when Paul says don’t even eat with such one, primarily I think what he means is that person should not be allowed at the table, you know, of the love feast, of the agape feast. And perhaps, you know, if you were in a position outside church where that person wanted to have you over to eat or whatever, and they’re living in that kind of way, I would say no to that, too. But I’m pretty sure, I mean, people could take it differently than I do, but I’m pretty sure what he means is that that person should not be, you shouldn’t have table fellowship with him as the church typically does when they get together. He shouldn’t be there. So. Yeah, I’d say follow your own conscience about it, but I don’t think that you’re sinning if you happen to stay at the table. If you find that that’s where you’re seated and that person comes up and sits at the table, I don’t think you have to walk away. Okay. Thank you, Barbara. Let’s see. We’ll talk next to Mike from Surprise, Arizona. Hi, Mike.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, thank you for taking my call. A quick question is on Timothy 2.12, I think it is. First Timothy. Oh, First Timothy, thank you. It talks about women should not be teachers. I don’t have it up in front of me, so I apologize. Can you help me understand that? What does the word teacher mean? Is that a pastor? So if you had a guest speaker where she was teaching, what does that mean?
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, well, the word teacher does not appear. The verb is there, but not the noun teacher. He says, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. But to be in silence for Adam was first formed, then Eve. Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression, etc. Now, this is actually in the ramp up to his discussion of the qualifications for overseers, or what we’d call elders today. And what they called them then, too, they called them overseers and they called them elders. And in chapter 3, which is in the immediate context, immediately after these verses, he says this is a faithful saying, if a man desires a position of an overseer, he desires a good work. A bishop or overseer must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober, and so forth. So, Paul is instructing Timothy, whom he sees as being in the position to appoint or approve of persons in the role of overseers in the church. Timothy himself was not a pastor or an overseer in that sense. He was an apostle. He was an extension of Paul’s own apostolic ministry. And just like Paul and Barnabas as apostles appointed elders in the churches, so Timothy and later Titus, we read, were in the same position. So he’s telling, you know, in the appointment of elders, here’s the qualifications. And chapter 3, verses 1 through 7, of course, gives this list of qualifications, which indicates he has to be a man because he has to be the husband of one wife and the head of his household. And the management of his household is said to be the way he is vetted to know whether he can take care of the church of God if he doesn’t take care of his own house well. Now, in that context, it says, I don’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. Now, in my opinion… This is related to the same subject. Most of the teaching in the early churches was done by the elders. I don’t believe that it was some kind of hard and fast rule that only an elder could teach, but that’s what the elders were there for. Most people didn’t have copies of the Bible of their own, so they couldn’t really study it at home. They didn’t have Bible education. They didn’t have Bible schools in those days. You know, they… They just, most people couldn’t teach. And yet, Paul, in giving the qualifications for an elder in chapter 3, he says the man has to be, in verse 2, able to teach. So, although I imagine a teacher who is not an elder would still be allowed to teach if he’s a trusted individual, but mostly it was the elders who were in the position to teach, who knew enough to teach and so forth. Now, that being so, I think when he says, I don’t let a woman teach or have authority over a man, I think that he’s talking about teaching as an elder. Teaching is in a role of authority, you know, as a church leader. Now, he does signify over a man, which limits it somewhat. And that would be, in my opinion, because an overseer teaches the whole congregation, which is comprised of men and women. And I think that’s why he doesn’t give a woman the position of an overseer of the church, because it would make her teach and have authority over a man. In fact, even over her own husband, if he’s in the church. If she’s the overseer, and let’s say he’s not, that would be an interesting upside-down arrangement in terms of their position. family arrangement. Now, I personally think because of the context that Paul is still or maybe beginning to talk about qualifications for church eldership. And Paul did not place women in that role. That’s obvious even from chapter 3 when he says the elder has to be a husband of one wife. So, what about women teaching in other settings? You know, is Paul entirely a opposed to women teaching males in various situations? Well, no. Remember, Timothy’s own mother taught him the scriptures and his grandmother. And Paul thought that that was wonderful. In 2 Timothy, he says, you know, I remember Eunice and Lois, your mom and your grandmom, who, you know, they’ve taught you. the word in scriptures. And so he wasn’t against women, per se, teaching young men like Timothy, per se. But I think he didn’t put them in authoritative teaching roles in the church, which was held by elders. Priscilla and Aquila were a married couple, and they were discipled by Paul. And once in Ephesus, when Paul was out of town, a teacher came through named Apollos, And he needed some correction in his teaching. And so Priscilla and Aquila, of which the wife is mentioned first, I suspect because she may have played the leading role in this conversation, they took him aside and taught him. They corrected him. But this was not, again, she was not an elder in the church. This was not done in a church meeting even. So, you know, it’s not as if Paul thinks women don’t know enough or aren’t smart enough. to teach men. He’s trying to maintain a certain decorum in the church which maintained God’s design of male leadership. And that’s why he says, the reason I don’t put a woman in that position is because Adam was created first and then the woman. The idea being, God made Adam, and then when Adam needed a partner and a helper, God made a woman to help him. And so Paul sees that as indicative of the intended relationship between at least husbands and wives, in the church. And since the church, Paul sees the church as something of a family unit as opposed to some kind of corporation or organization, his brothers and sisters primarily, he maintains the same decorum in the church that he would in a nuclear family, I think. So what if a woman writes a book? Well, she’s not operating as an elder in the church. I read books by women if they’re good. I haven’t read that many good ones by women, but some of them have been among the best books I’ve read. Hannah Whitehall Smith’s book, Christian Secret of a Happy Life, very influential in my life. And, you know, obviously Elizabeth Elliot. I’d read anything she wrote. In fact, I drove an hour to go hear her speak at a church in Portland once. But she was not an elder there. In fact, she didn’t believe women should be elders. Elizabeth Elliot was, of course, the widow of a great missionary. who was killed by Indians, by natives in Ecuador in the early 50s. And she was sought after to speak in churches and other places. I believe she was a Bible college professor, too. And yet she did not believe that women should be elders in churches. So there is a distinction between limiting eldership positions to only males, because Paul clearly said that that was wrong. what he would do and what he would approve. The difference between that and less formal situations where women are teaching children or women are maybe co-teaching in an informal way with their husbands or whatever over a man. So I don’t think Paul was a legalist about this. I don’t think we should be legalists about it. But when it comes to choosing among candidates for leadership in a church, I think Paul would not have women in that role. They have plenty to do for the Lord besides that. And most of the people who object to this restriction, they feel like it’s kind of keeping women down. But that’s because in our modern culture, the pastor or the elders are considered to be like the the big bosses, you know, the privileged ones in the church. But that’s because the church has become a corporation and is no longer what Christ intended it to be. Jesus told his apostles, who were certainly leaders, you know, the rulers of the Gentiles exercise authority over the village. It shall not be done that way with you. He says, with you, whoever’s chief is going to be the slave of all. So, you know, we see pastor as a privileged position in a church. Paul saw it as the slave of the rest of the church. How many rights do slaves have? And Paul also didn’t believe in salaried ministry. He didn’t take a salary. Jesus himself told the apostles, you know, freely you’ve received, freely give. Paul did believe that people in ministry should be supported. They’d be voluntarily supported by people who appreciate and benefit from their ministry. But as far as charging a salary from a corporation, no. That’s not what anyone in the early church would do. In fact, the Didache, which is an early church document from the generation after the apostles, had rules about this. They said if a teacher comes to town and teaches in the church, if he asks for money, it says he’s a false prophet. So, you know, we’ve got the church turned upside down. Today in our churches, the pastor is the paid professional. And as such, he’s kind of the boss here. And he’s got, you know, maybe elders who are his board of directors. But it’s run like a corporation, not like a family, and very much different than what Jesus said it should be done like. And this is something that we need to re-look at if we want to ever have the church, you know, functioning the way that Jesus and the apostles wanted it to be. All right. Let’s talk next to Kevin from River Rouge, Michigan. Kevin, welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, brother. I’ve talked to you at least a half dozen times. Don Shaper, long ago when I lived in Southgate here, downriver, sent me your CDs on psychology. The other preface, a point I want to make before I ask my first question is that we’re both the same age and we’re both musicians. I just came from downtown where the Lord gave me another prose to write.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, Kevin, let me ask you this. Kevin, let me say this.
SPEAKER 10 :
I’ve got it written down.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, we don’t have time for a preface because we’ve got other people waiting and we’re almost done. Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER 10 :
I’ll ask you one question. Okay. I don’t know if you heard of Andrew Farley’s Grace Message from 8 to 8.30 here on FM Christian Radio. Never heard of it. Okay. Well, I don’t believe 100% of anyone unless I study the Holy Spirit and I pray about it.
SPEAKER 02 :
So what’s your question?
SPEAKER 10 :
My question is that he primarily, when people call in, talks about the new covenant and the words, two different words, repent and believe. Now, Peter talked about repent and be saved.
SPEAKER 02 :
What is the question? What is your question? I don’t have much time.
SPEAKER 10 :
I was wondering what your take is and assessment about the difference between repent and confess and be saved versus the question they asked Jesus, what must we do to be saved? This is the will of God that you believe on him.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, Jesus gave more than one answer to that. I mean, Jesus said in Matthew 7, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father in heaven. Now, if we want to say, well, doing the will of my Father in heaven is only believing, well, then Jesus didn’t seem to realize that because he said at the end of that same sermon, anyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a fool. who builds his house on sand and it’s going to fall, but anyone who hears these sayings of mine and does them is a wise man who builds his house on rocks. So Jesus didn’t just say, just believe what I said. He said, do what I say. He said elsewhere in Luke 6, he said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don’t do what I say? There’s not a lot of doing there. You know, on the day of judgment with the sheep and the goats, Jesus judged the sheep and the goats by what they did. I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me. And when you did it to my brethren, you did it to me. And therefore, you’re saved or you’re lost. The Bible indicates that the judgment is going to be on the basis of what we do. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re not saved by believing. It just means that anyone who says, well, you just have to believe something, you know, the gospel, and that’s all that’s necessary, they don’t know what believe means in the Bible. The word believing actually refers to something more considerable than that. It means you believe something specific, namely that Jesus is the king. Jesus is the Lord. That’s the declaration of the gospel. You can’t believe the gospel if you don’t embrace Christ as your king and Lord. And this has to be not insincere. I mean, if you sincerely embrace Christ as your king and Lord, you’ll obey him. Because if you say, well, he’s my king and Lord, but you don’t obey him, well, you’re lying. And so, yeah, if I believe, I’m saved by believing. But believing means I really believe it. Not that I’m pretending to believe it or I kind of half believe it or whatever. If I really believe Jesus is the King and Lord, then that’s going to dictate behavior to me because you can’t have a King and Lord and have that not change your life. So, you know, there’s no conflict between the idea that we are saved by believing and judged by our works because our works show if we believe or not. It’s just that simple. All right. Thanks for your call. Let’s talk to Peggy from Atlanta, Georgia. Peggy, welcome.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Steve.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi.
SPEAKER 08 :
My question is, when Barabbas was released instead of Jesus, according to Jewish custom, what was their actual custom? Did they normally let go someone that was falsely accused? Or did they knowingly release someone that they knew was a murderer and a robber? I’m just wondering what criteria it was for their customs.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, I don’t know what criteria it was on other occasions. On this occasion, it had nothing to do with someone being falsely accused because Barabbas was a guilty man. And Jesus had been declared guilty, too, though he was, in fact, falsely accused. He stood on trial as one who had been condemned wrongfully. And so we have two condemned men. Neither of them are regarded guilty. by the judge to be falsely accused. They’re both considered guilty. And he releases one of them. Now, the Bible says it was customary at Passover time for, at the request of the Jews, for the governor to, who is a Roman, of course, to release a prisoner. That’s, I guess, it’s sort of like, you know, how a president offers pardons to people, sometimes not very discriminately and sometimes not very wisely, but But I think the idea is to show, you know, clemency, leniency to someone that the people, you know, would like to see released. I think presidents just do it on a whim now. But the thing is that back then, you know, to grant a pardon to someone who is not innocent was apparently, we don’t have other record of it, but apparently that was a custom. And that’s why Barabbas was put in the position to be released. Colton from Sacramento, California. We only have a few minutes. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hi, I was wondering if you’re familiar with the part of the gospel where somebody asked Jesus, do we pay our taxes? And he says, give to Caesars what is Caesars, give to the Lord’s what is, or give to God’s what is God’s. Yeah. God being a sovereign God, how does the 501c3 support that verse or Because in my eyes, it contradicts it. I was wondering what your thoughts were on that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, share with me real quickly where you find the contradiction between a 501c3 and giving God what is his.
SPEAKER 05 :
So you stop paying your taxes, and so you’re not giving to Caesars what is Caesars. And then like in COVID, churches were told not to worship, and if they did, they would have their 501c3s pulled. So technically… it’s like they’re shaking the hand with the government to not give what, to use what is Caesar’s, so that they cannot worship God the way God wants them to. Because, like, you have Radshak, Meshach, and Abednego, you know.
SPEAKER 02 :
I hear you. Okay, so there is such a thing as righteous, you know, resistance to laws that are evil. If a ruler tells you to, you know, do something that is forbidden, then you should not do it. because you’d want to obey God, not men, like Peter said in Acts chapter 5. But 501c3s, I don’t know how this all began, but it’s apparently constitutional that the state has no control over or claim on the church, and therefore, by nature, churches cannot be taxed by the state. or cannot be controlled based on the threat of withholding money or property from them. I mean, they’re independent in that way. Now, I don’t know when the 501c3 idea came up originally as a formal way of doing that, but all I can say is 501c3 is not a way of preventing paying taxes. It is a way of not paying too many taxes, in a government that actually taxes far too much for services that God never authorized governments to perform, you know, it’s basically trying to limit the amount of taxes you have to pay. Now, what belongs to Caesar would not exceed the amount that you’re required to pay, right? I mean, what you’re required to pay belongs to Caesar. If you’re not required to pay, for example, taxes on money that you give to a 501c3 tax, then that’s fine. You’re not required to. Such taxes don’t belong to Caesar. Caesar himself is not asking for them. Now, if you mean that the 501c3 is not paying taxes, yeah, well, I mean, I would say that if they operate like a regular taxable organization, they probably should not be a 501c3. For example, the narrow path is a 501c3. And we don’t pay taxes. But that’s because every penny that comes, we spend on radio time. We don’t have any other expenses. If we had to pay taxes, the donations that people send for that would be somewhat consumed by the government. And the government doesn’t have any really right to them, their gifts. So I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any contradiction there. I think we should give Caesar what is Caesar’s. But then we have to ask, well, what is legitimately Caesar’s? And if Caesar’s not even asking for it, he says, no, you’re tax exempt. I say, hey, excellent, perfect. Anyway, that’s my thoughts on it. Thanks for your call. You’ve been listening to the Narrow Path radio broadcast. We’re listener supported. You can go to our website and see how to help us out. The website’s thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
