We also tackle Romans 7, where Apostle Paul expresses his struggle with sin. Is it a past struggle, a metaphorical one, or a present reality? Join us as we discuss the role of the Holy Spirit in overcoming the desires of the flesh, and how walking in the Spirit empowers believers. This episode also covers the contemporary debate on women’s roles in church leadership, aligning the discussion with scriptural teachings and cultural considerations.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good afternoon and welcome to the Narrow Path radio broadcast and the beginning of a brand new broadcast week. We’re on Monday through Friday at this time for an hour. uninterrupted by commercial breaks, and welcoming you to call in during the entire hour. My voice is obviously on edge. That will probably change as the hour goes on. Sometimes if I don’t speak much in the morning before broadcast time, I find that my voice doesn’t know that I’ve been awake a long time, which I have. Anyway, it will find out, and my squeaky voice right now will probably improve. Anyway, pay no attention to that. If you have questions about the Bible or the Christian faith, you may call in. If you have a difference of opinion from the host, you may call in, and we’ll discuss whatever subject it is that you bring up for conversation. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. I will be reminding you probably all week that beginning Friday, I will be starting an 11-day or actually it’s expanded. I think it’s going to be a 12-day itinerary teaching in the Midwest. I’ll be a week from Friday. I’ll be not a week from this Friday. This Friday, I’ll be speaking in the Grand Rapids area. And days following, I’ll be in other areas also. in Michigan. I’ll also do one meeting in Indiana, in Indianapolis. And then I have a few meetings in Illinois at the end of this itinerary. So if you’re interested in, if you live in those areas and you’re interested in coming to any of those meetings, you can find the details necessary to come to those meetings if you’d like. at our website, thenarrowpath.com, thenarrowpath.com, under the tab that says Announcements and under the respective dates of the gatherings. So you can go there and check it out and join us. I’d love to meet you. Our lines are at this time full, so we’re going to go to the phones and talk to some of these callers. Susan in Phoenix, Arizona is first. Hi, Susan. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, Steve. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question, and then there was a passage of Scripture that one time you didn’t know, you didn’t understand it, you couldn’t explain something. And I found an answer to that particular passage in one of my spiritual books. So I’d like to give you that information. First of all, the question is, in the Bible it says the sins of the father are delivered unto the third and fourth generation. Is the first generation the parents or the children?
SPEAKER 04 :
It says that the sins of the fathers, that God visits, it says, this is the wording of the Bible, God visits the iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. So that would be the third and fourth generation, probably the father being the first generation.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. So are you kind of guessing that, or do you really feel that that’s the answer?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I don’t think it matters. I don’t think it matters because it’s past. What he did in this respect was fulfilled in the Babylonian exile. But, yeah, I mean, depending on whether 70 years is considered to be four generations or three, In fact, the very fact that the prophecy says the third and fourth means it’s not being exact. But to my mind, the meaning of the words would be the first generation will be the father, and his sins will be visited on his children beyond that. Maybe three more generations, maybe four. Like I said, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a threat being made to us. It was a threat made to Israel. It’s a threat made in the context of Israel worshiping idols. And if they worshipped idols, God would punish Israel with a multi-generation long punishment. And that was fulfilled in the Babylonian exile in 78, excuse me, 568 BC. Let’s see, 586 BC to about 539 BC approximately. Okay, so the father is the first generation then. I think so. Okay. I think so. Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, the other thing is there was a passage. It was Luke 22-36, and you were talking one time about it, and you weren’t sure why Jesus had his disciples carry swords. I don’t know, did anybody ever answer that for you, or did you find the answer? Because if not, I have a book here that’s a revelatory commentary on the original teachings of Jesus. And he talks about the swords. And would you like me to read what he said? It’s a short little paragraph. It’s very short.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’d love to hear it. I’d love to hear it.
SPEAKER 01 :
It says, Jesus’ practicality foresaw that if his disciples carried visible weapons, they would have reasonable protection from unscrupulous, persecuting fanatics. But he did not want all of his faithful apostles to be equipped like soldiers, exclamation point. Their most powerful protection lay in their virtue and wisdom, not in swords. The two swords would be a sufficient statement of their courage that would deter cowardly persecutors. That, in reality, was the purpose Jesus wanted the swords to serve. He never desired that they be used for bloodshed.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that’s possible. That’s a possible answer, too. Yeah, I’ve heard about four different answers, and all of them, of course, think they’re correct. But, yeah, I’ll add that to the list.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, okay. All right, well, that’s what I wanted to tell you. I just thought if you still hadn’t gotten an answer for it, I was reading, and I thought, oh, my gosh, that’s what Steve was wondering about. So, okay, well, then thank you very much, Steve. Goodbye.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, Susan. Bye now. Yeah, it’s not that I’ve never gotten an answer. I’ve gotten lots of answers. I’ve read lots of commentaries. Like I said, there’s about three or four other answers besides the one you gave me. I’ve heard lots of answers. When I say I don’t know the answer, I’m saying I’m not totally satisfied with the explanations that various answers contain that people have given. And I’m not 100% satisfied with the one you gave, but it’s not bad. It’s possible. So thank you for that. Okay, let’s talk to Eddie from New Haven, Connecticut next. Hi, Eddie. Welcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
Steve, how are you today? Good, thanks. Steve, my question on this one is, we know there’s a ton of scriptures in the Torah where God says, you know, by himself has he created, alone have I done this. There’s nobody with me or besides me. And there’s multiple scriptures that God says that. And Christianity’s response will always be, yeah, right, alone means all three. Father, Son, and Spirit, that’s alone. But when you read the New Testament, something jumped out at me the other day where Jesus was talking about the end. And he says, nor the angels in heaven, not even the Son, but the Father alone knows the day and the hour. So I said, wait a minute. Why does that alone mean alone, but the other alones don’t? Why didn’t Jesus say, the angels don’t know, but the Son, Father, and Spirit know? He didn’t say that. He said only the Father alone knows. So my question, is that alone alone? And the other alones are not alone. It’s kind of a crazy question. But when you really study it, you say, well, wait a minute. How? Why couldn’t the alone in the Torah mean alone?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think it does. But as far as your – it looks like you hung up. I didn’t expect that. The verse you’re referring to in Matthew 24, maybe the translation you’re reading says, you know, the Father alone. The version I’m reading says, no one knows the day of the hour, not even the Son or the angels, but my Father only. So the word only, my Father only. The word alone is not there, but my Father alone would have the same meaning as my Father only. So some translators may have rendered it that way. when God says he did something alone, and especially referring to creating the world or redeeming Israel from captivity or any of those things that he takes full credit for, he wants them to know that none of the false gods that they tended to worship had any role in this. It was just him. It was just Yahweh who did this. It was not Baal or Molech or Chemosh or any of the pagan gods that the Jews sometimes had looked to for protection and so forth when they were pretty much apostate, you know, pretty much away from God. The Jews had worshipped lots of gods, and Isaiah especially is probably, you’re probably thinking of Isaiah primarily, who has those kinds of statements, is rebuking them. for putting any trust in other gods because those other gods can’t do nothing for them. And what God has done, he did without the help of any additional gods. Now, the Trinitarian view is that Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Father are not additional gods. They are gods. Jesus himself is a manifestation of God on earth. He is, as it says in Isaiah 6, excuse me, 7, no, no, no, it’s 9, 6 or 7. It says that he is the mighty God, the everlasting Father. But he is God come down in the flesh, as the New Testament tells us several places. So, you know, how is this so? How could Jesus distinguish himself from the Father? when he is indeed God, come down in the flesh. Well, because God, apart from Christ, has not been revealed in the flesh. God is everywhere. You know, if God appeared in a pillar of cloud to lead Israel through the wilderness, that didn’t mean God wasn’t everywhere else, but just you couldn’t see him. God is throughout the whole universe. God is everywhere. generally invisible. His presence is universal, but his manifest presence is not universal. His manifest presence is local and temporal. He appeared as a pillar of cloud. He appeared as a man eating with Abraham in Genesis 18. He apparently appeared to Jacob and wrestled with him all night, one night. God did that. Now, when God was in that form, or let’s say when he’s manifested in that one place, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t everywhere at the same time. Two, he’s just manifesting himself in that form at that time. Now, I believe that Jesus is God manifesting himself as a human being. But God was also everywhere at the same time. Now, the God that manifests himself, whether he appeared in a pillar of cloud or like a man in the Old Testament or as Jesus, it’s the same God. Same God that Israel always worshipped. And he exists both in that manifestation and he exists apart from that manifestation. He exists invisibly everywhere. He exists visibly only in those kinds of manifestations. Those manifestations, therefore, have a certain distinctness about them that can be contrasted. With his universal presence so that Jesus could say in John 14, my father is greater than I. But he could also say in the same conversation, the same chapter earlier, don’t you know that I’m in the father and the father is in me? And if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father. So, if you want me to make this not mysterious, I don’t know that I can. I don’t think it is not mysterious. I think it is mysterious indeed. But as far as I understand the teaching of Scripture, God sometimes has manifested himself among us in visible, tangible forms. Human-like forms sometimes, or occasionally as a cloud or a burning bush or something like that. But God appears in these forms. But when he does appear, those forms are simply local and temporary, whereas his universal presence is everywhere. And one can speak of that local and temporary appearance in contrast to the universal presence. But it’s not a different God. It’s the same God manifested. And so that’s what I think the Bible teaches. The Bible says that God created all things through the word, which is not some other God than himself. The word was with God. And the word was God. So this was God doing it. But the word was made flesh and tabernacled in the human body among us, it says in John chapter 1. And so that flesh manifestation of him is who we call Jesus. And he is God manifest in the flesh among us for a while. And he is God. And certainly he spoke of the Father. as God outside of the little body of Jesus. Jesus had a body the same size as ours, and therefore a very small manifestation of God in one place. A mighty one, a glorious one, but still spatially small. But God filled the whole universe at the same time that Jesus was walking around on the planet. And so there was a distinction between the huge, you know, uncontained presence of God in the universe and then, of course, the containable manifestation of God in Christ. Yeah, this is not something that I can remove the mystery from because I don’t think humans have the ability to remove mystery. some of the mysterious things about God, but, but it is possible to take a view that does not discount the statements of any scriptures. And there are scriptures that speak of Jesus as God. And there are scriptures that speak of Jesus distinct from his father. And by his father, I take to be God outside the incarnation. And, uh, That’s at least how I understand it. Now, if I misunderstand it, that is a good possibility, because who can understand these things? I’m not sure that I do. But I’m pretty sure that I’m saying what I find in Scripture, and therefore I’m happy with it, and it makes sense to me. If the truth lies somewhat differently or is better explained some other way, I guess God knows that, and maybe some people do too, but I don’t. So this is how I take those matters. All right. Let’s talk to, let’s see, we’ve got Mike in Sacramento, California. Welcome to The Narrow Path. Oops, I actually hit the wrong button. Sorry about that, Mike. You’ll be next. Alfredo in Tampa, Florida. I accidentally hit his button. You’re there, Alfredo. We’ll take Mike next.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hello, Steve. Hey, thanks for taking my call again. Sure. My second time calling, actually. I had a question about Romans 7. I just wanted to know what your take, is on it. I’ve heard both views on it, but I’m not really sure where I stand on it yet. I just want to know what you think about it. What’s your understanding of that, Roman 7?
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. I have… I have debated with somebody on the other side of the aisle for me on this passage. There are two major views. For those who don’t know Romans 7, Paul, this is a, when you’ve read it, you’ll remember it. I mean, when you hear it, you’ll remember it if you’ve read Romans before. Paul says that, he says, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t understand what I’m doing. He says, for what I will to do, I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do. If I then do what I will not, what I will not to do. That’s what I don’t want to do. I agree that the law is good, but now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. And then he goes on and he talks more about the same thing and even makes that same statement again in verse 20. If I do what I will not to do, it’s no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. And then he says in verse 22, I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind. and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. So he’s describing himself. Well, ostensibly it seems like he’s describing himself. This is maybe open to question. But he’s speaking ostensibly of himself, perhaps as a representative of humanity, maybe as a representative of Israel under the law. These are some of the theories under there. I’m going to take him as speaking about himself. That’s the most literal way to take it. And although maybe there’s some other way that’s better, this seems to me that it follows his train of thought best. He has said earlier in the chapter certain things about his earlier life before he was a Christian. He said, for example, in verse 7, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said you should not covet. He says, but sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire, for apart from the law, sin was dead. I was alive once without the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. Now, these are all past tense verbs. The law slew me. I was alive, but I died. It killed me. He’s talking about earlier in his life, and that is seen by the use of the past tense. But from verse 14 on, he uses only present tense. I do the things I hate. My mind wants to do what God says, but there is something in me, in my members, that keeps me from it. So it sounds like he’s transitioned from talking about his pre-Christian life to now talking about a present reality in his life. Now, there are two kinds of positions on this. Some people say, well, Paul could not be talking about his present life because he’s describing a frustrating struggle with sin, which he isn’t winning. And therefore, we have to assume that Paul was, you know, living a dissolute life. Even though in the next chapter he’s going to say the carnal mind is enmity against God and so forth. And, you know, sin shall not have, he said in chapter 6, sin shall not have dominion over you and things like that. So some people are taking these other statements to mean if you’re a Christian, you won’t sin because sin will not have dominion over you. However, he is obviously talking about sometimes at least it does have dominion over him. So they’re just people who think that Paul couldn’t be having that struggle, even though almost everybody will acknowledge that they do have that struggle. And everybody they know has that struggle, but Paul couldn’t. Well, I think he could. He’s speaking in the present tense, as if he does. Now, what they will sometimes say is that the present tense here is a literary device that can be found in some old literature where somebody is talking about past tense things, but using the present tense verbs. Well, I suppose that is possible. But is it necessary here? I mean… What is Paul actually saying? Paul’s saying that even though I now, my mind has been converted. That’s what repentance is. It changes your mind. In coming to Christ, my mind has changed. It’s now in favor of obedience to God. But there’s still something in me that hasn’t changed. And that is this desire. that’s in my flesh to do things that are contrary to what my mind has approved of. And I find I sometimes fall to that. And so I’m inconsistent. Now, if somebody says, well, and some people say this, Paul’s talking about his life before conversion here. He was a Pharisee. He loved the law of God, but he couldn’t keep it. But now he’s talking about, you know, as a Christian, this is the problem that has been resolved. But the problem is he’s changed from past tense to present tense at this section, and it sounds like he’s starting with the present. More than that, he has the same teaching in Galatians 5.17, where he says, The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things you want to do. He’s writing to Christians there, and he’s saying, you know, you’ve got this struggle, and it results sometimes, and you’re not doing what you want to do. I hope he means you want to do better, but you’re succumbing on occasion. But the answer to it is not getting saved. The answer is walking in the Spirit, because in the next chapter, especially in chapter 8, verses 1 through 4, we find in verse 4 that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us. Okay, earlier he said, my mind agrees with the law, but there’s something else that keeps me down, my flesh. He says, yeah, but now the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And chapter 8 is about how the Spirit walks. changes things. Now, one might say, well, didn’t Paul have the Spirit when he wrote verses 14 through 25 of the previous chapter? He did, and so do we all who are Christians. We all have the Holy Spirit, but we don’t all walk in the Spirit. He says the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us when we’re walking according to the Spirit and not walking according to flesh. As he said in Galatians, we have the flesh and we have the Spirit. They’re at war with each other. There is continual temptation to do what is wrong, but also in Galatians, the verse before the one I quoted, Galatians 5.16, Paul says, I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And then he talks about the flesh and the Spirit lusting against each other. So he’s saying, yeah, you’ve got this conflict between your flesh, which you will have bugging you until the day you die, until we have new bodies. We won’t be freed of it exactly. And you’ve got the spiritual side, even the voice of the Spirit in your mind and your inclination to do what’s right, but you’ve got two inclinations. And you cannot beat the flesh by itself, just by sheer willpower, but you can walk in the power of the Spirit. And as you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh, Galatians 5.16 says, and also Paul says in Romans 8.4. The righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us, When we’re not walking according to the flesh, but to the spirit. So I don’t think that Paul in Romans 7 is talking about a previous time in his life or talking about something hypothetical. I think what he’s saying is, you know, this is the way things are, unless I’m walking in the spirit. And that’s the part he introduces in chapter 8, that we can walk in the spirit. But if we’re not walking in the spirit. we find that we don’t have the power to overcome flesh in our life. So what Paul said at the end of Romans 7, I can say about myself, if I’m not walking in the Spirit, then despite the best of intentions I may have, I will stumble. I will succumb because the flesh, I’m not stronger than my own flesh. My flesh is, after all, me. And I’m not stronger than me. So how can I defeat flesh? If it’s me and I’m me, I’m not stronger, but the Holy Spirit is stronger. And therefore, as a believer, I have the option, which Paul considers to be the normative thing for Christians to do. He’s not saying in chapter 7 that this stumbling is happening all the time in his life, and it probably wasn’t, because he did walk in the Spirit, I’m sure, quite regularly, as any mature Christian does. But still, even if you have walked in the Spirit rather consistently for years… You can still stumble if you don’t continue to walk in the Spirit. So there’s always the necessity of walking in the Spirit and not walking in the flesh. Because if you’re walking in the flesh, that would mean in your own strength. That would mean that you don’t have the supernatural assistance of God at that moment. It’s only the Holy Spirit that gives that assistance. And he gives it as we trust in him, as we obey him, and as we put no confidence in the flesh. Anyway, that’s how I understand that. I need to take a break here, but we have more callers and more time after the break. You’re listening to The Narrow Path radio broadcast. We are listener-supported. If you’d like to help us stay on the air, you can write to The Narrow Path, PO Box 1730, Temecula, California, 92593, or go to our website, thenarrowpath.com. I’ll be back in 30 seconds. We have another half hour. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 10 :
In the series, When Shall These Things Be?, you’ll learn that the biblical teaching concerning the rapture, the tribulation, Armageddon, the Antichrist, and the millennium are not necessarily in agreement with the wild sensationalist versions of these doctrines found in popular prophecy teaching and Christian fiction. The lecture series entitled, When Shall These Things Be?, can be downloaded 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 for another half hour, taking your calls. If you have questions about the Bible or you see things differently than I do, feel free to give me a call. We’ll talk about it together. The number to call is 844-484-5737. That’s 844-484-5737. Our next caller is Mike from Sacramento, California. Mike, thanks for waiting. Welcome to The Neuropath. Thanks, Steve, for your ministry today.
SPEAKER 05 :
My question is, we just started going to a church fellowship that has a few different teaching pastors, but one of them is a woman, and I believe they also have a woman on their eldership. You know, when I read 1 Timothy, it’s pretty black and white to me, but I just was curious if I’m missing something or maybe what their reasoning is for allowing that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I don’t know that you’re missing anything because I agree with you. I think 1 Timothy 2 and 3 both would strongly suggest that elders and pastors should be men. I mean, that’s actually what it says. It says that and it doesn’t say something else. So, you know, I guess we have to decide when we’re making decisions about church governance and things like that, if we’re going to follow God’s counsel. apostolic teaching, biblical statements, or whether we think we know better than they do. Now, I would say that many modern people are quite sure that they know better than Paul, but some of them would say, no, we’re misunderstanding Paul. They’re saying Paul was not really, you know, he was not really against what we’re doing here. They would say the word which is the word, I do not allow a woman to have authority, to teach or have authority over the man. The word to have authority, they say in the Greek, has a sort of the idea of tyrannizing or dominating rather than simply being in a position of leadership. And so they say Paul’s not forbidding women to be in leadership. He’s just saying he doesn’t want them to dominate over the men, and that Christian leaders shouldn’t be dominating over people anyway, so it doesn’t matter if a woman’s a Christian leader. Now, first of all, they’re making a statement about the meaning of a Greek word that is found nowhere else in Scripture, and which Greek scholars have debated a great deal over the actual meaning of that word. So they’re just assuming they have, you know, their choice of meanings is what they’re going to go with. And if they choose that meaning, then they can say, well, Paul wasn’t against women in leadership. He was only saying he didn’t want them to be, you know, misusing authority or dominating over people. Now, you know, that is, I suppose, one suggestion that could be made if nothing else is viewed in the passage. But the passage, of course, that statement of Paul’s is at the end of chapter 2 of 1 Timothy and then at the beginning of chapter 3, which continues the thought. Paul says he wants the overseers, the leaders of the church, to be the husband of one wife. So in Paul’s idea of marriage and mine and God’s too in the Bibles, you know, a woman can’t be a husband. It’s just not one of the, you know, roles open to women. husband isn’t by necessity a male role and if the leaders have the husbands and then they have been men. And that would mean that when you go back to what he said about women, where he says, I do not permit a woman to teach her of authority over a man, but to be in silence or whatever. And then, you know, then I have to say their explanation seems to fall flat. It is sometimes also said that Paul was forbidding women to be leaders at that time, but that was because times were different then than they are now. They say in those days, women didn’t have education like men did. And the culture would find it very offensive to have women in leadership because it was a very male-dominated culture and so forth. And so Paul’s simply saying, yeah, this is not a good look. To have women in leadership, that’s not going to go over well, so just put men there for now. Someday, maybe cultures will change, women will be seen as equal to men, and then this would not quite be the same. Now, Again, Paul could be saying that, and we could think that if we didn’t read the passage carefully. Because Paul, first of all, we have to say that Paul was writing the Sympathy in Ephesus. Ephesus and the rest of the Greek world, or Roman world. did not have any objection to women in leadership roles. In fact, many of the pagan temples were run by priestesses, which was a euphemism for prostitutes, but they were female and they were the priestesses, temple prostitutes. You worship God by going and consorting with them. There was a very highly ranked figure in Greek and Roman religious life, an oracle who was always a woman. And so the idea that Paul is concerned that the people would not accept a woman in leadership, I don’t think so. That’s not a cultural problem for the pagans and those. It might have been a cultural problem for Jews, but he’s not writing to Jews. He’s writing to a Gentile congregation and Gentile society.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I think his reasoning also goes into the basics in the beginning.
SPEAKER 04 :
Of the creation.
SPEAKER 05 :
Man gets formed first, yeah. So, I mean, that would probably counteract that view as well with the cultural.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly. When he gives his reason for these instructions, he doesn’t say, you know, because it’s kind of culturally taboo to have women leadership, which it was not, but that’s not the reason he gives. He says, I don’t let women in these roles because God made man first and woman second. And then he also mentioned, of course, the woman’s leading role in sinning before man, but and we won’t go into that in detail, but Paul clearly thinks that his instructions are justified not by temporal things like culture, but by the creation order, and that by giving these instructions, he’s observing God’s intentions revealed in the creation. So, yeah, I just don’t think they have a leg to stand on when they say that they’re not disobeying Paul. Now, there are people who disobey Paul, and they know so. They know they’re disobeying him, and they just say, Well, Paul was just prejudiced. It’s his old Phariseeism, his old male chauvinism coming out of his previous Phariseeism. But we find throughout Paul’s writings and behavior, he’s always serving alongside women in different roles, commending them as deaconesses and things like that. But in Timothy, he’s not talking about that. He’s talking about the shepherds, the leaders recognized in the local church. And he said, I don’t put women in that position.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Okay, thank you, Steve. Perfect.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, good talking to you, Mike. I appreciate your call. Okay, let’s see. Andrew from Columbus, Ohio is next. Welcome to the Neuropath, Andrew.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, thanks for having me. I grew up in sort of a I guess a cheap grace, easy believism type of church word.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes? You cut out, but go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, sorry. I always got a different impression of what the Bible said when I read on my own, so I was really confused growing up, but now I’ve come to a
SPEAKER 04 :
place where I think things make a lot more sense and one passage that I’m your phone is clicking in and out your phone is really coming and going in your voice with it are you on a landline or what I’m afraid we lost you hello Yeah, you’ve disappeared and come back. You keep disappearing and come back. Can you be on a better phone? Can you call back on a better phone?
SPEAKER 11 :
I’ll try calling back. Hang on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sorry. Okay, thanks. We’ll try to get to you. All right. Let’s see. Jim from Sacramento, California. Welcome to the Narrow Path. Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, Steve. The phone that I’m on in this facility… has call waiting and it keeps frustrating the day. It actually cut me off earlier.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, it actually doesn’t sound as bad today as it usually does when you call. But go ahead. We’ll try to get you in before it starts clicking you off.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. What I wanted to ask you is the late Dr. Dwayne Spencer, word teacher with Unlocked Scripture, suggested in Daniel… and a few other places that this world in which we now live heaven and hell are actually so to speak coterminous to each other and effectively the same place but in different dimensions what do you think about that well I don’t
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know how we would confirm or disconfirm that. I mean, we don’t really have very much detail told to us about heaven and hell. The Bible doesn’t focus on heaven or hell, though both are mentioned. When they are mentioned, we’re not given the kind of information that could answer that question. Dwayne Spencer, I’ve read some of his books. You know, he’s an interesting guy, a Reformed guy, and interesting. I have to say there’s things I don’t agree with him about, but I wouldn’t object to that suggestion. If he’s saying that heaven, hell, and the world we live in are three different parallel dimensions, well, I could see it. However, it depends on what we’re calling hell, because I believe the lake of fire is future, and I don’t believe that anyone is yet in the lake of fire. because that, we are told, happens after Jesus returns, which he has not yet done. And then he will judge everyone, and those whose names are not found written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire. And along with it, death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire. And so these things have not been done. I believe that when people die, at least in the Jewish cosmology, the unbelievers go to Hades, and there they await the judgment when Jesus returns. The Jews, of course, don’t talk about Jesus returning, but they believed everyone went to Hades. But the New Testament would teach that probably, Unbelievers still do go to Hades, but believers, when they die, go directly to be with Christ in heaven. Now, I believe both of those places exist at the present time and certainly are not here on earth. So if he is saying that, if he’s saying, you know, where people go when they die exists already, but it’s a different dimension than this one we’re living in, I would find nothing to object to in that. But again, we’re not told very much. But it is the case that people do die and go somewhere. And so those places they go, since people are dying all the time, those places must exist at this present time. That’s my understanding of it. Thank you, brother. Good talking to you. Okay, let’s talk to Roby in Stockton, California. Hi, Roby. Welcome. How you doing, Steve? Can you hear me? Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I’ve got a quick question. By the way, I’ve been following your show for over 10 years. I was originally Rochi from prison. I’ve been free for many years now, but I’ve been following you for a long time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Could I let you know something? I just wanted to let you know, your voice is very muffled and a little difficult to understand. Are you talking at speakerphone?
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, hold on one sec, Steve. Sorry.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, if you take it off speakerphone. Can you hear me better? That is much better. Go ahead. I’m sorry. Start over.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. No, I was saying that I’ve been following your show for a long time. I originally found out about you when I was incarcerated over maybe 10-plus years ago. I’ve been free for a while now. Great. But it’s always been – I’ve always wanted to ask you a question, you know, call you on air. But anyway, my question is – so I’ve been having conversations with a couple of people – And I don’t know how to answer this question, but a lot of them strongly believe in what I’m about to say. So what are your thoughts on polygamy? And is polygamy acceptable today? And was it acceptable then? You know, because you had like Moses, you had multiple wives, David, Solomon, some of the, you know, major ones.
SPEAKER 04 :
I understand.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I really didn’t know how to answer that. So that’s pretty much the question.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, great. Good question. By the way, congratulations on being at Liberty. And we have quite a few prisoners who write to us and who listen to us regularly. And I’m glad you’re free. I’m looking forward to them being free too. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah. Well, as far as polygamy goes, is it acceptable? It certainly is not acceptable for people who want to live according to the commands of Christ. That is, it’s not acceptable to enter into polygamous relationships. But that doesn’t mean that it was always innately considered evil. The reason it’s not okay now, I believe, primarily, is that we Christians understand what marriage is supposed to be. And that’s because Paul tells us that it’s supposed to be a picture of Christ and the church. There’s only one Christ, and Christ has only one church. And so, you know, it’s like a man… is to have only one wife, so that this is reflective of what marriage is supposed to reflect. Now, in Old Testament times, they didn’t know about Christ and the church. That concept, of course, really wasn’t made known until after Pentecost. And God just kind of let things run their course. There were societies. that allowed men to have more than one wife. Most men did not because, frankly, having more than one wife was out of the price range of most men. In ancient times, almost all people were in poverty except for the very wealthy. And it was often the case that wealthy, especially rulers, would have multiple wives. But in the Bible, God doesn’t forbid these men in the Old Testament from having multiple wives, but we don’t find very many of them doing it. And apart from David and Solomon, who clearly did it because they were wealthy enough to do so, and they were no doubt lusty men toward women, and it wasn’t forbidden, so they did it. But apart from them, the earlier cases you mentioned, for example, Abraham. had children by three women, maybe only two that were contemporary to each other. After Sarah died, Keturah was added to his harem. But Jacob, of course, had children by four women. Samuel’s father had two wives. All these examples, though, have an interesting thing in common. In every case, it looks to me that the husband didn’t want to have more than one wife. You know, Abram only wanted Sarah. He didn’t want any of their wife. It was Sarah that suggested he take Hagar because she couldn’t give him children. And she supposed Hagar could, and she was right. And so she is the one who said, here, take Hagar and have children by her. And he did. And, I mean, not that that was an immoral thing for him to do. It wasn’t necessarily agreeable with what God had in mind, but Abram didn’t know that. So God didn’t hold it against him, but God was not going to give him his heir through Hagar but through Sarah. But God had not told Abram that yet. You know, for a man who had a barren wife and faced the prospect of dying childless and leaving no legacy, it was not unheard of for him, even if he didn’t want another wife, even if he wasn’t in love with another woman, to take another wife to have children. And this is what we see happening with Jacob also. Although his first wife, Leah, was not barren, He didn’t want to marry Leah. She was given to him by a ruse. He married her without knowing it was her. He thought he was marrying her sister, Rachel. So he ended up with Rachel and Leah. And then Rachel was a baron and couldn’t have children. So she, you know, suggested Jacob take her concubine to have children. And then Leah, you know, followed suit and gave him her concubine, too. So, I mean, this was, it’s interesting, this multiplication of wives or this adding of wives. was generally due to the fact that children were desired, and the original wife couldn’t have kids, and so another wife was often taken. This is probably the case with Samuel’s father, Elkanah, also in 1 Samuel 1. We’re told he had two wives, and one wife, Penanah, had several children, but Hannah was barren. It sounds like he loved Hannah more. He spoke to her very lovingly and so forth as if she was his first love, but she was barren. And so it’s very likely that he married Hannah first, not intending to have any other wives, but Hannah proved to be barren, so he probably took another wife. So, again, he would be able to leave heirs. This was considered a very common thing in the ancient Near East. And God didn’t forbid it, partly because he wanted these people to have heirs, but, of course, also because… There’s another reason that polygamy sometimes was practiced, and we read about this in Isaiah chapter 4, verse 1, and that is that because of war, many times the male population of a village or of a country would be decimated because the men would go out as soldiers and get killed in large numbers on the battlefield. even if they won and they protected their wives and children from harm, you know, there’d be casualties so that men died in larger numbers than women in these situations, and those were common situations. So there’d be a disproportionate number of women after these battles, and widows would need somebody to take care of them. It’s not like today where they could just go out and get a job. That was not the way the economy was in those days or the roles. But Isaiah speaks of a situation where after the slaughter of a lot of men in battle, it says there will be seven women begging one man to be their husband. They apparently would be desperate. A widow in those days, unless she was wealthy, which most were not, would have to either beg or, or go back to her father’s house if he was still living, or sell herself into prostitution, which was not unusual for widows who didn’t have any other options. But another option would be to share a husband with other women, just like some people share the expense of an apartment with other people or something like that. It was not really… considered to be a matter of love per se. It was a matter of almost charity. It was a matter of helping some women out to have a family. And it was considered more shameful for a woman to be unmarried and childless than to be married and share a husband. And, of course, these things are still practiced, maybe not for the same reasons, in the Muslim world. And it was very common throughout many nations, many cultures in those days. God simply didn’t forbid it because he had not yet revealed that marriage was created for something more transcendent and more a loftier purpose than simply to have children. I mean, having children is certainly a reason for it. But there’s also this there was this hidden reason that marriage is supposed to depict visually the relationship of Christ and the church. And ever since that was revealed, Christianity has forbidden polygamy because that does not reflect Christ in the church. Now, there are sometimes cases where Christian missionaries go to lands where they convert a man who has four or seven wives. If he’s a chief of some tribal group, he might have dozens of wives. And The right thing to do in that situation is not always the easiest thing to know. It’s complicated, but I think the right decision there is for them to tolerate polygamy in his case, since it was not a sinful thing when he entered into it. But when he became a Christian, of course, he’s now part of a society that has higher views of marriage, but he also has obligations. to the wives and children that he committed himself to and married. So a lot of missionaries, I think, have practiced this idea that if a man who’s already got a lot of wives gets converted, they just, you know, let that continue because he’s got those obligations. But Paul said such a man cannot be a church leader. And the reason is because church leaders need to model for the rest of the church normative Christian family structure. And a man who’s got many wives, though he may not be sinning, if he had got these wives before he was a Christian, he’s not a model of Christian family structure, so he can’t be in the role of an elder. So Paul said he had to be the husband of one wife. Anyway, that’s how I would analyze that whole polygamy situation. Robbie, thanks for your call. Let’s see. Before we’re out of time, let’s talk to who’s the longest here. Well, definitely it’s been – he didn’t call back. Andrew didn’t call back. Ray in Seattle. Welcome to The Narrow Path.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, hi.
SPEAKER 04 :
Can you hear me okay? Yes. We have very little time, so we’ll go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. Hey, there’s a pastor I listen to that’s out of Virginia. He’s really good. But he said that, you know, the story where Abraham’s servant goes to get a wife for his son. He’s going to put his hand under his thigh to make a commitment. And then Joseph or Isaac does that with Joseph just as he’s dying to make a commitment about something. Now, this guy is saying that when they do that, they’re actually touching the private parts of the individual body. Because that’s where circumcision happens. And I’m just thinking, that’s totally disgusting. How can anybody even think something like that? And this guy’s a pretty well-known pastor, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don’t think anybody knows in our modern culture exactly the meaning of that custom. It’s true. that in making pledges or making promises in Abraham’s time, it was something that was practiced, that a man who was making a promise was told to put his hand under the other man’s thigh. And it is also true, at least most scholars believe it’s true, that in some contexts the thigh is a euphemism for a man’s genitals. Now, not always. I mean, there is such a thing as a thigh, sometimes referred to that is not referred to it, but sometimes, apparently, at least most scholars believe, the thighs could be a euphemism for the genitals. Whether that’s true in this case or not, I do not know.
SPEAKER 06 :
There are a few thousand years out from where we are now. And I just think that they probably had more moral standards than some of the perversion that we’ve grown into.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, we can’t be sure. Yeah, we can’t be sure that they wouldn’t do things that would seem immodest or inappropriate today. It was not a sexual act. I mean, it may have been just like we were talking about polygamy. I mean, they practiced polygamy, too, and that’s not, you know, say, well, they’re probably more moral than we are, so that would be okay. No, they just had different customs than we have and different sensitivities. But I will say that if it is true that this involved, you know, the hand coming in contact with the genitals, it would not have been in any sense – a sexual thing, just like, you know, when a baby is circumcised, that puts the rabbi’s knife in contact with the baby’s genitals, but it’s not a sexual thing. It’s very possible that it may have simply been indicating, I’m making myself very vulnerable to you, so I’m trusting you to keep this promise, you know. I mean, there are strange things, strange things that Middle Eastern people have done, I’m sure there’s stranger things we’ve done too, but it was a custom. And whether that preacher is correct about what, you know, about its meaning or whatever, I’m not sure. All I can say is it’s a very rarely thing, rarely mentioned in scripture and never explained. So it was a custom that we don’t fully explain, or at least I don’t, never have. You’ve been listening to The Narrow Path. Our website is thenarrowpath.com. Thanks for joining us.
